Do God the Father and Christ Himself Bear Responsibility for Christ's death?

A Reflection in the Light of St. Thomas Aquinas Soteriology and Theory of Human Action

Abstract

Voluntarily causing the suffering and death of an innocent person constitutes an intrinsically evil act. Therefore, assuming that it is possible to ascribe moral qualities to God and his acts in an analogous way, the question arises as to the moral responsibility of God the Father and Christ for the passion and death of the innocent person that was Christ. This article attempts to answer this question from a Thomistic perspective. Firstly, the paper rejects the inadequate possibilities for God's moral justification afforded by the voluntarist and consequentialist positions. Then, in order to show what guided God the Father and Christ Himself in wanting Christ's passion and death, a large part of this work is devoted to understanding Christ's passion and death as a salvific satisfaction for the sins of men. This understanding presupposes a distinction between the voluntariness of the satisfaction and the involuntariness of the punishment and thus makes it possible to reject the concept of so-called penal substitution, according to which Jesus, in the place of men, would involuntarily suffer the cruel punishment inflicted on him by his Father. The rejection of penal substitution frees God the Father from accusations of morally controversial action. Finally, in line with the Thomistic theory of human action used by the Church to formulate its moral doctrine, the kinds of causality and thus moral responsibility that linked those who contributed to Christ's passion and death were discussed. An important element in the analysis of this causality and responsibility is the distinction between suffering harm, which is morally permissible and may even be morally praiseworthy, and deliberately causing it, which is always morally reprehensible. In the light of this analysis, it has been shown that Christ's executioners deliberately caused Christ's passion and death by wishing it directly as his harm, for which they are morally culpable. However, neither God the Father nor Christ thus willed Christ's passion and death. They permitted it sub ratione iustitiae as a justice-fulfilling voluntary atonement for the sins of men. In doing so, they did not share the criminal intentions of Christ's executioners, but, through their divine foreknowledge, used the effect of their wicked actions in their plan of salvation.