Chapter 3: Justice
3
Justice
(ST II-II, qq. 57–122)
The virtue of justice, as understood by Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Catholic tradition, is grounded in the recognition that we are inherently related to other persons. We all live in a wide variety of relationships, in communities of different sizes and types, and in the broader societies to which we belong (and today in an ever increasingly globalized world society). These relationships are essential to who and what we are. To be human is to be relational and communal. To be fully human is to live well in relationship with others and in community. The virtue of justice regulates these multiple relations, insuring that with ease, smoothness, and promptness we are able to act rightly in regard to others and to our communities. Men and women of justice actively contribute to the common good of society and to healthy and respectful communities and relationships. Our own good as individuals—and not merely in practical ways—depends on the health of these interpersonal and communal associations. Our manner of contributing to them is critical to our authentic growth as human persons.
Today when we speak of justice, we are often referring to something like the current relative state of equality, fairness, or recognition of fundamental rights between persons and in society. Or we are focused on principles of justice, tenets by which we try to insure that rights are respected and proper equality is achieved. But Aquinas is focused more particularly on justice precisely as a virtue, as a habitual disposition or an acquired and abiding tendency that resides in people who live and act in the context of multiple relationships, social and interpersonal. His lengthy discussion of justice does include the elements or principles of a theory of justice, but he implies that none of that will have practical effect unless the virtue of justice dwells in the people who must act and seek proper relations in the world.
The virtue of justice is the abiding disposition to give to people what is owed to them, what is “their due”—again, not begrudgingly but with ease, smoothness, and promptness. In biblical terms, we might speak today of justice as “right relationships.” Especially in the Old Testament, people are “just” to the degree that they are in right relationship with God and with others within the context of covenantal relations, respecting their obligations to all. But this is really Aquinas’s point as well. The virtue of justice is the habitual disposition to live in right relationship with other persons (and, as we shall see, with God), respecting our obligations to other individuals and to the good of the communities to which we belong and from which we benefit.
Justice in a World of Individualism
The health of any relationship or community of any size depends on the active participation of its members, each one benefiting from their shared goods, but also contributing as necessary. This is obviously true, simply at a practical level. Every society needs some sense of justice—responsibility to others and to the group in general—in order to survive and flourish. People must both benefit and contribute, however that might be conceived and structured. But for Aquinas and for the Catholic tradition, the right to benefit and the responsibility to contribute is not simply a practical reality. It is also essential for the goodness and authenticity of each of the members. Each individual must have a disposition to give to others what is demanded by their relationship—for the sake of the others, but also and essentially in order to live in a truly human way.
The foundational Christian belief about the human person is that we are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27). We are stamped, as it were, with the image of a God who is love. Our creation is a fruit of the overflow of this divine love. But more, this God is a Triune God: One God in Three Persons. Our God is relational within the divine nature itself—an eternity of mutual giving and receiving in the heart of God. We who are created as the image of God (imago dei) are therefore made in the image of the Trinity (imago trinitatis). And this same God has destined us to share in the divine life for all eternity, together with all of those, like us, created in the divine image. All of this means that we are relational by nature; we are our best and truest selves in authentic relationships; and our destiny is also profoundly social—eternal life within the life of God together with our brothers and sisters. This is the theological and anthropological foundation of Saint Thomas’s understanding of justice.
But our contemporary world is a world of individualism, and this reality has a tremendous impact on how we conceive justice, our responsibilities to others, and what it means to be in “right relations” with others. No one can doubt that we exist in multiple relationships which confer benefits on us. Simply at a practical level, we need other individuals, and we need society. But without a deeper sense of how these relationships actually constitute us as persons, it becomes more difficult to understand what justice truly is and why we would need a virtue that is focused on right relationships, beyond a basic sense of fairness and equality. From the perspective of a relational and social understanding of the human person, individualism is a true and sad diminishment of the human person and of the society in which human persons live.
In a world of sovereign, independent individuals, the great value must be sovereign freedom—and freedom, not as a positive capacity to be and become what God intends us to be, but as the unhindered ability of each person to decide as he or she wants. In this view, the only restraint on freedom should be some kind of implicit social agreement that we refrain from actively harming others by our otherwise completely free choosing. Without such a bare minimum of limits on freedom, we could not live together in society with any kind of security or practical commerce. What is justice in such a context? Sadly, it is too easily reduced to whatever ensures that my freedom is not unduly hindered and that others are not actively harmed by the exercise of someone else’s freedom. But what an emaciated view of the individual, of society, of human freedom, and of justice!
