Autor: Ormerod, Neil

Buch: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Titel: Creation, Grace, and Redemption

Stichwort: Gnade - Leben; Thomas: Liebe seiner selbst, v. Familienmitgliedern;

Kurzinhalt: Grace is the beginning of the spiritual life, and our understanding of grace will influence our spirituality. A good theology of grace will lead us in the direction of a healthy spirituality, while ...

Textausschnitt: SOME PRACTICAL INSIGHTS INTO THE LIFE OF GRACE

127b Grace is the beginning of the spiritual life, and our understanding of grace will influence our spirituality. A good theology of grace will lead us in the direction of a healthy spirituality, while a poor theology will have a detrimental effect upon us. We have already noted the detrimental effect of an extrinsicist account of grace. Detrimental effects also flow from a dualistic account of human existence, which tends to overspiritualize the nature of grace. The following questions and responses from Aquinas provide a good example of a sound and realistic theology of grace and a spirituality that emerges from it. (Fs)

ST II-II q. 25, a. 4: Whether a man ought to love himself out of charity?
127c Some forms of spirituality seem to present the spiritual life as a conflict between love of God and love of self. They seem to generate almost a sense of self-hatred or destructive self-denial. They forget that Jesus taught us to love God above all things and our neighbor "as ourselves." Healthy self-love is an essential element in the spiritual life. Indeed, we may love ourselves with a supernatural love (charity). Hence Aquinas concludes:

we may speak of charity in respect of its specific nature, namely as denoting man's friendship with God in the first place and consequently, with the things of God, among which things is man himself who has charity. Hence among these other things which he loves out of charity because they pertain to God, he loves also himself out of charity. (Fs)

ST II-IIq. 25, a. 5: Whether a man ought to love his body out of charity?
127d Again, some forms of spirituality seem to be directed against the body as if it were the source of evil and temptation. Forms of mortification are used to discipline the body and punish it for its weakness. Even apart from such spiritualities we can witness various forms of body-hatred in society, through the problem young women have with body image, culminating in anorexia, to body piercing, which seems to be a delight in self-mutilation. For Aquinas, on the other hand, the body is part of God's handiwork and worthy of not only a natural love, but also a supernatural love:
Now the nature of our body was created not by an evil force ... but by God ... Consequently out of the love of charity with which we love God, we ought to love our bodies also. (Fs)

ST II-II q. 26, a. 4: Whether out of charity man ought to love himself more than his neighbor?
128a It is not uncommon to view the moral life as a struggle between altruism and egotism. The moral decision is one that puts others'interests before one's own. Now there is some truth in recognizing that the moral life involves self-transcendence, going beyond the self one is to become a richer fuller self, but this does not always mean putting others interests before one's own, particularly where their interests may lack much by way of moral self-transcendence. The moral life is not about "self versus other" but about a focus on the good and moral self-transcendence. One of the goods one needs to take into account is the good of oneself, especially in one's journey toward moral self-transcendence (virtue). Hence Aquinas argues:

A man, out of charity, ought to love himself more than his neighbor: in sign whereof a man ought not to give way to any evil of sin, not even that he may free his neighbor from sin. (Fs)

ST II-II q. 26, a. 6: Whether we ought to love one neighbor more than another?

128b Finally, there is a tendency in some forms of idealistic spirituality to state that we should love everyone equally, without any discrimination or favoritism. Our own family should be no more important to us than the person down the street, or even the person on the other side of the world. There is something otherworldly about such spiritualities, and Aquinas will not accept them:
the affection of charity, which is the inclination of grace, is not less orderly than the natural appetite which is the inclination of nature, for both inclinations flow from divine wisdom ... consequently the inclination also of grace which is the effect of charity must needs be proportionate to those actions which have to be performed outwardly, so that, to wit, the affection of our charity be more intense towards those whom we ought to behave with greater kindness. (Fs)