Is Anger an Appropriate Response to Suffering?

In the last post, I said that I was going to do a series of posts on some of the thoughts I have been having related to the “theodicy” issue, or the problem of evil and suffering in light of the belief that God is all-good and all-powerful. In this post, I am going to use as my starting point a quote from Harold Kushner, who I mentioned in the last post wrote a very famous book on theodicy called When Bad Things Happen to Good People. In his effort to explain God’s involvement in the suffering humans experience on this earth, Kushner writes,

We can recognize our anger at life’s unfairness, our instinctive compassion at seeing people suffer, as coming from God who teaches us to be angry at injustice and to feel compassion for the afflicted. Instead of feeling that we are opposed to God, we can feel that our indignation is God’s anger at unfairness working through us, that when we cry out, we are still on God’s side and God is still on ours (45).

In this post, I am going to expound on Kushner’s provocative idea about anger from a Thomistic framework in order to determine the moral and theological significance of anger, and whether Kushner is right is saying that suffering should prompt anger.

We tend to think of anger as vicious or harmful. Somebody may say, “I didn’t mean to do X, but I was blinded by anger,” or “anger is wrong; I want to be a more peaceful person.” Aquinas is aware that anger connotes sinfulness. There is good reason for this. In Matthew 5:22, for example, Jesus claims that one who is angry with his brother is liable to judgment. In his discussion of anger, Aquinas asks whether all anger is contrary to virtue, to which he answers a resounding no. Anger, which is a passion, can be aroused according to reason, which makes anger in some situations virtuous.

So how do we determine if anger is virtuous (according to the standards of reason) or not? Aquinas looks at the object of anger, or that to which the anger is directed. He identifies two objects to anger: one is the injury that the person suffers, and the other is vindication (vindicatio) that the person seeks. The vindicatio is the justice that one seeks to exact against an perceived injustice. It is the way of making an injustice right. The vindicatio is an evil under the aspect of good. Denying a person his freedom for a number of years in punishment for theft, for example, could be a vindicatio because it is an evil (imprisonment) that seeks to rectify an injustice (the theft), thus rendering the vindicatio itself a good.

If a person seeks a vindicatio against a person who does not deserve it, for example, the anger would be sinful. If a person seeks too great a vindicatio, such as when a person repays an injustice with a much greater injustice (beating a child for spilling milk), such anger would be sinful. So anger is virtuous if a truly unjust offense occurs and the response is proportionate to the injustice.

What about Matthew 5:22 that says that anyone who is angry against their brother is liable to judgment? In light of scripture, how can Aquinas still say that anger can be virtuous? One way which Matthew 5:22 has been explained is using the person/sin distinction. That is, it is wrong to be angry against a person, but okay to be angry against a sin. Because Jesus is referring to the former in his condemnation of anger, it does not contradict the thesis that anger can be virtuous. This is the explanation Augustine used, claiming that one is properly angered at the sin of one’s brother, not one’s brother himself. Thomas disagrees with this, claiming that if a person is unjust, it is fitting and proper to be angry towards that person, granted that one’s anger is proportionate and the vindicatio sought is just.

The reason is that anger is that, according to Aquinas, has a two-fold object—the injustice, and the rectification of that injustice. An injustice is when a person is not given their due. The order of the universe which is in natural things and in the human will reveals that there is justice in God. God orders things and orders that they be in right relationship, and this is what is meant by God’s justice. Kushner is right in identifying that when we recognize that things or people are not in right relationship, we are participating in God’s justice.

Anger, then, because it is concerned with justice, is properly determined by relationships. In order to determine if anger is appropriate, one must be in some relationship of justice, that is, a relationship that is ordered according to God’s standards. This requires a little explanation. I cannot be angry against an inanimate object, for example, because the inanimate object cannot do me an injustice. I may stub my toe on my desk, but my anger cannot rightfully be oriented towards the desk. Nor can I be angry at a hurricane or a virus for the same reason. I may be hurt by these things, but they cannot be the object of my anger because they did not commit an injustice against me. Anger, for Aquinas, is really properly directed at people.

Additionally, if anger is to be justified, the right rectification must be sought. A child who commits a grievous fault–perhaps he hits one of his siblings–has committed an injustice which the parents, due to their relationship of justice with the child, have a responsibility to rectify. Perhaps they will ground the child, or require some sort of positive compensation to the assaulted sibling. However, the sibling who has been harmed is not in a relationship that allows him to seek the necessary vindicatio. It would be inappropriate for the sibling to ground his own sibling or to hit his sibling back. It would also not be appropriate for a stranger to punish the pugilistic sibling. Nor would it be appropriate if a child was the victim of an injustice committed by a parent to seek vindicatio. If a child is hit by a parent, the appropriate response is to appeal to a higher authority, like the police. In short, in order to seek a vindicatio, one has to be in the right position of seeking justice.

This is why we frown on vigilantes, or civilians who go out to seek vindicatios against injustices that are going unpunished. Because such civilians are not in the proper relationship of justice to the people whom they are punishing, they are actually committing an injustice in their actions in seeking a vindicatio that is not theirs to seek. Their anger is not virtuous, because the vindicatio sought is not virtuous.

Reasonable anger (and hence, virtuous anger) according to Aquinas is (1) prompted by an occasion of injustice, (2) directed at the perpetrator of injustice, and (3) seeks a just vindicatio to restore the injustice. If anger meets these three requirements, Aquinas would say it is virtuous.

So how does this play out regarding the theodicy question as Kushner sees it? First of all, the object of anger must be an actual injustice, not just something that makes us unhappy. Aquinas would not say it is virtuous to be angry if you, for example, get diagnosed with a terminal illness. This is not an injustice that should rightfully prompt anger. Moreover, there is no committer of an injustice towards which one can direct their anger. A more proper response would be sorrow at the fact that one is experiencing an evil, but not an injustice. But it would be proper to experience anger at a news story relating how somebody has been raped or murdered, or to be angered when you hear about the violence in the Middle East or Zimbabwe. Here, we do have an injustice, and perpetrator, which can be the object of our anger.

Second, the anger must be directed at the right person. If I read about what is going on in Zimbabwe and get angry at Robert Mugabe, my anger may be justified. If I read about Zimbabwe and get angry at black people, my anger is definitely not. Similarly, if I get angry at God when I hear about Mugabe’s egregious offenses against his people, my anger is not targeted at the right person. Such anger, according to Aquinas would not be justified.

Lastly, the vindicatio sought must in itself be just. If I decide that I am going to go assassinate Mugabe to stop his injustices, the unjust vindicatio thus renders my anger unjust. A more just vindicatio might be writing to the UN or raising awareness in this country by writing letters to the newspaper or marching in DC, or praying to God for the Zimbabweans who are suffering.

Kushner is right that we should feel compassion and sorrow for those who suffer. But I am not quite sure that an appropriate response to suffering is anger. Anger connotes that an injustice is being done that one can do something about. Sickness, death, and natural disasters are indeed evils, but they are not injustices. Such tragedies may be handled in an unjust way. Hurricane Katrina, for example, was not itself an injustice, but the subsequent way it was dealt with in many ways was.

This is not to say that Aquinas thinks we should remain Stoic in the face of suffering. He acknowledges that the passion of sorrow, which is the apprehension of some pain or evil, is a appropriate. When one is faced with a pain or evil, it may be appropriate to weep, to seek to remove or alleviate the harm, or even, as is the case with Job, demand answers from God. But for Aquinas, and I think he is right, it is not an injustice to experience pain, nor does God owe us any answers. The proper response to suffering, I would argue against Kushner, is not anger, but rather sorrow. The situations that concern Kushner, the death of a child for example, do not arouse God’s anger because no injustice is being done. God’s universe is still in order, even if we suffer.

