|
Download pdf.
A Classic Text
The Common
Good: Collective and Universal Good
The term common good is ambiguous, sometimes standing for
goodness in general, sometimes for the total of all goods in
a system, sometimes for the infinite good that transcends
all categories. In the first sense bonum in communi
is an abstraction, the form which is the meaning and end of
every desire. This usage should be noted, as a source of
confusion similar to that between ens commune and
esse subsistens; we are concerned at present with the
concrete common good.
This is taken to signify either the collectivity of all
particular goods or the first cause from which they derive
and in the end return. In the first, and perhaps easiest
sense, the common good is the good of the whole group; is
affects the sum total of the particular parts, and also the
good proper to the system they constitute, which is
displayed in modo, specie, et ordine. Enormous as
this may be, it is less than the universal and infinite good:
the whole cosmos is no nearer true infinity than is a grain
of sand. But St Thomas read into Aristotle his own
metaphysics of creation: the universe is not a
self-sufficient system, but is wholly produced and sustained
in each and every part of its reality and activity by a
being who is outside the scheme. The first cause, who is not
included in the series of causes, is also the purpose and of
every desire, so much so that St Thomas does not hesitate to
say that every love is the love of God. Thus the motions of
the universe are turned, not only on the working of the
whole, but also to a supreme and extrinsic good, which is
intimately present in the universe, not however as a from –
he speaks with unwonted vigour against the pantheism of
believing that God is the soul of the world – but as a
cause. In this good, which we must imagine as separate and
lifted above the world, bonum separatum are comprehended,
unitedly and essentially, all the goods which are scattered
dividedly and on loan throughout the world; indeed, its
transcending simplicity is the cause of distinction and
plurality.
The collectivity is said to be godlike because the universal
good beyond the universe is better mirrored in the whole of
creation than in any single particular. But the universal
good is an infinite being apart from creatures, a being who
is present to all things as their cause, but in an especial
manner to rational creatures, as the object of their
knowledge and love. As such, God is not just a meaning
offered for philosophical contemplation and disinterested
appreciation, but a person, or rather a trinity of person,
in whose companionship men will be ultimately at peace.
Already they enter into it, though the vision is delayed;
already they embrace divine purposes, and so find the world
is God’s, and therefore theirs.
Download pdf.
|
