REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., Fifth Part: Metaphysical Synthesis Of Thomism, CH37: MARIOLOGY

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

CH37: MARIOLOGY [830]

As from the hypostatic union arise all the prerogatives of Christ, so the divine maternity is the raison d'etre of all Mary's graces, particularly of her role as our Mother and Mediatrix. We treat here four questions:

1. Mary's predestination.

2. Her dignity as Mother of God.

3. Her sanctity.

4. Her universal mediation.

Under these headings we give the common Thomistic teaching, and attempt to make precise the reason why St. Thomas hesitated to affirm the privilege of the Immaculate Conception.

Article One: Mary's Predestination

By one and the same decree God predestined Jesus and Mary, Jesus unto natural divine filiation, Mary to be the Mother of God, because Christ's eternal predestination includes all the circumstances which here and now attend His incarnation. Of these circumstances the most important is that signalized in the Nicene Creed: He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of Mary the Virgin. To this one and the same decree testimony is borne by Pius IX in the bull Ineffabilis Deus: [831] This Virgin's privileges are primordial, given by that one and the same decree which willed that divine Wisdom be incarnate.

The parallelism is complete. Jesus was predestined, first [832] to divine filiation, secondly and consequently to the highest degree of glory and hence to that fullness of grace which belongs to the holy soul of the Word made flesh. Thus too, by the same decree, Mary was predestined first to the divine maternity, secondly and consequently to a very high degree of glory, and hence to that fullness of grace which belongs to the Mother of God, a fullness worthy of the grandeur of her mission, a mission which uniquely associated her with the redemptive work of her Son. [833].

Mary's predestination, further, again like that of Christ, depends, in the order of material causality, on the permission and prevision of Adam's fall, because, in the actual plan of Providence, if the first man had not sinned, were there no original sin to repair, Mary would not be the Mother of God. But where sin abounded, grace super-abounded. [834] The Fall was permitted in view of that great good which we see radiating from the redemptive Incarnation, [835] and Mary, predestined to be Mother of the Redeemer, is thereby predestined likewise to be the Mother of mercy.

Mary's predestination, like that of Christ, is absolutely gratuitous. By no title, either of justice (de condigno) or even of strict appropriateness (de congruo proprie): could she merit divine maternity. This is the common teaching, against Gabriel Biel. The principle underlying this doctrine runs thus: The source of merit cannot itself be merited. Now, in the actual economy of salvation, the Incarnation is the source of all grace, and of all merit, of Mary's graces and of our own.

Further, there is no proportion between merits in the order of created grace and the hypostatic order of uncreated grace. But divine maternity, though it terminates in the hypostatic order, in the person of the Word made flesh, is in itself a created grace. Hence, when we say that the Blessed Virgin merited to bear the Lord of all, we do not mean, says St. Thomas, [836] that she merited the Incarnation itself. What we do mean is this: By the grace given her she merited that degree of purity and sanctity which was demanded by her dignity as Mother of God. Can we therefore say that she merited the Incarnation, not indeed by justice (de condigno): nor even by strict appropriateness (de congruo stricte dicto): but at least by appropriateness in a wider sense (de congruo late dicto) ? St. Thomas [837] seems to say so, and is thus understood by many Thomists. The saint's words run thus: The Blessed Virgin did not merit the Incarnation, but, the Incarnation supposed, she merited, not de condigno but de congruo, that the Incarnation should be accomplished through her. This position is in full accord with two other positions: first that she merited our graces de congruo proprio, secondly that Christ merited our graces de condigno.

Article Two: The Divine Maternity

Mary is truly and properly the Mother of God. This definition of the Church [838] is to be explained thus: The terminus of the act of conceiving is not, properly speaking, the nature of the child, but the person of the child. Now the person in whom Mary's act of conception terminates is the Word incarnate, a divine person.

The divine maternity, therefore, is a relation, of Mary to Christ and of Christ to Mary. Since Christ belongs to the hypostatic order, Mary's maternity is a relation to the hypostatic order. This relation is, in Mary, a real relation, like that of creature to Creator, whereas it is only a relation of reason in the unchangeable Word, like that of Creator to creature.

The sublimity of this divine maternity is thus expressed by St. Thomas: "The Blessed Virgin, by being Mother of God, has a certain infinite dignity, by this relation to that infinite good which is God. And nothing in this line can be conceived greater than this maternity, just as nothing can be conceived greater than God." [839] This conception underlies the saint's words on hyperdulia, a cult due to Mary alone. He says: [840] "Hyperdulia is the highest kind of dulia, [841] because the reverence due to any person grows with that person's affinity to God." Mary's maternity, then, since it terminates in God, has an infinite dignity.

By what is Mary sanctified? Is it by the divine maternity, independently of her plenitude of grace? Some theologians [842] say Yes, just as the hypostatic union gives to Christ a substantial sanctity independently of His fullness of sanctifying grace. But the generality of theologians [843] say No, because the divine maternity, in contrast to Christ's grace of union, is only a relation to the Word incarnate, and relation as such does not seem to be a sanctifying form.

Nevertheless this relation of divine maternity, though it does not sanctify formally and immediately, does sanctify radically and exigitively, because it connaturally postulates all the graces given to Mary to make her the worthy Mother of God. [844].

To understand this distinction, let us note that the divine maternity, considered materially, consists in the acts of conceiving, carrying, bearing, and nourishing the Word made flesh. Now, in themselves, these acts are less perfect than that of loving God and doing His will according to our Lord's word: "Yea, rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it." [845] But we must consider the divine maternity also formally. To become Mother of God, Mary had to give her consent to the realization of the mystery. By this consent, as tradition says, she conceived her Son, not only in body, but also in spirit, in body, because He is flesh of her flesh, in spirit, because He awaited her consent. But her act of consent was given, says St. Thomas, [846] in the name of the human race. Further, in thus consenting, she consented likewise to that train of sufferings predicted by the Messianic prophecies. Considered thus, formally, the divine maternity demands those high graces which make her, in God's plan, the worthy Mother of the Redeemer, His most intimate associate in the work of redemption. [847].

Let us add that maternity, in a rational creature, presupposes the mother's consent, and that, in the present case, that consent must be supernatural, since it terminates in the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation. Thus while the divine maternity, taken formally, demands grace, the inverse is not true. Fullness of grace, in idea, does not demand the divine maternity. It may be said, of course, that, by God's absolute power, divine maternity could exist without grace. But thus considered, even the soul of Christ could be annihilated, since there is no intrinsic contradiction. But, it need hardly be said, we are dealing here with God's ordinary power, as guided by wisdom which suits all things to their purpose.

A last question. Divine maternity, taken in itself, without considering Mary's fullness of grace—is it higher than sanctifying grace and the beatific vision? Many theologians [848] answer No. Among Thomists, Contenson, Gotti, Hugon, [849] Merkelbach, [850] answer Yes, maintaining that the affirmative answer is more in conformity with traditional doctrine. They give three convincing reasons.

1. The divine maternity belongs, terminatively, to the hypostatic order, it reaches physically the person of the Word made flesh, to whom it gives His human nature. But the hypostatic order surpasses by far the orders of grace and glory. Hence the divine maternity has an infinite dignity. Besides, while grace can be lost, the divine maternity cannot be lost.

2. The divine maternity is the original reason for Mary's fullness of grace, and the converse is not true. Hence her maternity, being the measure and purpose of that fullness, stands simply higher than its effects.

3. Why do we owe Mary the cult of hyperdulia? Answer: because of her divine maternity. This cult cannot be given to the saints, however high in grace and glory. Hyperdulia is due to Mary, not because she is the greatest of saints, but because she is the Mother of God. Hence, speaking simply, her divine maternity, considered purely in itself, [851] is superior to her sanctifying grace and her glory. Thus we return to our thesis: Mary was predestined, first to the divine maternity, secondly and consequently to a surpassing degree of glory, thirdly and again consequently to her fullness of sanctifying grace.

Since Mary by her divine maternity belongs to the hypostatic order, she is higher than all angels, and higher than all priests, who have a priesthood participated from Christ. This maternity divine is the foundation, the root, the fountainhead, of all her other graces and privileges, which either precede her maternity as dispositions, or accompany it, or follow it as consequences.

Article Three: Mary's Sanctity

Mary's sanctity, considered negatively, includes the privileges of the Immaculate Conception, and exemption from even the least personal sin. Considered positively, it means the fullness of grace.

1. St. Thomas and the Immaculate Conception

Was St. Thomas in favor of granting to Mary the privilege of the Immaculate Conception? Many theologians, including Dominicans [852] and Jesuits, [853] say Yes. Many others say No. [854] We hold, as solidly probable, the position that St. Thomas hesitated on this question. This view, already proposed by many Thomists, is defended by Mandonnet, [855] and by N. del Prado, E. Hugon, G. Frietoff, and J. M. Voste. [856] This view we here briefly expound.

At the beginning of his theological career [857] St. Thomas [858] explicitly affirms this privilege: The Blessed Virgin, he says, was immune, both from original sin and from actual sin. But then he saw that many theologians understood this privilege in a sense that withdrew the Virgin from redemption by Christ, contrary to St. Paul's [859] principle that, just as all men are condemned by the crime of one man (Adam): so all men are justified by the just deed of one man (Christ, the second Adam): and that therefore, just as there is but one God, so there is also only one mediator, Christ, between God and men. Hence St. Thomas showed that Mary, too, was redeemed by the merits of her Son, and this doctrine is now part and parcel of the definition of the Immaculate Conception. But that Mary might be redeemed, St. Thomas thought that she must have the debt of guilt, [860] incurred by her carnal descent from Adam. Hence, from this time on, he said that Mary was not sanctified before her animation, leaving her body, conceived in the ordinary way, to be the instrumental cause in transmitting the debitum culpae. We must note that, in his view, [861] conception, fecundation, precedes, by an interval of time, the moment of animation, by which the person is constituted. The only exception he allowed was for Christ, whose conception, virginal and miraculous, was simultaneous with the moment of animation.

Hence, when we find St. Thomas repeating that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived in original sin, we know that he is thinking of the conception of her body, which precedes in time her animation.