But this is not the final word for Aquinas against Kushner, which will be the subject of another post on the issue. Aquinas, as a Christian, has not only a God that gets angry at injustice, as Kushner does, but also, a God who through the incarnation, is capable of suffering with, or feeling compassion and sorrow with his creation. And through the resurrection, Aquinas has a God who not only suffers with his creation, but has also ultimately defeated suffering in the grand eschatological scheme. Thus, for Aquinas, suffering should prompt not only anger if an injustice is done, or sorrow if no injustice is done, but should also prompt us to reflect on the God who loved us so much, that he suffers with us, and is himself ultimately the remedy to our sorrow.

Barth and Aquinas on Theology and Public Life

As part of my studies for comprehensive exams, I was reading an article by Ronald Thiemann from The Thomist (1986) on “The Significance of [Karl] Barth for Contemporary Theology.”  Thiemann is a Lutheran minister and professor at Harvard Divinity School who works specifically on theology and public life.

Karl Barth (1886-1968 ) was a Swiss Reformed theologian, and some describe him as the father of Neo-Orthodoxy.  Barth based theology on God’s revelation alone, not on history, or religious feelings, or most importantly, philosophy.  He is famous for his rejection of natural theology, which attempts to speak about God based on how God has revealed himself in nature or history.  For Barth, the only true knowledge of God is God’s own self-definition in Jesus Christ, as attested to by the Scriptural witness.  The only task of theology, therefore, is testing the church’s proclamation of God against God’s own self-revelation.  Natural theology differs from something like Barth’s revealed theology because it attempts to talk about using reason, rather than revelation, as God is found in the natural world, not Scripture or salvation history.

Thiemann claims that modern culture is characterized by the collapse of Christendom, and by a theological and moral pluralism in which belief in God can no longer be presumed.  Moreover, the antithesis of belief in God–atheism–has become a logical possibility for increasingly more people.  The challenge to atheism is met by many with arguments based on natural theology, rational arguments for the existence of God, or other arguments that try and argue for the inherent religiousness of every human being (Thiemann cites specifically David Tracy‘s transcendental argument and Schubert Ogden‘s argument on experience and language).  Because Barth rejects such arguments, he seems passé to those who want to find a positive role for theological discourse within modern pluralism.

As we have already said, Barth does not think that human reason can prove God’s existence or anything about God.  Because of the primacy Barth attributes to revelation, he claims that the necessary condition for our knowledge of God is God’s movement toward us, God’s revelation of God’s self.  Barth is not a fundamentalist, meaning he does not think that the revelation of God is contained exclusively within Scripture, which would no longer make him a hidden God.  Rather, we come to know God through another external reality, which is the exclusive vehicle for revelation, namely the person of Jesus Christ, to whom Scripture bears witness.

Barth insisted that correlation between Christian theology and the language of culture threatened the integrity of the Christian faith.  In Thiemann’s words: “Christian language does, in its own halting and piecemeal fashion, describe the reality of the world in which we all live, a world whose origin and destiny are determined by the reconciliation accomplished in Jesus Christ.  Insofar as the language does truly describe, its irreducible integrity and distinctive logic must be preserved.  Because that language describes our common world of experience, it must be related to other forms of human discourse, but the terms of that relation must always be ruled by the logic of the Christian gospel.”

Thiemann thinks that the situation of modern pluralism calls into question any attempt to ground the meaning and truth of Christian beliefs in any system outside the Christian faith.  He points to Barth, however, as an example of Christian theology may participate in the public square, “engaging the world of culture from within an integral vision of reality as formed by the Christian gospel.”  This does not mean rejecting science or philosophy or any other non-theological discourse, but it does mean placing  them at the service of Christian theology.

As a Thomist, I am sympathetic to much of what Barth is trying to do.  Part of his project, which I think the Barmen declaration reflects, is rejecting the idea that there are two spheres of existence for the Christian–a public and a private, a worldly and a religious, a faithful and a rational.  For Barth, the church does not serve the state, or science, or philosophy, nor does it change or water down its message in light of cultural pressure to do so.  The job of the church and the task of theology is to proclaim God as revealed in Jesus Christ.  To the extent that science and philosophy and other disciplines facilitate that goal, they may be used, but always as a means to theology’s end.

Thomas would agree with much of what Barth sees as the task of theology and its role in public life.  For Aquinas, theology is a sacred science which depends exclusively on knowledge revealed by God which “surpasses human reason.”  The knowledge that sacred science contains is essential to man’s salvation and must be accepted on faith.  Sacred science uses philosophy and the other sciences, “not as though it stood in need of them, but only in order to make its teaching clearer.  For it accepts its principles, not from other sciences, but from God, by revelation” (I, Q. 1, art. 5).  Aquinas’ theology, like Barth’s, is a revealed theology.

Aquinas, like Barth, also does not think that there is a realm of rational human existence, and a realm of faithful human existence.  Just as theology is the queen of the sciences, revealed knowledge is the height of all knowledge, and is the standard for judging all other knowledge: “The principles of other sciences either are evident and cannot be proved, or are proved by natural reason through some other science. But the knowledge proper to this science comes through revelation and not through natural reason. Therefore it has no concern to prove the principles of other sciences, but only to judge of them. Whatsoever is found in other sciences contrary to any truth of this science must be condemned as false: “Destroying counsels and every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).”

Theology for both Barth and Aquinas is the highest of the sciences, and the standard for judging all other human experience.  In the context of modern pluralism, especially in light of the rise of atheism, theology has a place only insofar as it does not compromise its integrity.  Both Aquinas and Barth think that the ability to participate in pluralistic discourse, therefore, is limited by the absolute and particular nature of the foundation of Christian life, which is God’s revelation.  No arguments for the revealed God of Christianity suffice.  No  philosophy can contain this God who has communicated himself in Jesus Christ.  Aquinas says on this note:

Sacred Scripture, since it has no science above itself, can dispute with one who denies its principles only if the opponent admits some at least of the truths obtained through divine revelation; thus we can argue with heretics from texts in Holy Writ, and against those who deny one article of faith, we can argue from another. If our opponent believes nothing of divine revelation, there is no longer any means of proving the articles of faith by reasoning, but only of answering his objections — if he has any — against faith. Since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations” (I, Q. 1, art. 8).

Christians are not called to withdraw from public life.  Neither Barth nor Aquinas would support the idea that Christians could not be judges or politicians or biologists or even soldiers.  Both Barth and Aquinas would agree, however, that this participation must always be Christian participation, and unapologetically so.  It means that Christ must be the standard of judgment for all things, even worldly things.  Both Barth and Aquinas would say, for example, that an allegedly Christian politician could claim that he agrees with his church’s teaching on the dignity of all human life, including the pre-born, but could still support pro-abortion as a public figure.  For both Barth and Aquinas, Christian existence has an integrity and continuity.  There is no public realm over which Christ does not have authority.

What Barth pushes stronger than Aquinas, however, due to his historical circumstances which are especially relevant today is that not only does the church not subordinate itself to or separate itself from culture, it also cannot assimilate itself into culture.  For Barth, the identity of the church could not have its locus in a particular Volk or political movement, like the rise of National Socialism in the 1930’s.  Barth vehemently opposed the German Christians who exalted Hitler as bringing salvation to Germany, and demanded that Protestant churches  should cooperate in national renewal under his leadership, not letting theological scruples prevent them from wholeheartedly supporting the project of National Socialism.  That people saw God speaking through Hitler must be categorically false, according to Barth.  God cannot be humanized in some department of history, nor does he speak in anything other than the one Word, Jesus Christ.

To bring this discussion to the practical realm, I cannot help mentioning my discomfort with the way Christian theology has been co-opted in support for Barack Obama.  Check out this blog as an example of what I am convinced is a widespread belief about Obama–he is the change we want to see.  MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews’s comment on Obama’s messianship have become almost legendary but they bear repeating: “I’ve been following politics since I was about 5. I’ve never seen anything like this. This is bigger than Kennedy. [Obama] comes along, and he seems to have the answers. This is the New Testament. This is surprising.”  Barth would undoubtedly see too many parallels between the Christian response to Obama in 2008 and the Christian response to Hitler in 1933.  He would probably call for another Barmen declaration in response.  Not because Obama and Hitler are remotely comparable as politicians (I don’t think they are), but because the Christian response to them is so similar.

