Summa III, Q. 24: The Predestination of Christ and Why It Is the Model and Cause of Ours

Orientation #

He opens the question directly with its prologue and its four articles, and closes by reading the transition to what follows: “those things which pertain to Christ in comparison to us — first, about adoring him; secondly, about his being our mediator to God. That’s next two questions.” The preceding class treated q. 23, on divine adoption.

The class, in order #

1. The four articles announced (“whether his predestination is an exemplar”) #

He reads the prologue: (1) whether Christ was predestined; (2) whether according as he is man; (3) whether his predestination is the exemplar of ours; (4) whether it is the cause of ours. He remarks that (3) “the average guy wouldn’t think about,” and wonders aloud whether (4) adds anything to (3) — “because exemplar is one kind of cause that Aristotle talks about in the second book of Natural hearing and the fifth book of Wisdom.”

2. Article 1, the three objections (“the term or limit of each predestination”) #

• Obj. 1: the terminus of predestination is adoption of sons (Eph 1:5); Christ is not an adopted son; so not predestined. “That’s a good argument.” Aside: 1 John — “it does not yet appear what we will be… we shall see him as he is.”
• Obj. 2: in Christ are two things, nature and person. Not by reason of human nature, since “the human nature is the Son of God” is false; not by reason of the person, since that person is Son of God by nature, not grace, and predestination is of what is from grace.
• Obj. 3: what is predestined, like what is made, was not always; but Christ was always God and Son of God, and we do not properly say “that man was made the Son of God.”
• Sed contra: Rom 1:4, “who was predestined the Son of God in virtue” — said by “the apostle,” and he notes Paul is called the apostle by antonomasia, as in the New Testament Peter and Paul are spoken of.

3. Article 1, the body: predestination and the grace of union (“a certain divine preordering from eternity”) #

Definition he stops on: predestination properly taken is a divine preordering from eternity about those things which are going to come to be in time through the grace of God. He tells the class to stop and get it. Argument: (1) that this man is God came about in time through the grace of union; (2) God cannot have failed to preorder it from eternity, else “something happened newly to the divine mind”; (3) therefore the union of natures in the person of Christ falls under eternal predestination, and by reason of it Christ is said to be predestined. Aside on grace: God “knocked Paul off his horse” — then he corrects himself: the text does not say a horse, only that he fell down. Reply 1: Paul in Eph 1:5 speaks of the predestination to adoptive sonship; as Christ is in a singular way the natural Son, so he is predestined in a singular way.

4. Article 1, reply to the second objection (“predestination is attributed to the person”) #

Against the gloss on Rom 1:4 (that the predestination is of the nature, not the person): Thomas calls that speech improper for two reasons — (a) generally, we do not say a nature is predestined but a person, since to be predestined is to be directed to salvation, which belongs to the suppositum acting for an end; (b) specially, “the human nature is the Son of God” is false, unless expounded by a strained reading. Conclusion: predestination is attributed to the person of Christ, not as he subsists in the divine nature but as he subsists in human nature. Confirmed by the order of Rom 1:3–4: “made to him from the seed of David according to the flesh” then “predestined the Son of God in power.” Aside (his own reading history): Augustine’s treatises on the predestination of the saints, read in his cousin Donald’s room; and his astonishment at Augustine’s letters — “where did he get the time? He must have bilocated”; “very profound, very subtle.”

5. Article 1, reply to the third (“predestined to be made known as the Son of God”) #

Two lesser opinions reported: Origen, that some texts drop praedestinatus altogether, so no antecedence is designated; others, that the antecedence refers not to being the Son of God but to his manifestation — scripture’s customary way of saying a thing comes about when it is made known. Thomas rejects the second as improper: one is properly predestined as directed to the end of beatitude, and Christ’s beatitude does not depend on our knowledge. (Berquist’s gloss: predestination is a part of divine providence, providence directing all things to their end, predestination directing the rational creature to his end; Thomas treats providence in Summa Contra Gentiles III.) Thomas’s own answer, with Augustine: the antecedence refers to the person by reason of human nature — it was not always the case that what subsists in human nature was the Son of God. The key distinction: fieri pertains to the thing as it is in itself; to be predestined belongs to someone as he is in the apprehension of one foreordaining, and what is under a form can be apprehended either as under that form or absolutely. Hence “this is more true that Christ was predestined the Son of God, than Christ was made the Son of God” — because “Christus” names him as existing in human nature, and the Son of God was not made.

