Aquinas's Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance

Matthew Levering

Description

In Aquinas’s Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance, Matthew Levering argues that Catholic ethics make sense only in light of the biblical worldview that Jesus has inaugurated the kingdom of God by pouring out his spirit. Jesus has made it possible for us to know and obey God’s law for human flourishing as individuals and communities. He has reoriented our lives toward the goal of beatific communion with him in charity, which affects the exercise of the moral virtues that pertain to human flourishing.

Without the context of the inaugurated kingdom, Catholic ethics as traditionally conceived will seem like an effort to find a middle ground between legalistic rigorism and relativistic laxism, which is especially the case with the virtue of temperance, the focus of Levering’s book. After an opening chapter on the eschatological/biblical character of Catholic ethics, the ensuing chapters engage Aquinas’s theology of temperance in the Summa theologiae, which identifies and examines a number of virtues associated with temperance. Levering demonstrates that the theology of temperance is profoundly biblical, and that Aquinas’s theology of temperance relies for its intelligibility upon Christ’s inauguration of the kingdom of God as the graced fulfillment of our created nature. The book develops new vistas for scholars and students interested in moral theology.

Acknowledgments

Introduction 1. Aquinas and the Ethics of the Inaugurated Kingdom 2. Shame and Honestas 3. Abstinence and Sobriety 4. Chastity 5. Clemency and Meekness 6. Humility 7. Studiousness Conclusion

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Theology
• Philosophie et théologie
• Eschatology
• Ethics

