2. Saint Thomas Aquinas:1225-1274 CE

3. Life and Times St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) Aquinas came from a noble family from Naples. He joined the Dominican order against his family’s wishes Participated in the Aristotelian revival of the Middle Ages. He was canonized and became a saint in 1323. Resisting the temptation of a prostitute and the discovery of herring at night were the miracles used to justify his sainthood. Aquinas’s extensive corpus of scholarship is perhaps a greater miracle than those mentioned above.

4. Ultimate Reality Aquinas was primarily a Christian theologian. He viewed human wisdom as structured like a pyramid with the sciences of ethics and politics at its base with philosophy above and theology at its apex. Natural philosophy and religion are not contradictory but complementary. Faith and reason are valid in their own realms. Aquinas’ scholastic method integrates Aristotle’s teleological view of nature into the biblical theology of creation and Christian salvation.

5. Aquinas: … War for power, wealth, and glory is unjustified according to Aquinas. In order for a war to be just it must meet the following criteria: Just cause – 1. protecting people from aggression; 2. restoring rights that have been wrongly taken away; and 3. reestablishing a just order.

6. Just authority – Legitimate authorities must make the decision to go to war.

9. Reasonable chance of success – There is a reasonable chance of obtaining one of the justifiable objectives.

11. Richard Falk: Princeton Professor, UN Researcher

12. “ The justice of the cause and of the limited ends is in danger of being negated by the injustice of improper means and excessive ends.” (talking about the US War in Afghanistan)

13. In the face of “apocalyptic terrorism”, the following don’t cut it… Antiwar/Pacifist approach Legalist/U.N. approach Militarist approach However…

14. Limiting means and ends… Force must be addressed to military targets Proportionality of force Humanity: no force against those subject to capture, POW’s or wounded. Necessity of force

15. Blame and Responsibility: Good versus evil approach and total victory may be problematic. Making no distinctions between the terrorists and those that harbor them is also problematic.