At what exact moment, then, was Mary sanctified in her mother's womb? To this question he gives no precise answer, except perhaps at the end of his life, when he seems to return to his original view, to a positive affirmation of Mary's Immaculate Conception. Before this last period, he declares [862] that we do not know the precise moment, but that it was soon after animation. Hence he does not pronounce on the question whether the Virgin Mary was sanctified at the very moment of her animation. St. Bonaventure had posed that question and like many others had answered in the negative. St. Thomas preferred to leave the question open and did not answer it.

To maintain his original position in favor of the privilege, he might have introduced the distinction, familiar in his works, between priority of nature and priority of time. He might thus have explained his phrase "soon after" (cito post) to mean that the creation of Mary's soul preceded her sanctification only by a priority of nature. But, as John of St. Thomas [863] remarks, he was impressed by the reserved attitude of the Roman Church, which did not celebrate the feast of Mary's Conception, by the silence of Scripture, and by the negative position of a great number of theologians. Hence he would not pronounce on this precise point. Such, in substance, is the interpretation given by N. del Prado and P. Hugon. [864] The latter notes further the insistence of St. Thomas on the principle, recognized in the bull Ineffabilis Deus, that Mary's sanctification is due to the future merits of her Son as Redeemer of the human race. But did this redemption preserve her from original sin, or did it remit that sin? On this question St. Thomas did not pronounce.

In opposition to this interpretation two texts of the saint are often cited. In the Summa [865] he says: The Blessed Virgin did indeed incur original sin, but was cleansed therefrom before she was born. Writing on the Sentences, [866] he says: The Virgin's sanctification cannot properly be conceived either as preceding the infusion of her soul, since she was not thus capable of receiving grace, or as taking place at the very moment of the soul's infusion, by a grace simultaneously infused to preserve her from incurring original sin.

How do the theologians cited above explain these texts? They [867] answer thus: If we recall the saint's original position, and the peremptoriness of the principle that Mary was redeemed by Christ, these two texts are to be understood rather as a debitum culpae originalis than the actual incurring of the sin itself. Thus animation would precede sanctification by a priority of nature only, not of time.

Here we must remark, with Merkelbach, [868] that these opportune distinctions were not yet formulated by St. Thomas. The saint wrote "she incurred original sin," and not "she should have incurred it," or "she would have incurred it, had she not been preserved." Further, the saint wrote: "We believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary was sanctified soon after her conception and the infusion of her soul." [869] And he does not here distinguish priority of nature from priority of time.

But we must add, with Voste, [870] that St. Thomas, at the end of his life, seems to return to the original view, which he had expressed as follows: [871] Mary was immune from all sin, original and actual. Thus, in December 1272, he writes: [872] Neither in Christ nor in Mary was there any stain. Again, on the verse [873] which calls the sun God's tent, he writes: Christ put His tent, i. e.: His body, in the sun, i. e.: in the Blessed Virgin who was obscured by no sin and to whom it is said: [874] "Thou art all beautiful, my friend, and in thee there is no stain." In a third text [875] he writes: Not only from actual sin was Mary free, but she was by a special privilege cleansed from original sin. This special privilege distinguishes her from Jeremias and John the Baptist. A fourth text, [876] written in his last year of life, [877] has the following words: Mary excels the angels in purity, because she is not only in herself pure, but begets purity in others. She was herself most pure, because she incurred no sin, either original or actual, not even any venial sin. And he adds that she incurred no penalty, and in particular, was immune from corruption in the grave.

Now it is true that in that same context, some lines earlier, the saint writes this sentence: The Blessed Virgin though conceived in original sin, was not born in original sin. But, unless we are willing to find in his supreme mind an open contradiction in one and the same context, we must see in the word, "She was conceived in original sin," not original sin itself, which is in the soul, but the debt of original sin which antecedently to animation was in her body conceived by the ordinary road of generation. [878].

We conclude with Father Voste: [879] "Approaching the end of his life here below, the Angelic Doctor gradually returned to his first [880] affirmation: the Blessed Virgin was immune from all sin, original and actual."

2. Mary's Fullness of Grace

The Blessed Virgin's fullness of grace made her of all creatures the nearest to the Author of grace. Thus St. Thomas. [881] He adds [882] that her initial fullness was such that it made her worthy to be mother of Christ. As the divine maternity belongs, by its terminus, to the hypostatic order, so Mary's initial grace surpassed even the final grace of the angels and of all other saints. In other words, God's love for the future Mother of God was greater than His love for any other creature. Now, grace, being an effect of God's love for us, is proportioned to the greatness of that love. Hence it is probable, as weighty Thomists [883] say, that Mary's initial fullness surpassed the final grace of all saints and angels taken together, because she was already then more loved by God than all the saints taken as one. Hence, according to tradition, Mary's merits and prayer, could, even without any angel or saint, obtain even here on earth more than could all saints and angels without her. Further, this initial plentitude of sanctifying grace was accompanied by a proportional plentitude of infused virtues and of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost.

With such initial fullness, could Mary still grow in grace? Most assuredly. In her we have the perfect exemplification of the principle which St. Thomas thus formulates: "Natural motion (in a falling stone) is intensified by approaching its goal. In violent motion (in a stone thrown upwards) we have the inverse. But grace grows like nature. Hence those who are in grace grow in proportion to their approach to their goal." [884] Hence Mary's progress in grace, ever more prompt toward God, grew ever more rapid in answer to God's greater attraction.

But while Mary's grace thus grew greater until her death, there were two moments when her grace was augmented sacramentally: [885] the moment of the Incarnation, and that on Calvary when she was declared the Mother of all men.

Article Four: Mary's Universal Mediation

From her divine maternity and her fullness of grace arises Mary's function of universal Mediatrix, a title given to her by tradition, and now consecrated by a feast of the Church universal.

Two special reasons underlie this title. First, by satisfaction and merit she cooperated with the sacrifice of the cross, and this is her ascending mediation. Second, and this is her descending mediation, by interceding she obtains and distributes all graces which we receive.

How did she cooperate with the sacrifice of the cross? By giving to God, with great pain and great love, the life of her adorable Son, whom she loved more than her life. Could this act of hers satisfy God in strict justice? No, only our Savior's act could do that. Yet Mary's satisfaction was a claim, not of strict justice, but of loving friendship, [886] which has given her the title of co-redemptrix, in the sense that with, by, and in Christ she redeemed the human race. [887].

Hence whatever Christ on the cross merited in strict justice, Mary too merited by the claim of appropriateness, founded on her friendship with God. This doctrine, now common, is sanctioned by Pius X: [888] Mary merited by appropriateness (de congruo) what Christ merited by justice (de condigno). Hence she is the chief administratrix of all grace that God wills to grant.

What is the difference between meriting de condigno and meriting de congruo? Merit in these two lines, says St. Thomas, [889] is used analogically, merit de condigno meaning a claim founded on justice, and merit de congruo meaning a claim founded on the friendship of charity. But in Mary's case this merit means congruousness in the strict sense [890] and hence is still merit in the proper sense of the word, which presupposes the state of grace. We do indeed speak of the prayers of a man in mortal sin as meritorious, but the merit in this case, being founded, not on divine friendship, but solely on God's mercy, is merit only in an improper, metaphorical sense. Between merit de condigno (Christ's merit) and merit proprie de congruo (Mary's merit) there is the analogy of proper proportionality, and in each case merit in the proper sense, whereas, in the third case, that of a sinner who prays, there is merit only by metaphorical analogy.

Mary performs her function as universal Mediatrix by intercession. This doctrine expressed by the prayer commonly addressed to Mary in the liturgy, [891] is founded on Scripture and tradition. But, granting Mary's intercessory power, can we hold that she is also a physical cause, an instrumental cause, and not merely moral cause, of all graces we receive? Many Thomists say Yes. They reason thus: If the humanity of Jesus is the physical instrumental cause of all our graces, His Mother too should be an instrumental cause, subordinated, of course, to Him who is her Son and her God. We do not see that this position can be established with true certitude, but the principles of St. Thomas on the role of Christ's humanity incline us to accept it. What is certain is that Mary is the spiritual Mother of all men, that, as co-adjutrix in the Savior's work of redemption, she merits the title "Mother of divine grace," and that therefore she pours out graces on all humanity.

Among the authors who have best developed this doctrine we may signalize Blessed Grignon de Montfort. [892].

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., Fifth Part: Metaphysical Synthesis Of Thomism, CH36: CHRIST'S VICTORY AND PASSION

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P.

CH36: CHRIST'S VICTORY AND PASSION

We consider here three important problems.

1. How is Christ's passion in harmony with His beatific vision?

2. How did His passion cause our salvation?

3. Why did He suffer so much, seeing that His least suffering would suffice to save us?

1. According to St. Thomas [811] our Savior's sufferings were the greatest that can be conceived. In particular, His moral suffering surpassed that of all contrite hearts, first because it derived from a transcendent wisdom, which let Him realize, far beyond our power, the infinite gravity of sin, and the countless multitude of men's crimes; secondly because it derived from a measureless love for God and men; thirdly because He suffered, not merely for the sins of one man, as does a repentant sinner, but for all sins of all men taken together. Hence the question: How under such intense pain, physical and moral, could our Lord simultaneously preserve the boundless joy of the beatific vision?

This mystery, as theologians generally teach, is the consequence of another mystery, namely, that Jesus was simultaneously a viator (on the road to ultimate glory) and a comprehensor (already in possession of ultimate glory). [812] How is this possible? The truest answer is that of St. Thomas, an answer that is full of light, though the mystery remains a mystery.

We must distinguish also in Christ, says the saint, [813] the higher soul faculties from the lower. Hence, as long as He was simultaneously viator and comprehensor, He did not allow the glory and the joy of the superior part to overflow on the inferior part. Only the summit of His soul, that is, His human mind and will was beatified, while He freely abandoned to pain all His faculties of sense. [814] He would not permit His beatific joy in the summit of His soul to send down the slightest softening ray upon that physical and moral pain, to which He would fully surrender Himself, for our salvation. In Illustration, think of a lofty mountain, the summit Illumined by the sun, while a violent storm envelops the lower slopes and the foundations, and, as analogy, think of the contrite penitent, whose higher faculties rejoice in the affliction of his lower faculties, and rejoice the more, the more he is thus afflicted.

