De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

Once the truth concerning faith has been established — namely, that it is the beginning of Christian piety, sufficient to enroll us in Christianity — it follows that we now descend to the causes of justification to be elucidated. Let us therefore lay down as a first proposition, as it were a foundation, that in this work of divine mercy, by which the sons of Adam are reconciled to God, as in the effects of nature, every kind of cause is to be considered.¹ Not only, I say, the four primary kinds, but also those akin to them. For there is the final cause, both the proximate and the supreme; then the efficient and instrumental; then the material and dispositive; besides these, the exemplar and formal. The proximate end of our justification is our own glorification.² For those whom he called (says Paul) he also glorified: that is, he justified them for this, that he might glorify them. But the supreme end is God himself, since (as we said in book 1, ch. 3) he created both man and angel for this end, that by imparting to them his divine happiness he might in a certain manner extend and propagate himself. This too we explained in ch. 3 by repeating it again. Namely, that God made man and fashioned the world first not for the sake of creatures, but for himself: evidently that his glory might be more manifest and his name most celebrated. Whence the Apostle, making mention of the last day, on which Christ will complete the final act of the work of redemption, says: Then comes the end, when he shall have delivered the kingdom to God and the Father.³ And again: When all things shall be subjected to the Son, then the Son himself (namely, insofar as he is man and the head of the saints) shall be subject to him (surely with all the blessed) who subjected all things to him: that God may be all in all. This, therefore, is the supreme end of the redemption of the world and of the glorification not only of men but also of angels. But as he is himself the supreme end, he is also the first efficient cause: whence all authority depends.⁴ For he is, as John testifies, the Alpha and the Omega. Whence: The Lord God is my helper, therefore I am not confounded. He is near who justifies me: who shall contradict me? Behold, the Lord God is my helper, who is he that shall condemn me? In nearly these words Paul says: God who justifies the impious, who is he that shall condemn? For he is the one against whom alone sin is committed, as David confesses;⁵ and therefore he is the same who, being turned, gives us life. To this surely the Jews alluded, saying: Who is this who even forgives sins?⁶ As if they had said that he was usurping for himself what belongs to God. For they had read in the psalm: The Lord will give grace and glory.⁷ For these are a certain participation of the divine nature: and therefore they exceed the capacity of a creature.⁸ But after God, Christ also, insofar as he is man, is in his own manner and order an efficient cause.⁹ First, because he merited salvation for us: by which merit, as mediator of God and men, he made him propitious to us. According to that of John: We have an advocate with the Father, our Christ, and he is the propitiation for our sins: not for our sins only, but for the whole world.¹⁰ And Paul: Being justified freely by his grace,¹¹ which is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth as a propitiation in his blood. Nor without mystery did he repeat, freely, by his grace. For God could have freely forgiven us our sins without any price of redemption, where there would be no reason of justice: but being at once most just and most benign, he did it freely in such a way that nevertheless he accomplished it through the justice of the mediator Christ.¹² Surely, he whom he gave to us freely, and whose members he again freely makes us. Nor is he a cause only by way of merit, but in a certain manner an efficient cause, as it were a living instrument and organ of the divinity: as St. Thomas has most learnedly noted, 1.2 q.112 art.1. This I interpret thus: that it was fitting for Christ our Lord, as redeemer, not only to merit grace, virtues and glory for us, but for the same reason so to receive all power in heaven and on earth, that he might have it in his power to dispense and distribute all things pertaining to our salvation, as universal judge. Whence the Apostle: To each one of us grace is given according to the measure of Christ's donation.¹³ For which it is written: Ascending on high he led captivity captive, he gave gifts to men. Thus he not only bestows grace and the other gifts upon us, but even justifies men, insofar as he is man. Not indeed by his own virtue, but as an organ and living instrument of God. And this is what the Apostle says: One God, one mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus.¹⁴ But if certain morose and importunate philosophers come forward against me, objecting that sanctifying grace is created by God, and that human nature cannot attain to that production, because, as St. Thomas himself says, 1 p. q.45 art.5, a creature cannot be even an instrument of creation — let them think that the answer is this: that just as a natural agent does not attain to the creation of the soul, but to its infusion, so that the whole composite is man, so neither is Christ the cause of grace, but of its infusion, so that man is pleasing [to God]. For it belongs to him to weigh in his balance and to estimate how much grace is due to each one according to the disposition by which he prepared himself by the help of God. As it belongs to him to pronounce sentence in the last judgment, and to decree punishments for the damned and rewards for the just, and to place each one in his order.¹⁵ There are besides also priests, the ministers of the Church, as causes of grace, acting in the place of Christ.¹⁶ For as this power was derived from God into Christ, so also from him into priests: as Christ our redeemer himself openly affirms. For he says: All power is given to me in heaven and on earth:¹⁷ as the living Father sent me, so I also send you. Receive the Holy Spirit.¹⁸ Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. Yet they do not have a power of this kind so ample and so free as was in Christ. For he depended on no sacraments, since he conferred grace without them on the Magdalene, on the paralytic, and on very many others. For this was the grace of the head.¹⁹ But he prescribed a manner for the ministers, that they justify only through the sacraments. Wherefore these also are instruments of grace. Not as ministers, but as inanimate organs, by which the passion is applied to us. For Paul says: According to his mercy he saved us through the laver of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit:²⁰ and that preposition is the mark of an instrument. And to the Eph.: Cleansing her by the laver of water in the word of life:²¹ where both the matter and the form of the sacrament are expressed. And on John, Augustine: Whence has water such power, that it touches the body and washes the heart? And in this they differ from the sacraments of the old law: which Paul therefore calls weak and needy elements,²² because no power of justifying was in them. For circumcision was not an instrument, but a sign of faith: by the virtue of which faith grace was conferred. For thus Paul speaks of Abraham: He received the sign of circumcision, the seal of faith.²³ But our sacraments, because they are now signs of a passion already shown forth, as it were those which flowed from the side of Christ sleeping (as is in the gloss on Rom. 5), are not merely indications but are efficacious of grace. For since Christ by his death wrought our spiritual life, in the likeness of animal life he dispensed to us the power of the same passion through the sacraments.²⁴ For baptism is a certain spiritual regeneration: for so, as we were just saying, Paul calls it the laver of regeneration. Confirmation is a certain increase and strength of grace: like the adolescence of life. According to that of Luke: where the disciples, already baptized, were admonished to sit in the city until they were clothed with power from on high.²⁵ But the most holy sacrament of the body and blood is a certain continual and daily nourishment. For unless, he says, you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you.²⁶ These three sacraments indeed, unless a man once reborn should at some time relapse, were sufficient as regards each one's own person. But on account of sin, which is a certain weakening, the sacrament of penance was added, by which the precious and saving blood of Christ is applied by way of medicine: according to the prayer of the Psalmist: Heal my soul, because I have sinned against thee.²⁷ And finally extreme unction, by which the remnants, if there are any, of sins are entirely wiped away: according to that of James: And if he is in sins, it shall be forgiven him.²⁸ But the sacrament of order was instituted for the common good. Namely, that grace might be supplied to the ministers of the Church for generating spiritual offspring. Just as the sacrament of matrimony, that animal life might be propagated worthily to the praise of God. But these sacraments confer grace in the manner already stated above concerning Christ.²⁹ As being those which do not attain to the creation of grace, but are instruments by which man is made pleasing to God. An example of this is at hand in the generative power of human seed, which is not the cause of the soul to be generated, but of the man. Nor do I recognize any other power in them³⁰ than that for this reason man, because he has been baptized or sacramentally absolved, is reconciled to God. For what need is there to say that a power of this kind is a quality distinct in reality from the water and the words? Concerning this power of the sacraments there remains for us a certain conflict with Luther to be undertaken a little later. In the third place is the material cause.³¹ Not, I say, the soul or its powers, which are imbued with grace and the virtues: for those are rather subjects than matter. But we call the material cause the dispositions and preparations for grace: which are acts of faith, hope and charity, or of penance. But concerning causes of this kind it is fitting to speak here more explicitly:³² because the same things are not prerequired in every kind of justification, but each must be discussed in order under its headings. But the exemplar cause of our justification is the justification of Christ himself, insofar as he is man. For he was the first exemplar: surely he who received the grace of God not by way of merit, but by the power of union, so that he should be the natural Son of God: after whose likeness we receive grace and glory, more or less, by which we are adopted as sons, heirs indeed of God, as Paul says, but co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with him, that we may be glorified together.³³ And so we must also suffer according to his exemplar, if we wish to be glorified according to his glory. Whence he adds: God predestined us to be made conformable to the image of his Son. For an image signifies an exemplar cause. And therefore in baptism we die and are buried together in the likeness of his death and burial, and we shall rise together in the likeness of his resurrection. For if, says Paul, we have been made plantings together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in that of his resurrection. And: He will reform, he says, the body of our lowliness, configured to the body of his brightness.³⁴ All these things carry before them the account of an exemplar cause. And indeed his grace is the exemplar of ours, and his glory likewise of our glory.³⁵ But the holy Synod, can. 7, where it recounted these causes, joins the glory of Christ to the final cause along with the glory of God: either because the exemplar is in a certain manner final, or perhaps on account of the glory of the body and the name which is above every name, which came to him by way of reward, by the merit of redemption. Finally, the last place belongs to the formal cause: namely, grace and the virtues with which, being infused, we are justified.³⁶ But neither can we speak exactly here concerning the formal causes, until we expound the individual modes of justification in the following chapters. For concerning the formal cause there is both a very great disagreement with the Lutherans and some discord among us. This order and series of causes is taken from the analogy of both natural and artificial things. For an agent, having proposed the end, disposes matter through instruments, so that it may introduce the form after the likeness and exemplar of what was proposed.