Outline—Summa Theologiae I, QQ 2, 82
What is the soul?
Plato and St. Augustine—the soul is an immaterial substance, separate from the body.
Since it is separate from the body, it is easy to infer that the soul is immortal.
Do animals have souls?
Epicurus—the soul is material.
He thought the soul is a kind of fiery air, composed of atoms. Its chief activity is sensation.
He thought the soul is mortal. When sensation ceases, the soul ceases to exist. “Death is nothing to us.”
Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas—the soul is not a substance, but the form of a natural organic body (i.e., a body capable of life). It makes the living thing to actually be the kind of thing it is.
The soul has different powers.
The vegetative soul is capable of self-maintenance, growth, and reproduction.
The animal soul is capable of sense-perception, appetite, and usually locomotion.
The human soul is capable of reasoning and free choice.
Because of the unique immateriality of the human soul, only the human soul is immortal. What is the will? Is the will free?
The will is an intellectual appetite, an inclination for goodness. It is different from the sense appetite because its object—goodness that is apprehended by the intellect—is generically different from goods that are apprehended by sensation.
By itself, the will does not make determinations of goodness. Apprehending something as good is the business of the knowing powers—intellect and sensation.
Necessity and freedom.
To determine whether the will desires something of necessity, St. Thomas distinguishes different kinds of necessity as they pertain to the four different kinds of causes.
Natural and absolute necessity is tied to the thing’s form. For example, it is necessary for a triangle to have three sides.
The necessity of the end or utility is tied to final causes. For example, it is necessary to satisfy the general education requirement in the humanities in order to graduate from UWP.
The necessity of coercion is tied to efficient causes. Acts of violence done against the will of the victim are examples of this kind of necessity.
The necessity of coercion is contrary to the freedom of the will.
The necessity of the end is not contrary to the freedom of the will.
Formal necessity is not contrary to the freedom of the will. By nature, the will desires happiness.
Free choice
Although the will by nature desires happiness, this does not prevent our choices from being free.
Some individual goods do not have a necessary connection to happiness.
Even those goods which have a necessary connection to happiness are not necessarily chosen, because the intellect lacks complete certitude that this view of happiness is true.
Outline—Summa Theologiae I-II, QQ 90-91
Our main questions—what is law? Are there different kinds of laws?
Law—an ordinance of reason, for the common good, made by a proper authority, and promulgated.
It belongs to reason to recognize the end and to order the means to that end. “Laws” based on arbitrary force are not truly laws.
The end which the law seeks is the common good of the community.
The proper authority to make laws comes from either the whole people or the persons who have care of the whole people.
The application of the law requires that those ruled by it are made aware of it.
Eternal law—the governance of the cosmos by God, its Creator and Ruler.