To truly capture the wisdom of Aquinas in his discussion of justice, we must recapture a sense of ourselves as foundationally and constitutively in relationship with others in communities and societies. The health—the “rightness”—of such relations and our commitment to them constitute our own health as authentic human beings. I am diminished as a human person by relationships and membership in societies in which others are not respected and in which their rights and dignity are not acknowledged and honored. It is absolutely true that freedom is fundamental to our humanity, but true freedom is a freedom for good and for God, not simply freedom from restraint.
Types of Justice
Aquinas identifies several types of justice in keeping with the different types of relationships and communities in which we live. These principal types are commutative, legal, and distributive. The Catholic social tradition after Saint Thomas has greatly expanded on our understanding of these species of justice, but a great deal of subsequent reflection and teaching will build from this foundation.
At the individual level, justice involves the habitual disposition to recognize and respect the rights of other individuals, whether those are fundamental human rights like the right of self-determination (for example, in making medical decisions for themselves) or the claims that are based on our prior commitments to them such as contracts. At this individual level, Aquinas speaks of commutative justice. It involves the relationship of individual to individual and presupposes a fundamental equality between persons. In fact, for Aquinas, any form of injustice is implicitly a kind of failure to recognize this foundational equality: the unjust person withholds what belongs to another because of an implicit belief that he or she is more important, more worthy, etc. Just people in relation to other individuals respect the commitments that they have made, and they honor basic rights that are prior to any explicit agreement. A person of justice, for example, returns items that she borrowed at the agreed-upon time, provides the work or product for which she was duly paid, and respects the property and due privacy of her neighbors.
In relation to the larger group or society, the virtue of justice disposes the individual to contribute to the good of the community more broadly and thus to the benefit of all of its members. Aquinas called this general or legal justice—though by using this term, he was not restricting such justice to the matters included in civil law. It is “legal” in the sense that all law is directed to the common good—just as this type of justice is. In contemporary terms, this is also called contributive justice (or, for some, social justice). In justice, we have a duty to contribute to the good of the societies in which we live and from which we benefit. This is most clearly manifest in the responsibility to pay taxes, vote responsibly, and accept the military draft in time of just war. Again, for Aquinas, this is a type of virtue—an abiding tendency to attend to our duties to community and society.
Reciprocal with legal (or contributive) justice is what Saint Thomas calls distributive justice. Just as individuals have the duty to contribute to the common good, they also have the right to benefit from the common good. Social welfare systems are one obvious example of a societal, systemic way to try to insure such just distribution. Precisely as a virtue, distributive justice is the abiding tendency to insure a just sharing of societal goods. The person of distributive justice, then, accepts the right of less fortunate individuals to receive their fair share of societal benefits. In our age, this usually involves support for prudent legal and structural means to ensure such distribution to those whose rightful share in the common good is threatened by poverty, discrimination, or the like.
Justice and the Wider Web of Our Relationships
It is clearer to us today that we must live as well in right relationship with the earth and with the rest of the created order. Human persons are uniquely created in the image of God, but we remain part of the created order and dependent on it in fundamental ways. We are responsible to care for it as stewards. Since we all share in the natural resources of this earth—we ourselves and people throughout the world and throughout history—our responsibility for the earth is, at the same time and more properly, a matter of justice to other persons. We must cultivate within ourselves the habitual tendency to act responsibly toward the earth and thus toward others who do, should, or will share in its resources. Pope Francis has made this responsibility abundantly clear in his encyclical letter, Laudato si’.
We must also live in right relationship with ourselves—that is, respecting our own legitimate rights, needs, aspirations, and responsibilities. For Aquinas, this would be a kind of justice by analogy to the properly other-directed nature of justice. But he was quite aware that we have a moral responsibility to care for our own spiritual and physical well-being. Even as we care for others in work and ministry, we must care also for ourselves. Jesus said that we must love our neighbor as ourselves. We must be just with others—and with ourselves. This does not deny or negate the fact that Christian love, after the model of Jesus, is other-directed and self-giving; it simply affirms (at the very least) the practical reality that if we don’t care for ourselves, we will have very little to give others.
Justice is about our obligations and duties to others. In truly personal interrelationships—relationships meant to be characterized by love—such as marriage, family, and close friendship, categories of strict justice do not perfectly fit. We will look more closely below at the virtues related to justice that focus on such relationships. And yet, it is helpful in this context to acknowledge that in every relationship, there is the necessity of possessing and nurturing an abiding tendency to give to others what we owe them even if they are not matters of quantifiable or even strict obligations. Spouses who do not give quality time to one another—or parents to their children or one friend to another—are, in a real sense, being unjust to them, even though the time rightfully expected by spouses, children, and elderly parents is not quantifiable. Respecting one another, attending to one another, listening to one another may not constitute quantifiable obligations or be entirely analogous to the contractual arrangements that can be the subject of commutative justice, but we owe such things to one another. Without justice, there cannot be love. We cannot claim to love someone if we do not give him or her what we owe.