There is only one revelation, and this is the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.  Any person, or philosophy, or thing that replaces Jesus as the fulfillment of truth, as the object of hope, as the standard of judgment is simply inconsistent with Christianity, at least as Barth and Aquinas understand it.

The church must bring its theological scruples to the public square and not allow itself to be co-opted for any other purposes not the purposes of God.  Nor should it water down its proclamation to serve worldly powers.  Theology is the rule and measure of worldly powers.  Theology  is the criterion of experience, not vice versa.  The public square, therefore, is not a non-theological square, nor is it immune to distinctively Christian critiques.  On this point, Barth and Aquinas would wholeheartedly agree.

Baptism: Initiating Christian Unity

I wanted to write a blog post exploring Thomas Aquinas’ treatment of baptism, partially in honor of today’s feast celebrating the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan by John the Baptist, and partially because Thomas treats baptism in the Tertia Pars (third part) of the Summa, which hardly anyone reads.  Moreover, I have been very interested in the possibility of Christian unity recently, maybe because I am a Roman Catholic marrying a member of the Church of Christ, and a good place to start is baptism, which is the sacrament of Christian initiation.

The Sacrament of Baptism

Baptism, Aquinas says, is outward washing which is a sacramental sign of inward justification (III, Q. 66, art. 1).  It was initiated at Christ’s own baptism, because it was at Christ’s baptism that the act of washing received the power to impart grace.  John’s baptism was different because it only pointed at the fulfillment of the meaning of washing, but did not actually confer grace.  John’s baptism simply pointed to Christ, but when Jesus entered the Jordan to be baptized, the  heavens were ripped open and the Holy Spirit descended.

The opening of the heavens has a threefold significance for Aquinas.  First, it shows that heavenly power would sanctify the practice of baptism.  Second, baptism is a practice of faith, and faith is about “heavenly things which surpass the senses and human reason.”  Third, Jesus’ baptism opened up the gates of heaven which had been previously closed through sin.  The opening of the heavens showed that the heavens were now accessible to the baptized.

So baptism is important, but the sacrament alone is  not enough for the believer to gain heaven.  Thomas says, “Now after baptism man needs to pray continually, in order to enter heaven: for though sins are remitted through baptism, there still remain the fomes of sin assailing us from within, and the world and the devils assailing us from without. And therefore it is said pointedly (Luke 3:21) that “Jesus being baptized and praying, heaven was opened”: because, to wit, the faithful after baptism stand in need of prayer” (III, Q. 39, art. 5).

Form, Matter, and Accidents

Like all sacraments, baptism has form and matter.  The form is the essence of baptism, the principle that makes it what it is.  The form points to the principle cause of the sacrament, which is God, and specifically the God Christians know to be triune.  So the form of baptism is the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” which points to the source and purpose and end of baptism–the Trinity.  The matter is how the form is instantiated, and so the matter of baptism is water.  Matter alone is not enough to make a sacrament; the matter becomes something special when enlivened on the form.

There are lots of what Aquinas calls “accidents” attached to baptism.  These are the things that are not essential to the sacrament, though nevertheless important for some reason.  “Accidents do not diversify the essence of the sacrament,” Aquinas says.  This means that there are lots of things that one could do in the act of baptism that might vary, while not changing the essential nature of the act which is still baptism.

One of these accidents is how the water is conferred to the baptized, namely whether the baptized is immersed or sprinkled.  Catholics typically sprinkle water over the head, but they might be surprised that Aquinas thinks sprinkling is acceptable, but immersion is preferred because it more closely represents Christ’s burial and the idea that the baptized dies with Christ.  Thomas identifies a few circumstances where sprinkling would be acceptable.  These include a shortage of water, a huge number of baptismal candidates (we’re talking thousands) which would make immersion cumbersome, and the feebleness  of the candidate whose life might be endangered by immersion.  This last reason is why Catholics sprinkle, because they baptize infants, too small to be heartily dunked.  We’ll come back to this.

Another accident Aquinas addresses is whether the baptized need to be immersed or sprinkled three times.  I had never really thought about this question until the priest doing pre-Cana with my fiancé and me informed us that my fiancé had only been immersed once, which was not consistent with the form of baptism which requires trine immersion or sprinkling.  This meant we had to get a “disparity of cult” dispensation because the Catholic Church did not recognize the validity of his baptism.  Turns out, Aquinas would disagree “since the Trinity can be represented in the three immersions, and the unity of the Godhead in one immersion” (III, Q. 66, art. 8).  Moreover, the matter of washing is an accident, which does not change the validity of the sacrament, only its licitness.  He does say that trine baptism is now universally recognized by the Church, and baptisms conducted otherwise would not be consistent with the ritual of the church, though they would nevertheless remain valid.   As a good Thomist, I don’t think the “disparity of cult” dispensation was appropriate.

What about rebaptism?  Aquinas says that there is only one baptism for the remission of sins.  Here, because so many Christians practice rebaptism, it is worth quoting Aquinas in full.

First, because Baptism is a spiritual regeneration; inasmuch as a man dies to the old life, and begins to lead the new life. Whence it is written (John 3:5): “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, He cannot see [Vulgate: 'enter into'] the kingdom of God.” Now one man can be begotten but once. Wherefore Baptism cannot be reiterated, just as neither can carnal generation. . . Secondly, because “we are baptized in Christ’s death,” by which we die unto sin and rise again unto “newness of life” (cf. Romans 6:3-4). Now “Christ died” but “once” (Romans 6:10). Wherefore neither should Baptism be reiterated. For this reason (Hebrews 6:6) is it said against some who wished to be baptized again: “Crucifying again to themselves the Son of God”; on which the gloss observes: “Christ’s one death hallowed the one Baptism.”  Thirdly, because Baptism imprints a character, which is indelible, and is conferred with a certain consecration. Wherefore, just as other consecrations are not reiterated in the Church, so neither is Baptism. . . Fourthly, because Baptism is conferred principally as a remedy against original sin. Wherefore, just as original sin is not renewed, so neither is Baptism reiterated, for as it is written (Romans 5:18), “as by the offense of one, unto all men to condemnation, so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life.”

Recipients

“Men are bound to that without which they cannot obtain salvation. Now it is manifest that no one can obtain salvation but through Christ; wherefore the Apostle says (Romans 5:18): “As by the offense of one unto all men unto condemnation; so also by the justice of one, unto all men unto justification of life.” But for this end is Baptism conferred on a man, that being regenerated thereby, he may be incorporated in Christ, by becoming His member: wherefore it is written (Galatians 3:27): “As many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ.” Consequently it is manifest that all are bound to be baptized: and that without Baptism there is no salvation for men.”

The Christian tradition and the Scriptural witness are clear, as this above quote makes clear, that baptism is an essential part of the Christian faith.  No interior change of heart suffices–you must be baptized.  Doesn’t mean that God can’t save  a person without baptism, but perfect conversion to God belongs to those who are regenerated in Christ, by baptism.  Thomas relies heavily on the example of Christ to back up this point.  If Jesus, who had no sin, saw it fit to be baptized and it was at this event that the heavens opened up to him, so too should we see it fit to be baptized.

What about children?  This seems to me a big sticking point in the practice of baptism between different Christian churches who disapprove of the practice of baptizing infants, as Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and some others do.  Aquinas justifies this practice first with the words of Paul: “For if, by the transgression of one person, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one person Jesus Christ.  In conclusion, just as through one transgression condemnation came upon all, so through one righteous act acquittal and life came to all.”

When Paul says that condemnation came to all, Aquinas takes him to mean everyone, regardless of age.  Infants come into this world marked with the sin of Adam.  Infants come into this world burdened with the punishment for sin, which is death.  Infants come into this world already needing salvation.  And when Paul says that acquittal and life come to all through the one righteous act of Jesus, Aquinas takes him mean that everyone can gain new life through baptism into Christ, regardless of age.  “Our Lord Himself said (John 3:5): “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Consequently it became necessary to baptize children, that, as in birth they incurred damnation through Adam so in a second birth they might obtain salvation through Christ” (III, Q. 68, art. 9).

More generally, Aquinas thinks that the saving act that happens in baptism is an act of God, not an act of the believer.  Baptism is necessary because human beings on their own cannot achieve salvation, but rely exclusively on God.  In light of this, it makes no sense to Aquinas to say that only believers should be baptized.  Aquinas doesn’t think that we even can believe, apart from grace.  Faith is a gift, not an achievement.  In order to make it more likely, therefore, that children grow up in faith, baptism is necessary.  He says “it was fitting that children should receive Baptism, in order that being reared from childhood in things pertaining to the Christian mode of life, they may the more easily persevere therein; according to Proverbs 22:5: “A young man according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it” (ibid.).  For the same reason, Aquinas thinks that baptism should be offered to the mentally ill, those lacking in reason who cannot make a rational statement of faith.  “The little child is made a believer, not as yet by that faith which depends on the will of the believer, but by the sacrament of faith itself,” which causes the habit of faith” (III, Q. 69, art. 6).

The Effect of Baptism

Baptism takes away sin, both original and actual.  It is the initiation of a new life, a life of faith.  Baptism also frees the believer from the punishment of sin, which is death, because just as we die to Christ, so too do we rise with him.  Baptism also confers grace  and the virtues of faith, hope, and love onto the baptized.  This means that the baptized have a diminished concupiscence (proclivity to sin) so as to no longer be enslaved by sin.  In other words, Aquinas thinks that baptism makes it easier to be good, because baptism unites us into the body of Christ, and so we become part of Christ’s good works.  He writes, “so from their spiritual Head, i.e. Christ, do His members derive spiritual sense consisting in the knowledge Of truth, and spiritual movement which results from the instinct of grace. Hence it is written (John 1:14-16): “We have seen Him . . . full of grace and truth; and of His fullness we all have received.” And it follows from this that the baptized are enlightened by Christ as to the knowledge of truth, and made fruitful by Him with the fruitfulness of good works by the infusion of grace.”

Most importantly, as so many Christians heard in the reading from Mark 1 today, baptism rips open the heavens.  The gates of heaven, once closed to human beings because of sin, are now opened through Christ’s baptism and his passion, death, and resurrection.  This is why it is so clear that baptism is the work of God, not man, because man could never open those gates on his own.  We depend on Christ for our salvation, not our own efforts.  And we accept the great grace of baptism in obedience in order gain the grace necessary to join him in eternal life.  All Christians are called to be baptized, and I see no better place than this sacrament of Christian initiation to lay the foundation for Christian unity.

Religion as a Virtue

“There’s probably  no God.  Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”  So says the advertisement placed on over 800 buses in England as part of the atheist bus campaign, featured in this New York Times article.  The ad campaign was initiated to respond to advertisements sponsored by this website, quoting John 3:16 and listing the website.  The website, I think, is what is often called a Roman Road website, which my esteemed fiancé addresses in this blog post.

My intention is not to talk about atheism or the problems with the Roman Road mentality (which my fiance does a very fine job addressing), but rather to talk more generally about what religion is, which I hope may clear up some misconceptions between atheists and Christians.

Aquinas says that religion is a virtue which is characterized by giving due honor to God.  Because religion is about “giving what is due,” Aquinas includes it as a virtue of justice, which is defined as the habit “whereby a man renders to others what is due to them by a constant and perpetual will.”  When I repay a loan, I am giving what is due to a person, which is an act of justice.  When I punish a misbehaving a child, I am giving what is due, which is an act of justice.  When I give God gratitude and worship, I am giving God what is due, which  is an act of justice.

Habits are differentiated according to their objects.  The theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity) have God as their object while the moral virtues have a natural or human good as their object.  The object of temperance, for example, is pleasures of touch.  The object of fortitude is the arduous good.  The object of religion is “reverence to one God under one aspect, namely as the first principle of the creation and government of things” (II-II, Q. 81, art. 3).

The moral virtues are about the moral good according to human, not divine standards.  The acts conducive to the development of the moral virtues are in accordance with the dictates of natural human reason.  So Aquinas, by listing religion as a moral virtue, is saying that religion is a natural, human virtue, not something supernatural.  He says, “the good to which religion is directed is to give due honor to God.  Honor is due to someone under the aspect of excellence: and to God a singular excellence is competent, since He infinitely surpasses all things and exceeds them in every way.  Wherefore to Him is special honor due: even as in human affairs we see that different honor is due to different personal excellences, one kind of honor to a father, another to the king.” (I-II, Q. 81, art. 4).

What Aquinas is saying here is really quite remarkable–religion is something everybody should practice, not just select people who believe in God.  Moreover, religion is not about our human state of mind, but about giving God what is due to him as God.  Good, or virtuous religious practice does not give God worship in order to avoid Hell, as this http://www.jesussaid.org/gods-wrath-against-sin.php Roman Road website suggests, and atheists often assume.  Virtuous religious practice recognizes God as the giver of all good things and believes he should be given gratitude and honor as a result.

So what about the Atheist Bus Campaign’s claim that all those religious people should “stop worrying and enjoy life?”  Or what about the Australian atheists who wanted to advertise for their point of view with the appeal “Atheism: Sleep in on Sunday mornings.”  You get the impression that atheists are the happy, carefree ones and religious people are uptight, paranoid, and miserable.  Aquinas would disagree.  “the direct and principal effect of devotion is the spiritual joy of the mind . . . Caused by a twofold consideration: chiefly by the consideration of God’s goodness, because this consideration belongs to the term, as it  were, of the movement of the  will in surrendering itself to God, and direct result of this consideration is joy. . . Secondarily, devotion is caused by the consideration of one’s own failings; for this consideration regards the term from which man withdraws by the movement of his devout will, in that he trusts not in himself, but subjects himself to God” (II-II, Q. 82, art. 4).

Good and virtuous religion, whereby God is praised and adore as the supreme principle of all being, and the giver or all good things is not a burdensome act, according to Aquinas, but one which humans are meant to enjoy.  This is consistent with his idea that virtue is not just when we do good acts against our inclinations, but when our inclinations align with good acts: “we must allow that sorrow for things pertaining to virtue is incompatible with virtue: since virtue rejoices in its own. On the other hand, virtue sorrows moderately for all that thwarts virtue, no matter how” (I-II, Q. 59, art. 4).

Most of us, however, do not have the virtue of religion.  It is hard for us to wake up on Sunday mornings, we do get bored in church, and we almost always have other things to do besides pray.  Almost all virtues are difficult to develop at first.  It is hard for an alcoholic to be temperate towards alcohol, there is always an excuse to not justly give money and time to different charitable activities as an act of justice, and judging by the divorce rates in this country, lots of oaths are being broken.  Yet it takes virtuous acts like keeping promises and giving money to the poor to develop the virtue of justice.  It takes virtuous acts of moderation towards food, drink, and sex to develop the virtue of temperance.

My point is that most of us are not virtuous people and so we find it difficult to do virtuous things.  But Aquinas’ psychology says that the more we grow in virtue, the easier it is for us to continue to act virtuously.  So also is the case with religion.  We start off practicing religion because it is our duty, but as we revere and honor him, “our mind is subjected to Him; wherein its perfection consists, since a thing is perfected by being subject to its superior” (II-II Q. 81, art. 7).  As we become more religious, we become sanctified, or made holy,  whereby we give God not only what He is due in worship, but also as we refer to God “the works of the other virtues.”  In like manner, “man by certain good works disposes himself to the worship of God” (II-II, Q. 81, art. 8).

