Part I Chapter I §2: The Congruity and Necessity of the Redemption

§2: Congruity and Necessity of the Redemption

SECTION 2 CONGRUITY AND NECESSITY OF THE REDEMPTION I. Congruity of the Redemption. — Inasmuch as an end can be best attained by congruous means, i. e., means specially adapted to that particular end, the ” congruous ” may be said to be ” morally necessary.” But it is never necessary in the strict metaphysical sense of the term. Failure to employ a merely congruous means does not necessarily frustrate the end to be attained; nor does it argue a moral fault. A wise man knows how to attain his ends by various means, none of which may be positively “incongruous.” It is in this light that we must regard certain profound arguments by which Fathers and theologians have tried to show the congruity of the Incarnation for the purpose of Redemption. Here are the more notable ones. a) God in His exterior operation aims solely at the manifestation of His attributes for the purpose of His own glorification. What more effective means could He have chosen for this end than the Incarnation? In the Incarnation the seemingly impossible was effected. The Creator was inseparably united with the creature, the Infinite with the finite, omnipotence with

mercy; Heaven and earth were locked together, as it were, by the bond of the Hypostatic Union. Man is a microcosm reflecting the whole created universe. No doubt this is what Tertullian had in mind when he wrote : ” The Son of God was born ; I am not ashamed, because men must needs be ashamed [of it]. And the Son of God died ; it is by all means to be believed, because it is absurd. And after having been buried, He rose again ; the fact is certain, because it is impossible.” 1 (a) God’s justice and mercy are glorified in the Incarnation, because, despite their diametric contrariety, they both meet in it, in such manner that either attribute works itself out to the full extent of its infinity without disturbing the other.2 When, moved by infinite mercy, the Son of God satisfied infinite justice by expiating the sins of mankind on the Cross, ” justice and peace kissed ” in very truth.8 (p) God’s love, too, triumphantly manifested itself in the Incarnation of the Logos. ” God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son.” 4 The mystery of the Incarnation gives the lie to Aristotle, who held that, owing to the impassable gulf separating man from God, anything like “friendship ” is impossible between them. ” Both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.* 5 (y) Divine wisdom also reached its climax in this sublime mystery. * If any one will diligently consider the mystery of the Incarnation,” says St. Thomas, “he l” Nat us est Dei Filius: non pudet, quia pudendum est; est mortuus Dei Filius: prorsus credibile, quia ineptum est; et sepultus resurrexit; cert urn est, quia impossibile.” De Came Christi, c. 5. 2 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attn* butes, pp. 466 sqq., St. Louis 1911. 3Ps. LXXXIV, xi. 4 John III, 16. 5 Heb. II, ix. will find [therein] a profundity of wisdom exceeding all human understanding… . Hence it is that he who piously meditates on this mystery, will constantly discover [therein] new and more wonderful aspects.” 6 b) Why did the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity become incarnate, rather than the First or the Third? There is a profound reason for this. We have pointed out in Christology7 that nothing in the personal traits of the Father or of the Holy Ghost would forbid either of these Divine Persons to assume human flesh. But there is that in the personal character of the Son which makes it more appropriate for Him to become incarnate than either the Father or the Holy Ghost. It was through the Logos that the universe was created;8 and what is more fitting than that it should also be repaired by His agency?9 Moreover, as the Logos alone is “the [perfect] image of God,” 10 it was highly appropriate that He should restore to its pristine purity God’s likeness in men, which had been destroyed by sin.11 ” The Divine Logos Himself came into this world,” says St. Athanasius, * in order that, being the image of the Father, He might restore man, who was created to His image and likeness.* 12 It also befit6 ” Si quis autem diligenter incarnationis mysterium consider et, inveniet iantam sapientiae profunditatern, quod omnem humanam cognitionem excedat… . Unde fit, ut pie consideranti semper magis ac magis adtnirabiles rationes huiusmodi tnysterii manifestentur,” Contr. Cent., IV, 54. 7 Pohle-Preuss, Christology, pp. 135 sq. 8 Cfr. John I, 3. 0 Pope St Leo the Great says: . . ut, quoniam ipse est, per quern omnia facta sunt et sine quo factum est nihil, … cuius erat conditor, etiam esset reformator.” (Sernu, 64, Migne, P. L., LIX, 358.) ,10 Cfr. 2 Cor. IV, 4. 11 Cfr. Gen. I, 26. 12 Or. de Incar n, Verbi, 13. ted the hypostatic character of the Son of God that, as the true son of the Virgin Mary, He should become the ” Son of man,” in order to reconstitute all men ” sons of God” as by a new birth.18 The second of these momenta is well brought out by St. Augustine when he says : ” That men might be born of God, God was first born of them. For … He through whom we were to be created, was born of God, and He by whom we were to be re-created, was born of a woman.” 14 St. John of Damascus emphasizes the first-mentioned point when he observes : ” The Son of God also became the son of man ; He took flesh from the Blessed Virgin, but did not cease to be the Son of God.” 16 c) It strikes us as an admirable manifestation of divine wisdom that the Son of God assumed human nature rather than that of the angels. Heb. II, 16: “Nusquatn enim angelos apprehendit, sed semen Abrahae apprehendit 16 — For nowhere doth he take hold of the angels: but of the seed of Abraham he taketh hold.” By assuming flesh, the Son of God wished to reconstruct human nature upon its own foundations and to propose to man for his imitation a pattern exemplar in the “Following of Christ,” — neither of which objects could have been attained had the Divine Logos assumed the nature of an angel. 13 Cfr. John I, 12; Gal. IV, 4 sq. 14 ” Ut homines nascerentur ex Deo, primo ex ipsis natus est Deus. Christus enim … natus ex Deo, per quern efficeremur, et natus ex femina, per quern reficeremur.* Tract, in Ioa., 2, n. 15. 15 * Filius Dei etiam filius hominis fit, qui ex s. virgine incarnatus est, nec tamen a filiali proprietate discessit.” De Trinitate, 1.— Cfr. St. Thomas, S. TheoL, 3a, qu. 3, art 8. is iiriKappavcTat, One of the most telling reasons why it was more appropriate for the Son of God to assume the nature of man than that of the angels17 is that none but a God’ man could endow the created universe with the highest degree of perfection of which it was capable. By the hypostatic incorporation into the Godhead of a nature composed of a material body and a spiritual soul, the physical universe was linked with the realm of pure spirits. * In no other way,* says Lessius, ” could the whole universe have been so appropriately perfected … for by the assumption of man the whole universe was after a fashion assumed into and united with the Godhead.,, 18 Thus Christ is in very deed both the natural and the supernatural keystone of the cosmos, the beginning and the end of all things, the pivot of the universe. Cfr. 1 Cor. Ill, 22: ” Omnia enim vestra sunt … vos autem Christi, Christus autem Dei — For all things are yours, … and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” d) It is a further proof of divine wisdom that the Son of God chose to come into this world as the child of a virgin rather than as a full-grown man. A sweet infant is more apt to win our affection than a mature man. The virgin birth represented the realization of the last of the four possible modes in which a human being can come into existence. Three of these had already been realized in Adam, Eve, and their descendants. Adam was created immediately by God (sine 17 On the possibility of the 18 De Perfect. Moribusque Divinis, Logos’ assuming the nature of an XII, 4. angel, see Suarez, De Incarn., disp. 14, sect. 2.

