Aquinas on Justice, the Cosmos, the Common Good & the Rich

Aquinas looks to the entire universe for its habits that humans can emulate.  He teaches that all of nature follows a love of the whole, the common good therefore.  Even stones follow that rule. 

Each part of creation naturally loves the common good of the whole more than its own particular good.  This is evidenced by its operation, since the principal inclination of each part is toward common action conducive to the good of the whole.

Each and every creature exists for the perfection of the entire universe. 

He finds Genesis 1 affirming that same truth.  That which is the greatest good in created things is the order of the universe…Divine Scripture says, ‘God saw all the things which had been made and they were very good,’ while God simply said of the individual works that they were good….Among created things, what God cares for most is the order of the universe.

With a cosmic consciousness like this, think how a new cosmology today can energize, excite and motivate us all! 

Aquinas warns that the super wealthy must be checked if they do not put it to the common good.  A person may be “rich in act but not in attachment” and both Abraham and King Louis IX of France shared their riches and contributed to the common good. 

But some are rich “both in act and in attachment—and this is not healthy.” This is why Jesus warns that “it is easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.”  In his Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics, he warns that when one who has too much exceeds the mean…we will know by this mean what we ought to take from those who have more and give to those who have less.  

Exceeding the mean “is against divine justice,” for justice and the common good go together.  Justice is part and parcel of a healthy government and community.  The moral virtues are practiced in matters pertaining to the life of the community.  Legal justice stands foremost among all the moral virtues, inasmuch as the common good transcends the individual good of one person.

There must be one supreme virtue essentially distinct from every other virtue which directs all the virtues to the common good.  And this virtue is legal justice. 

All acts of virtue can pertain to justice, insofar as it directs people to the common good…In ‘legal justice’ one is in harmony with the law, which directs the acts of all the virtues of the common good.

In the Ethics, he states that the state-community should be such that everything sufficient for the needs of human life is found in it. Political justice exists among the free and equal; in people who do not have freedom and justice, there is not found political justice.    

Illegal justice holds “contempt for the common good.”  Is there a very active “contempt for the common good” happening in the DOGE firings and the billionaire co-presidents’ disdain for so many government workers?  And in the shattering of Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, etc?  Authentic legal justice “directs the acts of all the virtues to the common good.” 

How visible are virtues among the leaders of government today and the various cabinet heads chosen by them? 

In speaking of the Beatitudes in Matthew’s gospel, Aquinas observes that the saints have a heart full of justice.  The saints have justice, charity and effects of this kind, which are most like God.  

Adapted from Matthew Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 124f., 416f., 396-398, 408f., 415, 419.

See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.

And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.

And Fox, “Warriors for Ecological and Economic Justice: Meister Eckhart Meets Dorothy Stang, Karl Marx, David Korten, Serge Latouche, Anita Roddick, and Howard Thurman,” in Fox, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times, pp. 221-230.

And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.

Banner Image: Forest stream. Photo by hash whole.studios on Unsplash

Queries for Contemplation

Do you find support for your moral outrage in these foundational teachings from Aquinas on the cosmos and the common good?  Do his teachings support and energize your resistance to fascism, authoritarianism and Project 2025?

Recommended Reading

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

Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election

Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE. 
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE. 
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.

Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society

Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them. 
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science.  A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics

Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Time

While Matthew Fox recognizes that Meister Eckhart has influenced thinkers throughout history, he also wants to introduce Eckhart to today’s activists addressing contemporary crises. Toward that end, Fox creates dialogues between Eckhart and Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel, Black Elk, Karl Marx, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, Dorothee Soelle, David Korten, Anita Roddick, Lily Yeh, M.C. Richards, and many others.
“Matthew Fox is perhaps the greatest writer on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. (He) has successfully bridged a gap between Eckhart as a shamanistic personality and Eckhart as a post-modern mentor to the Inter-faith movement, to reveal just how cosmic Eckhart really is, and how remarkably relevant to today’s religious crisis! ” — Steven Herrmann, Author of Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward

A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice

In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register

Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth

Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox.  He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.