2. How did Christ's passion cause our salvation? [815] In five different ways: as merit, as satisfaction, as sacrifice, as redemption, as efficient cause. Is this series a mere juxtaposition of scriptural terms? No, we have here an ordered process, rising from general terms to terms which are specific and comprehensive. All acts of charity are meritorious, but not all are satisfactory. An act may be satisfactory without being, properly speaking, a sacrifice, which presupposes a priest. And even a true sacrifice, as in the Old Law, may not of itself be redemptive, but only as prefigurative of a perfect sacrifice. And, lastly, even a redemptive sacrifice may be only a moral cause of grace, whereas Christ's redemptive sacrifice is also the efficient cause of grace.

Christ's passion, then, wrought our salvation under the form of merit because, as the head of humanity, He could pour out grace on us from His own fullness, and, as divine person, His merits have an infinite value. [816].

His passion was, second, a perfect satisfaction, because by bearing that passion with theandric love, He offered something for which the Father's love was greater than His displeasure at all sins of mankind. And the life He offered, the life of the God-man, had infinite value. Personally then, and objectively, satisfaction was completely adequate. [817].

His passion, further, was sacrificial cause of our redemption, for it was an oblation, in the visible order, of His life, of His body and blood, made by Him as priest [818] Of the New Covenant. [819].

Hence, also as redemption, His passion is cause of our salvation, because, being an adequate and super-abounding satisfaction, it was the price paid for our deliverance from sin and penalty. [820].

Merit, satisfaction, sacrifice, redemption are forms of moral causality. But Christ's passion is also an efficient cause of our salvation, since the suffering humanity of Christ is the instrument by which the divinity causes in us all graces which we receive. [821].

Recapitulating, [822] St. Thomas speaks thus: The passion of Christ's humanity compared to His divinity, has instrumental efficiency; compared to Christ's human Will, it energizes as merit; considered in His flesh, it energizes as satisfaction; it energizes as redemption, in delivering us from the captivity of guilt; lastly, it energizes as sacrifice, by reconciling, by making us the friends of God.

We should note here that St. Thomas sees the essence of satisfaction in our Savior's theandric love rather than in His great sufferings, since these sufferings draw their value from that love which pleases God more than all sin displeases Him. [823] This love makes Christ's satisfaction superabundant, and, further, as Thomists hold against Scotus, intrinsically, of itself, superabundant, not merely extrinsically, by God's acceptance. And this satisfaction, they add, being of itself superabundant, has the rigorously strict value of justice.

Let us note another conclusion. Jesus is the one sole Redeemer, [824] the universal Redeemer from whom alone all others, even His mother, the Virgin Mary, receive their sanctity. [825].

The effects of Christ's passion, to recapitulate, are deliverance and reconciliation, deliverance from sin, from the domination of the devil, from the penalties due to sin; and reconciliation with God, who opens to us the gates of heaven. Here we see, in mutual order and Illumination, the various terms and truths whereby Scripture and tradition speak of our Savior's passion. The conclusions thus presented are not, strictly speaking, theological conclusions, even when at times they proceed from two premises of faith. They are rather explanations of the truths contained in the "doctrine of faith," truths that precede theology, and of which theology is itself the explanatory science.

3. Why did Jesus suffer so much, seeing that the least of His sufferings offered with such love would superabundantly suffice for our salvation? [826].

In answer, let us look at our Savior's sufferings from three points of view; our own, His own, and that of God the Father.

a) We need to be Illumined on how to receive the greatest testimony of love, accompanied by the highest example of heroic virtue. Now there is no greater love than giving life for those we love. [827].

b) Christ Himself must fulfil His redemptive mission in the highest manner. Now, as priest, no victim but Himself was worthy. And to be a perfect holocaust He must be completely victim, in body, in heart, in a soul "sorrowful unto death." Further, having the fullness of charity, and being both viator and comprehensor, He necessarily suffered with boundless intensity from mankind's sins taken on Himself, seeing in these sins both the offense against God and the cause of the loss of souls.

c) God the Father willed by this road of suffering and humiliation to give our Savior the grandest of victories, a threefold victory, over sin, over the devil, over death. The victory over sin was gained by the greatest of all acts of charity, victory over the devil's disobedience and pride by the supreme act of obedience and the loving acceptance of the lowest humiliations, victory over death, the consequence and punishment of sin, by the glorious external sign of the two preceding victories, a victory culminating in His resurrection and ascension. "Christ humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to death on the cross. Hence God exalted Him, and gave Him a name above every name, a name before which all kneel... while every tongue, to the glory of God the Father, confesses that Jesus Christ is the Lord." [828].

This treatise on the redemptive Incarnation, like that on God, shows that Thomism is not a mere sum of haphazard theses, but a mental attitude of research, a method of expounding truth in the order of nature and of grace, a unified grasping, a living synthesis, of the natural order of truth in its essential subordination to the supernatural order of truth. Such a synthesis radiates from one mother-idea. In the treatise on God that parent-idea is this: God is subsistent being, in whom alone essence is identified with existence. In the treatise on the Incarnation, the parent idea is the divine personality of our Savior. This unity of person in two natures implies first, unity of existence, [829] secondly, substantial sanctity, thirdly, a priesthood supremely perfect, fourthly, a royal dominion over all creatures. Lastly, since person is the substantial principle of all acts, the theandric acts of Christ have a value intrinsically infinite in the order of merit and satisfaction.

We add one remark. These two treatises, that on God and that on the Incarnation, are the foundations of the theological edifice. On their solidity all else depends.

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., Fifth Part: Metaphysical Synthesis Of Thomism, CH35: Freedom and Impeccability

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P.

CH35: FREEDOM AND IMPECCABILITY [801]

Christ's acts of merit and satisfaction presuppose freedom in the proper sense, [802] not merely spontaneity, [803] which is found already in the animal. Now it would seem that Christ, if He is to obey freely, must also be able to disobey. Hence the question: how is freedom to be harmonized with absolute impeccability? Impeccability, in Christ, does not mean merely that, in fact, He never sinned. It means that He simply could not sin. He could not for three reasons:

a) by reason of His divine personality, which necessarily excludes sin:

b) by reason of His beatific vision of God's goodness, from which no blessed soul can ever turn aside:

c) by reason of His plentitude of grace, received inamissibly as consequence of the grace of union.

How can Jesus be perfectly free if He is bound by obedience to His Father's will? Dominic Banez [804] was obliged to study this question profoundly, in answer to certain theologians of his epoch, who tried to safeguard the freedom of Jesus by saying that He had not received from His Father a command to die on the cross for our salvation. This position has defenders even in our own times. Thomists reply that the position contradicts the explicit words of Scripture: "I give My life. This is the command I have received from My Father. That the world may know that I act according to the commandment My Father has given me. Arise, let us go. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, even as I have kept the commandments of My Father, and abide in His love." [805] Christ became obedient unto death, even to death on the cross. [806].

Now obedience, properly speaking, has as formal object a command to be fulfilled. And if one says, unjustifiably, that the commands given to Christ were only counsels, how could Christ, being absolutely impeccable, neglect even the counsels of His Father? Hence the question inevitably returns: How can impeccability be harmonized with that real freedom which is presupposed by merit?

The Thomistic reply begins by distinguishing psychological liberty from moral liberty. A command takes away moral liberty, in the sense that disobedience is illicit. But the command, far from taking away psychological liberty, rather builds on this liberty as foundation. The command is given precisely to ensure free acts. No one commands fire to burn, or the heart to beat, or any other necessary act. A command is self-destructive where there is no liberty.

And precept remains precept, and is freely fulfilled, even when he who obeys is impeccable, because the thing commanded (death for our salvation) is good from one viewpoint, and not good, even painful, from another viewpoint. This object is entirely different from the divine goodness clearly seen in the beatific vision. The blessed in heaven are not free to love God whom they see face to face, though they too remain free in other acts, to pray, for example, at this time, or for this person.

Further, if the command to die destroys Christ's liberty, we would have to say the same of all precepts, even of those commanded by the natural law, and thus Christ would have no freedom to obey any precept, and hence could have no merit.

But the difficulty seems to remain. If Christ was free to obey, then He could disobey and thus sin. But faith teaches, not only that He did not sin, but that He could not sin.

In answer let us weigh the following reflections.

1. Liberty of exercise suffices to safeguard the essence of liberty. Man is master of his act when he can either place the act or not place it. Such an act is free, even where there is no choice between contrary acts, hating, say, and loving, or between two disparate ways of attaining an end.

2. The power to sin is not included in the idea of freedom, but is rather the defectibility of our freedom, just as the possibility of error is the defectibility of our intellect. This power to sin does not exist in God who is sovereignly free, nor in the blessed who are confirmed in good. Hence it did not exist in Christ, whose freedom, even here on earth, was the most perfect image of divine freedom. Genuine freedom then does not include disobedience, but rather excludes it. Genuine freedom wills, not evil, but always good. It chooses between two or many objects, none of which is bad, but all good. [807].

3. Disobedience is not to be confused with the mere absence of obedience. In a sleeping child, for example, though he be the most obedient of children, there is, here and now, the absence of obedience, but no disobedience. Disobedience is a privation, a wrong, a fault, whereas mere absence of obedience is a simple negation. This distinction may seem subtle, but it expresses the truth. Christ, like the blessed in heaven, could not disobey, even by omission or neglect. But His human will, incapable of disobedience, can still see the absence of obedience as good, [808] as something here and now not necessarily connected with His beatitude. Death on the cross was good for our salvation, but it was a good mixed with non-good, with extreme suffering, physical and moral. Hence it was an object which did not impose necessity on His will. Nor did the divine will impose necessity, since, as we have seen, the precept, by making the omission illicit, removes indeed moral liberty, but, on the contrary, presupposes and preserves physical and psychological liberty.

When then does Jesus love necessarily? He thus loves His Father seen face to face, and hence all else that is, here and now, connected, intrinsically and necessarily, with that supreme beatitude, just as we necessarily will existence, life, and knowledge without which we see that we cannot have happiness. But Jesus willed freely all that was connected, not intrinsically, but only extrinsically, by a command, with beatitude. Death, at once salutary for us and terrible in itself, did not attract necessarily. The command did not change either the nature of the death, or the freedom of the act commanded. Hence Christ's response.