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268106355
• Langue: English

Extrait

AQUINAS’S ESCHATOLOGICAL ETHICS AND THE VIRTUE OF TEMPERANCE
MATTHEW LEVERING
Aquinas’s Eschatological Ethics and the Virtue of Temperance
University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana
Copyright © 2019 by the University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Levering, Matthew, 1971–author. Title: Aquinas’s eschatological ethics and the virtue of temperance / Matthew Levering. Description: Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Dame Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019037190 (print) | LCCN 2019037191 (ebook) | ISBN 9780268106331 (hardback) | ISBN 9780268106362 (pdf) | ISBN 9780268106355 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274. | Christian ethics—Catholic authors. | Temperance (Virtue) | Eschatology—History of doctrines—Middle Ages, 600–1500. Classification: LCC BJ255.T5 L48 2019 (print) | LCC BJ255.T5 (ebook) | DDC 241/.042092—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037190 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037191
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
T O R EINHARD H ÜTTER
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
ONE Aquinas and the Ethics of the Inaugurated Kingdom
TWO Shame and Honestas
THREE Abstinence and Sobriety
FOUR Chastity
FIVE Clemency and Meekness
SIX Humility
SEVEN Studiousness
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The immediate context for this book is the assault on Christian temperance that characterizes contemporary Western culture and that threatens the life of the Church. I say this not as someone who claims to be particularly temperate, but rather as a sinner who yearns for the true life that Jesus Christ offers all people. More proximately, the book has its foundations in an S.T.L. seminar titled “Aquinas on Temperance” that I offered at Mundelein Seminary in fall 2014. I thank the students in this class, including Fr. Matthew Alexander, Jack Bates, Fr. Conor Danstrom, Fr. Edward Looney, Fr. Scott Harter, Fr. Nick Parker, Fr. Adam Droll, and Chris Smith, for helping me to conceive of the structure of this book.
In the course of writing the book, I presented two of its chapters as public lectures and received valuable feedback and corrections. I presented “Aquinas on Studiousness” as the Aquinas Lecture at Christendom College in February 2017, and I thank John Cuddeback, James DeFrancis, and Michael Hahn, among others, for their gracious hospitality. Thanks to Michael Dauphinais and Roger Nutt, I presented part of what became chapter 4 (on chastity) as “Paul and Aquinas on Lust” to a Theology Graduate Programs Master Seminar at Ave Maria University in January 2017. Earlier, in October 2016, I presented a version of this same essay in Chicago to a conference entitled “Beauty, Order, and Mystery: The Christian Vision of Sexuality,” sponsored by the Center for Pastor Theologians. The essay has appeared as “Thomas Aquinas on Sexual Ethics” in Beauty, Order, and Mystery: A Christian Vision of Human Sexuality, ed. Gerald Hiestand and Todd Wilson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2017), 165–80. Sadly for all Christian theologians, during the period in which this book was under preparation, my friend and editorial colleague John Webster died. I wrote the chapter on humility with him in view, and this chapter has appeared in a slightly different version as “On Humility,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 19 (2017): 462–90 in tribute to John. I thank my editorial colleague Martin Westerholm for his suggestions for revision of the essay.
Prior to the submission of the manuscript to the University of Notre Dame Press, versions of the full draft were painstakingly read by Daniel Lendman, a doctoral student at Ave Maria University; Matthew Traylor, a master’s student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School; and Jörgen Vijgen, a longtime friend and distinguished Belgian Thomist philosopher. I wish to thank these three scholars for making countless superb suggestions for improvement. Without their help, I can’t imagine having been able to push the manuscript to a publishable state. At the University of Notre Dame Press, Stephen Little took an immediate interest in this manuscript, and I thank him for his generosity and professionalism. He secured two readers, both of whom allowed their identities to be revealed and gave me important corrections and encouragement: Patrick Clark of the University of Scranton and Bill Mattison of the University of Notre Dame. I really cannot thank them enough, not least for their leadership in the field of Catholic moral theology. Since that time, Bill and I have initiated an annual Pinckaers Symposium, which thus far has twice met at the University of Notre Dame, in May 2018 and May 2019.
I thank my colleagues at Mundelein Seminary, especially my dean, Fr. Thomas Baima; my rector, Fr. John Kartje; and Dr. Melanie Barrett, whose insight into moral theology has been a great help. I thank Jim and Molly Perry for graciously making possible the chair that I hold. David Augustine, a dear friend and doctoral student at Catholic University of America, did the bibliography for this book. Bob Banning, who copyedited the book, did an amazing job, correcting numerous infelicities. My research assistant Caitlyn Trader skillfully and quickly prepared the index. I thank my parents, brother, and in-laws for their love and support, as well as the Chicago-area friends who have encouraged my work over the past few years. To my wife, Joy, you are such a wonder; may God make you “exceedingly great” (2 Chr 1:1) in his kingdom. To my children, may God bless you and assist you in the path of temperance, which is the path of human flourishing for the sake of the kingdom of God.
This book is dedicated to a truly temperate friend, Reinhard Hütter, who has written well about the virtues and who embodies them. For a number of years, he coedited with me the quarterly journal Nova et Vetera . Working with him was a delight, as was having him here at Mundelein Seminary in the fall of 2015 as the visiting Paluch Chair. To know him is to admire him. More than anything, Reinhard is a man of Christ’s Church. Of him it may be truly said: “You have declared this day concerning the Lord that he is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his ordinances, and will obey his voice” (Deut 26:17).
Introduction
This book argues that Aquinas’s moral theology, and indeed the broader whole of Catholic and biblical ethics, can only rightly be understood as an ethics of the inaugurated kingdom of God—an eschatological ethics. I focus on the Christian virtue of temperance. The book approaches this virtue along the lines set forth by Aquinas, but in dialogue also with numerous contemporary biblical scholars and theologians. The purpose is to show that Christian morality, while firmly rooted in the created order (here I differ from contemporary “apocalyptic” theologians 1 ), is the life befitting Christ’s inaugurated kingdom.
I have chosen temperance partly because it is a deeply unpopular virtue today. Many books have been written in recent decades with the goal of undermining and dislodging the component parts of Christian temperance, especially with respect to chastity. By contrast, I hope to show that chastity and the other parts of Christian temperance are inseparable from the moral life of the inaugurated kingdom, as set forth in the New Testament and as elucidated systematically in Aquinas’s theology. The book is therefore a constructive defense of the Christian virtue of chastity that makes its case on the grounds of what is required by the inaugurated kingdom of God according to the New Testament.
Some moral theologians place temperance in the dustbin of pagan ethics, supposedly no longer of much interest to theology, even if philosophers continue to rifle through the dustbin every now and again. For example, the moral theologian Bernard Häring tries to settle matters by stating: “The basic virtues or character of the disciples of Christ cannot easily be expressed by the four cardinal virtues of Hellenistic philosophy. It is, rather, the eschatological virtues that characterize the patterns of his disciples.” 2 This sharp opposition, I hope to show, is mistaken. Häring’s neglect of temperance causes grave problems for his theology. As the New Testament makes clear, the component parts of Christian temperance are certainly eschatological virtues.
This can be seen in the Sermon on the Mount. In the obeying of the beatitudes and commandments of the Sermon, all depends upon the life-giving power of the risen and ascended Christ and his eschatological Spirit that has been poured out. The beatitudes are not merely ideals for a spiritual elite because, now that Christ has inaugurated the kingdom, “God dwells in the hearts of those living in his grace.” 3 Is it practical to expect men to go many days without looking “at a woman lustfully” (Mt 5:28)? The answer has to do with the inaugurated eschatological kingdom. When practiced as part of the fullness of life in Christ by those who recognize themselves as sinners and “invoke the help of the Holy Spirit,” 4 Christ’s beatitudes and commandments show themselves to be norms for human happiness that are not only profoundly desirable but also possible for God’s family. 5 The commandments have direct application to temperance. Jesus teaches, “If you would enter life, keep the commandments” (Mt 19:17); 6 and he specifies, “You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and