Justification of the Impious (I-II q.113 aa.3-5): Free Will, Faith, and Turning Away from Sin

Orientation #

He begins Article 3 by referring back to “justice, as we define justice there in the previous one” (prev. lecture: q. 113 a. 1 on justification as a kind of justice). He ends at the body of Article 5 and calls a break before Article 6. The previous session covered q. 112 a. 5 and the opening articles of q. 113; the next covers aa. 6–7.

The class, in order #

1. Article 3, the body first: God moves each thing according to its mode (“moves all things according to the mode”) #

Point: he reads the respondeo before the objections because it makes the replies easier to see; the motion of free will is required for justification.

1. Justification is God moving man to justice (Romans 4:5, “he it is who justifies the impious”).
2. God moves all things according to the mode of each: example from “the old science”, heavy things moved down, light things up, on account of their diverse natures.
3. Man’s nature is to have free will.
4. Therefore in one who has the use of free will, God does not move to justice without the motion of free will: he pours in justifying grace and simul (at the same time) moves free will to accept it, “in those who are capable of this motion”. He flags that the qualifier already anticipates the exceptions in the objections: the little boy, and the one “out of his mind”.

2. Objection 1: infants and Augustine’s friend (“little boys, little ones, right, are justified”) #

Objection: infants are justified by baptism without free will, and sometimes adults too, as Augustine’s friend in Confessions IV, baptized while unconscious with fevers and “recreated”; God’s power is not bound to the sacraments, so he can justify without the motion of free will. Reply, as he draws it out:

• Infants are not capable of the motion of free will, so God moves them to justice by informing the soul alone, but not without the sacrament, because just as original sin came not by their own will but by carnal origin, so they are regenerated spiritually from Christ. He stresses Thomas’s two points: no use of free will, and the sin was not contracted by their will.
• The same reason holds for the furiosi and amentes (he glosses the privative prefix: “like amoral means you have no morals”) who never (nunquam) had the use of free will.
• One who once had it and lost it, by sickness or sleep, does not get grace from baptism unless he had the sacrament in his intention beforehand; that is how Augustine’s friend was recreated. His example: “if I intend to be baptized, and then I go mad, you can baptize me”; the man who intended baptism and then had a car accident.

3. Objection 2: Solomon received wisdom asleep (“Solomon in sleeping acquired from God”) #

Objection: in sleep there is no use of reason, hence no motion of free will; yet Solomon received the gift of wisdom in sleep (3 Kings 3; 2 Paralipomenon); so justifying grace can be given without free will. He notes Thomas is “abundant” here, giving three things:

1. Solomon did not merit wisdom in sleep; it was declared to him on account of a preceding desire (Wisdom 7, “I desired, and sense was given me”), so it is solved like the madman of objection 1. Aside: Father Abbot’s remark that the sleep of the senses in St. Teresa is not snoozing in chapel; his mother’s phrase “good sense”.
2. Or that sleep was not natural but the sleep of prophecy (Numbers 12: “through sleep or in a vision”; vision he takes as something like imagination, not exterior sense), in which one does have the use of free will. He connects the psalmist, “he gives to his beloved in sleep”, to the sleep of contemplation.
3. Not a solution but a distinction: the gift of wisdom vs. justifying grace. Grace orders man to the good, object of the will, so it needs a motion of will; wisdom perfects the understanding, which goes before the will (the will’s object is the good as known). So without a complete motion of free will the understanding can be enlightened, as things are revealed to men in sleep (Job 33: when sleep overcomes men, “then I open the ears of men”). Examples: Pharaoh’s dreams, “Joseph in the New Testament and Joseph in the Old”.

4. Objection 3: the same cause produces and preserves grace (“a certain what, changeover”) #

Objection: grace is produced and preserved by the same cause (as in SCG II God creates and in SCG III his providence preserves; Augustine, On Genesis to the Letter VIII, man must be so turned to God that he is always made just by him); grace is preserved without free will, so it can be infused without it. Reply, “of course, he always does” a distinction: infusion vs. conservation. Infusion is a transmutatio of the soul (he glosses trans = over, as in translation, “carrying over”: a changeover), so the soul must be moved according to its own mode; conservation involves no changeover, only a continuation of the divine influx. Example: learning the Pythagorean theorem is a discourse, a real changeover of the soul; but it stays in you afterwards without further discourse, “at least for a while”. Aside: as a teacher he would redo the whole proof on the board during exams rather than sit idle.

