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Even if they may not have the same force as divine law, the laws should not contradict the laws of heaven. This binding injunction to the people to obey also applies to rulers -- monarchs should not contradict the will of the divine, and endeavor to create a state that mirrors that of God. For example, Aquinas prohibited usury, or charging money at interest given Christ's condemnation of money changing, and stated that the governments should not allow such transactions to take place.
Although Aquinas at times cites Augustine in support of his ideas, Augustine's own ideas regarding the correct relationship between state and humankind seem to suggest that the laws of the state are less crucial and less significant in creating a moral framework for human beings. After all the state, human property, and the concerns of worldly affairs are transient. In his remarks upon the Gospel of John, Augustine states: "Look, there are the villas. By what right do you protect those villas? By divine or human right? Let them reply: 'Divine right we have in the Scriptures; human right in the laws of the king.' On what basis does anyone possess what he possesses? Is it not by human right? By divine right, 'The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord' (Psalm 24:1). God made the poor and the rich from the one clay, and the one earth supports both the poor and the rich. Nevertheless, by human right one says, "This villa is mine; this house is mine; this servant...
Why? Because God has distributed these same human rights through the emperors and kings of the world. (Augustine, p.101) In other words, on earth, there will be inequalities, and just as Jesus did not resolve this inequalities of property, for example, for the meek, human beings must accept the need to obey laws that do not directly relate to their moral fitness as Christians. The earth, in short, is good and God-created, but human beings have imposed their own transient needs upon the earth.
Augustine stressed the need for free will and choice when accepting God and living by the laws Christ. Augustine believed that the spiritual realm was innately superior to such terrestrial aspects of the world as property. The monarch should behave correctly as a Christian, because Christ was right and good, not because he had an added responsibility, as Aquinas believed, to lead the populace to a better moral state of being. Augustine thus has a more optimistic view of the individual human spirit, and a darker view of the nature of human governance and its power to create a better, and transformed world.
Works Cited
Aquinas. Thomas. The Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas. New York: Free Press,
Augustine. Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
The New Oxford Annotated Student Bible. New York:…
Works Cited
Aquinas. Thomas. The Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas. New York: Free Press,
Augustine. Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
The New Oxford Annotated Student Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 20031.
Therefore the Old Law should have been given to all nations, and not to one people only. (Aquinas: 811) Aquinas responds in these words: Although the salvation, which was to come through Christ, was prepared for all nations, yet it was necessary that Christ should be born of one people, which, for this reason, was privileged above other peoples, according to Rom. ix. 4: To whom, namely, the Jews, belongeth the
" When these words of mine were repeated in Pelagius' presence at Rome by a certain brother of mine (an Episcopal colleague), he could not bear them and contradicted him so excitedly that they nearly came to a quarrel. Now what, indeed, does God command, first and foremost, except that we believe in him? This faith, therefore, he himself gives; so that it is well said to him, "Give what
Augustine is a Christian father of the late Roman Empire -- the traditional date of the "fall" of the Roman Empire is about a half-century after Augustine's death -- while Thomas Aquinas is a thinker of the medieval period. It is worth noting this substantially large time difference -- eight hundred years separates Augustine from Aquinas, just as another eight hundred years separate Aquinas from ourselves -- because we need
Thus while he does allow for some Aristotelian influence of the value of sensory experience so he does not fall back into a Manichean divide between good and evil, heaven and earth -- there is some 'good' to be learned with the senses -- Augustine's mistrust of his old sinning life and the world of the senses makes him fundamentally Platonic rather than Aristotelian in nature. In contrast, Aquinas whole-heartedly
Letter From a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr., and St. Thomas Aquinas' views on law. Specifically it will discuss the structure of law according to Aquinas. Aquinas divided law into four specific types, but both men agree there are just and unjust laws. Both men talk about the types of laws and whether they are just or unjust, and both have distinct philosophies about when to follow
Or Aquinas will rely on the evidence of Augustine, himself a convert to the Church, and who also had a keen interest in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Therefore, it is unfair to assert that Aquinas is only attempting to prove the existence of God after the fact of his conviction -- for Aquinas' conviction is based upon the proofs he gives -- that which is found in