How Christ Saves Us While Dead: An Exploration of Aquinas’s Position

Abstract

In explain how Christ saves us, Aquinas focuses predominantly on the Passion and the Resurrection. Staying within the general orbit of Aquinas’s theological vision, this essay seeks to give some theological definition to how Christ furthers our salvation even while dead. I will investigate why Aquinas says that merit and satisfaction are no longer possible after death and whether this also applies to Christ. Further, I will assess how instrumental causality might work when applied to the events of Christ as dead; especially those that relate to his body, such as being pierced. There are particular challenges here because such events relate to a corpse (rather than an integral human being) and they have a seemingly passive character. Finally, I will suggest a way to explain how the time and space bound events of Christ as dead, understood as actions of instrumental causality, can have a universal efficacy.