Intrinsic Perfection of the Atonement

Section 2: The Properties of Christ’s Vicarious Atonement

Article 1: Intrinsic Perfection of the Atonement

Christ’s vicarious atonement is intrinsically perfect and comprises within its scope all sins and all sinners.

The intrinsic perfection of Christ’s vicarious atonement manifests itself in three ascending stages, which are technically called adequacy, rigorousness, and superabundance.

By adequate atonement we understand a satisfaction which completely and fully repairs the offence committed, or, at least, is accepted as a full reparation by the person offended. If the satisfaction rendered is of such high intrinsic merit that the offended person is in justice compelled to accept it, it is called rigorous. If it exceeds the offence committed, it is superabundant.

Thesis I: The satisfaction which Christ made for our sins was adequate, i.e., fully sufficient.

This thesis embodies the common teaching of a majority of Catholic theologians.

Proof. The reality of Christ’s vicarious atonement is an article of faith, with which we have already dealt (supra, Sect. 1). In the present thesis we are merely concerned with its intrinsic properties. As the Church has never defined these, the Scotists were free to estimate them differently than the majority of Catholic divines.

The Scotists and the Nominalists hold that Christ’s vicarious atonement derives its adequacy not from its own intrinsic merit, but from the accidental circumstance of its “extrinsic acceptation” by God. Suarez rejects this theory as “neither probable, nor pious, nor sufficiently in accordance with the faith.”¹ This is a perfectly just criticism, since both Holy Scripture and Tradition declare that the satisfaction which Christ made for us was equivalent to the offence inherent in sin.

a) Holy Scripture distinctly declares that we were “bought” with a “price,”² and that this price was the Precious Blood of our Lord. Cfr. I Pet. I, 18 sq.: ”… you were not redeemed with corruptible things, … but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled.” How could the blood of Christ be called “precious” if its value was not equivalent to the offence for the reparation of which it was shed? St. Paul says: “You are bought with a great price.”³ This phrase likewise indicates that the satisfaction given by our Divine Redeemer was equivalent to the guilt of sin. Moreover, the Bible tells us that the Godman immolated Himself in expiation for our sins. Hence the satisfaction He gave to His Heavenly Father must be of equal value with Himself, and therefore, to say the least, adequate. Cfr. I Tim. II, 5 sq.: “There is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: who gave himself a redemption for all (ἀντίλυτρον).” The graphic term ἀντίλυτρον, which St. Paul here employs instead of plain λύτρον, shows that he conceives “the redemption for all” as a full equivalent for sin. “Quanta iniuria, tanta satisfactio.” In fact, it is only in this hypothesis that we can understand why the Apostle attaches such tremendous importance to the singleness of our Lord’s sacrifice on the Cross, in contradistinction to the multiplicity of the ineffective offerings of the Levites. Cfr. Heb. IX, 12 and 28: “By his own blood he entered once⁴ into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption… . So also Christ was offered once⁵ to exhaust the sins of many.”

b) Patristic texts in support of our thesis will be found infra, p. 71. A convincing theological argument for the adequacy of the atonement may be deduced from the concept of our Lord’s natural mediatorship (supra, Ch. I, Sect. 1).

(α) By virtue of the Hypostatic Union all human actions of the Godman are infinitely valuable in the eyes of God, independently of their extrinsic acceptation, because a theandric merit derives its full value solely from the infinite dignity of the Logos.⁶ But an atonement, the expiatory power of which is, morally considered, infinite, cannot be conceived otherwise than as adequate.

(β) The Scotists and the Nominalists are consequently in error when they teach that the meritorious and expiatory value of Christ’s vicarious atonement, though extrinsically infinite because of its benevolent acceptation on the part of God,⁷ is not so intrinsically, i.e., on account of its own immanent worth.⁸ Scotus’ own teaching on this point is uncertain.⁹ But the great majority of Scotist theologians, including such later authors as Frassen, De Rada, and Henno, undoubtedly underestimated the meritoriousness of Christ’s theandric operation by asserting that it became infinitely valuable only through the condescension of God in deigning to accept it as such. The Scotists admit that Christ’s human actions, because performed by the exalted person of the Godman, were invested with a certain equitable claim to be received as of infinite value by a loving God; but they deny that these actions can by their own power attain to infinitude. This they declare to be impossible because these actions are essentially the product of a finite (human) nature. As the intrinsic or bullion value of a coin need not equal the extrinsic valuation stamped upon its face, they say, so the human actions of our Saviour were in themselves of a merely finite value, but capable of being raised to a higher valuation by God.

