Extracto de la Tesis de Licenciatura presentada en la Facultad de Teología de la Universidad de Navarra, en 2006

CONTENTS:

ABBREVIATIONS

Introduction

Subject matter

Status quaestionis

Scope, Method and Structure

I – Doctrinal Development

          I.1 Cultural Context

             Personalist projects

          I.2 Social Doctrine

          I.3 Solidarity in the Compendium

             An integral and solidary humanism

             Man in the Image of God

             Trinitarian communion

             Images in the Image

             The original design of creation

             St Thomas Aquinas

II – The Image of God

          II.1 The Imago Dei in St Thomas

             A synthesis of Augustine and Damascene

             Image of the Divine Nature

             The Image of Conformity

             The Self as object of the Mind

             God as the object of the Mind

             Threefold image of God in man

             The image in the form of man, body and soul

          II.2 The image as Person-in-Relation

             The Image in Society

             The Perfection of the Image

III – Foundations of Solidarity

          III.1 The Good of the Person

             Absolute Good

             Analogy of Good

             Love of the Good

             Subsisting and accidental Good

             Communication of Good

          III.2 The Person

             Person and act-of-being

             Person and nature

             Person, essence and esse

             From divine to created persons

             Loving the good of the person

          III.3 Solidarity: A Cooperation of Order

          The modes of order

Conclusion

Likeness

Communion in the Good

The solidary person

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ITC          Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God

John Paul II:

MD          Mulieris Dignitatem

CA           Centesimus Annus

FR           Fides et ratio

SRS         Sollicitudo Rei Socialis

Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace:

CSDC      Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

Second Vatican Council:

GS           Gaudium et Spes

STh                                Summa theologiae

ScG                                Summa contra Gentiles

CT                                  Compendium of Theology

De ente et essentia        De ente et essentia ad fratres et socios suos

In Div. Nom.                   Expositio super Dionysium De divinis nominibus

Super De causis             Expositio super librum De causis

Super Ioannem              Lectura super Johannem Reportatio

Super Sent.                    Scriptum super libros Sententiarum

Introduction

Solidarity has entered the discourse of moral theology, especially since the Second Vatican Council,[1] as a term which crystallises and articulates several characteristics of the theological anthropology on which the social doctrine of the Church is based. It articulates a belief in a social or natural dimension of human good and implies that we are so related to one another—because of our common origin, nature and destiny—that we ought to co-ordinate our personal choices and actions to provide mutual support and service, even at a cost of personal sacrifice.[2] This conviction is based on the idea that man’s relationship with his neighbour—and the collective good ensuing from the network of all such relationships—is an intrinsic part of his personal good, and ultimately of his relationship with his Creator.[3]

Subject matter

The concept of solidarity, taken at a sociological or practical level, is often reduced to a vague compassion, an appeal to a reciprocity based on a pragmatic inter-dependence, or a socio-political claim based on an attenuated sense of justice.[4] At the level of human nature, solidarity is commonly accepted as a duty, a type of species sentiment, or even a form of self-interest.[5] The validity or otherwise of these intuitions obviously has important implications for the moral life of the human person in society. Is there a compelling justification for the proposition that the good of neighbour forms an intrinsic part of the good of the person? How is service of the common good related to love of God?

Solidarity, in its various forms, has acquired a greater importance in the social doctrine of the Church in recent decades. The synergy between solidarity as a natural virtue and its role in the supernatural life was outlined as follows by Pope John Paul II:

Beyond human and natural bonds, already so close and strong, there is discerned in the light of faith a new model of the unity of the human race, which must ultimately inspire our solidarity. This supreme model of unity, which is a reflection of the intimate life of God, one God in three Persons, is what we Christians mean by the word ‘communion.’ … Solidarity therefore must play its part in the realisation of this divine plan, both on the level of individuals and on the level of national and international society.[6]

In order to play that part in the divine plan, the natural basis for solidarity should be more fully integrated into our understanding of what it means to be truly human. A study of the concept can help us to understand the natural foundation of the Christian commitment to the service of others for their own sakes, rather than as a means to a self-centred objective. Solidarity has important implications in the area of human dignity, natural law and human rights, economics and politics[7]—implications which are unlikely to be easily understood in a positivist jurisprudential environment, dominated by an aggressive individualism. It can also contribute at a theological level to our understanding of the Church as communion, of our divine filiation, the salvific solidarity of Christ with man and the doctrine of his Mystical Body.[8] The more clearly the philosophical and theological character of this aspect of the human condition is established, therefore, the greater will be its moral force and effectiveness.

Much has already been written on practical aspects of this topic, most notably in the fields of social justice and socio-political analysis, for which there is an extensive bibliography. The historical development of the concept in the social doctrine of the Church is also well documented.[9] The teaching of the John Paul II on solidarity has been widely echoed in the documents of individual bishops and of national episcopal conferences. In 1998, shortly after the publication of Solicitudo rei socialis, a research project in Fribourg, which catalogues the work of episcopal conferences on social justice, contained over 400 documents (over one third of the total) which dealt with this topic.[10] An important contribution has been made by Kevin Doran’s work on the origins of the concept in the sociology of Durkheim and the influence of personalist philosophies (especially Max Scheler) in the development of the social doctrine of the Church and in the writings of Karol Wojtyla.[11] The publication of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,[12] with its authoritative anthology of the sources in the Magisterium and its synthesis of the theological and moral implications of solidarity, marks a definite stage in the treatment of this topic.

It may perhaps be assumed, therefore, that further analysis is superfluous, that solidarity does not give rise to issues that have not already been widely debated under the headings of friendship, social justice or the common good. I suggest, however, that this would be an under-estimate of the significance of the teaching of the Magisterium on this topic. Solidarity is not merely a sociological phenomenon or a cipher for social justice in international relations. “Solidarity helps us to see the ‘other’—whether a person, people or nation—not just as some kind of instrument, with a work capacity and physical strength to be exploited at low cost and then discarded when no longer useful, but as our ‘neighbour,’ a ‘helper’ (cf. Gen 2:18-20), to be made a sharer, on a par with ourselves, in the banquet of life to which all are equally invited by God.”[13] As a moral virtue, it enters into the life of every human being; it is part of what it means to be man and to be Christian. It is important for its efficacy, therefore, that the moral and social applications of this teaching be fully appreciated. To that end, the relationship of solidarity to the nature of man and to his eternal destiny must be well understood.

This question involves both philosophical and theological issues—person, good, order, likeness,imago Dei—which are widely discussed in their own right in other contexts. In relation tosolidarity, however, for historical reasons they have usually been considered—if at all—from a personalist or phenomenological perspective.[14] As Gómez Pérez points out,[15] solidarity will not be an effective force in human society unless it is widely understood as a virtue and a human value—this is the central objective of John Paul II in Sollicitudo rei socialis.[16]

To this end, the philosophical and theological synthesis of St. Thomas Aquinas is uniquely suited.[17] Much can be deduced about personal virtue and the social nature of man, on the basis of natural reason alone, in the philosophical synthesis of St. Thomas Aquinas.[18]However, he did not confine his search for wisdom or exposition of truth to one avenue of knowledge, except when necessary to accommodate the limitations of his interlocutors. HisSumma contra Gentiles is a prime example of his integrated approach to rational and revealed knowledge.[19] This approach has often been endorsed in the Magisterium of the Church.

Just as grace builds on nature and brings it to fulfilment,[20] so faith builds upon and perfects reason. Illumined by faith, reason is set free from the fragility and limitations deriving from the disobedience of sin and finds the strength required to rise to the knowledge of the Triune God. Although he made much of the supernatural character of faith, the Angelic Doctor did not overlook the importance of its reasonableness; indeed he was able to plumb the depths and explain the meaning of this reasonableness. … This is why the Church has been justified in consistently proposing St Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology.[21]

In his doctrine on the virtues, for example, St. Thomas moves between a general philosophoical notion of virtue received from Aristotle and a more theological definition composed by Peter Lombard.[22] His treatment of the individual virtues likewise moves between the natural moral virtues of Aristotle’s Ethics, through the infused moral virtues to the three theological virtues. Jordan shows how Aquinas resolves the tensions between the different accounts by identifying the common analogical elements in perfect and imperfect virtues and integrating the whole in a hierarchy under the virtue of charity, showing the intrinsic inter-connectedness of the virtues in the one acting person.[23]

This approach appears to me to be well suited to the purpose of understanding the foundations in human nature of the virtue of solidarity. Although he does not deal directly with the concept of solidarity in its modern usage, the works of St. Thomas provide an unrivalled synthesis in which to explore the underlying question—to reflect on what it means to say that man by his nature “can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself.”[24] I have therefore elected to study this question specifically in his works. I trust that this approach will complement in a small way the extensive work done by others, such as Doran,[25] who have traced the philosophical roots and development of solidarity in the thought of Karol Wojtyla and the teaching of Pope John Paul II.

Scope, Method and Structure

This study is a review of selected theological and philosophical concepts, in the work in St. Thomas Aquinas, which can help to explain the basis for the principle of solidarity articulated in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. The scope of the study is limited to solidarity in human nature per se, as a foundation for union in Christ, but without considering in any detail the effects of sin or grace.

Following the teaching of the Compendium, the doctrine of the imago Dei will provide the theological context and foundation for the notion of a human good which is only attained insofar as it is sought together with others and is directed to God. The account will focus on a key element of the principle of solidarity identified in the Compendium—that the good of the person is only achieved “in a sincere giving of himself.”[26] The goal of the study will be to identify complementary reasons for human solidarity in the teaching of St. Thomas on the notions of image and likeness, good and person, order in creation and on the causality of the Trinitarian processions.

The breadth of issues encompassed by St. Thomas means that a limited investigation such as this cannot hope to do more than to draw together those elements which are of most relevance for a better understanding the topic. With this objective in mind, we shall consider only those elements of his overall synthesis which bear directly on the question of solidarity, taking it as understood that this cannot be a comprehensive account.

The first chapter opens with an outline of the context in which the concept of solidarity emerged in the social doctrine of the Church. The main features of “solidary humanism,” which is central to the doctrine of the Compendium, are described. In particular, a central doctrine of Gaudium et spes establishes the doctrinal parameters for an investigation of the relationship between solidarity and the image of God in man and in society.

In the second chapter, the main features of St. Thomas’ teaching on the imago Dei are described. His account encompasses an image in man of the divine nature and also of the Blessed Trinity. He distinguishes a living image—knowing and loving its own end—from a natural likeness in creation, which bears the marks of its origin in God and which attains its end by being known and loved by others. The imago Dei in man designates the whole human person—the body insofar as it is informed by the soul, but not in the body considered separately. This chapter also explores the relationship between the properties of the Persons of the Trinity and the nature and potential of the human person as capax Dei.

Within this theological context, the third chapter looks at some of the underlying concepts in the work of St. Thomas. In particular, we will examine more closely the concepts of likeness and image, person and good and order in creation. Following his teaching on the personal mode of the divine causality in creation, we have then suggested how the role of the Trinitarian processions might also lead us to a deeper understanding of human solidarity, in harmony with the doctrine of the imago Dei. These complementary modes of analysis can each shed light on the question in hand; taken together they establish a firm foundation for a cogent and properly Thomistic solidarity.

The principal conclusions are summarised in the final chapter.

Chapter One

After a brief review of the cultural context in which it has evolved (I) and of its development in the social doctrine of the Church (II), this chapter presents a synopsis of the concept of solidarity as it is used in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church[27] (III), an outline of the doctrine of the imago Dei with which the concept of solidarity is associated (IV), and a note on the integration of philosophical and theological reasoning in St. Thomas Aquinas (V).

I.1   Cultural Context

The thesis that solidarity is grounded in human nature does not imply that it is a universal or even a statistically normal state-of–affairs among men at any particular stage in human history. As a moral dimension of man it requires the widespread practice of a virtue, which may be lacking in the necessary degree for both cultural and personal reasons. A brief sketch of why this might be so[28]—the historical tension between the individual and the collective—can also give some initial indicators about the nature of solidarity, before we look at how it has developed in the social doctrine of the Church.

In the classical tradition of political philosophy, society was seen as the expression of human sociability, of a connatural tendency to unite with equals to achieve fulfilment. From this arose the idea of a common or social good and a moral responsibility of the individual for the common welfare.

St. Thomas Aquinas “combined tradition, Scripture, contemporary practice, and Aristotelian philosophical methods to produce a lasting and influential ‘Thomistic synthesis’ in politics and legal theory. Central to that effort was his reliance on Aristotle’s conception of teleology or final causes, which in Aquinas’s thought became the working out of God’s purposes in the nature of the universe and mankind that he had created”.[29]

His political philosophy is summarised by Gilby[30] as a social dialectic of three phases. The primitive condition of human solidarity, the community-group, was compared to a human body, the parts being for the sake of the whole. From this evolved a political-group or partnership in which the independence of the citizens was guaranteed while the function of the community-group was also respected. The third phase was an evolution into a society of fellowship, in which nothing personal was surrendered. Authority in each phase showed a corresponding progression—from a might to be feared, to a political right to be obeyed, leading to a contemplation of truth to be loved. Patriotism, social justice and divine charity were the corresponding social virtues. The middle phase of this dialectic represents the perennial experience of political community based on a common good. The significance of this contribution in the development of human culture was noted by John Paul II in Fides et ratio:

A quite special place in this long development belongs to St Thomas, not only because of what he taught but also because of the dialogue which he undertook with the Arab and Jewish thought of his time. In an age when Christian thinkers were rediscovering the treasures of ancient philosophy, and more particularly of Aristotle, Thomas had the great merit of giving pride of place to the harmony which exists between faith and reason. Both the light of reason and the light of faith come from God, he argued; hence there can be no contradiction between them.[31]

While the synthesis of St. Thomas had a profound influence on the development of theology and philosophy, the emergence of the natural sciences and the rapid expansion of civil society, from the 17th century onward, led to a naïve optimism about human progress and the potential of science to account for the world without the need for a Creator. Various strands of materialism and scientism tended towards the idea that God is no more than a projection of man’s insecurity—God made in man’s image—and that material progress and atheism could liberate man from this dependency. Homo homini Deus![32]

Thomas Hobbes was responsible for a major rupture in the classical tradition.[33] The essential difference between Hobbes and the Aristotelian-Thomistic view was not about whether social peace and justice are a work of reason or of nature but about whether they are achieved by the rationality of personal virtue or the coercive power of the State.[34] A deep anxiety about personal security led Hobbes to view society as a collectivity driven by egoism and a concern for self-preservation. Confrontation and war, in this view, are the natural states of man. Society is a self-interested, utilitarian pact to mitigate these dangers.

Hobbes’ rationalist successors maintained this focus on the individual, while adopting a more positive view of the benefits of social co-operation and an optimism about the spontaneous co-ordination of interests in society, e.g. Adam Smith’s theory of the “invisible hand” guiding the economy. In the modern age, basic Hobbesian assumptions continue to be dominant. Individual interest rather than benevolence is taken to be the effective motor of social and economic progress. This is premised on the idea that man is basically egoistic and that ethics are no more than personal preferences, which are irrelevant or even counter-productive in politics and world economics. Politics is thereby reduced to a power struggle, rather than a collective pursuit of the common good. This is not to posit a golden age of solidarity in the past, or to contrast former civilisations with the modern age in such terms, but to note the strong influences which do battle with the natural intuition of solidarity in man and which account for the deficit in solidarity in many social environments.

Individualism in fact produced a reaction from the outset. Rousseau engaged in a critique of thea priori assumptions implicit in the Hobbesian approach, pointing out that the human being develops morality and virtue in society.[35] However, in its arrogance, the dialectic of anthropocentric humanism—Descartes, Rousseau, Kant—resented all interference, whether of law, of grace or of God. It was then undermined by the evolutionism of Darwin, who claimed that there is no essential difference between man and animal, and by Freud whose metaphysics reduced man to his sexual libido and desire for death. Its dualism—faith and reason, nature and grace—led to its final decomposition.[36]

Hegel adopted Rousseau’s idealised concept of the citizen and constructed his political philosophy on the foundation of the State, seen as a spirit evolving over time towards perfection. The individual, in his account, is fulfilled in the State and is therefore subject to it; the State is the fount of ethics, the goal of the individual. Hegel criticises the naïve automatism of Adam Smith, i.e. that social problems would be solved automatically by blind economic progress. Although not without some positive aspects, Hegel’s radical collectivism provided much of the rationale for Marxism in the late 19th Century and later, on the opposite end of the political spectrum, for the emergence of fascism and National Socialism in the 1920’s. It is clear, therefore that false anthropologies—whether erring on the side of individualism or collectivism—lead to grave disorders in the development of human society.

Approaches that attempted to reaffirm a human solidarity often suffered from the deficiencies of the systems they attempted to remedy. Late in the nineteenth-century, for example, Durkheim, a French positivist sociologist, characterised society as moving towards a higher organic solidarity—based on functional specialisation, on interdependence and agreement—from a more primitive mechanical solidarity, based on similitude. The bond of each type society would be expressed in its laws and in their enforcement, as an expression of its collective conscience.He relied on the division of labour to supply the moral content of an organic solidarity. However, he reacted in his later writings against the individualism that had become rampant in a society in which the collective conscience had become weakened.[37]

This historical tension between collectivism and individualism proved sterile. Both approaches failed to recognise the transcendent spiritual reality of the human person and his openness to others. Overcoming the dichotomy between individualism and collectivism became a goal of political philosophy from the middle of the 19th Century. It involved a search for a new point of departure, not just a middle way.[38]

t projects

One such approach took the human person as a decisive hermeneutic principle in political philosophy. It took shape following the disintegration of 19th Century individualism in the upheaval brought about by the First World War and as a reaction to the radical collectivisms of Marxism and fascism which followed. Mounier and Lacroix, leading figures in French personalism, advocated a spiritual revolution to guide civilisation to a true humanism, based on the realisation of each man as a human person. They saw personalism as an attitude to be shared by various currents of thought, not an ideology or a monolithic philosophy.[39]

Pesch was one of the principal proponents of a German current of Catholic thought known asSolidarism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[40] His approach, while opposed to individualism, emphasised the person rather than the collective or the State. Pesch is considered to have influenced the development of the concept of subsidiarity by Pius XI inQuadragessimo anno,[41] which in turn, became an essential element in the principle of solidarity, in the teaching of John Paul II.

Another significant development was the work of Max Scheler in philosophical sociology—including On the Nature of Sympathy and the sections on community in his Formalism in Ethics—in which he expounded a Principle of Solidarity, based on two key propositions.[42] Moral solidarity is possible because the sense and value of community are based on an a prioristructure and a community of persons belongs to the essence of person. Moral solidarity isnecessary because of the essential reciprocity of all morally relevant behaviour.

Solidarity is found in the highest form of community, the person-community—which itself fulfils Scheler’s definition of a person. He emphasised personal moral co-responsibility in social upheavals such as the First World War,[43] a theme echoed by his contemporary, Edit Stein, in her work on the phenomenon of ‘life-power’ in a community.

Scheler was studied by Karol Wojtyla, who acknowledges the influence of his phenomenology inThe Acting Person,[44] while criticising some of his conclusions. In his 1984 Apostolic Exhortation, Reconciliatio et paenitentia, John Paul II indicates that personal responsibility for social phenomena is one of the moral implications of human solidarity:[45]

To speak of social sin means in the first place to recognize that, by virtue of a human solidarity which is as mysterious and intangible as it is real and concrete, each individual's sin in some way affects others. This is the other aspect of that solidarity which on the religious level is developed in the profound and magnificent mystery of the Communion of Saints, thanks to which it has been possible to say that “every soul that rises above itself, raises up the world.”

Other Thomists such as Maritain, phenomenologists such as von Hildebrand, existentialists like Marcel, philosophers of dialogue such as Buber, were among those who also adopted a personalist approach, while following markedly different philosophical paths.[46] The concept of solidarity played a significant part in the Christian Democracy movement—Sturzo, de Gaspari, Schuman and Adenauer—based on the personalist philosophy of Jacques Maritain and the social doctrine of the Church.[47]

The evolution and decay of Cartesian rationalism and the fall of communism have left in their wake a widespread nihilism.[48] As a philosophy of nothingness, it has a certain attraction for people of our time. Its adherents and those of related relativist ideologies claim that the search is an end in itself, without any hope or possibility of ever attaining the goal of truth.[49] In a nihilist outlook, life is no more than an occasion for sensations and experiences in which the ephemeral has pride of place. Consumerism thrives in such a cultural decay. Nihilism is at the root of a widespread mentality which claims that a definitive commitment is futile, because everything is fleeting and provisional.[50] In such a climate, a recovery of solidarity requires a re-awakening of a co-natural human awareness of mutual responsibility before a deeper sense of the purpose of solidarity can be developed in society.

A new theological foundation for the social order that would meet the changed social climate and counteract the dominant errors of capitalism and socialism became imperative in the late nineteenth century. The Church looked for this foundation in its own philosophical and theological tradition.

In this regard, Pope Leo XIII with his Encyclical Letter Aeterni Patris took a step of historic importance for the life of the Church, since it remains to this day the one papal document of such authority devoted entirely to philosophy. The great Pope revisited and developed the First Vatican Council’s teaching on the relationship between faith and reason, showing how philosophical thinking contributes in fundamental ways to faith and theological learning. More than a century later, many of the insights of his Encyclical Letter have lost none of their interest from either a practical or pedagogical point of view—most particularly, his insistence upon the incomparable value of the philosophy of St Thomas. A renewed insistence upon the thought of the Angelic Doctor seemed to Pope Leo XIII the best way to recover the practice of a philosophy consonant with the demands of faith.[51]

It was thus that the study of St. Thomas and a new edition of his works—the Leonine—were initiated by Leo XIII in 1879 with the publication of Aeterni Patris[52] on the restoration of Christian Philosophy. This source has proven to be pluripotent and of lasting validity. Although it is still being explored in the context of contemporary questions, it soon became evident that under the dust of casuistry, legalism, and the apologetics of the recent centuries, lay a treasure that could be invested to good effect. [53]

The first substantial breakthrough came twelve years later with the publication of Rerum Novarum in 1891. It laid the theological foundation for a social order, which has been expanded and developed in a series of subsequent pontifical documents, several of which commemorate its significant anniversaries. While remaining independent of philosophical schools, this doctrine has consistently emphasised the transcendence of the person, most notably in the teachings of Vatican II and of Pope John Paul II.[54] This guiding principle has been integrated with an emphasis on the common good and natural law, to explain and order the social dimension of man. The Church's social doctrine now comprises a substantial body of documents, spanning three centuries, which have recently been synthesised in the Compendium.

The positive results of the papal summons are well known. Studies of the thought of St Thomas and other Scholastic writers received new impetus. Historical studies flourished, resulting in a rediscovery of the riches of Medieval thought, which until then had been largely unknown; and there emerged new Thomistic schools. With the use of historical method, knowledge of the works of St Thomas increased greatly, and many scholars had courage enough to introduce the Thomistic tradition into the philosophical and theological discussions of the day. The most influential Catholic theologians of the present century, to whose thinking and research the Second Vatican Council was much indebted, were products of this revival of Thomistic philosophy. Throughout the twentieth century, the Church has been served by a powerful array of thinkers formed in the school of the Angelic Doctor.[55]

The concept of solidarity has been widely used in this teaching to express the bonds that ought to unite men and social groups among themselves. Even before the word itself entered into the lexicon of social doctrine, essential features of the concept—such as co-operation in place of conflict—have been taught with increasing insistence since Rerum novarum.[56] The wide scope of the concept and its gradual evolution as a fundamental principle of social doctrine are emphatically stated by John Paul II in the encyclical Centessimus annus:

What we nowadays call the principle of solidarity, the validity of which both in the internal order of each nation and in the international order I have discussed in the encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, is clearly seen to be one of the fundamental principles of the Christian view of social and political organization. This principle is frequently stated by Pope Leo XIII, who uses the term ‘friendship,’ a concept already found in Greek philosophy. Pope Pius XI refers to it with the equally meaningful term ‘social charity.’ Pope Paul VI, expanding the concept to cover the many modern aspects of the social question, speaks of a ‘civilization of love.’[57]

The term ‘solidarity’ or its language equivalents has been used extensively in the documents of the social teaching since it first appeared in the English text of the encyclical Summi Pontificatusof Pius XII.[58] More recently, the label has been applied to a social principle, a moral duty, a personal attitude and a moral and Christian virtue. According to the online IntraTextconcordances of Church documents,[59] for example, it is used fourteen times in the English text of the documents of the Second Vatican Council and eighty nine times in the encyclical letters of John Paul II.

Bilgrien[60] has done an extensive survey and analysis of these applications of the term in the documents of the Magisterium, especially in the teachings of Pope John Paul II. While the nuances associated with each usage of the term are important and instructive in refining the concept, the thrust of the present study is to explore the basis for that which is common to these applications.

I.3  Solidarity in the Compendium

These common themes include co-operation and collaboration, a commitment to ensuring that nothing is lacking in the common cause, and seeking points of possible agreement where attitudes of separation and fragmentation prevail. They translate, according to theCompendium, into a willingness to give oneself for the good of one's neighbour, beyond any personal or sectional interest.[61] Solidarity also implies the acceptance of this collaboration and service from others. It is not, however, a pragmatic response to an interdependence grounded in the limitations of human nature, but an integral part of the natural fulfilment of each person, a true humanism.[62]

The Compendium is permeated with a vision of the human person in which ‘solidarity’ forms the basis of his natural and supernatural relationship with other persons—human and divine. The Church wishes in this document to propose to all men “an integral and solidary humanism capable of creating a new social, economic and political order, founded on the dignity and freedom of every human person, to be brought about in peace, justice and solidarity.”[63]

Whatever the societal, national or international context may be, solidarity ultimately grows or diminishes in the heart of man—it is a part of the moral life of the human person.[64] This vision of the human person is foundational in the social teaching.[65] “The whole of the Church's social doctrine, in fact, develops from the principle that affirms the inviolable dignity of the human person.”[66] Inter-personal solidarity is intimately linked to other principles set out in Chapter Four of the Compendium, especially the common good and the universal destination of goods.[67] It would incongruous in fact to present a teaching on human life in society such as we find in the Compendium without grounding it on an understanding of the person in which human and divine relationships are the primary value.

Our understanding of the origin and goal of human solidarity should also take into account those factors which lead to its destruction. Man’s communion with God was damaged by original sin. The loss of grace and consequent disorientation caused a rupture in the internal unity of the human person, in the relations of communion between man and woman and in the harmonious relations between mankind and other creatures. It is in this original estrangement that are to be sought the deepest roots of all the evils that afflict social relations between people, of all the situations in economic and political life that attack the dignity of the person, that assail justice and solidarity.[68]

An integral and solidary humanism

In its approach to natural as well as specifically Christian values, the Compendium uses insights from philosophy to understand better what has been revealed by God about the nature of man. “Faith and reason represent the two cognitive paths of the Church's social doctrine: Revelation and human nature.”[69] While the social doctrine of the Church is part of moral theology,[70] it finds in philosophy “a suitable and indispensable instrument for arriving at a correct understanding of the basic concepts of the Church's social doctrine, concepts such as the person, society, freedom, conscience, ethics, law, justice, the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, the State.”[71]

An integral humanism cannot be fully understood at the level of practical reasoning alone.[72] It involves inter alia the philosophical concepts of person, being and good and the corresponding theological concepts in the revealed doctrine of the imago Dei. Without an integration of these ideas, it would be difficult to achieve a satisfactory account of the beatitude of man, of his origin and end.

The integral humanism presented in the Compendium encompasses man in his natural and supernatural dimensions. When solidarity is considered in a personal context in this document, it is presented as an authentic moral virtue[73] and as a moral value placed alongside justice.[74] “The full truth about man makes it possible to move beyond a contractualistic vision of justice, which is a reductionist vision, and to open up also for justice the new horizon of solidarity and love.”[75] The virtue of solidarity serves to crystallise and integrate the personal dimensions of interdependence, translating them into a moral responsibility.

When interdependence becomes recognized in this way, the correlative response as a moral and social attitude, as a ‘virtue,’ is solidarity. This then is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.[76]

It is also presented as a fully Christian virtue, befitting a living image of God, and closely linked to charity. “Solidarity is undoubtedly a Christian virtue. In what has been said so far it has been possible to identify many points of contact between solidarity and charity, which is the distinguishing mark of Christ's disciples (cf. Jn 13:35).”[77]

Our solidarity with Christ is made possible by the solidarity established in human nature in the wisdom of the Creator. “Redemption begins with the Incarnation, by which the Son of God takes on all that is human, except sin, according to the solidarity established by the wisdom of the Divine Creator, and embraces everything in his gift of redeeming Love. Man is touched by this Love in the fullness of his being: a being that is corporeal and spiritual, that is in a solidary relationship with others. The whole man¾not a detached soul or a being closed within its own individuality, but a person and a society of persons      is involved in the salvific economy of the Gospel”[78]

Solidarity is not limited, therefore, to the temporal circumstances and dependency of man, but finds its true meaning in his eternal destiny in communion with the divine Trinity. “Man cannot give himself to a purely human plan for reality, to an abstract ideal or to a false Utopia. As a person, he can give himself to another person or to other persons, and ultimately to God, who is the author of his being and who alone can fully accept his gift.”[79]

The substantive issue in the practice of solidarity, therefore, comes down to this question of the gift of self—the “vocation of the human person to love.”[80] The moral proposition that man ought to give of himself in a general way is counter-intuitive from the stand-point of human nature. It appears to contradict man’s natural self-interest and self-preservation. Nevertheless, the Compendium insists that “a man is alienated if he refuses to transcend himself and to live the experience of self-giving and of the formation of an authentic human community oriented towards his final destiny, which is God. A society is alienated if its forms of social organization, production and consumption make it more difficult to offer this gift of self and to establish this solidarity between people.”[81]

This teaching, drawn from Centesimus annus,[82] appears to echo the teaching of Our Lord—“For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 16:25). Is this an exclusively supernatural teaching, or does it—as is implied in Centessimus annus—have a basis also in the nature of man?

Man in the Image of God

The Second Vatican Council, in Gaudium et spes, points to a connection between the subjectivity of the person and his relation to others—“It follows, then, that if man is the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake, man can fully discover his true self only in a sincere giving of himself.”[83] The association of the concept of solidarity and the gift of selfwith the doctrine of the imago Dei is an important theme in Gaudium et spes.

God, who has fatherly concern for everyone, has willed that all men should constitute one family and treat one another in a spirit of brotherhood. For having been created in the image of God, who “from one man has created the whole human race and made them live all over the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26), all men are called to one and the same goal, namely God himself.[84]

If the practice of solidarity required by human nature enjoins a disinterested self-giving—beyond a merely pragmatic self-interest or reciprocity—reason prompts us to ask how it can lead to the attainment of the very life which it appears to deny. The answer, according toGaudium et spes, is to be found in understanding creation as a pouring out of the divine self in a gift of created life, which is a living image of God destined to a  participation in eternal joy.

The key to unlocking this mystery therefore—and the context in which to understand human solidarity—is the revelation that man is created in the image of a tri-personal God and called to grow in his likeness. The Magisterium consistently associates man’s personal vocation and social dimension with the doctrine of the imago Dei. “Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. Further, he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead.”[85]

Self-knowledge, self-possession and the giving of self are, as it were, the distinctive marks in the human person of the authorship of the three divine Persons, in their common act of creation of man. Those marks are, in turn, oriented to the divine Persons such that the human person is given a capacity to know God, to possess God and to give self to God. Man, alone in the material universe, is capax Dei and is destined to eternal life with God.

This revelation sheds light on every aspect of the personal dignity and freedom of men and women, and on the depths of their social nature.[86] “The revelation in Christ of the mystery of God as Trinitarian love is at the same time the revelation of the vocation of the human person to love.”[87]

Trinitarian communion

A parallel is also drawn in several documents of the Magisterium between the communion of the divine Persons and a union in solidarity among the children of God in mankind as a whole.

The modern cultural, social, economic and political phenomenon of interdependence, which intensifies and makes particularly evident the bonds that unite the human family, accentuates once more, in the light of Revelation, ‘a new model of the unity of the human race, which must ultimately inspire our solidarity. This supreme model of unity, which is a reflection of the intimate life of God, one God in three Persons, is what we Christians mean by the word communion.[88]

If the image in each person of the tri-personal God is the basis of the doctrine of the Church on human solidarity, it follows that in a communion of persons there is also a likeness to the divine Trinity of persons.

The Council Fathers, in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, teach that “the Lord Jesus Christ, when praying to the Father 'that they may all be one ... as we are one' (Jn 17:21-22), has opened up new horizons closed to human reason by implying that there is a certain parallel between the union existing among the divine Persons and the union of the children of God in truth and love.[89]

This is manifest in the first instance in the special nuptial relationship of man and woman—“in their complementarities and reciprocity they are the image of Trinitarian Love in the created universe.”[90]

We find in the theology of the imago Dei therefore a clear indication that the deepest meaning of human society can only be found in what has been revealed to us of the mystery of the divine Trinity. At issue is the definition of man as imago Dei, the exemplar source of the relational dimension of the human person in the Trinitarian communion and the character of that relation as gift of self.[91]

“Every individual human being as well as the whole human community is created in the image of God. In its original unity – of which Adam is the symbol – the human race is made in the image of the divine Trinity. Willed by God, it makes its way through the vicissitudes of human history towards a perfect communion, also willed by God, but yet to be fully realized. In this sense, human beings share the solidarity of a unity that both already exists and is still to be attained.”[92]

This model of unity is not a mere aspiration, nor is it a rationalisation from a philosophical anthropology. It is based on the revelation to man of the inner life of God, without which man could not fully understand himself or his own capacity to be united with others.

Images in the Image

It is only with the revelation of Christ that the true scope of man’s vocation as imago Deibecomes clear. Christ, the perfect image of God, enlightens fully and brings to completion the image and likeness of God in man.[93]

Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. … He who is “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), is himself the perfect man. [94]

The solidarity of Christ with man in his human nature is of central importance in understanding how we have been redeemed by him.[95] By that solidarity, he restored the likeness of man to God and opened the way for man to a new participation in the life of the Trinity.

To the sons of Adam he restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward. Since human nature as he assumed it was not annulled, by that very fact it has been raised up to a divine dignity in our respect too. For by his incarnation the Son of God has united himself in some fashion with every man.[96]

This seminal passage from Gaudium et spes informs the whole anthropology of theCompendium.[97] While the salvific solidarity of Christ with mankind is outside the scope of the present study, the doctrine does underline the value for theology—and specifically for the social doctrine of the Church—of an understanding of the basis for our natural solidarity.

It also shows us the paradigm towards which that solidarity is directed and makes it clear that the new reality wrought by Jesus Christ is not something grafted onto human nature or added to it from outside. It is rather the fulfilment of the reality of communion with the divine Trinity to which man had always been oriented in the depths of his being, because of his divine iconicity.[98] This approach was given a new prominence in the Christian anthropology developed by Pope John Paul II. “The foundation of the whole human ‘ethos’ is rooted in the image and likeness of God which the human being bears within himself from the beginning.”[99] It is now reflected in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and again, as we have seen, in the synthesis of social doctrine presented in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.[100]

With the impetus of Gaudium et spes and the wide-ranging theological work of John Paul II, it is clear that the basis for the unity of the human race—whether temporal or eschatological—is to be sought in the mystery of the divine Trinity, as the exemplar and cause of inter-personal communion,[101] and in the primitive accounts of creation. The progression from an image of the divine Trinity in each man to a collective dimension in this image can also be discerned in these sources.

These issues involve interdependence and communion (what it means for man to be an image of God among other men) and ultimately how the image in each individual relates to the unity of mankind in communion with the Trinity.

The fact that man “created as man and woman” is the image of God means not only that each of them individually is like God, as a rational and free being. It also means that man and woman, created as a “unity of the two” in their common humanity, are called to live in a communion of love, and in this way to mirror in the world the communion of love that is in God, through which the Three Persons love each other in the intimate mystery of the one divine life. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God through the unity of the divinity, exist as persons through the inscrutable divine relationship. Only in this way can we understand the truth that God in himself is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:16). The image and likeness of God in man, created as man and woman (in the analogy that can be presumed between Creator and creature), thus also expresses the “unity of the two” in a common humanity. This “unity of the two”, which is a sign of interpersonal communion, shows that the creation of man is also marked by a certain likeness to the divine communion (“communio”).[102]

If the realisation of the image of the Trinity in society is “a certain likeness to the divine communion”, that likeness is nevertheless “a quality of the personal being of both man and woman, and is also a call and a task,”[103] a “vocation to love.” An exploration of the personalimago Dei will therefore shed light on the social nature and responsibilities of man and provide a key to understanding the human and Christian virtue of solidarity presented in theCompendium.

The original design of creation

“Faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram” (Gen 1:26)[104]. With these words, divine Revelation begins to unfold the mystery of man’s creation, to the image and likeness of God—situating him in immediate relationship with the mystery of the divine Trinity. Likewise, it shows the meaning and dignity of plurality in man—male and female—because “ad imaginem Dei creavit illum, masculum et feminam creavit eos” (Gen 1:27).

From the same source we learn that God expresses his joy and love for his creatures, affirming that they are “valde bona” (Gen 1:31), because they are like unto him who alone is good. This first truth about man, in his original splendour, is foundational in Christian revelation and the history of salvation.[105] It structures human freedom and the human vocation—“Man's creation in the image of God, from the very beginning of the Book of Genesis, bears witness to his call. This call is fully revealed with the coming of Christ.”[106] 

We can learn of the depth of God’s love for man from the determination with which he resolved to redeem us, but our account of God and the imago Dei should in the first instance be consistent with what is revealed in Genesis 1:26-7, supposing that man had not fallen and that he had continued in his original friendship with God.[107]

The imago Dei is of the order of creation, in the first instance, not of the order of redemption from sin. Adam and Eve were constituted in that image, both individually and as the first couple, before the Fall. The Genesis account of man and of the universe in original justice would be of no avail if we were to conclude that it did not reveal the true nature of man in his relationship with God. Furthermore, we have no scriptural warrant for supposing that the Word would have become incarnate if man had not fallen.[108] God created man in his friendship, to participate in the perfect Good as his final end, and it is as such that we should try to understand him.

That is one of the strengths of the approach taken by St. Thomas to the doctrine of the imago Dei. His theology does not presuppose the fall of man or require it for its intelligibility. Rather, the primary context of the imago Dei is original justice, redemption brings about a re-creation of the image, and glory is its final completion.

St. Thomas demonstrates metaphysically that suffering and death are privations—the effect of creaturely sin—which have their origin in man, not in God himself. His metaphysics is founded on Good—which, in its primary sense is convertible with Being—as the ultimate value and as the only object of Love. The God of St. Thomas is supremely and superabundantly joyful in the possession of the fullness of Being. His creative act expresses a loving will that causes other persons to come to be in order that they too might possess that good and share in that joy. Communicated good—which is diffusivum sui—is the rule of the Trinitarian divine life and of the lives of every person—angel or man—made in the image and likeness of God.

In the next chapter, we will look at doctrine of the imago Dei in St. Thomas, in which he unfolds the depth and significance of the features of the human person, and suggest an approach to his intrinsic solidarity. A consideration in the following chapter of the metaphysical concepts of person, being and good, disclosed in that revelation, can then help us to understand the moral implications of man’s natural and supernatural solidarity.

Chapter Two

II – The Image of God

In order to understand the significance of the role of the imago Dei in St. Thomas’ anthropology, in this chapter we will first review the main features of his teaching on the image of the Trinity in man (I), and then explore the implications of the causality of divine processions for what it means to be a person-in-relation (II), in order to glimpse the ultimate source of man’s sociability. The first section begins with an overview of St. Thomas’ treatment of the imago, of the image of the divine nature in man­­—following Damascene—and of the image of the Trinity in man, following Augustine. This in turn is considered according as man has self as the object of the mind or God as his object. The threefold image—of creation, re-creation and glory—is followed by the image in the form of body and soul. The second section of this chapter looks at St. Thomas’ account of the effect of the Trinitarian processions in the creation of persons, the implications for the image of the Trinity in society and the consummation in the final judgement of the image of the Trinity in society.

II.1  The Imago Dei in St Thomas

St. Thomas Aquinas’ account of the imago Dei in the Summa theologiae and the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum,—a development of St. Augustine’s ideas and those of St. John Damascene—is developed in a conceptual way and forms an integral part of his theology of God, Man and Redemption.[109] The whole exposition is founded on a concise analysis of the metaphysical notions of person, being and good, as a basis on which to understand the content of Revelation, and on an intimate relationship between these concepts, the divine nature and the Trinity of divine Persons.

The imago Dei in man—in original justice—is central to a contingent cosmos, an ordered universe created to communicate the love of God to creatures and to lead them through secondary causes to fulfilment in him. All created being bears an intrinsic ontological likeness to its Creator, in an ordered and active harmony of likenesses, tending toward a cosmic image of God. “As all creatures in common represent the divine goodness to the extent that they exist, so by their actions they all in common attain to the divine likeness in the conservation of their being and in the communication of their being to others.”[110]

Man has a pivotal role in this cosmic scheme. As a rational creature he tends toward the divine likeness in a special way, through his operations. St. Thomas says that man’s intellect is “the species of species, because it has a species that is not determined to one thing alone, as is the case with a stone, but it has a capacity for all species.”[111] He has a certain infinite potency, because of the way his intellect contains intelligibles. As God is infinite in act, having within his intellectual nature the perfection of all being, man tends towards a likeness to God, not only in the sense that he preserves himself in existence, or that he multiplies his existence, in a way, by communicating it; he also has as his end the possession in act of what by nature he possesses in potency. “Consequently the end of the intellectual creature, to be achieved by its activity, is the complete actuation of its intellect by all the intelligibles for which it has a potency. In this respect it will become most like to God.”[112]

A synthesis of Augustine and Damascene

The fertile doctrine of St. Augustine on the imago Dei is taken up and brought to a more conceptual and scientific level in the work of St Thomas Aquinas.[113] Whereas Augustine explores the imago Dei as a means to know something of the divine Trinity from its image in man, Thomas addresses the topic in its own right. Beginning with his Commentary on the Book of the Sentences, it was further elaborated in De Veritate and eventually treated in a fully synthetic manner in the Summa Theologiae. There is a certain progression in his ideas in these works. The Summa is undoubtedly the principal statement and summary of his teaching on theimago Dei, although some issues are only treated fully in the earlier writings.[114]

The frequency with which St. Augustine is quoted by St. Thomas and the clear relationship between their principal doctrines on the imago Dei show the extent of the Augustinian influence. Nevertheless, apparently similar terms and concepts are often given a new meaning when taken up by St. Thomas and, in the Summa in particular, clear differences emerge in some significant issues.

The Augustinian notion of ‘mens’ is of a higher part of the soul, which is related to memory, intellect and will as the divine nature is to each of the three Persons of the Trinity. While retaining this usage in De Veritate, St. Thomas normally employs the term ‘mens’ in the Summaas a synonym for the intellect. Likewise, the more developed psychology of St. Thomas leads him to reject the role of memory as a separate intellectual power (in the Augustinian triad of memory, intellect and will). To answer the objection that St. Augustine held these to be three powers, he interprets a passage in Book XIV of De Trinitate to show that “it is clear that Augustine does not take the above three for three powers; but by memory he understands the soul's habit of retention; by intelligence, the act of the intellect; and by will, the act of the will.”[115]

A less pervasive but nonetheless significant influence in the Thomistic synthesis is that of St. John Damascene. He emphasised the image of the divine nature in a human nature endowed with free will and creative power. St. Thomas endorses this idea and shows that “to be to the image of God by imitation of the Divine Nature does not exclude being to the same image by the representation of the Divine Persons: but rather one follows from the other.”[116] When it comes to the traditional distinction between ‘image’ and ‘likeness’, he draws a subtle analogy between ‘likeness’ and ‘unity’ as a transcendental to justify a distinction inspired by Damascenewhich equates ‘likeness’ with love of virtue.[117] Likeness (understood as a kind of unity) can either be understood as falling short of the concept of image or as perfecting it. In the latter sense, that favoured by Damascene, the moral life can be understood as the process of perfecting the likeness of the image in man. This became the dominant application of thesimilitudo in his moral theory.

With Augustine he teaches that the image of God in man expresses an orientation towards knowing and loving God, an orientation only perfected in the vision of God in the next life. With Damascene he develops the moral significance of the imago Dei in man by showing that we are prepared for a participation in God by the perfection of virtue. Augustine shows how our being orients us to God, Damascene draws out the implication for our action. Anthropology leads into morality. The teaching on the image of God encapsulates the history of salvation moving through creation, sin, redemption, and glory.[118]

Image of the Divine Nature

The Angelic Doctor first explores the meaning of ‘image,’ as one of the names of the Second Person of the Trinity, in the Treatise on the Person of the Son in the Prima Pars.[119] The context is that of the Perfect image, but he defines the notion in general terms such that it remains consistent when later applied to man. Equality of nature is essential to the notion of a perfect image, but not of an imperfect image.[120] “The image of a thing may be found in something in two ways. In one way it is found in something of the same specific nature; as the image of the king is found in his son. In another way it is found in something of a different nature, as the king's image on the coin. In the first sense the Son is the image of the Father; in the second sense man is called the image of God.”[121] A relationship of nature as well as of origin between the image and the exemplar is nevertheless important, as becomes clear as the synthesis develops. “For a true image it is required that one proceeds from another like to it in species, or at least in specific sign.”[122] He considers whether the Spirit can also be called an image of the Father and the Son and concludes that the Son is image of the Father, but not the Spirit, because—unlike love—“it is essential to word to be like in species with that whence it proceeds”.[123]

The figure of the king on the coin in the previous example serves as the ‘specific sign’, because the king is recognisable from and represented in the figure of the coin which has issued from him. However, the likeness of a work of art to its exemplar in the mind of the artist—a likeness which is common to all creation—is not sufficient for a likeness of species. An image must have “a likeness in nature, that is, inasmuch as all things, as being, are like to the First Being; as living, like to the First Life; and as intelligent, like to the Supreme Wisdom.”[124]

St. Thomas accordingly identifies three ways in which creatures share in a likeness to God: first, because they exist; second, because they live; and third, inasmuch as they know or understand. Insofar as God may be compared with a species (or quasi-species)[125] it is clear that he has most in common with the third category. A true image of God must belong to that category also. Rational creatures possess all three ways of likeness to God and so they alone can be said properly to be made to the image of God.[126]

In the opening treatise of the Prima Secundae, in which he considers purpose and happiness in man’s life, St. Thomas establishes the basis for his moral theory by an examination of what belongs ad genus naturae.[127] From this basis “moral theory can mainly proceed in accordance with the inner formation of man's being and acting by nature and grace, and not by his configuration to extrinsic and positive laws.”[128]

The perfection of the similitudo in the imago Dei is the kernel of the moral life of man, as is implied in the preface to the moral treatise in the Secunda Pars of the Summa. “Since, as Damascene states (De Fide Orth. ii, 12), man is said to be made in God's image, in so far as the image implies ‘an intelligent being endowed with free-will and self-movement’: now that we have treated of the exemplar, i.e. God, and of those things which came forth from the power of God in accordance with His will; it remains for us to treat of His image, i.e. man, inasmuch as he too is the principle of his actions, as having free-will and control of his actions.”[129] Christ is the true image[130] and the regeneration of the likeness to God in man therefore comprises our sacramental assimilation to Christ.

Knowledge and love of God­ in his essence are proper to the divine nature, not to a created nature in this life.[131] To have the aptitude to receive the power to know and love God and ultimately to see him in his essence in beatitude (to be ‘capax Dei’, open to truth and good per se) is a natural image of God. The actuation of that aptitude by a gift of supernatural grace enables a participation by man in an operation proper to the divine nature. Loving co-operation with grace leads to a more perfect likeness in man, an image of conformity to the life of the Trinity.

The Image of Conformity

In the earlier works of St. Thomas, a dual image of God in man—that of the divine nature and of the divine Persons—is adopted without discussion or distinction, as a common teaching. In the Commentary he opposes those who try to demonstrate the existence of the Three Persons of the Trinity from the divine image in man­. It appears that some incautious opinions of St. Augustine had been relied on by St. Anselm and the Victorines to claim that this could be done.[132]

In his treatise on the image in the Summa, he reasons that the two aspects of image are related.[133] God’s goodness (bonum diffusivum sui)[134] and perfection[135] ‘dispose’ God to create. Creatures are caused by the divine essence, not directly by the Persons.[136] The essential attributes of the Creator are found in his creatures and it is those attributes that constitute an image of the Trinity of Persons. “In rational creatures wherein we find a procession of the word in the intellect, and a procession of the love in the will, there exists an image of the uncreated Trinity, by a certain representation of the species.”[137]

Some effects represent only the causality of their cause, but not its form, as smoke represents fire. Aquinas calls this likeness a trace “for a trace shows that someone has passed by, but not who it is.”[138] Other effects represent the cause as regards the similitude of its form, as flames represent fire, and this is called the representation of image. The imago of the divine Persons in man follows upon the imago of the divine nature, but as a single image.[139]

It is manifest that the distinction of the Divine Persons is suitable to the Divine Nature; and therefore to be to the image of God by imitation of the Divine Nature does not exclude being to the same image by the representation of the Divine Persons: but rather one follows from the other. We must, therefore, say that in man there exists the image of God, both as regards the Divine Nature and as regards the Trinity of Persons; for also in God Himself there is one Nature in Three Persons.[140]

The image of the Persons of the Trinity is in each man individually as from one principle, not in men severally as separate principles.[141] In the treatise on the Person of the Son in the Prima Pars, St. Thomas observes that several persons, as a single principle, can be the origin or exemplar of an image. “The Father and the Son are one principle of the Holy Ghost … hence there is nothing to prevent there being one image of the Father and of the Son, inasmuch as they are one; since even man is one image of the whole Trinity.”[142]

The Self as object of the Mind

Following Augustine, Aquinas sees the acts of the intellect and will as forming an image of the Trinity in man, because of a certain likeness of species. This image of the divine Persons lies in “the word conceived, and the love proceeding.”[143] By a certain proportionate equality there is an image of analogy between the divine Trinity and human mind, insofar as the mind has itself as its object.