6. Digression: precision, stinginess, and truth (“he speaks of niggard truth”) #

Prompted by Thomas’s minute care. Aristotle in Metaphysics V (his “second book of wisdom” — as transcribed) on people who dislike precision as if it were stinginess, like the man who counts every penny. Stories: Senator Taft’s ten-cent tip in the 1952 campaign, reported to the press; Dewey browbeating a man on the campaign train. Shakespeare’s phrase “niggard truth” — niggardly meaning stingy — truth as stingy against flattery: “if you just were truthful about what someone has done or not done, you’d make a lot of enemies.” Also Thomas’s prayer after communion, whose virtues he lists: humility, obedience, charity, patience. Passing jokes about the recovery bill and paying off the debt.

7. Article 2, objections (“according as he is man, is predestined”) #

• Obj. 1: predestination does not fail, so if Christ as man is predestined to be Son of God, he is Son of God as man — which is false.
• Obj. 2: what belongs to Christ as man belongs to every man, being of one species; so every man would be so predestined.
• Obj. 3: “The Son of God was made man” and “the Word was made flesh” are truer than “that man was made the Son of God”; so it is rather truer that Christ as Son of God is predestined to be man. He puts this to the class: would you rather say God became man, or man became God? “It’s an interesting objection. Very interesting.”
• Sed contra: Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints — the Lord of Glory, insofar as he was man, was made the Son of God; him we say to be predestined. “He’s pretty much an authority, this Augustine, isn’t he?” Aside: Thomas as Houdini, tied up and finding a way out; Aristotle’s Poetics on the tying and untying of the knot, and that inferior or inexperienced poets are better at tying than untying. “The same is true of philosophers — much better at tying themselves and others into a knot than untying it. That’s what separates the men from the boys.”

8. Article 2, the body (“by reason of human nature alone”) #

Two considerations in predestination: (a) on the side of the eternal predestination itself, which implies antecedence to what falls under it; (b) according to its temporal effect, which is a gratuitous gift of God. On both counts predestination belongs to Christ by reason of human nature alone: human nature was not always united to the Word, and it was given it by grace to be united to the Son of God in person. Augustine: human nature was predestined to so high a subjection that nothing could be higher. Therefore “Christ, according as he is man, is predestined to be the Son of God.”

9. Article 2, the three replies (“of which human nature is susceptible”) #

• Reply 1: “according as he is man” can qualify the act signified in two ways. Taken on the side of what falls materially under predestination — that Christ as man be the Son of God — it is false, and there the objection holds. Taken of the very notion of the act, as predestination implies antecedence and a gratuitous effect, it belongs to Christ by reason of human nature, and in that sense the statement stands. “That’s something to chew on.”
• Reply 2: something belongs to a man by reason of human nature in two ways — (a) human nature being its cause, as visibility and risibility belong to Socrates from the principles of his nature; in this way predestination belongs neither to Christ nor to any man, and there the objection holds; (b) human nature being merely susceptible of it; so Christ is predestined by reason of human nature, since predestination here regards the exalting of human nature in him. His parallel: Mary was predestined to be the mother of God, but not every woman is — a similar, though not the same, exaltation. And the divine nature was not exalted by the union: Philippians says he emptied himself.
• Reply 3: with Augustine, the inexpressible taking-on of man by the Word makes “Son of Man” and “Son of God” both truly and properly said (he notes a footnote that Augustine should rather have said “the received humanity”). Since that taking-on falls under predestination as something gratuitous, both statements can be made; but since grace was not given to the Son of God that he be man, but rather to human nature that it be united, it is more properly said that Christ as man is predestined to be the Son of God. His summary: one may say both that God became man and that man became God, and one would rather say God became man — but in predestination, whose definition includes something gratuitous, “God has no grace, but the human nature does.”

10. Article 3: Christ’s predestination as exemplar of ours (“a most clear light of predestination”) #

Objections: (1) the exemplar preexists the exemplate, but nothing preexists the eternal, and our predestination is eternal; (2) the exemplar leads to knowledge of the exemplate, but God need not be led to knowledge of our predestination from something else (Rom 8:29–30); (3) the exemplate is conformed to the exemplar, but we are predestined to adoptive sonship, Christ to be Son of God in power (Rom 1:4) — different accounts. Sed contra: Augustine, that the Savior himself, the man Christ Jesus, is the clearest light of predestination and grace. Body, by the same distinction: taken according to the act of the one predestinating, no — by one eternal act God predestined both us and Christ. Taken according to the term and effect, yes, in two ways: (a) as to the good — he to natural sonship, we to adoptive sonship, which is a partaken likeness of it (Rom 8:29, “conformed to the image of his Son” — Berquist: perhaps “image” here in the sense of exemplar rather than its usual sense); (b) as to the way of obtaining that good, namely grace, most manifest in Christ, whose human nature was united with no preceding merits, and “of his fullness we have all received.” Replies: the first two proceed from the side of the act; the third — the exemplate need not be conformed in all things, it suffices that it imitate the exemplar in some way. Earlier he quoted Augustine’s “God became man so that man might become God.”