Thus Jesus obeyed freely even though He could not disobey. As distant illustration of this mystery, we may refer to a painful act of obedience in a good religious. He obeys freely, hardly reflecting that he could disobey. Even if he were confirmed in grace, this confirmation would not destroy the freedom of his obedient act. The will of Christ, says St. Thomas, [809] though it is confirmed in good, is not necessitated by this or that particular good. Hence Christ, like the blessed, chooses by a free will which is confirmed in good. This sentence, in its simplicity, is more perfect than the long commentaries thereon, but the commentaries serve to show the truth hidden in that simplicity. The sinless liberty of Christ is the perfect image of God's sinless liberty. [810].

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., Fifth Part: Metaphysical Synthesis Of Thomism, CH34: CONSEQUENCES OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P.

CH34: CONSEQUENCES OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION

1. By the substantial grace of personal union with the Word, the humanity of Christ is sanctified, with a sanctity that is innate, substantial, and uncreated. By the grace of union Jesus is united to God personally and substantially, by that grace He is Son of God, the well-beloved of the Father, by that grace He is constituted as the substantial principle [786] of acts, not merely supernatural but theandrical, and by that grace He is sinless and impeccable.

2. Nevertheless it is highly appropriate that the soul of the Savior should have, as consequence of the hypostatic union, the plenitude also of created grace, of sanctifying grace, with all the infused virtues and with all the gifts of the Holy Ghost, that thus his supernatural and meritorious acts be connatural. This connaturalness requires that also the proximate principles of these acts, His intellect and will, be of the same supernatural order as are the acts themselves. [787].

3. This habitual and sanctifying grace, being a consequence of the hypostatic union, was, from the first moment of His conception, so perfect that it could not be augmented. By His successive deeds, says the Second Council of Constantinople, [788] Christ Himself was not made better.

This initial plentitude of grace expanded at once into the light of glory and beatific vision. [789] It is highly appropriate that He who came to lead humanity to its last end should have perfect knowledge of that end. [790] Were it otherwise, did He have from His divinity only faith illumined by the gifts of the Holy Ghost, then, on receiving later the light of glory, He would, contrary to the Council just cited, have Himself become better.

This expansion of sanctifying grace into the vision of God was paralleled by a corresponding expansion of zeal for God's glory and man's salvation, a zeal which led the Savior, at His entrance into the world, to offer Himself as a perfect holocaust for us. The same plenitude of grace is the source, on the one hand, of a supreme beatitude, which did not leave Him even on the cross, and, on the other hand, of the greatest suffering and humiliations, arising from His zeal to repair all offenses against God and to save mankind. This identity of source serves in some manner to explain the mysterious harmony, in Christ crucified, between supreme beatitude and supreme suffering, physical, moral, and spiritual.

4. The priesthood of Christ, which gives to His sacrifice an infinite value, on what does it rest? It presupposes, not merely the fullness of created grace, but also the grace of union. The priestly acts of Christ draw their theandric and infinite value from His divine personality. Some Thomists, it is true, say that Christ's priesthood is constituted by His created grace, by His grace of headship, [791] which of course presupposes the grace of union. But the majority, more numerous as time goes on, hold that Christ's priesthood rests directly on the uncreated grace of union itself. That union it is which makes Jesus the "Anointed one of the Lord." That union gives Him His primordial anointing, His substantial holiness. [792].

Further, the grace of union is also the reason why we owe to Christ's humanity the homage of adoration. [793] It is likewise the reason why Christ sits at the right hand of God, as universal king of all creatures, as judge of the living and the dead. [794] This is the view which dominates the encyclical on Christ as King. [795] Jesus is universal judge and universal king, not only as God, but also as man, and that above all by His grace of union which makes Him God-man.

This uncreated grace of union, then, is the reason why Christ, as man, since He possesses substantial holiness, is to be adored with the adoration due to God alone. And primarily by this same grace He is first priest, capable of priestly acts which are theandric, secondly universal king and judge.

Here appears the necessity of contemplating our Savior from three points of view: first according to His divine nature, by which He creates and predestines; secondly, according to His human nature, by which He speaks, reasons, and suffers; thirdly, according to His unity of person with the Word, by which His acts are theandric and have a value infinitely meritorious and satisfactory.

Christ was predestinated. In what sense? St. Thomas and his school, in opposition to Scotus, teach that Jesus as man was predestined, first to divine filiation, secondly and consequently, to the highest degree of glory, which is given to Him because He is God's Son, by nature, not by adoption. [796] They teach, further, that Christ's own gratuitous predestination is the cause of our predestination and that Jesus merited for the elect all the effects of predestination, all the graces which they receive, including the grace of final perseverance. [797].

5. Christ's meritorious and satisfactory acts have an intrinsic value which is infinite. On this important question, which touches the very essence of the mystery of Redemption, Thomists and Scotists are divided. St. Thomas and his school, as we saw above, by insisting on the one existence of Christ, emphasize, much more than Scotus does, the intimacy of the two natures in Jesus,—which gives to His acts, meritorious and satisfactory, an intrinsically infinite value. Thomists insist on the substantial principle of these acts, which is the Word made flesh, the divine suppositum, the divine person of the Son of God.

Hence, whereas Scotists assign to Christ's acts a value that is only extrinsically infinite, that is, only so far as God accepts those acts, Thomists, on the contrary, and with them many other theologians, hold that the value of these acts is intrinsically infinite by reason of the divine person of the Word, which is their substantial and personal principle. That which acts, merits, satisfies, is not, speaking properly, the humanity of Jesus, but rather the person of the Word, which acts by His assumed humanity. But that person, having an infinite elevation, communicates that elevation to all His acts. He that properly satisfies for an offense, says St. Thomas, [798] must give to the one offended something for which his love is at least as great as is his hatred for the offense. But Christ, by suffering in charity and obedience, offered God something for which His love is greater than is His hatred for all offenses committed by the human race. As offense grows with the dignity of the person offended, so honor and satisfaction grow with the dignity of the person who makes amends. [799].

This thesis, admitted by theologians generally, is in accord with the teaching of Clement VI: [800] One little drop of Christ's blood, by His union with the Word, would have sufficed to redeem the whole human race. It is to men an infinite treasure... by reason of Christ's infinite merits.

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., Fifth Part: Metaphysical Synthesis Of Thomism, CH33: THE HYPOSTATIC UNION

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P.

CH33: THE HYPOSTATIC UNION

The hypostatic union is the union of two natures, one divine, one human, in the person of the Word made flesh. What is meant by person, personality?

The classic definition is that of Boethius: [736] Person means an individual substance having a rational nature. Of this definition St. Thomas [737] gives the following explanation.

Person signifies an individual subject, which is first intellectual, secondly free, i. e.: master of his own acts, [738] one whose acts are self-initiated. Person, he continues, being the primary subject [739] which bears all predicates attributable in any way to its being, is itself incommunicable to any other subject. To each human person, for example, belong and are attributed, his soul, his body, his existence, his faculties, his operations, the parts of his body. [740].

This explanation simply makes precise that notion of person already held by the common sense of mankind. In everyday speech, when we speak of person, we mean that deep inward self-ownership, that ontological personality, which is the root, first of the self-conscious ego, and this we may call psychological personality, and secondly of that self-controlled use of liberty, which we may call moral personality.

Person, personality, thus defined, is found in men, in angels, and, analogically, in God. In God, moreover, according to revelation, there are three persons, three subjects intellectual and free, which have each the same intellect and the same liberty, the same act of understanding and the same free act, by which all three are one principle of external operation. This same notion of personality allows us to say that Jesus too is a person, one sole intellectual and free subject, one sole ego, although he has two natures, one divine, one human, and hence first two intellects, and secondly two liberties, His human liberty, however, completely conformed to His divine liberty. When Jesus says [741] that He is the way, He is speaking according to His human nature. But when, in the same text, He adds that He is the truth and the life, He is speaking primarily according to His divine nature, which makes Him truth itself and life itself. "All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine." [742].

What is the formal and radical element of ontological personality? Here the Scholastics divide into opposed camps. Scotus, who denies real distinction of essence and existence, who denies further real distinction between suppositum (quod est) and existence (esse): answers thus: Personality is something negative. In any particular individual humanity (in Peter or Paul) personality is the denial, the absence in that person of hypostatic union with a divine person. [743] Suarez [744] says that personality is a substantial mode which follows the existence of a particular individual nature, and makes that nature incommunicable. He cannot admit, as Thomists do, that personality is presupposed to existence, since, like Scotus, he denies real distinction of essence and existence.

But even those who admit this real distinction are not all of one mind in defining personality. One view, that of Cajetan, [745] who is followed by most Dominican and Carmelite Thomists, [746] defines personality as follows: [747] Personality is that by which an individual nature becomes immediately capable of existence. A second view, less explicit, but almost identical, is that of Capreolus, who says that personality is the individual nature as that nature underlies its existence. [748] A third view, that of Cardinal Billot [749] and his disciples, says that personality is existence itself, as actualizing the individual nature.

By what criterion are we to arrive at the true definition of personality? [750] We must start with the nominal definition, furnished by common usage, a definition which all theologians intend to preserve. Now, by that common usage, when we use the word "person" or its equivalent pronouns "I," "you," and "he," we mean to signify, not a mere negation, not something accidental, but a distinct, individual and substantial thing, even though its existence be contingent. Why, then, should the philosopher or theologian, in his search for a real and distinct definition, abandon this nominal definition of common sense? Let him rather follow the method indicated by Aristotle [751] and St. Thomas, which requires that we proceed, first, negatively, then positively.

1. Ontological personality, then, that by which a subject is person, cannot be a negative something. [752] If personality is to constitute the person, it must itself be something positive. Further, the personality of Socrates or of Peter must be something in the natural order, and hence it cannot be defined, as Scotus wills, by the negation of hypostatic union, which belongs essentially to the supernatural order; a consequence would be that personality, the personality, say, of Socrates, would be something naturally unknowable.

2. Ontological personality is not only something positive, but also something substantial, not accidental, because "person" means a substance, a real subject of accident. Hence personality, speaking properly, ontological personality, is not formally constituted by self-consciousness, which is rather an act of the person already constituted, an act which manifests the person which it presupposes. Similarly, personality is not constituted by freedom of will, which is a consequence that shows the dignity of the person who is already constituted. Moreover, in Jesus, we find two self-conscious intellects and two free wills, though He is one sole person, one sole ego. Hence personality is something positive and substantial. Let us now compare it with those elements in the line of substance which it most resembles.

3. Is personality identified with nature [753] as found concrete in the individual? No, because person is a whole which has nature indeed as a part, the essential, formal, and perfective part, but still only a part. [754] Were nature not a mere part, but the whole of person, we could say "Peter is his nature." But since person contains more than nature, we say "Peter has human nature."

4. Is then personality identified with individualized nature which underlies existence? [755] Again no, because the concrete singular nature of Peter is not that which exists but is that by which Peter is man. That which exists is Peter himself, his person. Hence personality is not the concrete singular nature as preceding existence. Further, were this view granted, since as in Christ there are two natures, so there would likewise be two personalities, two persons.

5. Nor is personality to be identified with existence. Existence is attributed to created persons as contingent predicate, not as a formal constitutive predicate. No creature is its own existence. Creatures have existence, but the distance between "to be" and "to have" is measureless. Only God is His own existence.

In every creature, St. Thomas [756] repeats, that which exists (the suppositum, the person) differs from its existence. Existence, he says elsewhere, [757] follows both nature and person. But it follows nature as that by which the thing is what it is, whereas it follows person as that which has existence. The word "follows" in this passage expresses a sequel that is real and objective, not a mere logical consequence. And thus, if existence follows person, it presupposes person, and hence cannot constitute personality.

Further, if existence formally constituted person, then the created person would be identical with his existence. Peter would be his own existence, he would not simply have existence. St. Thomas [758] would be wrong in repeating: In every creature person differs from existence.

In other words, the fundamental argument of the Thomistic thesis runs thus: That which is not its own existence is really distinct from that existence, really, that is, anteriorly to any mental act of ours. Now the person of Peter, and much more his personality, is really distinct from his existence, and existence is in him as a contingent predicate. God alone is His own existence, a truth of supremest evidence to those who have received the beatific vision.

6. To recapitulate. Ontological personality is a positive something, a substantial something, which so determines the concrete singular nature of a rational substance that it is capable, without medium, of existing in itself as a separate and independent entity. [759] More briefly, it is that by which a rational subject is that which exists (quod est): whereas its nature is that by which it belongs to its species, and existence is that by which it exists.

Existence is a contingent predicate of the created person, it is his ultimate actuality, not in the line of essence but in another line. Hence, since existence presupposes personality, personality itself cannot be [760] a substantial mode posterior to existence.

Hence we may say that personality is the point where two distinct lines intersect: the line of essence and the line of existence. Personality, speaking properly, is that by which an intellectual subject is that which is. This ontological personality, which constitutes the ego, is thus the root, both of the psychologic personality, that is, of the ego as self-conscious, and of the moral personality, that is, of self-mastery, of self-initiated activity. Thus Christ's person, as theologians in general say, is the personal principle (principium quod) of His theandric actions, and thus gives to His acts their infinite value.

This objective definition of personality does but make explicit the content of the nominal definition which common sense accepts. Personality is that by which the intellectual subject is a person, as existence is that by which it exists, hence personality differs both from the essence and the existence which it unites into one complete whole.

Hence created essence and its contingent existence do not make one sole nature, [761] but they do belong to one and the same subject (suppositum): [762] nature as its essential part, and existence as its contingent predicate. This terminology rests on Aristotle's doctrine of the four modes of predicating per se, i. e.: of saying that this predicate belongs to this subject. We have the first mode in a definition, the second mode when we predicate a characteristic of the essence, the third when we predicate something of an independent suppositum, and the fourth when we predicate of an effect its proper and necessary cause. [763] Following this accepted terminology, we see that created essence and its contingent existence make one complete whole as belonging each to one suppositum, in the third mode of predicating per se.

Ontological personality thus conceived, far from preventing union between essence and existence, is rather that which unites the two and makes them one complete whole.

Such is the conception of personality defended by Cajetan and the majority of Thomists. This conception, they maintain, is the metaphysical foundation of grammatical usage in regard to personal pronouns, and of the verb "to be": he is a man, for example, or he exists, or, he is active, he is patient, and so on.

The texts of Capreolus are less explicit. "Nature as individualized under existence" is his definition of personality. We have said, with the majority, that personality is that by which individualized nature becomes immediately capable of existing. Now that which exists is, precisely speaking, not the nature of Peter, but Peter himself, Peter's person. Thus Cajetan, though he speaks more explicitly, does not contradict Capreolus.

In clarification of this doctrine, held by most Thomists, let us quote a few more texts from St. Thomas. The form signified by this name person, he says, [764] is not essence or nature, but personality. The contrast with nature shows that personality is something substantial. Again he says: [765] The name person rests on personality, which expresses subsistence in rational nature. This means, in other terms, that personality is that by which a rational subject is capable, first of separate existence, second, of self-initiated activity.

Again, speaking now of Christ directly, he writes thus: [766] Had not His human nature been assumed by a divine person, that nature would have its own proper personality. Hence we may say, speaking inexactly, that the divine person consumed the human personality, because the divine person, by being united to the human nature prevented that nature from having its own personality. In other words, personality, though it is not a part of the essence, is still something positive and substantial, not identified however with existence which, in a created person, is something contingent. Existence, he said above, [767] follows person which is the subject of existence.

Lastly, speaking now of the Trinity, he says: [768] The three divine persons have each one and the same existence. This text shows clearly that personality differs from existence, since in God there are three personalities but only one existence. Similarly he says: [769] Existence is not included in the definition of person (suppositum). Only God is His own existence, whereas in a created person existence is a predicate, not essential, but contingent.

Now for some consequences of this position. Person is to be found in man, in angel, and, analogically, in God. By personality the intellectual subject becomes the first subject of attribution, the subject of which all else in him is predicated, the center from which all else radiates, the ego which possesses his nature, his existence, his self-conscious act, his freedom. By deviation, this principle of ownership and possession [770] can become the principle of egoism and individualism, which prefers itself to family, society, and God. But while egoism and pride are thus an abuse of created personality, an enormous abuse, rising even to the denial of the Creator's supreme right, still the right use of personality, psychological and moral, grows into truth, self-devotedness, and sanctity.

In what, then, consists the full development of created personality? It consists in making ourselves fully independent of inferior things, but also, and still more closely, dependent on truth, on goodness, on God.

Propriam personalitatem haberet; et pro tanto dicitur persona (divina) consumpsisse personam, licet improprie, quia persona divina sua unione impedivit ne humana natura propriam personalitatem haberet.

Himself. The saints are complete personalities, since they recognize that human personality grows great only by dying to self so that God may live in us, may rule us ever more completely. As God inclines to give Himself ever more and more, so the saint renounces ever more completely his own judgment and his own will, to live solely by the thoughts and will of God. He desires that God be his other self, [771] more intimate than his proper self. Thus, from afar off, he begins to understand the personality of Jesus.

But the saint, however high, is still a creature, immeasurably below the Creator, eternally distinct from God. In Jesus Christ, the Word of God gave Himself, in the highest conceivable manner, to humanity, by uniting Himself personally to humanity, in such wise that the human nature thus united becomes one sole ego with that Word, which assumed forever that human nature. Thus, there is in Christ one sole person, one sole intellectual and free subject, even while there are two natures, two intellects, two freedoms. Hence Christ alone among men can say: [772] "Before Abraham was, I am." "The Father and I are one." "All that belongs to the Father belongs to Me."

To clarify this hypostatic union, St. Thomas [773] proceeds as follows: According to Catholic faith, human nature is really and truly united to the person of the Word, while the two natures remain distinct. Now that which is united to a person, without a union in nature, is formally united to it in person, because person is the complete whole of which nature is the essential part. Further, since human nature is not an accident, like whiteness, for example, and is not a transitory act of knowledge or love, the human nature is united to the Word not accidentally, but substantially. [774].

Christ, then, is man, though He has no human personality. But His humanity, far from being lowered by this union with the Word, is rather thereby elevated and glorified. From that union His humanity has an innate sanctity substantial and uncreated. To illustrate. Imagination, the highest of sense faculties, has a higher nobility in man than in animal, a nobility arising from its very subordination to the higher faculty of the intellect. A thing is more noble, says Thomas, when it exists in a higher being than when it exists in itself. [775].

Whereas individuation proceeds from matter, personality, on the contrary, is the most perfect thing in nature. [776] Thus in Jesus, as in us, all individualizing circumstances, of time and place of birth, of people and country, arise from created matter, whereas His person is uncreated.

This union of two natures therefore is not an essential union, since the two are distinct and infinitely distant. Nor is it an accidental union, like that of the saints with God. It is a union in the substantial order, in the very person of the Word, since one real subject, one sole ego, possesses both natures. [777] Hence this union is called the hypostatic union.

This teaching of St. Thomas, and of the majority of Thomists, rests, first on the words of Jesus concerning His own person, secondly on the idea of person accessible to our natural intelligence. Hence this doctrine can be expounded in a less abstract form, in formulas that elevate the soul to sure and fruitful understanding of this mystery. [778].

But a more subtle question arises: Is this hypostatic union of two natures something created? In answer, it is clear, first, that the action which unites the two natures is uncreated, because it is an act of the divine intellect and will, an act which is formally immanent in God, and only virtually transitive, an act which is common to the three divine persons. It is clear, secondly, that the humanity of Jesus has a real and created relation to the Word which possesses that humanity, and on which that humanity depends, whereas the Word has only a relation, not real but only of reason, to the humanity which it possesses, but on which it does not depend. On these two points there is no discussion.

