The Thomistic Institute How to Marry Your Best Friend: Thomas Aquinas on Friendship, Marriage, and Children – Dr. Nathaniel Peters
May 7, 2026
Dr. Nathaniel Peters, Director of the Morningside Institute and Thomistic scholar, explores Aquinas on friendship, marriage, and children. He outlines marriage’s threefold goods and why deep friendship grounds marital union. He links Aristotle and Aquinas on friendship, shows how marriage mirrors virtuous friendship, and discusses grace, parenthood as generation and priesthood, and practical preparation for married life.
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Parenthood Participates In Divine Paternity
- Human fatherhood and motherhood participate in God's paternity because creation and generation image God's begetting of the Son in the Trinity.
- Aquinas links paternity as the distinguishing name of the Father and human generation as sharing in divine fatherhood.
Generation Is A Fundamental Human Good
- Being made in God's image includes our capacity to generate life, so procreation is a good and integral to human nature, not a problem to be avoided.
- Peters contrasts this with cultural messages (e.g., Planned Parenthood poster) that treat life as something to be prevented.
Parenting As A Lay Participation In Priesthood
- Aquinas calls parental care simultaneously bodily and spiritual, making married couples participants in Christ's priesthood by begetting and rearing children in divine worship.
- Fatherhood and motherhood thus sanctify the world through education toward God.
