Was Christ's Passion Necessary? Necessity of the End, Other Ways of Redemption, and Why the Cross Was Most Fitting (ST III q.46 aa.1–3)

Orientation #

He picks up in the middle of the objections of q. 46, a. 1 (“the first one proceeds thus”), and takes aa. 1–3 straight through, with a break between a. 1 and a. 2. He says repeatedly these three articles “go together” because all three deal with the way the Passion was necessary. The previous class opened q. 46 and set out Aquinas’s plan for the treatment of the Passion.

The class, in order #

1. The four objections of article 1 (“in God there does not fall”) #

• Obj. 1: man can only be liberated by God (“Am I not the Lord? and there is not a God beyond me”); but necessity does not fall in God, since necessity is taken by the Fathers, and by Aristotle quoting a poet, as force or what is contrary to will, which is repugnant to omnipotence. He warns at once: “you got to understand the word necessary.”
• Obj. 2: the necessary is opposed to the voluntary; but Christ suffered by His own will (Isaiah 53, “He was offered up because Himself willed”). Aside on the contrast: of the eternal generation they deny the Son was generated voluntate, as by choice — not that it was contrary to His will, but it is of a kind of necessity. So necessary and chosen are not simply opposites.
• Obj. 3: “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth” (Ps. 24), truth here meaning justice. Not from mercy — as He gives gifts gratis, He could release debts gratis without satisfaction; not from justice — by justice man merited eternal damnation.
• Obj. 4: angelic nature is more excellent than human (Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 4), yet Christ did not suffer for the fallen angels.
• On obj. 4 he digresses to why the angel’s sin is irremediable: the angel is created with his mind fully formed, sees everything, chooses, and the whole angel goes that way; man is divided between soul and body, with imperfect knowledge, and so long as he is in this changeable world can go good-to-bad or bad-to-good. At death our will falls and lies — “where the tree falls, there it shall lie” (Ecclesiasticus); hence pray that at death your will fall toward God, that you be already in God before you die.
• Sed contra: John 3 — as Moses raised the serpent, “so it was necessary that the Son of Man be exalted.”
• Asides: a book seen at BJ’s on George Washington’s domestic life — a colonial wife’s very subordinate position, even her stockings belonging to her husband; hence Thomas on the fitting position of woman, and a reason, not arbitrary, why Christ chose men as priests. Fr. Boulay: “he can’t teach the Church’s doctrine to women today… it wasn’t safe to do so.” St. Paul tells masters how to treat slaves without fulminating against slavery. C. S. Lewis on angelic love as “ferocious” — if you want to be as bad as the devil you will never succeed; “he’s just really committed.”

2. The senses of necessary (“Necessary is said in many ways”) #

Following Aristotle, Metaphysics V (his “fifth book of wisdom” = the book after the books of natural philosophy):

1. Absolute / secundum suam naturam: what by its own nature is impossible to be otherwise. Example: three cannot but be a number, odd, prime, half of six. In this sense it was necessary neither on God’s side nor on Christ’s side.
2. From something exterior, i.e. from the two exterior causes:
   • efficient cause / mover → necessity of violence or force: someone unable to go because another detains him;
   • end → necessity from supposition of the end: if the end is to be achieved, this must be so.

• He notes the order in Metaphysics V: the first group of names concerns causes — beginning, cause, element, nature, and last “but not least” necessary; so the senses of necessary track the division of the four causes, the absolute sense coming from the intrinsic cause (what makes three to be three).
• Examples of necessity from the end: “You must study logic” — not absolutely, but you can’t go through life without it; “you must study your catechism.”
• Catechism digression: nothing was wrong with the Baltimore Catechism — you memorized, and could later wonder why things are so; a child can memorize as older people cannot. A “review of the faith” before confirmation that was no review but a first view: collectively the children could not name the seven sacraments, offering “graduation.” And Caseric’s man who said God won’t punish him for missing Mass — “Don’t be so sure”; and “I can worship God in my workshop” — “I’d agree with you if God hadn’t told us something else.”

