Why God Became Man: Summa Contra Gentiles IV, 54 and the Thirteen Reasons

Orientation #

He says the class will go “through this same consideration in the Summa Contra Gentiles”, the four-page handout being book IV, chapter 54, whose eight reasons are to be compared with the ten reasons “he gave in the Summa Theologiae” (prev. lecture: the ten reasons of the first article treated there; the verified source places this class between ST III q. 1 a. 2 and a. 3, inferred). At the end he announces “a little break here before we go on.” The previous class worked through the first two articles of ST III q. 1 and the next takes up articles 3–5.

The class, in order #

1. The opening paragraph: depth of wisdom in the mystery (“more and more wonderful, admirable reasons”) #

Point: whoever considers the Incarnation “diligently, lovingly, and piously” finds so great a depth of wisdom that it exceeds human knowledge; St Paul: what is stupid of God is wiser than men; to the pious considerer “semper magis et magis” more reasons appear.

• Aside: he compares Aristotle in the biological works admiring how well the animals’ bodies are put together in order to appreciate the mind that made them; “a fortiori” the same mind is admired in the reasons for this mystery.
• Note on “capitula”: little chapter.

2. First reason: hope of seeing God as He is (“the most efficacious aid to man tending towards beatitude”) #

Point: this reason, touching hope, is “kind of new”, not explicit in the Summa Theologiae.

1. Perfect beatitude of man consists in the immediate vision of God (shown in SCG book III; Scripture: seeing God as He is, face to face).
2. To see God as He is, God Himself must be joined to our mind as that by which we see Him (“in His light we shall see light”).
3. It could seem to someone that human understanding could never be joined immediately to the divine essence, “as the understanding is joined to the understandable”, because of the immense distance of the two natures; so he would grow tepid, detained by desperation, the opposite of hope.
4. But God’s uniting human nature to Himself in persona shows most evidently that man can be united to God by understanding: “if He can do that, then He can certainly join Himself to our mind.” Conclusion: most suitable that God assume human nature to raise man’s hope of true beatitude; after the Incarnation men aspire more to heavenly beatitude (John 10:10, life “more abundantly”).

3. Second reason: impediments removed; dignity of man (“nothing exists higher than man except God alone”) #

Point: this corresponds to the second group in the Summa Theologiae, especially what he calls the sixth and seventh (the first two of that group), which Thomas here runs together.

1. Perfect beatitude consists in the sole enjoyment of God (book III; Augustine: happy the man who sees God even if he knows nothing else, miserable the man who knows all else and not God, and the man who knows both is blessed for knowing God alone).
2. Whoever adheres finally to things below God is impeded from true blessedness.
3. Man is led to adhere to lower things by ignoring the dignity of his own nature, in two ways: (a) considering only his bodily and sensing nature shared with animals, he seeks “a certain bestial beatitude” in pleasures of the flesh (“some people in our society all around”); (b) considering the excellence of some creatures above him, he worships the world and its parts (magnitude, length of time) or spiritual substances, angels and demons, which exceed him in immortality and acumen of mind.
4. Though man is below some creatures in some conditions and like the lowest in others, “by order to his end, nothing exists higher than man except God alone.”
5. God shows this dignity most suitably by immediately assuming human nature; hence after the Incarnation the greater part of men gave up worship of angels, demons and other creatures and fleshly pleasures, worshipping God alone (Paul: seek the things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God).

• His gloss: we might prefer the devil to ourselves as a superior mind; the objection in the chapter before (SCG IV.53, “I guess”) is precisely the infinite distance between God and us, but since we are ordered to being joined to God immediately, it is not so inappropriate that He unite human nature to His person.
• Boundary he draws: the first reason is in terms of the good, the second in terms of avoiding the bad; common to both is that there is “something immediate between God and us,” so we are in some way equal to the angels and far above dogs and cats.

4. Third reason: faith as a foretaste, and certitude by reduction (“a certain foretaste of this knowledge in man”) #

Point: corresponds to the first argument of the Summa Theologiae, from faith, but “he says things a little differently.”

1. Beatitude consists in a knowledge of God exceeding every created understanding; so there must be a praelibatio, foretaste, directing man to it, which is faith. (He adds: Thomas divides faith into faith about Christ’s divinity and about His humanity, citing John 17, “this is eternal life, that they know you and him whom you have sent”; so faith is a foretaste of that life.)
2. Knowledge directing man to the last end must be most certain, being the beginning of all that is ordered to that end, as naturally known beginnings are most certain (“a whole is more than a part”, cannot both be and not be).
3. Most certain knowledge is either known of itself, as the axioms (equals added to equals; the whole greater than the part; quantities equal to the same equal each other), or led back, resolved, to what is so known, as a conclusion of demonstration becomes most certain (following Euclid you are sure of the Pythagorean theorem, “not just taking it on”).
4. What is proposed about God to be held by faith is not per se known to man; it must be made known by one to whom it is per se known. Though it is in some way known to all who see the divine essence, most certain knowledge requires reduction to the first beginning, God Himself, to whom it is naturally per se known, not by the light of glory. Conclusion: for perfect certitude of faith man must be instructed by God made man, so that man “in a human way” receives divine instruction (John 1:18, the only begotten in the bosom of the Father will announce it; John 18:37, “for this I was born … to give testimony to the truth”); after the Incarnation men were more evidently instructed (Isaiah 11, the earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord).

• Asides: Thomas opens the Summa Contra Gentiles with the John 18:37 verse, St Alphonsus opens his meditations on the Passion with “I came to cast fire upon the earth”; one aims at knowing the truth, the other at the love of God. Catechism answer of “little boys and girls” on why God made me.

5. Fourth reason: God’s love shown by union (“experience of his love towards us”) #

Point: corresponds to the third argument in the Summa Theologiae; same reasoning.

1. Beatitude is enjoyment of God, so man’s affection must be disposed to desire it, as men naturally desire beatitude.
2. Desire to enjoy something is caused by love of it; so man must be led into love of God.
3. Nothing leads us to love someone like experience of his love for us; God’s love could not be shown more efficaciously than by uniting Himself to man in His very person, since “it is proper of love to unite the one loving with the loved, in so far as it is possible” (“the first effect of love”, from his treatise on love).

• Examples: a man and woman wanting to marry are assumed to love each other because they want to be joined, “unless they have somebody’s money”; Psalm 18, the sun coming out of the bridal chamber, read of Mary’s womb where He is married to human nature.
• His observation: the same middle term (God’s love for us) serves for hope (if you love me I hope for good things from you) and for love (unselfish love moves me to love in return); both Summas use it for love, but in the Summa Theologiae it is also the second reason, for hope.

6. Student question: why does the Summa Contra Gentiles begin with hope? (“hope is the theological virtue that … is least understood”) #

Point: a student asks why this work opens with hope before faith and charity; he gives two answers.

1. Hope is least understood; Augustine and Thomas treat hope through the Our Father, whose seven petitions teach what to want: the first two concern the end, the next three the means, the last three impediments; hope is the virtue by which we tend to God as end, as something possible, so it is natural to begin with the end.
2. Context: the chapter before is objections (twenty-seven or so), the chapter after replies to them, like objections and body of a Summa article; the first objection is the disorder of infinite distance (“the prince marrying Cinderella, but much more than that”), and the first two reasons answer it directly through the immediacy of God as our end. To the student’s suggestion that the work appeals to what is common to all men: yes, but “put in the context” of the objections.

• A further student remark (hope more common to those “without paying”?) leads to the digression below.

7. Digression: despair of knowing the truth (“tweeted ideas like ping pong balls”) #

Point: as a philosopher he says it is not enough to want the truth; one must not despair of knowing it.

