The Law of Embrace: Satisfaction,Forgiveness,and the Cross in Aquinas,Lonergan,and Volf

Introduction

Thomas Aquinas, Bernard Lonergan, and Miroslav Volf each offer valuable contributions to our understanding of Christ’s saving work. As a first approximation, Aquinas presents an ordered contemplation of the mystery of Christ’s passion, and Volf develops its practical implications for contemporary society. While separated by 800 years of history and differing theological and ecclesial commitments, their contributions may be placed into fruitful dialogue, such that Volf assists in drawing out the practical significance of Christ’s passion latent in Aquinas’ contemplation. With his development of Aquinas and his central notion of the law of the cross, Lonergan offers a critical basis for conducting this retrieval and conversation.

Reflection upon the practical significance of Christ’s saving work has become a pressing concern, for at least two reasons. First is the need to offer a theological response to conflict in a pluralistic world. This is Volf’s main thesis, that “God’s reception of hostile humanity into divine communion is a model for how human beings should relate to the other.” ¹ Volf calls this work of reconciliation the movement from exclusion to embrace and identifies its key moments as the practices of repentance, forgiveness, making space for the other, and healing of memory. Since the mystery of Christ’s cross has the significance of forgiveness and reconciliation, these practices ought to be informed by a theological understanding of the cross.

This leads to the second reason: the need to address problematic aspects in accounts of the cross that obscure its significance of forgiveness and reconciliation. In particular, the theory of satisfaction, when understood in terms of penal substitution, portrays Christ’s passion as retributive punishment for human sin, required by God for atonement. ² This portrayal has been critiqued for suggesting that God demands the death of Christ in order to appease God’s wrath; hence, “one turns away in horror from a righteousness whose sinister wrath makes the message of love incredible.” ³ Moreover, this portrayal seems to condone violence and perpetuate power dynamics that oppress victims. ⁴ The original formulation of satisfaction by Anselm, however, conceives it as an alternative to retributive punishment. Satisfaction is the voluntary offering of a proportionate good in order to offset wrongdoing. ⁵ Nonetheless, Anselm has been critiqued for seeming to deduce the Incarnation from absolute necessity.

Aquinas and Lonergan retain the importance of satisfaction in their accounts of Christ’s passion while attenuating the problematic aspects. Aquinas transposes Anselm’s theory to a richer context by relating it to and emphasizing grace and charity. ⁶ He carefully articulates the sense of punishment and begins to complicate the power dynamics involved. He situates satisfaction within the fittingness of the Incarnation and not in terms of absolute necessity. Lonergan deepens Aquinas’ account of satisfaction by developing its critical basis in what he calls the law of the cross. This expresses the essence or meaning of redemption and begins to indicate its practical significance. Put most simply, the law of the cross articulates that God saves us by transforming evil into good and that the same is required of us in our practical activity. ⁷

My purpose in this essay is constructive and theological: not to respond fully to critiques of satisfaction or to outline precise arrangements of forgiveness and reconciliation, but to seek a theological understanding of Christ’s saving work attentive to its practical significance while sensitive to the aforementioned critiques. I suggest that through the interface of Lonergan’s law of the cross, Volf’s account of the practical significance of the cross provides a framework for retrieving Aquinas’ contemplation of the mystery of Christ’s passion and its latent practical implications, specifically concerning satisfaction. I argue that satisfaction may be re-interpreted as a practice of forgiveness toward one’s enemies in the movement from exclusion to embrace. This is shown first by sketching the accounts of Aquinas, Lonergan, and Volf, and then, in light of these, by formulating a more focused argument toward my claim.

Thomas Aquinas: Ordered Contemplation of Christ’s Satisfaction

Aquinas presents an ordered contemplation of the mystery of Christ’s passion in the Third Part of the Summa theologiae. ⁸ He divides this contemplation into three parts: the fittingness of the passion (Question 46), its efficient cause (Question 47), and its effect, both the modes of its effectiveness (Question 48) and the effects themselves (Question 49). While the entire textual unit deepens understanding of the passion, Question 48 specifically explains how it is effective for salvation by interrelating five traditional motifs: merit, satisfaction, sacrifice, redemption, and efficiency. Satisfaction assumes a certain prominence, as it is used to interpret the biblical motifs of sacrifice and redemption, but the multiplicity of motifs is not thereby reducible to satisfaction. ⁹

Satisfaction is defined in the second article of Question 48. To satisfy for an offense means to offer to the offended party something that she loves equally or even more than she hates the offense. ¹⁰ Satisfaction is an act of making amends for wrongdoing. This differs considerably from a penal substitution understanding and from certain emphases in Anselm. By definition, satisfaction is associated intrinsically neither with punishment and violence nor with absolute necessity. To have a better grasp of this, some prior considerations are required.

Against satisfaction as absolutely necessary, Aquinas presents the fittingness of both the passion and the Incarnation. Instead of explaining these mysteries by attempting to deduce them from necessary reasons, which constrain divine initiative and freedom, Aquinas discloses their intelligibility by giving “as many reasons as he can, in spite of their weaknesses, to grasp all that he can of the incomprehensible love that moved God to this extreme.” ¹¹ At the outset of the Third Part of the Summa theologiae, Aquinas adduces no less than 10 reasons for the fittingness of the Incarnation: 5 pertaining to our advancing in the good and 5 pertaining to our being removed from evil. ¹² Satisfaction is only introduced as the last reason of fittingness: becoming Incarnate, Christ frees the human race from servitude to sin by satisfying for us. While a mere human being could not satisfy for the whole human race, God was not bound to satisfy. The Incarnation, then, was fitting because Christ, being both God and human, could accomplish this satisfaction.