mare et femina) ; Eve sprang from the male without female co-operation (ex mare sine femina) ; their descendants are propagated by sexual generation (ex mare et femina) ; Jesus Christ alone originated from a woman without male co-operation (ex femina sine mare). This fact guarantees the reality and integrity of our Lord’s human nature, as has been shown in Christology.19 By His incorporation into the race of the ” first Adam,” our Blessed Redeemer became the ” second Adam ” 20 in a far higher sense than if He had appeared on earth in a celestial body. There is a similar antithesis between Eve and the Blessed Virgin Mary. In Christ the male was elevated, ennobled, and consecrated ; in Mary, the female. ” He did not despise the male,” says St. Augustine, ” for he assumed the nature of a man, nor the female, for he was born of a woman.” 21 2. Necessity of the Redemption. — Necessity is twofold: absolute or hypothetical. The latter may be subdivided into a number of special varieties. Hence in treating of the necessity of the Redemption we shall have to distinguish between several hypotheses. a) Wyclif asserted that the Redemption was an absolute necessity. This proposition is untenable.22 19 Pohle-Preuss, Christology, pp. 41 sqq. 20 Cfr. Rom. V, 14 sqq.; 1 Cor. XV, 45. 21 ” Nec mares fastidivit, quia mar em suscepit; nec feminam, quia ae femina factus est.’* Ep., 3. On the propriety of Christ’s becoming incarnate at the particular time when He was conceived by the Blessed Virgin Mary, cfr. Saint Thomas, S. TheoL, 3a, qu. 1, art. 56. — On the whole subject of this subdivision cfr. De Lugo, De Myst. Incarn., disp. 1, sect. 2; Suarez, De Jncarn., disp. 3, sect. 3; Chr. Pesch, Praelect. Dogmat., Vol. IV, 3rd ed„ pp. 209 sqq. 22 Cfr. Denzinger-Bannwart, 2snchiridion, n. 607. Whatever is absolutely necessary involves the same kind of certainty as that two and two are four. To ascribe such mathematical necessity to the Incarnation would be to deny the liberty of the Redemption as well as that of the Creation, for the creation of the world was an indispensable condition of the Incarnation. Furthermore, Revelation clearly teaches that the Redemption of the human race was in the strictest and most perfect sense of the word a work of divine grace, mercy, and love. Wyclif is wrong in holding that the Incarnation satisfies a legitimate demand of human nature, for in that hypothesis reason would be able to demonstrate with mathematical certainty the possibility and’ existence of the Hypostatic Union, which we know is not the case. So far is the human mind from being able to understand this mystery, thkt it cannot even demonstrate it after it has been revealed.23 Hence the Incarnation, if it was at all necessary, could be necessary only in an hypothetic sense, that is, on some condition or other. What may this condition be? b) Raymond Lull, Malebranche, Leibniz, and other champions of absolute Optimism contend that when God determined to create the universe, He of necessity also decreed the Incarnation, because it is inconceivable that He should have wished to deprive His work of its highest perfection. In other words, the concept of “the best possible world” includes the Incarnation. This theory, which destroys the liberty of the Creator, is refuted in our dogmatic treatise on God the Author 23 Cfr. Pphle-Preuss, Christology, pp. 45 sq.

2o THE WORK OF REDEMPTION of Nature.241 Here we merely wish to point out two facts: that the Creator Himself, without regard to the future Incarnation, described His work as ” very good/’ 25 and that the Incarnation would not be preeminently a free grace if it corresponded to a strict claim of nature. The champions of moderate or relative Optimism 26 maintain that the present order, capped by the Incarnation, represents the ” best possible world,” not because the Incarnation was a metaphysical necessity, but because it was morally necessary in view of God’s superabundant goodness. These writers forget that, while the Incarnation represents the apogee of divine glorification and the highest perfection of the universe, it involves at the same time an equally great humiliation and self-abasement (exinanitio, kcvuhtls) of God’s Majesty, which is inconceivable in any other hypothesis except as a free decree of His love.27 c) The further question arises : Did God owe it to fallen man to redeem him by means of the Incarnation ? The answer is that the restoration of the state of grace which man had enjoyed in Paradise was just as truly a free gift of God’s mercy and benevolence as that state itself, nay, even more so. That God was under no obligation to redeem His creatures is evidenced by the fate of the fallen angels. Cfr. also Wisd. XII, 12: ” Quis tibi imputabit, si peri24 Cfr. Pohle-Preuss, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, PP. 45 sq. 25 Gen. I, 31. 