Justice and Other Virtues
Justice must characterize all of our other virtues. The considerations of prudence must remain cognizant of our relations with and responsibilities to others. The prudent person cannot make decisions based solely on the consideration of what is good for him or her alone. The prudent choice, in end and means, is attentive to its impact on other people. The exercise of courage must encompass a willingness to face obstacles for the good of others, recognizing that we are inherently related to them—even if they are strangers to us. The truly courageous person is not a lone ranger, but someone willing to sacrifice for others and attentive to how his or her actions will impact others. The temperate person seeks not only an inner balance and harmony, but also its outward manifestation in relation to others. Perhaps we might think of chastity, one form of temperance, also as an exercise in justice—a matter of the respect for other people, not only in our actions but also in our thoughts and fantasies.
The Vice of Injustice
As the contrary of the virtue of justice, the vice of injustice is the acquired disposition to withhold what is due to other individuals or to the communities to which we belong and from which we benefit. It is a failure to live in right relationship with others as a matter of acquired habit. And, as we have seen, it is implicitly a failure to recognize our fundamental equality with other persons by denying them what we would expect for ourselves.
Aquinas discusses obvious and glaring forms of injustice such as murder, robbery and theft, bodily harm, cheating and fraud, and false accusations. But forms of the vice of injustice exist too in more ordinary circumstances, closer to home than we might commonly ponder. In fact, Aquinas considers harsh judgment of others to be a form of injustice. We owe it to the people around us to presume good of them and give them the benefit of the doubt until there is some clear reason to think otherwise. To think ill of others without good reason, based only on suspicions, is an injustice. We commonly call this being judgmental—and it can sadly become an abiding tendency in our perspective toward those around us.
It is unjust, says Aquinas, to show respect or grant privileges to some and not to others for selfish or trivial reasons. This is traditionally called being a “respecter of persons”—not, in this case, in the sense of showing an authentic respect for the people involved, but rather making an unjust discrimination between persons. Showing preference to friends, relatives, the wealthy, or the attractive in situations where objectivity is demanded is a form of injustice to others. This would be especially evident in a judge or the like, but it is also possible to give one’s time or attention to one person while neglecting someone with greater claim on it. In the New Testament, James illustrates this form of injustice when he condemns Christians who invite the wealthy to take seats of honor in the assembly while calling the poor to stand or sit on the floor (James 2:2–3).
Beyond unjust tendencies in thought, Aquinas provides an insightful identification of forms of injustice in word—again, not only as occasional actions, but as acquired dispositions. Words can sometimes be trivial in their impact on others; at other times, they are not. The rightness of basic human relations, which is the concern of justice, can be seriously undermined by types of speech that tear down others or treat them with contempt or scorn. The tendency to speak ill of others who are not present (“backbiting”), whether one is speaking the truth or not, is a form of the vice of injustice. It is “detraction” to speak a truth that brings dishonor to another person without good reason or not in the right circumstances and to the right people. Aquinas tells us that willingly listening to such talk shares in its guilt. There are, in fact, people who have a tendency to tear others down in speech; and there are others who may not tend to the talking but delight in the hearing. The propensity to gossip brings harm to others, and tale-bearing stirs up trouble. Aquinas notes that, since friends are one of life’s most precious possessions, the tendency to stir up trouble between or among friends through gossip and the like is a serious injustice. While teasing and banter among friends can be innocent enough, the disposition to make fun of others or belittle them is a vice opposed to justice. Wishing others harm in thought and word too is unjust.
We can probably all identify to some degree with these injustices in speech. Hopefully, they are occasional slips or bad judgments. But we know that we can all find ourselves easily enough with an abiding tendency to judge others harshly, to savor and spread gossip about others, to tear others down in speech, or to use forms of humor that, in fact, undermine good relationships with others. Such behaviors and abiding attitudes harm ourselves as the agents who harbor and foster such habits; they injure the “victims” of our words; and they damage the health of the networks of relationships in which we live and upon which we all depend.
Virtues Related to Justice
The virtues related to justice share its focus on the authentic health of our relationships and communities. But some virtues, such as piety and religion which concern our responsibility to parents and to God, involve duties to others which can never be fully met. (Aquinas devotes quite a bit of attention to these two virtues, so we will examine them in larger sections below.) Others do not involve strict obligations as such that can be quantified or measured but which nonetheless are attitudes necessary for healthy relations and communities.
Truth-telling
Truth-telling, or honesty, is simply essential to good relationships and good communities. We cannot live together in harmony if, at a fundamental level, we cannot presume that the speech that passes between and among us will be fundamentally honest. This is immediately obvious in marriages and friendships which can easily be torn apart by lies. But it is also true of our life in communities and in society. Even something as basic as economic exchanges depend on truth-telling.
Once again, of course, Aquinas is speaking especially of honesty as a virtue—an abiding tendency to tell the truth that we build up over time, one choice after another. We may know from sad experience, on the other hand, that the vice of dishonesty grows easily enough, one “little white lie” after another, until we find it difficult to speak the truth when it deserves to be told. It does not require active malice to build up a vice. Often enough, a little variation from the truth may seem like a convenient decision in the moment—to save ourselves, for example, from embarrassment or awkwardness. But, over time, this undermines our ability at critical moments to speak the truth. It becomes all too easy to seek the path of least resistance by telling a “harmless, little” lie.
Honesty is obviously opposed by lying and the vice of dishonesty, which is the abiding tendency to say things intentionally that aren’t true. Lying in words has its parallel too in ways of acting. Aquinas tells us that dissimulation is the attempt to give a false appearance or to be seen in a false light. I might, for example, feign interest in or concern for someone’s problems when my purpose is simply to draw close enough to that person in order to gain some knowledge or advantage. A transcript of our conversation might not show a single spoken lie, but my feigned sympathy is itself a lie in action. We would likely call a person with the vice of dissimulation a “fake.”
Hypocrisy is one of the principal forms of dissimulation in which, more specifically, one tries to appear nobler, wiser, or holier than one is. Boasting is presenting oneself as better than you are, a kind of self-praise. This would be, for example, a braggart who exaggerates his or her accomplishments or abilities. On the other hand, “irony” in Aquinas’s distinctive terms is a kind of false or feigned humility by which one presents oneself as less than one truly is. In this way, someone might be prone to avoid responsibilities that the person is, in fact, capable of accomplishing, or one might be feigning humility as a kind of hypocritical show of virtue.
Interpersonal and Domestic Virtues
There are, according to Aquinas, other more “homey” sorts of virtues that we might not normally associate with justice, but which we can easily recognize as essential to good human living and sorely missed when they are absent. Individuals who lack them do not contribute well to the inter-relational and communal contexts in which they find themselves. Again, these may not be quantifiable as strict obligations, but they are nonetheless necessary for good relationships and communities—and for becoming authentically good members of those relationships and communities. Such virtues are concerned with what we might call an attitude of “civility”—a term related to the words “civic,” “civilization,” “civilized,” and “citizenship”—all from a Greek word that refers to the common life in the “city.” These “virtues of civility” make us positive and contributing members of life in the city/community.
Vengeance
One such related virtue is traditionally translated by the unfortunate term “vengeance”—which doesn’t sound like much of a virtue at all. It involves measured retribution or expectation of compensation. When we look at the virtue of temperance, we will see that anger directed against a genuine evil can be appropriate and even good since it moves us to oppose evil. Still, anger must be properly moderated by reason. In the realm of justice, when someone has committed a wrong or acted unjustly, the effected persons can rightfully expect due compensation. Reciprocally, the offending person has an obligation to provide restitution. In this sense, criminals who violate the law (based in justice) have a duty to “pay the price” for their injustice to harmed individuals and to the common good of society. But such retribution, like “good” anger, must be moderated by reason—and this is the function of the virtue of “vengeance” or measured recompense.
We might tell ourselves immediately that this talk of moderated retribution does not speak to our ordinary existence. But that’s not true. There are people who easily “fly off the handle” if they believe that others have spoken ill of them, belittled them, or spread tales about them. As we have seen, these would be offenses against justice; and, if the person’s perception is accurate, he or she is due proper “restitution” (e.g., having the truth told, untruths retracted, or apologies given). But the offended person’s response could be disproportionate to the actual harm done. There are people who have a habit of “making a mountain out of a mole hill.” They would need to work on the virtue unfortunately named “vengeance.” Its absence clearly undermines good relationships.