• Whittaker Chambers on Columbia: professors “tweeted ideas like ping pong balls,” knocking them back and forth without taking them seriously; such people are in despair.
• Plato’s Phaedo: after Socrates’ arguments for immortality, Simmias and Cebes object, all fall into despair of knowing the truth about the soul, the hearers of Phaedo’s narration sink too, and Phaedo says he never admired Socrates more than in leading them out of that despair.
• Aristotle, “the book of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics]: in book I, before the critique, narrating what predecessors said about causes already confirms the four kinds of causes from natural philosophy and that none found a fifth; book II shows in each kind there must be a first cause; then asks not “can man know the truth” (the modern question) but how man is towards knowing it: in one way difficult, in another easy (two reasons for difficulty, three for ease); no one completely misses the truth (“the whole is more than a part”), and by the efforts of many a large amount is gained (one theorem each; his mother: “many hands makes light work”).
• Doors example: every professor’s door says truth is difficult if not impossible; only Aristotle’s door answers “one way difficult, another way easy.”
• Tie back: man naturally wants beatitude, which requires seeing God as He is, possible only if God is joined to him as that by which he sees; the problem is not wanting it but having hope it is possible; this from book III and from the first objection.

8. Fifth reason: friendship requires equality (“naturally man is the friend of man”) #

Point: not found in the Summa Theologiae; a second argument in terms of love.

1. Friendship consists in a certain equality; the very unequal cannot be joined in friendship.
2. So for a more familiar friendship between man and God, God had to become man, since “naturally man is the friend of man” (Aristotle, Ethics VIII), that knowing God visibly we be carried to love of invisible things.

• Example: coming down to a child’s level to play with his blocks “rather than do theology with him.”

9. Sixth reason: example of virtue from a God made man (“about no pure man … infallible opinion of their goodness”) #

Point: same as the fourth in the Summa Theologiae, from need of example.

1. Beatitude is the reward of virtue (Aristotle first; Shakespeare’s description of ethics as treating happiness to be achieved by virtue); virtue the road to happiness, vice to misery.
2. We are provoked to virtue by words and examples, more efficaciously when we have a firmer opinion of the person’s goodness.
3. Of no pure man can we have an infallible opinion: even the holiest failed, Peter denied Christ, the apostles mostly ran away. Conclusion: man must take teaching and examples of virtue from “a God-made-man” (humanato, “kind of an odd word”); John 13:15, “I have given you an example” (washing feet), and “love one another as I have loved you”: example of humility and of love.

• Warning: is Jesus Christ a human person? No: “a person who is human, but not a human person”; is He a man? yes without hesitation. “From words disorderly put forward heresy results.” A student cites a Bible version paraphrasing Paul’s “through one man” as “through a human being” (inclusive language); he: “we got to be careful of that.”

10. Seventh reason: certitude of forgiveness (“that you might know that the Son of Man has power to remit sins”) #

Point: “a little unique” to the Summa Contra Gentiles.

1. As virtue disposes to beatitude, sin impedes it: a disorder of the soul turning from the end, and an offense against God who cares for human acts (book III).
2. Man conscious of the offense loses confidence of approaching God, needed for beatitude.
3. The remedy can come only through God, who moves the will to good and alone remits the offense committed against Him.
4. To be freed from conscience of past offenses man must be made aware of the remission, with certitude only if God certifies it. Conclusion: suitable that God become man so man obtain remission through God and certitude through the man-God (Matt 9:6, “take up your thing, I guess, and walk”; Heb 9:14, blood of Christ cleansing consciences from dead works).

• Example: the sacrament of confession as an extension; his mother’s friend’s relief after a general confession.

11. Eighth reason: full satisfaction for the sin of the race (“each purely man is something less than the universality”) #

Point: like the tenth in the Summa Theologiae, which carries Augustine’s dialectic (man should make reparation but cannot; God can but should not; so God became man and man did penance, sufficient because this man is the second person of the Trinity).

1. From the tradition of the Church the whole human race is infected with sin; divine justice does not remit sin without satisfaction.
2. No pure man can satisfy for the whole race, each being less than the whole.
3. So one both man (to whom satisfaction is suited) and above man (for sufficient merit) must satisfy; above man in the order of beatitude is God alone, angels being superior in nature but not in order to the end (link to the first reason; why angels appear as men: “we are made blessed by the same”). Student: misprint “they” vs “we”? He: “they are made blessed by the same thing we are.” Conclusion: God must become man to take away the sin of the race (John the Baptist: Lamb of God; Romans: as sin from one man to all, so grace from one to all).

