IUSTITIA DEI

-“Justice of God;” originally referred to the mercy of God which he bestows on the sinner. God will
not deny grace to a sinner who is repentant and has faith.

RIGHTEOUSNESS
-The state in which man is acting in accordance with the will of God and is justified. This was a topic
of great dispute during the Protestant Reformation.

“ACTIVE” AND “PASSIVE” RIGHTEOUSNESS

- Active- Catholic stance on attaining grace; one can actively attain grace by working to cleanse
one's soul for the reception and recognition.
- Passive- Luther's stance on attaining righteousness, one cannot work to obtain grace.

GRACE
- The gift of God's self to a person. Augustine is recognized as being the Doctor of Grace. Grace is
what allows us to do anything that is Good.

ZWINGLI
- Leader of the Protestant reformation in Switzerland. He did not believe in the Real Presence of
Christ. Unlike Catholicism and Luther, who believed in Transubstantiation, Zwingli said that the
Eucharist is only symbolic.

TRANSUBSTANTIATION
- The process by which the sacramental bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ.
Held by Catholics.

CONSTUBSTANTIATION
- The process by which the sacramental bread and wine become the body and blood while still retaining
the accidental properties (both substances are present). Belief held by Luther.

ORIGINAL SIN
- The stain of sin passed on throughout all humanity in the wake of Adam's sin. The punishment for sin
is death, but through God our souls can live on forever.

DOGMA
- A core principle in the understanding of Catholicism, i.e., Christ is son of God, Mary coneived Jesus
without losing her virginity. It is revealed and can be seen as a decree. From the Greek work “dokein”:
public decree or ordinance. Doctrine and moral precepts taught by Jesus. Something that is revealed
and defined by the Church.

PROBLEM OF EVIL
- The problem of evil questions how a good God could allow for evil to exist, which Augustine
explains by defining evil as the privation of Good.

FREEWILL DEFENSE
- If humans are truly to have free will, God must create evil that they might be able to willingly choose
good. Without evil, there is no free will.

SIMUL JUSTUS ET PECCATOR

- “Righteous and at the same time a Sinner”

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
- The explanation for Mary's virginal conception of Jesus. From the moment of conception God
bestowed a special grace upon her that allowed her to be with original sin thus preparing her body for
the Lord

JUSTIFICATION
- The movement of mankind from the fallen state to a state of grace and adoption as sons of God.

ASSUMPTION OF MARY
- At the end of Mary's life, she was raised to Heaven both in body and soul.

REAL PRESENCE
- At the Eucharistic part of the service, the bread and wine are truly transformed into the body and
blood of Christ.

ABSORBED EVILS
- Evils that are not sublimated into higher goods: homicide and suicide.

UNABSORBED EVILS
- Evils that are sublimated into high goods: like surgery. In itself the operation does damage to the
body (an evil), but it is subsumed into a higher good. Likewise natural evils that allow for greater
goods like courage, mercy, etc. would be an absorbed evil.

GREATER GOOD DEFENSE

- A response to the Problem of Evil, which states that without evil there could not exist certain greater
goods, such as human dignity in the face of adversity.

AUGUSTINE:

SUBSTANCE
- Although in Christianity God is seen as the Trinity, containing the three aspects of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all three of these aspects are one substance therefore constituting
only one God.
- What a thing is made up of

RELATION
- The one category that one can use to describe what accounts for the distinction of persons when they
share the same substance. The only difference between the Father and the Son is the relation of
fatherhood and son-ship. They are of the same substance, or being. The Father is all the Son is save
that he is Father of the Son, and vice versa.

LIBERTAS
- Also known as Higher Freedom. God gives us grace whereby our wills are disposed only towards
that which is truly good. This is freedom because it frees the will from its natural tendency toward evil.

LIBERUM ARBITIRIUM
- Also known as Free Choice. A part of man's created nature: the soul as will is endowed at birth with
the ability to turn toward or away from the supreme good.

AQUINAS:

GOOD/GOODNESS
- 3 elements of goodness: 1) Self-Diffusiveness, Fecundity, Fruitfulness; 2) Has the aspect of
desirability, End, Final Cause; 3) Has the aspect of being perfected; every being as being is good, when
any being as being desires perfection in its own constitution it amounts to a participation in the good or
likeness of God.

