Dr. King urges us to create the beloved community. Community means the common good. The age of individualism is over (the modern age); Good things were accomplished, for example, that individual rights are precious and important.
But now the age of community—the beloved community and the human and eco community—is upon us. The key to it is: The Common Good.
Notice there are two words here: First, “Good” or “Goodness.” (The theological word for goodness is blessing). Aquinas speaks often not only of “the common good” but also of what he calls “original goodness.” He sees “original goodness” in all of creation.
My term “original blessing” is identical but two corrupt papacies condemned that understanding even though it is laid out for all to see in Genesis One where creation is celebrated as “good” and even “very good.” Much of modern religion however is so narcissistic that it begins with Genesis Two which is about humans at sin, thus leaping over the goodness of creation (13.8 billion years of goodness unfolding) to focus exclusively on the human.
Goodness, taking it in, being filled with it, is integral to the Via Positiva. “Taste and see that God is good,” says the psalmist. We deepen our awareness of goodness through practices of silence and also through experiences of pain, suffering and loss (Via Negativa). Birthing goodness in ourselves and our work, our choices and character building including, virtues is what we do in the Via Creativa. Through our creativity we give goodness back, blessing for blessing. In the Via Transformativa we stand up to injustice which represses goodness and we work to protect the goodness of ourselves, others and the rest of creation. The protection of goodness is, in Aquinas’s view, the very meaning of “salvation” which he also calls “liberation.”
Thus we see that the good is the key to the spiritual journey for Aquinas. It is also central to the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality which name our deep spiritual journeys.
The second word in the term “common good” is the word common. What we all have in common—we and the Earth and its amazing gifts and beauty from oceans to lakes, river to forests, elephants to polar bears, flowers and grasses, birds and fishes. The air we breathe, the ozone that protects us from harmful sun rays and so much else. Interdependence lies at the heart of the common good. As King put it, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”* Aquinas too often invokes the theme of interdependence and even the “friendship” of all beings toward one another and toward God.
*Cited in Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., p. 223.
See Matthew Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 89-94, 97, 105, 123-125, 253f.
Banner Image: Finding strength together. Photographer unknown.
Queries for Contemplation
Be with the teachings of Aquinas here on goodness. Find a being—any being—be with it in silence and let its goodness speak to you.
Be with Dr. King’s teaching on interdependence. We share a common “destiny” he says, a “network of mutuality.” Is that your experience too? Are you growing in that experience?
Recommended Readings
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He also translated many of his works such as Biblical commentaries never before in English (or Italian or German of French). He gives Aquinas a forum so that he can be heard in our own time. He presents Thomas Aquinas entirely in his own words, but in a form designed to allow late 20th-century minds and hearts to hear him in a fresh way.
“The teaching of Aquinas comes through will a fullness and an insight that has never been present in English before and [with] a vital message for the world today.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths (Afterword).
Foreword by Rupert Sheldrake
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book! Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
3 thoughts on “Aquinas & King on Community and the Common Good”
The source of systemic White supremacy and racism in America has roots in Biblical scriptures and the Christian religion. In several Pauline epistles, and the First Epistle of Peter, slaves are admonished to “obey their masters,” indicating that slavery was a part of the early church’s, Bible scripture based, Christian doctrine.
In the 1452 papal document Dum diversas Pope Nicholas V told King Alfonso of Portugal that when his representatives arrived to their destination, they were to “invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue,” “all Saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ,” “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and take away all their possessions and property.” That language marks the beginning of the African slave trade and centuries of systemic White supremacist domination and racist dehumanization toward Black people such as George Floyd, whose recent brutal killing has inspired a global protest against systemic White racism.
When European Christian nations “discovered” the Americas they had a primarily papal developed and papal sanctioned international colonizing legal document, called the Doctrine of Discovery, that claimed that they had a God given, Christian supremacy status that made void some of the most important fundamental human rights of pagan peoples-upon their discovery by European explorers.
At that time the pagan aboriginal peoples of this land had their fundamental human rights to be independent sovereign nations and have domination over their own homelands where they could freely practice their own religions taken from them by the European invaders. And these human rights have not yet been returned or granted to the aboriginal people of this land.
The United States of America was founded on a bigoted religious principle that was officially incorporated into a Supreme Court law, Johnson vs Mcintosh 1832, that granted bigoted religious favoritism to people (mainly Christians) who have a religious belief in monotheism (“one nation under God”) over this land’s polytheistic (belief in many or more than one God) pagan people. Colonizing European Christian and Masonic (a multi-religious fraternal organization with a belief in one God) people did not have a right to establish a monotheistic nation in these polytheistic aboriginal peoples’ homeland, now known as America.
It is time for the world community of nations to establish an international criminal court to investigate, prosecute, and try the U.S.A. and the Roman Catholic Church for crimes against humanity.
Thomas, the points you have made are true. But it is also important to note those who have worked untiringly to work against these systems of oppression, such as the “”underground railroad” and we can’t forget the whole Civil War was fought to free African slaves in our country. Beyond this we have had voices like Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as Sojourner Truth and Rosa Parks. When it comes to the Native Americans however, this is a different story, because though there have been a few “white voices” who have spoken out for the rights of Native peoples (one such being Matthew himself), most of the work done for their rights has been accomplished by their own people. As to whether or not there will ever be an “international criminal court to investigate, prosecute, and try the U.S.A., and the Roman Catholic Church for crimes against humanity” we will have to wait for the time being. In the interim we must DO everything in our power to fight these injustices.
I agree with “THOMAS IVAN DAHLHEIMER “ Article above
I think you are well read Thomas
There’s a lot there to think about
Stay safe
Love
Billy