486 MAN'S ORIGINAL STATE. ROBERT PULLEIN. a necessary character or mark of this conception."" Accordingly, Anselm reduces the formal conception of freedom to a material, the negative to a positive element. Sin, in his opinion, supposes an original freedom, as the faculty of self-determination in a being who is good. But here enters in still another peculiar character connected with the point mentioned above, the application of the conception gratia to the primeval state of man. In order to repel, from the beginning, an autonomy of human nature, he defines free will as a faculty to preserve the bent of the will, once received, to that which is good for its own sake, laying an emphasis on the phrase, once received. The phrase, "for its own sake," is also an important clause considered from this point of view, that the love of goodness on its own account, gives to morality its true significance. The same definition may, according to this doctrine, be applied also to the angels. These too were created in the state of grace, and it depended solely on their freewill to persevere in communion with God and preserve what had been bestowed on them by grace. But the sin of Satan consisted in an arrogated autonomy, in the fact that he did not acquiesce in God's appointed order, but was for obtaining likeness to God by his own will.3 By withstanding this temptation, the good angels attained to that state which Satan aspired to reach in a disorderly manner, and perseverance in the goodness originally communicated to them was their reward. This perseverance was made conditional on their "merit."4 Robert Pullein acknowledges also the necessity of a gratia coöperans in the first man, without which he had no power to do anything good.5 We find more exactly determined in his writings, what Anselm had left still vague and indefinite. "The angels," he teaches, "stood originally on the foundation of faith; it was made to depend upon the fact of their perseverance in good, whether they should attain to the intuition of God, and thereby to immutability in goodness." We shall not fail to see, when we come to look more closely into the systematic connection of the doctrines of these theologians, that a twofold application of the term gratia lay at the bottom, in the case of them all. The rational creature is equally dependent on God with all the other creatures; his universal cooperation is indispensable, without which even the powers originally implanted in the creatures could not continue to exist and operate. But from this is to be distinguished a new communication of God to his rational creatures, supervening to the original 1 Potestas peccandi, quae addita voluntati, minuit ejus libertatem, et si dematur, auget, nec libertas est nec pars libertatis. In his dialogue, De libero arbitrio, c. i. 2 Ad servandam acceptam rectitudinem voluntatis propter seipsam. Plus aliquid, quam acceperat, inordinate volendo voluit inordinate similis esse Deo. See the tract, De casu Diaboli. Anselm himself avows his ignorance with regard to this higher stage that Satan would have attained to by his selfwill; and which they obtain by humble submission to MAN'S ORIGINAL STATE. HUGO OF ST. VICTORE. 487 - a commu He dis powers, and made conditional on the employment of them,nication which they need in order to reach their ultimate destination. This distinction, already lying at bottom in the previous dogmatic systems, would therefore, when once clearly brought out, be generally recognized. It was so brought out by Hugo a St. Victore. tinguishes grace, for instance, in the wider sense, as denoting the universal divine influence (concursus) on which all creaturely action constantly depends, without which the powers originally bestowed on rational creatures cannot operate, and grace, in the more restricted sense, as something supervening to those original powers of nature through a new divine communication, whereby they are exalted. This distinction having been once clearly expressed, the question next arose, For what, in man's primitive state, did grace, in the wider sense, suffice; and for what did he need grace, in the more restricted sense? Hugo answered: "The former sufficed to keep man from falling, with his free will, from the position where he was placed by the original constitution of his nature. But to actual righteousness, the actual accomplishment of good works and progress therein, he could not attain without some new supervening grace.2 Before sin, man was able by his free will, with the assistance of that common grace, to avoid evil; but he needed gratia coöperans, in order to perform anything positively good. But after the fall, he needed not only gratia coöperans, but also gratia operans." Peter Lombard attributes to the first man a free will wholly uncorrupt, and all the natural powers of the soul in their full purity and vigor.3 This free will wills that which is good, but after a feeble manner, until the help of divine grace supervenes, by which first the efficaciter velle is imparted to it. Peter of Poictiers1 makes the image of God refer to those spiritual powers bestowed on man at creation, by the right use of which he might • have attained to the realization of likeness to God. But in order to this it was necessary, in his opinion, that the bona gratuita should supervene to the bonis naturalibus.5 Man was created for likeness to God, inasmuch as his spiritual nature was so constituted as to render him capable of receiving those higher goods, and of forming himself to the virtues proceeding therefrom.6 He distinguishes in the primeval state two conditions, one before and the other after the bestowment of grace.7 This distinction of natural and supernatural, applied to man's origi 1 Summa Sentent. tract. iii, c. vii. Sine apposita gratia. 