Ethics & Society Lecture V-1

Ethics & Society Lecture V

With Aquinas, what are his notions of virtue? What does he mean by the different
types of virtues? Faith, hope, and charity are theological virtues because they
direct man to the supernatural, God. And they direct us and link us to each other.
E.g. Obamas mantra of Yes we can.
Theological virtues verses moral virtues. Moral virtues do not consist in a mean;
they are some good you are trying to attain. (see p. 93-94, Question 62, 64)
Love is the mother of all the theological virtues. Notice the different reply
objections; the different ways of reasoning with virtue. It is very insightful, showing
what a scholar he was; he dominated his world, so much so that the Catholic Church
thought processes are still influenced by his thought. Thomistic theology and ethics
prevail today because he helped to get the church out of the dark ages. He saw the
value of reason in relationship to faith and faith practices. Just as we see with
Augustine.
Aquinas on the law: He has a different notion of the law which tremendously
influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. Even in his sermons you will hear him quote
Aquinas. That whole issue of eternal law verses natural law verses the law of man.
He uses that argument even in his Vietnam War address, he uses this. Black
leaders of terribly critical of King, suggesting he had no busy that they were not
civil rights. King went back to Thomistic Law. He made the argument that he is not
violent by their understandings of a minister.
Consider Augustine and this model of virtue ethics and how he is using the
philosophical model of Plato/Socrates.
This should help you to see that it is almost impossible to do theology without
philosophy. That is because the people who had been doing theology for the church
were heavily influenced by philosophical thought. Now you can do Sunday school
lessons without philosophy, but you cant do theology without philosophy. Ethicists
suggest that you have to begin with ontological notions of being, and
epistemological notions of knowing, how, what, and the way of knowing. How do I
know that Im making the right decision if I dont come to an understanding of how I
come to know what I know?
Augustines genius is his ability to state the ethical and theological problems, and
help the Roman Empire to see why Christians believe what they believe. What is
the major problem/thesis that he identifies as problematic for his age? (see pg. 5152)
The issue for him is that he is being troubled by other voices of his generation, i.e.
Gnostic thinkers. Gnostics suggested that if flesh is evil, then your God is evil.

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Note: Paul talks about some deceivers too. Who are they? These are questions we
have to ask the text. Furthermore, If this is the case of critics in the church saying
that your God has become corrupt by taking on a body. They had located sin in the
flesh. So now Augustine has to find another loci/place to put sin. He locates sin in
the human will; he puts sin in the metaphysical, and gets it out of the flesh. You
cant look at a woman as the source of sin because of her body. You cant say the
devil made me do it.
He takes Platonic method, which for Plato the physical and metaphysical is
separate. The soul comes from the pure world into the material; the material world
corrupts the soul and the senses. And corruptible senses make for sin. So
Augustine takes sin out of the corruptible senses theologically and puts them in the
will. So it is not, in terms of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit, the site of the
fruit that tempts them, its the thought of eating the fruit. He thought about it, and
sinned against God. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. For his thoughts
construct his being.
So now we have a different challenge of understanding sin. Now, the sinner is no
longer visible. Who is the sinner now? We cant look at what a person does in order
to identify a sinner. The sinner is now inner, inside of us. So we can look good on
the outside, but if we have thought it/willed it, we have done it.
So, Augustines understanding of ethics and the moral life radically shifted the
church from those who went into the monasteries, i.e., the ascetics, the flagellants.
We have a theologian who can write and interpret for the pagan leaders and show
them what and why they believe what they believe.
For Augustine, he had a terrible challenge with his sexual life. And he had himself
castrated when he became a Christian. He came know that he was dealing with his
sensuality, which was not the locus of his sin. The locus of his sin was in the
thought, idea. The external sins listed by the monks were not mentioned. He says
that the sin is selfishness, self-love.
And we live in the generation of the children of narcissism. Everything is about
yourself. The issue is if we are the center of our universe, where do you put God?
Or when do you see God? If you only see God in yourself, that means you are
holding God captive. There has to be, like Barth and Tillich suggest, the notion of
the transcendence of God. That God transcends us. Without that vision of God,
woe be unto us; we become intoxicated with ourselves. Self-intoxication is a
dangerous state. Its not an accident that people who are narcissistic want to hear
about a God who rewards those who can manipulate him through acts of
indulgence. They say, Sow your seed, and we want to sow a big seed because we
want big returns. Its like patronage. You are in love with yourself, you want the
deity to revolve around you and become your vending machine. Its very tragic.

Ethics & Society Lecture V-3

But, Augustine helps us to see that you have become blind to this, youve lost sit of
this because you havent come to see how self-centered and selfish you are.
Most people in our generation will have serious problems with marriages because if
two selfish people go into relationship, you cant make it work.
Prosperity preachers make it sound like our ancestors didnt have faith. Consider
the Black National Anthem lyrics, Lift Every Voice. You cant tell me those people
didnt have faith. Just because we have been blessed doesnt mean we can shift the
theological paradigm. They had more faith than we have. They kept singing, The
Lord will make a way somehow.