Considering the fittingness of the Passion, Aquinas explains more explicitly why satisfaction is not absolutely necessary. To the question of whether divine justice demands satisfaction for sin, Aquinas answers that if God had willed to free human beings from sin without any satisfaction, God would not have acted against justice. Why? Because, unlike a human judge who is answerable to a higher authority in administering justice, there is no one higher than God, who is the goodness of the whole universe. This is analogous to my forgiving someone who has committed a personal fault against me without requiring an act of satisfaction from them: I have acted mercifully and not unjustly. ¹³ God’s justice does not demand or necessitate satisfaction for sin, yet God has still chosen to forgive our sins through Christ’s satisfaction, for many fitting reasons that ultimately show God’s love for us. ¹⁴

Still, Christ’s satisfaction is not unrelated to justice. It fittingly involves punishment: “one satisfies for another’s sin by taking on himself the punishment due to the sin of the other.” ¹⁵ But undergoing punishment does not comprise the meaning of satisfaction; rather, punishment is the “matter” of satisfaction. ¹⁶ Its “form” or “principle,” which makes it effective, is the willingness to satisfy, proceeding from charity. While satisfaction may involve undergoing punishment, it is not punishment per se that makes satisfaction to be what it is, or to be effective for reconciliation.

Aquinas carefully articulates the sense of punishment involved in satisfaction within a broader framework of God’s just ordering of creation. God creates the world as good and orders each thing to its proper end for the sake of God’s goodness. ¹⁷ Good has a twofold sense: a thing is good as created and existing, and a thing realizes its good as it carries out operations toward its proper end. Evil, the privation of good, also has a twofold sense. In voluntary agents, it is divided into punishment (malum poenae) and guilt (malum culpae). Punishment has the general sense of subtraction of the form or integrity of a thing and is contrary to the will, which naturally wills its good. Guilt means a failure in operation, a failure to do the good proportionate to one’s nature: “this is imputed to anyone as a fault to fail as regards perfect action, of which he is master by the will.” ¹⁸ The debt of punishment follows immediately upon guilt, for the restoration of justice and order. ¹⁹

The punishment involved in satisfaction has a derivative sense. Aquinas distinguishes between simple and satisfactory punishment. The former is punishment taken in a general and retributive sense: “it has always a relation to a sin [culpam] in the one punished.” ²⁰ More broadly, it results from original sin: principally, as the deprivation of original justice, and consequently, as the defects in human nature, such as death, hunger, and thirst. ²¹ In all cases, simple punishment is contrary to the will. Satisfactory punishment, however, occurs when someone willingly undergoes the punishment due to another for his wrongdoing. It is distinguished from simple punishment because of its voluntary aspect and “loses somewhat of the nature of punishment.” ²² The principle of satisfactory punishment is love or charity:

since those who differ as to the debt of punishment, may be one in will by the union of love, it happens that one who has not sinned, bears willingly the punishment for another: thus even in human affairs we see men take the debts of another upon themselves ²³

This removes wrongdoing because it satisfies the requirement of justice from which the need for punishment arose. In this sense, Christ’s passion may be interpreted as an instance of satisfactory punishment.

Against an intrinsic association with violence, Aquinas emphasizes Christ’s willingness to make satisfaction for our sins through his suffering and death. Simple retributive punishment is not inflicted upon Christ; indeed, it is “a wicked and cruel act to hand over an innocent man to torment and to death against his will.” ²⁴ Rather, Christ freely accepts suffering and death, which is the punishment for sin, to make a fitting act of satisfaction, out of charity and obedience. The Father inspires Christ in his human will with this charity and obedience, and “Christ as God delivered Himself up to death by the same will and action as that by which the Father delivered Him up.” ²⁵ God freely chooses, out of God’s wisdom and love, to perform a fitting and just work of making amends for human sin through Christ’s suffering and death.

The foregoing considerations make more precise the meaning of satisfaction as a motif that explains the effectiveness of Christ’s passion. The emphasis is placed on Christ’s charity and obedience, through which he endures suffering and death as satisfactory punishment for sin. These stand to each other as form to matter, comprising a singular act of satisfaction. This offering gives much more than is required to compensate for the total offense of the human race. It is not only sufficient, but superabundant satisfaction, for three reasons: first, from Christ’s exceeding charity; second, from the dignity of his life laid down, which is that of a divine person in a human nature; and third, from the extent and magnitude of his suffering. ²⁶ As sufficient, Christ’s satisfaction meets the requirements of justice. But as superabundant, Christ’s satisfaction is an act of mercy, for God was in no way bound to give Christ as a satisfier for human sins. ²⁷

Christ’s satisfaction from his charity and suffering brings about the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. His passion is the proper cause of the forgiveness of sins in three ways. ²⁸ First, it provokes our charity, on account of God’s great charity shown to us in Christ. Charity that leads to repentance obtains the forgiveness of sins. Second, it redeems us, for Christ as head of the mystical body delivers us as his members by the price of his passion. The price is a metaphor for the giving up of his life as an offering of satisfaction from charity and obedience. ²⁹ Third, it operates with divine power for expelling sin, insofar as Christ’s flesh is an instrument of his divinity. This removal of sins is needed for reconciliation between human beings and God. Yet Christ’s passion as an acceptable sacrifice, understood as satisfaction, more properly brings about reconciliation: Christ’s satisfaction, his suffering out of charity and obedience, is a more acceptable compensation on account of which offense is forgiven. ³⁰

Bernard Lonergan: Analogy for Satisfaction and the Law of the Cross

Lonergan develops Aquinas’ account of Christ’s passion in two important ways in his Christology textbook De Verbo incarnato and the supplemental treatise De redemptione. ³¹ He refines the understanding of Christ’s satisfaction through an analogy with the sacrament of penance, and he articulates the essence of redemption as the law of the cross. Aquinas’ motifs for the effectiveness of Christ’s passion are presupposed, since “all but one of these are so deeply fixed in the Catholic mind that it is quite unnecessary to add anything to what the Angelic Doctor has written.” However, “concerning the nature of satisfaction there is a variety of opinions.” ³² These latter have proliferated since Aquinas’ time, especially during the Reformation. In addition, Lonergan views satisfaction as Church teaching; therefore, he undertakes a full treatment in order to better defend its truth against a variety of alternative opinions. ³³

