Is Same Sex Marriage Good for our Society?

Believe it or not, the so-called Angelic Doctor and the Prince of Scholastics has something to say about the contemporary issue–same-sex marriage.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is an Italian philosopher and theologian who ranks among the most important thinkers of the medieval time period.

In Ethics, Aquinas depends so heavily on Aristotle. Like the Greek philosopher, Aquinas believes that all actions are directed towards ends and that happiness is the final end. Aquinas thinks that happiness consists in activities in accordance with virtue.

But like Augustine of Hippo (another philosopher), Aquinas declares that ultimate happiness is not attainable in this life, for happiness in the present life remains imperfect.

True happiness, then, is to be found only in the souls of the blessed in heaven or in beatitude with God.

The Natural Law

Central also in Aquinas ethics is his typology of laws. By the term ‘law,’ he means an ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated by someone who has care of the community. Aquinas’ laws should also be understood in terms of “rules and measures” for people’s conduct and as “rational patterns or forms.”

Obedience to the law is thus viewed also as participating in or being in conformity with the pattern or form.

Related to this natural law, watch this short video about Ethics:

In Thomasian Ethics, the type of law that is primarily significant in Ethics is this so-called natural law. Part of this natural law is our inherent natural tendency to pursue the behavior and goals appropriate to us.

According to Aquinas, this natural law is knowable by natural reason. For instance, our practical reason naturally comprehends that good is to be promoted and evil is to be avoided. By virtue of a faculty of moral insight or conscience that Thomas called synderesis, we also have natural inclinations to some specific goods.

Aquinas enumerates three sets of these inclinations:

(1) to survive,

(2) to reproduce and educate offspring, and

(3) to know the truth about God and to live peacefully in society.

These prescriptions to have families, love God and our neighbors, and pursue knowledge are but rationally obvious precepts and simply stand to reason.

Grasping the prescriptions of the natural law and using our practical reason are necessary in determining which means will direct us to our ultimate end. Accordingly, this concept helps us in judging some deeds as moral or otherwise.

The principle is simple: the closer an action approaches our end, the more moral it is; the further it departs, the more immoral. Concerning sexuality, Thomas for instance argues that its ends involve procreation within the bond of marriage and unifying the married couple.

From this principle, it is not hard to judge fornication and adultery as immoral since both acts never serve to fulfill the above-mentioned purposes. Using the same principle, homosexual affairs and same-sex marriage, for Aquinas, would be obviously unjust or immoral as well … continue reading

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Also Check Out: From Socrates to Mill: An Analysis of Prominent Ethical Theories, also by author Jensen DG. Mañebog

Read also: Ang Katolisismo at ang Same-sex Marriage

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