So religion and other good acts are related in Aquinas’ systems because religion itself is a virtue.   And virtues dispose their owner towards more and more good acts.  So don’t sleep in on Sunday mornings, but look at going to church and worshipping God as just another part of enjoying life, and more importantly, as part of becoming a better person.  And above all, remember that in the end, the worship you give isn’t about you and what you are getting out of it, but about what you owe God.

Thomas Aquinas’ Views Featured in TIME Magazine

I am delighted with the feature article for the most recent Time Magazine.  I love it when an article substantiating everything Thomas Aquinas said 800 years is considered “news.”  The Time Magazine article is all about happiness, which I talked about here in my article on beatitude as providing the foundation of Aquinas’ ethics.  This article, however, is not so much about ethics but rather, positive psychology, which I also talked about here.

Positive psychologists are interested  not just in what makes us depressed, but also in what makes us happy.  Or as Martin Seligman, the new president of the American Psychological Association, describes the goal of positive psychology: “It wasn’t enough for us (psychologists) to nullify disabling conditions and get to zero. We needed to ask, What are the enabling conditions that make human beings flourish? How do we get from zero to plus five?”  Seligman and others like Edward Diener, Ray Fowler, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi have been pushing scientific studies to determine what makes us happy, but for a Thomist, the conclusions are not news.

Turns out, wealth doesn’t make us happy.  As described by this accompanying Time Magazine article, scientific research indicates that people with above-average incomes are not much happier than others and that loss of wealth is usually only accompanied by a short term loss in happiness, if overal happiness is affected at all.

But Aquinas already said that happiness did not reside in the acquiring of wealth (I-II, Q. 2, art. 1) because wealth is meant to serve something else like the satisfaction of needs.  Even wealth that buys us not just what we need but all the things in the world that we may want does not satisfy our insatiable human appetites, as Aquinas explains:

in the desire for wealth and for whatsoever temporal goods . . . when we already possess them, we despise them, and seek others: which is the sense of Our Lord’s words (John 4:13): “Whosoever drinketh of this water,” by which temporal goods are signified, “shall thirst again.” The reason of this is that we realize more their insufficiency when we possess them: and this very fact shows that they are imperfect, and the sovereign good does not consist therein.

Positive psychologists are also discovering that education, fame, goods of the body, and even pleasure don’t make us happy.  All of Question 2 of the Prima Secundae, however,  is dedicated to proving this exact fact.

Positive psychologists have also discovered that friends are conducive to happiness.  Aquinas derives this notion from Aristotle, making this insight even more ancient:

If we speak of the happiness of this life, the happy man needs friends, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 9), not, indeed, to make use of them, since he suffices himself; nor to delight in them, since he possesses perfect delight in the operation of virtue; but for the purpose of a good operation, viz. that he may do good to them; that he may delight in seeing them do good; and again that he may be helped by them in his good work. For in order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends (I-II, Q. 4, art. 8 )

Religion also seems to make us  happier, which I talked about here.

But it also turns out that even the happiest people are sad some of the time.  According to Aquinas, this is because the happiness of this life is only imperfect happiness.  True happiness consists only in contemplating the Divine Essence, which is the only sort of happiness that cannot be lost.

Like I say, I am delighted that positive psychology is confirming all of these great Thomistic insights.  As valuable as positive psychology is, however, it can only tell us about imperfect happiness, which by its very nature will always be a little dissatisfying.  Maybe those like Martin Seligman and Edward Diener who are on the quest for happiness will, in their dissatisfaction with what positive psychology concludes, lead others to the theology of Thomas Aquinas which concludes that “final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence” (I-II,  Q. 3, art. 8).

Celebrating God’s Revelation on the Feast of the Epiphany

Today, the Catholic Church observes the Feast of Epiphany, which celebrates the revelation of God to humanity in the person of Jesus Christ.  The Gospel reading for Mass today is the story from Matthew of the revealing of Jesus Christ to the wise men.  The fourth century pope Leo I (also known as Leo the Great) has an impressive homily for today’s feast:

What wondrous faith of perfect knowledge, which was taught [the wise men] not by earthly wisdom, but by the instruction of the Holy Spirit! Whence came it that these men, who had quitted their country without having seen Jesus, and had not noticed anything in His looks to enforce such systematic adoration, observed this method in offering their gifts unless it were that besides the appearance of the star, which attracted their bodily eyes, the more refulgent rays of truth taught their hearts that before they started on their toilsome road, they must understand that He was signified to Whom was owed in gold royal honor, in incense Divine adoration, in myrrh the acknowledgment of mortality.  Such a belief and understanding no doubt, as far as the enlightenment of their faith went, might have been sufficient in themselves and have prevented their using their bodily eyes in inquiring into that which they had beheld with their mind’s fullest gaze. But their sagacious diligence, persevering till they found the child, did good service for future peoples and for the men of our own time.

In light of today’s feast, I think it is appropriate to present a few reflections on what this feast celebrates–the revelation of God.

Thomas Aquinas introduces the Summa Theologica with a discussion of revelation which he calls “knowledge of God” outside of what could be known by human reason alone.  The truths in which revelations consists cannot be grasped by the natural intellect but must nevertheless be accepted on faith.  These truths are invisible, which Aquinas backs up by quoting Hebrews 11:1  “faith is the revelation of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen.”

These truths are also eternal, not like the knowledge of this age which passes away.  Here, Aquinas draws on 1 Corinthians 2:6-10:

Yet we do speak a wisdom to those who are mature, but not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.  Rather, we speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, and which none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.  But as it is written: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,” this God has revealed to us through the Spirit.  For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.

An example of such knowledge which exceeds what the natural intellect can achieve on its own is knowledge of the Trinity.  No amount of scientific experimentation will ever yield proof that God is one God in three persons.  No philosophical method can ever lead to the conclusion that God creates, redeems, and sanctifies.  These are called “theological” rather than philosophical truths, and they must be believed to be known.

Human reason can, however, come to some knowledge of God without the light of revelation.  Aquinas says that human beings were created with intellects that naturally seek out the causes of phenomena they observe in the world.  The Magi, for example,  saw a strange star and sought out its cause.  But the cause was not simply some astrological phenomenon, but rather, the unique work of a God revealing himself to the Gentiles.

Because the things we observe in the world are caused by God, human beings can “know that God exists in a general and confused way” (I, Q. 2, art. 1).  We can know God made the stars without really knowing the God who made the stars.

We can also know God as the source and the end of our quest for happiness.  All people desire happiness (beatitude) which is found ultimately only in God, a conviction that provides the foundation for Aquinas’ moral theology.  However, this knowledge regarding God as the source of our ultimate happiness is also confused because not all people know what their happiness consists in, some believing it to be riches or fame or pleasure (which I talked about here).

This general and confused knowledge of God can be demonstrated in five ways, all of which proceed from an observable effect to God who is the cause of this effect.  These five ways will be the subject of another blog post but in brief they are as follows: (1) God is the first mover of all of the universe, put into motion by no other; (2) God is the first efficient cause; (3) God is the only necessary thing amidst all other contingent things which exist; (4) God is the greatest gradation of Being, the most perfect thing of all other things which exist; and (5) God is the intelligent designer of all things which seem to have been made by something for a purpose.

The “five ways” are philosophical ways of talking about God, but they just scratch the surface.  Revelation opens up to us knowledge of the essence of God, not just what God appears to do, but what God is.  The perfection of this revelation is found in the person of Jesus Christ.  By the mystery of the Incarnation, we are brought to knowledge of “the goodness, the wisdom, the justice, and the power or might of God–’His goodness, for He did not despise the weakness of His own handiwork; His justice, since, on man’s defeat, He caused the tyrant to be overcome by none other than man, and yet He did not snatch men forcibly from death; His wisdom, for He found a suitable discharge for a most heavy debt; His power, or infinite might, for there is nothing greater than for God to become incarnate . . .’” (Damascene, De Fide Orth. iii, 1, cited in Summa Theologica 3, Q. 1, art. 1).  For this reason, Aquinas argues, it was fitting that God become incarnate, so that we may see Jesus and know God.

Aquinas says that humanity’s whole salvation depends on this knowledge of God revealed in Christ.  “Therefore,” he writes, “in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation.  It was therefore necessary that besides philosophical science built up by reason, there should be a sacred science learned through revelation” (I, Q. 1, art. 1–the first article of the Summa Theologica, for what it is worth).  We celebrate this revelation today, the Feast of the Epiphany, and like the three Magi from afar, we too would do wel to fall prostrate at the feet of our savior, and pay him homage.

Elation: A Christian Evaluation of Positive Psychology’s New Emotion

Positive psychologists are the psychological community’s optimists.  One of the goals of positive psychology is to reevaluate human nature and human potential in order to draw out the more positive aspects like compassion, self-sacrifice, and the capacity for self-transcendence.   The new thing in the field is an emotion called “elevation,” or “the Obama factor” as University of California-Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner calls it, described in this Slate article.  Keltner tries to study the emotion of “elation” by reproducing it in a lab.  Ordinarily, this is easy to do.  If you want to study disgust, show video of  someone vomiting and then proceed with a brain scan.  If you want to study compassion, video of a starving child in Africa with flies in his eyes normally does the trick.  But elation, it turns out, is a lot harder to coax in the lab . . . that is, until Keltner got the idea of showing video of Barack Obama’s victory speech.  Turns out, our president-to-be was just the stimulus needed to recreate “elation” in the minds of Keltner’s subjects.

You probably haven’t heard a lot about the emotion called “elation.”  The word was coined by positive psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who I have written about here.   Haidt describes elation as that strong motivational tendency towards moral improvement that comes from the feeling of being “lifted up” in an optimistic response to some elevating stimulus.  The emotion elation is elicited by witnessing acts of virtue or moral beauty, or as Haidt describes, “a manifestation of humanity’s ‘higher’ or ‘better’ nature.”

Haidt got the idea of elation from reading Thomas Jefferson’s letters, who he feels perfectly encapsulates the characteristics of elation:

[E]very thing is useful which contributes to fix us in the principles and practice of virtue. When any … act of charity or of gratitude, for instance, is presented either to our sight or imagination, we are deeply impressed with its beauty and feel a strong desire in ourselves of doing charitable and grateful acts also. On the contrary when we see or read of any atrocious deed, we are disgusted with its deformity and conceive an abhorrence of vice. Now every emotion of this kind is an exercise of our virtuous dispositions; and dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise (emphasis mine).

In Thomas Aquinas’ philosophical anthropology (also called his “moral psychology”), emotions are called “passions,” from the Latin word passio meaning “suffering,” but connoting the idea of “being acted upon.  According to Aquinas, a passion is a movement of the sensitive appetite (the appetite that perceives and responds to sensory perception) either towards or away from some perceived  (sensory) good or evil.  For example, fear is the sensitive appetite’s movement away from some perceived evil, whereas desire is the sensitive’s appetite’s movement towards some good (see I-II, Q. 59, art. 1 for a good summary of what the passions are).

In and of themselves, the passions are neither good nor evil.  In fact, many of the same passions seen in human behavior are also evident in the behavior of animals.  The difference between human passion and animal passion is reason.  Aquinas thinks that all human passion must be subordinated to reason (or the intellect).  This subordination to the rational appetite  is not in the way a slave subordinates himself to a master, what Aquinas calls a “tyrannical rule” over the passions whereby the passions do only what the intellect tells them to do.  Rather, the process is more dialectical, a process Aquinas calls “political rule.”  The sensitive appetite perceives some sensory object like a suspicious stranger or a beautiful sunset and in the process of this perception, is moved to feel something like fear or joy.  This is called the “antecedent movement of the sensitive appetite.”  If all is right within the person, the sensitive appetite then presents the perceived object to the intellect for evaluation, which then gives the passion a moral quality.  If the intellect determines that the sensitive appetite responded to the perceived stimulus correctly, the passion is deemed morally good; if the intellect determines that the sensitive appetite’s response was inadequate, the passion must be changed or else it becomes immoral.

An example may help clarify things.  If I see a tall black person walking on the street at night and I clutch my purse tighter, I am acting out of a passion called fear.  In an of itself, this passion is neither moral or immoral.  When  my sensitive appetite presents this object to the intellect, however, my intellect may determine that I don’t act out of fear when I come across tall white men at night and that I probably responded in fear due to some latent racism.  The intellect then tells the sensitive appetite not to be afraid.  If the sensitive appetite obeys, then the internal moral mechanisms in me are in order.  If I continue to feel afraid unnecessarily due to my latent racism, I am then indulging an immoral emotion.

Another example might be the joy I experience when I eat Jelly Belly jelly beans.  As I am experiencing pleasure and joy from my candy fix, my sensitive appetite is continuously presenting the object of my enjoyment to the intellect.  The intellect determines what degree of enjoyment is moderate, or temperate, and then informs my sensitive appetite when my enjoyment is getting excessive like when I start eating too many delectable beans.

The point is, emotions themselves are neither good nor bad until they are evaluated by reason.  The emotion of joy is only a good emotion if the object of enjoyment is good, like a conversation with a friend.  Joy becomes immoral when the object of enjoyment is bad, like mocking a person or gossiping.  The danger with introducing an emotion like “elation” is mistaking this emotion for a prima facie good.  Elation is fine and moral if I experience this feeling of transcendence and human excellence when I watch a video on Mother Theresa or read a newspaper article about a fireman going back into a burning building to rescue someone.  However, if I experience elation when listening to a white supremacist, the emotion becomes quite immoral.

This brings me back to Dr. Keltner.  I am not so convinced that Barack Obama should be the preferred stimulus for inducing the feeling of elation.  Barack Obama is inspirational in some ways, especially in his historic status as the first black American president.  Surely it is a great feat for the United States to move so quickly from legislated segregation only a few decades ago to having the majority of the country vote for a black man.  But Barack Obama is also a political figure who has to compromise himself in many ways to get the job done (what Michael Walzer calls getting “dirty hands”).  He also holds some questionable views that Christians at the very least should have some distaste for, like supporting the legalization of partial birth abortion and other views regarding the protection of the pre-born.

However, the bigger issue that I am concerned about is that people are moved emotionally by political figures like Barack Obama and celebrities like Oprah (one of the tests Haidt used to study elation involved exposing lactating women to an episode of Oprah’s talk show), but these stimuli are largely phantasms.  No matter how strongly you feel about Barack Obama, chances are, you don’t know the guy.  You don’t know what kind of president he will be.  You probably don’t know what kind of senator he was.  No matter how inspiring you may think Oprah is, you probably know nothing about her but the image she puts on.  She could be a wretched person to her staff and family and friends, and you wouldn’t know at all.  So you have to ask yourself–is elation the appropriate response to the stimulus of Barack Obama or Oprah?

For Christians, I think our experience of elation should often be reigned in, knowing what we know about the sinful and fallen state of the world.  Surely, there are many great moral examples to follow, and many witnesses to the human capacity to transcend our fallen natures, but more often than not, human beings are selfish and self-justifying.  The white supremacist probably experiences elation when she listens to a David Duke speech.  The secular humanist probably experiences elation when he listens to Paul Kurtz or reads Nietzsche.  They experience elation because the stimulus is self-justifying.

Christians have long had a sense of the importance of elation for the moral life, however.  The writing of the Gospels was largely because Christians felt elated and were inspired to rise to new moral heights when they heard the story of Jesus.  The “Imitation of Christ” is a highly regarded spiritual tool for much of the same reason.  The stories of the saints were used to induce “elation” and compel Christians to become more virtuous, compassionate, and loving individuals.

