One of my old papers on moral theology...

“On the Christian and Capital Character of Aquinas’s Treatise on the Evangelical Law”

Presented to

The Reverend Romanus Cessario, O.P., S.T.D., L.H.D.

In partial completion of requirements for

Moral Theology

And

Aquinas and the New Law of Grace

(Spring 2011)

Mr. Robert L. T. Miskell, M.A.

© Fr. Robert Miskell

Fr. Servais Pinckaers, O.P., in his monumental work The Sources of Christian Ethics, points to the treatise on the evangelical Law as the heart of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae.  Considering the challenges of its critics, he notes the fundamentally Christian character of this work, and its place as caput corporis of the Angelic Doctor’s moral theology.[i]  Through personal reflection upon this question, and its pastoral implications with regard to the contemporary spiritual and moral plague of despair, one comes to a deeper appreciation of the gift that St. Thomas has bequeathed to the Church in his short but powerful meditation upon the New Law.

            As Pinckaers relates, this treatise of the Summa, sadly, has enjoyed little appreciation by theologians through the centuries.  Representative of the moral-theological momentum of its time, particularly in terms of the two great, rising mendicant traditions (Dominican and Franciscan), it was still an original synthesis by the profound but concise mind of the Doctor Communis.  The preeminent commentator on St. Thomas’s opus, Tommaso de Vio Gaetani Cardinal Cajetan, O.P. (1469-1534), treated the treatise shortly, touching mostly upon the one-hundred-sixth question.  The Baroque-era Dominican Charles-Rene Billuart focused attention on Aquinas’s teachings on natural law, neglecting his meditations on both the Old and New Laws.  The Jesuit Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), in a characteristically casuist fashion, treated the Beatitudes as merely a new divine positive law, after the fashion of the Mosaic legislation.  Like Billuart, he considered natural law the heart of morality, to the neglect of the Sermon on the Mount.  Giovanni Vincenzo Patuzzi, O.P. (1700-1769) made a notable and substantive use of the New Law as a guide to the moral life, however his approach did not attract a serious following.  With the persistent predominance of casuistry until the mid-twentieth century, an appropriate appraisal and Magisterial application of St. Thomas’s meditation upon the New Law would have to wait largely till the revitalization of moral theology ushered in by the promulgation of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church and the encyclical Veritatis Splendor.[ii]

            The treatise on the New Law appears toward the end of the Prima Secundae of the Summa Theologiae.  The Summa, indeed, follows an orderly, teleological pattern of exitus-reditus commensurate with salvation history and the life of Man.  As Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P. has remarked, Man is set between God and God as between first and final cause, Alpha and Omega.[iii]  Likewise, St. Thomas begins in the Prima Pars by establishing his fundamental principles of knowledge with regard to sacra doctrina, whereafter he meditates on the Trinity, Creation, and divine government.  In the Secunda Pars, itself having two sub-parts, he examines the moral life of man in light of the Fall and the activity of the Holy Spirit through grace and the movements of virtue.  With the Tertia Pars, the moral life finds its completion in the salvific ministry of the Incarnate Son and the sacramental life of the Church, all directed toward the unity of Man with the Trinity through the grace of Christ.

Introducing the accompanying treatise on grace and composed of Questions 106-108, the treatise on the New Law falls at the approximate center, structurally, of St. Thomas’s opus magnum. Although we must remember the unfinished quality of this work, we can perhaps assign it to the workings of Providence that the Summa has been handed down in its present form.  In light of the existing framework, the treatment of the evangelical Law stands at the summit of St. Thomas’s narrative.[iv]  Just as one can speak of the third (central) part of a Shakespearean play as its climax, its moment of greatest intensity, so might we consider the structure of the Summa with regard to its reflection upon the new regime of the Spirit.  Fr. Pinckaers himself evidently adopts this position: 

Part two of the Summa of St. Thomas was the culmination and the most finely wrought theological expression of the moral reflection of the Fathers…his questions treating of the New Law…are placed at the peak of the study of law and form the veritable capstone of the entire edifice.[v]