The primary meaning of satisfaction, following Aquinas’ definition, is compensation for an offense, not as in a commercial transaction, but in the order of interpersonal relationships. To this is added a secondary and subordinate meaning, that satisfaction involves punishment. ³⁴ Lonergan clarifies and advances Aquinas by showing the coherence of these two meanings of satisfaction in order to prove the following thesis:

Christ made not only condign but even superabundant satisfaction for our sins. This satisfaction is understood according to a sacramental analogy, and therefore it adds to Christ’s vicarious passion and death an expression of the utmost detestation of all sins and of the greatest sorrow for all offense against God. ³⁵

Lonergan proceeds in two steps: first, he determines the intelligible context in which satisfaction is properly understood; second, he applies this understanding to Christ’s passion by way of analogy with the sacrament of penance.

Lonergan identifies two possible contexts for understanding satisfaction, which further clarify simple and satisfactory punishment in Aquinas. While simple punishment is understood within a context of retribution, satisfactory punishment may be understood within a context of either retribution or reconciliation. ³⁶ In the former, satisfaction remains an instance of retributive justice, that is, as an alternative payment of the strict juridical penalty for wrongdoing: “one who pays a debt not strictly in accordance with the contract but in some other way that is acceptable to his creditor gives satisfaction.” ³⁷ In a context of reconciliation, satisfaction pertains to the request for pardon or forgiveness after wrongdoing has been committed. Satisfaction is “the voluntary acceptance of punishment in order that pardon may fittingly be asked for and granted.” ³⁸ Lonergan emphasizes the crucial difference between punishment accepted with complete willingness, and punishment inflicted contrary to one’s will in a context of retribution. The willing acceptance of punishment in order to request pardon is fitting because it expresses sorrow and detestation of wrongdoing. ³⁹

Christ’s satisfaction, and the suffering or punishments involved, must be grasped according to a context of reconciliation. Lonergan explains this by first noting that Scripture establishes that Christ’s passion and death is vicarious, that he “not only acts for the benefit of sinners so that their sins be wiped away but also suffers because of the sins committed, and on behalf of sinners.” ⁴⁰ This is applied to satisfaction: “vicarious satisfaction is the voluntary acceptance of punishment in order that it may be fitting to ask and be granted pardon for an offense that is not one’s own but that of another.” ⁴¹ Vicarious satisfaction is possible on the basis of the union of wills through the friendship of charity. Charity can make two persons one, such that what a friend does for us may be seen to be done by ourselves. ⁴² Moreover, the love by which one suffers for a friend is more pleasing to God than if one suffers merely for one’s own sins because the former is a more outstanding expression of love. Christ, because he is a divine person subsisting in a human nature, is filled with exceeding charity such that he is the very cause of the union of love with his faithful.

Christ’s vicarious acceptance of punishment raises the question of guilt. According to Scripture, death is the punishment for sin. Christ died; therefore, Christ received the punishment for sin. ⁴³ But since sin involves guilt, does Christ also receive or accept guilt? Lonergan answers in the negative: Christ had neither personal nor original sin, and he does not take on the guilt of others by Lutheran imputation, legal contract, or solidarity. ⁴⁴ While guilt implies liability to punishment in a context of retribution, the converse is not true of vicarious satisfaction in a context of reconciliation. The willing acceptance of punishment does not imply that guilt is also received or accepted. ⁴⁵ Yet it may still be asked how Christ’s satisfaction is effective if he does not take on our guilt. Lonergan finds that Christ is sufficiently connected with the human race

by the fact that he assumed human nature from Adam’s stock, lived among us and acted for us as the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45), as the guarantor of a better covenant (Heb 7:22), and as head of his body, the church (Eph 5:25). ⁴⁶

The primary meaning of satisfaction as compensation for an offense must be recalled: “by suffering out of love and obedience, Christ gave more to God than was required to compensate for the offense of the whole human race.” ⁴⁷

Lonergan’s treatment of the proper intelligible context for satisfaction prepares for understanding Christ’s satisfaction by analogy with the sacrament of penance. Though Christ has no personal or original sin, and though penitents approach the sacrament precisely because of their personal sins, there is the following analogy: just as in the sacrament there is contrition or sorrow for sins, which leads to confession and satisfaction, so there is a similar movement in Christ’s satisfaction. ⁴⁸ This analogy “adds to his vicarious passion and death an expression of the utmost detestation for all sins and of extreme sorrow for all offense against God.” ⁴⁹

By adding sorrow and detestation for sins to the understanding of Christ’s satisfactory punishment, the sacramental analogy underscores the context of reconciliation. Lonergan, following Aquinas, identifies charity as the principle of Christ’s sorrow, which is the greatest possible. Christ had extreme sorrow for all sins and detested them because of his beatific vision, knowing God through God’s essence primarily and all sins secondarily, and because of his perfect love for God. ⁵⁰ Christ’s willing acceptance of his passion and death is then an exterior expression of extreme interior detestation and sorrow for sins. ⁵¹ From exceeding love and obedience, Christ’s expression of sorrow in accepting his passion and death becomes a fitting, sufficient, and superabundant satisfaction such that forgiveness might be asked for and granted.

Having clarified Christ’s satisfaction through the sacramental analogy, Lonergan presents the law of the cross as a deeper understanding of the mystery of redemption as a whole. This is an outworking and a grounding of the understanding of Christ’s satisfaction. ⁵² He articulates the law of the cross in the following thesis:

This is why the Son of God became man, suffered, died, and was raised again: because divine wisdom has ordained and divine goodness has willed, not to do away with the evils of the human race through power, but to convert those same evils into a supreme good according to the just and mysterious law of the cross. ⁵³

Two major elements of Lonergan’s exposition to consider are, first, the law of the cross as the essence of redemption and, second, its fittingness for Christ and its application to us as a precept.