3. Thomas’s answer to article 1 (“necessary from the supposition of the end”) #

• Not by necessity of force, neither from God’s side (who determined Christ to suffer) nor from Christ’s (who suffered voluntarily). It was necessary from the end, and this in a further division: either the end can in no way be had otherwise, or cannot be had suitably.
• The end-necessity is understood in three ways:
  1. From our side, who are liberated: John 3, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life. Digression on Latin credere Deo / credere Deum / credere in Deum: to believe in Him is to go into Him by love — formed faith — a distinction found in Augustine and Thomas (treatise on faith at the beginning of the prima secundae) and rejected by Luther.
  2. From Christ’s side, who by the humility of the Passion merited the glory of exaltation — Luke 24, “these things it was necessary for Christ to suffer, and thus enter into His glory” (the two disciples). Thomas says explicitly His death merited His resurrection, descent, ascension; Berquist adds, not from the text, that in a way the humility of the first coming merits the glory of the second.
  3. From God’s side, whose determination about the Passion was foreannounced in Scripture and prefigured in the old law: Luke 22 (“the Son of Man goes according as has been defined”), Luke 24 (all things written “in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms” — sometimes a twofold, sometimes a threefold division of the Old Testament).
• He remarks that in this text Thomas does not seem to make the two-part division from the end explicitly, and that mercy and truth (promise fulfilled) are at work — mercy being the highest; he cannot at once find the Psalm text he wants.

4. The replies of article 1 (“that reason proceeds of the necessity of force”) #

• To 1: that reason proceeds of the necessity of force on God’s side.
• To 2: likewise — there “necessary” means forced; even Augustine and the Fathers sometimes use necessary simply for force.
• To 3: liberation by the Passion was suitable both to mercy and justice. To justice, because Christ satisfied for the sin of the race and man was liberated through Christ’s justice — he recalls Thomas’s argument from Augustine: man ought to make reparation but cannot; God could but does not owe it; so God became man, doing what mere man could not, yet a man making reparation for man — which is why it would not have been suitable for an angel to come down and suffer. To mercy, because God gave His Son to satisfy (Rom. 3, justified gratis, Christ proposed as propitiation), “and this was of more abundant mercy than if He were to dismiss sins without satisfaction.” Ordinary illustration: letting one who offended you do something in amends can be more merciful than forgiving with nothing done. Ephesians 2, “God who is rich in mercy.”
• Aside: Much Ado About Nothing — Hero falsely accused, apparently dead, the father’s offer of a cousin very like her, the veil coming off. “You’ve got to read Shakespeare.”
• To 4: as said before, the angel’s sin is not remediable because his mind is completely actual and he sins with full knowledge, while man, divided and ignorant, is changeable so long as he is in this changeable world.

5. Bridge to articles 2 and 3 (“it’s necessary for me to have food”) #

Articles 2 and 3 take up the claim that there were other possible ways, hence it is not necessary in the sense that the end could in no way be had otherwise. Illustration: it is necessary for me to have food to live — but not steak, or steak and wine. Asides: Washington Irving to his nephew Pierre, that it is idle to take credit for our writings, “Shakespeare’s done it all… maybe one or two others” — as Berquist would say, it is idle to read Berkeley when you can read Thomas. And Tolkien, asked a question for a thesis: “Why are you asking me?” [unclear in recording]. Break.

6. Article 2, objections (“unless the grain of wheat… dies”) #

That no other way of liberation was possible:

1. John 12, the grain of wheat; Augustine: He calls Himself the grain of wheat — so unless He died He could not have brought the fruit of our liberation.
2. Matthew 26, “Father, if it is not possible for this chalice to go away unless I drink it” — the chalice of His passion; Hilary: because we cannot be repaired except from His passion. (He calls this “a pretty good argument.”)
3. God’s justice requires satisfaction; Christ cannot forego His own justice — 2 Tim., “if we do not believe, He remains faithful, for He is not able to deny Himself.”
4. Falsehood cannot come under faith; the ancient fathers believed Christ was to suffer — though, he notes, that is itself a kind of supposition.

• Sed contra: Augustine, De Trinitate XIII — that way by which God deigned to free us through the mediator is good and suitable to the divine dignity, but we show that another way was possible to God, to whose power all things are equally subject. (Aside: the book on the Trinity is here talking about the Incarnation — “can you keep these things separate?”) This is the same order Augustine gives at the beginning on the necessity of the Incarnation.

7. Article 2, answer and replies (“simply and absolutely; another way, by supposition”) #

• Possible/impossible said in two ways, parallel to the division of necessity: simply and absolutely, or by supposition. Absolutely, God could have freed man otherwise, since with God no word is impossible (Luke 1) and this involves no contradiction. But on a supposition made it becomes impossible, since God’s foreknowledge, will and disposition cannot fail; supposing His foreknowledge and foreordering of the Passion, it was not at the same time possible for Christ not to suffer — and the same reasoning holds of all things foreknown and foreordained, as shown in the first part on providence.
• Student-aided illustration: could I marry that woman in the street? Absolutely, yes; but given the supposition that I am already married, it is impossible — “unless you’re a Muslim.”
• Reply 1 and 2: the Lord in John 12 and in Matthew 26 speaks supposing God’s foreknowledge and foreordering; hence He adds “Your will be done” — He could have willed otherwise, but having willed this, it is impossible not to be.
• Reply 3: this justice too depends on God’s will requiring satisfaction; if He willed to free man without satisfaction He would not act against justice. A judge who remits guilt or punishment acts unjustly when the offence was against another, against the public, or against a superior prince; but God has no one above Him and is the supreme and common good of the whole universe (the argument that He is the greatest good, since the common good is greater than the private), so in dismissing sin committed against Himself He injures no one — as a man remitting an offence against himself acts mercifully, not unjustly. David: “To you only have I sinned.”
• Reply 4: human faith and the Scriptures which instruct it rest on the divine foreknowledge and ordering, so their necessity is the same necessity from supposition.