            Question 106 opens St. Thomas’s account of the New Law.  Composed of four articles, it examines the nature of this Law.  First, the saint specifies it as the Law of the Gospel, in contrast to that of the Old Testament.  Continuing, the first article asks whether this Law is a written one.  Its initial objections suggest that it is because (1) the Gospel itself is so recorded, (2) it is distinct from natural law (which is instilled in the heart), and (3) it is not instilled in the heart as it would then be common to those already under the Old Law.  Answering, Aquinas states that a thing resembles that which preponderates within it.  The Law of the Gospel is rooted in the grace of the Holy Spirit and founded in faith in Christ.  He furthermore notes that, though not written in the same manner as the physical copies of the Gospels, it is, rather, inscribed in the hearts of Christians.  Therefore, it is spiritually written and more perfectly instilled by a special action of God in the Third Person.[vi]

            The second article asks whether the New Law justifies.  St. Thomas first raises the objections that it does not justify because (1) it does not bind all men (strictly) by obedience, (2) it subjects men to greater possible culpability by post-baptismal sin, and (3) the New Law is equally given by God, and therefore equally deficient in the capacity to justify.  Aquinas responds that the evangelical Law has a twofold character.  The greater element is the Spirit’s life-giving grace, and the lesser, but still necessary, is the teachings and commandments.  He further notes that it justifies ultimately through grace, and that this grace aids the justified but does not invincibly assure them of salvation without their free cooperation.  Lastly, the Law of the Gospel is of a higher order than its Mosaic predecessor, one written on hearts rather than tablets.[vii] 

            Continuing, the third article ponders whether the New Law should have been given from the world’s beginning.  The proffered objections that it should have been so given include that (1) it would thus better fit God’s egalitarian treatment of persons, (2) that it would thus be as equally available in time as it is in place, and (3) that it would show God’s equal care for the sustenance of all souls as He demonstrates in the provision for bodily nourishment.  St. Thomas rules that God rightly chose a later time for the truly saving Law, as it had to await the fulfillment of the Redeemer’s ministry among men.  Also, the later occurrence better fits the perfective character of this Law, as it perfects it predecessor which proved incapable of accomplishing the anticipated goal.  He also reiterates that Man deserved to lose initial grace due to sin, and this does not imply a divine preference with regard to persons.  Furthermore, Man’s state and receptivity differs according to time, but not necessarily place.  His lack of material needs does not affect his nature, but his loss of grace does endanger its perfection.[viii]

            The fourth article of Question 106 queries whether the evangelical Law will last till the world’s end.  As foreseeable objections that it will perish, he includes suggestions that (1) it is a part, rather than a perfection, (2) that not all truth is yet known in the Church, (3) that an age of the Spirit is yet to come, and (4) that because the end has not come with the apparent preaching of the received Gospel to all nations, it is not the final, true Gospel.  St. Thomas teaches that there are two ways whereby the world’s state is changed, each involving law.  The first is that there may be a change of law; the evangelical Law is the final change beyond which there will be no further perfection apart from its own fulfillment.  The second depends upon Man’s receptivity and cooperation with laws which he has received.  He would not live properly (with consistency) according to the Old Law, and thus God gave him the New whereby he might become perfect and free of the rigors of the Old.  Replying to the protests, he reaffirms that the Gospel is the true one, whose perfection is to be seen in heaven and the renewed world to come.  Furthermore, he trounces the contra-Scriptural suggestions that the Spirit has yet to come with a third order, and that the Gospel of Christ is not that of the Kingdom.  As he interprets, the end will come when the Gospel is really established among all peoples, rather than simply made audible through preaching.[ix]

            Question 107 sets out to compare the New Law to the Old.  Its first article asks whether the Law of the Gospel is indeed distinct from that of the Pentateuch.  As antitheses, St. Thomas offers that (1) the faith of both eras (Christian and Mosaic) is the same, (2) that they are not substantively different, and (3) that both are characterized by faith and works, and thus indistinct.  He responds that the New Law is distinct primarily in its order and perfection.  The Old Law was, as a teacher, ordered to the basic education of spiritual children, whereas the New is the mature regimen that perfects Man and ushers him toward his proper end.  Thus, those who rose to the higher spiritual states or virtues before the Incarnation did so through their participation, by grace, in the New Law.[x]

            Second, Aquinas ponders whether the evangelical Law fulfills the Mosaic.  For potential objections, he proffers that (1) it cannot fulfill what it voids, (2) that one thing does not complete its own contrary, (3) that one (Christ) who contravenes a law does not fulfill it, and (4) that Christ’s ordination of the evangelical order did not provide a full transformation of all existing elements of the Mosaic regime.  The saint judges the question, ruling that the New Law is the perfection of the previous order.  It provides what was lacking in the Old Law, which ultimately is freedom from sin and life in the Son, mediated by the grace of the Spirit.  Christ fulfilled the Old Law in His actions and teaching, though with a perfection imperceptible to those dead to the true life of the Law.  Those things not necessary to the New Law He abolished.[xi]

            The third article examines whether the Law of the Gospel is contained in that of Moses.  Objections include (1) that many aspects of the New are not visible in the Old, (2) that the greater cannot be contained by the lesser, and (3) that if the Old contained the New, the latter would be redundant as a distinct order, being already existent.  St. Thomas replies that the Gospel existed in the Old Law as a tree in a seed.  It was as yet incomplete and invisible in its fullness, only to be fully revealed in Christ, Himself sprung as a rose from the seedbed of Jesse.  He further adds that the precepts of the New Law were implicit in the Old, only to be revealed and blossom at God’s appointed time.[xii]

            Fourth in this article, Aquinas queries whether the evangelical Law is the more burdensome, in comparison to the Mosaic.  The objections he finds are that (1) it is more difficult by its interiority, (2) it encourages the acceptance of tribulation, and (3) it enjoins deeper obligations than the Old.  He responds that it is indeed more demanding by its interior ordering, however the burden is lightened as one is increasingly impelled by the love of virtue.  It only becomes a crushing burden to those deficient in virtue, whereas the Old Law offered all a rigid code of external life, apart from its interior complement.  The New Law does not impose tribulations and burdens, but rather offers the way to best meet and overcome them, to the benefit of one’s soul.[xiii]

            Question 108 considers the things contained in the Law of the Gospel.  First, St. Thomas examines whether this Law ought to establish or forbid any acts of external life.  The customary objections include (1) that the Kingdom consists only in matters internal, (2) that the liberty promised in the Spirit requires freedom from constraint, and (3) that the New Law is promised as an interior one, and thus separate from external matters.  The Angelic Doctor answers that grace came through the Incarnation, that most excellent meeting of the spiritual and material orders.  Thus, as grace comes to us through the sensible, Incarnate Son in Jesus of Nazareth, so too does grace affect us by external means.  Chief among these, obviously, are the Sacraments.  He goes on to define freedom and the New Law’s character as one of liberty, as it opens us to the free embrace of those precepts and actions that bring us life in grace.[xiv]

            The second article asks if the evangelical Law is adequate in its ordinations regarding external acts.  As initial protests, Aquinas considers (1) that it did not declare new moral acts commensurate with its new doctrinal or spiritual precepts, (2) that there were no new sacred objects apparently instituted, (3) that there were insufficient new celebrations or observations commanded regarding the faithful, and (4) that there were no new judicial precepts to complement others moral and ceremonial.  St. Thomas replies that the New Law has instituted some new things—mostly the Sacraments—to fulfill its life of grace; others were not needed and would detract from the freedom that the new life of grace promises.[xv] 

            Next, in Article 3, Aquinas ponders whether the Law of the Gospel suffices in direction of interior actions.  He presents six possible objections: (1) that Christ apparently only fulfilled three of the Ten Commandments, (2) that He gave too few judicial precepts, (3) that He ordained insufficient ceremony, (4) that He taught only of internal goods, (5) that He forbade satisfaction of the instinctive desires for material comfort and nourishment, and (6) that He prohibited judgment, and thus the virtue of justice.  The saint then responds with reference to St. Augustine’s commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, agreeing with the great doctor that the Sermon offers the perfect form of the Christian life.  Taking Jesus’ proclamation as the guide, St. Thomas sees the way of charity as the path to final Beatitude.  Man’s interior actions and inclinations, thus, must be ordered to the good through virtue.  Countering the protests, he basically demonstrates that the Lord addressed all concerns by commanding with regard to the underlying, interior ordering of Man, whence derive all his more external acts.[xvi] 