As a deeper understanding of redemption, the law of the cross is its intrinsic intelligibility or essence. This is “neither a mere absence of internal incoherence nor an absolute necessity nor a conditioned necessity,” but an understanding of fittingness, as with Aquinas. ⁵⁴ Intrinsic intelligibility is “grasped solely in the thing itself per se, as the definition is grasped in the defined, or the regular relation among things is grasped in the things themselves as regularly and fittingly connected.” ⁵⁵ The outworking of Christ’s satisfaction discloses this intelligibility, as it shows a principle of transformation at work, that God brings greater good out of evils permitted to occur rather than causing no evils to exist. While punishment for sin is owed according to God’s retributive justice, Christ makes satisfaction by willingly submitting to pay this penalty out of love and obedience for forgiveness and reconciliation, transforming evil into good. ⁵⁶

The law of the cross is summarized formally in three moments. First is the progression from evil of fault to evil of punishment. Second is voluntary transformation of the evil of punishment into good. Third is the blessing of this transformation by God the Father. This movement articulates the essence of redemption: “that punishment is consequent upon sin, that punishment willingly accepted is converted into the means of salvation, and that through those means salvation is attained.” ⁵⁷ This is verified in the sequence of the Incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. ⁵⁸ The principle of transformation of evil into good properly grounds the understanding of Christ’s satisfaction, especially concerning punishment, which is not retributive, but is an evil willingly accepted in order to do good.

The law of the cross not only expresses the essence of redemption but is also a precept for us. Yet it fittingly belongs to Christ in the first place and as its primary instance. This fittingness is from God’s wisdom and love, which Christ reveals. Christ’s satisfaction intimates this insofar as his sorrow and detestation for all sins is also God’s expression of judgment upon sin. Christ’s willingness to submit to the law of the cross expresses God’s wisdom in drawing good out of evil, that God “preferred the law of the cross to prohibiting all evils. And yet in so preferring he did not spare his own Son but handed him over for the sake of us all (Rom 8:32).” ⁵⁹ Though without God the human race could not have been restored, God lovingly willed to give sinful humanity not only salvation but also its cause. The law of the cross is in Christ as a cause and in us as an effect. God willed “to give grace and glory through the mediation of a divine person in an assumed nature, to whom grace and glory are properly fitting and due.” ⁶⁰

Christ as head of the mystical body introduces the law of the cross into his members as effect and precept. Indeed, he does this by way of the law of the cross, “that is to say, the evils resulting from sin are not miraculously banished through the power of God, but are patiently tolerated and made into an occasion for greater good.” ⁶¹ Christ, out of love and friendship, makes our cross his own so that “in bearing the evils afflicting us we are reckoned to be joined with Christ.” ⁶² This enables us to “carry our cross, not alone, not left to ourselves, but joined with Christ, conformed to Christ, united with Christ.” ⁶³ By divine grace, the law of the cross empowers us to love our enemies, patiently accept our sufferings, lose our lives for Christ’s sake, and suffer persecution with the hope of beatitude. ⁶⁴

Lonergan’s articulation of the law of the cross provides a critical basis for interpreting both the essential meaning and the practical significance of redemption. By developing the sacramental analogy for satisfaction, Lonergan emphasizes the aspect of sorrow and detestation of sin in the willing and loving acceptance of punishment or suffering, such that forgiveness may be fittingly asked for and granted. In this he finds the basic transformation of evil into good that is the law of the cross, which is the meaning of Christ’s passion and is instantiated by it as a precept and example for us to follow in our practical activity.

Miroslav Volf: From Exclusion to Embrace Through the Cross

In Exclusion and Embrace, Volf outlines a reflection on social issues guided by the primary theme of God’s self-giving love manifested on the cross of Christ. He seeks to explicate its meaning for the construction of identity and relationships with others under conditions of enmity. ⁶⁵ He does not attempt to provide a full systematic theology of the cross; rather, he draws upon some features of the New Testament witness to the death of Christ in order to elaborate on its social significance. ⁶⁶ The importance of thinking about identity is raised because “‘tribal’ identity is today asserting itself as a powerful force, especially in cases where cultural heterogeneity is combined with extreme imbalances of power and wealth.” ⁶⁷ But instead of proposing specific social arrangements, Volf focuses on “what kind of selves we need to be in order to live in harmony with others.” ⁶⁸ He offers the metaphor of “embrace” in order to think about reconciliation and the identity of the self capable of pursuing reconciliation.

Volf’s account of embrace is particularly compelling because he develops it against the counter-experience of exclusion, informed by the lived experience of ethnic cleansing in his native Croatia in the early 1990s. Formally, exclusion is thought of in terms of identity formation, which always entails drawing boundaries to distinguish the self from the other. ⁶⁹ Such a process, while healthy, may easily slip into practices of exclusion, in which “the violence of expulsion, assimilation, or subjugation and the indifference of abandonment replace the dynamics of taking in and keeping out as well as the mutuality of giving and receiving.” ⁷⁰ Under the power of sin, from both within and without, such slippage becomes a willing practice, which gives rise to and perpetuates the cycle of violence between victims and perpetrators, in situations ranging from interpersonal relations to global conflict.