Closer yet to home are the virtues of thankfulness (gratitude), friendliness (affability), and liberality (generosity). And then there is another unusual virtue traditionally called epikeia (equity). Most of these (except the last) would probably fall under the broader title of courtesy—not in the sense of highbrow manners or social fussiness, but more like the oil that keeps the social machine chugging along easily and smoothly. Relationships and communities are about people—flesh-and-blood human persons with feelings and felt responses for good or ill. These relationships can’t operate well—really, they can’t operate humanly—without virtues like thankfulness, affability, and generosity.
Thankfulness
We all know people who live their lives in a spirit of gratitude. They are grateful to God for divine favors, even in the midst of hardships. They are quick to recognize a favor or a kindness done to them. They are quick with a sincere thanks and perhaps even a (these days, rare) thank-you note. The virtue of thankfulness or gratitude is the abiding tendency to be aware of favors done and gifts given and to respond in appropriate ways. On the other hand, it is equally possible to lack this disposition all together. There are people who never seem to notice kindnesses shown them or never appear to feel any obligation to offer a word of thanks or a favor in return. Such people without the virtue of gratitude can be an irritation in relationships and in communities.
Gratitude is not a matter of strict obligation, as justice is. It concerns favors done and gifts freely given. Thankfulness is not really owed if two parties in a contract both observe their ends of the bargain—unless one party freely goes over and above what is expected. The checkout clerk at the market is paid to scan my purchases and take my cash. “Thank you” might be my habitual response upon receiving the receipt, but I really have no reason to be grateful unless the clerk was particularly kind or helpful, or unless I presented a problem “over and above” the call of duty. And yet, even without being a strict obligation in justice, there is a real way that we nonetheless owe something to people who are kind to us—“owe,” not necessarily in a tangible way (though perhaps so), but a response of the heart or in attitude and gesture (e.g., a “simple” thank-you).
Again, gratitude is not a matter of strict obligation. Trying to calculate the price of every gift given so that you can immediately respond with a “gift” of the precise, same value is not gratitude. This kind of tit-for-tat thinking seeks to dissolve the kind of dependence that gratefully receiving a gift should bring. Moreover, sometimes greater gratitude is owed to someone who gave something of little tangible value but that flows from a more generous intention or desire. Still, although gratitude is not a strict obligation in justice, properly speaking, this does not mean that a response is not called for: a thank-you, a prayer raised up for the benefactor, or even a resolve to give a gift in the future. “I owe you one” is not an inappropriate response, as long as it does not mean that the original gift has been reduced to its monetary value or precise level of effort.
Healthy friendships, marriages, and familial relationships are nurtured by people with the virtue of gratitude. Lack of gratitude can hurt, offend, and sap the life out of such relationships. Thankfulness is also an obligation in our relationship with God. Fostering it by regularly recalling how blessed we are is essential to the spiritual life. But a spirit of gratitude to generous employers, reliable coworkers, affable store clerks, helpful law enforcement officers, and the like are also obligations. Such an attitude—being attentive to the assistance and kindness of others—makes us better human beings and encourages us to “pay it forward.” It may not be an absolute requirement for the efficient operation of a community, but it is the oil that makes it more satisfying, more comfortable, and just more human.
Friendliness or Affability
If you have ever had to work, live, or eat with grouchy, dour, or sullen people, you know immediately the importance of the virtue of affability or friendliness. Having to face an ill-natured coworker, a sullen bank teller, or a sulking teenager across a desk or a breakfast table can wear on anyone’s previously cheery day. On the other hand, we all know how simple, ordinary interactions and even difficult moments can be lightened by a smile, a little warmth, or a pleasant demeanor. It is true that we are not speaking here about matters of dire oppression or what causes wars and civil strife. But these are matters that make interactions more pleasing, and again more human. One doesn’t have to make friends with everyone else, but one should live with others in a manner that is amiable and pleasant.
People who have an abiding tendency to be surly, sullen, contrary, or quarrelsome are a weight on the people around them and sadly seem themselves to be unfortunate human beings. On the other hand, people who have the habitual disposition to be pleasant and warm—not in an insincere or merely superficial way (which could be the vice that Aquinas calls “flattery”)—make social interactions enjoyable and community life more personable. Someone with this virtue can maintain their affability with ease and smoothness, even when experiencing their own inconveniences or difficulties. Again, think about the reaction of various people in a delayed checkout line in a store, airport security checkpoint, or in line to be rebooked for a canceled flight. Some people can easily become irate and rude to clerks or agents who have no control over the situation, causing a scene or making a difficult situation even more unpleasant for the people around them. At the same time, other people, equally inconvenienced, can maintain a spirit of good-humor that can calm and even cheer those around them. What a blessing to human living to be surrounded by affable and friendly people!
