The Order of Things: The Realism of the Principle of Finality

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Chapter 6 "Moral Realism: Finality and the Formation Of Conscience" (ref:22.1 ff.) is on how moral certitude (prudence, judgement in practical matters) can be obtained (irrespective of the various opinions of probabilism, equi-probabilism, and probabiliorism, etc.) when one has a well-formed conscience.

ref:22.11: "The truth of the practical intellect (or, prudence) is found in conformity with right appetite".

St. Thomas (I-II q. 57 a. 5 ad 3), ibid. p. 227 (ref:22.13):

• the truth of the speculative intellect is understood in terms of conformity to the known reality [per conformitatem ad rem].


• the truth of the practical intellect (i.e., the practico-practical intellect or prudence) is understood in terms of conformity with right appetite.

Thus, the speculative intellect needn't agree with the practical intellect (prudence) for there to be moral certitude, nor can the speculative and practical intellects' possible disagreement in a particular case prove that God's laws have exceptions, as Amoris Lætitia ch. 8 "Accompanying, Discerning, and Integrating Weakness," § "Rules and discernment," ¶304, which quotes Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 94, art. 4. ["Whether the natural law is the same in all men?"] to blasphemously insinuates: that God's universal, "general law or rule" can have exceptions:

It is reductive simply to consider whether or not an individual's actions correspond to a general law or rule, because that is not enough to discern and ensure full fidelity to God in the concrete life of a human being. I earnestly ask that we always recall a teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas and learn to incorporate it in our pastoral discernment:
"Although there is necessity in the general principles, the more we descend to matters of detail, the more frequently we encounter defects... In matters of action, truth or practical rectitude is not the same for all, as to matters of detail, but only as to the general principles; and where there is the same rectitude in matters of detail, it is not equally known to all... The principle will be found to fail, according as we descend further into detail."
It is true that general rules set forth a good which can never be disregarded or neglected, but in their formulation they cannot provide absolutely for all particular situations. At the same time, it must be said that, precisely for that reason, what is part of a practical discernment in particular circumstances cannot be elevated to the level of a rule. That would not only lead to an intolerable casuistry, but would endanger the very values which must be preserved with special care.

As

• Bonino, Serge-Thomas, O.P. “Saint Thomas Aquinas in the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia.” Translated by Dominic M. Langevin O.P. The Thomist: A Speculative Quarterly Review 80, no. 4 (2016): 499–519.

notes (p. 515 n. 17):,

It is curious that the apostolic exhortation [Amoris Lætitia] does not allude to the theme of epikeia or equity (aequitas). See STh II–II, q. 120; and V Nic. Ethic., lect. 16 […]. Epikeia is the virtue that renders a person apt to choose that which is just even when the just thing in question is contrary to the letter of a law that cannot take into account all circumstances. But this "equitable" transgression of a particular law is always made with reference to a higher law: the intention of the legislator and, in the final analysis, the intention of God manifested in the natural law (which is why the natural law is never "dispensable" in its first principles).

This is the point +Fellay makes at circa 13 min. into this lecture:

God, when he makes a law, knows absolutely all the circumstances in which we will be. When men make laws, they cannot see all the situations, and so that's why men make exceptions. Look at the traffic light. Everybody knows if it is red you stop, but also everybody knows that if the fireman, if the ambulance, if the police gets through, they get through. They make an exception [epikeia] because the law which is given to regulate the traffic, so to have good traffic at that moment, encounters another law, which is to save a person or save maybe a city […] and because of a higher reason, you suspend this law for that case, so you make an exception. […] With this "contextual" thing, they try to put exceptions in God's law. That's exactly what they did with the blessing of same-sex [unions]. They say […] that God has forgotten some situations, which would be directly a heresy and of course blasphemy, but with this they demolish the whole moral[ity]. You understand that the whole morality is demolished then you no longer know what is good and what is bad.

The Order of Things: The Realism of the Principle of Finality is an exploration of the metaphysical principle, “Every agent acts for an end.”In the first part, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange sets forth the basics of the Aristotelian metaphysics of teleology, defending its place as a central point of metaphysics. After defending its per se nota character, he summarizes a number of main corollaries to the principle, primarily within the perspective established by traditional Thomistic accounts of metaphysics, doing so in a way that is pedagogically sensitive yet speculatively profound.

In the second half of The Order of Things, Garrigou-Lagrange gathers together a number of articles which he had written, each having some connection with themes concerning teleology. Thematically, the texts consider the finality and teleology of the human intellect and will, along with the way that the principle of finality sheds light on certain problems associated with the distinction between faith and reason. Finally, the text ends with an important essay on the principle of the mutual interdependence of causes, causae ad invicem sunt causae, sed in diverso genere.

Formats : EPUB
Google : sioGEAAAQBAJ
ID : 9803
LCN : BD542 .G313 2020
OCLC : 1191456992
Year : 2020