Mastrius and a few others restrict the Scotistic theory to the thesis (which no one denies) that, to render His atonement valid in actu secundo, our Divine Saviour had first to assure Himself of its acceptation on the part of God, not indeed per modum principii dignificantis, but per modum conditionis praeviae. This is beside the question. What the Scotists assert is that the satisfaction which Christ made for our sins was intrinsically insufficient or inadequate, and that what it lacked in intrinsic merit was supplied by God’s extrinsic acceptation. Their basic error consists in this that they fail to distinguish between the physical entity and the ethical value of Christ’s meritorious actions, confounding the finite character of the former with the infinity of the latter. Justly, therefore, do the Thomists¹⁰ insist that the Hypostatic Union endows a physically finite act with a morally infinite value, because it is the infinite Divine Person that performs that act as principium quod, employing the finite nature merely as principium quo. Were we to trace the Scotist theory to its sources, we should probably find that its originators had no clear conception of the character of theandric operation and misconceived the true nature and scope of the Hypostatic Union.¹¹

Thesis II: The satisfaction which Christ made for our sins was not only adequate, but rigorous, according to the standard of strict justice.

Proof. In the preceding thesis we saw that Christ’s vicarious atonement was quantitatively adequate, i.e., equivalent to all the sins of mankind. We have now to show that it was adequate also in quality, i.e., measured by the standard of strict justice (secundum rigorem iustitiae).

In other words, it was not necessary for God’s mercy to supply anything over and above the satisfaction rendered by Christ, since this satisfaction fully covered all just claims.

This thesis does not embody an article of faith. It is not even a theological conclusion. But it voices the more general teaching of Catholic divines, especially of the Thomist school, and of Suarez, Tanner, Gregory of Valentia, Franzelin, and others. In a limited way we may also number among its defenders those Scotist theologians who, like Mastrius, admit that the atonement satisfied divine justice, though not to its full extent.

a) It pertains to the dogmatic treatise De Deo Uno¹² to show that the only kind of relation possible between God and His creatures is a free but real relation of rights and duties based upon the veracity and fidelity of the Creator. Christ’s vicarious atonement embodies all the conditions necessary and sufficient to establish a relation of strict and rigorous justice. These conditions are five in number, to wit: (α) equivalence of debit and credit; (β) difference of person between debtor and creditor; (γ) payment of the debt out of the debtor’s own means; (δ) absence of all other indebtedness; (ε) payment of the debt in person or through a bondsman. These conditions are selected somewhat arbitrarily, and it is not easy to prove that Christ fulfilled them all. For this reason some theologians prefer not to speak of a rigor iustitiae. However, the sententia communior rests on fairly solid ground.

(α) That Christ fulfilled the first of the conditions enumerated was shown in Thesis I.

(β) Condition number two demands that debtor and creditor must be separate and distinct persons. “Satisfactio debet esse ad alterum.” No one can be his own debtor. How could Christ fulfil this condition? Since He is Himself God, is it not physically the same person that merits and rewards? This difficulty cannot be solved by the retort that Christ renders satisfaction to God the Father. Humanity’s creditor was not the Father alone, but the whole Trinity.¹³ The right solution seems to be this: In atoning for our sins, Christ acts both as man and as God, and hence makes satisfaction virtually as a double person: (1) the man Jesus makes satisfaction to God for our sins in His human nature, as if He were a different person from the Logos; (2) The Logos, as God, accepts this satisfaction. If Christ, as man, was able to practice the virtues of obedience and worship towards Himself as God, it can be no contradiction to say that, as man, He gave satisfaction to Himself, qua God, according to the strict measure of justice.

We must, however, beware of misinterpreting the expression duplex persona moralis, as Berruyer (a pupil of Hardouin) did when he asserted that the humanity of our Lord was a quasi-suppositum, to which, as to a distinct human person, must be ascribed certain actions of Christ which had no intrinsic hypostatic connexion with the Person of the Logos.¹⁴

(γ) The third of the conditions enumerated above is that the debtor must pay his liability out of his own belongings. “Satisfactio debet fieri ex bonis propriis.” Did Christ fulfil this condition? As He was a man, His power of giving satisfaction for our sins (vis merendi sive satisfaciendi) must have been a grace, i.e., a free gift of God, and consequently the atonement cannot have been a payment made by Him out of His own means. Even the supernatural merits of a justified man, being due to pure grace, cannot satisfy rigorous justice. Indeed we may broadly say that, as man possesses nothing of his own, but has received everything he has from God, whether by creation or by grace, so Christ’s human nature, which was the principium quo of His meritorious and expiatory action, was not His own but a gift of the debtor, i.e., God.

