Christ the Saviour - Chapter 11

Christ the Saviour

CH 3: QUESTION 1—THE FITNESS OF THE INCARNATION

The question whether Christ was predestined to be the Son of God, affords Scotus the occasion to discuss the problem of the motive of the Incarnation. After replying to the first question in the affirmative, he goes on to show that Christ was predestined as man to the grace of the hypostatic union and to glory independently of the foreseeing of Adam’s sin. Scotus proves his point by seven arguments that have been splendidly reproduced by Cajetan.[325] We shall give here the principal arguments with Cajetan’s replies. First argument . The predestination of any person whatever to glory precedes naturally, on the part of the object, the foreknowledge of sin or of the damnation of any man whatever. Therefore with far greater reason this is true concerning the predestination of Christ’s soul to supreme glory. Cajetan replies.[326] He denies the antecedent, because he holds that the foreseeing of sin pertains to the order of general providence, presupposed by the ordering of predestination. But this reply gives rise to many difficulties, since the permission of sin in the life of the predestined, for example, and therefore in the life of Adam himself, is the effect not only of general providence, but also of the predestination of these elect, which itself presupposes the predestination of Christ.[327] Hence theologians in general, and even subsequent Thomists, do not uphold Cajetan in this reply.

But very many Thomists reply as follows. They concede that Christ’s predestination precedes by nature the foreseeing of Adam’s sin in the order of final cause; they deny that it precedes in the order of material or disposing cause. Thus they concede that Peter’s predestination to glory precedes by nature the foreseeing of his individuation, in the order of final cause; they deny this precedence in the order of material cause. Likewise, one is predestined to the grace of martyrdom, on the occasion of a foreseen persecution. Second argument . The orderly way of willing is for one to will first the end, and then those things more immediate to the end. Thus God first wills to give heavenly glory to one before grace, and He first wills this to Christ, and then to the predestined as subordinated to Christ. Moreover, God first wills anyone heavenly glory and grace which He may foresee are in opposition because of sin and its consequences. Therefore God first wills heavenly glory to Christ previous to foreseeing Adam’s fall. Cajetan replies,[328] and this reply is upheld by subsequent Thomists. He distinguishes the major: that the orderly way of willing is for one first to will the end in the order of final cause, this he concedes; in the order of material and disposing cause, this he denies.

By way of example: someone might wish to build the Collegio Angelico in Rome, but has not yet found a suitable place and, having found such a place, his wish of having this college built is realized, or the opportunity offers itself, because he has received the necessary money. Similarly God wills first the soul in the order of final cause, and first the body in the order of material cause, and this particular soul would not be created right at this moment, if this embryonic body were not disposed to receive it. Likewise the Word would not have become incarnate, in virtue of the present decree, unless man had sinned or the human race had to be redeemed. But you insist. Causes do not mutually interact in the same order. However, this would be the case here in the same order of final cause, if sin is permitted because of this greater good of the Incarnation, and if the Incarnation is willed for our redemption. Reply. The causes are not in the same order, for sin is permitted because of this greater good of the Incarnation considered as the end for which it is decreed; whereas, on the contrary, the human race to be redeemed stands in relation to the Incarnation in the order of material cause to be perfected, or is the subject to whom the redemptive Incarnation is beneficial. Hence the human race is not called the end for whose sake the Incarnation is decreed, but the end to whom it is beneficial. Therefore the causes are not mutually interactive in the same order. And this very redemption of ours as willed by God, presupposes as a prior requisite in the order of material cause the human race to be redeemed. So also let us take as example one who saves the life of a boy who, because of his imprudence, falls into the river. The rescuer first wills to save the boy’s life in the order of final cause, but he would not save the boy’s life unless the boy had fallen into the river, and thus had afforded the other the opportunity to come to his rescue. In like manner, the more solemn dogmatic definitions of the Church are always given on the occasion of some error that must be rejected, because it is endangering the freedom of souls. Third argument . Redemption or the heavenly glory of a soul to be redeemed is not so great a good as the glory of Christ’s soul. Therefore the Redemption does not seem to be the sole reason why God predestined Christ’s soul to so great glory. Cajetan replies:[329] God could have willed indeed this great good (of Christ’s glory) without its being connected with a less good; but from Sacred Scripture it is evident that He willed this greatest good only as connected with such less good. It is not therefore a question of a possibility, but of a fact. God could have willed efficaciously to save the whole human race, for instance, but from Sacred Scripture it is evident that not all are saved,[330] although, by God’s help, the fulfillment of His commands is always possible. Herein lies a mystery that must be believed according to the testimony of Sacred Scripture and not to be determined in human fashion by a priori reasoning. Fourth argument . It is not very likely that a less good is the only reason for the existence of so supreme a good. Reply. The Thomists say that the Incarnation is not an incidental good in the strict sense, but it is only improperly so called. For that which the agent does not intend and which happens by chance, is called strictly incidental; such is the case when one digs a grave, and finds a treasure, or when one rescues a boy accidentally who happens to fall into the river. That is improperly said to be occasioned which depends on some incident, although it be intended by the agent, as the rescuing of a boy who fell into the river. Thus the Incarnation is an incidental good, and it is fitting that evil be the occasion of eliciting from God so great a good, namely, a good that results from His liberality and mercy, because misery is the reason for commiserating.

Scotus overlooks the fact that many of the finer things in life are improperly incidental, especially many heroic acts, such as saving another’s life with danger to one’s own, as in the case of shipwreck or of fire. Such are heroic acts performed in defense of one’s country, on the occasion of an unjust aggressor; hence the glory acquired by many soldiers is thus incidental. Also incidental are heroic acts in defense of one’s faith, such as martyrdom on the occasion of a persecution. The most beautiful dogmatic definitions uttered by the Church on the occasion of the refutation of an error that is threatening to enslave souls, belong to this class. So it was on the occasion of the rise of Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, that St. Augustine wrote his books On Grace. But the difference between God and man is that man could not infallibly foresee the occasion that prompted these heroic acts, and so he does them unforeseen. Other arguments of Scotus presented in different aspects repeat the same objection. The Scotists insist. They say, with Father Chrysostom,[331] that the material cause is not the end (of the Incarnation), nor is the material element in the Incarnation its motive. Therefore the difficulty remains.

Reply. The material element that enters into the redemptive Incarnation is the reason for the Incarnation, since “the alleviation of misery is the reason for commiseration.”[332] Thus in this third article, St. Thomas is able to say: “Redemption is the reason for the Incarnation,“[333] although the Incarnation is not subordinated to the redemption. All these objections can be reduced to the following syllogistic argument: God cannot will that the higher order should be subjected to the lower, for this would be the inversion of order, or perversion. But our redemption is inferior to the Incarnation. Therefore God cannot will the Incarnation to be for our redemption. Reply. I distinguish the major. That God cannot will the higher order to be subjected to the lower, as being the perfective and ultimate end, this I concede; that God cannot will the higher for the lower, as being the end that must be perfected or repaired from a motive of mercy, this I deny. For the alleviating of misery, is the reason for commiseration. I concede the minor. I distinguish the conclusion. That God cannot will the higher order to be subjected to the lower on account of this latter being the perfective and especially the ultimate end, this I concede; as being the end that must be perfected or repaired from a motive of mercy, this I deny.

Thus the Thomists say that the redemption of the human race is not the end for the sake of which the Incarnation is decreed, but it is the material element that enters into the motive of the redemptive Incarnation, or the end for which the Incarnation is beneficial. Thus a doctor visits a sick person, or a priest says Mass for the restoration of somebody’s health, for the common good and the glory of God.

Therefore the whole teaching of St. Thomas, of St. Bonaventure, and others is summed up in these words: the motive of the Incarnation was formally the motive of mercy. As the Psalmist says: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak.”[334] “Have mercy on me, for I am poor.”[335] “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am afflicted.”[336]

Cajetan replies most appropriately: “It is not unbefitting God’s wisdom that He was disposed to perform so great a good, only because sin was the occasion that urged Him to be merciful.”[337] “It is because the alleviation of misery is the reason for commiseration,“[338] and divine mercy, alleviating the misery of the human race, is the greatest manifestation of divine goodness and omnipotence. If God’s omnipotence is already made manifest in the creation of a grain of sand from nothing, a fortiori it is shown when He brings good out of evil, and so great a good as eternal life of those justified. St. Thomas says: “In itself mercy is the greatest of virtues (and so it is in God, but not in us, because we have someone above us, who must be honored by the practice of virtues); for it belongs to mercy to be bountiful to others, and, what is more, to succor others in their wants. And this pertains especially to the one who is above others; hence mercy is accounted as being proper to God, and therein His omnipotence is declared to be chiefly manifested.”[339] St. Augustine likewise says: “The justification of the sinner is greater than the creation of heaven and earth; for heaven and earth shall pass away, but the justification of the ungodly shall endure.”[340] But since misery is the reason for having mercy, the alleviation of misery is more the matter about which mercy is concerned; it is the motive of mercy, not indeed as constituting the perfective end, but as being the end in the order of redemption. In this there is no inversion of orders. There would indeed be a perversion of orders if the higher were ordained for the lower, as if this latter were the ultimate and perfective end; but not, if by way of mercy, the higher is ordered to the lower end for its perfection or reparation. Thus it is that the Son of God through His incarnation certainly stoops down to us with sublime mercy, so that the saints are moved to tears at the thought of it. But by thus lowering Himself, He in no way subordinates Himself to us; on the contrary, in alleviating our misery, He restores the original subordination, by making us again subordinate to Himself and God the Father. Thus God, by mercifully lowering Himself, has most splendidly made manifest His goodness and omnipotence, since “to have mercy belongs especially to one who is above others.”[341] In God, inasmuch as He has nobody above Him to whom He would owe allegiance, the greatest of all virtues is mercy, and misery is the reason for being merciful.[342] Thus the beginning of a certain collect reads: “O God, who, more than in all things else, showest forth Thine almighty power by sparing and by having mercy.”[343] Therefore Scotus did not destroy the demonstrative middle term of this article.[344] The preceding doctrine is certainly what St. Thomas taught. On this point, he wrote: “God therefore did not assume human nature because He loved man, absolutely speaking, more than angels; but because the needs of man were greater; just as the master of a house may give to a sick servant some costly delicacy that he does not give to his own son in sound health.”[345] He also says: “Nor did anything of Christ’s excellence diminish when God delivered Him up to death for the salvation of the human race; rather did He become thereby a glorious conqueror”[346] Of sin, the devil, and death.

The thesis of St. Thomas, as proposed by him, is most convincing inasmuch as he declares mercy to be the motive of the Incarnation; wherefore Christ was the first of the predestined, but He was predestined as Savior and victim, as the victor of sin, the devil, and death. This title of Savior belongs primarily to Christ, as expressed in the name Jesus, which signifies Savior. This title belongs more fundamentally to Him than do such titles as Doctor, or King of kings, Lord of lords. Christian faith itself seems to teach this doctrine, although the Scripture does not say that mercy was the indispensable motive of the Incarnation. This doctrine is also most beneficial in the spiritual order. urging us to imitate Christ and show zeal for souls. Cajetan remarks[347] that, as in the act of hope I desire God for myself, because God is my final end (since God is the ultimate end of this act of hope), so Christ is given to us (for our sake or as our end), for the glorification of God (who is the ultimate end for which God performs all His works). Thus the Incarnation is not subordinated to our redemption,[348] but is its eminent cause. Thus contemplation is not subordinated to apostolic action, which must result from the fullness of contemplation, this being its higher source, as St. Thomas points out.[349] Therefore, no matter what the Scotists may say, the words of St. Paul still apply, who says: “For all are yours. And you are Christ’s. And Christ is God’s”[350] In this Thomistic thesis, Christ is not subordinated to us, but we are subordinated to Him. Agreement and disagreement between Thomists. They all agree upon the principal conclusion as explicitly formulated by St. Thomas, which is: If Adam had not sinned, the Word would not have become incarnate. But they are not altogether in agreement concerning a secondary issue. Several Thomists, adopting the views of Cajetan, such as John of St. Thomas and Billuart, refuse to answer the question, why God permitted Adam’s sin and original sin. Moreover, they multiply divine conditional decrees. According to their views: (1) God willed the natural order; (2) the elevation of the human race to the supernatural order; (3) He permitted the sin of the first man; (4) He decreed the redemptive Incarnation in passible flesh. Other Thomists, such as the Salmanticenses, Godoy, Gonet, and very many of more recent times, insisting on what St. Thomas remarks in this article, and elsewhere, say:[351] Certainly God permits evil only because of a greater good. This doctrine is certain and de fide, otherwise God’s permission of sin would not be a holy act. It cannot indeed be said a priori that God permitted original sin because of some greater good, but, after the fact of the Incarnation, it appears that God permitted original sin because of the redemptive Incarnation, so that the redemption of the fallen human race is prior in the order of material cause to be perfected, and the redemptive Incarnation is prior in the order of final cause. This distinction is made by Cajetan in his commentary on this article, but much of its force is lost inasmuch as he multiplies exceedingly the divine decrees, so different from what he wrote earlier in his commentary.[352] Moreover, these Thomists say that divine conditional decrees must not be multiplied, for this multiplication results from the weakness of our intellect, and we must do our best to overcome this defect. Hence God, previous to any decree, saw by His knowledge of simple intelligence all possible worlds with all their contents, just as the architect has in mind various possible houses and all their component parts. Thus God had in mind a sinless world not in need of redemption, but brought to perfection by the example of the Word incarnate; also another possible world, in which man sinned, and which was perfected by the redemptive Incarnation. God chose de facto, by a single decree, this latter, in which, therefore, the redemptive Incarnation is prior in the order of final causality (as the soul is prior to the body), and the reparation of the fallen human race is prior in the order of material causality to be perfected, as the body is prior to the soul.[353] This second interpretation is entirely in conformity with the reply given by St. Thomas to the third objection of this article, and also with a previous statement in his Summa, in which he says: “God loves Christ not only more than He loves the whole human race, but more than He loves the entire created universe, because He willed for Him the greater good in giving Him a name that is above all names, so far as He was true God. Nor did anything of His excellence diminish when God delivered Him up to death for the salvation of the human race; rather did He become thereby a glorious conqueror,“[354] namely, of sin, the devil, and death. This reply of these Thomists is also precisely what St. Thomas says in his reply to the third objection of this article, in which he quotes the words of St. Paul: “Where sin abounded, grace did more abound,“[355] and of the liturgy: “O happy fault, that merited such and so great a Redeemer!”[356] And St. Augustine says in his commentary on the forty-seventh psalm: “Therefore Adam fell for our resurrection,“[357] which means that God permitted Adam’s sin for this greater good of the redemptive Incarnation. Moreover, the divine decrees must not be multiplied without necessity; for this frequency of recourse to divine decrees has its foundation in the imperfection of our manner of understanding the divine decrees. In fact, it is evident that various events of the natural order, such as the death of a good person from some disease, which at first sight seems to depend solely on natural causes and the general provisions of Providence, are to be attributed to the supernatural operation of predestination.[358] Therefore it is apparent that God, by a single decree, willed this present world with its three orders of nature, grace, and the hypostatic union. The Liberty Of The Decree Concerning The Incarnation: A Comparison Between The Doctrine Of St. Thomas And That Of Scotus On first consideration, it is surprising that St. Thomas, who is an intellectualist, should say: Since the Incarnation is a most free and absolutely gratuitous gift of God, its motive can be known only by revelation; whereas Scotus, who is a voluntarist inclined to liberalism, wishes to establish this motive of the Incarnation by arguments or quasi a priori reasonings, as the extreme intellectualists do, such as Leibnitz and Malebranche, who say that the Incarnation is morally necessary so that the world may be the best of all possible worlds.

The reason for this difference of opinion between St. Thomas and Scotus seems to consist in this, that St. Thomas, because of his moderate intellectualism, distinguished exactly between the order of nature and the order of grace, by establishing the proper object of the created intellect, whether human or angelic.[359] Hence St. Thomas fully acknowledges God’s perfect liberty in elevating the human nature (or the angelic) to the order of grace, and a fortiori to the hypostatic union. Thus his moderate intellectualism most correctly acknowledges the rights of divine liberty. On the contrary, Scotus, in virtue of his voluntarism does not succeed in distinguishing so exactly between the orders of nature and of grace; he says that there is in our nature an innate appetite and not merely one that is elicited for the beatific vision, and he adds that, if God had so willed, the beatific vision would be natural for us. Hence he is inclined to regard the supernatural order as the complement of the natural order, and the hypostatic order as the complement and quasi-normal consummation of the supernatural order. Thus he does not acknowledge sufficiently the rights of divine liberty as regards this twofold elevation; and he speaks finally, almost like the absolute intellectualists of the Leibnitz type, who think that the Incarnation is morally necessary for the world to be the best of all possible worlds. Thus extremes meet. Absolute intellectualism reduces to an ideal right the accomplished fact. Absolute libertism reduces the right itself to an accomplished fact. These two systems are in the inverse order, but practically they meet, because both admit that the accomplished fact is the same as the ideal right, and success is identical with morality; yet the followers of the former system insist on the right, whereas the followers of the latter system insist on the accomplished fact. But moderate intellectualism lies between these two extremes, because it safeguards both the validity of the first principles of reason and true liberty, which latter is denied by absolute intellectualism. Thus in Thomism the Incarnation is seen to be the supreme fact of the entire universe, but it is a contingent fact in which God’s most free and gratuitous love for us is made manifest by way of mercy. “For God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son.”[360] Thus this thesis of St. Thomas, if we compare it with his other theses on moderate intellectualism and liberty, has a deep significance, for it means that, in the supernatural order, inasmuch as this order is gratuitous, divine liberty reigns supreme and its predilection is most free, the motive of which can be known only by revelation. But the discarding of this principle results in the incomplete understanding of several fundamental utterances in the supernatural order, suck as the following words of St. Paul: “But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen that He may confound the wise;… and things that are not, that He might bring to nought things that are.”[361] But these questions are most profound, and their solution has caused great intellects to take opposite views. Spiritual corollaries . These corollaries are developed in another book,[362] in which the doctrine of St. Thomas on the motive of the Incarnation is explained not so much scholastically as spiritually. These corollaries are as follows:

1. It follows from this doctrine that it is not something accidental that Christ is the Savior, both priest and victim. This is the dominant trait of Jesus, as the name indicates. Jesus is not especially King of kings and sublime Doctor who happened to become the Savior of humanity and victim on account of the fall of the human race. No, but in virtue of the present decree He came principally and primarily as the Savior of men. His entire life was directed to this final end, namely, the sacrifice on the cross.

2. Christ thus appears nobler, and the unity of His life is better made manifest, since it is the unity of the Savior’s life, who is merciful and also victorious over sin, the devil, and death.[363]

3. Wherefore Christ calls the hour of the Passion “My hour” as if it were pre-eminently this.

4. Therefore in the present economy of salvation, it is not something accidental in the sanctification of souls, that they must carry their cross daily in union with our Savior, as He Himself says.[364]

5. Hence for sanctity, even great sanctity, learning is not necessary, nor the performance of many external works; it suffices for a person to be conformed to the image of Christ crucified, as in the case of St. Benedict Joseph Labre of the seventeenth century, who showed himself a living image of Christ in his poverty and love of the cross.[365]

6. Finally it follows, as St. Thomas explains in his treatise on the effects of baptism,[366] that sanctifying grace in the redeemed is strictly the grace of Christ, for it is not only a participation of the divine nature as in Adam and the angels before the Fall, but it makes us conformable to Christ the Redeemer, and by it we are made living members of His mystical body. Wherefore this grace, inasmuch as it is the grace of Christ, disposes us to live in Christ the Redeemer by a love of the cross, for it disposes us to make reparation for our own sins and the sins of others, inasmuch as the living members of Christ must help one another in the attainment of salvation. Therefore, it is only after a period of painful probation that any Christian ideal and any Christian society produces true fruits of salvation, for our Lord says: “Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”[367] Thus Christians are made conformable to Christ, who said of Himself to the disciples on the way to Emmaus: “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?”[368] Hence St. Paul says: “We are heirs indeed of God and joint heirs with Christ; yet so, if we suffer with Him that we may be also glorified with Him.”[369]

