How to Live Straight and Fly Right
To undertake the praise of a man can be very difficult for two very different reasons: either the subject is quickly covered and there is little else to speak of, or, on the contrary, the subject is so vast and rich that one does not know from which point of view to begin consideration. You can guess that the challenge of a panegyric on St. Thomas comes solely from the second reason. The Angelic Doctor can be shown as a model under so many aspects that the choice is perplexing. He can be set forth as an example of the man of science, of humility, of simplicity; as an example of purity, of kindness, etc. I have chosen an aspect which synthesizes the whole existence of the holy Doctor. I would like to present St. Thomas as a perfect model of unity of life. There would be much to say on this subject. I will content myself simply with expounding the doctrine of St. Thomas himself (I-II, Q.57, Art.2; II, Q.66, Art.5; II-II, Q.45, Art.1-3, 6).
In a very general sense, all life in order to be fruitful (for good or evil) must be unified. To be convinced of this, simply look at history. Those who have accomplished marvelous things, remarkable victories, or who were great statesmen, writers, artists, saints, were those who, after having proposed an ideal, coordinated and directed all their efforts, disciplined and used their energy, to one end. This they did without allowing anything to distract them from their determined goal.
It is not even necessary to seek such a lofty example. It suffices to look at our own experience to learn from the things of daily life. Take for example a young man at the point of choosing a career, at the point that he must direct all his activity to one encompassing end. He is full of life, and goals the most diverse attract him all at once. He would like to take them all up and leave nothing outside his scope of action. Every limitation or sacrifice seems to him to be a diminution or a mutilation. For profound and talented natures, this struggle is at times long and painful. If the adolescent makes his choice and fixes himself in its pursuit in a stable manner, his activity will become channeled, concentrated, and by this very fact will produce fruit. If, on the other hand, he does not set himself to making a decision in a determined direction, he will be continually tossed about between so many diverse ends. Each of these will absorb momentarily all the energies of his being, then he will pass on to some other plan, all the time awaiting some unforeseen event to set all into action once again. In this case life never rises above the mediocre; the most remarkable talents are wasted, and existence itself is botched. We have all known very intelligent men who have never succeeded in anything because they have never united their strengths. They have dissipated themselves over multiple paths; they have fluttered about at random, and after having been all stirred up they find themselves empty-handed.
These facts manifest a general law: Every fruitful life, in whatsoever order it be, is a unified life. Everything depends on this principle of unification. The richest life will be that in which one will know how to discipline all human activities, without missing one, and ordering them all to one common ideal. The noblest life will be that in which the principle of unification is the most pure and the most elevated. If the principle of unification is large enough to encompass all the soul's activities, energetic enough to maintain them all in proper order and subordination, noble enough to elevate them and augment their value, then life will become eminently beautiful and fruitful; likewise the human person will be magnified.
Everything thus depends on this principle. Its scope and strength will be the measure of our productivity, while its greatness will be the source of our nobility.
The total unification of our life presupposes unity of the intelligence in truth. From these heights harmony will flow into all our other activity. For this reason we will first consider the unification of the intellectual life, then that of the moral and spiritual.
St. Thomas is the perfect model of unity in the intellectual life. Doubtless, absolute unity, the unity of simplicity, belongs only to the Divine Intelligence. The human intellect, though, is capable of the unity of order and of harmony; here lies its perfection. Ordinarily there is a distinction made between analytic and synthetic minds. The first delights in minute examinations of details, in the dissection of ideas, and does not seek a view of the whole. The latter seeks, before all else, to bind together diverse knowledge, to coordinate these, and from them to draw general principles.
Each of these two tendencies has its dangers. The analytic spirit risks being entangled in particular details, while missing the profound link that unites them all. The synthesizing mind is in danger of losing contact with reality and of simply building on air. The harmonious union of analysis and synthesis makes the great philosopher and the great theologian, and this union is magnificently realized in St. Thomas. He excels in analysis. Read his psychological studies on the passions, on the rapport between the intellect and the will, etc. There a marvelous talent for observation will be discovered. St. Thomas had at the same time, and above all else, a synthesizing mind. From details he soars to the first principles in order to illuminate the whole. He begins from observation and rests continually on reality. This brings about the solidity of his arguments. But the work is completed only in one vast synthesis: thus, the unity of his doctrine. From this aspect, the Summa Theologica will never be equaled.
What is necessary to imitate the Angelic Doctor so as to acquire this sense of synthesis, without which there is no unity in the intelligence? The intelligence is truly unified, truly one, when it judges things through first principles and first causes. This unification can be either total or partial. The savant is he who has acquired unity in the order of particular sciences, but it is the wise man alone who has established complete unity in both his knowledge and in his spirit.
So as to understand this distinction, it is necessary to refer to St. Thomas in the Ia-IIae, Q.52, Art.2. He there distinguishes three intellectual virtues: understanding, science, and wisdom. Understanding is the habitus of first principles by which truth is immediately perceived. Science is the habitus from rigorously demonstrated conclusions from the principles of one or another order of knowledge. Wisdom is the habitus of judging synthetically all things, conclusions and principles, in relation to first causes, and especially in relation to the first cause par excellence, God. For the wise man, the principal knowledge, that which has a greater importance than all others and to which all others must converge, is that of God, First Source and Last End. This is why wisdom, by reason of its sublime object, is before both understanding and science. Wisdom judges even principles, not in the sense that it proves them, but that it scrutinizes them in order to discover their raison d'être and to defend them against those who deny them. There may be many different sciences according to the diverse orders of knowledge; but wisdom remains one and indivisible.
It is easy to see, according to these definitions of St. Thomas, that there are many savants in the modern world, but very few wise men; for it is rare to find those who are concerned with judging different systems by reduction to the first principles of reason, or who esteem things relative to the Perfect Being.
The savant possesses only a partial principle of unification (partial because it applies to only one order of knowledge), and there is the danger that he will set this up as a total principle. Mathematism is born from this dangerous tendency. It attempts to reduce all to the mathematical sciences. Also finding its origin in this error is positivism, which only accepts experimental verification and quantitative measure as a unique rule of truth and of reality.
The wise man, on the contrary, is he who reduces all things to the true principles of reason and being. The true wise man is he who judges the worth of things according to their relation, and their conformity, to God, the First Cause. He has arrived at a perfect unity of mind, because he possesses the total principle of unification.
There are two obstacles opposed to the unity of intelligence, and as consequence, to true wisdom: contradiction, which creeps into the heart of our thought, and the dissipation of our intellectual activity.
It is necessary, first of all, that there be no opposition between our ideas and our judgments. There must be coherence and harmony of the mind with itself. But this is not sufficient; there must also be agreement and harmony between thought and the laws of being.
Certain philosophers have constructed entire systems a priori such as Hegel and Spinoza. They have set up syntheses where the internal order seems perfect. It is difficult to discover even the smallest crack. Looking closely, however, it will be noticed that there is a lack of real unity. From the very beginning of the system there is a radical opposition to the principles of reason and being, and this fundamental disorder introduces into the mind an inmost contradiction that undermines the whole edifice from the very base. The mind is made for truth and for being; to impose on it at the beginning an opposition with the principles of being is to introduce into it a flagrant contradiction, which will have fatal repercussions on the later progress of the intelligence.
The second obstacle to unity is the dissipation of effort. Erudition sought for itself, and not considered as simply a means, is contrary to the unification of the spirit. One who is content to amass materials without putting them in order, without informing the whole with a directing idea, will never be wise.
In order to acquire wisdom, it is necessary to establish a consolidation of the mind with itself and this harmony with reality. Avoid scattering and dissipation, which diminish it. Above all, one must discover the principle and the true cause of all intelligibility of the whole of reality, and to judge everything in its light.
In philosophy, wisdom will give the metaphysical sense; in theology, it will give the theological sense. It is this which inclines the faithful to judge everything according to the principles of Revelation, and which gives them the spirit of faith.
Where will we find a model of wisdom more perfect than St. Thomas? Where will we find realized in a manner more complete the unity of understanding? Let us place ourselves at his school and study at this point the Summa Theologica. In that admirable work, St. Thomas ascends to God by reason, and then from this immutable center he considers creatures. God, creatures in relation to God insofar as they originate from Him and return to Him, such is the plan of the Summa.
The disciples of St. Thomas participate in the spirit of wisdom which distinguished the Master. The more they follow him faithfully, the more they will acquire the ability to synthesize and to establish unity in their knowledge. To the degree that they leave the path he has set forth, their thought will break up and come apart. In viewing the theses independently one from another, as if there was no connection between them, they have lost wisdom.
It does not suffice to unify the intellectual life; we must bring about unity in life as a whole. And this also is the work of wisdom. St. Thomas, to this end, tells us that natural wisdom is before all else a speculative virtue, whereas infused wisdom is a virtue at the same time both speculative and practical. Seated in the intelligence, it exercises an influence on the will and the whole moral life. The wise man will easily become a saint (IIa-IIae, Q.45, Art.3).
We can consider separately the unification of the will from the unification of the practical life. The Apostle describes in powerful terms the painful opposition which exists, all too often, between that which is seen and that which is willed, and between what one wills and does. In order to remain brief, I will speak only of the unity of the spiritual life. The spiritual life embraces all the activities of the soul and exercises all its faculties.
The end of the spiritual life is union with God. Now, all union with God is impossible if the soul is not first established in unity. St. Paul wrote in his first epistle to the Corinthians: "Qui adhaeret Deo unus spiritus est" (I Cor. 5:6; 17). This signifies principally that he who adheres to God is one same spirit with God. This text also means that he who adheres to God must be one in himself. He must possess unity in his life. The soul's unification is a necessary condition to union with God, and the intimate union with God, in its turn, increases and completes this unity of soul.
The work of unification in the spiritual life comes up against the same obstacles as for the intellectual: division and dispersion. Every division within the soul impedes progress and produces nothing but ruin and desolation. "Omne regnum in seipsum divisum," Our Lord stated in the Gospel, "desolabitur." These words are to be applied to everyone in particular. Every soul which is divided against itself will be laid waste.
If the inferior passions are not subordinated to the dominion of the will, and the will itself to the direction of reason and faith, there will be in the very depths of the soul a tearing duality, an intimate contradiction that will oppose divine friendship. There are few souls that are not the scene of such duplicity, of an interior lie! It is in fact a lie in the etymological sense of the word. "He who says that he loves God, and does not observe His commandments is a liar." He says to God: "I love only Thee, I am entirely Thine. Reign as Sovereign Lord in my heart and in my will," but at the same time he reserves a small corner of the soul where divine action will be excluded.
The first struggle in the spiritual life is to fight this interior lie, division, and duplicity. So long as the soul is divided it will be remain imperfect.
The second obstacle to unity in the interior life, and consequently to progress in the spiritual life, is the dissipation of activity, the scattering of efforts. We do not pay adequate attention to this. Without doubt it is useful, even necessary, to combat our particular fault. This must be done, however, on the condition that one enlarge his point of view and see the extension of this fault and its connection with all the other weaknesses of the will.
There you have some ideas which would need to be developed at greater length. I am happy to simply present them to you.
Remember for the moment that the unification of the spiritual life is the condition and the measure of perfection. The more one approaches God, the more the interior life is unified and simplified to the point that the soul receives a most intimate participation in the divine simplicity, in the unchanging act of the beatific vision.
St. Thomas is a model of unity in the spiritual life. Thanks to the glorious victory that he had in his youth over the demon of impurity, the movements of the sense appetite remained submitted to the law of reason. Perfect harmony between knowledge and religion reigned in him: doctrine directed contemplation, and the intelligence, in its turn, was illuminated by new lights in prayer at the foot of the crucifix.
St. Thomas is a model of unity in life because he possessed wisdom. Wisdom unified his intelligence, and from there shone over every activity, ordering and directing each.
The fruits of wisdom, the fruits of the harmonious unification of life, according to St. Thomas, are humility and peace (IIa-IIae, Q.45, Art.6):
Humility, because wisdom considers all things in relation to the first cause, and from this perspective judges their true worth. Now, when truth is recognized and accepted it is by humility. If one looks at himself in relation to God, if he compares himself to Infinite Majesty, he will not be tempted to be proud. He will be humble.
Peace, because it is the tranquillity of order, and it is wisdom that brings about order. To unify life is, by that fact, to pacify it. On the other hand, it is division which causes rending and suffering. One of the greatest torments of the damned in hell derives from the inner contradiction which tears and rends them without ceasing. They are torn by the conflict between the natural inclination of their being to go toward God, in Whom alone is found true happiness, with their sin, which repulses them from Him forever. Such is the final fruit of disorder and division. Wisdom establishes peace in the intellect because it accomplishes both synthesis and unity. It establishes peace through the whole of life, for it produces a harmonious and lasting order.
I finish by wishing for you a spark of the Angelic Doctor's spirit of wisdom. Following the example of St. Thomas, be wise; have the concern to bring about unity in your understanding.
Take care to bring order to your interior life. Doubtless, a perfect unification of the soul here below is not possible, nor is complete peace accessible, but we must strive toward these unrelentingly. The closer you come to this unity, the more you approach perfection.
Be wise and you will possess peace.
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