page_title: Christian ethics
section_title: Scholasticism and Thomism
hierarchical_section_title: Christian ethics / Historical development / Scholasticism and Thomism
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Libro dei comandamenti di Dio. - Impresso in Firenze&#160;: per mastro Antonio Miscomini, Anno MCCCCLXXXXIIII. - 92 c.&#160;; a-h⁸, i¹⁰, k⁸, l¹⁰&#160;; 4° .
context_page_description: Christian ethics is a branch of Christian theology that defines virtuous behavior and wrong behavior from a Christian perspective. Systematic theological study of Christian ethics is called moral theology.
  Christian virtues are often divided into four cardinal virtues and three theological virtues. Christian ethics includes questions regarding how the rich should act toward the poor, how women are to be treated, and the morality of war. Christian ethicists, like other ethicists, approach ethics from different frameworks and perspectives. The approach of virtue ethics has also become popular in recent decades, largely due to the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Stanley Hauerwas.
  The curriculum for seminary formation of Catholic priests commonly includes multiple, required courses in Catholic moral theology.
context_section_description: A sharper line of separation between philosophy and theology, and in particular between ethics and moral theology, is first met within the works of the great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, especially of Albertus Magnus (1193–1280), Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Bonaventure (1221–1274), and Duns Scotus (1274–1308). Philosophy and, by means of it, theology reaped abundant fruit from the works of Aristotle, which had until then been a sealed treasure to Western civilization, and had first been elucidated by the detailed and profound commentaries of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas and pressed into the service of Christian philosophy.
  In his Summa Theologiae, Thomas locates ethics within the context of theology. For example, he discusses the ethics of buying and selling and concludes that although it may be legal (according to human law) to sell an object for more that it is worth, Divine law "leaves nothing unpunished that is contrary to virtue". The question of beatitudo, perfect happiness in the possession of God, is posited as the goal of human life. Thomas also argues that the human being by reflection on human nature's inclinations discovers a law, that is the natural law, which is "man's participation in the divine law".
  The meaning of the word love can be imprecise, so Thomas Aquinas defined "love" for the benefit of the Christian believer as "to will the good of another".
caption: Marco da Montegallo, Libro dei comandamenti di Dio ("Book of the Commandments of God"), 1494
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