2« E, g., Didacus Ruiz (De Volunt. Dei, disp. 9), Sylvester Maurus (De Deo, disp. 51), and Viva (De Inearn., qu. 2, art. 2). 27 Cfr. De Lugo, De Myst. Incarn,, disp. 2, sect. z-2. erint nationes, quas tu fecistif — Who shall accuse thee, if the nations perish, which thou hast made?” St. Augustine may have held harsh and exaggerated views on the subject of predestination, but he was certainly right when he said : ” The entire mass incurred penalty; and if the deserved punishment of condemnation were rendered to all, it would without doubt be righteously rendered.” 28 To say that the Incarnation, though the result of a free decree, was the only means God had of redeeming the human race,29 would be unduly to restrict the divine attributes of mercy, wisdom, and omnipotence in their essence and scope.30 God might, without injustice, have left the human race to perish in its iniquity, and there is nothing repugnant either to faith or right reason in the assumption that He might, with or without the intervention of some appointed saint or angel as representative of the 28 * Universa massa poenas dab at, et si omnibus damnationis supplicium redder etur, non iniuste procul dubio redderetur.* (De Nat. et Grat., c. 5.) 29 This opinion was held by St. Anselm (Cur Deus Homo? I, 4; II, 12) , Richard of St. Victor (De Inearn. Verbi, c. 8), and Tournely (De Deo, qu. 19, art. 1; De Incarn., qu. 4 sqq.). It is absolutely without Scriptural warrant. De Lugo says of it : ” Mihi videtur satis ad err or em accedere, eo quod, licet non omnino dare, fere tamen clare ex Scriptura colligatur oppositum, accedente praesertim expositione communi Patrum.” (Op. cit., disp. 2, sect. 1, n. 6). Lately an attempt has been made to interpret St. Anselm’s opinion more mildly (Dorholt, Die Lehre von der Genugtuung Christi, pp. 201 sqq., Paderborn 1891). For a criticism of Dorholt’s position see Stentrup in the Zeitschrift fur katholische Theologie, PP- 653 sqq., Innsbruck 1892. B. Funke, Grundlagen und Voraussetzungen der Satisfaktionstheorie des hi. Anselm, Miinster 1903, furnishes a notable contribution in support of Dorholt’s thesis. Cfr. also L. Heinrichs, Genugtuungstheorie des hi. Anselmus, Paderborn 1909; and Pohle-Preuss, God: His Knowability, Essence t and Attributes, pp. 462 sqq. 30 ” Sunt stulti qui dicunt : Non poterat aliter sapientia Dei homines liberare, nisi susciperet hominem et nasceretur de femina… . Quibus dicimus: Poterat omnino, sed si aliter faceret, similiter vestrae stultitiae displiceret.” (St. Augustine, De A gone Christi, XI, 12). For other Patristic texts consult Petavius, De Incarn., II, 13. whole race, have restored penitent sinners to His grace without demanding any equivalent whatever, or on the basis of an inadequate satisfaction. Hence, according to Suarez,81 the universal teaching of theologians that God in His omnipotence might have repaired human nature in a variety of other ways,82 is so certain that ” it cannot be denied without temerity and danger to the faith.” d) The Incarnation can be conceived as a necessary postulate of the Redemption only on the assumption that God exacted adequate (i. e., infinite) satisfaction for the sins of men. In that hypothesis manifestly none but a natural mediator, that is to say, a Godman, was able to give the satisfaction demanded. Sin involves a sort of infinite guilt and cannot be adequately atoned for except by an infinite satisfaction.88 The Fathers held that not even the human nature of Christ, as such, considered apart from the Hypostatic Union, could make adequate satisfaction for our sins ; much less, of course, was any other creature, human or angelic, equal to the task. For, in the words of St. Augustine, ” we could not be redeemed, even by the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, if He were not also God.” 84 Though this was the most difficult mode of redemption, 31 De Incarn., disp. 4, sect. 2, n. 3. 82 Cfr. St Thomas, S, TheoL, 3a, qu. 1, art. 2: * Deus per suam omnipotent em virtutem poterat humanam naturam multis aliis modis reparare.* 88 Cfr. St. Thomas, S, TheoL, 3a, qu. 2, ad 2. 84 St. Augustine, Enchir,, c 108: * Neque per ipsum liberaremur unum mediatorem Dei et hominum, hominem Iesum Christum, nisi esset et Deus,* — For additional texts from the writings of the Fathers consult Vasquez, disp. 4, c. 3; Thomassin, De Incarn,, I, 4. it was the one actually chosen by God. The Incarnation of the Logos satisfied the full rigor of His justice, but it also gave free play to His boundless love. The fact that the atonement was decreed from eternity explains such Scriptural phrases as John III, 14 : ” Exaltari oportet 85 FUium hominis — The Son of man must be lifted up” (as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert), and Luke XXIV, 26: * Nonne haec oportuit pati™ Christum — Was it not necessary for Christ to have suffered these things?87 85 v\po6ijvaL del, Praelectiones Dogtnaticae, Vol. IV, S«ld« ira$€iv. 3*