“As the uncreated Trinity is distinguished according to the procession of the Word from the One speaking, and of Love from both . . . so we may say that in rational creatures, in which is found the procession of the word in the intellect, and the procession of love from the will, there is an image of the uncreated Trinity by a certain representation of species.”[144]

The divine processions are immanent in the divine nature, as the human ‘processions’ are in the human mind. The proportionate equality arises not between the divine and human natures as such, but analogously, in regard to the intellectual operations involved, each as directed in its own order to its own principle.[145]

The operation of the Trinitarian image of God in the mind, with self as object, is more fully described by St. Thomas in De Veritate, in which he distinguishes a complex habitual self-knowledge (memoria sui), actual self-knowledge (intelligentia sui) and actual self-love (voluntas sui) arising from both. The detailed explanation of this image differs significantly from that of St. Augustine, due to the more systematic Aristotelian psychology adopted by St. Thomas.[146]

God as the object of the Mind

However St. Thomas, also in De Veritate, makes an important distinction between a likeness or image ‘of analogy’ and an image ‘of conformity’ which is present when the mind is engaged, not on itself, but on God.[147] In this latter case, the intellectual operations in man share the sameobject as the analogous operations in God.

With God as object of the mind, there is a Trinitarian parallel in ¾

a)   a natural memoria Dei, essentially the presence of God by participation in being,

b)   an intelligentia Dei, a natural knowledge of God through his effects (and indirectly of his essence, as causing the power to know), and

c)   a voluntas Dei, a natural love of God following the limited knowledge of God.[148]

The divine nature, as good and true, is the ultimate proper object of intellectual powers per se.[149] Different objects cause a difference of species in knowledge and love—it is not the same thing to know or love a stone and a man. The mind, turned to God, is therefore assimilated orconformed to God because every knower, as such, is assimilated to the object known. The mind turned to God is drawn to the attainment of a more perfect knowledge and love of God and is thus perfected as image. The intellectual nature imitates God primarily insofar as God knows and loves himself.[150]

In the Summa, therefore, St. Thomas concludes that this image of conformity must be the primary sense of the ‘image’ of God in man. The image of conformity based on the Trinity implies a dynamism in the imago Dei which sheds light on the moral perspective of the image based on the divine nature. St. Thomas represents creation as a type of circulation or diffusion of good, an exitus of creatures from God—in His image—with a view to a reditus to God through a perfection of that likeness.[151] This regiratio is both personal and cosmic, but it is persons who are the object of love and the ‘point’ of creation, beings for whose sake other beings exist.[152] The image of conformity in created persons is therefore the perfection of the divine plan for the universe.

Threefold image of God in man

St. Thomas builds on Augustine's teaching on the image of the Trinity in man and on Damascene's notion of the image of God as “an intelligent being endowed with free-will and self-movement,” a representation of God's power, by integrating the natural and the supernatural dimensions of the imago Dei into his overall doctrine. The short treatise on theimago Dei in the Summa is introduced with words “We now treat of the end or term of man's production, inasmuch as he is said to be made ‘to the image and likeness of God’.”[153]

 “Some creatures are brought into being by God to possess understanding, to bear his likeness and present His image. They not only are directed, but also direct themselves by proper actions of their own to their due end. If in the direction of themselves they remain subject to the divine guidance, they are admitted in course of that guidance to the attainment of their last end.”[154]

Although it is clear that the image according to the divine nature is in every human being indistinguishably, and likewise that the image of the divine Trinity is present in every man and woman endowed with intellect and will, the Trinitarian image is present in differing degrees according as man is actually turned towards God or merely has the power or the habit of so turning. Accordingly St. Thomas distinguishes three ways or levels in which the image of God is present in man—by nature, grace and glory. The first is found in all men, the second only in the just, the third only in the blessed.

“We see that the image of God is in man in three ways. First, inasmuch as man possesses a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God; and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to all men. Secondly, inasmuch as man actually and habitually knows and loves God, though imperfectly; and this image consists in the conformity of grace. Thirdly, inasmuch as man knows and loves God perfectly; and this image consists in the likeness of glory.”[155]

The natural image is found in the nature of the mind: “man possesses a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God; and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to all men.”[156] This image is not destroyed by original sin.[157] The proper object of this natural aptitude is God sicut in se est, which is attainable only by grace,[158] so that acts flowing from the natural powers[159] only pertain to the natural or aptitudinal image in man. Man has inchoate virtues, instilled by nature, such as certain naturally known principles of both knowledge and action, which are the “nurseries of intellectual and moral virtues” insofar as there is in the will “a natural appetite for good in accordance with reason.”[160]

St. Thomas teaches that man is naturally capable of grace (capax gratiae) and of divine beatitude,[161] with an obediential potency,[162] because he is made in the image of God.[163]St. Augustine, on the other hand, “tends to ignore the natural knowledge and especially the natural love of God, and emphasises the need of grace for correct knowledge and true love of God.”[164]

The image of grace or regeneration is a supernatural image, an actuation of the natural or aptitudinal image in man, found in those in the state of grace. Their acts, though imperfect, are a supernatural elevation of their natural capacity and dignity.[165] The gift of supernatural grace enables a participation by man in operations proper to the divine nature, through this image of regeneration.

For as man in his intellective powers participates in the Divine knowledge through the virtue of faith, and in his power of will participates in the Divine love through the virtue of charity, so also in the nature of the soul does he participate in the Divine Nature, after the manner of a likeness, through a certain regeneration or re-creation.[166]

The infused moral virtues proper to this image are called ‘cleansing’ or ‘perfecting’ virtues (virtutes purgatoriae).[167] All men, excepting only the damned, have this image (by which man becomes conformed to Christ and a member of his Mystical Body) at least in potency. The inclusiveness of this image is a striking indication of the universal salvific will of God and of the correspondingly universal scope of human solidarity.[168]

The image of glory or similitude is the beatific vision, a perfected imago Dei in those in heaven. A created ‘lumen gloriae’,[169] by which man becomes deiform, is considered necessary by St. Thomas to enable the created intellect to behold God in his essence. “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”[170] (I Jn 3:2).

The image in the form of man, body and soul

The imago Dei in man is referred by St. Thomas primarily to the mind, as the locus of the intellectual powers in man by which he imitates God. This excludes the idea that the body as such, whether male or female, should be regarded as an image of God.[171] However, the unity of the human person, in a single form, is fundamental in St. Thomas’ anthropology. From the fact that it is the whole man, male and female, who is the image of God it follows, first, that the image is found in that which man and woman have in common,[172] i.e. in the mind, and second, that the body is necessary for the perfection of the image, as it is part of the whole person.

He therefore locates the image of God in the form of man and says the human body, which is that of rational animal, is what comprises the image of God—“corporis autem humani forma est anima rationalis, in qua imago Dei consistit.“[173] As it is animated by a soul, it has the likeness of image, not just of vestige, as the body of an animal would have—“non tantum est similitudo vestigii, sed etiam similitudo imaginis, inquantum animam habet.”[174]

In this he echoes Fathers of the Church, such as St. Iraneus, who attached a lot of importance to the role of the body, seeing it as an essential part of the notion of a visible image.[175]“Throughout all time, man, having been moulded at the beginning by the hands of God, that is, of the Son and of the Spirit, is made after the image and likeness of God.”[176] This corporeal dimension of the imago Dei is significant for our understanding of human solidarity—as fact and as virtue—because solidarity is normally mediated and expressed through material realities and especially through our interdependence.[177]

II.2  The Image as Person-in-Relation

The image of the Trinity in man is important, not only for our understanding of what it means to know and will—images of the essential divine attributes—but also of what it means to be a person in relation, to be “towards another.” This dimension of the essential attributes helps us to see how knowing and willing relate us not only to God, but also to each other in solidarity, seeing in each other the likeness to God—the very motive of God’s causing us to be.

Man’s intellectual nature is the basis of an image of God according to his divine nature, as creator, but also indirectly, according to the processions of the divine Persons, as a type of the production of intellectual creatures—“the processions of the Persons are the type of the productions of creatures inasmuch as they include the essential attributes, knowledge and will”.[178] This typical causality implies that the created intellectual powers of knowing and loving are also a likeness in the creature of the personal properties of the three divine persons, that is, of their mutual relations.

Whereas the essential acts of intellect and will are the mode of origin of three distinct Persons in God, through their common action the three Persons are the exemplar cause of three dimensions of a single personality in each intellectual creature. On the one hand, the divine Persons are each a distinct, subsistent relation-to-other in one essence. On the other, the image of the Trinity is in every human person as a likeness of all three of these relations-to-other in each individual human nature.

The imago Dei as three ‘relations’ in one person is of fundamental importance in understanding what it means to be a person-in-relation, because that of which man is an image is precisely the very source of all relationality. This image is not itself the essence of man—relation is accidental in man—but it configures the faculties of his nature[179]. “For when it is said that relation is by nature to be towards another, the word ‘another’ signifies the correlative which is not prior, but simultaneous in the order of nature.”[180] The divine Persons are therefore constitutively ‘towards’ one another in the act of knowing and loving the same divine essence.

The Son acts in being turned toward the Father by his filiation and in being turned toward the Holy Spirit by spiration (the Son acts a Patre and per Spiritum Sanctum), the Father acts in being turned toward the Son by his paternity and toward the Holy Spirit by spiration (the Father acts per Filium and per Spiritum Sanctum), and the Holy Spirit acts in being turned toward the Father and the Son by his procession (the Holy Spirit acts a Patre and a Filio). Such is the proper ‘mode’ by which each person is distinctly in the other and acts distinctly in the other under the aspect of personal relation. Perichoresis shows the depth of the communion of persons (unity and distinction) in their act.[181]

These three relations-to-other in one person define and develop man’s personality towards a unity of purpose with other men. They express his vocation to yield fruit in service and collaboration with others and they dispose him—through a process of sanctification—to be elevated to participate in the eternal communion of God.

For as man in his intellective powers participates in the Divine knowledge through the virtue of faith, and in his power of will participates in the Divine love through the virtue of charity, so also in the nature of the soul does he participate in the Divine Nature, after the manner of a likeness, through a certain regeneration or re-creation.[182]

The created person is ontologically related to the divine Persons in the one divine essence, because he is a fruit of the perichoresis which unites all three Persons in one creative act. He is also intentionally related to each of the Persons—whom he knows as distinct in the divine missions and towards whom he tends as his final goal.[183] This is expressed in St. Thomas’ doctrine on salvation as the reception by the creature of the divine persons themselves.[184]

In his created origins, therefore, each person is in the first instance disposed by his faculties of knowing and loving to know and love himself, [185] and as a fruit of that presence of self to self to seek the origin and end of self and to act in an integrated manner for that end—in this is found the image of the one divine nature in each man.[186]

In the second instance, each person is disposed by his faculties of knowing and loving to relate to others analogously and in various ways as Giver of a Gift, Receiver of a Gift, and co-producer of the Gift itself—in this is found the image of the Trinity of Persons in each man.

By the same faculties and the same image, therefore, he is further disposed towards a unity of purpose and action with other persons, as a fruit of those relationships—in this is found an image of the Trinity of divine Persons in society.

The life of the Trinity comprises a full giving and receiving of the gift of self, a gift and reception which is only possible among divine Persons who fully possesses self and who live in acommunio of love.[187] Man’s self is primarily a gift of being, nature and of growth in perfection, received from God through the co-operation of other men. He cannot gather up and return that gift per se, but he can gratefully accept it and render to God and to other men the fruits of the gifts he has received.

“The likeness we have to God precedes and causes the likeness we have to our neighbour: because from the very fact that we share along with our neighbour in something received from God, we become like to our neighbour.”[188] Man should respond to and promote the good in the other, whether of grace or virtue, or at least in his natural image of God.[189] This is an expression of the conceptual response to good in St. Thomas’ metaphysics, which requires that good be communicated—bonum diffusivum sui—and that one who loves the good should love that same good for others in like manner.[190] “The creature is assimilated to God in two things; first, with regard to this, that God is good; and so the creature becomes like Him by being good; and secondly, with regard to this, that God is the cause of goodness in others; and so the creature becomes like God by moving others to be good.”[191]

The communion of men in society does not imitate the Trinity as though each man representedone of the Persons of the Trinity in his relations with others—man and God are each called ‘person’ in an analogical, not in a univocal sense.[192] The imago of the Trinity is in each created person as a person-in-relation. It belongs to the perfection of that image that he give himself to other, accept the gift of other, and constitute that gift by his action in union with other.

If we speak of the happiness of this life, the happy man needs friends, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 9), not, indeed, to make use of them, since he suffices himself; nor to delight in them, since he possesses perfect delight in the operation of virtue; but for the purpose of a good operation, viz. that he may do good to them; that he may delight in seeing them do good; and again that he may be helped by them in his good work. For in order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends.[193]

Reflecting on this teaching of St. Thomas, we can say that the aptitudinal imago Dei in man is disposed to co-operate with the gift of grace by an openness to truth and good in the natural operations of the intellect and will. These operations have as their proper object the imago Deipresent to man in creation, in self and in other men. The imago Dei, in its origin and development, is a created gift of the self of God in each man. It is realised in him when he accepts and responds to that gift in himself and in others by entering into a union of self-giving love with his fellow men and, in that communion, with the divine Trinity. The characteristic operations of the imago Dei in man are, therefore, the acceptance of the gift received and conformity to the exemplar proposed for him by God, a commitment to the pursuit of that end for self and for others, and a consequent giving of self by rendering to others and to God the fruits of the gifts received.[194]

This personal extasis[195] and mutual indwelling[196] are made possible by the corporeal nature of man—“corporis autem humani forma est anima rationalis, in qua imago Dei consistit“[197]—as indicated by the aboriginal expressions of this image and its fruitfulness in Genesis—“they become one flesh” (Gen 2:24) and “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it”(Gen 1:28). The generic fruit of that perfection is many acting as one—human solidarity. It is this fruition or perfection of the image in each person that constitutes an image of the Trinity in the unity of men.

The final end for which God made the human species is not per se the beatitude of individual men, taken as isolated units[198]. It is the beatitude of each man as part of a social organism[199]¾“the organized society of those who enjoy the vision of God”[200]¾in which each has his proper place,[201] contingent on his active co-operation with divine providence in his own regard and in his relations with others.[202]

It is not of the essence of beatitude but of its perfection that man enjoy the vision of God in eternal life in company with other men. If it were of the essence of man’s beatitude, he would not be a person propter seipsam. Nevertheless, since he attains to God through his relations with other men, it is fitting that he should also enjoy the fruit of that relationship in the fellowship of other men. “But if we speak of perfect Happiness which will be in our heavenly Fatherland, the fellowship of friends is not essential to Happiness; since man has the entire fullness of his perfection in God. But the fellowship of friends conduces to the well-being (ad bene esse) of Happiness.”[203]

The Perfection of the Image

It is appropriate, therefore, to consider also the extension of the imago Dei in time and its implications for human solidarity, for “although man's temporal life in itself ends with death, still it continues dependent in a measure on what comes after it in the future.”[204] St. Thomas teaches that, in addition to the immediate personal judgement after death, a final judgement is necessary because “a perfect and public Judgment cannot be made of all these things during the course of this present time.”[205] He instances five ways in which the lives of men have effects that live after them in the lives of others, such as to affect their final reward.[206] The need for a “public” judgement of these matters, as a matter of justice, indicates an implicit solidarity in the whole of the human race. It is also of considerable interest to note that he relates the possibility of such a final ‘adjustment’ to the corporeal nature of man, on which his solidarity is based.[207]

The image in the human race of the divine life of the Trinity comprises the interpersonal communion of those who (actually or at least potentially) love God.[208] The perfection of this image is the ultimate common good of man. Since the fall and restoration of man, the common good is personified in Christ, ascended to heaven as Head of mankind, the efficient cause of our salvation, such that union with him in heaven is the end of man.[209] In particular, the glorification of our bodies depends immediately on his resurrection[210] and ascension. The perfection of the body is necessary for perfect happiness.[211]

If God beholds in eternity the denouement of his creation in time, when he “saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31), it is fitting that the final glory of that creation should be manifest to the creatures for whose sake he had poured out his goodness. St. Thomas[212] structures his account of the doctrine of the particular and general judgement around the same key ideas on which his account of creation, being and good are based. He says[213] that operation is the origin of a thing and judgement its term. We distinguish two types of operation in God, and therefore two judgements.

