Aquinas on the Justification of the Impious: The Order of Its Parts, Why It Is God's Greatest Work, and Whether It Is a Miracle (ST I-II q.113 a.8–10)

Orientation #

He opens with the prayer and “so up to Article Eight, I guess”; within a. 8 he refers back to “as has been said” that justification is not successive (prev. lecture, a. 7). He ends by proposing a break “before the next question here” (q. 114). The previous class did aa. 6–7 of q. 113; the next begins q. 114 on merit.

The class, in order #

1. A. 8, objection 1 and reply: two senses of “before” (“decline from evil, and then et fac bonum”) #

Point: whether infusion of grace is first in the order of nature; the objection from Psalm 36 (recede from evil before acceding to good, so remission of guilt before infusion of grace) “sounds pretty good,” and Thomas answers by distinguishing before you “look before and after.”

• Reply: recess from a term and access to a term can be taken (a) on the side of the mobile, where recess precedes (the opposite must first be removed from the subject, then what is acquired through motion comes); (b) on the side of the agent, the reverse, since the agent acts through a form pre-existing in it to remove the contrary.
• Example: the sun through its light acts to remove darkness — on the sun’s side enlightening is first, then removing darkness; on the air’s side, first purged of darkness, then it takes light. Both “simul in time,” ordered only in nature. “Two different senses there of before.”
• Applied: infusion of grace and remission of guilt are said on the part of God justifying, the agent, so infusion is first in nature; on the side of the man justified, liberation from guilt first — “you got to make room there for the grace.”
• Or: guilt is the term from which, justice the term to which, and grace is cause of both remission and adoption of justice.
• Asides linking this to Physics II: nature is both matter and form, so “before by nature” has two senses; and among the corollaries on causes, two things can be causes of each other, each before the other in a different kind of causality — the end first in intention, the agent first in being (of the house it makes). His joke: he is “not altogether sinning by looking at the objections first,” since they remove the bad things.

2. A. 8, objection 2 and reply: disposition precedes the form (“infusion of grace and the what, attaining of grace”) #

Point: the motion of free will is a disposition for grace, and disposition naturally precedes the form.

• Reply: the disposition of the subject precedes the reception of the form in the order of nature, but follows the act of the agent by which the subject is disposed. So the motion of free will precedes the attaining of grace but follows the infusion of grace.
• He flags the distinction as “kind of subtle”: infusion is God pouring it in, and that pouring in is also what disposes you; “you must be disposed before you can receive the grace.” Example: fire and paper.

3. A. 8, objection 3 and reply: removing the impediment (“the remotion of the impediment precedes”) #

Point: sin impedes the soul from tending freely to God; what prohibits motion must first be removed, so remission of guilt and the motion against sin come before the motion toward God.

• His illustration of the objection: something screwed down with nuts and bolts, or stuck to the ground by something sticky — remove those first, then move it.
• Reply (Physics II, “what is he calling this old guy for?”): in movements of the soul, the end precedes entirely — at the beginning of speculation or the end of action; in exterior motions, removal of the impediment precedes achieving the end. The motion of free will is a motion of the soul, so it is moved toward God as end first, then to removing the impediment of sin. He connects this with what Thomas said “some questions ago” about making God your end, sin being to make something else your end.

4. A. 8, sed contra and body: the order of the four (“in any motion, naturally first is the motion of the mover”) #

Point: the four things required for justification are simultaneous in time (justification not successive, as said before) but ordered in nature: infusion of grace, motion of free will toward God, motion against sin, remission of guilt.

• Sed contra: the cause is naturally before the effect, and infusion of grace causes all the rest.
• Reason: in any motion, first is the motion of the mover, second the disposition of matter or motion of the mobile, last the term to which the mover’s motion terminates. The “motion of God moving” (he notes the strangeness of that phrase, but Thomas needs it to manifest the point) is the infusion of grace; the twofold motion of free will is the mobile’s motion; remission of guilt the terminus, “to which the whole transformation is ordered as to an end.”
• Motion toward God precedes motion against sin because the justified detests sin because it is against God — it is “the cause and the reason for it.”
• Aside: “take the rest of my life to figure out that order”; “put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

5. A. 9, objections and the replies he can give now (“the good of grace of one is greater”) #

Point: is justifying the impious God’s greatest work, even more than creation? The first objection (justification gives grace of the way, glorification grace of the fatherland, which is greater) cannot be answered until the body is read (“we have to be in suspense”), so he takes 2 and 3.

• Obj. 2: justification is ordered to the particular good of one man; the good of the universe is greater (Ethics I — “that paganism again”; he explains it is about the good of the city). Reply: true if both are in the same genus; but the good of grace of one is greater than the good of nature of the whole universe. He glosses: grace is partaking in the divine nature, “an entirely different genus.”
• Obj. 3: making from nothing with no cooperation of the patient is greater than making from something with cooperation (the impious made just, with motion of free will). “That’s a really good objection.” Reply: it proceeds on the part of the way of acting, according to which creation is the greatest work — “in some sense it is the greatest, but not in the sense of what is being made.”
• Aside on “patriarchal”: God is a father, not a mother; Mary is up there but not in God. Aside on Thomas falling down praying when things are difficult.

6. A. 9, sed contra and body, first part: two ways a work is great (“nothing from nothing means not from something”) #

Point: sed contra from Psalm 144 (“his mercies upon all his works”), the collect (his says “Dominica sexta post Pentecosten”: God shows almighty power most of all by pardoning and having mercy), and Augustine on John 14:12 (“greater than these he will do”): it is greater to make the just from the impious than to create heaven and earth. He notes that Thomas needs Augustine here, not Aristotle.

• Body: a work is great (1) on the part of the way of doing it — so creation is maximum, making from nothing; (2) on account of the magnitude of what comes about — so justification is greater, since it terminates at the eternal good of partaking in God, while creation terminates at the good of mutable nature; hence Augustine adds “heaven and earth pass away, but the salvation and justification of the predestined remains.”
• Digression on ex nihilo: in the Summa Contra Gentiles on whether the world always was, Thomas sets out the arguments (he counts seven, seven and four, each answered), and among those who thought reason could prove a beginning is the argument “from nothing, so nothing before something, so a beginning.” Thomas: “from nothing” is a way of saying “not from something”; imagining nothing as a source is a false imagination (unlike the table from a tree, where the tree really is before the table). “Watch out, ex nihilo.”
• Parallel way of speaking, from his Tuesday class in Physics VIII: Aristotle, arguing to the unmoved mover, first takes up the self-mover, then shows even it depends on something wholly unmoved; Thomas traces this to Plato’s principle that the through another depends on the through itself. Example: coffee is not sweet through itself, so sugar, sweet through itself. In logic likewise: not every statement is known through another, else infinite regress and nothing known; so some are known “through themselves” — which means known but not through another statement, not “proving a thing through itself” (that would be a fallacy). Same structure as “not from something.”
• Aside: scientists now think you get something from nothing; even the early Greeks denied it; “no free lunch” — with jokes about Bernie (“how are you going to pay for all this? I don’t know”) and Bennett on EWTN.

7. A. 9, body, second part: absolute quantity vs. proportion (“a mountain is small and a grain is large”) #

Point: “great” is said in two further ways, and this answers objection 1.

• By absolute quantity, the gift of glory is greater than the gift of grace, so glorification is the greater work.
• By quantity of proportion — a mountain is small, a grain (of millet) is large; “a huge man” of six or seven feet (the tall policeman you do not misbehave in front of), “a little mountain” like those around here — the gift of grace justifying the impious is greater, since it exceeds the dignity of one worthy of punishment more than glory exceeds the dignity of one already worthy of glory. Augustine: whether to create the just angels or justify the impious is greater, “if equal power, of this one greater is the mercy.”
• His summary: creation greatest by mode; glorification by absolute quantity; justification by proportion — “he thought more for justifying you than for glorifying you,” “to get us out of hell.” The three works of God outside himself: Bible begins with creation, Gospels with justification, Apocalypse with glorification; each greatest in its own way; admire God for all three “for different reasons.”
• Digression: the Gospel of John, more dense and “symbolic” (words and signs); the three raised from the dead — Lazarus (only in John), the widow of Naim’s son (only in Luke), Jairus’s daughter (the Synoptics) — which Augustine takes in the spiritual sense as three kinds of sinner; the class sketches the correspondence without completing it. He notes “nice example three here” against the four of justification, two of which are motions of free will.

8. A. 10, objections and replies: what makes a miracle (“outside the custom, customary order of such effects”) #

Point: is justifying the impious a miraculous work?

• Obj. 1: miracles are greater than non-miracles, and justification is greater than other miracles (Augustine, “John tract seventy-two” as he gives it). Reply: some miracles, though less as to the good produced, are outside the customary order of such effects and so have more the notion of miracle; justification by grace is the normal way of being justified.
• Obj. 2: the will’s motion is to the soul as natural inclination to natural things; God moving against inclination is miraculous (the blind man seeing, the dead raised); the impious will tends to evil. Reply: not every motion against inclination is miraculous — else water heating or a stone thrown up would be — but only what is done outside the order of its proper cause apt to do it; only God can justify, as only fire heats water; so not miraculous. Aside: “except the modern state, now.”
• Obj. 3: wisdom is God’s gift as justice is; acquiring wisdom subito without study is miraculous (John Paul II’s “subito”). Reply: man is naturally apt to acquire wisdom through his own genius (discovering for himself) and study, so apart from that way it is miraculous; grace he is not apt to acquire by his own operation but by God operating — “hence it’s not similar.”
• Sed contra (Augustine, Predestination of the Saints): to be able to have faith or charity pertains to man’s nature; to have grace is of the faithful. He finds this “kind of strange” and reads it: not above natural power in the sense that man can cooperate with God — not natural, but of man’s nature to be able to have these.

