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On first consideration, it is surprising that St. Thomas, who is
an intellectualist, should say: Since the Incarnation is a most free
and absolutely gratuitous gift of God, its motive can be known only by
revelation; whereas Scotus, who is a voluntarist inclined to
liberalism, wishes to establish this motive of the Incarnation by
arguments or quasi a priori reasonings, as the extreme intellectualists
do, such as Leibnitz and Malebranche, who say that the Incarnation
is morally necessary so that the world may be the best of all possible
worlds.
The reason for this difference of opinion between St. Thomas and
Scotus seems to consist in this, that St. Thomas, because of his
moderate intellectualism, distinguished exactly between the order of
nature and the order of grace, by establishing the proper object of the
created intellect, whether human or angelic.[359] Hence St.
Thomas fully acknowledges God's perfect liberty in elevating the
human nature (or the angelic) to the order of grace, and a fortiori
to the hypostatic union. Thus his moderate intellectualism most
correctly acknowledges the rights of divine liberty.
On the contrary, Scotus, in virtue of his voluntarism does not
succeed in distinguishing so exactly between the orders of nature and of
grace; he says that there is in our nature an innate appetite and not
merely one that is elicited for the beatific vision, and he adds that,
if God had so willed, the beatific vision would be natural for us.
Hence he is inclined to regard the supernatural order as the complement
of the natural order, and the hypostatic order as the complement and
quasi-normal consummation of the supernatural order. Thus he does not
acknowledge sufficiently the rights of divine liberty as regards this
twofold elevation; and he speaks finally, almost like the absolute
intellectualists of the Leibnitz type, who think that the Incarnation
is morally necessary for the world to be the best of all possible
worlds. Thus extremes meet.
Absolute intellectualism reduces to an ideal right the accomplished
fact. Absolute libertism reduces the right itself to an accomplished
fact.
These two systems are in the inverse order, but practically they
meet, because both admit that the accomplished fact is the same as the
ideal right, and success is identical with morality; yet the followers
of the former system insist on the right, whereas the followers of the
latter system insist on the accomplished fact. But moderate
intellectualism lies between these two extremes, because it safeguards
both the validity of the first principles of reason and true liberty,
which latter is denied by absolute intellectualism.
Thus in Thomism the Incarnation is seen to be the supreme fact of the
entire universe, but it is a contingent fact in which God's most free
and gratuitous love for us is made manifest by way of mercy. "For
God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten
Son."[360]
Thus this thesis of St. Thomas, if we compare it with his other
theses on moderate intellectualism and liberty, has a deep
significance, for it means that, in the supernatural order, inasmuch
as this order is gratuitous, divine liberty reigns supreme and its
predilection is most free, the motive of which can be known only by
revelation. But the discarding of this principle results in the
incomplete understanding of several fundamental utterances in the
supernatural order, suck as the following words of St. Paul: "But
the foolish things of the world hath God chosen that He may confound
the wise;... and things that are not, that He might bring to
nought things that are."[361]
But these questions are most profound, and their solution has caused
great intellects to take opposite views.
Spiritual corollaries. These corollaries are developed in another
book,[362] in which the doctrine of St. Thomas on the motive of
the Incarnation is explained not so much scholastically as
spiritually. These corollaries are as follows:
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1) It follows from this doctrine that it is not something accidental
that Christ is the Savior, both priest and victim. This is the
dominant trait of Jesus, as the name indicates. Jesus is not
especially King of kings and sublime Doctor who happened to become the
Savior of humanity and victim on account of the fall of the human
race. No, but in virtue of the present decree He came principally
and primarily as the Savior of men. His entire life was directed to
this final end, namely, the sacrifice on the cross.
2) Christ thus appears nobler, and the unity of His life is better
made manifest, since it is the unity of the Savior's life, who is
merciful and also victorious over sin, the devil, and
death.[363]
3) Wherefore Christ calls the hour of the Passion "My hour" as
if it were pre-eminently this.
4) Therefore in the present economy of salvation, it is not
something accidental in the sanctification of souls, that they must
carry their cross daily in union with our Savior, as He Himself
says.[364]
5) Hence for sanctity, even great sanctity, learning is not
necessary, nor the performance of many external works; it suffices for
a person to be conformed to the image of Christ crucified, as in the
case of St. Benedict Joseph Labre of the seventeenth century, who
showed himself a living image of Christ in his poverty and love of the
cross.[365]
6) Finally it follows, as St. Thomas explains in his treatise on
the effects of baptism,[366] that sanctifying grace in the
redeemed is strictly the grace of Christ, for it is not only a
participation of the divine nature as in Adam and the angels before the
Fall, but it makes us conformable to Christ the Redeemer, and by it
we are made living members of His mystical body. Wherefore this
grace, inasmuch as it is the grace of Christ, disposes us to live in
Christ the Redeemer by a love of the cross, for it disposes us to
make reparation for our own sins and the sins of others, inasmuch as
the living members of Christ must help one another in the attainment of
salvation.
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Therefore, it is only after a period of painful probation that any
Christian ideal and any Christian society produces true fruits of
salvation, for our Lord says: "Unless the grain of wheat falling
into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit."[367]
Thus Christians are made conformable to Christ, who said of Himself
to the disciples on the way to Emmaus: "Ought not Christ to have
suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?"[368]
Hence St. Paul says: "We are heirs indeed of God and joint heirs
with Christ; yet so, if we suffer with Him that we may be also
glorified with Him."[369]
These spiritual corollaries are deduced from this teaching.
A certain special opinion. It has been held by some in recent
times[370] that so far the question is always presented unfavorably
since it always appears in a hypothetical form, namely, "Whether,
if man had not sinned, God would have become incarnate." "For,"
as they say, "if man had not sinned (or in this supposition), there
would be another order absolutely different from the present order, and
what would have happened in such an order God alone can know." The
proper way of positing the question, according to these theologians,
must be by presenting it in the form of a positive and universal
proposition, that is, "What is the adequate universal reason for the
Incarnation in the present order?" Father Roschini[371]
replies to this question as follows: "The primary reason of the
Incarnation is God's free election from all eternity of the present
order with all that is included in it; inasmuch as only the present
order exactly corresponds to the measure and mode likewise freely
prearranged by God, by which He willed to bestow His goodness ad
extra and hence procure extrinsic glory."
An answer to Father Roschini's view appeared in the
Angelicum;[372] its gist is as follows: The question posited by
the Scholastics concerns the present order, and a new way of
presenting the question is outside the scope of the present problem,
and brings us only to the common truth that is admitted by all schools
of thought. It is most certain to all theologians that the
Incarnation depends on God's free choice of the present order, and
what He has ordained for the manifestation of His goodness. This is
God's supreme reason, but, now the question is, what is His
proximate reason?
Evidently the hypothetical question put by the great Scholastics
concerns the present order; namely, in virtue of the present decree,
if we make abstraction of the sin of the first man, would the Word
have become incarnate? This abstraction is not a lie, nor does it
change the order of the thing considered. It is the same as asking:
Would the soul of this particular man have been created if his body in
his mother's womb was not sufficiently developed to be informed by it?
Or we might ask: Will this temple remain intact if this particular
column is removed? The truth of a conditional proposition, as logic
teaches, depends solely on the connection between the condition and the
conditioned.
Hence in replying to the objection, we say: If man had not sinned,
the present order of things would be changed, I distinguish: if it
meant there would be a change in virtue of another decree, this I
concede; in virtue of the present decree, this I deny.
As stated in the above-mentioned reply to Father Roschini: "The
reasoning of the Scholastics is not, and cannot be, other than this,
otherwise how are we to explain the fact that those doctors are so eager
in their futile search, concerning which nothing for certain can ever
be known?... Without saying, then, what to attribute to those
ponderous and so circumspect theologians, with St. Thomas as their
leader, a general view of the case would justify us in considering them
at least as scholars."
St. Thomas would have improperly stated the question, or would not
have corrected the question improperly stated, a question that is even
useless, and of course quite irrelevant.
But it is true to say, with the holy Doctor, that in speaking of
another order of things, "We do not know what (God) would have
ordained, if He had not had previous knowledge of sin."[373]
St. Thomas says the same in the present article, for he writes:
"And yet the power of God is not limited to this; even had sin not
existed, God could have become incarnate, namely, in another order
of things."
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