성 토마스 아퀴나스의 경제사상(1)

Abstract

St. Thomas Aquinas's economic thought esp. his doctrines of property form part of his wider teaching on the nature and destiny of man, of his humanism. It is the humanistic values embodied in his teaching on property that are of permanent value and therefore of interest to us today. As far as the existing literatures are concerned, the emphasis has generally been on the juridical question of private property. Thus St. Thomas's theory of property has been put as 5 points generally. (1) Temporal goods exist as means to higher goods. (2) They do not exist solely to be enjoyed for their own sake, but to be used for attainment of felicity on earth and beatitude in eternity. (3) Private property excluding the right to common use does not exist according to natural law, but is an institution evolved by man, and therefore depending on sanction of human law. (4) It is beneficial as long as acquisitiveness does not replace felicity/beatitude as the end of life. (5) It is beneficial as long as the right to private property does not interfere with the right to common use. However it is important to realize that for Thomas Aquinas the question of property raises ethical and philosophical, political and social questions as the first magnitude. As Thomistic ethics is founded on metaphysics, so his juridical views are founded on ethics. Thus we have to include analyses on his thought about, (1) the basis of private property, (2) property as the object to be regulated by right reason, (3) social evils resulted from avarice and usury, (4) the ethical and institutional remedies supplied by law and politics, in our exploration. St. Thomas Aquinas's economic thought emerges not merely as a preparatio but as a derivatio evangelica. It is a work of an intellectual who is deeply respectful of the secular autonomy of natural values and who nevertheless, as the thorough-going theologian he is, sees them suffused with divine possibilities. Our analysis shows that St. Thomas Aquinas's economic thought is rooted in christian faith and knowledge very firmly, still it is an integral part of works who never gives up consistent optimistic hopes on the practical autonomy and integrity of man and society.