            Finally, in the fourth article of Question 108, the Angelic Doctor analyzes whether certain specific counsels are fittingly proposed by the evangelical Law.  Four objections accompany his discussion: (1) that some of the ends are not universally expedient, (2) that there are no definite degrees of the greater good, (3) that there is no Gospel counsel of obedience, and (4) that not all the needed counsels are explicitly given, nor distinguished from the precepts of the Mosaic Law.  Aquinas rules that the counsels are most fittingly given in the Gospel, for the New Law is one of freedom rather than obligation, as under the Mosaic regime.  Christ offers us the evangelical counsels as means of perfecting ourselves to approach Him more closely and completely.  Though the faithful are called to them in differing degrees, they witness to Man’s detachment from the things of this world and proximity to those of the next.  He reiterates that the counsels are adequately and completely proposed, as they are not designed in the manner of commandments, and they are offered both in the instructions of Christ, and the example of His own earthly life.[xvii]

            Having surveyed the treatise on the New Law, one can see its profundity, although we must consider the question of its Christian character.  As Fr. Pinckaers has noted, both the original Franciscan opponents of St. Thomas and the modern detractors of Thomism have derided it, with the rest of Aquinas’s work, as merely baptized Aristotelianism.  Aristotle certainly had a strong influence on St. Thomas’s thought.  In the treatise on the evangelical Law, this is perhaps most apparent in the Aristotelian logic and virtue ethics employed.  However, there is express attention given to the teaching of St. Augustine, the greatest (and definitive) Doctor Ecclesiae in the minds of medieval theologians.  Honestly, Aquinas follows in the best intellectual traditions of Christian theology, including both Sts. Paul and Augustine.  These two luminaries each hearkened to the glory of divine wisdom, as revealed through Christ, while also openly receiving and converting the Platonic philosophical tradition in their preaching.  While giving the greatest weight to the gifts of revelation, St. Thomas likewise adopts the best contributions of historical human wisdom and turns them to the service of the Gospel.[xviii] 

            Moving beyond the issue of philosophical orientations, a deeper reflection upon the Christian nature of the treatise lies in a consideration of it in light of its Scriptural foundations and Trinitarian grounding.  First, St. Thomas, following the path trodden by St. Augustine before him, looks to the Sermon on the Mount as the chief guide for Christian morality.  As his predecessor stated:

If any one will piously and soberly consider the sermon which our Lord Christ spoke on the mount, as we read it in the Gospel according Matthew, I think that he will find in it, so far as regards the highest morals, a perfect standard of the Christian life: and this we do not rashly venture to promise, but gather it from the very words of the Lord Himself.  For the sermon itself is brought to a close in such a way, that it is clear there are in it all the precepts which go to mould the life…He has sufficiently indicated…that these sayings which He uttered on the mount so perfectly guide the life of those who may be willing to live according to them, that they may be justly compared to one building upon a rock.[xix]

            Aquinas, in the third article of Question 108, draws upon this.  Noting the Lord’s teaching on Beatitude as the final end of Man, he remarks upon the internally perfective character of the Beatitudes.  They give a refreshed order to Man, directing him again along the path of charity, toward God and neighbor.  This indeed is the heart of the evangelical Law: caritas.  Putting aside the merely superficial self-control of the Mosaic regime, Christ calls us to a real personal transformation.  Most stunning perhaps is the summons to endure assaults peaceably and pray lovingly for one’s enemies.  This runs seriously against the grain of concupiscence, which so easily inclines us toward recrimination and violent retaliation.  St. Thomas finds in the Beatitudes an evangelical vision of virtue, a concept (understandably) more associated with the Classical philosophical tradition.  As he explains, the grace of the Holy Spirit, which constitutes the New Law, gives life to Man and instills in his heart the prevenient graces and theological virtues necessary for him to grow in all the virtues and thereby reach the goal, final Beatitude.[xx] 

            St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans also plays an important part in St. Thomas’s treatise, as Fr. Pinckaers notes.[xxi]  It is a truly rich source for his purposes:

There is now therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh.  For the law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath delivered me from the law of sin and death.  For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh; God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and of sin, hath condemned sin in the flesh…And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you; he that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead, shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit that dwelleth in you.[xxii]

St. Paul’s discourse on the Spirit fits perfectly with Aquinas’s treatment of the New Law.  He emphasizes the powerful activity of the Holy Spirit in the life of the justified, the baptized.  Through the Sacrament of Baptism, God enters into the hearts of men and ignites a new fire, burning with love for God and one’s fellow men.  This enlightenment and revivification with grace drives one to seek the good.  This is the very same teleology of virtue envisioned in the Nichomachaean Ethics of Aristotle, though the Philosopher could only reach so far through reason.  Seeing only a human happiness through contemplation, he could not peer beyond into the supernal regions of Beatitude.  St. Thomas, moving past the Neo-Platonist preoccupations of his predecessors, gives a new life to Catholic theology through his conversion of Aristotle’s ethical philosophy into a framework for more deeply understanding the work of the Holy Spirit in Man’s interiority.  The Letter to the Romans serves to reveal to Aquinas the deeper truths of divine love operating in Man, impelling him, through grace-guided virtue, to true, eternal happiness.[xxiii]

            The Christian character of St. Thomas’s treatise on the New Law is further exemplified by its inherently Trinitarian orientation.  Christianity is uniquely blessed—in comparison with its preparatory Judaism and its latter-day, pretentious rival, Mohammedanism—in that it has enjoyed the revelation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity.  Aquinas repeats the teaching that Christ is the Son of God, sent by the Father to fulfill the Old Law and free men from sin, and thus bring them into a participation in divine life.  At the same time, he defines the New Law as consisting of the grace of the Holy Spirit, and yet this grace is also the grace of Christ, mediated by His Spirit, that self-same Holy Spirit.  The Angelic Doctor, remaining rooted strongly in the Gospels, hearkens back to his own discourse in the Prima Pars, wherein he outlines the relationship among the three Persons.  This mystery of God’s existence, His threeness within a singular unity, is specifically Christian.  It transcends the capacities of human reason, and is a “stumbling block” for those who remain closed to the truth revealed in the Incarnation.  This alone lays to rest the question as to the religious or theological identity of the treatise, and all of Aquinas’s work.  It cannot be mere Aristotelianism.  It is fundamentally Trinitarian, and therefore founded thoroughly in the Person of Jesus Christ.[xxiv]

            Next we shall consider Fr. Pinckaers’s suggestion of the capital character of the treatise on the evangelical Law, that is that it is the head of the body of St. Thomas’s moral teaching. [xxv] This is witnessed in two contexts.  First, in regard to textual structure, the treatise falls at the approximate center of the Summa Theologiae.  It forms a link between the discussion of the Old Law and the life of the New, lived in grace-enlightened virtue.  More specifically, it prefaces the treatise on grace, which thereafter continues into the discourse on the virtues.  In this sense, it forms a bridge.  Envisioning the Summa again as an exercise in salvation history, one might say that the treatise stands in the person of Isaiah in his fortieth chapter, proclaiming the Adventine message of joyful anticipation:

Be comforted, be comforted my people, saith your God.  Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven…Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God…And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken…Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him…he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them…[xxvi]

The treatise serves this role as it stands before the exposition on the Incarnation, and yet anticipates this event by proclaiming the great fruit of Christ’s redemptive mission: the gift of eternal life through the grace of the Son and the Spirit.  In this historico-theological allegory, it takes the place of great Messianic prophecy. 

            Second, and more importantly, the treatise reveals the very heart of the Church’s own salvific power: the grace of the Holy Spirit.  It is the Spirit, working through the continuing outpouring from Pentecost, Who prompts and ensures the efficacy of the Church’s Sacraments, blessings, and prayers.  As already stated, it is gratia, given at justification, that gives birth to the theological virtues in the soul, and thus gives one a greater receptivity to all the virtues, all aided by the special, strengthening gifts of the Spirit.  

Fr. Pinckaers offers a diagram to explain his argument, comprised of two joined circles.  As he relates, the Holy Spirit’s grace first instills the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity in the will and intellect.  These then assume governance over the lower, natural virtues.  Chief among these is prudence, which labors to keep all the natural virtues ordered toward each other and toward the final end of happiness (or more properly, the higher end of Beatitude).  The Holy Spirit further reorients us through reforming our spiritual dispositions, and strengthens and perfects our virtues and dispositions with His gifts of understanding, knowledge, fear of the Lord, wisdom, counsel, piety, and fortitude.  The Lord therefore does not simply impose His external will upon us.  He infuses His love within us in the form of diverse capacities and habitus, effecting an internal transformation of the heart and the person.  Although in God intellect and will are (perhaps) essentially the same (because of His simplicity and perfect unity), it is clearly a distinct act of divine wisdom, an eternal law, whereby God has ordered the world and established the path whereby Man may be saved.  Pinckaers notes this exitus-reditus ordering within Man when he speaks of the New Law as the head of the body of St. Thomas’s moral theology.  Just as in a human body, the head exerts control over the members, and they in turn submit the sum of their gathered knowledge and powers to the head as judge and ruler.  The treatise on this Law, likewise, stands in similar relation to the body of the Angelic Doctor’s moral teachings.  Its subject is the source, summit, and prince of the whole.[xxvii]

            St. Thomas Aquinas’s treatise on the evangelical Law is clearly a beautiful contribution to the Church’s great Tradition, but now we must reflect upon its relevance to pastoral ministry.  What bearing does this treatise have for the parish priest in his daily headship and shepherding of God’s people?  In truth, it is indispensable.  The current pestilence of despair affords us an excellent example.

            Today’s debased culture is rife with hopelessness.  Its sources are diverse.  First, there is the disunity of Christians and the visible plurality of religions.  Gone are the days when most societies enjoyed unified expressions of communio, both between men, horizontally, and with the divine, vertically.  In the West, we can first fault the schisms among Christians, beginning with the early Christological heresies, then the rupture with the Eastern Churches, and finally the revolt of the Protestants.  The imperfect communion among all the baptized, together with the permissive and indifferentist vision of pluralism that prevails, undermines the sense of objective, exclusive truth that properly attaches itself to honest religion.

            Second, the very basis of spiritual hope, the belief in the supernatural, has been attacked vociferously by the forces of Modernism.  St. Pius X foresaw this in his mighty encyclical, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907).[xxviii]  Philosophy, beginning with the nominalism of William of Ockham, declined to the point of doubting even reason itself.  Figures such as Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche all made their own contributions to this veritable intellectual and spiritual collapse.  With the alliance of this fallen philosophy to ever more sophisticated natural, speculative, and technological sciences, the crisis only intensified.  Modernist agnosticism and atheism has translated into a dogmatic scientism that stubbornly rejects the possibility of supernatural realities or a transcendent, divine intelligence as the ordering wisdom behind the existent the world.  In a world where scientists “heroically” condemn the “superstitions” of the past and lay waste to the deep, instinctive yearnings of our souls for spiritual immortality, hope cannot naturally thrive unaided.

            Third, as a consequence of the aforementioned, current society has become notably chaotic.  Political society has suffered terribly from the principles of revolution, which tear at the traditional foundations of family and temporal authority, itself rooted in fatherhood.  Economic disorders have persisted intermittently, making poverty all too common.  Chemical addiction and escapism have led to an abominable drug crisis.  These, together with greed and other vices, and nihilism, have led to a rampant rise in violent crime.  Even war, though sadly normative in history, appears to have grown in frequency, ferocity, and sophistication. 

            The current world situation, as made abundantly familiar through personal experience and the practically omnipresent media, does not lend itself well to an attitude of hopefulness.  It is into this environment that the diocesan priest must press himself, and strive to guard the souls entrusted to him from the grip of despair.

            Despair is a most serious sin in the spiritual order, and by extension, the moral.  As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, it is a sin against the Holy Spirit.  In its worst form, it constitutes a denial of the power of the Third Person to forgive sins, and thus to assure one of salvation.  The Catechism, together with the Summa Theologiae (“final impenitence”), indicates this as the matter of the one unforgivable sin: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  If one denies the power of God to forgive his sins, then he puts himself beyond the capacity for true penitence.  Without real contrition, absolution is ultimately ineffectual.[xxix] 

            At the spiritual level, the consequence of final despair is obvious: damnation.  While still in this life, its effects are relatively just as troubling.  It certainly is the root of much of the atheism that one encounters in today’s world.  Disbelieving in the capacity of God to free one from his sins, it is all too easy for concupiscence to incline one against the Lord in the order of affection, and then to reject His existence as a petty personal revolution against the eternal Law. 

            Walking hand in hand with atheism, down the path of indifference and destruction, is agnosticism.  Whereas the former is a declaration of certainty that God does not exist (at least as the Church or the individual understands Him), the latter is founded in personal uncertainty.  We may allow for an honest agnosticism, whereby an individual is genuinely unsure of the arguments for or against the existence of a divine creator.  This is a definite result of the culture of doubt engendered by Modernism.  Here, we are dealing directly with a crisis of epistemology, due to the modern, immanentist rejection of metaphysics.[xxx]  On the other hand, a more culpable origin of personal agnosticism may lie in a decision to avoid organized religion.  One’s experience with agnostic peers can be most demonstrative in this regard.  There can be an intellectualized agnosticism, rooted largely in an historical awareness of the violent possibilities of organized religions, particularly those that are monotheistic and missionary.  In this situation, it is more a matter of disordered secular ethics, rather than the lack of sure knowledge or belief in God.  As Pope Benedict XVI indicates, agnosticism cannot properly be accepted as a solution.  Man cannot avoid or remain neutral to the most vital existential question: the existence and identity of God.[xxxi]

            The diocesan priest must lead the fight against despair.  His message must be one of dauntless, infinite hope.  He must appeal to this excellent, theological virtue in his preaching and his daily ministry.  The Holy Father set the tone with his second encyclical, Spe Salvi.  Published just in time for Advent in 2007, he called the world to a new reflection on hope as a special virtue and gift of the Spirit for living in Christ.  Christianity, he notes, is a religion with a definite future, founded on faith in the promises of Jesus.  The Church will endure till the remaking of the world, whereupon She will be perfected in the everlasting Presence of God.  The saints are special witnesses to hope in their faithful perseverance, often through the crushing pains of martyrdom.  Although we must not give in to a false universalism, which really is but a selfish spiritual indifferentism, we have to hold fast to the hope for our own salvation, and that of our fellow men.  We are called to love and hope for each other, in an eschatological framework.  This is fundamental to the Church, and the faith of Christ.[xxxii]  As he states, speaking of the New Testament:

Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness.  Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well.  So now we can say: Christianity was not only “good news”…the Gospel is not merely a communication of things that can be known—it is one that makes things happen and is life-changing…The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.[xxxiii]

            The Church teaches, without qualification, that She has the power to forgive all sins, by the grace of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.[xxxiv]  This is the very New Law that St. Thomas Aquinas outlines for us in the treatise we have explored.  This work is of great utility to the diocesan priest in his ministry to the People of God.  The Angelic Doctor, with his customary eloquence and excellence, provides a rich yet concise study of the Holy Spirit’s activity in the life of the justified.  First, it gives us a bulwark against the false intellectualism of the Modernists.  Rather than relying on “superstitions”, it unites the powerful, logical philosophy of Aristotle to the profound knowledge and wisdom given in revelation.  Instead of leaving men lying in the mire of self-indulgence and doubt, it challenges them to strive toward those ends that strengthen and perfect them at the level of their very being, while also offering an epistemology rooted in certainty, both of the value of human reason and the reality of being itself.  The treatise calls Man to put off the shackles of Kantian idealism, with its empty “phenomena”, and embrace again the manlier, liberating realism of the Classical tradition. 

Second, the treatise on the evangelical Law makes clear the place of the Gospel in salvation history, the true history of Man.  Again, standing textually like Isaiah, proclaiming the coming of the Son in flesh as Redeemer, it bears witness to the power of grace to justify us.  Herein is the message of hope that the despairing contemporary world needs to hear.  The Eternal Word took flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, and remains with us through the grace of the Holy Spirit, mediated most perfectly in the sacramental life of the Church.  With Aquinas, the priest can stress that sin does not have to be a permanent stain.  The Sacraments, particularly Baptism and Penance, give Man the opportunity to be freed of sin and welcomed into the everlasting friendship of God.  With the intelligent assurance that even those dire offenses that seem irremovable can be washed away, the concupiscible urge to reject God and remain in dissolution is diminished and the encouragement to live a life of moral rectitude can only grow in one’s heart.  In a society obsessed with the appearance of scholarly sophistication, the treatise on the evangelical Law is a healthy remedy to the hermeneutic of doubt and nihilism that flows from “post-Christian” academia.

