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
“FIDELISSIMUS DISCIPULUS EIUS” 141 And now for the response: “To the first objection it ought to be said that the good to which the speculative intellect is united through cognition is more common than the good to which the practical intellect is united, inasmuch as the speculative intellect is more separated from the particular than the practical intellect whose cognition is perfected in an operation which consists in singulars.”23 De Köninck comments: “St. Thomas avoids distinguishing the major (“Quanto aliquod bonum est commu- nius tanto est divinius”) [To the degree that a good is more common, so much more is it divine]. On the contrary, he shows that the dictum authenticum applies more perfectly to the good of the speculative intellect than to that of the practical. And we must note carefully that St. Thomas calls “communius,” not the good which consists in the act of the speculative intellect, but the “bonum cui intellectus speculativus conjungitur per cognitionem,” [the good to which the speculative intellect is united through cognition] and this is objective beatitude. The good of the speculative intellect as such is more common because it is formally more abstract, more separated from the singularity of the operable which involves potentiality, and hence, more communicable.”24 If one considers the dictum “The more common a good is, the more divine it is” accepting “good” here to mean that which is perfective of another as an object and end, then the dictum holds more perfectly in the speculative order since the notion of diffusion and communicability can be more perfectly applied to that which is more separated from matter and particulars. So the common good in this most profound sense extends even beyond the moral sciences: it is a cause which extends to being as such. The words of Aristotle at the beginning of his Metaphysics are to the point: 23 ln IVSent, d.49, q.l, a.la, obj.l & adl. St. Thomas goes on in his response to make further precisions which do not, however, alter the first observation he made in the beginning of his response. He adds: “But this is true, that the attainment of the end to which the speculative intellect arrives, inasmuch as it is such, is proper to the one attaining; but the attainment of the end which the practical intellect intends is able to be proper and common, inasmuch as through the practical intellect someone directs both himself and others to the end, as is clear in the ruler of a multitude. But someone from the fact that he beholds, is himself singularly directed unto the end of speculation. However, the end itself of the speculative intellect surpasses the good of the practical intellect as much as its singular attainment exceeds the common attainment of the good of the practical intellect. And therefore, the most perfect beatitude consists in the speculative intellect.” This part of the response overcomes the fallacy of transgressing genera or orders of good. For it is true that a private good of a higher order may be preferable to a common good of a lower order. 24 De Köninck, ÜST, 312.
