Argues that Catholic ethics make sense only in light of the biblical worldview that Jesus has inaugurated the kingdom of God by pouring out his spirit. Jesus has made it possible for us to know and obey God's law for human flourishing as individuals and communities.

Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Aquinas and the Ethics of the Inaugurated Kingdom 2. Shame and Honestas 3. Abstinence and Sobriety 4. Chastity 5. Clemency and Meekness 6. Humility 7. Studiousness Conclusion

The biblical scholar Reinhard Feldmeier notes that in Greco-Roman literature prior to the New Testament, humility generally has “a negative meaning that lies, depending on the context, somewhere between sycophancy and pusillanimity, servility and shabbiness.” By contrast, Paul gives humility high praise: “Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves” (Phil 2:3). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus himself begins his Beatitudes by stating, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:3). It might seem, however, that by placing humility under temperance, the lowliest of the four cardinal virtues, Aquinas has failed to appreciate or convey the greatness of humility in the Christian narrative of creation and redemption. Jean Porter comments in this regard that “humility, which plays a secondary role in a doctrinal analysis of the virtues [as exemplified by Aquinas’s approach], is regarded as a leading virtue within monastic and pastoral traditions.” Has Aquinas, by comparison with Paul, Augustine, and the monastic tradition, wrongly humbled humility? In response to this concern, Servais Pinckaers has observed that the Summa theologiae’s question on humility needs to be read in light of “the two following questions on pride and Adam’s sin, in which…the fundamental importance of humility appears to better advantage.” In his discussion of pride, Aquinas argues that pride should be easy to avoid, since pride is completely irrational for a mortal and finite creature. Yet pride is actually highly difficult for fallen humans to avoid, and pride stimulates the growth of all the other vices in us. The problem consists in our rebellion against creatureliness; we simply do not want to be “subject to God and his rule.” We constantly wish to deny our creaturely dependence, as though there were “a good which is not from God” or as though grace were “given to men for their merits.” Humility is at the center of the moral life because it enables us to embrace our true creatureliness, our “subjection…to God.” The inaugurated kingdom of God belongs to the humble, because only the humble allow God to be King. The embeddedness of humility within the lowly virtue of temperance, then, should instruct us about the importance of what is lowly. No contemporary theologian has recognized this importance more profoundly than the theologian John Webster. Lowly dependence upon God stands continually at the heart of his thinking. As he says of our stance before God, “Holy reason is mortified reason…. [T]he Spirit of holiness reproves reason’s idolatry, pride, vain curiosity and ambition.” Certainly, for Webster, only God is holy (cf. Mt 19:17). Yet “God’s holiness…is a fellowship-creating holiness,” because God’s holiness is love. God’s holiness creates such fellowship, however, only among those who receive and embrace the Spirit’s humbling. To be human properly is to be humble. Although Aquinas’s Summa gives a relatively low place to humility, this will mislead only those who do not look for God’s power in what is lowly. The philosopher Julia Annas states that the person who is growing in the virtue of humility undergoes “revisions in her opinions of the respect due to other people” and “development of a different conception of the kind of life she aims at living, the kind of person she now aims to be.” This may sound easy, but in fact, as Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange has observed, “to reach this humility of mind and heart, a profound purification is needed,” which only the Holy Spirit, poured out for the forgiveness of sins, can bring about. My exploration of the virtue of humility in this chapter turns first to two important essays by John Webster. Grounding himself in Colossians 1, Webster shows that Christ’s inauguration of the kingdom of God through “the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:14) depends upon the spiritual temperance that enables us to embrace our condition of creatureliness. Armed with Webster’s account of human creatureliness, I then examine Aquinas’s treatment of humility and pride. I propose that Aquinas’s understanding of the humble person exemplifies the renewed relational creaturehood that Webster articulates. After surveying Aquinas’s discussion of humility, I set forth Aquinas’s understanding of sinful pride and especially of the sin of Adam (and Eve). For Aquinas and Webster, the eschatological forgiveness of sins and outpouring of the Spirit are concretely manifested in the humble human creature, freed from the original sin of idolatrous pride. (excerpted from chapter 6)