Perspectives Vocab Spring 2026

Level 1 Desire

Physical gratification

Level 2 Desire

Ego-affirmation/comparative

Level 3 Desire

Human love-service

Level 4 Desire

Transcendence

Sublation

Lower level good is elevated to a higher level; lower is both preserved and enriched.

Sacrifice

Giving up one level good for the sake of another.

Discernment

The process of distinguishing, identifying, and ranking desires and the good/values they tend towards.

Who said the quote, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God”?

St. Augustine

Confession

Not just admitting sins, but rather an exercise in interpreting one’s life and particularly God’s presence and providential role in all aspects of one’s life, the good and the evil.

Intellectualist Account of Evil

No one performs an evil deed because it is evil, but because they (wrongly) consider it good in some fashion.

Sin as Disintegration

Sin in the soul disorders ordo amoris, leading to greater unhappiness and more desperate attempts to use sin to bring relief.

Ordo amoris

Latin for ‘order of loves’; refers to the hierarchy of levels of happiness as orienting one’s life.

Conversion

In ancient philosophy ad Christianity, refers to the soul’s journey back to an original state of purity or to God.

Academic Skepticism

Philosophical school that doubted the human mind can access certain truth; recommended intellectual humility and suspending judgement.

Concupiscence

Latin term for strong level 1 desires (specifically sexual desire); in Augustine’s theology, it refers to the human soul’d inner turbulence and moral weakness, hindering our ability to choose higher-level goods.

Privatio Boni

Latin for “the privation/absence of good”. Augustine’s doctrine that evil is not an intelligibility or form or substance but rather the absence of intelligibility and form where it should be found. (Broken bone example)

Natural Evil

The loss or disintegration of the goodness of a nature; this kind of evil is always compensated for, and is natural to a finite nature that is not self-existing but conditioned by another.

Moral Evil

The disintegration of the soul through disordered desires (disordered ordo amoris). The evil humans cause to themselves that is unnatural because it is against our proper function, against our flourishing and that of other humans.

Who said, “What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate”?

Saint Paul, Romans 7:15

Grace

Greek for “gift”; the action of the Holy Spirit in the soul (‘inner’ special revelation) by which we receive new feelings, insights, and strength of will to become more deeply converted; works in tandem with ‘outer’ divine special revelation mediated through Christ and saints who are mimetic models.

‘Give what you command, and command what you will’

Augustine’s teaching on how grace converts a person.

What does it mean to be ‘saved by grace’?

That even the desire to ask God for help, and the asking, is already grace, in addition to the receiving. God fulfills the ultimate condition for a person’s salvation.

Coincidence

Typically a part of experience of discerning divine providence in one’s life. Think the children chanting “open the book”.

Scholasticism

A style of theology that arose in the early middle ages, centered on monasteries and eventually universities, which pursued the theological knowledge through structured questions and answers.

Soteriology

The theology of how God saves humans and the world from sin through Christ and the Spirit. Soter is greek for “savior”.

“Faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum)

Anselm’s principle that faith and understanding work together in the Christian life, but faith precedes and yet seeks understanding.

Doctrine of Double Effect

A principle of moral and legal reasoning which distinguishes between the undesired but known side-effects and the known and intended effects of an action. The good effects must outweigh the bad effects for the double effect to justify the action. Think about experiencing pain after surgery.

Divine Command Theory

The philosophical position that if God commands something, that makes it morally good. “Divine Might Makes Right”. Anselm rejects this position as logically contradictory.

The Divine Dilemma

If God does not save humanity, God’s intentions for the human fail and God is defeated by creatures; if God does not punish sinners by depriving them of their destiny of glory, God lets the world become disordered.

Free Will

The power of acting for reasons that are present to your consciousness, even if you don’t notice them.

Final End

The ultimate reason for which you choose something - what provokes your appetite or desire to choose means to the final end.

Volitional Intentionality Analysis

An introspective exercise performed by asking the question: “What for?” about an action to discover the structure of all human choosing.

Two acts of the will

Desiring what is not attained and resting in delight when it is.

Beatific Vision

The eschatological act when we understand God’s essence; fulfills unrestricted human desire to know and brings ultimate delight.

Arguments for wonder being unrestricted

i) Further questions never stop in this life

ii) No question that can not be asked in principle

Speculative Reason

The aspect of our wonder that is directed towards knowing the truth.

Practical Reason

The aspect of our wonder that is directed towards knowing and doing what is good/right.

Aquinas’ simple definition of Law

Law is a measure and rule of actions and permits and prohibits actions.

The common good

The end/goal of law; encompasses both the means for and the end of common flourishing of the community.

Promulgation

The community making its laws public to itself; announcing.

Aquinas’ full definition of Law

An ordinance of reason for the common good, made by those who have care of the community, and promulgated.

Human Law

Concrete determinations of what is good and evil in particular circumstances of a culture and community; only a real law if conditions are met (grounded in natural law, properly promulgated by legitimate authorities).

Natural Law

The natural inclination towards a being’s proper acts. For us, it is our natural inclination towards knowing truth and doing good, by which we discern good and evil. Natural law in us is wonder in its dynamic structure towards the true and the good.