20. The Vision of God Is Arrived at Through Justice.
20. The vision of God is arrived at through justice.20
All of us seek a vision of the divine. How does that come our way? Contemplation on the beauties of nature and contemplative practice may be one route, and creativity is another, but for Aquinas another route is the Via Transformativa, the way of working for justice and compassion. “God is Justice,” he reminds us, and justice itself can be a doorway to the divine, for “the vision of God is arrived at through justice.”
Thomas Aquinas was a champion for justice, and he urges the rest of us to get on board. In his day there was plenty of injustice and corruption to address both within the ecclesial establishment and beyond. A veritable battle was waging between the monastic establishment—so tied up with the feudal system that was losing its power and failing to reach the young—and the new mendicant orders.Aquinas did not flinch from the battle. So, too, he sparked theological fires by daring to bring Aristotle, a “pagan” scientist, into the heart of Christian theology. His teachings on justice lay a powerful groundwork for a philosophy of the environment and eco-theology.30
One reason Aquinas gives for calling justice the “greatest” of the moral virtues is that justice concerns our relationship with others—“justice is in a way the good of another person.” Justice opens the door to the kingdom and queendom of God; it “leads to the reign of God” for Jesus, in preaching the coming of the reign of God, “did not come to call the just to penitence, but to greater justice.” Justice is intrinsic to holiness for “the saints have a heart full of justice. … The saints have justice, charity, and effects of this kind, which are most like God—they know more than the others.”
Aquinas tells us that the prophet Isaiah is busy talking about two things—“justice, which he possesses, and a vision of God. And they follow one upon another. For the vision of God is arrived at through justice. Consider Psalm 15: ‘Who will dwell in your tabernacle. One who walks without blemish and exercises justice.’ Moreover, ‘The gates of life are the gates of justice.’”
Injustices so often reign, but “God is not the originator of injustice.” Rather, the “roots of just desire” begin with “delight in God through love.” The Via Positiva, therefore, forms the foundation for a life of justice-making. Aquinas cites Paul’s letter to the Philippians: “Always take joy in God” (Phil 4:4).
He urges justice-makers, those fighting for justice, “to take pleasure in doing just deeds,” and this should flow readily for those who love justice. Why? Because “everyone finds pleasure in what they are fond of. As lovers desire the object that is absent, so they take pleasure in it when it is present. In this way a lover of horses finds pleasure in a horse, and a lover of shows in a show.” In fact, virtue is easier when one enjoys doing it. “To the extent that the just love justice, they will take pleasure in doing just deeds. … No one will call that person just who does not rejoice in doing just deeds.” We see here how profoundly the Via Positiva and Via Transformativa are joined in Aquinas’s understanding. The justice-maker is not only in love with the earth but learns to love fighting on behalf of the earth.
“The vision of God is arrived at through justice” means that the Via Transformativa and the work of justice are a means to the vision of the divine. After all, “God is justice” and “God is compassion” for Aquinas. The struggle for justice is a revelation of the divine. Each of the four paths—the Via Positiva, Via Negativa, Via Creativa, and Via Transformativa—bring us to the vision and experience of the divine.
Compassion is the fire
that Jesus came
to set on the earth.