Introduction<\/p>\n
What difference can Thomism make in the real economy?\u00a0 Consider the following two well-established empirical observations.\u00a0 Empirical observation #1: We may note an inflection point in per capita income at the time of the Industrial Revolution.\u00a0 Empirical observation #2: From the 1950s onward, we see a similar clear inflection point in population growth.<\/p>\n
Combining these two observations, we may note how the post-World War II era has not only supported the largest population ever, but it has done so at the highest per capita income ever in all human history.\u00a0 This is not even to mention the much longer life expectancy, on average, and the drastic material improvement in the standards of living for the vast majority relative to other periods of human history.\u00a0 On average, people need to expend less hours of labor to secure food, clothing, shelter, and other basic needs.\u00a0 Clearly, science and technology played a pivotal role in such dual advances, but even science and technology themselves have grown exponentially because of the milieu afforded by the marketplace and its extensive freedom of action.\u00a0 Schumpeter\u2019s \u201ccreative destruction\u201d is a hallmark of capitalism and its wide freedom of action.\u00a0 Adam Smith wrote in reaction to the rigidity and restrictive nature of mercantilism in calling for greater economic freedom.\u00a0 The butcher, baker, and brewer\u2019s pursuit of their own self-interest eventually rebounds to the good of the community because of the wide sphere of autonomy accorded them by laissez faire capitalism relative to mercantilism.<\/p>\n
I am not claiming causation in advancing these observations.\u00a0 Empirical work will have to be done to establish the correlation, much less causation, from wide economic freedom of action to the two empirical observations I noted.\u00a0 All I am claiming is that economic history suggests the potency of the invisible hand and mainstream economic policies regarding expansive freedom of action. The freedom of action of\u00a0homo oeconomicus<\/em>\u00a0is about unleashing the power of private initiative.\u00a0 Economic growth and development are often defined as widening people\u2019s choice set.\u00a0 Development has also been described as freedom\u2014whereby we develop people\u2019s functionings and capabilities so that they are able to pursue their life projects.[1]<\/sup>\u00a0 Development as freedom is about expanding people\u2019s choice set.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, I suggest that the signal accomplishments of the last 250 years\u2014the world supporting the largest population ever and at the highest per capita income in all human history\u2014must be viewed within its much larger context.\u00a0 These signal accomplishments are merely a partial view of a much larger whole.\u00a0 We must consider the price paid for such historic economic growth.\u00a0 We now understand much better the damage done to the ecological system.\u00a0 In addition, most of us here have firsthand experience of the destitution, hunger, illness, illiteracy, violence, and many other ills that lurk behind these two signal empirical observations from the last two and half centuries.\u00a0 This is a problem that comes with relying on averages without looking at the distribution.\u00a0 These ills attest to the inadequacy of economic freedom defined merely as a freedom of action.\u00a0 And this is where Thomism can make a major difference in complementing\u00a0homo oeconomicus<\/em>.<\/p>\n Main teachings<\/p>\n In addition to his teachings on the just price, the ownership and use of private property and superfluous income, among many others, St. Thomas offers an overarching cosmology and anthropology that shape every aspect of socioeconomic life.\u00a0 Thomism can make not merely substantive but sweeping contributions to socioeconomic life.<\/p>\n The impact of Thomism on economic theory and praxis is best seen in the difference it makes with respect to our notion of freedom.\u00a0 Observe that in the circular flow chart descriptive of the economy, choice is a perennial task.\u00a0 Households as sources of input must decide how much and to whom to sell their services or their assets to earn income.\u00a0 As consumers, they must decide how to allocate their earnings to satisfy their needs and wants.\u00a0 Businesses for their part also confront decision-making whichever way they turn.\u00a0 As buyers in the input markets, they must choose the optimum combination of factors of production to employ.\u00a0 As sellers in the product market, they must decide what to sell, to whom, where, when, for how much, what quality, and with which production method.\u00a0 In both the input and product markets, there are choices that must be made at every turn as people consummate their transactions\u2014with whom to trade, when, how much, and at what price.\u00a0 Indeed, it is not surprising that economics has sometimes been described as the science of allocation or the science of choice.<\/p>\n Let me contrast the conception of freedom between neoclassical economics and praxis, on the one hand, and Thomism, on the other hand.\u00a0 I will do so by comparing them across seven dimensions.\u00a0 This is by no means an exhaustive presentation.\u00a0 I am only covering materials that will fit within the time allotted to me.\u00a0 By \u201chomo oeconomicus\u201d\u00a0<\/em>(HO), I am referring to both the economic agent of neoclassical economics and to the most common conception of market participants in Western capitalism.<\/p>\n 1. Nature of freedom<\/p>\n To begin with, for\u00a0homo oeconomicus\u00a0<\/em>(HO), freedom is identical to choice.\u00a0 They are the same set.\u00a0 Choice exhausts everything that can be said of freedom.\u00a0 Choice is all there is to freedom.\u00a0 It is a freedom of action, which also happens to be the most common understanding and practice of freedom in the West.\u00a0\u00a0Homo Thomisticus<\/em>\u00a0(HT) also affirms the importance of choice in freedom.\u00a0 Choice is a necessary condition of freedom.\u00a0 People must be able to choose if they are truly free agents.\u00a0 However, unlike HO, HT is adamant that while choice is a necessary condition of freedom, it is not a sufficient condition.\u00a0 There is a lot more to freedom than mere choice.\u00a0 Choice does not exhaust everything that can be said of freedom.\u00a0 Choice is merely a subset of freedom.\u00a0 They are not identical sets.\u00a0 We will come back to this at the end of the presentation to find out what else there is in freedom besides freedom of action.<\/p>\n 2. Scope and strength of freedom\u2019s claims<\/p>\n Second, let us examine the scope and the strength of the claims that come from these differing views of freedoms.\u00a0 HO enjoys strong, indeed, near absolute claims.\u00a0 They are not absolute because neoclassical economics understands that the marketplace is undergirded by a requisite legal and institutional framework.\u00a0 This is a precondition if the market is to exist at all.\u00a0 For example, markets will not work if there are no enforcement mechanisms for contracts.\u00a0 Aside from these legal and institutional constraints, HO enjoys an extensive set of freedoms, such as, consumer sovereignty in setting and pursuing one\u2019s preferences,\u00a0 the freedom to maximize such consumer preferences, and not having to distinguish between needs and wants (everything is fair game).\u00a0 HO is free to consummate whatever transactions are desired for as long as it is backed up by purchasing power.\u00a0 Anything can be bought or sold in the marketplace for as long as they satisfy the legal and institutional preconditions of the marketplace.\u00a0 Thus, we have the phenomenon of commodification, such as renting a womb in commercial surrogacy or buying a kidney, in jurisdictions where these are legally permissible.\u00a0 As a rule of thumb, the scope of freedom accorded to HO is maximized in a similar fashion to liberalism\u2019s approach of according to each individual maximum freedoms that are consistent with everyone else enjoying the same freedoms.<\/p>\n In contrast, HT has far more delimited freedom.\u00a0 Thomistic ontology not only explains why this is so, but also identifies the boundaries that such freedom may not overstep.\u00a0 Consider the difference between God and the human person vis-\u00e0-vis existence.\u00a0 On the one hand, God does not need anything or anyone for God\u2019s existence.\u00a0 Otherwise, God would not be God at all.\u00a0 God guarantees God\u2019s own existence.\u00a0 In fact, God\u2019s existence is eternal.\u00a0 There is no t=0, that is a beginning, for God.\u00a0 In other words, it is in the nature of God to exist.\u00a0 Existence is in the very nature of God,\u00a0ipsum esse subsistens\u00a0<\/em>(ST I, q. 3. a 4; q. 4, a. 2).\u00a0 On the other hand, human beings have a t=0; they have a beginning.\u00a0 They are unable to guarantee their own existence.\u00a0 They do not know what will happen to them in the future, not even in the next minute.\u00a0 They are not a cause unto themselves.\u00a0 They are dependent on so many other things, not only for their existence but also for their operation.\u00a0 It is not in their nature to exist.\u00a0 This is empirical observation #1.\u00a0 We have a second empirical observation that must be juxtaposed to this.\u00a0 Even as it is not in our nature to exist, we nonetheless know that we exist.\u00a0 How do we reconcile these two empirical observations?\u00a0 It can only be that human existence is a conferred existence, a created existence, a borrowed existence\u2014an existence that participates in the existence of the Necessary Being, God.<\/p>\n This contrast regarding the nature of Divine and human existence has ramifications for Divine and human freedom.\u00a0 God\u2019s freedom is absolute.\u00a0 Absolute existence has absolute freedom.\u00a0 God can claim \u201cI am what I will.\u201d\u00a0 In contrast humans, are unable to make a similar claim of \u201cI am what I will.\u201d\u00a0 We may not want to have to sleep because it is a waste of practically a third of the day, but no matter how much we may wish not to sleep, we will nonetheless have to sleep.\u00a0 We may will to be in two places at the same time or to fly unassisted to wherever want, but no matter how much we will these things, we know that they will not happen.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because they are not within the bounds and the capabilities of the human nature that comes with our existence.\u00a0 Consequently, human freedom, including economic freedom, is not absolute.\u00a0 It is merely a participated freedom.\u00a0 It is delimited by our human nature.\u00a0 It is bound by a divine order of creation within which we participate in the existence of the Necessary Being.<\/p>\n 3. Freedom and responsibility toward others<\/p>\n HO\u2019s freedom of action is as extensive as its responsibility to others is minimal.\u00a0 Milton Friedman says it well in his famous New York times article \u201cThe Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits\u201d (September 13, 1970, Section SM, Page 17).\u00a0 In what has sometimes been called a Friedman doctrine, he notes that the only social responsibility of business is its obligation to its shareholders to maximize its profits.\u00a0 He makes this claim not because he is a proponent of egoism, but because of his belief in the invisible hand so well described in Adam Smith\u2019s butcher, baker, and brewer inadvertently ensuring the provision of the community by pursuing their respective interests.\u00a0 HO does recognize that it is bound by responsibilities.\u00a0 However, this is an extremely limited set of duties\u2014its contractual obligations and those stemming from the legal and institutional preconditions of the marketplace.\u00a0 HO is bound by a minimal set of responsibilities.<\/p>\n In contrast, HT acknowledges that it exists within a much larger divine order of creation.\u00a0 Consider St. Thomas\u2019s twofold order of the universe.\u00a0 The whole universe as a single entity finds its perfection only as it rests in God\u2014the Perfect and the True.\u00a0 Beings tend toward their perfection, their end (telos<\/em>).\u00a0 The final end of all creation is God, who is their origin to begin with.[2]<\/sup>\u00a0 St. Thomas calls this the external order of his twofold order of the universe.[3]<\/sup>\u00a0 The external order refers to the whole universe as a single entity reaching out for its final end in God.\u00a0 This is the perfection of the universe as a whole, the\u00a0telos<\/em>\u00a0(end) for which it is created and the\u00a0telos<\/em>\u00a0that comes with its participated, contingent existence.[4]<\/sup><\/p>\n Besides this external order, there is also the internal order of the universe.\u00a0 The whole universe is comprised of a wide variety of creatures, each with its respective nature and power, each with its respective mode of being and operation.\u00a0 Each creature belongs to intermediate groups through which they contribute to the whole of creation and from which they derive benefits.<\/p>\n Each creature of the universe has its contribution to make in the perfection of the universe as a whole.\u00a0 Each creature does its share through the intermediate group(s) to which it belongs in moving the universe to achieve its final end in God.\u00a0 And as each creature or intermediate group contributes to bringing about the external order of the universe, it is then that we achieve the internal order of the universe.\u00a0 Of particular interest to us is the contribution of human beings.<\/p>\n Humans belong to communities through which they contribute to the twofold order and from which they derive benefits.\u00a0 As humans fulfill their respective responsibilities and roles, they promote the good of the communities to which they belong (intermediate groups), and these in turn contribute to the attainment of the good of the whole.\u00a0 In effect, it is through these communities that humans, as individuals, can achieve their moral excellence and their final end.\u00a0 It is through communities that humans contribute to the attainment of the\u00a0telos<\/em>\u00a0of both the internal and external order, and thereby actualize their freedom.\u00a0 Jacques Maritain reminds us that human freedom, while instantiated in the individual, is actualized only in community.[5]<\/sup><\/p>\n As part of the twofold order of the universe, every human person is bound by moral obligations vis-\u00e0-vis other creatures.\u00a0 Every person bears moral responsibilities toward (1) other people and (2) the goods of the earth.\u00a0 Other people and the goods of the earth (indeed, every creature), bear in their existence and communicate in their activity a particular dimension of God\u2019s goodness.