The Memory Of Original Justice

What does it mean to be “good”? Are the concepts of good and evil an artificial edifice imposed on us by society, or is there an objective standard by which actions can be judged?

While these questions can appear abstract and philosophical, they are of no small importance to Catholics. In the following paper, I will examine these questions and argue that the concepts of good and evil are predicated upon our memory of original justice.

On Good And Evil

To speak of good and evil is to speak of moral judgments. And any judgment requires two things, one, that we understand the meanings of the terms involved and, two, that we have a standard by which we can make a judgment.

Curiously, it is the standard by which we determine what is good and evil that also determines the definitions of the terms. The reason for this lies in the fact that there are two types of standards; subjective and objective. 

A subjective judgment is one where the standard is determined by the individual (i.e., the subject). Within the moral universe, it is the individual or group that determines what is good and evil. Objective judgments, on the other hand, are determined by an extrinsic standard. What is considered good and evil is not determined by the individual but by a standard that exists independently. The individual is tasked with adhering to the objective standard.

Considered under this rubric, it becomes evident that the definition of what is good and evil becomes predicated upon whether the judgment is subjective or objective. What is good subjectively (that is, for the individual) may not be good objectively. 

From a Catholic perspective, good and evil are objective judgments made in accordance with natural law. In following Thomas Aquinas, natural law is the manifestation of the mind of God, knowable to human reason that allows one seeks the good and avoids what is evil. The standard by which we are to conduct ourselves is the standard set by God and made evident in natural law.

Human nature appears so constituted that it seeks what is good and just. We are innately desirous of justice, regardless of our personal philosophies or religious sense. Yet, it would be irrational for human beings to seek that which does not exist or that which cannot be obtained. Therefore, we may infer that human nature is cognizant of a time of perfect justice. We have, as it were, a memory of original justice.

Original Justice 

Original justice refers to the state that Adam and Eve enjoyed before they sinned. The state of original justice meant the simultaneous possession of sanctifying grace, with its right to enter Heaven and the preternatural gifts. Preternatural gifts include infused knowledge, absence of concupiscence, and bodily immortality.

I shall like to suggest further that the state of original justice included a properly ordered sense of morality. If God is the standard by which one appeals his moral judgments, then the state of original justice, with its attendant intimate knowledge of God, means that all moral judgments were clear and unhindered by sin. This clarity of moral precepts was lost at the Fall of Man. Yet, the memory of this knowledge remains. If this were not so, human beings would not seek justice; they would not seek the objective good. The memory of original justice makes us aware of the presence of natural law and an objective standard of justice. Whether acknowledged or not, it is the existence of natural law that makes positive law possible, and it is positive law that provides the foundation for civilization.

Natural Law And A Traffic Ticket 

As stated above, natural law is the manifestation of the mind of God that exists in the universe and is knowable to human beings by virtue of their reason. Perhaps the most well-known example of natural law is the Ten Commandments.

A type of law that is very familiar to all of us is positive law. Positive law is man-made law that governs everything from international treaties to traffic tickets. What, I suggest, undergirds man-made law is an innate knowledge of natural law. The reason for this is that if natural law did not inform positive law, we would view the laws that govern our society as arbitrary. I do not think that society thinks a prohibition on murder is arbitrary, however. Rather, we see it as a codification of what we believe is naturally right. 

In other words, the laws that society makes appeal to are grounded in an objective standard of justice. When it is not, when the laws of society are not so grounded, we are inclined to protest. We say with Saint Augustine and Martin Luther King that an unjust law is no law at all.

Conclusion

The laws that society makes are only deemed just when they are perceived as being in accord with some objective standard of morality. This objective standard is known as natural law. Prior to original sin, human beings had ready access to natural law and thus lived in a state of original justice. After the Fall, this state of original justice was destroyed, yet we have a kind of institutional memory of that state.

The memory of original justice – the time when human beings existed in perfect justice – permeates our lives and society. It is only because there was a time when man lived in harmony with God that we now seek justice in our world. Haunted by this memory, we seek to make right a world gone wrong because of sin.