LESSON OUTILNE AND NOTES

PHS 751
THE TRUE, THE FALSE, THE LIE, AND THE FAKE
LECTURE FIFTEEN: DE VERITATE AND VERITATIS SPLENDOR
SESSION ONE
Remarks from Josef Pieper’s The Silence of Saint Thomas.
These remarks highlight ontological truth.
Truth as relationship between Creator and creature.
Pieper’s title refers to St. Thomas’ decision to stop writing after his religious experience on the Feast of
St. Nicholas, December, 1273.
This silence actually is consistent with St. Thomas’ life-long conviction that the experience of mysteries
transcends anything philosophy or philosophical writings can accomplish.
That truth is about the relation of Creator to creature coheres with St. Thomas’ theism, according to which
creatures are radically contingent.
Illustrations of ontological truth.
Truth as measure.
Truth, exemplars, and Avicenna’s definition.
The “negative element” in St. Thomas’ philosophy: the humility of the intellect before the essences of
things: our “quest for knowledge has not succeeded in finding the essence of a single fly” (Pieper),
quoting St. Thomas’ sermon on the Apostles Creed.
Further commentary on selected texts of St. Thomas on truth:
Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle Bk. 5, Lect. 17, nn. 1003-1004.
Summa theologiae I, 58, 4, c.
Summa theologiae I, 16, 2, c.
Summa theologiae I, 18, 2, c.
Summa theologiae I, 57, 1, ad 2.
Summa theologiae I, 54, 4, c.
Summa theologiae I, 85, 5, ad 3.
Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle Bk. 6, Lect. 4, n. 1241.
Summa Contra Gentiles I, 59.
Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle Bk. 6, Lect. 4, nn. 1239-1240.
Summa Contra Gentiles I, 69.
Summa theologiae I, 16, 1, ad 3.
De veritate 2, 6, ad 15.
De veritate 14, 8, ad 5.
De veritate 16, 6, c.
De veritate 2, 2, c.
De veritate 2, 5, 15.
De veritate 22, 10, c.
De veritate 28, 8, ad 3.
De veritate 9, 1, c.
De veritate I, 3, c.
Summa theologiae I-II, 2, 8.
SESSION TWO
A quotation from Josef Pieper’s book on Happiness.
Remark from Saint John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis splendor.
As a finale: reflections on truth and happiness, natural and supernatural.
Aristotle’s ethics is sometimes called “virtue ethics,” because it emphasizes the development of good
habits.
Sometimes it is called “natural law” ethics, because it emphasizes the development of human nature
through good habits.
Aristotle saw ethics as a reflection on the way happy and successful people live.
Admirable people incline to live moral lives (to do right and avoid wrong) because they sense that
morality enables them to have more satisfying lives; that morality enables them to live better for
themselves, their children, and their community.
People who develop good character (ethos) are more likely to be happy. Such persons are exemplary.
They should be examples for pedagogy (the education of children).
While admirable, these persons represent a kind of excellence that is difficult but attainable by human
beings.
In other words, they actualize their human nature in an exemplary way. This emphasis on human nature
forms the basis of “natural law” ethics.
Ethics, then, is everybody’s business because no human being can choose not to be human. There are
“laws” or “principles” indicating how humans should live so as to be fully human. These laws or
principles outline the nature of ethics.
Natural law or virtue ethics asserts that in order to know how one should live, one must know what it is to
be human.
Obviously, every human being must satisfy certain fundamental desires (needs); otherwise one cannot live
a human life. Aristotle calls these basic desires “real goods.”
Examples (by no means an exhaustive list) of such needs or real goods are food, clothing, shelter, health,
love, intimacy, knowledge, meaningful work, self-mastery, self-esteem, playfulness, physical pleasure,
spiritual meaning, virtue, and security.
One ought to acquire these goods, Aristotle says, because without them one cannot be fully human.
These real goods, then, are the norms or standards of moral life.
Since all human beings share the same nature, all human beings are obliged, if they are able, to strive to
attain these real goods.
Hence, these norms are the same for all people, regardless of race, nationality, culture, language, or
historical situation.
Whether one is a fourth-century B.C. Athenian, like Aristotle, or a twenty-first century American, every
one ought to attain real goods in order to be fully human, the attainment of which is happiness.
For this reason, Aristotle says that there is one plan of happiness for all human beings and that his
morality prescribes this plan. Furthermore, moral relativism is mistaken since there is a common human
nature.
This is why relativists, incredibly, must deny human nature, holding that it, like every other value, is a
cultural invention.
A moral life, then, is a life that cultivates helpful habits (virtues) and avoids unhelpful habits (vices) so
that intelligent choices cause us to act in ways that make us human and thereby happy.
Forming good habits is a powerful assist in making intelligent choices.
It is easier for people with constructive backgrounds and habits to judge what they should do so as to
bring about real goods and not be misled by apparent goods.
Apparent goods are things we want. They may or may not really be good for us; they may or may not be
needs; they may or may not be what we ought to want.
As Aristotle puts it, the task of moral life is to manage our choices in such a way that our pursuit of
apparent goods exactly coincides with our pursuit of real goods.
We must be careful that when we strive for what we want, we do not undermine what we need. In this
effort, good habits (virtues) are central.
They are a means to the attainment of our happiness. Moreover, awareness that one is virtuous is itself a
real good, a necessary condition for being happy.
Virtues are both a means to real goods and are themselves numbered among real goods, the totality of
which is happiness.
While there are many virtues, the most fundamental are prudence, courage, temperance, and justice.
Aristotelians call these virtues the “Cardinal Virtues.”
Without them our well-being is put at risk. While we are ultimately responsible for our virtues (our
character), Aristotle admits that a certain amount of luck is involved.
If one is blessed with good parents, friends, and a supportive society, then one has a great advantage
toward the attainment of happiness. Without these supports, happiness is not impossible, but exceedingly
difficult to attain.
In light of the above, ethics for Aristotle may be defined as the intelligent pursuit of happiness, the
attainment of all real goods, the totum bonum. Ethics is the attainment of all those goods necessary
for a human life well-lived through the cultivation of virtues and luck.
St. Thomas Aquinas is another important voice in the natural law/virtue ethics tradition. Aquinas sought
to reinforce Aristotle’s natural law ethics by complementing it with Christian theology.
This reinforcement is so influential that, after Aquinas, natural law ethics is hardly ever discussed without
expressing it in both philosophical and theological terms.
Aquinas says that Aristotle’s ethics is correct as far as it goes, but it is limited because it fails to account
for the supernatural destiny of human beings.
Since human desire is not satisfied by earthly happiness alone, since no finite good or collection of finite
goods, real or apparent, satisfies the human will’s thirst for satisfaction (goodness), Aristotle’s ethics is
incomplete as an account of the right and the good.
The only object ultimately that can satisfy the human will is an infinite good, the Summum Bonum
(=God). So if there is no God, the human longing for the good will be ultimately frustrated.
As an object lesson, consider Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem Richard Cory.
Let us hope, Aquinas says, that there is such a God so that our ultimate (supernatural) happiness will be
realized. Christian revelation supplies this hope and teaches that in addition to the natural or acquired
virtues, there are theological virtues—faith, hope, and charity.
These theological virtues enable us to cooperate with divine grace so as to merit friendship with God.
In other words, Christian moral theology prescribes how the possession of the Summum Bonum, our
ultimate (supernatural) happiness, is attainable.
Aquinas, then, situates Aristotle’s ethics into his higher conception of human destiny. Human beings have
not only a natural destiny (earthly happiness, totum bonum) but a supernatural destiny (eternal happiness,
Summum Bonum).
St. Thomas explains that the universe is created so that human beings can realize this destiny.
Accordingly, God put into created natural substances indications and evidences of God’s plan for the
universe. Hence, physical science and morality can discern laws in creation.
Some laws of nature are scientific laws, which tell us how the universe works. Some laws of human
nature are moral laws, which tell us how human beings ought to live.
This combined philosophical-theological explanation has profound implications for evaluating individual
and political conduct.
Hence, it has been very influential over the centuries, especially encouraging and justifying the rise and
constitution of modern democratic societies. Consider the examples of Thomas Jefferson (The
Declaration of Independence) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Letter from Birmingham Jail).
Because of God’s grace, the human knower gets to have commerce with Divine Truth.