The difference between Christian elation and what Haidt and Keltner are studying is that Christian elation is stimulated by God’s love for humanity and his mercy towards us, rather than what human beings achieve on their own.  The witness of Christ, the great saints of the Christian tradition, and holy men and women of today is not to the capacity that human beings have to transcend, but rather, they witness to the height, depth, and width of God’s love.  It is this stimulus alone which we know is always morally good, and which should compel the greatest experience of elation from us.

I am reading a book right now called The Sermon on the Mount: Inspiring the Moral Imagination by Dale C. Allison which argues that the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew is not just about internalizing the Jewish moral code or about advocating some perfectionist ethic, but is also a summary of Jesus’ deeds and a witness to his character.  Allison writes, “the First Gospel is about a figure who imaginately and convincingly incarnates his own moral imperatives.  Jesus embodies his speech; he lives as he speaks and speaks as he lives.  It is not going too far to say that Matthew 5-7 proclaims likeness to the God of Israel (5:48) through the virtues of Jesus Christ” (22).  Allison concludes this section of the book by stating, “If Aristotle regarded ‘the good man’ as the canon in ethics, in Matthew, Jesus is the canon of Christian morality.”  Christians should pay attention to what the positive psychologists tell us about elation, but they should strive to cultivate this “new” emotion in response to Christ, who alone is “praise, adored, and loved with grateful affection, even to the end of time.”

Why Religion Might Make You Better Behaved and Happier

University of Miami researchers David McCullough and Brian Willoughby have issued a report claiming that religion promotes self-control, described in this recent New York Times article.  The article, written by a non-religious person, evaluates the claim backed up by other research that religion makes people better-behaved and overall happier that non-religious folk.  The most fascinating part to me was that McCullough and Willoughby do not conclude that the success religious people enjoy is attributed to  obedience to external rules imposed by a religious belief system, but rather to an internal strength that religious people have: “Brain-scan studies have shown that when people pray or meditate, there’s a lot of activity in two parts of brain that are important for self-regulation and control of attention and emotion,” McCullough said. “The rituals that religions have been encouraging for thousands of years seem to be a kind of anaerobic workout for self-control.”  I think an alternate explanation may be what Aquinas calls “infused moral virtues.”

In Thomas Aquinas’ system, a moral virtue is a good habit by which a person is disposed to act well as if it were second nature.  A virtue is formed by acting well over and over again.  He thinks that the development of  virtue is something that both believers and non-believers can do.  In other words, there is nothing specifically religious or theological about the moral virtues.  Anybody can theoretically discipline their passions to be virtuous, though in practice, the development of virtue is difficult and frequently unsuccessful.

However, there is another category of virtue which Aquinas calls “infused moral virtues.”  The infused moral virtues are not caused by acting well over and over again.  Thomas says that the moral virtues must ordinarily be “acquired” through the arduous process of habituating ourselves to the good.   Rather, the infused moral virtues are implanted  in us by God through grace.

Infused moral virtues are similar to their acquired counterparts.  We can still speak of infused and acquired temperance, for example, and both are habits that perfect the concupiscible appetite which is the appetite for things like food, drink, and sex.  However, there are two major differences between acquired and infused virtues, besides how they are caused.  The first difference is the matter with which the virtues are concerned, what Aquinas calls the object (materia circa quam):

the object of temperance is a good in respect of the pleasures connected with the concupiscence of touch. . . it is evident that the mean that is appointed in such like concupiscences according to the rule of human reason, is seen under a different aspect from the mean which is fixed according to Divine rule. For instance, in the consumption of food, the mean fixed by human reason, is that food should not harm the health of the body, nor hinder the use of reason: whereas, according to the Divine rule, it behooves man to “chastise his body, and bring it into subjection” (1 Corinthians 9:27), by abstinence in food, drink and the like” (I-II, Q. 63, art. 3).

So the object of acquired moral virtues is some earthly good like health according to what human reason dictates, whereas the object of the infused moral virtues is obedience to the command of God.  The second difference is that the infused and acquired virtues are directed towards different things.  The acquired virtues are directed towards are directed towards earthly goods that make people good “citizens of earth,” whereas the infused moral virtues are directed toward spiritual goods that make one a good “citizen of heaven.”

We need the infused moral virtues because human beings are given a supernatural end of eternal happiness (beatitude), which we cannot reach by our own effort, as well as a natural end of happiness in this life, which we can achieve based  on our own effort and cultivation of virtue.  Just as the acquired moral virtues habituate us to behave virtuously  and flourish in this life, the infused moral virtues habituate us to flourish in the next life as well.

We receive the infused moral virtues through grace.  We receive grace by going to church and worshiping collectively, by receiving the sacraments, and by praying.  Their source is religious in nature–Thomas does not think that pagans can receive the infused moral virtues.

The infused moral virtues could explain why religious people tend to be better at self-control as well more successful and happier than their non-religious counterparts.  Virtue is very difficult to acquire and most people are unsuccessful.  If a person through grace is infused with temperance, this will still manifest itself as self-control towards food and drink, even if on their own, they  were unsuccessful at developing temperance through acquisition.

Using Virtue Ethics to Read the Bible (Without Falling Into Anti-Nomianism)

There are lots off good reasons to read the Bible.  The reasons would vary depending who you polled–some “secular humanists” would say that the Bible should be read for cultural literacy or for its literary value as a great book.  Christians would say that the Bible is the Word of God and tells us how to get to heaven, or that the Bible tells us God’s will for our life.  Lots of people would say that the Bible has many good moral lessons like love of enemy, care for the poor and marginalized, and other norms dictating good behavior.

If Christians believe that the Bible is a good source of morals, they are faced with the challenge of figuring out how to move from the Scriptural witness to their own moral inquiries.  This is no easy task, and Christian history is full of different ways to answer the question of the relationship between the Bible and ethics.  My fiancé is part of the Church of Christ tradition that has a very handy little system called “Command, Example, Necessary Inference.”  What this means is if the New Testament commands something, you obey (like baptism and the Lord‘s Supper).  In the absence of a command, you follow any provided example (like taking the Lord‘s Supper every Sunday).  And if there is neither, you follow necessary inference (like the use of church buildings).  For issues specifically addressed in the New Testament, Churches of Christ have a pretty coherent way of forming their views, but for issues not found in the New Testament (like surrogate motherhood, for example), their approach can be pretty unsystematic and haphazard.

Other Christians have a “cafeteria approach” to Scripture, keeping what they like and rejecting what they don’t.  You see this in a lot of the more liberal-minded groups that like things like love of enemy, but don’t really think Paul’s condemnation of homosexual behavior is all that relevant or that the Bible’s teaching about divorce should really be taken all that seriously.  This approach has the advantage off avoiding a dogmatic and unilateral approach to Scripture, but it is often quite arbitrary in what it takes seriously from Scripture and what it dismisses.

What both of these approaches have in common is that they look to Scripture for norms or rules about how to behave.  This might be called a deontological approach to Scripture which means that Scripture provides certain duties for those that follow it, and only these duties are relevant to Christian ethics.  As a virtue theorist influenced by Thomas Aquinas, I find such an approach deficient.  Ethics is not just about rules and duties, but also about character and leading a good life.  Virtue theory provides a way of using the Bible for ethics, not just for the derivation of rules, but also for a witness as to what sort of people we are called to be.  The Bible tells us what sort of character Christians should have.

Some people like the idea of using virtue theory to bridge ethics and Scripture because it makes their “cafeteria” approach more systematic.  Such people say something like “the rules in the Bible are not all that important, only the virtues like kindness and justice.”  This approach looks a lot like anti-nomianism, or the rejection of the relevance of rules (anti=against; nomos=laws).  These people tend to want to use Scripture without dealing with the parts dealing with tricky issues like homosexuality, divorce, and women.  They want to say that the overall trajectory of Scripture shows us the sort of people that we should be (kind, tolerant, just, etc.) but the details aren’t all that important.