8. Article 3, objections (“some other way would be more suitable”) #

1. Nature imitates the divine work and does not do through two what it can do through one; God can liberate by His will alone, so adding the Passion seems unsuitable.
2. What comes about by nature comes about more suitably than what comes by violence, since the violent is a cutting out or falling away from what is according to nature (De Caelo, “the book about the universe” (inferred)); Christ’s was a violent death, so a natural death would have been more suitable.
3. It is most suitable that one who detains violently and unjustly be despoiled by a superior power (Isaiah 52, “freely and without silver you are redeemed”); the devil had no right in man, so Christ should have despoiled him by power alone without the Passion.
   • Aside from Thomas’s commentary on the Psalms: man fell by desiring knowledge — of good and evil — the devil by desiring power; so God willed to overcome him by justice rather than by power.

• Sed contra: Augustine, De Trinitate XIII — our miseries could not be healed in a more suitable way.

9. Article 3, answer: the five things that “run together” (“many things come together… suitable and expedient”) #

Principle: a way is the more suitable to an end the more things come together through it that are suitable and expedient to the end. Through liberation by the Passion many such things run together besides liberation from sin:

1. Man knows how much God loves him and is provoked to love Him, in which the perfection of human salvation consists (Rom. 5, God commended His charity in us). This is the reason given for the Incarnation in both Summa Theologiae and Summa contra Gentiles: love unites lover and beloved — hence the comparison to marriage.
2. He gives an example of obedience, humility, constancy, justice and the other virtues (1 Pet., “leaving us an example that we might follow His footsteps”). Virtue is the road to happiness, but no man is a sure model — even the greatest saints are at fault; Augustine: man can be seen but is not a perfect model; God can be followed but is not seen — so God became man.
3. He not only liberated from sin but merited justifying grace and the glory of beatitude, as will be said later.
4. A great necessity is laid on man of keeping himself immune from sin: “you have been bought with a great price… glorify and carry God in your body” (1 Cor. 6). Compare the Incarnation-reason that man realizes the nobility of his nature (Leo the Great); but here is the added thing that by your sins you are in a sense responsible for His suffering — “that sobers you up.” A student suggests this fourth reason follows from the first; both Summae have the promotion to good and the avoidance of evil, more explicit in the Summa Theologiae. He notes the standard prayer before the crucifix in which one contemplates the wounds with both joy (sign of Christ’s love) and sadness (the reality of His suffering and one’s own sinfulness as its cause). Student: had it been done an easier way, we would not feel so indebted.
5. Greater dignity: that man, overcome and deceived by the devil, should be the one to overcome the devil; and as man merited death, a man by dying overcame death (1 Cor. 15, “thanks be to God who gives us victory”).

• Summary: the three articles go together — a. 2 shows the end could have been had otherwise; a. 3 that no more suitable way could be had. It is necessary in the sense in which something is necessary to achieve the end well: “you can make a journey without a horse, but to make it well, you need a horse.” A student presses that Thomas argues not only that it is done well but best of all; he agrees, quoting Augustine: there is no better way in which He could have redeemed us.
• Aside: God chose to become man, but the Father did not choose to have the Son, nor did they choose to add a third — it is absolutely necessary that there be three persons in God, though we would not know it without faith.