But there is discussion when the question is posed thus: Is there a substantial intermediate mode which unites the human nature to the Word? Scotus, Suarez, and Vasquez answer affirmatively, as do likewise some Thomists, the Salmanticenses, for example, and Godoy. Thomists in general answer negatively, appealing with justice to repeated statements of St. Thomas. Thus he says: [779] "In the union of the human nature to the divine, nothing mediates as cause of this union, nothing to which human nature would be united before being united to the divine person: just as between matter and form there is no medium. So likewise nothing can be conceived as medium between nature and person (suppositum)." Thus the Word terminates and sustains the human nature of Christ, which human nature thus constituted depends directly, without medium, on the Word. And creation itself, passive creation, is nothing but a real direct relation by which the creature depends on the Creator.

Further, St. Thomas holds [780] that the hypostatic union is the most deep and intimate of all created unions. The human nature, it is true, is infinitely distant from the divine, but the principle which unites them, namely, the person of the Word, cannot be more one and more unitive. The union of our soul to our body, for example, however immediate it is and intimate, is yet broken by death, whereas the Word is never separated either from the body or from the soul which He has assumed. Thus the hypostatic union is immovable, indissoluble, for all eternity.

This deep inward intimacy of the hypostatic union has as consequence the truth that there is in Christ one existence for the two natures. [781] This consequence, since it supposes real distinction between created essence and existence, is denied by Scotus and Suarez, who thereby attenuate that union which constitutes the God-man. St. Thomas thus establishes his conclusion: [782] There can be, in one and the same person, many accidental existences, that of whiteness, for example, that of an acquired science or art: but the substantial existence of the person itself must be one and one only. Since existence is the ultimate actuality, the uncreated existence of the Word would not be the ultimate actuality if it were ulteriorly determinable by a created existence. Hence we say, on the contrary, that the eternal Word communicates His own existence to His humanity, somewhat as the separated soul communicates its own existence to the body at the moment of resurrection. "It is more noble to exist in a higher thing than to exist in one's self." [783] "The eternal existence of God's Son, an existence identified with divine nature, becomes the existence of a man, when human nature is assumed by God's Son into unity with His person." [784].

Scotus and Suarez, as has been said, since they reject real distinction between essence and existence, reject likewise the doctrine of one existence in Christ. They not only attenuate the hypostatic union but even compromise it, because existence, as ultimate actuality, presupposes subsistence or personality. Hence, as Thomists say, if there were two existences in Christ, there must be likewise two persons. One thing St. Thomas [785] insists on: one person can have but one sole existence.

This doctrine shows the sublimity of the hypostatic union. Under this union, just as the soul of Christ has the transcendent gift of the beatific vision, so the very being of Christ's humanity, since it exists by the Word's uncreated existence, is on a transcendent level of being. Here we see in all its fullness the principle with which St. Thomas begins his treatise on the Incarnation: Good is self-communicative, and the higher is that good the more abundantly and intimately does it communicate itself.

Christ's personality, then, the unity of His ego, is primarily an ontological unity. He is one sole subject, intellectual and free, and has one sole substantial existence. But this most profound of all ontological unities expresses itself by a perfect union of this human mind and will with His divinity. His human mind, as we have just said, had even here on earth the beatific vision of God's essence, and hence of God's knowledge. Hence, even here below, there was in Jesus a wonderful compenetration of vision uncreated and vision created, both having the same object, though only the uncreated vision is infinitely comprehensive. Similarly there was perfect and indissoluble union of divine freedom and human freedom, the latter also being absolutely impeccable.

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P., Fifth Part: Metaphysical Synthesis Of Thomism, CH32: INTRODUCTION

REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P.


Fifth Part: Metaphysical Synthesis Of Thomism

CH32: INTRODUCTION [707]

In order to show the appropriateness of the Incarnation, St. Thomas employs this principle: good is self-diffusive, and the higher the order of good, the more abundantly and intimately does it communicate itself. The truth of this principle is seen on every level of being: in the light and heat of the sun, in the fruitfulness of vegetative life, of sense life, of intellective knowledge and love. The higher a thing stands in goodness the more creative it is, both as goal to attract and as agent to effect.

But does a thing that is good necessarily communicate itself? Yes, if it is an agent limited to one kind of activity, as is the sun to radiation. But if the agent is free, then its self-communication is also free. [708] By such free self-communication a perfect agent gives perfection, but does not itself become thereby more perfect. Now God is the supremely good thing, infinitely good. Hence it is appropriate that He communicate Himself in person to a created nature, and this is what comes to pass in the incarnation of the Word.

Does this reason prove the possibility of the Incarnation? No, because reason can simply not prove apodictically even the possibility of a mystery essentially supernatural. But, as profound reason of appropriateness, the argument just given is inexhaustibly fruitful. And on this point we find among theologians no notable controversy. Real controversy begins when we put the questions: Why did God become incarnate?

The answer of St. Thomas [709] runs thus: In the actual plan of providence, [710] if the first man had not sinned, the Word would not have be come incarnate. He became incarnate to offer God adequate satisfaction for that first sin and all its consequences. Let us listen to his argument.

A truth which absolutely surpasses all that is due to human nature, a truth which depends solely on God's will, can be known by divine revelation only. But according to revelation, contained in Scripture and tradition, the reason everywhere assigned for the Incarnation is drawn from the sin of the first man. [711] Hence it is reasonable to conclude that, if the first man had not sinned, the Word would not have become incarnate, and that, after that sin, He became incarnate in order to offer God adequate satisfaction, and thus to give us salvation.

This line of reasoning is in harmony with Scripture. [712] Among the many texts let us quote one: The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. [713] It is also the voice of tradition, formulated thus by St. Augustine: [714] Had man not sinned, the Son of man had not come.

Such is the answer of St. Thomas. Scotus, on the contrary, maintains that, even if Adam had not sinned, the Word would still have become incarnate. But, since He would not have come to atone for sin, He would not have a human nature subject to pain and death. [715] Suarez, [716] seeking a middle ground, says that the Word became incarnate equally for the redemption of man and for the manifestation of God's goodness. By the adverb "equally" he understands that these two motives are coordinated, as being two chief purposes, each equal to the other, whereas Thomists hold that the ultimate purpose of the Incarnation was indeed to manifest God's goodness, but that the proximate purpose was man's redemption.

Against the Scotist view Thomists use the following argument. Divine decrees are of two kinds: one efficacious and absolute, the other inefficacious and conditional. The latter is concerned with the thing to be realized taken in itself, abstracting from all actual circumstance. Thus, for example, God wills the salvation of all men. But, in fact, God permits final impenitence in a sinner (e. g.: Judas) as manifestation of infinite justice. Efficacious decrees on the contrary are concerned with the thing to be realized taken with all its concrete circumstances of place and time. Hence these decrees are immutable and infallible. [717] Now the present efficacious decree extends to the concrete circumstance of the passibility of our Savior's humanity. And Scotists themselves concede that the union between divine nature and human nature subject to passibility presupposes Adam's sin.

This reasoning, which Thomists hold to be irrefutable, supposes that the last end of the Incarnation is to manifest the divine goodness by way of redemption, redemption being efficaciously decreed as subordinated to this manifestation. Thus proposed, the argument concludes against both Suarez and Scotus. For us men and for our salvation, says the Council of Nicaea, He came down from heaven. Had man not sinned, the Son of man had not come, says tradition. [718] Scotus and Suarez would reword this sentence. They say: Had man not sinned, the Son of man would still have come, but not in a "passible" humanity. By such restatement the assertion of the Fathers, taken simply as it stands, would be false. To illustrate, it would be false to say that Christ is not really in heaven and in the Eucharist, though He is not in either place in a passible humanity.

Scotus brings another difficulty. A wise man, he says, wills first the end, then the means in proportion to their nearness to that end. [719] Thus he transfers the subordination in question from the order of different acts of the divine will to the order of different objects of those acts. Then he continues: Now Christ, being more perfect, is nearer the last end of the universe than is Adam. Hence God, to reveal His goodness, chose first the incarnation of the Word, before Adam was willed, and hence before his sin had been committed.

In answer to this objection, many Thomists, [720] following Cajetan, [721] distinguish the final cause [722] from the material cause. To illustrate. In the order of final causality God wills, first the soul, secondly the body for the sake of the soul. But in the order of material causality He wills first the body, as being the material cause to be perfected by the soul, and the soul is created only when the embryo is sufficiently disposed to receive the soul.

Applying this distinction to the Incarnation, God wills, under final causality, the redemptive Incarnation before He wills to permit Adam's sin, conceived as possible. But in the order of material causality, [723] He permits first the sin of Adam, as something to be turned into a higher good. Similarly, in the order of beatitude, beatitude itself is the final cause and man is the material cause, the subject, [724] which receives beatitude.

This distinction is not idle, verbal, or fictitious. It is founded on the nature of things. Causes have mutual priority, each in its own order: [725] form before matter, matter before form. If Adam had not sinned, if the human race were not there to be redeemed, the Word would not have become incarnate. That is the order of material causality. But in the order of finality, God permitted original sin in view of some higher good, which good we, after the Incarnation, know to be an incarnation universally redemptive.

On this last point some Thomists hesitate. John of St. Thomas and Billuart say they have no answer to the question: What higher good led God to permit original sin? But others [726] give a satisfactory answer. Before the Annunciation, they say, the question could not be answered. But, after the Annunciation, we see that the higher good in question is the universally redemptive Incarnation, subordinated of course to the revelation of God's infinite goodness.

That this is the thought of St. Thomas himself appears in the following words: "Nothing hinders human nature from being led after sin to a greater good than it had before. God permits evils only to draw forth from them something better." [727] Where sin abounded, says St. Paul, there grace super-abounded. And the deacon, when he blesses the Easter candle, sings: Oh happy guilt, which merited so great and so beautiful a Redeemer!

Thus God's mercy, goodness, and power find in the Incarnation their supreme manifestation. How does God manifest His omnipotence? Chiefly, says the liturgy, [728] by sparing and showing mercy. [729].

Hence, as the Carmelites of Salamanca so well say, we are not to multiply divine decrees, and to suppose, as did John of St. Thomas and Billuart, a whole set of conditional and inefficacious decrees. It suffices to say that among all possible worlds known by what we call God's simple intelligence, there were included these two possible worlds: first, a human race that remains in a state of innocence and is crowned with a non-redemptive Incarnation; secondly, a fallen human race restored by a redemptive Incarnation. Thus, while the fallen race is first [730] as material subject of the Incarnation, the Incarnation itself is first in the order of finality. [731] And thus, too, the ultimate purpose of the universe is the manifestation of God's goodness.

