St. Thomas Aquinas · Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 168
The bow that never unstrings
Aquinas asks whether there can be a virtue about games. His answer starts with a story about St. John the Apostle.
"When some people were scandalized on finding him playing together with his disciples, he is said to have told one of them who carried a bow to shoot an arrow. And when the latter had done this several times, he asked him whether he could do it indefinitely, and the man answered that if he continued doing it, the bow would break. Whence the Blessed John drew the inference that in like manner man's mind would break if its tension were never relaxed."
Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 168, a. 2
So rest of soul is not optional. Aquinas then gives three guardrails for good fun — the same ones that make a household's humor build brothers up rather than tear them down:
- Never indecent or injurious. The joke that wounds or degrades isn't wit; it's a failure of charity.
- Don't lose your head. Relaxation shouldn't dissolve the harmony of a good life.
- Read the room. Fit the fun to the person, the time, and the place.
"Now these things are directed according to the rule of reason: and a habit that operates according to reason is virtue. Therefore there can be a virtue about games."
Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 168, a. 2
And yes — a lack of mirth is a vice
In the next article Aquinas goes further: a man who offers others no pleasure and is "deaf to the moderate mirth of others" is burdensome, and he calls that a fault. The tradition's word for him is boorish. Still, Aquinas adds that too much fun is worse than too little — a little salt seasons a meal.
"But little sweetness suffices to season life, just as little salt suffices for our meat."
Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 168, a. 4, quoting Aristotle
Translation: Fathers of the English Dominican Province (1920). Read the full question ↗