One operation—the first perfection—is that whereby he establishes all things in being, each with its distinctive nature and in a cosmic order of the parts one to another. That perfection corresponds to the imago Dei in man, both individual and social. The second operation is that whereby he governs all things by his providence and guides them to their final end—“My Father is working still, and I am working” (Jn 5:17). This corresponds in man to the perfection of thesimilitudo, the quality of each personal image and its contribution to the perfection of the social image.

The judgement of this latter operation corresponds to the individual lives of each subject of God’s providence, and that is the particular judgement. “By this judgment each one is judged individually according to his works, not only as adapted to himself, but also as adapted to the government of the universe. Hence one man's reward is delayed for the good of others (Heb. 11:13, 39, 40), and the punishment of one conduces to the profit of another.”[214]

The sovereignty of God’s goodness over evil is reflected in his allowing evil to co-exist with good, for the profit of the good. “He said to them, `An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, `Then do you want us to go and gather them?' But he said, `No; lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them” (Mt 13:28-9). Because the good and evil effects of man’s actions are not yet realised at the moment of his death, “it is necessary that there should be another, and that a general judgment corresponding on the other hand with the first formation of things in being, in order that, to wit, just as then all things proceeded immediately from God, so at length the world will receive its ultimate complement, by each one receiving finally his own personal due. Hence at this judgment the Divine justice will be made manifest in all things.”[215] If the sins of men give rise to ‘structures of sin’ in society, likewise—and more powerfully—the good that men do gives rise to what we might call ‘structures of good’. Co-operation among men gives rise to merit[216] before God[217] and men,[218] as an expression of the final causality of good[219]—bonum diffusivum sui[220]—the full measure of which will be unfolded before all men in the Final Judgement.

This twofold judgement underlines the ultimate solidarity of the human race and the unity of God’s creative intention. It is not a merely accidental or utilitarian interdependence but an intrinsic part of the design of God that his creatures would participate as secondary causes in the communication by God of his goodness to men. It is in this that the personal likeness of man to God consists. The likeness intended by God in creation should be conceived in terms of its final accomplishment and cannot properly be judged in the course of its development.[221]The relational character of good is also a metaphysical foundation for the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ, which in turn underlies the idea of a collective image of God in society, with the incarnate Christ as its head, which is formed by the whole body of mankind and which reaches its perfection, firstly through the perfection of its head and secondly through the communication of that perfection to its members.[222]

Chapter Three

III. Foundations of Solidarity

Having regard to the ideas that have already emerged from St. Thomas’ teaching on the imago Dei, the objective of this third chapter will be to establish a more complete basis for human solidarity in his wider teaching. The notion of likeness, the concepts of person and good, the causality of the Trinitarian processions[223] and the co-operation of order in creation are the key areas to be considered. These interrelated concepts are complementary modes of analysis, which can each shed light on the question in hand.

The following account will focus on a key doctrine of the Compendium—the good of the person is only achieved “in a sincere giving of himself.”[224] The doctrine of the imago Dei, as we have seen, provides the theological context and foundation for a notion of human good which is only attained insofar as it is sought together with others and is directed to God. The point of that solidarity and of the image of God which it serves are also situated by St. Thomas on a larger cosmic plane—that of order as the perfection of the likeness to God in creation. In this wider context we can discern something of the moral implications of human solidarity for man’s stewardship of the material world. We can also see more clearly how St. Thomas integrates the analogous notions of ‘person’ and ‘good’ in God and man and shows us the deepest meaning of that unity of which human solidarity is the natural foundation in man.

With this objective in mind, we shall consider only those elements of his overall synthesis which bear directly on the question of solidarity, taking it as understood that this cannot be a comprehensive account. In particular, it is worth noting again that the focus of this study is on solidarity in human nature per se—without discussing, for the most part, the effects of sin or grace—as a foundation for the transformation of solidarity in the assumption of human nature by Christ.

In this chapter, therefore, we will look at St. Thomas’ concepts of good (1) and person (2), and the origin of the person in the Trinity (3). Finally we will look at St. Thomas’ use of the patristic teaching on a co-operation of order in creation (4) as an important element of human solidarity.

III.1   The Good of the Person

Solidarity is between human persons. It involves the relationship of each one to his own good and to that of others. In order to understand in what sense the good of one person can be the good of another, we should review some aspects of the concepts of ‘good’ and ‘person’. For St. Thomas, a consideration of human good begins with the origin and end of man’s being.[225]His reasoned account has at its summit the divine nature as ipsum esse subsistens,[226] the simple and unlimited act of being, perfectly infinite and complete, such that nothing can beindependently of God. At the heart of his analysis is the understanding that esse is not a static existence, a simple correlative of non-existence, but pure subsisting actuality, excluding all potency.[227] Everything acts insofar as it is in act, and God of his essence is pure act.[228]

God’s own Being is Truth itself to his intellect and Goodness itself to his will.[229] While rejecting Plato’s general theory of ideas,[230] St. Thomas agrees with him on one fundamental point—“It is absolutely true that there is first something which is essentially being and essentially good, which we call God, as appears from what is shown above, and Aristotle agrees with this.”[231]

Without in the least purporting to deduce a doctrine of the Trinity by reasoned argument[232]—“non propter rationes inductas, quae non necessario concludunt, sed propter fidei veritatem”[233]—St. Thomas shows that his account of being and good and of the processions of the divine persons by intellect and will is fully congruent with the revealed dogma.[234]

The one divine essence is communicated to divine Persons proceeding in that essence[235]and these processions bring about a distinction of subsisting relations in God.[236] The divine processions are also the cause and type[237] of the communication ad extra of a participation in being. To create is common to the whole Trinity, such that a likeness to the essential attributes of the Creator may be found directly in creatures, according to their capacities. Following the author of the Liber de causis,[238] St. Thomas points to the absence of limitation in the pure act of the divine essence to explain the divine willingness to communicate a likeness to the divine essence ad extra,[239] because a disposition to communicate is inherent in the notion of good.[240]

However, “the last end is not the communication of the divine goodness, but that goodness itself for love of which God wills to communicate it.”[241] It follows that it is knowing and willing the divine essence—the act of the being of God—that strictly defines the meaning of absolute Good as final end.[242] Nevertheless, a communication of goodness follows immediately on the Good itself as its fruit.[243] The subsisting relations in the Trinity are the perfect expression of this goodness.

As the Father speaks Himself and every creature by His begotten Word, inasmuch as the Word ‘begotten’ adequately represents the Father and every creature; so He loves Himself and every creature by the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as the Holy Ghost proceeds as the love of the primal goodness whereby the Father loves Himself and every creature. [244]

This passage is significant because it reminds us that St. Thomas expressly includes the knowledge and willing of creatures in the divine act which determines the meaning of absolute Good. While the good of actual or possible creatures is not that of God,[245] it is a concomitant good in the notional acts of the divine Persons.[246]

Analogy of Good

St. Thomas affirms a relative goodness—which is not the goodness of God—in created things because they bear a likeness to God. Participation in being (esse commune) is the foundation for participation in good and hence for the analogy of good. Diffusion of good ad extra does not suppose an addition to absolute being or to absolute good,[247] but a tending towards a finite participation in the same good as end by other persons.[248] What is communicated ad extra is not the divine essence[249] as such, but a finite likeness.[250] “The relationship of participant to participated is that of limiting potency to limitless act. This last point establishes the analogical relationship between subsistent Esse and created esse. … At the heart of every actually existing thing is, in Gilson's phrase, ‘a participated image of the pure Act of Being’.”[251]

The notion of perfection can be taken in an absolute or relative sense. Compared to absolute being or good, what is being or good by participation is imperfect. However, beings have their ‘own’ perfection, a participation in being and good which is due or appropriate to their nature. Limited beings have a relative perfection insofar as they achieve that fullness of being. St. Thomas also applies the concept of ‘fullness of being’ to the operational good of the acts which flow from the substantial form and its accidental perfections.[252]

In addition to the distinction between essential and participated good (the vertical dimension of analogy), St. Thomas identifies three ‘horizontal’ categories of participation in good,[253]corresponding to three types of perfection which are found in things and three types of causality which bring about that perfection.[254]

When a being is whole in its own nature, it has a substantial or primary perfection (perfectio prima). The acts of a being in its nature realise its accidental or secondary perfection (perfection secunda).[255] There are three levels of perfection in all. First, according to thebeing of a thing; second, in respect of any accidental perfections necessary for its perfect operation; and third, according as it attains to something outside itself as its end.[256] To each of these perfections there is a corresponding fullness of being and good—the natural good of its being, the acquired good of its development and the final good of its end.

In God, however, these perfections are one in his essence. Thus, he is perfect in his being, perfect in his operation[257] (pure actuality), and is the ultimate and perfect cause of the good of everything that is. Likewise, he is the first, efficient, exemplar and final cause of the being of all things.[258] A further classical division of the good regards the motive of the agent and thus a thing may be a worthy, useful or pleasant good.[259]

In all of these uses of the notion of good, a common feature is the reference of the object to an end which is its perfection. Thus the use of ‘good’ in relation to the being of a created thing (its ‘primary perfection’) is less appropriate than its use in relation to its operation (its ‘secondary perfection’), because it is the dynamic factor that contrives its fullness of being, its absolute good.

Love of the Good

The primary relationship between an agent and the good is love, the first act of the will, but that is expressed either as desire and hope for an absent good or joy and delight at a good possessed.[260] Love of desire is a love of oneself. “For love wishes something to somebody: hence the things that we desire, we are properly said to 'desire,' not to 'love,' but in them we rather love ourselves for whom we desire them.”[261] The powers of intellect and will are reflexive. Just as man can understand his own act of understanding as true, he can will his own act of willing as good. Love can therefore love its own act and this is joy and delight in a good possessed.

Love of the good for another is called friendship. In this case there are actually two loves involved—one, the benevolent love of a person for his friend, to whom he wishes good—and that love is itself a good—and the other, the love for the good which he wishes to his friend.[262] “By the fact that anyone loves another, he wills good to that other. Thus he puts the other, as it were, in the place of himself; and regards the good done to him as done to himself. So far love is a binding force, since it aggregates another to ourselves, and refers his good to our own.”[263]

A characteristic note of good as end, therefore, is that not alone is it desired, but when attained it is loved with the joy of possession. It is identified with being considered not as such but in relation to other. Good therefore expresses the relational character of being, supremely so in the immanence of the divine nature, ipsum esse. The grounding of the notion of the good inbeing is of radical importance for the understanding of created reality. Cut loose from this anchor, the power of love easily gives way to the love of power and the loss of both.

Subsisting and accidental good

The orientation to the final end is of such importance that the notion of good is not limited to actualised good, to being, but includes relation to the end. “For being is an absolute term, while there is goodness even in relation: for not only is a thing called good because it is an end, or is in possession of an end, but also, though it has not yet arrived at any end, provided only it be ordained to some end, a thing is called good even on that account. … Herein it appears that good is a term of wider extension than being.”[264]

Absolute good is thus the ultimate, but not the only, object of desire and love. St. Thomas distinguishes good simpliciter from relative good and being simpliciter from relative being, on the basis of the perfection of the subject. Substantial being (or being simpliciter) reduces the subject from pure potentiality to limited actuality, or primary perfection. This ‘simple’ being, however, is not complete and is therefore ‘good’ only in a relative sense. When relative being­—a secondary perfection, which subsists in another—is added to being simpliciter, the substance moves towards its ultimate perfection, its proper end, and becomes good simpliciter.[265] This good simpliciter is produced when any perfection—not only the last end—is realised.

From this analysis, St Thomas derives the principle that every being has a natural inclination to a due end, its proper perfection. “Upon the form follows an inclination to the end, or to an action, or something of the sort; for everything, in so far as it is in act, acts and tends towards that which is in accordance with its form.”[266] The end is therefore an operation, or something which is attained by means of an operation. A being is perfect when it attains the end indicated by its form, and this is the good of its nature.[267]

An end has two essential characteristics—“it must be sought or desired by things which have not yet attained the end, and it must be loved by the things which share the end, and be, as it were, enjoyable to them.  For it is essentially the same to tend to an end and in some sense to repose in that end.”[268] Likewise the act of being, “for whatever does not yet participate in the act of being tends toward it by a certain natural appetite” and “everything which already has being naturally loves its being and with all its strength preserves it.”[269]

The participated act-of-being is the first perfection or being simpliciter of the creature. In question Six of the Prima Pars, all participated being is regarded as accidental when compared with the being of God¾“The goodness of a creature is not its very essence, but something superadded; it is either its existence, or some added perfection, or the order to its end. Still, the goodness itself thus added is good, just as it is being. But for this reason is it called being because by it something has being, not because it itself has being through something else: hence for this reason is it called good because by it something is good, and not because it itself has some other goodness whereby it is good.”[270] When St. Thomas discusses this point inDe veritate, however, he says that the act-of-being of a subsistent is convertible with good and vice versa, whereas an added property or habit is an inherent or accidental good, which is a being-in-another, distinguished from being simpliciter.[271]

The importance of this distinction for the matter in hand is that the good on account of whichone man loves his neighbour with a love of friendship is the good of his being simpliciter¾his nature and dignity as imago Dei which he shares with the neighbour and all men¾whereas the good which the lover wills for the beloved is that he may grow in likeness to God through an increase in virtue.

For just as that which has existence, is a being simply, while that which exists in another is a relative being; so, because good is convertible with being, the good, which itself has goodness, is good simply; but that which is another's good, is a relative good. Consequently the love with which a thing is loved, that it may have some good, is love simply; while the love, with which a thing is loved, that it may be another's good, is relative love.[272]

The clear implication is that, whereas a virtuous man is accidentally more loveable¾as having a greater likeness to God¾the reason on account of which one man should love and respect the fundamental dignity of others is not dependent on the personal virtues¾real or apparent¾of the others. It is intrinsic human dignity, therefore, and not accidental qualities that forms the basis of the intercourse on which human solidarity is based. “One may have regard for men in two ways. First in so far as there is in them something divine, for instance, the good of grace or of virtue, or at least of the natural image of God: and in this way those are blamed who have no regard for man.”[273]

Communication of Good

St. Thomas explains that a person is most perfectly in the image of God when, in addition to knowing and willing God, he communicates the Good to others. This is an important application of the general metaphysical principle that good is of itself diffusive and communicative. Although God is always the primary cause of the Good, as He is the primary cause of all being, He confers on rational creatures—to enable them to act ad imaginem Dei—the power to be a secondary cause of the Good for other persons.[274] In fact all being—insofar as it is, it is good—has some potential to participate in the communication of good, but this is true in a more important sense of rational creatures. By freely directing their operations of knowing and willing to God as their final end, they co-operate with His providence for themselves and become causes of good in others.

The natural capacity of man to know and love—a potency open to God which is the basis of hisimago Dei—is itself a relative good. That good is increased through his operations of knowing and loving in accordance with his end, and thus he grows in the likeness to God. Every perfection of good in man, beginning with his natural imago Dei, has the potential to communicate good to others by acting as final end for their operations of knowing and willing.

Communication of Good, properly speaking, means causing a new participation—or the accidental perfection of an existing participation—in the act of being, by a rational creature. This can be seen in various ways in which human persons affect each other.

If one person perceives in another a material or spiritual deficiency which it is somewhat within his power to remedy, and if in addition he recognises—at least implicitly—in that other person a dignity equal to his own as a rational creature of God, he has in that human dignity a motive sufficient to move him to remedy the deficiency. This is especially so when the deficiency in question is in respect of something due to the human nature of the other person, because it is in this that human dignity makes its strongest appeal.[275]

A beneficiary can passively communicate a true good¾as end¾to the benefactor by his very being and circumstances. On the other hand, the good operation of the benefactor is a perfection of his likeness to God, which is also capable of moving others to good in various ways, e.g. to gratitude, to follow example, to honour good deeds and other good acts. The benefactor imitates the goodness of God, by which God remedies the ontological ‘need’ of possible beings by creating them and guiding them thereafter to their end by His providence. That enhanced imago Dei is not a means for others to know and love God—it is in itself an intermediate end, which induces good operations in self and others leading to their final end. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 5:16)

Having reviewed the notions of likeness and good, we turn now to the subject of this participation in good, the human person. Solidarity is a certain unity of persons and to understand why and how this can be a part of God’s design for his likeness, we should consider more closely the subject of this solidarity.