Liberality or Generosity
Imagine a world in which people only gave to one another what was strictly owed to them and not a single iota more. Generosity or liberality is the virtue that gives beyond what is required. It is related to the virtue of justice in that it concerns giving to others, but it exceeds what justice strictly demands. Aquinas tells us that liberality, in the first instance, concerns money, and it manifests a relative freedom from excessive concern about it. But generosity with one’s money reveals a deeper disposition of giving that manifests itself in freely giving time, attention, praise, one’s energy and talents, and more. There is often something particularly attractive about truly generous people—most probably because they manifest a trait that is authentically human. In faith terms, God is over-the-top in generosity; and, created in the divine image, we are most truly ourselves in imitating such willingness to give. How pleasant it is to encounter a person who is free with sincere affirmation and praise.
When it comes to vices opposed to virtues, one can err by defect or by excess. Covetousness (avarice or greediness) is opposed to liberality by defect. Greedy people want to accumulate and keep rather than give. Again, while we might usually think of this vice in terms of money, there are people who are greedy about their time, their talents, and their giving of praise. They are unwilling to lend a hand even though they have the time and talent to be of assistance. By excess, we have the vice of prodigality or dissipation, which is the disposition to be immoderate or excessive in giving. The prodigal person gives beyond their means. The Gospel parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32) is the story of a young man who foolishly spends his inheritance on loose living. But the parable is also sometimes called the Parable of the Prodigal Father because the father (and by implication, God) is lavish and excessive in his offer of loving forgiveness. Covetousness and prodigality remind us that all the other virtues, including generosity, must be guided by prudence.
Epikeia (A Justice That Is Prudent)
Another virtue, certainly less well-known and a bit obscure, is usually called by its Greek name epikeia. It concerns especially the manner of applying laws and other norms, and it’s for this reason that Aquinas sees it as related to justice. Human laws simply cannot encompass every possible situation. They remain by necessity general. Epikeia is the habitual disposition to be able to discern if a particular law really applies in a particular case. It seeks justice and the common good when it is not clear that an existing law can do so in a particular case. Traditionally, epikeia asks the question “What was the original intent of this law, and was it really meant to apply to a situation like the one we have before us?” Clearly, epikeia represents, even more than usual, the interplay of the virtues of justice and prudence.
These days, epikeia is still invoked in some discussions of canon law and moral theology. It is a bit delicate, since it can seem to suggest that we can regularly “discern” that laws were not meant to apply to me. This is certainly not what Aquinas intended. In any case, although defining it precisely and understanding how it might work in actual situations is tricky, this particular virtue manifests the reality that laws and norms cannot always apply to each and every situation. Sometimes, the well-formed conscience and prudence (and epikeia) must simply do their very best.
Religion
One of the most interesting virtues that Aquinas understands to be related to justice is something that we probably do not commonly think to be a matter of virtue at all. It is the virtue of religion. As a virtue, it is the abiding tendency to give to God the honor, worship, and thanksgiving that we owe. It is the element of debt or obligation that relates it to justice; but religion is not simply a type of justice, since our debt to God can never be satisfied. How could we ever really give God adequate return for our creation, redemption in Christ, hope for eternal life, and all of the countless blessings that God has showered on us?
Our relationship with God, of course, cannot be reduced to matters of obligation. This is evident in the fact that even our human relationships with friends, spouses, and parents cannot be reduced to strict debts to be repaid in justice. With a completely gratuitous love, God gives us the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love in order to know God, expect to attain divine union, and enter into divine friendship. The virtue of religion, related to justice, is clearly akin to such supernatural virtues; but, as an acquired moral virtue, it is focused more particularly on the sense of obligation that human persons ought to have in relation to God, who has done so much for them. The theological virtues are focused on God directly and bring us into encounter with God; the moral virtue of religion remains focused on what human persons can and should do in acknowledging their debt to God. The virtue of religion, considered on its own, makes us better people in relation to God; the theological virtues make us holy.
Religion is the virtue by which we tend to give God what we owe. Like all of the moral virtues, it is directed to actions. In addressing the virtue, Aquinas speaks of the “acts” of religion. Because we are spirit and body, these acts are both internal and external. Interiorly, the virtue of religion expresses itself (and grows) by the religious acts of devotion and prayer.
Devotion in this context includes its more common meaning of the sincere feelings of adherence to God; but more fundamentally devotion is the interior will to give oneself increasingly to the service of God. Spiritual feelings may come and go, but the virtue of religion is realized in decisions and actions that express our service of God, regardless of our feelings at any particular moment. Perhaps we might “feel” like we don’t want to go to church or “feel” like we aren’t “getting anything out of it,” but true devotion is an act of the will to give to God the time and the worship that God deserves. At the same time, recalling God’s love for us and the divine mercy toward us can foster deeper feelings of devotion, which then can further fill and empower our devoted acts.
Prayer is also an interior act of the virtue of religion. It can manifest itself in external actions, but fundamentally it is interior. Anyone who has seriously tried to pray knows that if prayer depended on our feelings alone, we wouldn’t be doing it faithfully for very long. Making and keeping the time for prayer—like making and keeping time for one’s friends and family—is important even if we don’t feel like it. It is an expression of our recognition of what God has given us. The more that we are aware of what God has done and is doing, the more we can recognize that we owe to God the time that we can set aside for prayer. Prayer is deeper than obligations and repaying of debts, but it is at least that. It is, miraculously, God who first wants to communicate and share with us. Prayer, at this level, is the living out of our responsibility to respond.
The external acts of religion generally concern more outward actions; but, done well, they involve inward attitudes as well. For Aquinas, such acts are adoration, sacrifice, tithing, and generous giving. Here we are focusing on the moral virtue of religion and its external acts. But it’s important to see that Aquinas is really imagining that these religious acts will, of course, be filled, empowered, and directed by grace and more particularly by faith, hope, and love into a deepening personal relationship and ultimately union with God.
Pondering our relationship with God through the lens of justice and obligations may seem a bit odd or even off-putting. But recall that love requires justice. We cannot really claim that we love others if we fail to give them what we owe them. How authentic is our love for someone if, at a more basic level, we don’t give them the respect that we owe them as persons? The interrelationship of love and justice points to the essential connection between love of God and our religious obligation to God. Love certainly cannot be reduced to justice—just as love of God cannot be reduced to religious acts and a “habitual disposition” to return to God, as best we can, some measure of what God has given us so abundantly. It is true that love cannot be reduced to justice, but love cannot exist without justice—just as love of God cannot exist with the religious acts by which we try to offer a response to God. In the same way, it is one thing to say “I love you” or to feel a warm and cozy affection for someone—it is quite another thing to make time for them, make sacrifices for them, and attend to them in themselves. It is empty to say that “I love God” without the resolve and disposition to do what is so evident in our relationship to other human persons: to make time, sacrifice for, and attend to.
In the spiritual life, it is all too easy to reduce everything to feelings—feeling God’s presence, having good prayer experiences, feeling affirmed and uplifted by God. Often enough in our day, God is reduced to a doting grandparent figure who just wants to spoil us with whatever we want and who absentmindedly overlooks everything. In this context, it is easy to think that we can “take or leave” religious practices if they don’t give us good feelings or if we don’t feel like doing them. In this context, what Aquinas has to say about the virtue of religion in its relation to justice is a useful and important corrective. God is not a divine accountant keeping track of our obligations. God doesn’t need our religion. We need our religion. To be authentically human is to give a return to God for what God has done for us, not only in thought but in action. God deserves it, and we need it.
Piety
Justice and its related virtues are concerned with right relationships. Piety is the virtue by which we tend habitually to give due honor and respect to those persons who in fact hold an important place in our lives, and who have benefited us in essential ways—most especially our parents. It’s not a common phrase in our day, but we know that “filial piety” is respect and care for our parents. Beyond our parents, piety extends out to other important members of our families, especially our elders, but also to one’s government and leaders of society and church.
We live in a time and culture substantially different from that of Aquinas. Family structures and dynamics are different. Citizens in a modern democracy have a different view of their relationship to their political leaders than their counterparts in hierarchically-ordered late medieval monarchies. Even in the Catholic Church, after the Second Vatican Council, we have a different way of relating to priests, bishops, and even the pope. Still, while acknowledging the differences in outlook, Aquinas’s teaching on the virtue of piety can still offer us valuable insights for us today.
Our society has grown more informal in dress and manners of addressing others. It is sometimes startling to be called by one’s first name by a very young store clerk who is reading our name on a credit card or computer screen. Government officials, political and religious leaders, professors, and others who hold important positions in society are no longer greeted with the same level of respect and honor. There is nothing inherently wrong with such things. They are largely matters of ever-changing cultural expectations. At the same time, marks of respect appropriate to a culture reinforce and acknowledge the distinctive value of the leadership and service that some people offer to a community, their unique accomplishments, or distinctive contributions. This is not to deny the fundamental dignity and equality of all persons, nor is it to encourage elitism or the promotion of pride and arrogance in a distinguished few. It is simply to say that we owe gratitude and respect to those who serve and lead us—which is no small task—and whose work contributes in a special way to our common good. It is a virtue to habitually tend to be aware and show such respect.