REAL DISTINCTION
- What it is versus whether it is; Essence versus Existence. In the case of God there is no distinction
between essence and existence.

MOTION/CHANGE
- One of Aquinas's 5 ways to prove the existence of God. Consideration of the movement from potency
to act. Everything that is moved is moved by another. A thing cannot be both the mover and the
moved. This process of movement cannot go on forever, therefore there must be an initial impetus, a
first cause.

SIMPLICITY
- In man, there is essence and matter, i.e. soul and body, but in God, there is only essence. God is not
composed of parts. God cannot change or be corrupted. Can explain the simplicity of God from
Apophatic (negative) of Cataphatic (God is...) standpoint. ?

ACCIDENTS
- In logic, a predicate that is attributed to a subject in fact, but not by necessity.

CORRUPTION
-

SUPPOSITUM
- Means individual, which for humans contain both form and matter. However, because God does not
have matter, his essence and suppositum are the same. If God's existence was not that of his essence
then He would still be contingent upon something, therefore no longer being the First Cause.

INTELLIGIBILE SPECIES
- The active intellect abstracts from the phantasm (the image that the mind receives from our sense
perception), what is knowable about the object perceived.

HABITUAL GRACE
- The ultimate grace, justifies. Everything else is specialized grace.

JUSTIFYING GRACE
- The grace by which man is restored to the Justice of God.

ELEVATING GRACE
- The property of grace that allows us to be elevated from our fallen state of nature.
HEALING GRACE
- Much like elevating grace, heals.

PREVENIENT GRACE
- Grace that grants perseverence

“IMAGO DEI”
- Image of God, substantial (we have some substance like god ie free will), relational (we must be in a
relationship w god to be in the image of him), and functional (we are like god because of our purpose
to rule over the lesser creatures)

“CAPAT DEI”
- Capacity for God,

1. The Father and the Son both have an unchangeable substance, since they are both fully God.
Being fully God, and fully substance, they cannot have any accidental qualities. The Father is
unbegotten, and the Son is begotten, but both are unchangeable qualities, and therefore cannot
be accidents. This must be seen as predicated by 'Relation,' in that although to be the Father and
the Son are two different things, still there is no difference in their substance, because the
names, Father and Son, do not refer to the substance but to the relation, and the relation is no
accident, because it is unchangeable. The Holy Spirit is a gift of the Father to the Son, and the
Son to the Father; the mutual love of the Father and the Son. Because the love proceeded from
both substances, which were fully God, the Holy Spirit must by default be of the same
substance, fully God.
2. The mind is made up of Memory, Intellect, and Will. This is the psychological build-up of the
mind, which Augustine uses to describe the Trinity. There is a resemblance of these three
aspects to the Trinity, and we use these three capacities in order to receive God. However, these
three aspects of the soul do not become the image of God until God is the focus of these three
facilities.
3. “Libertas” is the freedom to choose God, in a Christian context, helped by God's grace;
“Librum Arbitrium” is freedom to choose between an infinite number of choices. Sin impedes
Libertas. Divine Disposition would free the will from evil, hence, Grace frees the soul from sin,
in order to actualize Libertas.
4. Argument for the necessary existence of God, which first invites one to imagine a being than
which nothing can exist. Argument is as follows:
1. God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived.
2. But the Fool says, “There is no God.” - Derives from Psalm 14:1.
3. The fool understands what we mean by “God.”
4. In reality vs. intellect – Things exist in one of those ways.
5. The fool must admit that “God” exists intellectually.
6. It is better to exist oth in reality than merely in intellectitude.
7. If God only exists in the mind, then God is not that than which nothing greater can be
conceived.
8. God exists in reality.
Gaunilon's response to Anselm's argument: used the same logic to prove the existence of an Island that
did not exist, and then claimed that if his argument, which used the same form, was invalid, then
Anselm's argument must then be invalid, too.
1. Anselm responded with Necessary Being argument.
 2. Aquinas' criticism: Anselm's argument is valid, but not persuasive.
5. Aquinas said that movement is the transition from potency to actuality. And since nothing can
move itself from potency to actuality, there must exist a first mover. This first mover is God.
Anselm's argument is that God must exist since he is a being than which nothing greater can be
conceived, and since it is greater to exist than just be conceived, he must exist. This, though,
does not prove God exists actually, but rather that he exists mentally. Man cannot understand
the essence of God, but rather can only define Him by evaluating the effects He has.
1. Argument by effects.
2. Aquinas says that things can be objectively true, but they cannot be true to the subjects. He
says that Anselm does not make the real distinction between the what (essence) and the
whether (existence).
6. 1. The Argument of the Unmoved Mover
1. Argument from motion, motion is put in motion by another.
1. Motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality.
2. Can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality.
1. Thing cannot be at the same time in actuality and potentiality.
3. Thing cannot be both mover and moved.
4. Infintite regression of putting in motion is impossible
5. Therefore the first mover must be God, put in motion by no other.
2. The Argument of the First Cause
1. Argument from the nature of the efficient cause
2. No thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself
1. If so, would be prior to itself, which is impossible.
3. Infinite regression of efficient causes, which is impossible
1. First efficient cause, intermediate cause, ultimate cause
4. First cause is God, caused by nothing.
3. The Argument from Contingency
1. Argument from possibility and necessity
2. Things have possibility to be and not to be
1. To be generated and corrupt
3. If something is capable of not being, then it cannot have always existed.
1. Everthing is possible not to be
1. Nothing cannot generate something.
4. Something must be whose existence is necessary.
5. Infinite regression of necessary things is impossible.
6. Therefore the being whose existence is necessary is God, who always existed.
4. The Argument from Degree
1. Argument from the gradation to be found in things.
2. “More” and “Less”
1. -They resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum – hotter to
hottest
2. Something must be truest, best, noblest and something which is uttermost being.
1. The greatest in Truth is the greatest in Being.
3. Maximum in type is cause of type
1. Cause of Being
4. Maximum in being is God, who is the highest of all things.
5. The Teleological Argument
1. Argument from the governance of the world
2. Things without intelligence act for an end
 1. Acting always in the same way to obtain best result
1. Acting not by chance or randomness, but by design
3. Things without intelligence cannot act towards an end on their own, they need an
intelligent being. Example, arrow fired by archer.
4. Ultimate director is God, who directs all natural things that exist.
7. All things act for an end. The end of every appetite is directed towards good. Hence it follows
that all things are directed to good, and the highest good is God. Therefore all things are
directed toward God as their final end. Since God is the first mover, all things began with him
and are ordered to Him as their end.
1. Operation proper to a thing is its end.
2. When a thing is well conditioned for its proper end, it is fit and good.
3. Happiness comes from the beatific vision, in which a person experiences perfect, unending
happiness by seeing the unfiltered essence of God. This ultimate goal carries implications
for one's present life on earth. Aquinas stated that an individual's will must be ordered
toward right things, such as charity, peace, holiness, etc.
4. Aquinas unifies the ideas of moral rectitude and happiness in the ideas of the beatific vision.
8. Grace is the gift of God's very self to the individual. It is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It
is an aid in achieving our final end. Because we cannot know whether grace is operative in the
soul, we must have the grace of perseverance in order to keep going.
