A Certain Rectitude of Order: Jesus and Justification According to Aquinas

The Thomist 72 (2008): 45-66 A CERTAIN RECTITUDE OF ORDER: JESUS AND JUSTIFICATION ACCORDING TO AQUINAS J. MARK ARMITAGE Durham, United Kingdom BRIAN DAVIES OBSERVES that justification, for Aquinas, "is a matter of God making us more godly."1 But how exactly does Aquinas understand this process of "making us more godly"? The key concept in Aquinas's teaching on justification is that justification denotes a movement towards "rectitude of order": Justice is so-called inasmuch as it implies a certain rectitude of order [rectitudo ordinis] in the interior disposition of a human being, in so far as what is highest in humans is subject to God, and the inferior powers of the soul are subject to the superior, i.e. to the reason; and this disposition the Philosopher calls 'justice metaphorically speaking'.2 In this article I wish to explore the Christological and soteriological significance of Aquinas's understanding of justice as "a certain rectitude of order in the interior disposition of a human being." Firstly, I intend to examine his treatment of original justice and original sin, especially in so far as these denote a relation to "ordinateness." Secondly, in the light of the close connection between the questions of law and justification in Pauline theology, I intend to explain why it is for Aquinas that the 1 Brian Davies, O.P., The Thought ofThomas Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 337. 2 STh I-II, q. 113, a. 1. All quotations from the Summa Theologiae are taken, with appropriate adaptations, from the translation by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1920-25). 45 46 J. MARK ARMITAGE Old Law is incapable of justifying-that is, of producing "a certain rectitude of order in the interior disposition of a human being." Finally, I intend to show how the justice of Christ-Christ's own personal justification and interior rectitude of order-is the ground for all human redemption and justification. Although this study is expository rather than speculative, I do not plan to offer either a detailed account of the relevant question from the Summa Theologiae (STh 1-11, q. 113) or an assessment of whether or not Aquinas's argument there is successful.3 Neither do I intend to discuss in great depth the twin issues of justification by faith and of the relationship of grace and justification.4 In the light of the Reformation, these issues have become, together with the debate as to whether justification is imputed (Lutheranism) or imparted (Catholicism), central to the discussion of justification whether this is conceived polemically or ecumenically, and they are, understandably, issues that feature prominently in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church.5 However, there has emerged over the last thirty years or so (primarily in the Englishspeaking world) a current of thinking in contemporary Pauline scholarship to the effect that Paul's teaching on justification needs to be interpreted not along the customary post-Reformation lines, but in the light of his understanding of Old Testament covenant theology and of the shape of biblical narrative.6 This "new 3 For an analysis of Aquinas's synthesis, see Eleonore Stump, "Atonement and Justification," in Ronald J. Feenstra and Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., eds., Trinity, Incarnation, andAtonement: Philosophicaland Theological Essays (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), 178-209. 4 The classic themes of justification through faith, justificati_on and grace, and justification as forgiveness are beyond the scope of this study. For a good introduction, see Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 335-39; Daniel A. Keating, "Justification, Sanctification and Divinization in Thomas Aquinas," in Thomas Weinandy, Daniel Keating, and John Yocum, eds., Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction (London: T. & T. Clark, 2004), 139-58. 5 Available on the Vatican web site (www.vatican.va) under the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. 6 See especially N. T. Wright, Paul: Fresh Perspectives (London: SPCK, 2005); also N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People ofGod (London: SPCK, 1992); Ben Witherington III, The Paul Quest: The Renewed Search for the Jew of Tarsus (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1998), 230-62. JESUS AND...