\u00a0\u00a0The human person\u2019s responsibility in this regard is to facilitate the reflection and conveyance of their share of God\u2019s goodness other creatures, according to their mode of being and operation<\/em>.\u00a0 This human responsibility becomes even weightier and even more demanding because moral agency is a profound and potent gift that only humans enjoy.\u00a0 Ontologically, the New Testament adage applies just as well: To those to whom much has been given, more will be demanded (Lk 12:48).\u00a0\u00a0 In concrete terms, and in relation to this presentation, this means that every person bears moral duties toward (1) the goods of the earth and (2) their fellow humans.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, unlike HO, HT is bound by strong and extensive negative and positive duties.<\/p>\n 4. Post-choice accountability<\/p>\n A fourth point of comparison is that of post-choice accountability.\u00a0 HO\u2019s choice is not, and cannot be, second-guessed after such choice has been exercised.\u00a0 The import of HO\u2019s choice is not examined by a third party for its consequences or quality.\u00a0 Recall that HO enjoys near absolute claims in its sphere of autonomy.\u00a0 Moreover, the marketplace and HO are governed by utilitarianism in which there are no moral absolutes.\u00a0\u00a0De gustibus non est disputandum.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>HO\u2019s tastes and preferences are unexamined because they are indisputable.\u00a0 People are assumed to choose what is in their own best interest.\u00a0 Otherwise, they will not trade at all in the marketplace if such trade leaves them worse off.\u00a0 Adam Smith\u2019s butcher, baker, and brewer are not questioned over their pursuit of their self-interest.\u00a0 In fact, for HO, there are no socially laundered preferences even if they are anti-social.\u00a0 In other words, HO is not subject to second-guessing for any choice it makes for as long as it is within the bounds of the underlying legal and institutional preconditions of the marketplace.\u00a0 To put it bluntly, it is nobody\u2019s business.\u00a0 HO is bound by a \u201cthin\u201d theory of the good, consistent with its underlying utilitarianism.\u00a0 Moreover, recall that neoclassical economics touts itself as a mere positive, descriptive exercise.\u00a0 It claims to be non-normative.\u00a0 (Assessing this claim is best reserved for another paper given our time constraint.)<\/p>\n In contrast to the static nature of HO whereby choices are not reviewed after they have been made, HT has a dynamic post-choice examination.\u00a0 In fact, this post-mortem is a requirement and not merely optional.\u00a0 It is expected.\u00a0 Recall that HT works out of an acknowledged divine order of creation.\u00a0 It has a \u201cthick\u201d notion of the good that includes moral absolutes.\u00a0 There is a requisite examination of the quality of HT\u2019s choices against this overarching moral backdrop.\u00a0 Furthermore, the impact on human flourishing is always a concern.\u00a0 In addition, the human faculties of will and reason are not given to humans in their perfected form.\u00a0 Humans spend a lifetime of learning-by-doing in getting better with the use of these faculties.\u00a0 The reflexive nature of moral choices makes it imperative that our choices are constantly examined.\u00a0 This is an essential path to growth in virtue.\u00a0 HT welcomes rather than resents such post-choice reviews as opportunities for growth and further development.\u00a0 And, of course, besides such a reflexive impact, our choices have extensive ripple effects on our neighbors and the world around us.\u00a0 Choices are never purely personal because they have a significant constitutive social dimension to them since people are part of a community to which they contribute and from which they derive benefits.\u00a0 Recall the responsibilities that arise from the twofold order of the universe.\u00a0 This social dimension of choice also requires post-choice accountability on our part.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 Role of reason and will<\/p>\n A fifth point of comparison is the role played by the human faculties in the exercise of choice.\u00a0 For HO, the will is the lead faculty.\u00a0 In fact, only the will is needed because HO is concerned only with exercising choice.\u00a0 \u201cRational choice\u201d in economics does not mean the use of reason.\u00a0 Rather, rationality as used in neoclassical economics is about the completeness of one\u2019s preference set and consistency in the choices therein.\u00a0 In contrast, HT requires both reason and will to work with each other in making choices.\u00a0\u00a0 The object of the will is the Good, that which we perceive as perfecting and completing us.\u00a0 The will pursues the Good.\u00a0 However, the will has two significant limitations.\u00a0 To begin with, it cannot distinguish real from mere apparent goods.\u00a0 Consequently, it often pursues what it perceives to be good, but which in reality is a fake good.\u00a0 In addition, the will is unable to do a triage of all the worthwhile goods that are presented to it.\u00a0 It is not equipped or designed to do so.<\/p>\n Reason dovetails with will, in that reason seeks the Truth.\u00a0 The object of reason is the Truth.\u00a0 Consequently, it can differentiate real from apparent goods.\u00a0 Moreover, it is also able to weigh goods relative to each other.\u00a0 Not only can it do a triage of the goods that are worth pursuing in life, but reason is able to go further in identifying the means to get to the goods that it deems to be worth pursuing in life.\u00a0 HT is dependent on the tandem of will and reason as it makes its choices.\u00a0 Thus, freedom for HT is aptly called rational freedom in contrast to HO\u2019s freedom of action.\u00a0 Genuine freedom requires choices that are informed and reasoned.\u00a0 Both intellectual and moral virtues play a vital role in HT\u2019s exercise of economic freedom.<\/p>\n 6.\u00a0 To what end?<\/p>\n Our sixth comparison deals with the question: To what end do we exercise our freedom?\u00a0 For HO, this is not even a valid question to ask.\u00a0 After all, it is nobody\u2019s business how HO chooses within the sphere of its autonomy.\u00a0 (Recall consumer sovereignty.)\u00a0 This stems from the \u201cthin\u201d theory of the good that comes along with the claim of both utilitarianism and neoclassical economics that they are non-normative, purely positive exercises.\u00a0 In contrast, for HT, this is not merely a valid question, but it is in fact the very first question that HT asks even as it weighs the triage of choices at hand.<\/p>\n We started out our comparison by noting that for HT, there is more to human freedom than mere choice.\u00a0 So, what else is there in human freedom besides freedom of action?\u00a0 Consider the following three constitutive elements of human freedom.<\/p>\n 6.a. Moral excellence<\/p>\n In addition to their initial endowment of existence, creatures embody many other dimensions of God\u2019s goodness.\u00a0 Just as significant, every creature reflects and communicates to the rest of creation such particular divine goodness as is according to its mode of being and operation. Humans, for their part, are unique because of their mode of being and operation\u2014they are rational and free.\u00a0 Moral agency\u2014the faculties of reason and will\u2014allows humans to reflect and communicate God\u2019s perfections and goodness in a very special way.[6]<\/sup>\u00a0 In particular, the informed and intelligent use by human beings of their freedom, their virtues, and the excellence with which they lead moral lives allow them to shine fully in their creation in the image and likeness of God.\u00a0 In other words, humans reflect and communicate the share of God\u2019s goodness they embody through their moral excellence.\u00a0\u00a0Ontologically speaking, living up to our moral obligations is about reflecting and communicating the goodness of God to the rest of creation according to our (human) mode of being and operation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>This is human freedom at its best.\u00a0 To use the language of neoclassical economics, while HO maximizes its utility function comprised of its preferences, HT is also engaged in a maximization exercise\u2014the \u201cmaximization\u201d of its reflection and communication of God\u2019s goodness.<\/p>\n 6.b. Participation in Divine Governance and Providence<\/p>\n The moral agency of human beings is what makes their mode of being and operation unique.\u00a0 Through their moral choices, human beings can either contribute to, or take away from, the internal and external order of the universe.\u00a0 Moreover, since they have reason and freedom, human beings are not purely mechanical in their contribution, as is the case of the non-moral creatures of the earth, which contribute to the aforesaid orders just by their existence.\u00a0 In the case of human beings, in addition to their existential goodness (i.e., the goodness they communicate by virtue of their existence), they also have the even more consequential moral goodness that stems from the cumulative reflexive impact of their moral choices.\u00a0 Human beings contribute to the twofold order in the manner in which they exercise their moral agency.\u00a0 In effect, human beings contribute a bit of themselves to the twofold order through their proper use of freedom and reason.<\/p>\n By virtue of their freedom, human beings can choose either to be mediocre or to excel in the use of their reason and will.\u00a0 This mode of being and operation makes them not merely instrumental but secondary causes.\u00a0 Moral agency is what is distinctive of their secondary causality.\u00a0 Through their efforts to achieve moral excellence (a virtuous life and reasoned use of freedom), human beings provide their unique share in bringing about the internal order of the universe.