Blog Marcos L. Mucheroni Filosofia, Noosfera e cibercultura

It may seem that peace, seen as a new way of thinking about personal and social relationships, is something intimate or purely “interior” (it is a complement to exteriority), but it is not, because it is possible to act according to this peace that is different from that conceived as only human.

This inner peace, which is not what we developed in the previous post, is not what the Greeks called ataxia, peace of mind free from fear, nor aponia, absence of pain, which would be the ideal states of life; pain and fear do exist, especially at times of crisis.

In fact, it is this bad relationship with pain and fear that makes society sink deeper into its crisis, the pursuit of pleasure without measure and the absence of fear in daily attitudes and actions that are contrary to peace in the world; wars begin with small actions of hatred.

Committing to peace, in the realm of truth, can even put your life at risk, as Thomas Aquinas says: “Whoever tells the truth loses friendships”, but it must be said that his truth is not logical but onto-logical, in other words, it follows a logic of Being.

In previous posts, we returned to the question of the cardinal virtues, pointed out in particular by Philippa Foot (English philosopher). In Thomas Aquinas, we find the connection between peace and these virtues: justice, wisdom, prudence and charity. For the Aquinate, peace is achieved in the midst of men if these virtues help to produce the peace desired by humanity.

Thomas Aquinas also understands peace in a broader sense: “peace is the tranquillity of manner, of species and of order” (Aquinas, 2019) (It is worth noting that by order, we mean that each thing is in its proper place).

Thus, along with the virtues of justice, wisdom and prudence, there must be the bond of charity, which is not simply worldly love or appreciation. Charity not only unifies the appetites of individuals, it also leads each man to love his neighbor as himself, that is, to want to fulfill the desires and needs of his neighbor as if they were his own.

The Angelic Doctor says: “Peace is nothing other than the unity of affections, which is proper to God alone, because it is through charity – which only comes from God – that hearts are united. In fact, God knows how to bring together and unite, because God is Love, which is the bond of perfection” (Aquinas 2019).

So this desired peace depends on more than divine love, putting it into practice in our lives and in our daily lives, illuminating conflicting relationships with concord and unity.

SANTO  TOMAS  DE  AQUINO. Corpus  Thomisticum. [S.  l.]:  Fundação  Tomás  de  Aquino, 2019. Available in: http://www.corpusthomisticum.org, access: december 2024.