Folia Theologica et Canonica 2. 24/16 (2013)
SACRA THEOLOGIA - Sebastian Walsh, O.Praem., “Fidelissimus Discipulus Eius”: Charles De Köninck’s Exposition of Aquinas’ Doctrine on the Common Good
138 SEBASTIAN WALSH, O.PRAEM. “Something can be called common in two ways. In one way through predication. But in this way the common is not the same in number in the diverse instances (...) The other way is something common according to participation of one and the same thing according to number. And this community is most of all able to be found in those things which pertain to the soul, since through it there is reached that which is the good common to all things, namely God.”13 Distinction 2: The Good as Efficient Cause and the Good as Final Cause Another key distinction is between the good understood as final cause and the good understood as efficient cause.14 De Köninck begins “The Primacy of the Common Good” with these lines: “The good is what all things desire insofar as they desire their perfection. Therefore, the good has a notion of a final cause.”15 16 Later, in his work “In Defense of St. Thomas,” De Köninck adds further that: “it should be clear that the most proper and profound meaning of the term ‘good’ is perfectivum alterius per modum finis.'"6 The good is not any cause, but the final cause which is perfective of the thing for which it is good. To take an example, knowledge is a good for man. But the good which is knowledge can cause in two ways. On the one hand, a person having knowledge can teach someone else and produce knowledge in that other person. This is to diffuse itself as an efficient cause in virtue of the possession of a form (i.e., the quality of knowledge). On the other hand, the good which is knowledge can also diffuse itself as a final cause, as something attractive to another. This happens, for instance, when a man sees knowledge as something desirable, so that he applies himself to study, investigation and contemplation in order to gain that knowledge which he desires. The knowledge here is not a form by which an agent acts on him, but rather it is an end which he desires as something perfective of him. Let us look in greater detail at this distinction. De Köninck brings forth two texts of St. Thomas which are especially important in understanding the distinction between the good as final cause and the good as efficient cause. The first is taken from the Summa Contra Gentiles'. “The communication of being (esse) and goodness proceeds from goodness. Which indeed is clear both from the nature itself of the good, and from its notion. 13 In IVSent., d.49, q.l, a.la, obj.3 & ad3. Also see S.C.G., III, c.17. 14 Beginning in 1992. with an article published by W.N. Clarke (Person. Being and St. Thomas, in Communio 19), a series of debates emerged on this issue, including contributions by D. L. Schindler, S. Long, G.A. Blair and B. T. Blankenhorn. For a summary of the debate see Blankenhorn, B.T., The Good as Self-Diffusive in Thomas Aquinas, in Angelicum LXXIX/4 (2002) 803-837. 15 PCG. 14. 16 DST, 253.