These spiritual corollaries are deduced from this teaching. A certain special opinion. It has been held by some in recent times[370] that so far the question is always presented unfavorably since it always appears in a hypothetical form, namely, “Whether, if man had not sinned, God would have become incarnate.” “For,” as they say, “if man had not sinned (or in this supposition), there would be another order absolutely different from the present order, and what would have happened in such an order God alone can know.” The proper way of positing the question, according to these theologians, must be by presenting it in the form of a positive and universal proposition, that is, “What is the adequate universal reason for the Incarnation in the present order?” Father Roschini[371] replies to this question as follows: “The primary reason of the Incarnation is God’s free election from all eternity of the present order with all that is included in it; inasmuch as only the present order exactly corresponds to the measure and mode likewise freely prearranged by God, by which He willed to bestow His goodness ad extra and hence procure extrinsic glory.” An answer to Father Roschini’s view appeared in the Angelicum;[372] its gist is as follows: The question posited by the Scholastics concerns the present order, and a new way of presenting the question is outside the scope of the present problem, and brings us only to the common truth that is admitted by all schools of thought. It is most certain to all theologians that the Incarnation depends on God’s free choice of the present order, and what He has ordained for the manifestation of His goodness. This is God’s supreme reason, but, now the question is, what is His proximate reason? Evidently the hypothetical question put by the great Scholastics concerns the present order; namely, in virtue of the present decree, if we make abstraction of the sin of the first man, would the Word have become incarnate? This abstraction is not a lie, nor does it change the order of the thing considered. It is the same as asking: Would the soul of this particular man have been created if his body in his mother’s womb was not sufficiently developed to be informed by it? Or we might ask: Will this temple remain intact if this particular column is removed? The truth of a conditional proposition, as logic teaches, depends solely on the connection between the condition and the conditioned. Hence in replying to the objection, we say: If man had not sinned, the present order of things would be changed, I distinguish: if it meant there would be a change in virtue of another decree, this I concede; in virtue of the present decree, this I deny. As stated in the above-mentioned reply to Father Roschini: “The reasoning of the Scholastics is not, and cannot be, other than this, otherwise how are we to explain the fact that those doctors are so eager in their futile search, concerning which nothing for certain can ever be known?… Without saying, then, what to attribute to those ponderous and so circumspect theologians, with St. Thomas as their leader, a general view of the case would justify us in considering them at least as scholars.” St. Thomas would have improperly stated the question, or would not have corrected the question improperly stated, a question that is even useless, and of course quite irrelevant. But it is true to say, with the holy Doctor, that in speaking of another order of things, “We do not know what (God) would have ordained, if He had not had previous knowledge of sin.”[373] St. Thomas says the same in the present article, for he writes: “And yet the power of God is not limited to this; even had sin not existed, God could have become incarnate, namely, in another order of things.” Final Conclusion: The Motive Of The Incarnation Therefore it must simply be said that God willed the Incarnation for the manifestation of His goodness by way of mercy for the redemption of the human race, or “for our salvation,” as stated in the Creed.

Those who admit, as the Thomists do, one efficacious decree concerning the redemptive Incarnation in passible flesh, by this very fact must say with St. Thomas that, in virtue of the present decree, “if Adam had not sinned, the Word would not have become incarnate,” or, expressed affirmatively, it must be said that, in the present decree, the redemptive Incarnation supposes the fall of the human race to be redeemed, although this fall was permitted for a greater good, which is the redemptive Incarnation. Thus the creation of the soul presupposes that the embryonic body is sufficiently disposed, and this sufficient predisposition was willed and produced by God for the soul. Causes mutually interact though in a different order, without implying a vicious circle. It would be a vicious circle if we were to say that the permission of Adam’s sin was on account of the Incarnation, and that the Incarnation took place because of the permission of Adam’s sin. The truth is that the Incarnation took place, not on account of the permission of sin, but for its reparation. It would likewise be a vicious circle to say that men are for the sake of Christ, and in the same way Christ is for the sake of men. But it is true to say that Christ is the destined end of men, and men are the end to whom the redemptive Incarnation is beneficial. Hence the truth of the assertion is established, that God willed the Incarnation as a manifestation of His goodness by showing His mercy toward men for their redemption, or “for our salvation,” as stated in the Creed.[374]