III.2   The Person

A person[276] is a particular case—in an intellectual being—of a distinct subject of being.[277]The subsisting subject¾of which God the Father is exemplar and principle¾is one of three elements in his overall analysis of being: the subject in se,[278] the essence, and esse. “In some creatures even what subsists in the essence is one thing, and its essence or nature another” and “the act-of-being another.”[279]

In order to formulate an adequate concept of the created person, we can begin—as St. Thomas does, most notably in the Summa theologiae and the Summa contra Gentiles—by reviewing the concept of ‘person’ as it originates in the divine exemplar, where all three poles of the analysis coincide.

For every creature subsists in its own being, and has a form, whereby it is determined to a species, and has relation to something else. Therefore —

a)    as it is a created substance, it represents the cause and principle; and so in that manner it shows the Person of the Father, Who is the "principle from no principle;"

b)    according as it has a form and species, it represents the Word as the form of the thing made by art is from the conception of the craftsman;

c)    according as it has relation of order, it represents the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as He is love, because the order of the effect to something else is from the will of the Creator.[280]

Person and act-of-being

In speaking of God, St. Thomas makes it clear that our rational knowledge is indirect and analogous. We can know from His effects that the proposition “God is” is true, but we cannot know His essence or His act-of-being.[281] We can also deduce that there cannot be composition of esse and essence in God, but we can posit a notional essence. “Although in God these are most truly one, there is still in God whatever belongs to the notion of a subsistent, or of essence, or of being itself: for it is suitable to Him that He should not be in something, in that he is subsistent; that he should be what he is, in that He is essence; and that He be in act, by reason of his act-of-being.”[282]

St. Thomas considers the objection—in the Super librum De causis expositio—that, if God is His own esse,[283] something must nevertheless be; there must be some individual, subject or prime matter¾yliatim¾who is or which receives esse.[284] Were it otherwise, the objection argues, God would be an abstraction representing the common esse of everything that has existence—an error which St. Thomas elsewhere refutes.[285]

The author of the Liber De causis says that the infinite unreceived esse is distinguished fromevery other being precisely because of the absence of the limitation in its act and goodness which would necessarily arise from its being received in something. The role of First Cause—no other being can be or act unless caused by it—supplies the individuating role in the divine esse.[286] The First Cause—which is the act-of-being itself and goodness itself—is not received in anything,[287] whereas the esse of every other being is limited by something which receives it.[288]

The notion of God as subject begins, therefore, with a negation of the idea that the divine esseis something common that is received in a subject[289]—and in consequence we can affirm that the esse of God is an esse subsistens, radically distinct from the received esse common to every other being. “The fact that the being of God is self-subsisting [per se subsistens], not received in any other, and is thus called infinite, shows Him to be distinguished from all other beings, and all others to be apart from Him.”[290]

St. Thomas deduces from this a general principle of individuation, which he defines as having a nature not to be received in something.[291] “And in this way there is individuation in separate substances, which are forms having esse, and in the first cause itself, which is essesubsisting.”[292] An individual or hypostasis, therefore, is something that subsists of itself.[293]“Hypostasis est substantia prima, integra, tota in se.”[294] In corporeal things, this is from matter; in subsisting forms, it is from the form (not the esse); in God, the esse itself subsists.[295] Thus the notion of “individual” is analogically common, being divided into three modes.[296]

The individuation of the divine nature—the ‘form’ of God—is the very subsistence of the divineesse. “If Socrates were a man by what makes him to be this particular man, as there cannot be many Socrates, so there could not in that way be many men. Now this belongs to God alone; for God Himself is His own nature.”[297]

In the case of creatures, however, the individual form—the hypostasis—of the creature is distinct from his nature. “That whereby Socrates is a man, can be communicated to many; whereas, what makes him this particular man, is only communicable to one.”[298] A created individual form is the principle of subsistence and distinction of the creature, the subject of the received act-of-being—“Deus simul dans esse, producit id quod esse recipit.”[299]

It is the hypostasis that ‘has’ the nature—“hypostasis habet, natura habetur”[300]—and if this nature is rational, the hypostasis is a person.[301] “Strictly speaking, the essence is what is expressed by the definition. Now, the definition comprises the principles of the species, but not the individual principles. Hence in things composed of matter and form, the essence signifies not only the form, nor only the matter, but what is composed of matter and the common form, as the principles of the species. But what is composed of this matter and this form has the nature of hypostasis and person. … Hypostasis and person add the individual principles to the idea of essence; nor are these identified with the essence in things composed of matter and form, as we said above when treating of divine simplicity.”[302]

Person and nature

Although of itself it is one absolute subsistent according to number, nevertheless there are in the divine nature several supposita distinct from one another as subsisting relations.[303] The term ‘person’ for St. Thomas signifies what is most perfect in all of nature---a subsistent individual of a rational nature—and so it is fitting to apply this term to God, but in a more excellent way than it is ascribed to creatures.[304] “It follows from what precedes that there are several persons in God. For it was shown above that this word ‘person’ signifies in God a relation as subsisting in the divine nature. It was also established that there are several real relations in God; and hence it follows that there are also several realities subsistent in the divine nature; which means that there are several persons in God.”[305]

The fundamental principle in the plurality of the divine persons is that the distinction of persons is strictly limited to what is opposed in the divine nature—that is, the relations. In the formula of the Council of Florence (1439)—“In Deo omnia sunt unum, ubi non obviat relationis oppositio.”[306] This means that the absolute properties or essential attributes of God, which are not mutually opposed or distinguished, are really one and common to the three persons. It also follows from the simplicity of God that His attributes subsist, but in the absolute subsistence of the divinity, not in the relative subsistence of the Persons.[307]

The term ‘person’ in God does not signify the individual on the part of its nature—as ‘some man’ signifies a common nature with the determinate mode of existence of singular things—but the subsistent reality in that nature. “Now this is common in idea to the divine persons, that each of them subsists distinctly from the others in the divine nature. Thus this name ‘person’ is common in idea to the three divine persons.”[308] The term is applied by St. Thomas to the relations in God only insofar as the relations are subsisting in the divine essence, not as pure relations—“This word ‘person’ is said in respect to itself, not to another; forasmuch as it signifies relation not as such, but by way of a substance---which is a hypostasis.”[309]

It is worth noting this subtle but important conclusion, as it has implications also for human persons. Although personality is a principle of distinction, a person is not defined as person by being in relation to another—relation is accidental—, the person is propter seipsam.

The meaning of ‘person’ applied to a creature retains the exemplar idea of a subsistent reality in a nature, but adds what distinguishes one individual in a created nature from another. “In human nature it signifies this flesh, these bones, and this soul, which are the individuating principles of a man, and which, though not belonging to ‘person’ in general, nevertheless do belong to the meaning of a particular human person.”[310]

The multiplication of individual creatures composed of matter and form comes from the individual forms, not from the essence.[311] In the case of the divine generation, however, there is no multiplication of nature according to number because personal individuation in God is relative—it is not a principle of distinct subsistence at the level of esse, as it is in the case of creatures. [312]

Whereas the divine persons are distinguished from each other by the subsisting relations—which derive from their mode of origin in a single essence—created persons are differentiated from each other by signate matter.[313] “In things composed of matter and form, the essence signifies not only the form, nor only the matter, but what is composed of matter and the common form, as the principles of the species. But what is composed of this matter and thisform has the nature of hypostasis and person. For soul, flesh, and bone belong to the nature of man; whereas this soul, this flesh and this bone belong to the nature of this man.”[314]

The individual property of a divine person is therefore analogous to the individual form of a created person. “For although paternity is signified as the form of the Father, nevertheless it is a personal property, being in respect to the person of the Father, what the individual form is to the individual creature.”[315] The individual form or property is distinguished from the essence—in the case of a creature—or, from the power which signifies that essence—in the case of God. Otherwise, in the case of man “Socrates would beget Socrates” and in the case of God, “the Father would beget the Father.” That by which the Father begets the Son is the divine nature, in which the Son is like to the Father; analogously, that by which Socrates begets a son is his human nature. “So neither can paternity be understood as that by which the Father begets, but as constituting the person of the Father.”[316]

The modes of individuation can therefore be compared, as between divine and created persons, as follows:

a)   the principle of individuation is a principle of subsistence in created persons, because a nature only subsists in individuals, but not in divine persons, which on the contrary subsist in the divine essence,[317]

b)   the principle of individuation is a principle of distinction in created persons, in that they are distinguished one from another in a common nature, because no individual is identified exclusively with that nature; analogously, the divine persons are distinguished one from another in the divine nature, because each person—although identified with the divine essence through his property—is not identified with the divine essence to the exclusion of the other properties.[318]

Person, essence and esse

Divine and created persons differ at the level of subsistence in that created persons are individuated—as habens esse—because they have each received[319] a discrete participation in esse commune,[320] whereas divine persons are not individuated at the level of esse—each subsists in and is identified with ipsum esse subsistens, but the divine essence as such does not subsist in the persons. A created person is ‘towards God’ in the same sense that his participated act-of-being is ‘towards’ ipsum esse. A created person—habens esse—is therefore relational and inclined to an end outside himself.

On the other hand, the notion of ‘person’ includes incommunicability; the notion of ‘nature’ does not.[321] To be a person in a nature does not necessarily exhaust that nature[322] to the exclusion of other persons,[323] because the nature is of the person but the person is not of the nature—hypostasis habet, natura habetur.”[324] In the case of God, “because the divine essence signifies a form as regards the person, it may properly be said that the essence is of the person; but we cannot say the converse, unless we add some term to designate the essence; as, for instance, the Father is a person of the ‘divine essence’; or, the three persons are ‘of one essence’.”[325] To reverse the terms of the person-essence couplet in the case of God would be to define an absolute by means of a relative subsistence, to the exclusion of the other relative subsistences. Just as it is true that “Socrates is of the nature of man,” but not true that “the nature of man is Socrates,” so is it true that “the Father is of the essence of God,” but not true that “the essence of God is the Father.”

In regard to the divine persons¾but with general application¾St. Thomas says that “the form signified by the word ‘person’ is not essence or nature, but personality.”[326] Although ‘person’ is that which has a nature and an act-of-being,[327] the form ‘personality’ of itself does not confer anything more than a principle of distinction. This implies, for example, that personality is not the principle of goodness[328]¾persons are good insofar as they subsist in a nature¾otherwise, the Father alone would be absolute goodness in the Trinity.

To seek the good as though one person could possess it exclusively is therefore intrinsically erroneous.[329] The root of disunity is not existential individuation, but the pursuit of the goodqua individuated and incommunicable—as though it were located in person, essence or in matter, which cannot yield a true fullness of esse.[330]

The participated act-of-being is not the intelligible good of the human person from the fact thatesse is individuated in a subject, but from the fact that it actualises its potency as man and moves him towards the fullness of being—i.e. it is the power of esse to actualise human potency that makes it the intrinsic good for man. It is ordered to the ultimate good of man whereby he is united with the persons of the Trinity.

Every subject called by God from nothingness to receive the gift of being and a likeness to God, is a subject of a double election—one, that he is chosen to be—in God’s image—for all eternity (primary perfection), while other possible creatures are not; the other, that he is chosen to receive the grace of likeness to that image (secondary perfection) sufficient to attain—through grace—an eternal participation in the knowing and loving of the divine Trinity. It is the fact of that double election that defines a created Person, one who is loved by God for his own sake and for whom the highest good is willed by God.[331] Man is good and loveable because he isimago Dei.

From divine to created persons

Why would God have willed an Image or likeness of the divine essence? In this section, we will try to synthesise from the doctrine of St. Thomas a relationship between the creative intent of the divine Persons and the solidarity it implies in human nature. As with the earlier elements of the analysis, the Summa theologiae indicates that we should approach this question from the notion of ‘image’ in God Himself, because St. Thomas makes a direct comparison between the image of God in man and the Word of God as Image of the Father.

The image of a thing may be found in something in two ways. In one way it is found in something of the same specific nature; as the image of the king is found in his son. In another way it is found in something of a different nature, as the king's image on the coin. In the first sense the Son is the Image of the Father; in the second sense man is called the image of God.[332]

There is a secondary causality of the Persons in creation,[333] each of whom is present in the common act according to his proper mode.[334] “Thus it is evident that relation to the creature is implied both in the Word and in the proceeding Love, as it were in a secondary way, inasmuch as the divine truth and goodness are a principle of understanding and loving all creatures.”[335] Further, he makes it clear that the procession of creatures ad extra from the divine nature is intimately bound up with the procession of the Persons in the Trinity itself.

As the Father speaks Himself and every creature by his begotten Word, inasmuch as the Word ‘begotten’ adequately represents the Father and every creature; so He loves Himself and every creature by the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as the Holy Ghost proceeds as the love of the primal goodness whereby the Father loves Himself and every creature.[336]

Essential intellection and volition in God have as their object the divine essence itself, including all possible likenesses of that essence—whether or not those likenesses are ever brought to actuality.[337] The divine nature is communicated in the immanent processions of the Trinity,[338] according to the personal mode of the Father and the Son,[339] such that (a) the Word is the complete enunciation of the divine essence and of every possible creature in the Father, and (b) the Spirit is the complete spiration of the mutual love of the Father and of the Son for the divine essence and for every creature, in each other.

The phrase ‘every possible creature’ does not imply an additional power in the divine essence. It affirms that—because the Father can enunciate the infinite majesty of the Son in the divine nature but cannot enunciate a second Son[340]—by that same power He can also give origin to a finite likeness of His only Son,[341] and together with the Son, in the Spirit, He can will that likeness to come to be.

Now, the divine intellect understands by no species other than the divine essence. Nevertheless, the divine essence is the likeness of all things. Thereby, it follows that the conception of the divine intellect as understanding itself, which is the Word, is the likeness not only of God Himself understood, but also of all those things of which the divine essence is a likeness. In this way, therefore, through one intelligible species, which the divine essence, and through one understood intention, which is the Divine Word, God can understand many things.[342]

The active potential to create is also intrinsic to the power of spiration in the will of God, because the divine power to create ad extra is the substance of God, considered as the principle of things created.[343] The Father communicates the divine essence itself—with its intrinsic creative potential—in his gift of self to his Son, and both communicate it to the Spirit, such that the Father only creates through the Son, in the Spirit.[344] If that potential had not been actualised¾as it need not have been¾the Father and Son would nevertheless have communicated everything of the divine essence perfectly.

There is no real difference in God—as ipsum esse—between the active potential to create and the actualised power which produces a finite participation in esse.[345] While in any particular thing, to have being is a good in itself, it does not follow that God is somehow obliged to create an infinite number of beings¾or any at all¾in order to ‘maximise’ the Good.[346] Creation is entirely free. He could have willed, for example, to create a single angelic creature instead of an infinite universe. The inscrutable divine Art, Wisdom and Love are expressed in choosing which persons and things to bring into being and which to leave out, so as to enable creatures to attain the Good through the likeness of God in creation.

Each divine Person has a proper mode in the common divine act of creation, such that the immanent processions are a type and cause of creatures and there is a certain likeness to the Trinity in every subsisting thing—the Father as cause of individuation and personality,[347] the Son as cause of form and species,[348] and the Spirit as cause of order to the final end.[349]

God is the cause of things by His intellect and will, just as the craftsman is cause of the things made by his craft. Now the craftsman works through the word conceived in his mind, and through the love of his will regarding some object. Hence also God the Father made the creature through His Word, which is His Son; and through His Love, which is the Holy Ghost. And so the processions of the Persons are the type of the productions of creatures inasmuch as they include the essential attributes, knowledge and will.[350]

Creatures are the actualisation in participated being of possible essences, chosen by the Father and the Son in the Spirit from among those comprehended by the Father in the conception of the perfect Image.[351] This election is not an additional perfection of divine love¾it was perfect before creation¾but a fitting super-abundance or overflow in which the intrinsic generosity of the Good of the divine essence is made manifest in a created likeness of God. Willing freely, in a gratuitous likeness, what is already willed by nature in the divine essence is a fitting expression in God of His perfect and generous love for the Good.[352]

The transition of creatures from possibles in the mind of God to actually subsisting beings depends on the will of God. The corresponding notional act is that the Father is drawn to possible creatures—as a likeness of the divine essence in His Son—by the power of His love for the Son, personified in the Spirit. The Son is likewise drawn to possible creatures—as a likeness of the gift of the divine essence from His Father— by the power of His love for the Father, also personified in the Spirit. This joint affection toward a created likeness of God is a love proceeding, a gratuitous operation,[353] which the Spirit brings to completion according to his proper mode.

