Thomas Joseph White #30: Was Christ's passion necessary for our salvation? (III, 46, 1-3) — Transcript

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1. 0:00Was Christ's Passion necessary for our Salvation? (III, 46, 4-3)
2. 0:07Aquinas asked whether it was necessary that Christ died for us; did He need to suffer the Cross for our Salvation?
3. 0:13And he gives a highly qualified answer.
4. 0:16So, you have Saint Anselm who, a couple of centuries before Aquinas,
5. 0:20had argued that, in a certain sense, the Incarnation, and the Passion, of Christ, are necessary for our Salvation,
6. 0:26because only a man can atone for our sins - because we need the human race to restore itself to a state of dignity and friendship with God -
7. 0:36but only one who has the infinite dignity of God can really merit our Salvation,
8. 0:40- because we need the infinite holiness and dignity of Christ as God to save us.
9. 0:48So, only a God-man can save us,
10. 0:50because we need it to be something that comes from us, as a human race, restoring our relationship with God,
11. 0:54and something that comes from God, insofar as it has a kind of perfect and infinite dignity.
12. 1:00The atonement of Christ is the atonement of One who is both God and man.
13. 1:04So, He is obedient as man, and He is of infinite holiness as God.
14. 1:08And this is not only fitting, but necessary in a strict sense, in a way.
15. 1:12That's the argument of Anselm.
16. 1:14Aquinas qualifies that. He says:
17. 1:16God is omnipotent, and He could save us uniquely through a kind of decree of mercy,
18. 1:24and so, He could simply have, you might say, declared a new state of affairs, and decided to save us through a new economy of mercy,
19. 1:34in which, you might say, Christian Saints would be raised up,
20. 1:38without passing through the medium of the Passion of Christ,
21. 1:41and the atoning death of Jesus’ free and voluntary consent to suffer, in obedience, for our Salvation.
22. 1:50And Aquinas says: that would have been possible for God, but it is less fitting.
23. 1:56And so, God, by a certain kind of wisdom, Divine wisdom which is manifest in the mystery of the Incarnation and the Passion,
24. 2:03chose a better way, which is to save us in justice.
25. 2:07To save us in justice doesn't just mean that God takes initiatives of justice towards us,
26. 2:12but He inscribes His justice in us, in a proportionate way; He justifies us; He renders us rightly ordered toward Him in knowledge and love.
27. 2:21And He does that, primarily, by becoming one of us, by taking on human nature,
28. 2:26and by being as our brother, Christ, in the eternal Sonship of God, the Son of God made man.
29. 2:33By being righteousness for us.
30. 2:35That is to say, Jesus is the God man, who is righteous in His human actions of voluntary love and obedience,
31. 2:43which atone for our sins, and restore us to a rightly ordered relationship with God.
32. 2:50This is highly fitting.
33. 2:51It was not, strictly speaking, necessary, but it is the more beautiful and more profound way to do it.
34. 2:58And what is interesting, is that Aquinas says,
35. 2:59that this is more merciful than if He had done it without having saved us [in justice], that is, in strict mercy alone,
36. 3:06because, to make us just through Christ,
37. 3:10to instantiate us in a new relationship with God through the atoning justice of Christ, in His holiness and perfection,
38. 3:19communicated to us through Grace and Faith, by which we are justified, or united, to Christ in His righteousness,
39. 3:27in doing all that, God has done something more merciful,
40. 3:31because He has not just, as it were, saved us without us, outside of us, apart from us,
41. 3:37but He has actually saved us, in a certain way, through us, in us, and with us, by saving us in Christ, Who is one of us.
42. 3:45So, because it is through a man, a human being, that we have been redeemed,
43. 3:50the human race has participated, begun to participate,
44. 3:54in its own restoration, to an order of righteousness, and freedom, and justice, and love.
45. 4:00And so, the justice of Christ, this mysterious righteousness, and holiness, of Jesus, as man,
46. 4:07is, you might say, part of our common human patrimony. It is now ours. We can belong to it, and it belongs to us
47. 4:15and this occurs through Grace, and through Faith, by which we are united with the Christ, who is the Head of the Church.
48. 4:23And this means that we've received a very deep mercy from God: the mercy of Justice, the mercy of living in Justice.
49. 4:31And so, what that shows, is that in Aquinas’ mind, Mercy and Justice are not opposed;
50. 4:36There is no zero-sum game between them.
51. 4:38Like when God is being more merciful, He is less just, or when He has been more just, He is less merciful.
52. 4:43Actually, when He is being most merciful, He is being also most righteous, most just.
53. 4:49And so, it is precisely in the deep goodness of His mercy, that He is also instantiating us in a new order of justice.