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
134 SEBASTIAN WALSH, O.PRAEM. about whether the good really is a cause in nature, they all agree that it looks that way at face value; and naturalists from Empedocles to Darwin and beyond have devised intricate theories to explain why these appearances are merely that: apparent but not real. So the idea that the good is somehow a cause, even among non-rational beings, is where we start: it is something very familiar to us. Let this suffice for a first approach to the idea of that which is good. The good is what is desirable, the object of an intrinsic inclination. And it is somehow also experienced or perceived as a cause. III. Key Distinctions When St. Thomas spoke about a common good as opposed to a private good, what precisely did he mean by the terms “good” and “common”? Here is where Professor De Köninck serves as an invaluable guide. As I mentioned before, St. Thomas never wrote a systematic treatise on the common good. His texts are found scattered though dozens of works in various contexts. In his work “On the Primacy of the Common Good: Against the Personalists,”3 and in his more polemical “In Defense of St. Thomas”4 which followed, De Köninck brought together many of the most important texts of St. Thomas on this question. In these works, De Köninck makes a number of key distinctions (themselves found in St. Thomas) in order to lay out St. Thomas’ doctrine clearly and in order. Here I shall focus on three key distinctions. Distinction 1: Integral Whole vs. Universal Whole vs. Potential Whole Since that which is common is universal and a kind of whole, one key distinction which De Köninck uses to interpret St. Thomas’ doctrine on the common good is the distinction among the kinds of wholes. St. Thomas distinguishes three chief kinds of wholes and corresponding parts: the integral whole, the universal whole and the potential whole. Here is one text explaining the distinction: “The division of the [angelic] hierarchies into orders is of a potestative whole into its potential parts, just as the soul is divided into its powers: and this whole is as if a medium between the universal whole and the integral whole. For the universal whole is in each of its parts according to essence and complete power, hence it is predicated equally of each of its parts. But the integral whole is not in each of its parts according either to essence or complete power, and therefore, it is in no way predicated of its parts. But the potential whole is present according to essence in 3 In The Aquinas Review All (1997) 1-70 (hereafter: PCG). 4 In The Aquinas Review AH (1997) 171-349 (hereafter: DST).