3 Lib. ii, Distinct. xxiv: Libertas arbitrii ab omni labe et corruptela immunis atque voluntatis rectitudo et omnium naturalium potentiarum animae sinceritas atque vivacitas. P. ii, c. ix, Sentent. Also, the mystical theologian, abbot Rupert of Deutz (Tuitiensis), bears testimony to this distinction, which was still further prosecuted by the speculative theologians, as one grounded in the universal consciousness of the church, since he remarks: Cum creasset Deus ad imaginem suam hominem, coepit illum informare ad similitudinem suam. Non enim creando, sed informando perducit Deus hominem ad similitudinem suam. De victoria verbi Dei lib. ii, c. vii. Ad habilitatem suscipiendi bona gratuita, quia factus est aptus suscipere virtutes, non tamen statim habuit. 7 Duo status, unus, in quo non habuit gratiam, qua posset proficere, et alius, qui habuit gratiam, qua potuit proficere. 488 MAN'S ORIGINAL STATE. CELLE. ALEXANDER. nal state, was attended, indeed, with the advantage that the supernaturalistic element in the system of faith, and opposition to Pelagianism were thus made to rest on deeper grounds; but it might also be attended with a disadvantage in furnishing encouragement and the occasion for a separation of the divine and human, altogether at variance with the essence of Christianity; as if the truly human could subsist wholly separate from all union with God, and the divine, the supernatural first supervened from without, as something that did not belong to the actualization of the essence of human nature; under which supposition, redemption could not be apprehended in its right relation to human nature, as the restoration of that nature. This mistake had an important influence also on the systems of morals; for it led men to apprehend the divine, not as the ennobling of the human, and the actualization of all that which was originally implanted in man's nature, but as the superhuman. A false direction in ethics, which, as we have already been led to remark, had been transmitted from earlier centuries, was thereby kept up, and this false tendency might in turn contribute to promote the view in question. If we consider the mighty influence of Aristotle, in whose ethics this separating of the purely human and the divine-which is characteristic of the ancient morals generally-strongly predominates, it will be quite apparent to us that this influence, also, would operate powerfully in the same way. We have preferred to notice this connection beforehand, and in this place, that we may be able to refer back to it in the particular expositions which are to follow. The abbot Peter de la Celle, afterwards bishop of Chartres, felt it to be his duty, already, to enter a firm and decided protest against the view of which we have been speaking. He expressed his surprise that he must be compelled to hear, what he never could have dreamed of himself, that likeness to God was an accidental gift, when it must assuredly be known to be a quality truly essential. It appears to him that the true essence of human nature cannot be conceived, at all, separate from the divine life.2 Should it be said, this likeness is something contingent because it may be lost, it would follow for the same reason, that life itself is something contingent to us.3 In This separating of the purely human and the divine lies at bottom of the view of man's primeval state, in Alexander of Hales.4 man's original state, he looks upon the purely human (the pura naturalia), as the first; the divine, he considers as something superinduced at a later period, for the ennobling of the purely human. In other words, that man was created at first in a pure state of nature left to itself (in puris naturalibus), he declares to be the view most conformable to reason. He distinguishes two stages of development: "It served to glorify the divine majesty, that nature should appear 1 Lib. iii, ep. iv. Quid igitur? Itane summa illa beatitudo et gloria saeculorum accidentalis erit, ut possit adesse et abesse praeter subjecti corruptionem? Vera quoque virtus, vera bonitas, vera justitia, imo ipsa veritas est Deus. Sine his igitur si fuerit anima, moritur, et dicis esse accidentalia dona? 'P.i, Quaest. xcvi. DISTINCTION OF A TWOFOLD GRACE. 489 first, in its development out of itself; and that the higher formation (informatio) by grace, should then be communicated to it, in order that man might be led to the sense of what grace is, as a gift of God; might be taught to distinguish such effects as proceed from this, the supernatural, from the barely natural. There is a manifestation of divine wisdom in the way in which man is conducted along, through various stages of development towards perfection. The goodness of God shines forth in this, that in communicating himself to man he imparts to him not only single operations of grace, but also the capacity, in a certain sense, of independent coöperation;-the divine life considered as something independent, and animating the individuality of character. The theologians of the thirteenth century, in their conception of grace, make the important distinction between isolated effects of the divine, the supernatural, isolated notions of the higher life, particular higher gifts, and the divine life as a principle ennobling the whole individuality of character; that from which a new character proceeds, the individual wholly interpenetrated with a divine life,— the distinction between a gratia gratis data, and a gratum faciens,such grace as first renders the man well-pleasing to God. This perfect communication of God was to be made conditional on the right use of nature. It is a universal law that, in nature, a certain preparation and receptivity for the communication of grace is required. