The Primacy of God. The Virtue of Religion in Catholic Theology by R. Jared Staudt

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Primacy of God. The Virtue of Religion in Catholic Theology by R. Jared Staudt Robin Ward R. Jared Staudt The Primacy of God. The Virtue of Religion in Catholic Theology Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2022 424 pages. Hardback. $49.95. St. Thomas Aquinas gives a characteristically succinct and apposite account of the virtue of religion in the Summa Theologiae, that nevertheless conceals an intriguing hinterland which has much potential for creative theological reflection. The classic Thomist definition of religion as a virtue is to consider it as a part of the virtue of justice, in that it pertains to the service of cult that humankind owes to God. However, St. Thomas readily admits that religion is a "potential" rather than an integral aspect of the cardinal virtue of justice, and he considers (while ultimately rejecting) the argument that it is in fact more easily understood as acting as if it were a theological virtue, orchestrating faith, hope and charity towards their end in God. Although Thomists of the stricter observance have characteristically insisted on maintaining Thomas' refusal to admit religion to the theological virtues, perhaps most economically summed up in Dom Odon Lottin's little work L'Ame du culte: La vertu de religion d'après S. Thomas d'Aquin, there has nevertheless been a willingness [End Page 128] to treat the virtue of religion in the taxonomy of the Christian life as something rather more than just the payment of a debt due. Without formally rejecting St. Thomas' position, we see for example in the great moral compendium of the Salmanticenses a distinctive treatment of religion as a precept of the first commandment of the decalogue, and in Tanqueray's innovative Synopsis Theologiae Moralis et Pastoralis of 1912 (incidentally one of the earliest seminary manuals to be organised around the virtues rather than the commandments) religion is treated separately between the theological and the cardinal virtues, indicating its distinctive role. More recently, even the idea that religion—the duty of worship owed by humankind to God—is a virtuous activity has come under intense critical scrutiny from opposing theological perspectives. First, Barthian Reformed theologians see religion as fundamentally prone to the idolatrous, and always in need of the redemptive light of revelation, within which thus purged it has a quiet and insignificant role to play as a thankful expression of what has been received purely by divine grace. Second, Catholic theologians most influenced by Karl Rahner place love of neighbour as the primary duty of the moral life, to which the obligations of religious cult are to be subordinated. It is therefore timely and important that Jared Staudt has chosen to repristinate the classic teaching about the primacy of religion in the moral life, the consequences of which are far reaching and of great importance for the work of liturgical formation, so that the people of God might come to an authentic participatio actuosa in the Christian cult. Staudt begins by dealing with justice in relation to God and does so with a thorough and satisfying account of how St. Thomas' understanding of justice as fundamentally orientated towards God remains robust and convincing in contradistinction to the Kantian exaltation of justice as fundamentally autonomous. In doing so, Staudt is careful to place the Thomist understanding of the debt of justice paid by religion in the context of salvation history, and in particular the unfolding of the obligation of religious cult through the apprehension of the natural law, the law of the Old Covenant and the law of Christ. This is no mere formalism: Staudt is clear that "True and perfect worship must stem from a filial union of the soul [End Page 129] with God by knowledge and love, creating a bond of friendship with him" (136). In the second section of the book, Staudt attends to the fundamental importance of the worship of Christ—Christ who as head of the Church offers perfect worship to his Father. He relates this oblation to the trinitarian character of Christian worship, and then applies this to the context of liturgical prayer, comparing the texts of the Roman Rite with those of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom...