First principles and human realities

I've started reading Anthony Esolen's Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching. I hope to post occasionally my notes on Esolen's book.

To understand our world and our lives, one must begin with and reason from the correct first principles but also use common sense about human nature. That is, one must be aware of the limitations that men and women have and avoid an idealism that ignores that reality.

 Pope Leo XIII, who was the pope from 1878 to 1903 (when Saint Leo University was founded), worked in this way, using reason to apply to current concerns the truths that Jesus taught. Leo began by considering why God made men and women; that is, what is our purpose? What is the meaning of life? (Not "42"!)

God, who is love, made men and women, in his image, to enjoy the very life of God. God, the Trinity, is a society; in the same, men and women belong in a society. Society should be built on this fact; otherwise, the society will be built on wrong principles, and our attempts to make it better will make it worse. A false society is dominated by passion and appetite.

A true society might look like the world in the painting The Angelus. A man and a woman, a poor married couple, when they hear the bells from the church, pause from their work in the open field to pray. A true society would recognize that we have both material and spiritual needs. In the painting, the couple's work is good, and their prayer is good. When our material needs are met, we are free to pursue our spiritual needs, to seek virtue and truth. Moreover, before God, we are all equal, and we are bound as brothers to help each other achieve these needs.