This objection may be met as follows: It was not the man Jesus, but the Godman, whose meritorious actions made satisfaction for our sins. In other words, not the human nature of Christ as such made satisfaction, but the Divine Logos through the functions of His human nature, which, by virtue of the Hypostatic Union, is so intimately united to the Logos that He possesses and governs it with absolute sovereignty as its sole principium quod. To attribute such a sovereign control over the human nature of Christ to the Father and the Holy Ghost, i.e., to the Trinity qua Godhead, would be tantamount to asserting that it was not the Logos alone who was made flesh, but the whole Blessed Trinity.¹⁵ But this is manifestly repugnant. The human nature of Christ was the personal property of the Logos, and the satisfaction He made through that nature was made ex bonis propriis.¹⁶

(δ) We come to the fourth condition: “Satisfactio debet esse ex aliis indebitis.” Satisfaction must be made by means of something which the debtor does not already owe to his creditor on some other account. It may be argued that this condition, too, remained unfulfilled in the case of our Divine Saviour, because whatever He did and suffered, He was obliged to do and suffer for reasons other than that prompting the atonement, such as gratitude and obedience to God, a feeling of dependence, piety, etc. Can an action to which one is obliged by so many titles be in strict justice regarded as meritorious?

Suarez offers two solutions of this difficulty. (1) The rigor iustitiae, he says, is to be measured purely and solely by the titulus iustitiae. Even if a debtor were obligated by gratitude towards his creditor, he would nevertheless satisfy rigorous justice as soon as he paid the last farthing of his indebtedness. Though other duties remained, justice as such would be satisfied. (2) The intrinsic merit of the satisfaction which Christ made for our sins is infinite, and as such capable of satisfying, not merely one single title of justice, but many, nay, an infinite number of such titles. Consequently justice can be rigorously satisfied even though there are other titles and duties.

(ε) The last condition is that satisfaction must be made by the debtor for himself. “Satisfactio debet fieri pro se ipso, non pro alienis.” Strictly speaking, Christ did not fulfil this condition, because He made atonement for others. It is to be noted, however, that the rigor iustitiae can be satisfied by proxy, provided the substitute is formally accepted by the creditor and the proportion between debt and reparation is strictly observed. Let it not be objected that where an offence has been committed the offended person waives his claim to strict justice by surrendering his right to personal satisfaction. He does not remit the debt, nor any part thereof, but merely commutes it into something of equal value.¹⁷

Thesis III: The satisfaction which Christ made for our sins was more than adequate and rigorous; it was superabundant.

This thesis may be characterized as “communis,” since it is held by practically all theological schools.

Proof. a) A Scriptural argument may be drawn from St. Paul’s antithetical sentences in tracing the analogy between Adam and Christ. Cfr. Rom. V, 15: “But not as the offence, so also the gift. For if by the offence of one many died; much more¹⁸ the grace of God, and the gift, by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.”¹⁹ And even more pointedly Rom. V, 20: “Where sin abounded,²⁰ grace did more abound.”²¹ The Apostle here distinctly asserts that Christ gave superabundant satisfaction for our sins. The sin was great, but the atonement and the graces flowing therefrom are still greater.²²

b) The Fathers generally held that the adequacy of the atonement can be most effectively demonstrated from its superabundant meritoriousness.

