Natura, persona e diritto ins. Tommaso D´Aquino

Abstract

It is problematic to attempt to re-elaborate Saint Thomas' thought with the aim of studying its meaning with regard to modern man and to the man of today in particular. A radical and sincere investigation leads to a hard contrast, even when we do not exclude an element of reflourishment which is the point of departure of a reconstruction. The author offers in the first place a synthesis of the characteristic positions of Thomistic thought: the Philosophy of Being, the compenetration between being and knowledge which attains God in interiority, the normative nature of being with its conversion into duty, the presence and function of the will. He treats the duality of person-nature which is destined to play an important role in the field of law. The moral natural law points out imperatively the universal values of the human condition which is itself unified and determined in reason. Law is a reciprocal tie which is established between wills and which finds orientation, measure, and tutelage in the law. A personalistic element in the law is indicated. The author then points out the rights which can be deduced from Saint Thomas' thought. Saint Thomas does not elaborate any completed system of rights, but he does indicate with relation to them consistency and articulation, always from the viewpoint of the law, and in absolutely no manner in the sense of subjectivism and willfulness. Here we encounter the confrontation between Saint Thomas and modern thought. The latter has proclaimed the superiority of knowledge as apure logic, and also the supremacy of action, all this according to the presupposition of the denial of transcendence. The law, in its modern and contemporary expressions, does not seek harmony with nature, but rather coherence within itself, while at the same time certain life-styles which are often preludes to positive formulations are expressed in an ample and intensive reality of claims, even with an imposing phenomenon of self-attribution. AII these motives indicate an opposition which gives pause for thought and which especially surprises those who see in Thomistic positions universal and absolutely valid characters, even when they belong to an open philosophy. However, the present study is completed with an expression of confidence in an element of reflourishment. This element is the return to being, of which Heidegger is the prime symbol, even though we cannot evade Heidegger's problematic position concerning God as the ground of being. Equally, in the primacy granted to action, we can find positive elements, whenever a re-interpretation of the forces of the will and of the person intervenes. As well, positive historical law, both given and formal, can be expressed in updated forms and principies. Here again, however, one must operate with a sincere view in the sense affirmed by Pius XII. That is, human nature, without God, cannot become the norm. This is the root which leaves open a final and fundamental problem which is indicated, precisely, by the re-elaboration.