\u00a0 In effect,\u00a0human beings participate not merely in the existence of the Necessary Being (God), but they also participate as secondary causes in God\u2019s governance and providence of that created divine order.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Our secondary causality is our participation in Divine governance and providence.<\/em><\/p>\n St. Thomas notes, \u201cthe rational creature is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way,\u00a0in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others<\/em>\u201d (ST I-II 97.2).\u00a0 Human beings participate in the divine governance of the world as they live up to these moral duties in (1) facilitating other creatures\u2019 attainment of their respective ends (teloi<\/em>) and in their communication of God\u2019s goodness according to their respective modes of being and operation and (2) in enabling the attainment by their fellow human beings of their shared\u00a0telos<\/em>.<\/p>\n 6.c. Union with God<\/p>\n HT will settle for nothing less than the highest good\u2014union with God!\u00a0 Servais Pinckaers says it well when he notes that this is a freedom for excellence.\u00a0 This is the crown of human freedom.<\/p>\n Indeed, there is more to human freedom than mere choice.<\/p>\n 7. Grace<\/p>\n HO simply takes the world as a set of constraints on its maximization of its preferences.\u00a0 HT also sees and recognizes the same world of constraints.\u00a0 However, HT goes much further in perceiving much more.\u00a0 It sees earthly reality as enveloped in grace.\u00a0 Earthly life is embedded within a much larger reality that is not accessible to the human senses.\u00a0 Human freedom is not a human attainment even given their secondary causality.\u00a0 After all, the real efficient causality of human beings is merely a participated efficient causality (Summa Contra Gentiles<\/em>\u00a0Book 3, Questions 69 and 70).\u00a0 Furthermore, moral excellence is a gift of grace.\u00a0 The acknowledgement of grace is yet another major difference between HO and HT in their views of freedom.<\/p>\n In sum, while HT has a much more circumscribed sphere of autonomy with significant negative and positive duties, its rational freedom nevertheless ends up providing a much more substantive, consequential, and enduring freedom.<\/p>\n Back to the original question I had posed: What difference can Thomism make in the real economy?\u00a0 Let me conclude by examining possibilities for what HT and HO together can accomplish if they work hand in hand.\u00a0 The exercise of private initiative is important.\u00a0 Indeed, it is even a moral imperative.\u00a0 We see this in Catholic social thought\u2019s principle of subsidiarity, in which higher bodies do not arrogate to themselves functions that lower bodies or individuals are able to perform.\u00a0 People ought to be able to do what they are able to do for themselves.\u00a0 Nevertheless, HT can channel HO\u2019s private initiatives and even improve them through reasoned and informed choices.\u00a0 HT can help HO get better at making choices in a process of learning by doing through its requisite review of the quality and the consequences of one\u2019s choices.\u00a0 Most of all, HT can illumine HO on the\u00a0telos<\/em>\u00a0stemming from within the larger divine order of creation that envelops us.\u00a0 HT can make its case even in a secular public square because it can make its points using either faith or reason, but ideally both.<\/p>\n Pope Benedict XVI observed that while globalization has made us neighbors, it has not made us brothers and sisters to one another (Caritatis in Veritate<\/em>\u00a0#19).\u00a0 HT can show HO not only how this can be achieved, but it can also explain why it is worth pursuing, along with the unimaginable joys that this brings about.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/sup>\u00a0See Sen, Amartya. 1989. \u201cDevelopment as Capability Expansion,\u201d\u00a0Journal of Development Planning<\/em>\u00a019: 41\u201358.<\/p>\n [2]<\/sup>\u00a0Aquinas (1947\/48)\u00a0Summa<\/em>\u00a0Theologica<\/em>\u00a0I, Q 19, a.2, reply.<\/p>\n [3]<\/sup>\u00a0See Wright, John. 1957.\u00a0The Order of the Universe in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas<\/em>. Analecta Gregoriana 89. Rome: Apud Aedes Universitatis Gregorianae.<\/p>\n [4]<\/sup>\u00a0Aquinas (1952-54)\u00a0De veritate\u00a0<\/em>Q. 5, a.3.<\/p>\n [5]<\/sup>\u00a0See Maritain, Jacques. 1947.\u00a0The Person and the Common Good<\/em>. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.<\/p>\n [6]<\/sup>\u00a0Aquinas (1923)\u00a0Summa Contra Gentiles<\/em>\u00a0III, 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":""},"autori":[1255],"fascicolo":[341],"class_list":["post-3067","articolo","type-articolo","status-publish","hentry","autori-albino-barrera","fascicolo-giugno-2024"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n