Thus St. Cyril of Jerusalem trenchantly argues: “He who died for us was of no less value. He was not a visible lamb, no mere man, nor yet an angel, but the incarnate God. The wickedness of sinners was not as great as the righteousness of Him who died for us. Our sins were not equal to the justice of Him who died for us.”²³ St. Chrysostom exemplifies this truth as follows: “Our experience has been like that of a man who was cast into prison with his wife and children and servants for a debt of ten oboli, and another man came and plumped down not only ten oboli, but ten thousand gold talents, and then led the prisoner into the royal chamber, placed him on an exalted throne, and allowed him to share in the highest honors… . For Christ paid far more than we owed, and in a larger measure, like as the infinite ocean exceeds in magnitude a tiny drop of water.”²⁴

c) If Christ’s vicarious atonement was superabundantly meritorious, that is to say, far in excess of the sins for which it was made, its intrinsic worth must have been actually infinite. This inference is demanded by all the rules of theological logic, and hence we need not wonder that Suarez lays it down as the common teaching of Catholic divines that “the actions of Christ possessed a value which was absolutely and strictly infinite in making satisfaction and acquiring merits before God.”²⁵

(α) St. Thomas demonstrates this proposition by a theological argument based on the infinite dignity of the Godman. “The dignity of Christ’s flesh,” he says, “must not be estimated solely by the nature of the flesh, but by the assuming person; it was the flesh of God, hence its dignity is infinite.”²⁶ As a matter of fact, the intrinsic moral value of an action varies in proportion to the dignity of him who performs it, and therefore the actions of a person of infinite dignity, when offered in satisfaction for an offence, must be infinitely meritorious.

To demonstrate the infinite value of Christ’s vicarious atonement, it is not necessary to have recourse to its superabundant merit; the proposition follows as a corollary from the fact of its mere adequacy. If no one but a Godman was able to give adequate satisfaction for our sins, each and every one of Christ’s theandric actions, even the most insignificant, must have been sufficient, nay more than sufficient, for the purposes of the atonement, because each and every action performed by a Godman is by its very nature infinitely meritorious.

As to the question, why the meritorious actions of our Lord had of necessity to culminate in His dolorous passion and death, St. Thomas says: “If we regard the amount paid for the redemption of the human race, any suffering undergone by Christ, even without death, would have sufficed for the redemption of the human race, on account of the infinite dignity of His person… . But if we regard the payment of the price, it must be observed that no other suffering less than Christ’s death was deemed sufficient by God the Father and by Christ Himself to redeem the human race.”²⁷

(β) That the satisfaction which Christ made for our sins was infinite, may also be inferred from certain utterances (though they are not ex-cathedra decisions) of the Holy See. Among the propositions of Bajus condemned by Pope Pius V in the year 1567 is the following: “The works of justice and temperance performed by Christ derived no additional value from the dignity of His person.”²⁸ Hence it is Catholic teaching that the actions of Christ derived a higher value from the “dignity of His Person.” How high is this value to be rated? Evidently it must have corresponded to the infinite dignity of the Godman,—which is merely another way of saying that it was infinite.

A far more important pronouncement for our present purpose is this from the Bull “Unigenitus” of Pope Clement VI, A.D. 1343: “He is known to have shed, not a little drop of blood,—though this would have sufficed for the redemption of the entire human race, because of the [Hypostatic] Union with the Logos,—but streams of it, like unto a river… . That the mercy involved in such a large effusion [of blood] be not rendered vain, empty, and superfluous, He laid up for the Church militant a copious treasure, which the good Father desires to dispense to his children, in order that it may become an infinite store-house for men, and that those who make use of it may share in the friendship of God.”²⁹ Pope Clement, in issuing his Bull, did not intend to define the dogmatic teaching of the Church with regard to this “infinite treasure.” Nor does the document contain any clear expression as to whether Christ’s merits are to be conceived as actually or potentially infinite. Hence the above-quoted words cannot be said to constitute a binding dogmatic definition. We may, however, safely assume that Clement VI intended to represent the treasure of Christ’s merits as actually infinite, for this is the obvious meaning of his words, considered both in themselves and in connection with the context.

The doctrine of the superabundant merits of Jesus Christ and His Saints forms the groundwork of the Catholic teaching on indulgences, which we shall explain more fully in a later volume of this series.³⁰

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Footnotes

1. De Incarn., disp. 4, sect. 3, n. 11. ↩

2. Pretium, τιμή. ↩

3. Pretio magno, τιμῆς, 1 Cor. VI, 20. ↩

4. Semel, ἐφάπαξ. ↩

5. Semel, ἅπαξ. ↩

6. Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, pp. 161 sqq. ↩

7. Infinitas extrinseca ob benignam Dei acceptationem. ↩

8. Infinitas intrinseca ob valorem innatum. ↩

9. Scotus, Comment. in Quatuor Libros Sent., III, dist. 19. Hauzeur and a few other Scotists attempted to reconcile their master’s teaching with the sententia communis, but in vain. ↩