How, then, are we to conceive the succession, not in divine acts of will, but in the order of objects willed by God? Let us take an architect as illustration. What the architect aims at first is not the summit nor the foundation but the building as a whole with all its parts in mutual subordination. Thus God, as architect, wills the whole universe as it now stands with its ascending orders, nature first, then grace (with the permission of sin): then the hypostatic union as redemptive from sin. The Incarnation, though it presupposes a sinful human race, is not "subordinated" to our redemption. Redemptive by its material recipient, it remains in itself the transcendent cause of redemption, and we, as recipients, as bodies are to souls, remain ourselves subordinated to Christ, who is the author of salvation and the exemplar of holiness. All things belong to you, says St. Paul, [732] but you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Let us conclude with a corollary, thus expressed by St. Thomas: [733]: "God's love for Christ is greater than His love for all creatures combined. By this love He gave Christ a name that is above every name, since Christ is truly God. Nor is Christ's pre-eminent excellence in any way diminished by the death which God imposed on Him as Savior of the human race. On the contrary, by this death Jesus gained the most glorious of victories, a victory which made Him the Prince of peace, whose shoulders bear the government of the world." [734] Having humbled Himself, says St. Paul, [735] having become obedient unto death, even unto death on the cross, He was exalted and given the name that is above every name.

This transcendent excellence of the Savior, thus delineated by St. Thomas, is in fullest accord with Scripture and tradition. The glory of God's Son was not diminished, was rather pre-eminently enhanced, when for our salvation He came down from heaven and was made man.

Excerpt from Chapters 14-19 of REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O. P.

CH14: THE DIVINE PROCESSIONS


1. Generation

Following revelation, particularly as recorded in St. John's prologue, St. Thomas shows that there is in God an intellectual procession, "an intellectual emanation of the intelligible Word from the speaker of that Word." [518]. This procession is not that of effect from cause (Arianism): nor that of one subjective mode from another (Modalism). This procession is immanent in God, but is a real procession, not merely made by our mind, a procession by which the Word has the same nature as has the Father. "That which proceeds intellectually (ad intra) has the very nature of its principle, and the more perfectly it proceeds therefrom the more perfectly it is united to its principle." [519] This is true even of our own created ideas, which become more perfect by being more perfectly united to our intellect. Thus the Word, conceived from eternity by the Father, has no other nature than that of the Father. And the Word is not like our word, accidental, but substantial, because God's act of knowledge is not an accident, but self-subsisting substance.

In Contra Gentes St. Thomas devotes long pages to this argument of appropriateness. The principle is thus formulated: "The higher the nature, the more intimately is its emanation united with it." [520] He illustrates by induction. Plant and animal beget exterior beings which resemble them, whereas human intelligence conceives a word interior to it. Yet this word is but a transient accident of our spirit, where thought follows after thought. In God, the act of understanding is substantial, and if, as revelation says, that act is expressed by Word, that Word must itself be substantial. It must be, not only the idea of God, but God Himself. [521].

Under this form St. Thomas keeps an ancient formula, often appealed to by the Augustinians, in particular by St. Bonaventure. It runs thus: Good is essentially self-diffusive. [522] The greater a good is, the more abundantly and intimately does it communicate itself. [523] The sun spreads light and heat. The plant, the animal, beget others of their kind. The sage communicates wisdom, the saint causes sanctity. Hence God, the infinite summit of all that is good, communicates Himself with infinite abundance and intimacy, not merely a participation in being, life, and intelligence, as when He creates stone, plant, animal, and man, not even a mere participation of His own nature, as when He creates sanctifying grace, but His own infinite and indivisible nature. This infinite self-communication in the procession of the Word reveals the intimacy and fullness of the scriptural sentence: "My Son art Thou, this day I beget Thee." [524].

Further, [525] this procession of the only-begotten [526] Son is rightly called generation. The living thing, born of a living thing, receives a nature like that of its begetter, its generator. In the Deity, the Son receives that same divine nature, not caused, but communicated. Common speech says that our intellect conceives a word. This act of conception is the initial formation of a living thing. But this conception of ours does not become generation, because our word is, not a substance, but an accident, so that, even when a man mentally conceives his own substantial self, that conception is still but an accidental similitude of himself, whereas the divine conception, the divine Word, is substantial, is not merely a similitude of God, but is God. Divine conception, then, is rightly called generation. Intellectual conception, purified from all imperfection, is an "intellectual generation," just as corporeal conception terminates in corporeal generation.

In this argument we have the highest application of the method of analogy. The Word of God, far from being a mere representative similitude of God the Father, is substantial like the Father, is living like the Father, is a person as is the Father, but a person distinct from the Father. [527].

2. Spiration

There is in God a second procession, by the road of love, as love in us proceeds from the knowledge of good. [528] But this second procession is not a generation, [529] because love, in contrast with knowledge, does not make itself like its object, but rather goes out to its object. [530].

These two processions alone are found in God, as in us intelligence and love are the only two forms of our higher spiritual activity. [531] And in God, too, the second procession, spiration, presupposes the first, generation, since love derives from knowledge.

Further on St. Thomas [532] solves some difficulties inherent in St. Augustine's teaching on the divine processions. The three persons, he shows, have in common one and the same essential act of intellect, but it is the Father only who speaks the Word, a Word adequate and hence unique. To illustrate: Of three men faced with a difficult problem, one pronounces the adequate solution, while all three understand that solution perfectly. Similarly the three persons love by the same essential love, but only the Father and the Son breathe (by notional love) the Holy Spirit, who is personal love. [533] Thus love in God, whether essential or notional or personal, is always substantial.

CH15: THE DIVINE RELATIONS

If there are real processions in God, then there must also be real relations. As in the order of nature, temporal generation founds two relations, of son to father and father to son, so likewise does the eternal generation of the Word found the two relations of paternity and filiation. And the procession of love also found two relations, active spiration and "passive" spiration. [534].

Are these relations really distinct from the divine essence? No.Since in God there is nothing accidental, these relations, considered subjectively in their inherence (esse in) are in the order of substance and are identified with God's substance, essence and existence. It follows then that the three persons have one and the same existence. [535] The existence of an accident is inexistence. [536] Now in God, this inexistence of the relations is substantial, hence identified with the divine existence, hence one and unique.

This position, so simple for St. Thomas, was denied by Suarez, [537] who starts from different principles on being, essence, existence, and relation. Suarez holds that even in the created order essence is not really distinct from existence, that relation, subjectively considered, in its inexistence, in its esse in, is identified with its objective essence, its esse ad. Hence the divine relations, he argues, cannot be real, unless each has its own existence. Thus he is led to deny that in God there is only one existence. [538] This is an important divergence, similar to that on the Incarnation, where the proposition of St. Thomas, that in Christ there is only one existence, [539] is also denied by Suarez.

Those divine relations which are in mutual opposition are by this very opposition really distinct one from the other. [540] The Father is not the Son, for nothing begets itself. And the Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son. Yet the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Thus, by increasing precision, we reach the formula of the Council of Florence: In God everything is one, except where relations are opposite. [541].

Here enters the saint's response to an objection often heard. The objection runs thus: Things which are really identified with one and the same third thing are identified with one another. But the divine relations and the divine persons are really identified with the divine essence. [542] Hence the divine relations and the divine persons are identified with one another.

The solution runs thus: Things which are really identified with one and the same third thing are identified with one another; yes, unless their mutual opposition is greater than their sameness with this third thing. Otherwise I must say No. To illustrate. Look at the three angles of a triangle. Are they really distinct one from the other? Most certainly. Yet each of them is identified with one and the same surface.

Suarez, [543] having a different concept of relation, does not recognize the validity of this response. Instead of admitting with St. Thomas, [544] that the three divine persons by their common inexistence (esse in): have one and the same existence (unum esse): Suarez, on the contrary, admits three relative existences. Hence his difficulty in answering the objection just now cited. He solves it thus: The axiom that things identified with one third thing are identified with one another—this axiom, he says, is true in the created order only, but not universally, not when applied to God.

Thomists reply. This axiom derives without medium from the principle of contradiction or identity, and hence, analogically indeed, but truly, holds good also in God, for it is a law of being as such, a law of all reality, a law absolutely universal, outside of which lies complete absurdity.

Thus the doctrine of St. Thomas safeguards perfectly the pre-eminent simplicity of the Deity. [545] The three persons have but one existence. Hence the divine relations do not enter into composition with the divine essence, since the three persons, constituted by relations mutually opposed, are absolutely equal in perfection. [546].

A conclusion follows from the foregoing discussion. Real relations in God are four: paternity, filiation, active spiration, "passive" spiration. But the third of these four, active spiration, while it is opposed to passive spiration, is not opposed to, and hence not really distinct from, either paternity or filiation. [547].

This doctrine, perfectly self-coherent, shows the value of St. Augustine's conception, which is its foundation and guaranty.

CH16: THE DIVINE PERSONS

Person in general is a being which has intelligence and freedom. Its classic definition was given by Boethius: Person is an individual subject with an intellectual nature. [548] Hence person, generally, is a hypostasis or a suppositum, and, specifically, a substance endowed with intelligence. [549] Further, since person signifies substance in its most perfect form, it can be found in God, if it be stripped of the imperfect mode which it has in created persons. Thus made perfect, it can be used analogically of God, analogically, but still in its proper sense, in a mode that is transcendent and pre-eminent. Further, since revelation gives us two personal names, that is, the Father and the Son, the name of the third person, of the Holy Spirit, must also be a personal name. Besides, the New Testament, in many texts, represents the Holy Spirit as a person. [550].

Now, since there are three persons in God, they can be distinct one from the other only by the three relations which are mutually opposed (paternity, and filiation, and passive spiration): because, as has been said, all else in God is identical.

These real relations, since they are subsistent (not accidental): and are, on the other hand, incommunicable (being opposed): can constitute the divine persons. In these subsistent relations we find the two characteristics of person: substantiality and incommunicability.

A divine person, then, according to St. Thomas and his school, is a divine relation as subsistent. [551] Elsewhere the saint gives the following definition: [552] A divine person is nothing else than a relationally distinct reality, subsistent in the divine essence.

These definitions explain why there are in God, speaking properly, not metaphorically, three persons, three intellectual and free subjects, though these three have the same identical nature, though they understand by one and the same intellective act, though they love one another by one and the same essential act, and though they freely love creatures by one and the same free act of love.

Hence, while we say: The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, we also say: The Father is not the Son, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not the Son. In this sentence the verb "is" expresses real identity between persons and nature, and the negation "is not" expresses the real distinction of the persons from each other.

These three opposed relations, then, paternity, filiation, and passive spiration, belong to related and incommunicable personalities. Thus there cannot be in God many Fathers, but one only. Paternity makes the divine nature incommunicable as Father, though that divine nature can still be communicated to two other persons. To illustrate. When you are constructing a triangle, the first angle, as first, renders the entire surface incommunicable, though that same surface will still be communicated to the other two angles; and the first angle will communicate that surface to them without communicating itself, while none of the three is opposed to the surface which they have in common.

Here appears the profundity of Cajetan's [553] remark: the divine reality, as it is in itself, is not something purely absolute (signified by the word "nature") nor something purely relative (signified by the name "person"): but something transcending both, something which contains formally and eminently [554] that which corresponds to the concepts of absolute and relative, of absolute nature and relative person. Further, the distinction between nature and the persons is not a real distinction, but a mental distinction (virtual and minor): whereas the distinction between the persons is real, by reason of opposition. On this last point theologians generally agree with Thomists.

CH17: THE NOTIONAL ACTS

There are two notional acts: generation and active spiration. They are called notional because they enable us to know the divine persons better. Their explanation serves St. Thomas [555] as a kind of final synthesis, a recapitulation of Trinitarian doctrine.

Here we find the most difficult of the objections raised against that Augustinian conception which St. Thomas defends. The objection runs thus: [556] The relation called paternity is founded on active generation, hence cannot precede generation. But the personality of the Father must be conceived as preceding active generation, which is its operation. Hence the personality of the Father which precedes generation, cannot be constituted by the subsisting relation of paternity which follows generation.

In other words, we have here a vicious circle.

St. Thomas replies [557] as follows: "The personal characteristic of the Father must be considered under two aspects: first, as relation, and as such it presupposes the notional act of generation. But, secondly, we must consider the personal characteristic of the Father, not as relation, but as constitutive of His own person, and thus as preceding the notional act of generation, as person must be conceived as anterior to the person's action."

Hence it is clear that we have here no contradiction, no vicious circle, because divine paternity is considered on the one hand as anterior to the eternal act of generation, and on the other hand as posterior to that same act. Let us look at illustrations in the created order.

First, in human generation. At that one and indivisible instant when the human soul is created and infused into its body, the ultimate disposition of that body to receive that soul—does it precede or does it follow the creation of the soul? It both precedes and follows. In the order of material causality, it precedes. In all other orders of causality, formal, efficient, and final, it follows. For it is the soul which, in the indivisible moment of its creation, gives to the human body its very last disposition to receive that soul. Hence, from this point of view, that disposition is in the human body as a characteristic deriving from the soul.

Secondly, in human understanding. The sense image precedes the intellectual idea. Yet that same image, completely suited to express the new idea, follows that idea. At that indivisible instant when the thinker seizes an original idea, he simultaneously finds an appropriate image to express that idea in the sense order.

Again, in human emotion. The sense emotion both precedes and follows intellectual love, is both antecedent and consequent.

Again, still more strikingly, in human deliberation. At the terminus of deliberation, in one and the same indivisible instant, the last practical judgment precedes the voluntary choice, and still this voluntary choice, by accepting this practical judgment, makes that judgment to be the last.

Again, look at the marriage contract. The man's word of acceptance is not definitively valid before it is accepted by the woman. The man's consent thus precedes the woman's consent, and hence is not yet actually related to her consent, which has not yet been given. Only by her consent does his consent have actual matrimonial relation to his wife.

Lastly, look again at the triangle. In an equilateral triangle, the first angle drawn, though it is as yet alone, constitutes, nevertheless, the geometric figure, but does not as yet have actual relation to the two angles still undrawn.

In all these illustrations, there is no contradiction, no vicious circle. Neither is there contradiction when we say that the divine paternity constitutes the person of the Father anteriorly to the eternal act of generation, although that same paternity, as actual relation to the Son, presupposes the act of generation.

To proceed. These notional acts, generation and spiration, belong to the persons. [558] They are not free acts, but necessary, though the Father.

wills spontaneously to beget His Son, just as He spontaneously wills to be God. And active spiration proceeds indeed from the divine will, but from that will, not as free, but as natural and necessary, like our own desire of happiness. [559] Generative power belongs to the divine nature, as that nature is in the Father. [560] "Spiratory power also belongs to the divine nature, but as that nature is in both the Father and the Son. Thus the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one sole principle: [561] there is but one Breather (Spirator): though two are breathing (spirantes)." [562].

If these two powers, generative and spiritave, belonged to the divine nature as such, as common to the three persons, then each of the three persons would generate and breathe, just as each of them knows and loves. Hence the word of the Fourth Lateran Council: "It is not the essence or nature which generates, but the Father by that nature." [563] Hence the formula, [564] common among Thomists: "The power of generating signifies directly (in recto) the divine nature, indirectly (in obliquo) the relation of paternity."

What is the immediate principle (principium quo) of the divine processions? It is, so Thomists generally, the divine nature, as modified by the relations of paternity and active spiration. To illustrate. When Socrates begets a son, the principium quo of this act of generation is indeed human nature, but that nature as it is in Socrates. Were it otherwise, were human nature the principium quo, as common to all men, then all men without exception would generate, as they all desire happiness. Similarly, the surface of a triangle, as far as it is in the first angle drawn, is communicated to the second, and by the second to the third; but as it is in the third it is no longer communicable. If it were, then we would have a fourth person, and for the same reason a fifth, and thus on to infinity.

So much on Thomistic doctrine concerning the notional acts. It is in perfect harmony with the foregoing chapters.

CH18: EQUALITY AND UNION

Numeric unity of nature and existence makes the three persons perfectly equal. And unity of existence means unity of wisdom, love, and power. Thus, to illustrate, the three angles of an equilateral triangle are rigorously equal. Hence, in God, to generate is not more perfect than to be generated. The eternal generation does not cause the divine nature of the Son, but only communicates it. This divine nature, uncreated in the Father, is no less uncreated in the Son and in the Spirit. The Father is not a cause on which the Son and the Spirit would depend. He is rather a principle, from which, without dependence, the Son and the Spirit proceed, in the numerical identity of the infinite nature communicated to them.

Again to illustrate. In the equilateral triangle we have an order, of origin indeed, but not of causality. The first angle drawn is not cause, but principle, of the second, and the principle also, by the second, of the third. Each angle is equally perfect with the others. The illustration is deficient, since you may start your triangle with any angle you choose. But illustrations, however deficient, are useful to the human intellect, which does not act unless imagination cooperates.

This perfect equality of the divine persons expresses, in supreme fashion, the life of knowledge and love. Goodness, the higher it is, the more is it self-diffusive. The Father gives His infinite goodness to the Son and, by the Son, to the Holy Spirit. Hence of the three divine persons each comprehends the other with the same infinite truth and each knows the other with the same essential act of understanding. Of their love the same must be said. Each embraces the other with infinite tenderness, since in each the act of love is identified with infinite good fully possessed and enjoyed.

The three persons, purely spiritual, are thus open to possession one by the other, being distinguished only by their mutual relations. The Father's entire personality consists in His subsistent and incommunicable relation to the Son, the ego of the Son is His relation to the Father, the ego of the Holy Spirit in His relation to the first two persons.

Thus each of the three persons, since He is what He is by His relationship to the others, is united to the others precisely by what distinguishes Him from them. An illustration: recall again the three angles in a triangle. How fertile is that fundamental principle that in God everything is identically one and the same except where we find opposition by relation!

The three divine persons, lastly, are the exemplar of the life of charity. Each of them speaks to the others: All that is mine is thine, all that is thine is mine. [565] The union of souls in charity is but a reflection from the union of the divine persons: "That all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee, that they also be one in Us." [566] As Father and Son are one by nature, so the faithful are one by grace, which is a participation in the divine nature.

CH19: THE TRINITY NATURALLY UNKNOWABLE

The Trinity is a mystery essentially supernatural. St. Thomas [567] expounds the reason for this truth much more clearly than his predecessors did. By natural reason, he says, we know God only as Creator. Now God creates by His omnipotence, which is common to all three persons, as is the divine nature of which omnipotence is an attribute. Hence natural reason cannot know the distinction of persons in God, but only His one nature. In this argument we have one of the most explicit expressions of the distinction between the natural order and the supernatural order.

Hence it follows, as Thomists in general remark, that natural reason cannot positively demonstrate even the intrinsic possibility of the mystery. After the mystery is revealed, we can indeed show that it contains no manifest contradiction, but we cannot show, apodictically, by reason alone, that it contains no latent contradiction. Mysteries, says the Vatican Council, [568] cannot, by natural principles, be either understood or demonstrated.

Further. If reason alone could demonstrate, positively and apodictically, the objective possibility of the Trinity, it would likewise demonstrate the existence of the Trinity. Why? Because, in things which necessarily exist, we must, from real possibility, deduce existence. [569] If, for example, infinite wisdom is possible in God, then it exists in God.

In this matter, the possibility, namely, and the existence of the Trinity, theology can indeed give reasons of appropriateness, reasons which are profound and always fruitful, but which are not demonstrative. Theology can likewise show the falseness, or at least the inconclusiveness, [570] of objections made against the mystery. Here is a formula held by theologians generally: The possibility, and a fortiori the existence, of supernatural mysteries cannot be proved, and cannot be disproved, but can be shown to be appropriate, and can be defended against impugners. [571].

The analogies introduced to clarify the mystery rise in value when they are pointed out by revelation itself. Thus, when St. John [572] says that the only-begotten Son proceeds as God's mental Word, we are led to think that the second procession is one of love.