9. Luther rejected a scholasticism gone awry. He hated Iustitia Dei because it had come to mean
that salvation was based entirely on works and action, with little faith involved. This was
faulty, as Luther recognized, yet he took it to the opposite extreme, and stated that faith alone
could save you. In uniting ourselves with Christ, we are united with righteousness, says Luther,
although humans intrinsically are not righteous. Therefore, their righteousness is extrinsic. We
remain sinners, but are justified (“Sinul Iustus et Peccator”) in Christ, and must rely on him in
faith entirely. Righteousness is imputed, totally extrinsic. This, of course, is true, but it doesn't
negate the necessity for works as well.
10. What Luther means by the freedom of a Christian is that through Christ we are free from
condemnation under the law. We are free not because we have changed, but because God sees
us through Christ. We are freed from the effects of sin, but substantially we are not changed.
WE are saved of having to save ourselves. Augustine, on the other hand, sees our freedom as
the definition of Libertas. God gives us grace that we must accept in order to be naturally
inclined toward what is good, and therefore be free. Libertas is taken by him to mean a
disposition by which God turns our will towards the true good; our sin is only like the after
effects of a horrible disease.
11. When we are justified, we are viewed by God through the lenses of Christ, and thus acquitted of
our sins. There is nothing we can do ourselves to merit justification; righteousness in humans is
only seen through the righteousness of Christ. By “Justification,” Luther means that we take on
again our original relationship with God. When we become justified by faith in Christ, it has
nothing to do with anything that has changed within us, but instead comes from an imputed
righteousness (benefit from something that is not rightfully ours). This differs from the
Catholic tradition, in that by salvation, sufficient grace is actualized, in turning to Christ
through faith; in that state, humans are justified intrinsically. Justification comes through
Christ, but through that, the grace transcends imputation, which contradicts the justness and
mercy of God, and becomes something intrinsic to us.
12. Luther agrees with Scripture that faith without works is dead. Yet those works, which he agrees
are important to Christian life, are not intrinsic to justification and redemption. They are merely
fruits of a good, Christian life, not crucial to salvation.
13. We depend entirely on God for justification.
 1. Not by any natural means was man able to save himself.
2. Saved by faith – we are saved gratuitously
3. Justification involves a “translation,” a change.
1. With Luther, it was an event, rather than a process.
4. It involves an authentic remission of sins
1. With baptism, the believer is totally cleansed of sin. There is nothing that God can hate
within that person. Concupiscence still remains in the sense of the effects of a disease.
5. Cooperation vs. passive voluntary reception
1. You are not entirely rotten
2. The graces authentically enable the will to say yes
3. Justification and sanctification
6. We have to be humble, because we cannot know that we are saved.
14. The Council of Trent describes Original Sin as: the culpability and deprivation of what we as
humans should naturally have; the loss of holiness and justice. We are not personally culpable
but humanity contains a collective culpability in regards to Original Sin. The penalty for
Original Sin is death, but by abiding in God, our souls can live forever.
1. All men lost their innocence at the fall through Adam.
2. Men were “under the power of the devil and of death.”
3. they were not able to save themselves.
4. Their free will was weakened and downward bent, but they are not totally depraved.
15. Trent decreed that Transubstantitation was the real deal. Luther claimed that Constubstatiation
was true, while Zwingli holds to the Eucharist being simply symbolic. Luther used the iron and
fire metapho, which is that when you put iron in a furnace, it takes on aspects of the fire,
without losing its essential ironness, therefore the Eucharist can be both substantially God and
substantially bread and wine. Trent finalizes the Church's belief that the bread and wine, which
retain the appearances of such, are actually in essence Christ's body and blood.
16. Marian veneration one of the earliest Church traditions. Ignatius taught of the virginal
conception, which gives Mary theological value Justin taught the first theological reflection of
Mary, in that Jesus is the new Adam, and Mary the new Eve. Irenaeus talks about
recapitulation; we stand under the effects of Adam's sin. In Christ, he brings us under a new
head. Mary is a new Eve in a way that posits soteriological implications. She has a role in
salvation because she gave her Fiat. The early Church considered her Immaculate Conception
to be a definite thing; they recognized that in order for Christ to be fully God, he must be
coneived fully by God; therefore, he must go throug a pure vessel, in order to be unstained by
human things. Because she is the mother of God, she plays a crucial role in salvation, in being
the Theotokos, the God-Bearer, through whom Salvation was made manifest.
1. The term “fully graced,” which is written in the sense that she is already perfectly graced;
later, we have the Dogma of Immaculate Conception and the Dogma of Assumption (no
death because she was sinless).
2. There was debate over whether Mary died or not; the Church leans toward Mary having
died, though it was never clearly decided. But since Mary is so humble, and would have
wanted solidarity with her Son and the rest of the world, it is widely accepted that she did
die, but was raised, body and soul, into Heaven.
17. The problem is that if God is omnipotent and Good, then why is there evil in the world?
1. Free Will defense: if there is no evil in the world, then there would be no need for free
will, and free will is necessary, in order that our existence is given purpose.
2. Greater Good defense: Evil may be necessary for some greater good to come about.
1. First order goods -
2. first order evils – natural evils (earthquakes, diseases, other bad stuff)
 3. second order goods – virtues (human virtue – courage, integrity, etc)
4. second order evils – moral evils (pride, hatred, lust, etc)
5. third order goods – promise of afterlife (heaven, afterlife, eschatology)
3. Mackie's response: Christians acknowledge that free will preceded the fall, hence it isn't
a sufficient explanation for the existence of evil in the world.
4. A theist would argue that atheists have no grounds on which to define ontological goods
and evils.