11. Article 4: Christ’s predestination as cause of ours (“the way and order according to which”) #

Objections: (1) the eternal has no cause, and our predestination is eternal; (2) what depends on the simple will of God has no other cause — Eph 1, predestined according to his proposal, “who does all things by the counsel of his will”; (3) remove the cause, remove the effect; but had the Son not been made flesh there would have been another possible way of salvation, as Augustine says in On the Trinity — Berquist recalls Thomas’s earlier position that the incarnation was not absolutely necessary for our redemption but for its well-being. Sed contra: Eph 1:5, “he predestined us unto the adoption of sons through Jesus Christ.” Body, the same distinction again: according to the act of predestining, no, since by one and the same act God predestined Christ and us; according to the term, yes — God foreordained our salvation to be completed through Jesus Christ, for under eternal predestination falls not only what will come about in time but also the way and order in which it will be completed. Replies: the first two he grants as proceeding from the side of the act. To the third: had Christ not been incarnate, God would have foreordained men to be saved through some other cause; but since he foreordained the incarnation, he at the same time foreordained it to be the cause of our salvation.

His words #

• “Natural hearing” — Aristotle’s Physics; “the book of Wisdom” — the Metaphysics.
• “terminus” / “the limit” — the term of predestination; he notes it is the same word as the “terms” of a syllogism.
• “predestination taken properly” — “a divine preordering from eternity about those things which are going to come to be in time through the grace of God.”
• “the grace of union” — the grace by which that man was God and God was man.
• “by antonomasia” — as Paul is called simply “the apostle.”
• “suppositum” — that which acts for an end, and so that which is properly predestined.
• “exemplar / exemplate” (he says exemplato) — model and thing modelled.
• “niggard truth” (Shakespeare) — stingy, as against flattering.
• “materially comes under predestination” — what is predestined, as against the notion of the act itself.

Texts #

Read in class: Summa Theologiae III, q. 24, aa. 1–4 (whole, with objections, sed contra, corpus, replies); Romans 1:3–4; Ephesians 1:5; Romans 8:29–30; Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints (quoted in the sed contras and replies); Origen on Romans (reported in a. 1 ad 3). Mentioned: 1 John (“it does not yet appear what we will be”); John 1 (“the Word was made flesh”); Philippians (“he emptied himself”); Augustine, On the Trinity (a. 4 obj. 3); Augustine’s letters; Thomas, De Potentia (for its long replies); Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles III (divine providence); Thomas, prayer after communion; Aristotle, Physics II and Metaphysics V (exemplar cause; precision); Aristotle, Poetics (tying and untying the knot); Shakespeare (“niggard truth”).

His questions #

• How do you get to this kind of strange question — how can Christ be predestined at all? Because the union of natures in his person came about in time through grace, and so falls under God’s eternal preordering.
• Is Christ predestined by reason of his nature or his person? Of the person, not as subsisting in the divine nature but as subsisting in human nature.
• Is it truer to say Christ was predestined the Son of God, or made the Son of God? “Predestined” — for “Christ” names him as existing in human nature, and the Son of God was not made.
• If Christ as man is not the Son of God, how can he be predestined to be the Son of God? The qualification “as man” attaches to the notion of the act (antecedence plus gratuitous effect), not to what materially falls under the predestination.
• Would you rather say that God became man, or that man became God? Both can be said, and “God became man” is the better; but in predestination, which includes something gratuitous, it is more proper that Christ as man is predestined to be the Son of God, since the grace is on the side of human nature.
• Does what belongs to Christ as man belong to every man? No — not where human nature is only the subject susceptible of it, as with predestination to the union; so too Mary was predestined mother of God, and not every woman.
• Is Christ’s predestination the exemplar of ours? Not on the side of the one act of predestining, but on the side of the term: both in the good (adoptive sonship as a likeness of natural sonship) and in the way of obtaining it, by grace.
• Is his predestination the cause of ours? Again not on the side of the act, but on the side of the term: God foreordained that our salvation be completed through Jesus Christ.
• Does article 4 add anything to article 3? Left open — he raises it at the start and does not return to it.