10. Cfr. Billuart, De Incarn., diss. 19, art. 5. ↩

11. On the uncertain teaching of Scotus cfr. P. Minges, O.F.M., Compend. Theol. Dogmat. Specialis, Vol. I, pp. 213 sqq., Monachii 1901; Theologische Quartalschrift, Tübingen, 1907, pp. 241 sqq. On the general subject of this thesis cfr. also De Lugo, De Myst. Incarn., disp. 6, sect. 1; Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. III, § 251, Freiburg 1882. ↩

12. Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowability, Essence and Attributes, pp. 457 sqq. ↩

13. “What does it mean to be the mediator between God and men?” asks St. Augustine, and answers the question as follows: “It means to be a mediator not between the Father and men, but between God and men. What is God? He is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost… . Christ was constituted mediator between this Trinity and the infirmity and iniquity of men.” Enarr. in Ps., 29, 2, 1. ↩

14. On this dangerous error see Legrand, De Incarn., diss. 11, Paris 1860; von Schäzler, Das Dogma von der Menschwerdung Gottes, § 24, Freiburg 1870; Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. III, pp. 29 sqq., Freiburg 1882; B. Dorholt, Die Lehre von der Genugtuung Christi, pp. 435 sqq., Paderborn 1891. ↩

15. Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, Christology, pp. 132 sqq. ↩

16. Cfr. Ysambert, De Myst. Incarn., disp. 6, art. 2–3, Paris 1639. ↩

17. Cfr. on the subject of these conditions and their fulfilment by Christ: Franzelin, De Verbo Incarn., thes. 47, Rome 1881 (new edition, 1910); B. Dorholt, Die Lehre von der Genugtuung Christi, pp. 424 sqq., Paderborn 1891; Tepe, Inst. Theol., Vol. III, pp. 639 sqq., Paris 1896. ↩

18. Multo magis, πολλῷ μᾶλλον. ↩

19. In plures abundavit, εἰς τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐπερίσσευσεν. ↩

20. Abundavit, ἐπλεόνασεν. ↩

21. Superabundavit gratia, ὑπερεπερίσσευσεν ἡ χάρις. ↩

22. Cfr. Eph. I, 3–8; John X, 10. ↩

23. Catech., 13, c. 13. ↩

24. Hom. in Ep. ad Rom., 10, 2. Additional Patristic texts apud Petav., XII, 9 and Thomassin, IX, 9. Cfr. also B. Dörholt, Die Lehre von der Genugtuung Christi, pp. 376 sqq., 419 sqq.; Muth, Die Heilstat Christi, pp. 228 sqq. ↩

25. “Opera Christi Domini habuisse valorem absolute et simpliciter infinitum ad satisfaciendum et merendum apud Deum.” De Incarn., disp. 4, sect. 4, n. 3.—On the untenableness of the Scotistic theory of extrinsic acceptation v. supra, pp. 63 sqq. ↩

26. S. Theol., 3a, qu. 48, art. 2, ad 3. Cfr. Suarez, op. cit., n. 17 sqq. ↩

27. “Si ergo loquamur de redemptione humani generis quantum ad quantitatem pretii, sic quaelibet passio Christi etiam sine morte suffecisset ad redemptionem humani generis propter infinitam dignitatem personae … Si autem loquamur quantum ad deputationem pretii, sic dicendum est quod non sunt deputatae ad redemptionem humani generis a Deo Patre et Christo aliae passiones Christi absque morte.” Quodlib. 2, art. 2.—Cfr. Dorholt, op. cit., pp. 405 sqq. ↩

28. “Opera iustitiae et temperantiae, quae Christus fecit, ex dignitate personae operantis non traxerunt maiorem valorem.” Prop. 19 (Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 1019). ↩

29. “Non guttam sanguinis modicam, quae tamen propter unionem ad Verbum pro redemptione totius humani generis suffecisset, sed copiose velut quoddam profluvium noscitur effudisse … Quantum ergo exinde, ut nec supervacua, inanis et superflua tantae effusionis miseratio redderetur, thesaurum militanti Ecclesiae acquisivit, volens suis thesaurizare filiis pius Pater, ut sic sit infinitus thesaurus hominibus, quo qui usi sunt Dei amicitiae participes sunt effecti.” Denzinger-Bannwart, Enchiridion, n. 550. ↩

30. On the subject of indulgences see the volume on the Sacraments. ↩