In opposition to exclusion are practices of embrace or reconciliation. Volf characterizes the identity of the self capable of seeking reconciliation as having the will to embrace, “the will to give ourselves to others and ‘welcome’ them, to readjust our identities to make space for them . . . prior to any judgment about others, except that of identifying them in their humanity.” ⁷¹ Christian faith offers the possibility of having this identity. By participating in Christ’s death and resurrection through faith and baptism, the self is embraced; it is “decentered” and “recentered” by Christ “who lives in it and with whom it lives.” ⁷² This is not an erasure of the old self, but its transformation. Its new center is a “decentered” center, that of “the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). Self-giving love is placed at the center of the self, which “opens the self up, makes it capable and willing to give itself for others and to receive others in itself,” and which is “made possible by and patterned on the suffering Messiah.” ⁷³ The re-centering of the self is the work of God’s grace, which is received only by becoming its agents. ⁷⁴

The recentered self, having the will to embrace, is enabled to pursue the movement from exclusion to embrace. This movement has four essential moments: repentance, forgiveness, making space in oneself for the other, and the healing of memory. ⁷⁵ While repentance is treated first, this does not suggest that it necessarily precedes forgiveness. Indeed, there is a theological priority of forgiveness based upon God’s offer of forgiveness on the cross: “God loves us and forgives us before we repent. Indeed, before we even sinned, Jesus Christ died for our sins. God’s forgiveness is not reactive—dependent on our repentance.” ⁷⁶

Forgiveness primarily means to offer to wrongdoers not to count their wrongdoing against them. But at the same time, “to forgive is to name the wrongdoing and to condemn it.” ⁷⁷ The latter is required in the offer of forgiveness because without it one has merely disregarded wrongdoing and has not forgiven. Beyond both elements in the offer of forgiveness, the wrongdoer must also accept the fact that he has done something wrong. While a forgiver may have forgiven, the wrongdoer’s being forgiven requires repentance on his part. Repentance then means “to accept the condemnation” when forgiveness is offered. ⁷⁸

Genuine repentance, however, occurs only with great difficulty and is less a human possibility than a gift of God or grace. Caught in the cycle of violence and exclusion, the human tendency is not only to refuse to admit wrongdoing but also to deny it by making excuses or by claiming relative innocence. Repentance will only be genuine when we “refuse to explain our behavior and accuse others, and . . . we simply take our wrongdoing upon ourselves.” ⁷⁹ Strikingly, both victims and perpetrators are called to repent. Victims must repent of wrongdoing that may emerge from hatred for perpetrators and must strive to prevent such hatred from springing to life. ⁸⁰ The repentance of perpetrators must lead to the willingness to offer restitution for wrongdoing, in an “‘injustice’ of superabundant restitution, which seeks to offset the injustice of the original violation,” as a sign of true repentance and the fruit of forgiveness. ⁸¹

Offering forgiveness is also difficult. When one is wronged, the instinctual response is to seek revenge, or at least to desire strict retributive justice. Revenge is automatic retribution, which goes on to prompt retribution from the other party, enslaving both parties in the cycle of violence. But even if this cycle is halted, strict retributive justice may still be desired: why not “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, as the lex talionis says, that principle that seeks to limit conflict by imposing the exact extent of the ‘repayment’?” ⁸² Such strict restitution, however, cannot be accomplished: often it is simply impossible, as when a child is murdered or abused, or else it is endlessly disputed, as with disagreements about appropriate restitution or the demand for restitution for other wrongs. Only forgiveness leads to reconciliation by overcoming the instinct for revenge and the desire for strict retribution. But this does not mean ignoring justice; on the contrary, “every act of forgiveness enthrones justice; it draws attention to its violation precisely by offering to forego its claims.” ⁸³ At the same time, forgiveness will “name injustice as injustice and therefore demand that its causes be removed.” ⁸⁴

Christ in his passion gives an example of overcoming the difficulties of forgiveness, but also reveals forgiveness to be a form of suffering:

By suffering violence as an innocent victim, he took upon himself the aggression of the persecutors. He broke the vicious cycle of violence by absorbing it, taking it upon himself. He refused to be sucked into the automatism of revenge, but sought to overcome evil by doing good—even at the cost of his life. ⁸⁵

By not returning violence for violence, Christ refuses to be defined by the perpetrators. He forgives by not counting their wrongdoing against them. As innocent victim, he is the true judge: “by offering to embrace the offenders, he judges both the initial wrongdoing of the perpetrators and the reactive wrongdoing of many victims.” ⁸⁶ He does not suffer the wrongdoing passively. Rather, suppressing the rightful claims of strict retributive justice, Christ actively makes his suffering into a prayer for the forgiveness of those who have tortured and killed him. ⁸⁷ The active suffering of forgiveness is the redemption of the passive suffering of victimization because it works for true justice by seeking reconciliation, overcoming evil by doing good.

But the suffering of forgiveness is not an end in itself; it is only the boundary between exclusion and embrace. The cross, as divine embrace, aims at something more: restoring communion between former enemies. Christ makes space in himself for the enemy to enter, in order to dwell together in peace. The cross “is the giving up of God’s self in order not to give up on humanity; it is the consequence of God’s desire to break the power of human enmity without violence and receive human beings into divine communion.” ⁸⁸ In Christ, God takes upon himself human sinfulness: God tells the truth about the sinful world, enthrones justice, and sets things right, for there is no redemption unless the truth is told and justice done. ⁸⁹ God names and condemns human sinfulness, not for vengeance or retribution, but to forgive and embrace.

The divine embrace of the cross makes space for humanity in the communion of the divine persons. This communion is characterized by the two essential moments of mutual self-giving and other-receiving, which are identical in God who is perfect love. ⁹⁰ The cross translates this perfect love into the world of sin, where reception of this love requires being made into its agents, sharing in the body of Christ. ⁹¹ The pursuit of embrace and the practice of forgiveness imitate God’s embrace and forgiveness in Christ: we are called to continually offer forgiveness to wrongdoers, in order that they might repent and make restitution for their wrongdoing. But we must also repent of any wrongdoing ourselves in seeking to mend and restore relationships. ⁹²

Toward a Practical Synthesis of Aquinas, Lonergan, and Volf

In both Aquinas and Lonergan’s account of satisfaction and Volf’s account of embrace, a parallel may be detected. Aquinas and Lonergan consider Christ’s satisfaction according to form and matter, where the form or principle of satisfaction is charity, which makes the matter of his suffering and death into satisfactory punishment effective for reconciliation. For Volf, the will to embrace makes the self capable of pursuing the difficult movement from exclusion to embrace, through repentance, forgiveness, and making space for the other. I wish to amplify this parallel in its two moments in order to show how Volf assists in drawing out the practical significance of the cross in Aquinas and Lonergan: first, in terms of charity and the will to embrace; second, in terms of satisfaction and embrace, based upon the law of the cross.

Charity and the Will to Embrace

Volf’s main thesis that “God’s reception of hostile humanity into divine communion is a model for how human beings should relate to the other” offers a general structure for drawing out the practical significance of the cross in Aquinas and Lonergan. In both accounts, the underlying principle is similar: just as the will to embrace underlies both divine and human efforts at reconciliation, so charity is the motive and principle of redemption in general, of Christ’s satisfaction in particular, and of our practical activity. I suggest that Volf’s notion of the will to embrace aligns well with charity and adds two emphases: one formal, concerning categories for discourse, and one material, concerning content.

But before continuing, further elements of Aquinas’ account of charity should be noted. Charity is friendship with God, based upon God’s communication of happiness to us in Christ. ⁹³ It is received as a habitual disposition in the human will, which inclines the will to the act of loving God with ease and pleasure. ⁹⁴ It is the effect of the Holy Spirit through sanctifying grace, which is received in the essence of the soul, making one justified and pleasing to God. ⁹⁵ While the proper object of charity is God, the neighbor is also an object of charity insofar as we love our neighbor under the aspect of love of God. ⁹⁶ Christ has perfect charity by which he fulfills the precepts of the moral order, love of God, and neighbor. ⁹⁷ Christ is the exemplar of charity, manifesting exceeding charity in his passion, which, through grace, excites our charity for the forgiveness of our sins and for fulfilling the precepts of charity in our practical activity.

The alignment between charity and the will to embrace appears formally when the difference between the categories of discourse in the two accounts is delineated. Volf’s quick move from being embraced by God to the will to embrace others—since to receive grace means to become an agent of grace—reflects his strong practical emphasis. As a result, Volf’s discourse employs not the metaphysical categories of soul, habit and act, but the interpersonal categories of self and other, identity and difference. For Aquinas, grace is received in the essence of the soul, justifying it, and charity is the effect of grace in the will. For Volf, the grace of embrace gives me a new identity by decentering the self and patterning it upon the suffering messiah, making me capable of the will to embrace. While charity is conceived by Aquinas as a habitual form residing in the will that inclines me to the act of loving with ease and pleasure, the will to embrace the other through self-giving love is, according to Volf, “simply what those who are the children of the ‘Father in heaven’ and follow Christ do because this is what being God’s children and following Christ means (Matt 5:45).” ⁹⁸

Volf’s practical discourse conducted in interpersonal categories invites a retrieval and emphasis on particular material content in Aquinas. So far, we have considered charity as the principle of redemption, satisfying for another, and the forgiveness of our sins. But Volf’s account of relating to others under the conditions of enmity requires making explicit what remains an implicit connection in the Summa theologiae. ⁹⁹ Our charity, excited by Christ’s passion through grace, enables and requires us to love our enemies. Elsewhere, Aquinas considers the love of enemies in terms remarkably similar to Volf. We do not love our enemies insofar as they injure or hate us, but we love them in a general sense according to their nature as human beings capable of happiness, just like ourselves. ¹⁰⁰ Volf similarly claims that the will to embrace “is prior to any judgment about others, except that of identifying them in their humanity.” ¹⁰¹ Aquinas understands the love of enemies according to charity as friendship with God:

so much do we love our friends, that for their sake we love all who belong to them, even if they hurt or hate us; so that, in this way, the friendship of charity extends even to our enemies, whom we love out of charity in relation to God, to whom the friendship of charity is chiefly directed. ¹⁰²

Just as we have been embraced by God’s self-giving love and are made capable of the will to embrace our enemies through self-giving love, so Christ’s charity, the principle of his satisfaction, provokes charity in us for the forgiveness of sins and for the love of our neighbor, including our enemies. The will to embrace stresses the connection within charity between the possibility of satisfying for another, the forgiveness of sins, and the love of enemies.

Satisfaction, Forgiveness, and the Law of the Cross

While Volf’s notion of the will to embrace invites an emphasis within Aquinas’ account of charity on the love of enemies, Lonergan already began to point to the love of enemies as an effect of the law of the cross. On this basis, satisfaction and embrace may be related or aligned, though this alignment will be more complex than that between charity and the will to embrace. Therefore, I will proceed in three steps. First, I show how the law of the cross provides a critical basis for this alignment. Second, I note a clear difference between the accounts of satisfaction and of embrace. Third, I suggest interpreting satisfaction as forgiveness according to Volf’s framework of embrace, further drawing out the practical significance of Aquinas and Lonergan’s reflection upon Christ’s passion.

Lonergan explicitly relates the love of enemies and the law of the cross at the end of De Redemptione. Summing up the treatise, he asks the question, “why a God-man?” He answers, “the Son of God became man for the orderly communication of God’s friendship to his enemies.” ¹⁰³ This communication is according to the law of the cross: Christ is struck down by the hatred of his enemies, he overcomes these evil deeds by bringing good out of them, and he shows that for those who love God all things work together for good. ¹⁰⁴ The most effective way to turn enemies into friends is to show love first. ¹⁰⁵ Christ’s satisfaction out of exceeding love and obedience, and as sorrow and detestation of sin, is his effective display of showing love first. But this love is even more remarkable, for he treats his enemies as if they are already his friends:

one who really loves is not only willing to give of the goods that he has but also looks upon the evils his friend has to endure not as another’s but as in some way his own. Thus when his friend suffers some evil, he suffers with him, and, if it will help in any way, he will share in those evils himself. ¹⁰⁶

As a divine person subsisting in a human nature, Christ’s display of love is effective for the forgiveness of his enemies, turning them into friends, because of the outpouring of divine grace.

Christ’s satisfaction manifests the love of enemies according to the law of the cross, which is to be instantiated in the former enemies of Christ now turned into his friends and followers. The possibility opens up for an imitation of Christ who, as friend of sinners, shows love toward his enemies by willingly undergoing satisfactory punishment on their behalf for the forgiveness of their wrongdoing. ¹⁰⁷ Volf suggests a similar imitation of Christ who, as victim of wrongdoing, embraces his enemies upon the cross by forgiving and making space for them. Volf’s grounding of this possibility clearly resembles the law of the cross:

By suffering violence as an innocent victim, he took upon himself the aggression of the persecutors. He broke the vicious cycle of violence by absorbing it, taking it upon himself. He refused to be sucked into the automatism of revenge, but sought to overcome evil by doing good—even at the cost of his life. ¹⁰⁸

Volf sees an example to imitate in Christ’s cross, which itself gives the grace needed to follow such an example. Christ shows self-giving love to be the only alternative to violence, in which the willingness to absorb violence through the redemptive suffering of forgiveness transforms evil into good, for the good of reconciliation and embrace. ¹⁰⁹

The law of the cross underlies not only Aquinas and Lonergan’s understanding of Christ’s passion but also Volf’s practical outworking of it. Overcoming evil with good according to the law of the cross is the basis either for satisfying for another to ask for forgiveness on their behalf or for forgiving and embracing the enemy, the one who has wronged me. Christ manifests both upon the cross, indicating a relation between satisfaction and embrace.

But there remain at least two differences between the accounts that must be addressed: first, in terms of their primary tasks, and second, in terms of the power dynamics involved. The primary tasks are clearly delineated. Aquinas and Lonergan seek theological understanding of the mystery of Christ’s passion. They adapt an analogy from interpersonal relations and sacramental theology, the practice of satisfying for another, to interpret Christ’s passion. Volf seeks to elucidate the social significance of the cross. He draws out implications from God’s embrace and forgiveness on the cross to the practice of forgiving one’s enemies in human conflict. The acts of satisfying for another and forgiving one’s enemies are central to the respective accounts but are related to differing theological tasks. Yet, because they both interpret Christ’s passion, we may ask if the two distinct acts of satisfying for another and forgiving one’s enemies can be aligned in one and the same act in order to relate satisfaction and embrace.

The power dynamics involved introduce further complexity and require careful reflection. Volf presents his account of embrace from the point of view of victims of exclusion, in their powerlessness in the face of oppression, for “the Holy One of Israel, the God of Jesus Christ, is on the side of the downtrodden and poor, a God who listens to the sighs of the voiceless and the cries of the powerless, a God who liberates.” ¹¹⁰ Yet he sounds a note of caution with regard to the distinction between victim and perpetrator, or oppressed and oppressor. While these are indispensable categories and cannot be given up, they are poorly suited to bring about reconciliation and to sustain peace. ¹¹¹ Reconciliation is sustained by the adjustment of identity to the will to embrace and by the practices of repentance, forgiveness, and making space for the other. Strikingly, as mentioned above, Volf proposes repentance not only for oppressors and perpetrators but also for the oppressed and victims. But the repentance of victims consists in the change of heart that prevents hatred and revenge from springing to life. This empowers victims and disempowers perpetrators, by preventing victims from mimicking or dehumanizing perpetrators, so as to break the cycle of violence. Perpetrators, from their position of power, are required to offer superabundant restitution for wrongdoing as a sign of genuine repentance.

A differing power dynamic is involved in satisfaction. In its original usage, the offended party holds the power to determine if and what satisfaction will be acceptable compensation for wrongdoing. ¹¹² This scheme inverts Volf’s power dynamic: the “victim” is now in the position of power, and the “perpetrator” is in the position of the powerless. Theological use of satisfaction for interpreting Christ’s passion both retains and shifts this power dynamic. It is retained insofar as satisfaction concerns reconciliation in the creator–creature relationship: God is in the position of power and is the offended party, and creatures are in the position of powerlessness. Aquinas notes that God was in no way bound to accept satisfaction for human wrongdoing and that human beings lack the power to make condign satisfaction for their wrongdoing against God. But this power dynamic shifts because of the Incarnation and the passion. Aquinas and Lonergan emphasize that Christ defeats the devil not by power, but by justice, according to the law of the cross. ¹¹³ God, the offended party, out of love and mercy, gives himself as a satisfier in Christ, placing himself on the side of the powerless and empowering human satisfaction. ¹¹⁴

In attempting to align satisfying for another with forgiveness of one’s enemies, the embedded power dynamic of satisfaction must never be simply transferred from contemplation of God’s redemptive work to human practices of reconciliation. Christ’s passion does show the work of the God-man to involve both the forgiveness of enemies and satisfying for them in a single act. While followers of Christ are invited to imitate this act, due attention must be paid to the incredible power that such imitation requires, a power no less than divine grace. Typically, the imitation of Christ in his passion will involve separate and partial acts of forgiveness of enemies and satisfying for others, as well as repentance for one’s own sins. ¹¹⁵

From the point of view of victims, however, attempting to align satisfaction and embrace encounters a grave difficulty. Is it not scandalous and perverse to ask victims, powerless from being oppressed, to imitate Christ by both forgiving perpetrators and satisfying for them? Aquinas does not explicitly answer, but Lonergan begins to suggest the affirmative, as the law of the cross is to be instantiated in all followers of Christ. Volf is more direct:

there is no genuinely Christian way around the scandal. In the final analysis, the only available options are either to reject the cross and with it the core of the Christian faith or to take up one’s cross, follow the Crucified—and be scandalized ever anew by the challenge. ¹¹⁶

Volf suggests why such a scandal is asked of the followers of Christ. Describing social relations in the language of covenant, where covenant and embrace are related as outer and inner dimensions, he explains:

one party has broken the covenant, and the other suffers the breach because it will not let the covenant be undone. If such suffering of the innocent party strikes us as unjust, in an important sense it is unjust. Yet this “injustice” is precisely what it takes to renew the covenant . . . Partly because of the desire to shirk the responsibilities that acceptance of guilt involves, those who break the covenant do not (or will not) recognize that they have broken it . . . covenants are kept and renewed because those who, from their perspective, have not broken the covenant are willing to do the hard work of repairing it. ¹¹⁷

The language of covenant evokes God’s dealings with humanity and its culmination on the cross. In Christ’s suffering, God has offered forgiveness and has told the truth about human sinfulness so that human beings might repent and be forgiven. Something similar is needed in human social relations for reconciliation to occur. Perpetrators must recognize their wrongdoing and accept their guilt—this is what repentance is, for Volf. The victims’ offer of forgiveness, offering not to count wrongdoing against the wrongdoers, is intended to elicit this repentance in perpetrators so as to make reconciliation possible. But this is not meant to place the entire onus on victims for the work of reconciliation, or to blame them indirectly for the wrongdoing. This simply highlights that the pursuit of embrace is difficult work.

The point of view of victims requires transforming the notion of satisfying for another to align it with the forgiveness of one’s enemies. In three ways, Volf’s understanding of forgiveness both fits and transforms Lonergan’s definition of vicarious satisfaction, “the voluntary acceptance of punishment in order that it may be fitting to ask and be granted pardon for an offense that is not one’s own but that of another.” First, the role of the person making satisfaction is shifted from the side of the wrongdoer to the side of the offended party or victim. Initially, for Aquinas and Lonergan, the one who makes vicarious satisfaction is a third party, a friend of the wrongdoer. But the example of Christ shows the offended party himself taking the position of the friend of the wrongdoer and making satisfaction on behalf of the very person who has wronged him. This shift is mediated through friendship, which is charity, or the will to embrace. Second, the punishment voluntarily accepted is shifted from what strict justice requires of the wrongdoer to what is determined as acceptable compensation by the offended party or victim. In this case, the victim offers not to count the wrongdoing against the wrongdoer, and yet this remains an active suffering: of wrongdoing done, of refusing vengeance or retribution, and of forgiving the wrongdoing. Third, the fittingness of asking for and being granted pardon or forgiveness is shifted to the side of the offended party or victim in the following manner: the active suffering of forgiveness, which names and condemns the wrongdoing, is willingly accepted in order to elicit repentance on the part of the wrongdoer such that he might receive the offer of forgiveness by naming and condemning the wrongdoing himself. This must lead to the wrongdoer making, or at least offering, superabundant restitution (Volf) or personal satisfaction (Aquinas and Lonergan). The victim’s offer of forgiveness, as an interpretation of vicarious satisfaction, transforms evil into good according to the law of the cross. Hence, it is never undertaken alone, “but joined with Christ, conformed to Christ, united with Christ.” ¹¹⁸

The upshot of aligning satisfaction and embrace is that it better inscribes the practical significance of the cross within its meaning. Lonergan’s move to locate Christ’s satisfaction in a context of reconciliation rather than retribution is further articulated by Volf’s framework grounded by the law of the cross. God making satisfaction in and through Christ is nothing else than the actualization of God’s will to embrace, to receive human beings into communion by doing the hard work of repairing a broken covenant through self-giving love or charity. Christ’s satisfaction is an embrace, involving the moments of repentance, forgiveness, and making space for the other. Christ’s forgiveness is the central moment of satisfaction as embrace: his willing acceptance of suffering by absorbing evil and transforming it into good, breaking the cycle of violence, is for the forgiveness of wrongdoers. This display of self-giving love is intended, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, to elicit love and repentance in wrongdoers. By willingly accepting death, which is the punishment for sin, Christ names and condemns the wrongdoing of sin, so that wrongdoers may repent, that is, name and accept their wrongdoing so that they may be forgiven. God in Christ dies for our sins for this gratuitous forgiveness, and not out of vengeance or retribution. Christ makes space in himself for the other by incorporating forgiven sinners into his body, inviting them into the eternal embrace and communion of the Triune God.

Christ’s act of vicarious satisfaction as an embrace invites imitation by his followers in their practical activity. Victims of wrongdoing who offer forgiveness perform acts of vicarious satisfaction for the sake of those who have wronged them. They make amends for the wrongdoing done by pursuing the hard work of reconciliation. They transform the passive suffering of wrongdoing into the active suffering of forgiveness. This difficult and gratuitous work names and condemns wrongdoing in order to move the perpetrator to repent and make restitution. Again, this is not to place the entire onus on victims. Rather, the onus always remains on wrongdoers to repent and make restitution, to which the cross of Christ and its offer of forgiveness testify, provoking and empowering all of us to repent and to make amends for wrongdoing. Volf helps us highlight that the act of vicarious satisfaction according to Aquinas and Lonergan may be interpreted as the victim’s offer of forgiveness, because the latter is conformed to and empowered by Christ’s vicarious satisfaction, which is his offer of forgiveness to us. The victim’s offer of forgiveness in the movement from exclusion to embrace is nothing less than divine.

Conclusion

In this essay, I attempt to draw out the practical significance of Christ’s passion according to Thomas Aquinas with the assistance of Miroslav Volf and through the interface of Bernard Lonergan. I focus upon the motif of satisfaction in Aquinas’ ordered contemplation of this mystery, and Lonergan’s development of satisfaction according to the law of the cross. Volf’s framework of embrace offers a general structure and important emphases for drawing out more explicitly the practical significance of Aquinas’ contemplation. The will to embrace retrieves charity as the principle of Christ’s satisfaction and emphasizes the love of enemies. The embrace and forgiveness of one’s enemies is aligned with the act of satisfying for another through their common basis in the law of the cross. From Christ’s example, satisfying for another may be interpreted as the forgiveness of one’s enemies. Such an interpretation more clearly articulates how Christ’s followers are invited and empowered to imitate him in pursuing the difficult work of reconciliation according to the law of embrace.