I don’t fall into this camp.   I think the Bible shows us what sort of character we should have and what sort of virtues form that character, but it also tells us how these virtues are developed.  Aristotle tells us (and Aquinas agrees) that virtues are formed by acting well.  The virtue of justice, for example, is developed by acting justly over a period of time, such that you start doing just acts as a second nature.  But how do we know what just acts are, before we develop the virtue of justice?  One way is by following just people, but another way is by obeying just rules.

Think of a parent raising a child.  If that parent wants the child to be fair, he puts in place certain rules to encourage fairness, like sharing toys or taking turns with fun activities.  What the parent hopes is that eventually, the child will act fairly even when there  are no rules forcing them to, or no person to enforce the rules.  But the child will get to that state only if he obeys the rules about fair activity over and over and over again and by imitating the example of fair people.

Scripture can be thought of in a similar way.  God wants us to be certain people, and he has provided us with commands and examples of people to follow in order to become the people he calls us to be.  For example, he want us to be people who are wise.  Scripture tells us that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  What does acting out of fear of the Lord look like?  It looks like following God’s commands.  For example, in Exodus 9, God commands that all the livestock be brought under shelter to protect them from the coming hailstorm He is sending.  The officials of Pharaoh who fear the Lord obey, and their livestock is saved, but those who do not fear the Lord ignore the command and suffer the consequences.  The rule God gives us is to “obey his commands” and he provides many examples like these servants for us to imitate.

Another examples of what God calls us to be is loving people.  We only become loving people, however, by performing acts of love like taking care of the widow, the resident alien, the orphan, and even our enemies.  We become loving people by not resisting evil, but by “overcoming  evil with good” as Paul tells us in Romans.  These rules are supplemented by examples of loving people, the paradigmatic one being Jesus himself, but also figures like Mary and Paul who are paradigms of love that we can imitate.

If the commands in the Bible must still be taken seriously, one might ask what the difference between a deontological approach to Scripture and a virtue-based approach.  The answer is that a deontological approach to Scripture sees obedience to the rules as an end in itself.  God commanded us to obey, and we do so accordingly.  A virtue-based approach sees the rules as a means to becoming the people that God calls us to be.  The rules are not arbitrary commands of God, but tools that God gives us to develop the sort of character we need to follow him.  If we are successful, we no longer follow the rules out of slavish obedience, but out of love of the Good that is behind the rules.  The goal of virtue theory, unlike a deontological theory, is not just be obedient, but to be good like God is good so that we may no longer be called servants, but friends of God.

At the same time, using a virtue-based approach to Scripture means that  when we come across a contemporary moral problem like in vitro fertilization or global warming, we don’t have to look at Scripture to see what is specifically commanded or what rule can be inferred.  We can also look to Scripture to see what kind of people God is calling us to be and how the dilemma at hand compares.  This will not protect us from diversity in our ethical views (some people may say that using in vitro fertilization is consistent with becoming the sort of person God wants us to be while others will disagree) but it will allow us to take seriously the Scriptural witness for the way we think about ethics without falling into unilateral dogmatism or arbitrary picking and choosing in the process.

Beatitude

Aquinas’ ethics begins with and is founded on the end.  He introduces the Secunda Pars of the Summa Theologica with a treatise on man’s last end which he describes as “last in the order of execution but first in the agent’s intention.”  What he means is that the end of an action is the last thing achieved in acting but the reason for acting is nevertheless the end.  Think of spending several hours baking and decorating cookies, which I recently did for Christmas.  The time mixing the dough, rolling it, cutting it into shapes, baking the cookies, and finally, painstakingly decorating them was all motivated by the last thing “in the order of execution of baking cookies,” which is the eating and enjoying of them.  In the same way, Aquinas says that the ultimate end of all actions, which he will define as beatitude ,is the first in the order of intention for all human action.  In other words, all human action is motivated by the desire to be happy.  The reason I baked the cookies at all is because in some way, I thought that baking cookies, and watching my family enjoy eating them, would make me happy.

Another way of stating this is that the final cause is the first in the chain of causes.  We think of what we want to achieve by acting before we act.

Aquinas says that there are two ways to think of the end.  The first is the thing itself in which the end exists (beatitude) and the second is the use or acquisition of that thing.  A glutton’s end is food, and the use of that end consists in the pleasure that comes from eating.  According to Aquinas, the ultimate end of human existence in the first sense is God “who alone by His infinite goodness can perfectly satisfy man’s will.”  In the second sense, the last end for human beings is the enjoyment of this last end which Aquinas calls “beatitude.”

The word beatitude is a difficult word to understand in English.  Sometimes it is translated as “happiness,” but beatitude is a long-lasting happiness, not something that can be easily lost.  “Happiness” does not connote the steadfastness of beatitude.  Sometimes beatitude is translated as “flourishing” which again does not fully convey the full meaning of what Aquinas means by the word (mainly because we don‘t really use the word flourishing in our everyday speech and nobody really knows what it means).  What we can do is identify what beatitude is not.  Aquinas says it is not wealth, honor, fame and glory, power, good of the body, or pleasure.  It is not something external, not something that can be easily lost, not something arbitrary like luck, and not any created good.  Beatitude, according to Aquinas, is not even a good of the soul because if it were, the object of happiness would be human beings, which would mean that human beings could be loved for their own sake, which is contrary to what Christians hold to be true.

Beatitude, is, however, uncreated.  It is not something we have, it is something we do.  Aquinas speaks of beatitudes in two senses–its cause or object and its use.  Beatitude in the first sense (the thing in which beatitude consists) can only be God, and in the second sense, beatitude can only be the enjoyment of God:

“Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence.”

How does Aquinas back this up?  First, he says that nobody can be perfectly happy as long as there is something left for him to desire.  Nothing on earth leaves us without some other desire to be fulfilled.  It is almost a truism to say that just because a person has everything doesn’t mean that person is happy.

Aquinas’ second observation about happiness is that human beings are constituted to seek out the cause of things.  If we see mold growing on a piece of fruit, we seek out the chain of causes behind this occurrence until we arrive at the ultimate cause.  Our human nature is constituted to seek out the ultimate cause of our happiness.  However, simply knowing that God is behind our happiness is not enough for our intellect; we want to know the essence of God and this is beyond what the human intellect on its own can accomplish.  We need something else, some power outside of ourselves which Aquinas calls grace to elevate our intellect to know God in this way and to open our eyes to see God in this way.

In light of all this, Aquinas thinks that we can never achieve perfect happiness in this life.  We can, however, achieve “imperfect beatitude.”  This imperfect happiness is analogous to perfect happiness.  It is stable and lasting, it doesn’t exist in external goods like money, fame, or power.  Both types of happiness are “operations” or acts, not things.  The major distinction between perfect happiness and imperfect happiness is that perfect happiness consists in contemplating the Divine Essence, which we can’t do on our own, and imperfect happiness consists in the exercise of virtue, which we can do without any external supernatural aid.

Happiness in this life is often unstable and subject to the vicissitudes of fortune.  I knew somebody who had found great happiness–this person this person (we will call him Job) had friends, career success, a comfortable and even  luxurious existence.  People commented on how happy Job seemed going into the holiday season.  About two weeks or so before Christmas, Job suffered a great disaster resulting in the loss of his home and possessions.  Even if Job was a virtuous person and had all the right values and gave thanks to God that he still had his life, Job is still less happy in his homeless, possession-less existence.  Aquinas’ treatment of happiness echoes Jesus saying to “store up treasures in heaven” because only in heaven can we ever find true happiness.  In fact, this is the definition of heaven in Aquinas’ book–total happiness.

Some people say that Aquinas has an otherworldly understanding of happiness that does not allow for any sort of happiness in this life.  I do not believe this is the case.  Aquinas thinks that we can flourish in this life in different ways but he wants to keep us from thinking that this life is it.  No matter what we do, no matter how hard we work and how good we become, there will always be something else that we desire in order to be happy.  Augustine expressed this sentiment in his Confessions when he said, “My heart is restless until it rests in you.”  We always hunger for God as the ultimate Giver of all good things, and until we get him, we stay a little bit hungry.