Useful Maxims
Stock sayings, formulae, and definitions from ye olden days that slowly changed my life
Gratia Non Tollit Naturam, Sed Perficit
“Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it.”
This saying is at the root of many a controversy. The point is that the same God who made the world and everything in it, who designed us and our natures, is the God who redeems us and glorifies us to eternal life, so the two things are not in conflict with each other. God will not obliterate in redemption and re-creation what He established in creation. Instead, in grace and glory God heals and elevates the original features of human life. For example, God gave us bodies, and thus the body is for resurrection and glorification, not something God will dispose of in the end. God made the household and the biological family, so in the Church, even though it takes precedence over our natural families, it does not ordinarily eliminate or replace them, but invites them to join in. Or, from a different angle, God gave us rational minds; therefore, when He reveals truth to us, it cannot run against the rules of reason, even when the truth is beyond our full comprehension. In every case, the way God originally designed us sets the tracks on which His work in saving and perfecting us will run.
Abusus Non Tollit Usum
“Abuse does not remove use.”
This principle is simple: whether people abuse things, whether sometimes or often, has no relevance whatsoever as to whether those things have a right use and is not an argument against their goodness or validity. Examples abound in every sphere of human life: gun crime doesn’t remove legitimate uses for guns, sexual immorality doesn’t mean sex is intrinsically evil, drunkenness is no argument against a temperate use of alcohol, the fact that liberals make subversive arguments from cultural context for biblical commands doesn’t mean such arguments are never legitimate, the erroneous use of metaphorical and allegorical interpretation in Scripture is no reason to ignore such things altogether, etc., etc., etc.
This is one of those principles that people have a tendency to apply in very biased and inconsistent ways, TBH. Rare is the mind that judges abusus and usus fairly in all cases.
Corruptio Optimi Pessima
“The corruption of the best is the worst.”
This is an especially fascinating principle that, I think, runs directly contrary to many of our modern instincts, beset as they often are by grand anxieties about power. Often, the modern mind ranks, either fully and intentionally or by an implicit temptation, the most dangerous things as the worst things. Intense political power perennially produces problems (big ones), so we tend to view it with suspicion, preferring to reduce or minimize government power (even “big government” liberals and commies do this in a number of ways compared to the mindset of ancient societies). Guns kill more efficiently than many older technologies, so people get freaked out by them. The Internet enables an intensification of almost all humanity’s worst social behaviors, so it becomes the target of suspicion and complaint and even outright rejection (Luddism).
The principle corruptio optimi pessima approaches things from the opposite angle. Things are first ranked as better or inferior based on their power to effect things, their potency and range of uses. The best things are those that can do the maximum good. But, generally speaking, the same powers that amplify good can also amplify bad. So the great things at their best fall to become the most terrible things at their worst. Thus Aristotle ranked a good monarchy as the best government and a bad monarchy (to wit, a tyranny) as the worst. Meanwhile, good and bad democracies both sit near the middle, capable of effecting the least good but also the least evil. As another famous example, Satan is reckoned perhaps the highest and most excellent of God’s creatures in the beginning, but becomes from his fall the most horrible of all.
Non Affectu, Sed Effectu
“Not from affect, but from effect”
This saying is a little more narrow in its application than the previous ones. This is a formula from medieval theology proper. It specifies how passions (emotions, feelings; it’s complicated) are to be attributed to God. As I have discussed in previous posts, it is simply impossible to say that God actually has passions. This was a commonplace point in medieval theology, but since the Bible does speak of divine passions, there had to be an explanation for why.
The short answer: passions are said not from affect (i.e. God being affected, either His will being steered by creatures or Him having any bodily alterations) but from effect (i.e. what God makes happen). So, for example, the characteristic act of an angry man is to punish the person he is angry with. Thus punishment is the effect of anger. When God is called angry in Scripture, non affectu, sed effectu clarifies that it does not mean God has some emotional upheaval, but rather He does the same thing that an angry man does, namely punish. The shorthand shows up time and again as a quick reminder of this basic principle.
There are, I should say, far more fascinating slogans, sayings, maxims, and formulae from classical theology and philosophy that are useful even to this very day, but these four are among my favorites (and the easiest to introduce), so I hope you’ll enjoy and deploy them.