righteousness discussed

a discussion of  righteousness--what it means. BryanC. answers the question about its meaning in the extended quote below --This is from Comment 56 found here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/01/holy-church-finding-jesus-as-a-reverted-catholic-a-testimonial-response-to-chris-castaldo/#comment-46965

So, if “righteousness” is not fundamentally “behavioral”, how should we define it? Is it a quality? Is it a state ?

In God, Righteousness is God Himself. When we are made righteous at the moment of justification, we receive by infusion a supernatural participation in God’s righteousness. In God, who has no parts, there is no difference between His very being and His powers. In us, however, our soul is not our will. Rather, our will is a power in and of our soul. We receive infused supernatural participation in God’s righteousness both in our soul, and in our will. As received into our soul, it is called sanctifying grace, and is a habitus entitativus because by participation in the divine nature the soul is given a new nature. As received into our will it is called agape (or charity), and is a habitus operativus, because by participation in the divine nature, the will is given a new operation, namely, loving God as He loves Himself.

Regarding the distinction between the supernatural virtue of agape, and sanctifying grace, St. Thomas Aquinas explains:

“[V]irtue is disposition of what is perfect–and I call perfect what is disposed according to its nature.” Now from this it is clear that the virtue of a thing has reference to some pre-existing nature, from the fact that everything is disposed with reference to what befits its nature. But it is manifest that the virtues acquired by human acts of which we spoke above (55, seqq.) are dispositions, whereby a man is fittingly disposed with reference to the nature whereby he is a man; whereas infused virtues dispose man in a higher manner and towards a higher end, and consequently in relation to some higher nature, i.e. in relation to a participation of the Divine Nature, according to 2 Peter 1:4: “He hath given us most great and most precious promises; that by these you may be made partakers of the Divine Nature.” And it is in respect of receiving this nature that we are said to be born again sons of God.

And thus, even as the natural light of reason is something besides the acquired virtues, which are ordained to this natural light, so also the light of grace which is a participation of the Divine Nature is something besides the infused virtues which are derived from and are ordained to this light, hence the Apostle says (Ephesians 5:8): “For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk then as children of the light.” For as the acquired virtues enable a man to walk, in accordance with the natural light of reason, so do the infused virtues enable a man to walk as befits the light of grace. (Summa Theologica I-II Q.110 a.3)

St. Thomas explains here first that a virtue is a perfect disposition, and that perfection is according to the nature of a thing. For example, it is not a perfection of the bones of a hummingbird to be capable of withstanding the weight of an elephant; the bones of a hummingbird are perfect when they are sufficiently light for flight powered by wings of the size and strength of a hummingbird. But natural virtues dispose man to his natural end (which is to know and love God as First Cause), whereas infused [supernatural] virtues dispose man to know and love God as He knows and loves Himself [as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit]. (On the distinction between man’s natural end, and man’s supernatural end, see “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark.”)

So supernatural virtues are perfect in relation to a nature higher than man’s own nature. And it is in receiving this new nature by participation (while retaining our human nature) that we are said to be born again as sons of God, having (by participation) God’s own nature and thus rightly and truly being called “sons of God” and members of His family, not by the human nature we received when we were conceived in our natural mother’s womb, but the divine nature we received when were conceived again in the womb of Holy Mother Church, i.e. in the laver of regeneration. Only by receiving this new nature are the infused (supernatural) virtues (i.e. faith, hope, and charity) perfections according to our [new] nature, because if our only nature were the human nature in which we were first conceived, these supernatural virtues would not be perfections in relation to our nature.

end quote. Then in comment 87:

God does not receive His righteousness from something other than Himself, or by conforming to something other than Himself.

You talk about it being God itself instead of a gift from him or some seperate habit.

In God, righteousness is God Himself. But in us, righteousness is a gift, i.e. a participation in the divine nature, which we receive as sanctifying grace and agape, as explained in comment #56 above.

Is this the position of Aquinas?

Yes.

Did Aquinas understand it as being God instead of something behavioral?

Righteousness is not an either/or, nor did St. Thomas explain it as an either or. Behavioral righteousness is a participation in the perfect, eternal righteousness of God Himself, who is Love, and in Whom there is no motion. See the Feingold lecture at “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End.”

from one of  Nick's comment here http://www.creedcodecult.com/what-counted-as-abrahams-righteousness/  :

Righteousness can refer to different things in Scripture depending on the context. It typically refers to either a state of being (e.g. a righteous man) or to right-doing. In regards to the latter, note some examples from these passages,

Deut 24: 10 “When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. 11 You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. 12 And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in his pledge. 13 You shall restore to him the pledge as the sun sets, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you. And it shall be righteousness for you before the Lord your God.

Romans6: 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. … 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

The idea that righteousness refers to sinlessly keeping the law is not something I see in Scripture. I’ve never found a Protestant who has shown me a Scripture for this, nor have they found a Scripture that says Jesus kept the Law perfectly in our place. So without that bias in mind, from the actual Biblical exaples we do have, this means that Abraham’s faith being regarded as righteousness means it was a righteous act or that it showed a righteous quality about Abraham.

When a person is dead in sin, they are justified by having their sins forgiven and being brought back to spiritual life (Titus 3:4-7), and so this righteousness refers to a state of being (Romans 8:10 is a good example of this). Trent calls God’s justifying righteousness the single formal cause of our justification, meaning that in the context of salvation, the only thing that is righteous in and of itself is God’s righteousness, and the only way to be righteous is having this infused into you. St James chapter 1 has an awesome example of this:

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

Here the “righteousness of God” that St James is speaking of is a quality that subsists indies Christians, which is damped through sin; it is the “implanted word” that saves.

You asked what 2 Corinthians 5:21 refers to. It refers to being made righteous in justification, going from a state of spiritual death to that of spiritual life.