The fittingness of this love for the Good is more evident to us when it is considered as a cosmic gift of God—an actualised likeness of the eternal self-giving and mutual love between the divine Persons—for the benefit of created persons. The substance of what is possessed by the Trinity¾the divine essence¾cannot be increased or added to, but it can be known and loved bymore persons, and that which was known as possible in the active potential of that essence can be known and loved as participating in actuality.

If creation is for the sake of created persons, it is more particularly for the sake of their active participation in the Good which is God. Created persons can thus possess the same Good, already perfectly possessed from all eternity by the divine Persons, in a finite way. The perfection of the creative potential is to be able to cause such a universe and to guide it to its final end, while enabling created persons to co-operate freely towards that end, so to enter into communion with and enjoy possession of the divine persons themselves. The end and perfection of the creation of a likeness to God, the point of the communication of being ad extra, is God himself, but for the sake of persons other than God—that they may attain God by imitating Him in their operations of knowing and loving Him in his Image and ultimately in Himself. At the heart of God’s creation, therefore, is the person (human, angelic) created in theImage of God and to His likeness. In this way, a perfect effect ‘returns to its source’ in a circular motion, as St. Thomas expresses it.[354]

To create, therefore, means to produce a living relation of likeness to God,[355] not merely to create things. Creating a perfect likeness to God also implies that it have an ordered multiplicity of finite parts and grades of being—a cosmos. A likeness to God in creation requires a primary order of all the parts of the universe to God, a secondary order of the parts according to their grades of being and a tertiary order of persons among themselves within the human race. “As all creatures in common represent the divine goodness to the extent that they exist, so by their actions they all in common attain to the divine likeness in the conservation of their being and in the communication of their being to others.”[356]

God knows all possible beings, all possible thoughts, words and actions of all possible intellectual creatures throughout all time. In his infinite wisdom he directs all creatures to their end in accordance with their respective natures. Persons endowed with free will imitate God and attain his likeness more perfectly by participating in his causality, as secondary causes. In this way, they act as artisans in the workshop of the master artist, as stewards of his creation.

In order that this possible universe might actually come to be, a free act of the divine will was required, by which the Blessed Trinity resolved from all eternity to express their mutual love for the Good with a gift of self to elected creatures. That gift of self is a likeness to God which is to be effected by drawing created persons out of self and towards God. The likeness of God itself is to serve as the icon by means of which finite creatures can know and love God in accordance with their natures.[357]

Thus the image of God is found in the soul according as the soul turns to God, or possesses a nature that enables it to turn to God. Now the mind may turn towards an object in two ways: directly and immediately, or indirectly and mediately; as, for instance, when anyone sees a man reflected in a looking-glass he may be said to be turned towards that man.[358]

The love of God for creatures, a disposition ad extra in the divine nature towards the likeness of God in creatures, is described by St. Thomas as an extasis—“Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that ‘the Divine love produces ecstasy,’ and that ‘God Himself suffered ecstasy through love.’ Since therefore according to the same author (Div. Nom. iv), every love is a participated likeness of the Divine Love, it seems that every love causes ecstasy.”[359] The purpose of this divineextasis—expressed as likeness—is to draw the beloved creature out of himself towards others and ultimately to God.[360] It means that every true creaturely participation in love is a movement out of self. It is this natural extasis that constitutes the heart of human solidarity—“He who loves, goes out from himself, in so far as he wills the good of his friend and works for it. Yet he does not will the good of his friend more than his own good: and so it does not follow that he loves another more than himself.”[361]

Man is because of the free extasis of God. He cannot reach the possession of the divine Persons in themselves if he does not respond to the self-giving of the Persons in himself and in others. This involves a giving of self, an acceptance of the gift of others and a willing of the good of others as one’s own good. Man is drawn out of himself in this way by the imago Dei in himself and in others.[362] The Father as origin is the principle of his identity as created person. The Son as Image is the principle of his nature as capax Dei. The Spirit as Gift is the principle of his participation in being and growth in perfection. Recognising the image of this Trinity in himself and in others is the beginning of his participation in the Good.[363] “One may have regard for men in two ways. First in so far as there is in them something divine, for instance, the good of grace or of virtue, or at least of the natural image of God: and in this way those are blamed who have no regard for man.”[364]

The participative character of the Good¾by which man is brought into existence¾is demonstrated by its likeness in creation itself. Good is not exclusive to one person¾each one possesses the good in a unique way but the Good itself is common. Other persons possess the same Good. Each person recognises and loves his own good in the other person. The good as possessed by each person complements the possession of the good by others, to form a unity of communion. The Good, as thus revealed, is normative for man because it defines the reality and meaning of his life and freedom. It is the substance of the dignity of the human person and the foundation of human solidarity.

Loving the good of the person

Gathering together the points we have considered so far in this chapter, we can now make a partial synthesis of the question, so far as it concerns the concepts of likeness, good and person.

We have distinguished the notion of the person from  his essence or nature, and his esse or act-of-being.[365] Personality as such is not the principle of goodness.[366] Taking account of its analogous meanings, we can say that good in general is the possession of an act-of-being by a person in a rational nature. Persons are good insofar as they subsist in a nature. The absolute Good is defined by the subsistence of the Trinity of Persons in the divine essence.

That divine subsistence is pure act and its operations are knowing and willing the divine essence and a likeness thereto in creation. It follows that the good itself is to know, will and foster the subsistence of persons in their respective natures. It is intrinsic to a created act-of-being that it actualise so far as possible in a finite nature the divine operations. In the case of a created person, his act-of-being is received in his nature as a likeness to the act-of-being of the divine essence. That created act-of-being is not only directed to the divine essence as its end, it only attains that end by operations which bear a likeness to the divine operations. It follows that the good of man’s being is to love the Good of the divine essence and the created likeness of that Good¾which is immediate and accessible to him¾in the acts of his intellect.

God loves possible beings insofar as they have a potential relation to good. What God first contemplates in the person is his mere possibility in a specific nature. He elects that possible person to be a likeness to God because of his love for the Image of the divine essence. The first good of the created person is the act-of-being received from God which constitutes himimmortally in being. It is a relative good because it actualises a subject who is capax Dei and is therefore related to the absolute Good as one who can participate in it. We can distinguish the permanent entitative good, which constitutes the person in existence in a particular nature, from the transient moral good¾the good of operation¾which is added as a perfection to the being of the person.[367] This second good is the perfection of the potency of his human nature, by the reception of further acts of being, increasing his similitudo to the absolute Good. Therefore, all created esse is ultimately a relative good¾the good of a person insofar as it moves him from mere possibility to the fullness of being.

Our created powers of knowing and loving are a likeness to the act of God¾who knows and loves the Good¾in accordance with the limitations of our nature. To love the act of being means to know what God knows, to will what God wills and in consequence to do what God does, insofar as our finite nature¾aided by grace¾allows. When God knows, he causes a species to be. When we know, the object known causes a species in us. When God loves, he causes communicates being and draws the beloved to himself. When we love, the beloved causes an affection in us and which draws us to him. When God operates, he communicates good. When we operate, we add accidental perfections to being¾especially the moral good of love which alone is “ours” to give, although it too is a gift received.

When we truly love ourselves or other existing persons, we love the person on account of his first good¾the act of being¾whereby we are actual and immortal and have the potential to beatitude. Unlike the being of accidental perfections, this act-of-being is the permanent and stable foundation for love of the person¾it is the ineradicable basis for human dignity in this life. It is also the reason that God continues to love created persons, even when they reject Him in sin, for as long as they retain any potential to ultimate beatitude.[368] Although they make the person more loveable, we don’t love the accidental goods as though they constituted the person himself. In loving and affirming the person as first good, we are loving a personal participation in esse commune¾a true good¾and for the sake of that act. The good that we want for the person is the secondary act of being, which perfects his participation in the Good. That second act is to understand one’s own permanent nature, to recognise and affirm the permanent nature in the other and jointly with him to seek the perfection of that nature for both.

III.3   Solidarity: A Cooperation of Order

It is evident that there could not be a likeness of God in creation without an order among its many unequal parts.[369] St. Thomas does not describe order in terms of a pragmatic necessity but as a perfection—in fact he considers order to be the “final and noblest perfection of creation.”[370] He describes creation as an exitus of creatures from God—in His image—with a view to a reditus to God through a perfection of that likeness.[371] This regiratio is both personal and cosmic. That single end confers a ‘unity of order’ on the universe,[372] by which all creatures are directed to their final end. The primary order of all creatures to God[373] establishes a secondary order of creatures (by genus and species) among themselves, each serving the other and leading it to God. To this dual order we can add a special tertiary order in respect of the distinction and relation of persons within the human species.

The excellence of order in the universe appears in two ways, first, inasmuch as the whole universe is referred to something beyond the universe, as an army to its leader: secondly, inasmuch as the parts of the universe are referred to one another, like the parts of an army; and the second order is for the sake of the first. But God, in willing Himself as an end, wills other things in their reference to Him as an end. He wills therefore the excellence of order in the universe in reference to Himself, and the excellence of order in the universe in mutual reference of its parts to one another. But the excellence of order is made up of the good of individual existences.[374]

Good implies perfection, which comprises measure, proportion and order.[375] St. Thomas points out at the beginning of the Prima Secundae that orderly and measured operation for good and the participated power to diffuse good come ultimately from the first Good, as its first and final cause. “The First Good diffuses itself according to the intellect, to which it is proper to flow forth into its effects according to a certain fixed form; it follows that there is a certain measure to the flow of good things from the First Good from which all other goods share the power of diffusion.”[376] Measure implies counsel, judgement, and deliberate choice—which cannot be without free will.

Order is a relation of parts to a whole, while dynamic order is an inclination toward a common end and a co-operation of parts for the sake of that end.[377] Multiplicity[378] and inequality are essential to a unity of order among heterogeneous parts.[379] The distinction of meaning betweenunity (opposed to division) and one as the principle of number is also relevant in this context—God does not intend material plurality for its own sake[380] but to achieve the perfection of his likeness in creation.[381]

The contribution of human solidarity to the common good may be seen in the context of this order of the parts of the universe to the final end, the secondary order of the parts among themselves and especially in the tertiary order of interdependence within the human species, whereby each man is accidentally ordered to the other for the sake of the common good of the species.[382] This tertiary order is intrinsically dependent on the primary and secondary orders—if they are removed, the tertiary order is also corrupted.

Individual men are essentially equal as persons in their primary perfection—at the level of person and nature—and it is from that perfection that men have the same final end.[383]Inequality and accidental perfectibility lie in the secondary perfection, whereby men achieve, through their operation a fullness of being which is proper to their nature.[384]

Man is naturally good and perfect, insofar as he acts in accordance with the order proper to his nature, as a dependent, rational, social, animal.[385] The extrinsic final end of man is God in himself and his intrinsic final end is the contemplation of God and a loving communion with him. Whereas non-rational beings bear a likeness to God, rational beings also imitate God in their operations.[386] Thus the true last end of man is an operation.[387]

The modes of order

Man’s operation involves three classes of relation (and thus three modes of order):[388]

1.   A primary relation whereby man should act in view of God, his true final end.

2.   An intrinsic relation whereby the ‘parts’ of man should be ordered one to the other (and thus his actions and passions should be ruled by reason).

3.   An extrinsic relation whereby man, in his relations with other men, should also be ruled by reason.[389]

In each of these modes of order, man is also ‘related’ to instrumental goods (e.g. to food, by his sense appetite) which must also be ordered by reason to his final end. Within the order of the universe, material goods are ordered to man for the sake of his final end.[390] As they are ordered to the needs of the human species, their use belongs primarily to the common good and secondarily to the individual good insofar as it serves the common good.

If any agent whose power extends to various effects were to produce only one of those effects, his power would not be so completely reduced to actuality as by making many. But by the reduction of active power to actuality the effect attains to the likeness of the agent. Therefore the likeness of God would not be perfect in the universe, if there was only one grade of all beings.[391]

No individual man can realise alone all of the potential¾bonum secundum naturam¾of human nature, because part of the perfectio secunda comprises a virtuous relationship¾bonum in actionibus¾with other men.[392] There is therefore an accidental good, a perfection of communion, to be achieved in the human species (as a part ordered to the perfection of the universe),[393] which can only be realised in man acting well in communion with others and in relation to the rest of the universe. [394]

Communion, the extrinsic order in man’s operations, requires a co-operation among men in view of their common intrinsic final end[395]. The common good includes the accidental perfection of the members of the species, each communicating and accepting perfections to and from the others.[396] That co-operation is essential to solidarity, as a virtue that builds communion. As we have seen, the creation of man in the Trinitarian image of God is especially suggestive of this dimension of man’s final end.

The final end for which God made the human species is not per se the beatitude of individual men, taken as isolated units. It is the beatitude of each man as part of a social organism[397]¾“the organized society of those who enjoy the vision of God”[398]¾in which each has his proper place,[399] contingent on his active co-operation with divine providence in his own regard and in his relations with others.[400] The same man may excel over another, or fall short of his measure, in respect of different qualities at different times. These differences are accidental, not essential, and dynamic, not static. Men could not co-operate or help one another without such inequalities.[401]

The need for co-operation in accordance with reason is inherent in human nature[402] and as a principle of order towards the final end it has the character of law.[403] St. Thomas identifies three levels of order, which—although taken from a discussion about angels—are described as general principles applicable to rational species:

1.   Weaker members should submit to the stronger and accept their help,

2.   The stronger should provide for the weaker, and

3.   Each one should serve the whole, maintaining and using his powers and position.[404]

This order of co-operation, applied to the human species, involves a complex interdependence which is intrinsic to human solidarity. The primary natural instance of such co-operation is the mutual support of the spouses and the generation and nurture of children in a family. Members of a family are substantially equal as human persons but over time will be unequal in many accidental but important respects.[405]

This order in the universe was part of what God contemplated and saw that it was ‘very good’.[406] A ‘co-operation of order’—based on the accidental inequalities among human persons—is a necessity of human nature and would have been part of original justice.[407] However, the disorders and inequalities which are caused by sin would have been absent. Thus, Adam was gifted with a special supernatural grace, intended for the whole of human nature, which conferred order on his essential relationships: of man with God, of man within himself, of man with other men, and of man with the material universe.

The essence of co-operation for the common good (in the sense described above) is the reception and communication of accidental good, which actualises the potency of human nature and leads to its ultimate perfection in the image of God.[408] The good that man produces in his operations is principally moral good—in himself, in others and in society. Good elicits more good in others—it presents the will with an adequate motive for a virtuous act.[409] The diffusion of that good in society is the essence of the common good, understood as the means to the final end of man. It finds expression in the concept of ‘communion’—which includes ‘development’—the complex of material, social and cultural arrangements in society in which the common good is fostered.

“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gen 2:18). God wills man to live in society with other men in order that he may act in relation to his neighbour as God acts in relation to him, and in this way attain to a perfect operational likeness to God. “If we speak of the happiness of this life, the happy man needs friends, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 9), not, indeed, to make use of them, since he suffices himself; nor to delight in them, since he possesses perfect delight in the operation of virtue; but for the purpose of a good operation, viz.

1.   that he may do good to them;

2.   that he may delight in seeing them do good; and again

3.   that he may be helped by them in his good work.

For in order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends.”[410] In this useful passage in St. Thomas, we find a succinct outline of the immediate purpose of human solidarity.

Conversely, evil actions of an individual also redound to the harm of society. The original grace of order was lost for the whole of human nature when Adam misused the powers given to him for his perfection. When the primary order of human nature to God was wilfully denied at its root, the tertiary order of men among themselves was lost with it. The effects of sin are not limited to the lives of individual men,[411] but pervade the whole of society, forming veritable ‘structures of sin’[412].

If the sins of men give rise to ‘structures of sin’ in society, likewise—and more powerfully—the good that men do gives rise to what we might call ‘structures of good’. Co-operation gives rise to merit[413] before God and men,[414] as an expression of the final causality of good—bonum diffusivum sui—the full measure of which will only be seen in the Final Judgement.[415] The good that men do, especially when it directly serves the common good, will bear its proper fruit—to their ultimate benefit[416]—if the beneficiaries correspond in kind. His relations of interdependence with others cannot humanly be measured so as, for example, to calculate and recompense every person who has ever assisted him in any way in his human or spiritual development. The underlying issue, however, is not material reward, honour or recognition, although these may all be due in particular cases.[417] The proper response of gratitude for the good that one man receives from others is his service of the common good.

It is clear that this the co-operation of order is another expression of the human solidarity implicit in St. Thomas’ teaching. Whereas each person, as we have seen, has a distinct primary perfection—based on his participation in esse commune—his secondary perfection is achieved through operations that involve the co-operation of others. Man needs his fellow men that he “may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life.”[418]This practical interdependence, in turn, serves a higher solidarity—“that he may do good to them”—by which the image of God in each man is perfected and the life of men in society begins to form a likeness to the communion of the divine Trinity.

Conclusion

We have reviewed in the first chapter the teaching of the Compendium on the solidary humanism at the heart of its understanding of man in society. That doctrine might be summarised as follows:

a)   Every human person is directly willed by God for his own sake.

b)   He is created ad imaginem Dei and given the grace to grow in that likeness—he is related to others and to the world on that basis.

c)   Man reaches this goal by a sincere gift of self, in solidarity with others—his personal good is attained in his commitment to the common good.

d)   The solidarity of the human race—when it is actualised in the virtuous lives of its members—bears a certain likeness to the communion of the Trinity.

In the second chapter, we outlined the main features of the revealed doctrine of the imago Dei, a theological foundation which is strongly emphasised in the Compendium. In St. Thomas, the doctrine encompasses an image of the divine nature and also of the Blessed Trinity in man. He distinguishes a living image—knowing and loving its own end—from a natural likeness in creation which bears the marks of its origin in God and which attains its end by being known and loved by others. The imago Dei in man therefore designates the whole human person—the human body insofar as it is informed by the soul, but not in the body considered separately. The corporeal dimension is intrinsic to a human solidarity that reaches its fulfilment at the Final Judgement.

If the goal of creation as a whole is the participation by created persons in a likeness of the divine essence, each person attains his place in that communion by co-operating willingly in the perfection of the imago Dei in his own person. That perfection involves knowing and loving God in and through His image in other persons and in the material cosmos. It also includes participating in the providence of God by causing others to know and love God.

The perfection of the natural imago Dei in man is in his acquired similitudo to God. To have a likeness to God as final end means to act in a way analogous to the operations of God—to desire to ‘possess’ and be ‘possessed’ by God in contemplation and love—“faciem tuum Domine, requiram!” (Ps. 27:8)—, to want that same end for others created in his image and to act for that end by using the powers and resources given by God for that purpose.

Within this theological context, the third chapter described some of the underlying concepts in the work of St. Thomas—likeness and image, person and good and at order in creation. Following his teaching on the personal mode of the divine causality in creation, we have suggested how the role of the Trinitarian processions leads to a deeper understanding of human solidarity.

To conclude this study, therefore, we can now posit the foundations of human solidarity according to the mind of St. Thomas in the following résumé.

Likeness

The likeness of God in creation is perfect as a likeness, in the first place, because it is a likeness—a participation in being, received in a multiplicity of finite natures, radically distinct from the unlimited being of God Himself.

In second place, the likeness is perfect because it is from God—it bears the marks of its maker. In the distinction and personality of creatures, we can see their origin from the Father. Theessence of every creature reflects in some measure the creative wisdom of the Son. The dynamic participation of creatures in being is the fruition of divine love in the Spirit.

Finally, the likeness is perfect because it is towards God—there is a primary order of the multitude of parts to the end of the whole, which is to form a single likeness of God; there is another order of the grades of being within the whole; and there is also an order of co-operation of equal parts among themselves. “Viditque Deus cuncta, quae fecit, et ecce erant valde bona” (Gen 1:31).

Communion in the good

God’s love for the Good draws him ‘out of self’ into his creation, in order to draw creation to the Good by means of his likeness in it. God becomes present in the created person in grace as the object known is in the knower, and the beloved in the lover, such that God dwells in the person as in His temple. The perfection of His image in created persons draws them to communion in the Good, such that they become an end for each other through which they attain God.

In the overall perfection of creation, the specific likeness to God which is proper to man is a goal which he shares with other men. Their mortal human nature—matter and spirit—gives men immediate occasion to imitate God and to grow in his likeness by co-operating with others, in their natural and supernatural generation and development and in ordering material creation to its end. Through that interdependence, men also co-operate in the sanctifying work of the Spirit, leading each other to know and love God.

It follows that the bond of solidarity among men cannot be a merely contractual, political or utilitarian concept. Solidarity means a communion in the good. To communicate good is to desire for others, as their own intrinsic fulfilment, the good that one also desires for oneself—ultimately, possession by and of God—and to use the means available to achieve that end. To love others with a solidary love, therefore, is to make one’s own the good of the others, insofar as the good in question leads to the final end. Man can only communicate a common good in this way to other persons with whom he shares a common nature, and so love of the common good is a unitive force, binding together the whole of the human race into one body.

That unitive force leads to the perfection of the image of the Trinity in mankind. The image of the Trinity is in every human person as a likeness of all three subsisting divine relations. It belongs to the perfection of that image that man give himself to other, accept the gift of other, and constitute that gift by his action in union with other for the common good.

That communication is effective when men come to know and love the same good, provided the good in question is actually communicable. Material “goods” are not communicable when understood as an end, because they diminish for each one when shared among many. Spiritual goods—truth, justice—on the other hand, are communicable because they grow as they are shared. A true common good is intrinsically communicable—a perfection of the potencies of human nature, not of the signate matter of the individual as such. The corporal needs of individual persons are a part of the common good, insofar as the needs of the body pertain to the essence of the human person. An disordered indulgence of corporal appetites, on the other hand, is contrary to the common good.

The solidary person

The discernible good, common to all men, is that each one possess and perfect the distinct participation in being by which the potency of his human nature is actualised. The good of beingin a human nature is the primary motive of solidary love of one person for another, while the addition of the accidental being of perfection is the good which is desired for him.

While the possession of being itself is personal, the human nature which it actualises in him is the common basis for his life among men and his contribution to the common good. The ultimate act-of-being in which each personal being participates defines the substance of the common good for which men live together in society.

The most immediate and accessible basis for a common understanding of the good is the dignity of the human person. By recognising, at least implicitly, an image of God in himself and in his neighbour, man discovers a way to God through the perfection of that image, in co-operation with others and in service of the common good. Respect for the sacredness of human life is perhaps the minimum requirement for any such understanding.[419]

Through his solidarity with others, man can learn what it means to be a person, to possess being as a gift, to ‘be toward’ others, to love the good. He can learn to love a good which is not himself and ultimately to love God. “The more fully I know myself in the Word to be loved by God, and the more fully I love my interior truth in the Spirit, the more resplendent will be the image of the personal divine being in the interior unity of my divinised spirit: a unity between truth participated in the Word and love participated in the Spirit.”[420] Solidarity is ultimately a preparation and foundation for man’s eternal beatitude in the communion of the Blessed Trinity.

Bibliography

Texts of the Magisterium referred to

International Theological Commission, Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, 2002

John Paul II, Apost. Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, (15 August 1988): AAS 80 (1988), 1665-1666

―――――, Enc. Let. Centesimus Annus, (1 May 1991): AAS 83.10 (Oct 1991), 793-867

―――――, Enc. Let. Fides et ratio, (14 September 1998): AAS 91 (1999) 5-88

―――――, Enc. Let. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, (30 December 1987): AAS 80.5 (May 1988), 513-586

―――――, General Audience, 9-4-1986

―――――, General Audience, 9-I-1980

―――――, Post-Syd. Apost. Exhort. Reconciliatio et paenitentia, (2 December 1984): AAS 77 (1985)

Leo XIII, Enc. Let. Æterni Patris (4 August 1879): ASS 11 (1878-1879), 97-115

Pius XII, Enc. Let. Summi Pontificatus: AAS 31 (1939), 546

Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Vatican City 2004

Second Vatican Council, Past. Const. Gaudium et Spes, (7 December 1965): AAS 58 (7 Dec 1965), 1025-115

General Audiences—

E-text in English taken from Holy See website (Jan 2006)

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/

Texts of the St. Thomas Aquinas referred to

Summa theologiae:

Summa theologiae, (English Dominican Fathers, trans.), Benziger, New York 1947.

E-text by S.K. Perry available (Jan. 2006)—

http://www.stjamescatholic.org/summa/index.html 

Summa theologiae, 60 vols. Gilby, Thomas, et al., trans. London—New York, 1964-73. (The "Blackfriars edition," Latin and English.)

Summa contra gentiles:

Summa contra Gentiles, Book One: God, Anton C. Pegis (trans.), Notre Dame 1975

Summa contra Gentiles, Book Two: Creation, James F. Anderson (trans.), Notre Dame 1975

Summa contra Gentiles, Book Three: Providence (Part I), Vernon J. Bourke (trans.), Notre Dame 1975

Summa contra Gentiles, Book Three: Providence (Part II), Vernon J. Bourke (trans.), Notre Dame 1975

Summa contra Gentiles, Book Four: Salvation, Charles J. O'Neill (trans.), Notre Dame 1975

Of God and His Creatures: An Annotated Translation (with some abridgement) of the Summa contra gentiles of Saint Thos. Aquinas. Joseph Rickaby (trans.)  St. Louis and London 1905

e-text at www.nd.edu/Departments/

Maritain/etext/gc.htm

Compendium of Theology, Cyril Vollert (trans.), St. Louis 1947

The following works of St. Thomas Aquinas are cited from the S. Thomae de Aquino Opera Omnia, Fundación Tomás de Aquino, (2005), in the Latin e-text version available at —

http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html (Jan. 2006)

De ente et essentia, textum a L. Baur Monasterii Westfalorum 1933 editum emendatum a J. Koch

Quaestiones disputatae de malo, textum Taurini 1953 editum

Quaestiones disputatae de potentia, textum Taurini 1953 editum

Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis, textum Taurini 1953 editum

Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, textum Leoninum Romae 1970 editum emendatum ac translatum a Roberto Busa

In librum B. Dionysii De divinis nominibus expositio, textum Taurini 1950 editum

Super librum De causis expositio, textum a H.-D. Saffrey Friburgi Helvetiorum 1954 editum

Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura, textum Taurini 1952 editum

Scriptum super Sententiis, textum Parmae 1856 editum

Information on the various collections and editions of St.Thomas’ works is given in—

Jean-Pierre Torrell, Iniciación a Tomás de Aquino : su persona y su obra,Pamplona 2002

Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, London 1961

An online list of text sources and translations is also maintained by Thérèse Bonin (11 February 2005) at http://www.home.duq.edu/~bonin/thomasbibliography.html

Other works referred to

Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, London 1981

―――――, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues, London 1999

Antonio Aranda, La lógica de la unidad de vida. Identidad Cristiana en una sociedad pluralista, Pamplona 2000

Antonio Poliseno, La amistad y sus virtudes: del afecto por algunos a la solidaridad con todos, Madrid 2004

Barbara Kraemer, Development - Principles for integral human development in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis: «International Journal of Social Economics» XXV: 11-12 (1998) 1727-1738

Bernhard Blankenhorn, The Good as Self-Diffusive in Thomas Aquinas: «Angelicum» 79 (2002) 803-837

David A. Walker, Trinity and Creation in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas: «The Thomist» 57 (1993) 443-455

Elenore Stump—Norman Kretzman, Being and Goodness, in “Thomas Aquinas. Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives”, Brian Davies (ed.), Oxford 2002, p. 295-324

Elisabeth Reinhardt, La dignidad del hombre en cuanto imagen de Dios. Tomás de Aquino ante sus fuentes, Pamplona 2005

Eros Monti, Alle fonti della solidarietà. La nozione di solidarietà nella dottrina sociale della Chiesa, Milano 1999

Ferdinand Prat, La Teología de San Pablo, Mexico 1947

Flavio Felice, The Ethical Foundation of the Market Economy: A Reflection on Economic Personalism in the Thought of Luigi Sturzo: «Journal of Markets & Morality» IV-2 (2001) 151-175

Francis J. Caponi, Karl Rahner and the Metaphysics of Participation, «The Thomist» 67 (2003): 375-408

Frederick G. McLeod, The image of God in the Antiochene tradition, Washington (DC) 1999

Gianno Piana, Solidaridad, in “Diccionario Teológico Enciclopédico”, Estella (Navarra), 2003, 929-930

Gilles Emery, Essentialism or personalism in the treatise on God in Saint Thomas Aquinas?: « The Thomist » 64 (2000) 521-63

―――――, The Personal mode of Trinitarian action in Saint Thomas Aquinas: «The Thomist» 69 (2005) 31-77

―――――, La Trinité créatrice, Paris 1995

J.A. Lombo, La persona en Tomás de Aquino: un estudio historico y  sistemático, Roma 2001

J.L. Gutiérrez García, Solidaridad, in “Gran Enciclopedia Rialp”, XXI (1975) 597-598

Jacques Maritain, True Humanism, London 31941

Janko Zagar, Aquinas and the social teaching of the Church: «The Thomist» 38 (1974) 826-855

Jean Mouroux, Dignidad de la persona humana, in “La Iglesia en el mundo de hoy : Constitución pastoral ‘Gaudium et Spes’”, II: Comentarios, Y. Congar — M. Peuchmaurd (ed.), Madrid 1970, pp. 281-312

―――――, Sentido cristiano del hombre, Madrid 2001

John Edward Sullivan, The image of God. The Doctrine of St. Augustine and its Influence, Dubuque (IO) 1963

John F. Crosby, Max Scheler's Principle of Moral and Religious Solidarity: «Communio: International Catholic Review» 24 (1997) 110-127

John Finnis, Aquinas. Moral, Political, and Legal Theory, Oxford 1998

John M. Shaw, Perfective Action. Metaphysics of the Good and Moral Species in Aquinas, Nairobi 1998

José Luis Illanes, Historia y sentido. Estudios de teología de la historia, Madrid 1997

Joseph Pohle – Arthur Preuss, The Divine Trinity. A Dogmatic Treatise, London — St. Louis61930

Juan Luis Lorda, Antropología Christiana. Del Concilio Vaticano II a Juan Pablo II, Madrid32004

Juan Luis Ruiz de la Peña, Imagen de Dios. Antropología teológica fundamental, Santander 1988

Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, Dordrecht 1979

Lawrence Dewan, The individual as a mode of being according to Thomas Aquinas: «The Thomist» 63 (1999) 403-24

Mark D. Jordan, Theology and philosophy, in “The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas”, Norman Kretzmann – Elenore Stump (ed.), Cambridge 1993, pp. 232-251

Martin Rhonheimer, La perspective de la Moral. Fundamentos de la Ética Filosófica, Madrid22000

Mary Shivanandan — J. C. Atkinson, Person As Substantive Relation and Reproductive Technologies. Biblical and Philosophical Foundations: «Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture» 7.3 (2004) 124-156

Michael A. Dauphinais, Loving the Lord Your God: The Imago Dei in Saint Thomas Aquinas: «The Thomist» 63 (1999) 241-67

Paul E. Sigmund, Law and Politics, in “Thomas Aquinas. Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives”, Brian Davies (ed.), Oxford 2002

Paul Sabuy, Acerca de la solidaridad humana. La asimetría de la relación entre las personas, in “Idea cristiana del hombre : III Simposio Internacional ‘Fe Cristiana y Cultura Contemporánea’,” Juan Jesús Borobia et al. (ed.), pp. 407-427

Philip Harold, Meaninglessness: The Solutions of Nietzsche, Freud, and Rorty — M.A. Casey (Book Review): «Journal of Markets & Morality» VII-1 (2004) 125-127

Ralph McInerny, Thomas Aquinas: Selected Writings, London 1998

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality. A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought, St. Louis—London 1950

Roger Charles, Christian Social Witness and Teaching. The Catholic Tradition from Genesis to Centesimus Annus, Leominster 21998

Scott Holland, The Coming only is Sacred. Self-Creation and Social Solidarity in Richard Rorty’s Secular Eschatology: «Cross Currents» 53-4 (2004)

Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, Edinburgh 1995

Seyed Taghavi, Rorty's Approach to Cultural Difference: The Conflict between Solidarity and Procedural Liberalism: «Culture, Theory & Critique» 43-2 (2002) 123-138

St. Augustine, The Trinity, Stephen McKenna (trans.), Boston 1962

Stephen L. Brock, Is uniqueness at the root of personal dignity? John Crosby and Thomas Aquinas: «The Thomist» 69 (2005)

Steven A. Long, On the possibility of a purely natural end for man: « The Thomist» 64 (2000) 211-37

Terence McGoldrick, Episcopal Conferences Worldwide on Catholic Social Teaching: «Theological Studies» 59-1 (1998) 22-50

Thomas Gilby, The Political Thought of Thomas Aquinas, Chicago 1958

Thomas S. Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas. An Interpretation of the Summa contra gentiles, Notre Dame 1995

William Sweet, Human rights as a foundation of solidarity. The contribution of Jacques Maritain: «Documents de travail de la Chaire Hoover» 29

NOTES: