Summa Libertas: A Compendium on Faith and Freedom

By St. Thomas Aquinas, JSB Morse and Pope Leo XIII

When Our Lord was tempted in the desert, the devil offered Him "all the kingdoms of the world and their glory." (Mt 4:8-9) It stands to reason that Satan was able to offer Jesus earthly kingdoms because he owned them. History has repeatedly demonstrated that earthly kingdoms remain a stronghold of Satan's evil works through man's lust for p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Libertas Press
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088006566

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was a Doctor of the church. He was an Italian Dominican friar and Roman Catholic priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism. Canonized in 1323 by Pope John XXII, Aquinas was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism.

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SUMMA

LIBERTAS

A Compendium on

Faith and Freedom

With St. Thomas Aquinas, Pope Leo XIII,

Pope St. John XXIII, St. Augustine, and others

Compiled by J.S.B. Morse

MMXXI

Summa Libertas: A Compendium on Faith and Freedom.

Copyright © 2022 by JSB Morse. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written consent by the author. Exceptions are granted for brief quotations within critical articles or reviews.

This book was produced by Libertas Press, an imprint of Code Publishing, Austin, TX.

LibertasPress.org

ISBN 978-1-0880-0663-4

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Gloria Patri,

et Filio,

et Spiritui Sancto

TABLE OF CONTENTS

There Is No Love

Nicene Creed 6

A Brief History of Faith and Freedom 7

Foundations of Liberty 9

Caesar Versus God 10

Augustine’s Two Cities 11

Aquinas and Salamanca 13

The Church Declares

SUMMA

Article 1: Whether humans have rights. 21

Article 2: Whether abortion should be legal 27

Article 3: Whether humans have the right to liberty. 32

Article 4: Whether we have a right to private property. 35

Article 5: Whether a Catholic can be a libertarian. 37

Article 6: Whether a libertarian can be a Catholic. 41

Article 7: Whether socialism is compatible with Catholicism. 44

Article 8: Whether capitalism is an acceptable economic system. 48

Article 9: Whether libertarianism can be distinguished from modern liberalism and libertinism. 52

Article 10: Whether libertarianism is rooted in selfish greed. 55

Article 11: Whether the government promotes the common good. 56

Article 12: Whether government is necessary to help the poor. 59

Article 13: Whether one can be coerced into being good. 63

Article 14: Whether all authority is from God. 64

Article 15: Whether we must obey the government unconditionally. 66

Article 16: Whether the state plays the same role as the Church. 69

Article 17: Whether government should tax its citizens. 71

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There Is No Love

Without Freedom

Human history is littered with the failed plans of perfect societies written by influential minds. Plato wrote of the ideal Republic. Saint Thomas More described his Utopia. Defoe and Swift then penned their perspectives, and, of course, Karl Marx detailed his in the Communist Manifesto. This author even succumbed to the lure of laying out the ideal society in Gods of Ruin.

Imagining a perfect society is an entertaining and interesting endeavor. It may also be a key component to progressing humanity. But where people go wrong is when they feel the need to force their good place onto others. All of the communist revolutions and the subsequent democide of over 100 million people in the 20th century alone was a result of the hubris that a few people know best how everyone should live. It is a treacherous and violent pride to demand how someone else should live his life and even worse to think you know how everyone should live their lives.

This fatal conceit, as Hayek called it, afflicts people across the political and social landscape. People on the Left and the Right all have a specific moral philosophy of how people should live and some presume they have the authority to force everyone to live that way.

Humanity’s dark history has shown that you can coerce people to work as chattel. However, you cannot force people to create or to be inventive and you certainly cannot force someone to be a good person. You cannot force someone into Heaven. You cannot force someone to love. Both the authoritarian Left and Right are wrong on this. Love requires volition and there is no love without freedom.

Almighty God knew this of course. That is precisely why He gave us freedom.

Gil Baille explains in his book God’s Gamble that it was a risk when God gave us the freedom to rebel against the very order that is indispensable to the exercise of freedom, but that freedom was necessary for us to be made in the image and likeness of God.

Not only is freedom indispensable to the creature whose unique vocation is love, but only a creature thus endowed with freedom has the capacity to seek out and to recognize truth, goodness, and beauty (mysteries to which non-human creatures are oblivious) and to say Yes to the God who has left these traces of divinity in our midst and inscribed a hunger for them on our hearts.

So, what are we left to do as Christians striving for a better world? Thankfully, we are blessed with a litany of saints who have shown us the way. From philosophers like Augustine and Aquinas to caregivers like Elizabeth Ann Seton and Mother Teresa, the Church is full of inspirational personalities who enlightened our path and showed us how to authentically love as Christ did. They showed us what we should be striving for and how to achieve it without coercion.

Our purpose in life is to know, love, and serve