Did St. Thomas Advocate Torture?

[Selah]

[quote]Citation? I have never read anything in his writings to suggest such a thing...in fact, I have read quite the opposite that there is no possible way that Christ could be anything other than fully God and fully man[/quote]

It's just something I read that I may have read wrong. I have a book on some of his selected writings. I can flip through it and find it for you. It just really confused me.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='Selah' date='03 July 2010 - 11:03 PM' timestamp='1278209004' post='2137540']
In addition, he also seemed to disagree with the idea that Jesus was fully God and fully man. Which is odd to me, because I thought that was church Dogma.
[/quote]

Citation? I have never read anything in his writings to suggest such a thing...in fact, I have read quite the opposite that there is no possible way that Christ could be anything other than fully God and fully man.

[quote name='Selah' date='04 July 2010 - 12:11 AM' timestamp='1278213099' post='2137572']
Thank you kindly for your charitable response
[/quote]

I do my best

Edited July 4, 2010 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[Selah]

[quote]It's just something I read that I may have read wrong. I have a book on some of his selected writings. I can flip through it and find it for you. It just really confused me.[/quote]

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' date='03 July 2010 - 10:16 PM' timestamp='1278213378' post='2137575']
Ad Extirpanda was a prudential judgment. Like all prudential judgments it focused upon specific issues for a certain time and/or place. It is not binding upon Catholics.
[/quote]

Thank you for your answer.

Is what St. Thomas said in accord with the unchanging doctrine of the Church on torture?


~Sternhauser

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote]It's just something I read that I may have read wrong. I have a book on some of his selected writings. I can flip through it and find it for you. It just really confused me.[/quote]

I am fairly certain he wouldn't have been declared a saint if he had denied the hypostatic union as well as denied that Christ is both God and man. Just saying. That doesn't seem like it would make sense. Also I am completely confident that he did not say that. I would flip through it again and even if the book says he did say that I would argue with it because I know he did not believe that. He wrote against the Albigensian heresy, which held that the human body was evil and created by an evil entity that was the author of sin and the human body, which has natural implication on humanity and on God as Divine King in the understanding of the Incarnation.

Edited July 4, 2010 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[Aloysius]

Selah, it often happens that some confuse the parts in the Summa Theologica where Aquinas proposes the opposing view so that he can argue against it. You may have been reading one of the "objections" in the Summa. I've even seen people produce quotes by him from the objections to make it seem like he believed the exact opposite of what he did.

Here's a question: Do we know for sure what Aquinas meant by "Bodily Compulsion" to fulfill what they have promised? That could mean as little as imprisonment where they're forced to attend mass every Sunday. of course, it's also possible he was in favor of torture, I wouldn't put it past him and if he was I'd disagree with him... no big deal, he lived in a different time and no one is fully immune to the common errors of one's own time.

Aquinas supported the execution of heretics like some today would support the execution of traitors. Heretics to the homogeneously Catholic states back then was just as dangerous as traitors are today. Today, treason is still punishable by death; and heresy was the treason of that era. not saying the execution of heretics OR traitors is right, but they're equivalent things. especially because in practice you didn't so much get executed for being an average Joe Schmoe heretic; you got executed if you were involved in a heretical movement that was causing civil unrest.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='04 July 2010 - 02:49 PM' timestamp='1278269376' post='2137701']Here's a question: Do we know for sure what Aquinas meant by "Bodily Compulsion" to fulfill what they have promised? That could mean as little as imprisonment where they're forced to attend mass every Sunday. of course, it's also possible he was in favor of torture, I wouldn't put it past him and if he was I'd disagree with him... no big deal, he lived in a different time and no one is fully immune to the common errors of one's own time.[/quote]
The question, "[i]whether unbelievers ought to be compelled to the faith[/i]", actually speaks of death to unbelievers and concludes that heathen and Jews need not be compelled, but apostates and heretics ought to be. During Thomas' lifetime torture was an acceptable, and often necessary part of the process of convicting heretics and the Dominican Order in particular was involved in this (they were the big dawg inquisitors of the time, although it wasn't quite so dramatic as holywood and haters might have us believe). I agree that the question referred to does not specifically say "torture" but it is rather speaking generally of physical force, which might include waging war, execution, torture and mere threats of violence. On paper the torture of the time would have been fairly bloodless, such as being hanged by ones wrists with weights attached to the feet for a long period of time (or so I have read), but I imagine there were abuses and excesses; there are certainly some particular historical instances that are troubling. You are correct that heresy was seen as intolerable treason and contempt for society, and as with treason, a forced recantation was standard practice in many places.

Btw, while Thomas does not assert that heathen and Jews ought to be forced to "believe" by bodily compulsion (i.e., physical force), he does assert that such force -- in the form of waging war and subsequent subjection -- can be justified in response to their blasphemies, evil persuasions and/or persecutions. Anyway, the question is [url="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3010.htm#article8"]here in English[/url] and [url="http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth3001.html#39231"]here in Latin[/url].

[Aloysius]

I know there were certainly instances of the torturing of heretics to get confessions and such, but I am still not convinced this passage can be said to be specifically talking about that. he likens "physical compulsion" with excommunication (and thus, presumably, physical exile) and with the way Paul was converted. neither is torture. the physical force discussed here could include imprisonment, exile, possibly warfare like the Albigensian Crusade, and maybe it could be used to justify torture, but I don't see the evidence that this is how it was intended.

Aquinas defends "maiming" as punishment for certain crimes (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3065.htm). why would he not specifically mention maiming here if he were indeed talking about torture? I'm not fully convinced he's talking about torture here. maybe he'd defend torture, maybe not. seems to me he's silent on the subject of torture.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='04 July 2010 - 06:49 PM' timestamp='1278283768' post='2137735']
I know there were certainly instances of the torturing of heretics to get confessions and such, but I am still not convinced this passage can be said to be specifically talking about that. he likens "physical compulsion" with excommunication (and thus, presumably, physical exile) and with the way Paul was converted. neither is torture. the physical force discussed here could include imprisonment, exile, possibly warfare like the Albigensian Crusade, and maybe it could be used to justify torture, but I don't see the evidence that this is how it was intended.

Aquinas defends "maiming" as punishment for certain crimes (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3065.htm). why would he not specifically mention maiming here if he were indeed talking about torture? I'm not fully convinced he's talking about torture here. maybe he'd defend torture, maybe not. seems to me he's silent on the subject of torture.
[/quote]
I agree that the Summa quote can be interpreted in different ways and cannot be said to be surely a statement about torture.

"[i]Why would he not specifically mention maiming here if he were indeed talking about torture?[/i]"
I think he's just being general, and the fact that torture isn't specifically mentioned doesn't rule it out as applicable. Still, I believe you have a point: it is sometimes taken for granted that he is talking about torturing heretics in order to force recantation (which was a practice of the time), but that is a reading that makes a lot of assumptions.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='04 July 2010 - 06:49 PM' timestamp='1278283768' post='2137735']
maybe he'd defend torture, maybe not. seems to me he's silent on the subject of torture.[/quote]
There is this article published in the New Blackfriars journal in which the author speculates on that and has a few interesting but unconvincing theories. Personally I think it likely that he just took the practice for granted. The author suggests that the Summa's audience were friars not on the inquisitor track, which might explain why Aquinas felt he didn't need to treat of the topic specifically. Thought you might enjoy the article.

[b]Aquinas on Torture[/b] ([url="http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118620160/HTMLSTART"]HTML[/url] | [url="http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118620160/PDFSTART"]PDF[/url]), by Jordan Bishop