            Fr. Servais Pinckaers was quite correct in his assessment of St. Thomas Aquinas’s treatise on the New Law.  It is both unquestionably Christian and the heart and soul of Thomistic moral theology.  But more importantly, it is a serene tool for the pastoral struggle with contemporary despair.  Aquinas lifts the philosophy of a Greek pagan up into the sacred bosom of Christ, reshaping it to serve for the education of his fellow Dominicans and the evangelization of the world.  It is the very medium priests need to combat hopelessness among their flocks, especially by challenging the seemingly unassailable judgments of the “experts” foisted upon them by the Academy and the media.  It is a sublime marriage of faith and reason, of divine and human wisdom.

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[i] Servais Pinckaers, O.P. The Sources of Christian Ethics ed. 3. Trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University Press, 1995), 168-180.

[ii] Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 173-174, 240-323; Romanus Cessario, O.P. Introduction to Moral Theology (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 229-242.

[iii] Cessario, Introduction to Moral Theology, 3-5.

[iv] Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 168-190. (consulted)

[v] Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 459.

[vi] St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P. Summa Theologica (Summa Theologiae). Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Allen, TX: Thomas More Publishing, 1981), Ia-IIae, q. 106, a. 1.  The Summa Theologiae shall hereafter be abbreviated as S.T.

[vii] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 106, a. 2.

[viii] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 106, a. 3.

[ix] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 106, a. 4.

[x] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 107, a. 1.

[xi] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 107, a. 2.

[xii] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 107, a. 3.

[xiii] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 107, a. 4.

[xiv] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 108, a. 1.

[xv] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 108, a. 2.

[xvi] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 108, a. 3.

[xvii] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 108, a. 4.

[xviii] S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 108, a. 3; Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 168-190; Brian Davies, O.P. The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1993), 1-20, 250-273; Romanus Cessario, O.P. A Short History of Thomism (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 2-8, 40-74.

[xix] St. Augustine of Hippo. On the Sermon on the Mount. Trans. William Findlay. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers ser. 1 vol. 6. Ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), I, 1. Ed. Kevin Knight. Accessed: May 16, 2011.  http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/16011.htm .

[xx] S.T., Ia-IIae, Q. 108, a. 3; Matthew, v: 2-48 (Douay-Rheims).

[xxi] Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 174.

[xxii] Romans, viii: 1-3, 11 (Douay-Rheims).

[xxiii] Romans, i-viii (Douay-Rheims); S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 108, aa. 1-3; Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering. Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 61-75; Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 250-296; Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 168-190.

[xxiv] S.T., Ia, q. 11-43; S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 106, aa. 1-4, S.T., Ia-IIae, q. 107, a.2; Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 185-206, 250-296.

[xxv] Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 178-181.

[xxvi] Isaiah, xl: 1-3, 5, 10-11 (Douay-Rheims).

[xxvii] Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 178-182.

[xxviii] St. Pius X. Pascendi Dominici Gregis. Trans. Vincent A. Yzermans (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, [no date given]), 3-19.

[xxix] Catechism of the Catholic Church ed. 2 (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, Inc.—Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 844, 1031, 1501, 1864, 2091; S.T., IIa-IIae, q. 14, aa. 1-4.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church shall hereafter be abbreviated as C.C.C.

[xxx] St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 3-19.

[xxxi] Benedict XVI. The Yes of Jesus Christ: Exercises in Faith, Hope, and Love. Trans. Robert Nowell (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1991), 9-13.

[xxxii] Benedict XVI. Spe Salvi. Trans. Holy See (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2007), 2-48.

[xxxiii] Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi, 2.

[xxxiv] Roman Catechism (Catechism of the Council of Trent). Trans. John A. McHugh, O.P. and Charles J. Callan, O.P. (Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1982), II; C.C.C., 1440-1484.  These citations appeal to the power of the Sacrament of Penance.  It is assumed that the perfective efficacy of the Sacrament of  Baptism is understood with regard to the Church’s teaching.