• Closing sentence: from these it was not incongruous to the divine goodness (as in the first article of the Summa) and “most expedient to human salvation.”
• Student: why “ex traditione ecclesiae” when it is in the Bible? He: “What’s in both.”

12. Summary handout: about thirteen arguments in all (“thus, six arguments are common to both”) #

Point: the tally of the two works.

• Common to both: ST 1, 3, 4, 6 and 7 (6 and 7 combined in SCG), and 10: six arguments.
• ST 2 (hope from God’s love) and SCG 1 (hope of union as understandable) are different arguments for hope.
• Unique to ST: 5 (full partaking of divine nature, “God became man so man might become God”; a church father besides Augustine, “John Chrysostom or something”), 8 and 9 (example of humility).
• Unique to SCG: 5 (charity from equality), perhaps 7 (certitude of forgiveness).
• Combined list: one for partaking of divine nature (grace); then following grace, one for faith; two for hope; two for charity; one for example of how to act; two from dignity (not subjecting yourself to the devil; awareness of the dignity of nature); one for certitude of forgiveness; one for full satisfaction: “about thirteen.” “A very important thing … you realize the wisdom of the one who decided to become a man.”

His words #

• capitula: “little chapter”
• praelibatio: foretaste (of blessed knowledge, i.e. faith)
• in persona: uniting human nature to Himself in His very person
• “the understandable”: that by which the understanding is joined to its object [ed.: intelligible species]
• desperation: the opposite of hope
• beginnings naturally known / axioms: first beginnings of demonstration, known of themselves [ed.: first principles]
• led back, resolved: reduction of a conclusion to first indemonstrable beginnings
• bestial beatitude: happiness sought in what we share with animals
• “the first effect of love”: union of lover with beloved, as far as possible
• humanato: “God made man”, “kind of an odd word”
• “person who is human”, not “human person”: his rule for speaking of Christ
• “the book of wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics]; “first causes” in each of the four kinds
• ex traditione ecclesiae: from the tradition of the Church
• university of human race [ed.: universitas, the whole]

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles IV, ch. 54 (handout, read through)
• Scripture quoted from the chapter: John 10:10; John 1:18; John 18:37; Isaiah 11; John 13:15; Matthew 9:6; Hebrews 9:14; Romans (sin from one man); John the Baptist, “Lamb of God”; Paul, “seek the things that are above”; “what is stupid of God is wiser than men”

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 1, a. 2 (inferred), the ten reasons; “first article” on divine goodness
• Summa Contra Gentiles IV, ch. 53 (objections, “twenty-seven or what”), and the following chapter of replies; SCG book III on beatitude
• Augustine on happiness in seeing God; Augustine and Thomas on the Our Father’s seven petitions
• John 17 (eternal life); Psalm 18 (bridal chamber); “I came to cast fire upon the earth” (St Alphonsus’ meditations on the Passion)
• Aristotle, biological works; Metaphysics I–II; Nicomachean Ethics VIII
• Plato, Phaedo; Whittaker Chambers on Columbia; Shakespeare’s description of ethics
• Thomas on why angels appear in the form of a man; an NAB-style “through a human being” rendering of Paul

His questions #

• How is it possible to see God as He is? Only if God Himself is joined to our mind as that by which we see Him.
• Why does the Summa Contra Gentiles begin with hope? (student) Hope is the least understood virtue and tends to the end as possible; and the first two reasons answer the first objection, the distance between God and us.
• Is the knowledge of truth easy or difficult? (Aristotle’s door) In one way difficult, in another easy; no one completely misses the truth, and many together gain much.
• Is Jesus Christ a human person? No; a person who is human, but not a human person; He is a man, yes without hesitation.
• Is “they are made blessed by the same” a misprint for “we”? (student) No; the angels are made blessed by the same thing we are, God Himself.
• Why “from the tradition of the Church” and not the Bible? (student) It is in both.
• How many arguments if you combine the two works? About thirteen.