Filial Piety
None of us had perfect parents. If we are parents, none of us is a perfect parent. And still—except perhaps in cases of abuse, serious neglect, or abandonment—we all generally instinctually feel a responsibility to and for our parents. It would probably be difficult to feel otherwise in light of the many years that we lived under their authority and guiding hand. And, of course, hopefully there is always the memory of the love that our parents have shown over the years (even if imperfectly) and the sacrifices they have made for us. Again, piety is not justice, strictly speaking, but it recognizes the obligations that we have to those who have brought us into the world, cared for and nurtured us, and set us on our feet eventually to set out on our own. This debt is not measurable. Or to say it another way, it is incalculable.
As adults, we continue to listen respectfully to our parents’ advice, even when unsolicited. There are ways of speaking to our friends and other family members that we would never use in addressing our parents. As they age and weaken in body and mind, we strive to exercise patience and attend to their needs, as best we can. In our day, often with no large network of extended families, adult children face the task of caring for their elderly parents in the midst of the busyness of their own work and family responsibilities. This can be a very difficult and even burdensome (but not uncommon) challenge.
Filial piety is a virtue—which means that it brings ease, smoothness, and promptness in doing the good. This is not to say that the actual care of frail parents becomes easy in itself, nor does it say that we can’t feel reluctance from day to day. But the virtue enables us to move forward when we might otherwise turn back from a responsibility which is, in fact, reasonably in our power to meet. It helps us to see that we have a responsibility, empowers us to accept it, and keeps our sadness and reluctance from getting the best of us.
Again and again, we must note that every virtue must be guided by prudence. We all have multiple responsibilities and limited resources. Filial piety must be prudent. There are times when we cannot offer the assistance that we would want, because we have, for example, responsibilities to our own spouses and children. They need our time, attention, and financial resources too. (At the same time, my spouse should feel some level of filial piety and duty for his/her in-laws, as my children should for their grandparents.) Sometimes, elderly parents simply cannot be cared for at home. And, at some level, it is unjust for parents to expect their adult children to neglect other important responsibilities to attend to them. Those to whom piety is directed have a responsibility to strive to remain worthy of the honor and respect given them.
Patriotism and Piety
In general, we all accept the fact that citizens must pay reasonable taxes to support the government in its operations on behalf of the common good. Most people recognize that citizens should accept the draft to military service in time of war and threat to the nation. While many do not observe it, most would probably recognize some responsibility to keep abreast of current issues that impact our nation and society and then to vote in elections responsibly. These are, in fact, as we have seen, matters of strict justice.
The truth is that we owe something to the countries to which we belong. Our obligation is not simply the practical necessity of people who implicitly have bought into some kind of “social contract” by which we all agree to contribute to society in order to draw out benefits. Every citizen has benefited (sadly, some more than others) from the nation and society in which they have grown up. Our cultural self-identity, our sense of belonging, our values, and our worldview have been formed, for better and worse, by the societies and cultures in which we have been nourished. We have benefited from the resources that our nation makes available to us and the protections that it has provided. In the Catholic tradition, we see a deeper connectedness to those around us rooted in our very nature; but the reasons mentioned here alone remind us of the distinctive debt that we owe to our nation.
Patriotism seems to be a value that has waned in recent decades. Surely there are many reasons that we have less trust in our government and its leaders. A democracy cannot really flourish if respectful criticism and even active opposition to the government is met with the simple-minded “It’s our country. Love it or leave it!” Still, something is lost in a society in which people don’t have a love and respect for the country in which they were born and raised. And something is diminished in persons who do not foster in themselves the abiding attitude of thankfulness for what they have received from their country and a commitment to contribute to it, even when the contribution takes the form of sincere criticism.
Saint Thomas’s teaching on the virtue of justice and its related virtues has a great deal to offer us in our age and society. In many ways, it challenges our presuppositions and the strength and depth of our sense of obligation to the people and communities around us. Aquinas reminds us of what we owe to our family and friends, to those with whom we work and whose neighborhoods we share, and to those who share our national and cultural heritage. In the contemporary world—certainly from the perspective of modern Catholic social thought—we see those interrelationships and communities and the realm of our responsibilities more broadly. If we want to live more truly human lives and contribute and benefit from a more human society, we would do well to reflect on the insights about justice and its related virtues offered to us by Saint Thomas Aquinas.