The Virtue Of Religion
By JUDE P. DOUGHERTY
Concern for the poor is not an identifying mark of religion, media accounts notwithstanding. Within the West, secular agencies and anti-Christian governments alike profess to be concerned for the poor, often for motivations suspect. Religion is concerned primarily with worship and with the things that pertain to worship. Concern for the poor did not build the great cathedrals and monastic edifices of Europe, but love of God did, as communities placed their wealth and art in the service of homage. Given that religion is often equated with Auguste Comte’s Godless “religion of humanity,” a few observations may be in order.
Religion is God-directed insofar as it is the payment of an acknowledged debt, and as such it is a species of justice. St. Thomas in discussing religion treats it as a moral virtue, and in so doing he is following the lead of Cicero, Seneca, and Macrobius upon whom he draws. The formal acknowledgment of any indebtedness, says Thomas, whether it be to parents, nation, or God, is an act of piety.
Thomas’ most extended treatment of worship is found in the Summa Theologiae wherein he examines the moral and ceremonial precepts of the old law (I-II, q. 100 ff.) In other passages, he discusses religion from an etymological point of view. In both the Summa Theologiae and the Summa Contra Gentiles he looks to the origin of the term itself. St. Augustine, he says, found the origin of the word religio in the verb re eligere (to re-elect), Cicero in the verb re legit (to ponder over, to read again), and Lactantius in the verb religare (to bind back) (II-II, q.81, a.1).
Thomas discusses all three views without dismissing any, although in a number of passages he seems to favor the last, which more directly connotes the bond which he takes to be the heart of religion. That binding of man to God, says Thomas, flows from several sources. Because God is a being of infinite excellence and worth, man owes Him reverence; because God is his creator and the source of all that he possesses, man owes Him service; and because God is man’s last end, man owes Him love.
In still other passages Thomas distinguishes among the common usages of the word “religion,” noting that the term may designate a moral virtue, a social institution, or a state of life.
In the de Veritate, Thomas addresses the presuppositions of religion by offering an analysis of the act of faith on which it is based. Belief, he holds, is a rational act residing in the judgment act of the intellect, not in simple apprehension. We believe or disbelieve true or false statements. What is known and accepted on faith is rational insofar as it complements or perfects what is known through experience and reason. Thus it may be said that between a natural worldview and that provided by faith there is a continuum. Belief is definitely not the satisfaction of a psychological need, nor does it involve a dramatic shift in perspective, as if a darkened intellect suddenly comes to light. A natural knowledge of nature and human nature opens the way for the truths of Revelation that reinforce and supplement reason. Thus it was understood by the Fathers of the Church.
Justin Martyr, a Greek who flourished in the mid-decades of the second century after Christ, brought to his analysis and defense of the faith a knowledge of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and the Stoics. Philosophy, he taught, leads to Christianity as its fulfillment. Pagan philosophy, he maintained, is not to be feared for it is consistent with biblical teaching.
Marius Victorinus, Boethius, and Augustine in the third and fourth centuries followed in his footsteps. Clement of Alexandria was similarly convinced that a knowledge of Greek philosophy was essential for an understanding and defense of the faith. Jewish law and Greek philosophy, he held, are the two rivers from whose confluence Christianity sprung forth. Clearly the faith as taught by these fathers was more than a preaching of the Gospels. Their teaching was equally grounded in the Acts of the Apostles, in the epistles, and in the natural intelligence by which one seeks to understand the teachings of Christ and their implications.
The New Testament presents not only the life of Jesus but the response and reaction of those who experienced His life.
There are consequences to the acceptance of the Gospels wherein Christ reveals the nature of the Godhead itself and presents Himself as “The Way, Truth, and Light.” The definition, conservation, and development of those truths become an important function of the religious body itself. There naturally arises an order of teachers who by virtue of their wisdom and uprightness become educators, even when their primary function may be the direction of worship.
Equally important as the development of doctrine is the development of appropriate ritual. Doctrine will develop through dialectic. The fortunes of doctrine, the province of theologians, will rise and fall with the state of learning of the time. Theologians develop languages and methodologies that can be plural in number while remaining faithful to the Deposit of Faith. A theology, or the language of theologians, like any learned discourse, may be subject to semantic and logical analysis in the interest of clarity and precision. The perfection of liturgical language is similarly an ongoing enterprise. Rituals may vary within both the Roman and Byzantine Rites.
Often it is the creative artist that best or dramatically exemplifies what is meant by the creed. Poets are capable of expressing truths that even theologians have difficulty articulating. Ancient Hebrews, wary of the pictorial metaphor, may have forbidden the representation of Yahweh in graven images, but they were inevitably defeated by human nature and the nature of human language. No legislation could prevent the making of verbal pictures, for in the words of T.S. Eliot, “I have got to use words when I talk to you.”
From a sociological point of view, a fact that cannot be ignored is that religious practice presupposes virtue in the individual as well as morality in the people who worship as a community. A communal expression of faith through worship cannot take place without a common and, one might say, a commonsense acknowledgment of an obligation to honor God. From biblical times the Church has recognized that duty, not only by constructing suitable places of worship but in following the mandate of Christ to care for the sick, homeless, orphaned, and widowed.
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(Dr. Dougherty is dean emeritus of The School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America.)