9. A. 10, body: three things found in miracles (“God vehemently moves the soul”) #

Point: justification is miraculous in one respect, not in a second, and sometimes in a third.

1. On the part of the agent’s power: what only divine power can do is simpliciter wondrous, “as having a hidden cause” (wonder arises when a cause is hidden — let go of something and it falls, no wonder; it goes up, “why did it go up?”, the magician). Thus justification, creation and every work of God alone may be called miraculous.
2. The form induced above the natural power of the matter (life above the power of a dead body): here justification is not miraculous, because the soul is naturally capable of grace, being made to God’s image and so capable of God by grace (Augustine). Aside: Bonaventure’s “beatificabilis” (as he renders it, “able to be blessed”); the other animals, not made to the image, are not capable of grace, the partaking of the divine nature.
3. Something apart from the accustomed order of cause and effect (sudden perfect health apart from nature or art — “Peter’s mother-in-law”): here sometimes miraculous, sometimes not. The common course: God moving inwardly, man converted first imperfectly then perfectly, “charity begun merits to be increased, increased merits to be perfected” (Augustine) — he links this with the “gradualness” the Pope talks about. But sometimes God moves the soul vehemently to sudden perfect justice, as in Paul, with an external miraculous prostration; hence Paul’s conversion is celebrated as quasi-miraculous. His net: “more not a miracle than it is a miracle.”

• Anecdotes: André Frossard, atheist, waiting for a friend making a visit in a church, went in and “was just hit” to his knees; the “tale of two altar boys” (one lambasted by the priest became Stalin, the other treated gently became Archbishop Sheen, as the student recalls from EWTN); St Faustina on how responsible we are for each other’s salvation; God to St Catherine of Siena: all your virtues and vices come to your neighbour. He proposes a break before the next question.

His words #

• “infusion, the pouring in” — his rendering of infusio gratiae.
• “recess from the term / access to the term” — the two aspects of motion; “excess” in transcript is ASR for access.
• “simul in time” — together at once; contrasted with “before in the order of nature.”
• “the through itself / the through another” — Plato’s principle as Thomas reports it; a statement “known through itself” = known but not through another statement.
• “from nothing means not from something” — his gloss on ex nihilo.
• “opus magnum” — the greatest work; “on the part of the way of acting” vs. “on account of the magnitude of what comes about.”
• “absolute quantity” vs. “quantity of proportion” — the two senses of great.
• “grace of the way / grace of the fatherland” [ed.: gratia viae / gratia patriae].
• “simpliciter mira” — simply wondrous, as having a hidden cause.
• “subito” — suddenly (with the John Paul II aside).
• “genius” — to discover something yourself, as against study.
• “beatificabilis” (his Bonaventure term, given as “able to be blessed”).

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II q. 113 a. 8 (objections, replies, sed contra, body)
• Summa Theologiae I-II q. 113 a. 9 (objections, replies, sed contra, body)
• Summa Theologiae I-II q. 113 a. 10 (objections, replies, sed contra, body)
• Psalm 36 (“declina a malo et fac bonum”); Psalm 144 (his mercies upon all his works); collect “Dominica sexta post Pentecosten”; John 14:12 with Augustine’s comment; Augustine, Tractates on John 72 (as stated); Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints (as quoted in sed contra of a. 10)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Physics II (nature as matter and form; motions of the soul vs. exterior motions; causes of each other)
• Aristotle, Physics VIII (self-mover and unmoved mover)
• Aristotle, Ethics I (good of the city)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, chapters on whether the world always was (locus not stated)
• Gospel of John (Lazarus), Luke (widow of Naim), the Synoptics (Jairus’s daughter); Bonaventure (unlocated); St Faustina’s diary; St Catherine of Siena

His questions #

• Is the objection “recede from evil before acceding to good” a good argument for remission before infusion? Yes on the side of the mobile; on the side of the agent (God justifying) infusion is first.
• Why does Thomas distinguish infusion of grace from attaining of grace? Infusion is God’s act, which disposes; the disposition precedes the attaining but follows the infusion.
• Why does the motion toward God precede the motion against sin? Because the justified detests sin because it is against God; the end is first in movements of the soul.
• What does “from nothing” mean? Not from something — not as if nothing were something it was made from.
• Is every statement known through another statement? No, or there would be infinite regress and nothing known; some are known “through themselves,” i.e. not through another.
• Should you admire God more for creation, justification or glorification? All three, each greatest in a different way: mode, proportion, absolute quantity.
• Which three did Christ raise from the dead, and where? Lazarus (John only), the widow of Naim’s son (Luke), Jairus’s daughter (Synoptics); Augustine’s spiritual sense of the three — left open.
• Is the justification of the impious miraculous? As to the agent’s power, yes; as to the form induced, no; as to the accustomed order, sometimes (Paul), usually not — “more not a miracle than it is a miracle.”
• What makes something wonderful? A hidden cause — the thing let go that rises instead of falling.