5. Sed contra and a digression on “seen and heard” in John (“Everyone who hears from the Father”) #

Sed contra: John 6:45, everyone who hears from the Father and learns comes to me. Digression on Thomas’s Commentary on John ch. 3 (“he bears witness to what he has seen and heard”): by seeing one learns from the thing itself, by hearing from the knowledge of a teacher. Christ as Son comes from the being of the Father (seen, from the thing itself); as Word he proceeds from the mind of the Father (heard, from his knowledge). The two are the same in reality, distinct in reason, as the Father’s being and understanding. He applies it: “hears from the Father and learns” is the teacher side. Aside: the other three gospels begin after the Baptist is imprisoned; John goes back before, the Baptist is still baptizing in ch. 3.

6. Article 4, the body: the first conversion to God is by faith (“the first turning, right, converting to God”) #

Point: the motion of faith is required.

1. Free will is required (a. 3), inasmuch as man’s mind is moved by God converting it to himself (Psalm 84, “another text”: God converting us makes us alive).
2. The first conversion to God is through faith (Hebrews 11:6: whoever approaches God must believe that he is).
3. Therefore the motion of faith is required. His own addition: one could also argue that the will cannot be converted without the reason being converted, since the will is moved by the reason proposing its object.

7. Objection 1: fear, charity, humility, mercy (“simul, meaning what, together”) #

Objection: man is also justified by fear (Ecclesiasticus 1, “fear of the Lord expels sin”), charity (Luke 7, Mary Magdalene loved much), humility (James 4, God resists the proud), mercy (Proverbs 15, “our verse”); so faith is no more required than these. Aside: today we speak much of mercy and say the chaplet after the rosary, but mercy is more an object of hope, whereas fear regards divine justice. Reply:

• Faith is not perfect unless informed by charity, so simul with the motion of faith there is the motion of charity. He explains simul / Greek hama from Aristotle’s Categories, where the chapter on simul follows before and after, and it is “known by negation”: if you and I were born neither before nor after each other, we were born together (the first-baby-of-the-year contest).
• Free will is moved to God so as to be subject to him, so filial fear and humility run together with it; one and the same act of free will can belong to diverse virtues, as one commands and another is commanded, being orderable to diverse ends.
• Mercy works against sin by way of satisfaction (follows justification), or by way of preparation (“the merciful shall obtain mercy”, Sermon on the Mount, so it can precede), or simul, as mercy is included in love of neighbour. “Thomas is looking before and after again.” Digression: SCG has three parts (God in himself, God as beginning, God as end; cf. Apocalypse, Alpha and Omega); this treatise likewise, grace in itself, its causes, its effects. With God one cannot divide into “causes of God”, hence the beginning/end division. From SCG II ch. 1: Thomas divides into two as well as three; his rule, “a rule of two or three or both”.

8. Objection 2: natural knowledge and the gift of wisdom (“some hope here for Aristotle”) #

Objection: faith is needed only so man may know God, but he can know God by natural knowledge and by the gift of wisdom. Reply: natural knowledge (as “our teacher Aristotle had”) does not convert man to God as object of beatitude and cause of justification; the gift of wisdom presupposes faith. Digression on what natural reason reaches:

• SCG II on the benefit of knowing God’s effects: first it makes us admire his wisdom, then his power, then his goodness; he notes these are what is appropriated to Son, Father, Holy Spirit. Aristotle in the biology gives the same reason for studying animal structure, admiring the excellence of the maker.
• Providence draws good from bad: the unconverted Jews, enemies of the Christians, became witnesses to the authenticity of the Old Testament books; likewise Aristotle, with no contact with Christianity or Judaism, is a witness to what natural reason can know of God.
• Student question: when Aristotle or Plato mention God, do they mean one God? Answer: yes, one supreme God; Aristotle even quotes Homer, “the rule of many is not good, let there be one”, and (Monsignor Dionne) quoting the poet shows the argument agrees with common understanding. Plato: God is the measure of all things, and a measure is one; in the Theaetetus Socrates opposes Protagoras’s “man is the measure”, which is what modern scientists sometimes think.
• Warren Murray: scientists slip into saying nature acts for an end, then refuse to admit it because it leads to God; some have admitted this openly.

9. Objection 3: must one think of all the articles? (“Cogitatio is really in English”) #

Objection: there are many articles of faith; thinking them all out (cogitatio, “thinking about or thinking out”) takes a long time, so faith is not required. Reply: Romans, “to the one believing in him who justifies the impious, faith is counted as justice”; the required act of faith is that man believes God to be the justifier of men through the mystery of Christ, “that central thing”, like Hebrews’ “that he is and is a rewarder”.

10. Article 5, objections: the motion against sin (“Don’t tell me you love God”) #

Aside: the confessor makes you say the act of contrition though you should have moved against sin before entering.

• Obj. 1: charity alone suffices, “all sins charity covers” (Proverbs), but sin is not charity’s object. He warns: not “cover” in the Lutheran sense, “that got him in trouble”. Reply: the same virtue pursues one opposite and refuses the other, so charity, loving God, detests the sins that separate from him; Basil, “don’t tell me you love God and don’t hate your sins”. Aside: Thomas expounding the creed pairs each article with the heresies against it.
• Obj. 2: one tending forward should not look back (the Apostle, he says Ephesians: forgetting what is behind, extending myself to the prize of the higher vocation); past sins are behind, so forget them. He remarks he does not like the “learn to forgive yourself” version, “but that’s kind of the objection”. Reply: one must not return to past sins by love, and forget them lest he be tainted, yet recall them by consideration to detest them, for thus he recedes from them; Paul himself remembered persecuting the church.
• Obj. 3: no sin is forgiven without the others (the impious hopes for “half a pardon”, the penitent who wants to keep some), so one would have to think of all his sins, which takes magnum tempus (“a long time, not a good time”), and forgotten sins could not be forgiven. Reply: before justification a man must detest each sin he remembers; from this follows a universal detestation of all sins committed, including those handed to oblivion, since he is so disposed that he would detest them if he remembered; this motion runs together with justification.

11. Sed contra and the division of the Psalms (“Thomas divides the Psalms”) #

Sed contra: Psalm 31, “I confess against myself my injustice to the Lord, and you remit the impiety of my sin.” Digression: Thomas in his Psalms commentary adopts Augustine’s division into three: Psalm 50 (forgiveness of sin, Teresa of Avila’s favourite), Psalm 100 (good deeds and advancing), Psalm 150 (rest in God) as keys to each fifty; the first fifty fall into decades, each with a meaning. Thomas got to about Psalm 54. The rosary’s 150 Hail Marys in decades was the commoners’ psalter. He uses the “Catholic numbering”, “the correct numbering”, against the one he knew as Protestant; those who renumber miss the importance of the division into three.

12. Article 5, the body: recede from sin, accede to justice (“How can I come towards you guys”) #

Point: justification, being a motion of the mind from sin to justice, requires a twofold motion of free will.

1. Justification is a motion by which the human mind (mens: not mind opposed to will, but the rational part including will) is moved by God from the state of sin to the state of justice, the changeover (transmutatio, “transubstantiation is a changeover too, but a little different”).
2. The mind must relate by free will to both extremes, as a moved body to both terms (black to white, here to there); in locomotion the body recedes from the terminus a quo and accedes to the term to which. Example: “I can’t come to you without going away from my house”, the monastery room as term to which.
3. So the justified mind by free will recedes from sin and accedes to justice; this recess and access is not locomotion but is taken according to detestation and desire, for Augustine (on John, “the mercenary flees”) says the affections are motions of the soul: joy (laetitia) a diffusion, fear (timor) a flight; we go forward in desiring, flee in fearing. Conclusion: a twofold motion of free will, desire tending to God’s justice and detestation of sin. “Thomas is condescending to make it very clear to us.” Digression on “motion” carried over: in Physics VIII Aristotle argues to the unmoved mover, and what is moved by another is reduced to what moves itself; Plato says the first cause moves itself because it knows and loves itself. Knowing and loving are verbs, and (Peri Hermeneias) the verb signifies with time, time being the number of motion, so we speak of them as a kind of motion; but not motion as defined in Physics III, the act of what is able to be insofar as it is able, an imperfect act. His test: when you are walking home you have not walked home; when you are seeing me you have seen me; “when you’re loving someone, have you loved them yet? Oh yes”; but making dinner, making a house, driving here are not yet done. So Plato uses “moves” in a different sense; Aristotle speaks more strictly. Shakespeare, “things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs”: hence the concupiscible appetite is named from wanting, more like emotion than liking, and anger very much so; and Shakespeare defines reason by discourse, which is like a motion, whereas understanding is more obscure.

His words #

• the body of the article; the respondeo, read first to see how the objections are answered.
• changeover; his rendering of transmutatio [ed.: transmutation]; trans = over, as in translation.
• amentes; “without mind”, the privative prefix as in “amoral”.
• nunquam; never; marks those who never had the use of free will.
• simul / hama; “together”, known by negation of before and after (Aristotle, Categories).
• cogitatio; “thinking about or thinking out”.
• magnum tempus; “a long time, not a good time”.
• mens; the rational part including the will, not mind narrowly opposed to will.
• terminus a quo; the term from which; recede from it, accede to the term to which.
• laetitia / timor; joy a diffusion, fear a flight (Augustine).
• motion, strict sense; the act of what is able to be insofar as it is able, an imperfect act (Physics III); loving and knowing are “motion” only by carry-over.
• rule of two or three or both; his rule for Thomas’s divisions.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 113, a. 3 (body, three objections and replies, sed contra)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 113, a. 4 (body, three objections and replies)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 113, a. 5 (three objections and replies, sed contra, body)
• Scripture cited within them: Romans 4:5; Augustine, Confessions IV; 3 Kings 3; 2 Paralipomenon; Wisdom 7; Numbers 12; Job 33; Augustine, On Genesis to the Letter VIII; John 6:45; Psalm 84; Hebrews 11:6; Ecclesiasticus 1; Luke 7; James 4; Proverbs 15; Romans (on faith counted as justice); Proverbs (charity covers all sins); the Apostle (“Ephesians” as he says it, forgetting what is behind); Psalm 31; Augustine on John (the mercenary flees)

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on John, ch. 3 (seen and heard)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I–III; II ch. 1 (division into two and three); II on the benefit of considering God’s effects
• Aristotle, Categories (before, after, simul); Physics III (definition of motion); Physics VIII (unmoved mover); Peri Hermeneias (noun and verb); the biology books
• Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Psalms (Augustine’s threefold division; reached about Psalm 54)
• Plato, Theaetetus; Homer (quoted by Aristotle); Basil; Shakespeare; St. Teresa of Avila; Apocalypse (Alpha and Omega)

His questions #

• What does he see about human nature there? That man by his nature has free will, so God moves him to justice through free will.
• Why does he say nunquam? Because those who once had the use of free will and lost it are another case: they need a prior intention.
• Is the sleep of the senses the same as snoozing in chapel? No (Father Abbot); Solomon’s sleep may have been the sleep of prophecy.
• What is the difference between what Christ has seen and what he has heard? Seen: from the thing itself, as Son from the Father’s being; heard: from the Father’s knowledge, as Word.
• When you and I were born neither before nor after each other, what were we? Hama, simul, together; simul is known by negation of before and after.
• When Aristotle or Plato mention God, do they mean one God? (student) Yes, one supreme God; Aristotle quotes Homer, “let there be one”.
• How can I come towards you guys without leaving my house? You cannot; so the justified mind must recede from sin to accede to justice.
• When you are walking home, have you walked home? When you are loving someone, have you loved them yet? No, and yes: motion strictly is imperfect act; loving and knowing are “motion” only by carry-over.