10. Article 3, replies (“nature… sometimes takes on many things for one thing”) #

• To 1: nature too, to make something more suitable, takes on many things for one — two eyes for seeing. He calls this “a good example”: two ears, two legs, two hands; with one eye you would not have the same depth, with one ear you would “not have Mozart so well.” Student: “your own eyes rebuke you.” — “So concrete, Thomas.”
  • Mozart digression: before recordings, how often would anyone hear a given work — perhaps once or twice in a lifetime — which may explain why some music was not appreciated until much later; at the premiere of the twenty-second piano concerto the second movement was so liked it had to be repeated entire. His own “self-sustaining collection,” large enough that rotation keeps it fresh; hearing a known Mozart piece in the car, with nothing else to do, you listen more carefully than at home — “really good stuff.”
• To 2 (why violent rather than natural death): Chrysostom — Christ came not to consume His own death, which He did not have since He is life, but the death of men; so He did not die by His own death but sustained the death inflicted by men. Had His body sickened and dissolved in sight of all, it would be unsuitable that the healer of others’ sicknesses be afflicted with sickness; and had He laid down His body somewhere without sickness and then offered Himself, the one discoursing of the resurrection would not be believed. He must undergo death before all and, by the incorruption of His body, prove death extinct. (He remarks on the mockery at the cross that He cured others and cannot cure Himself, and admits: “that’s why I don’t follow entirely the argument there.”)
• To 3: though the devil invaded man unjustly, man by his sin was justly left by God under the devil’s servitude, so it was suitable that man be freed by justice, Christ satisfying through His passion. Also suitable for overcoming the devil’s pride — the devil who gave up justice and loved power (so all the men in the world, like Hitler, who love power imitate the devil) — that Christ should overcome him not by the power of His divinity alone but by the justice and humility of His passion, the devil’s injustice and pride overcome by Christ’s justice and humility. As Augustine says in [book] 15. “Augustine has the last word on so many things.”

His words #

• “Fifth book of wisdom” — Aristotle’s Metaphysica, the book after the books of natural philosophy [ed.: Metaphysics V].
• “Necessary is said in many ways” — the threefold usage: absolute (secundum suam naturam), of force/violence, and from supposition of the end.
• “Necessity of force” — from the efficient cause or mover, as one detained cannot go.
• “From the supposition of the end” — if the end is to be achieved, this must be so; subdivided into the end being in no way possible otherwise, or not suitably possible otherwise.
• “Formed faith” — credere in Deum, to go into Him by love, against credere Deo / credere Deum.
• “Nullo modo potest esse” — of an end that can in no way be had otherwise.
• “Simply and absolutely” vs. “by supposition” — the parallel division for possible/impossible.
• “The book about the universe” — Aristotle’s De Caelo (inferred), for the violent as a falling away from nature.
• “Self-sustaining collection” — a record collection big enough that rotating through it never bores.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q. 46, a. 1 (objs. 1–4, sed contra, corpus, replies) — the sed contra from John 3; obj. 4 citing Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 4.
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 46, a. 2 (objs. 1–4, sed contra from Augustine De Trinitate XIII, corpus, replies) — obj. 1 John 12 with Augustine; obj. 2 Matthew 26 with Hilary; obj. 3 2 Timothy.
• Summa Theologiae III, q. 46, a. 3 (objs. 1–3, sed contra from Augustine De Trinitate XIII, corpus with five reasons, replies) — reply 2 from Chrysostom; reply 3 ending “as Augustine says in 15.”
• Scripture quoted within these: Isaiah 53; Psalm 24; John 3; Luke 22; Luke 24; Romans 3; Romans 5; Ephesians 2; Luke 1; Isaiah 52; 1 Peter 2; 1 Corinthians 6; 1 Corinthians 15.

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Metaphysics V — on beginning, cause, element, nature, necessary.
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I–II, beginning of the treatise on faith — credere Deo / Deum / in Deum.
• Thomas, Summa Theologiae I, on providence.
• Thomas, Summa contra Gentiles — reasons for the Incarnation.
• Thomas, commentary on the Psalms — man fell desiring knowledge, the devil desiring power.
• Leo the Great — on the nobility of human nature.
• Ecclesiasticus — “where the tree falls, there it shall lie.”
• Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing; C. S. Lewis on angelic love; Washington Irving.

His questions #

• In what sense was it necessary for Christ to suffer? Not absolutely, and not by force, but from the supposition of the end — and threefold: on our side, on Christ’s side, on God’s side.
• Are “necessary” and “voluntary” opposites? Only where necessary means force; the Son’s eternal generation is necessary and not against will, though not by choice.
• Could God have freed man in another way? Simply and absolutely yes; supposing His foreknowledge and foreordination, no.
• Would it be unjust of God simply to dismiss sin without satisfaction? No — the offence is against Him, and He has no superior; remitting it injures no one.
• Why not the angels, since their nature is more excellent? The angel’s mind is complete and he sins with full knowledge; man, divided and changeable in a changeable world, is reparable.
• Why a violent death rather than a natural one? Chrysostom: sickness would be unsuitable in the healer, and a quiet death would leave the resurrection unbelieved; death must be undergone before all and shown extinct.
• Why did Christ not simply despoil the devil by power? Because man was justly under the devil’s servitude, and the devil’s pride and injustice were fittingly overcome by Christ’s humility and justice.
• Is Thomas arguing only that it was well done, or best of all? Best of all — Augustine: there is no better way in which He could have redeemed us.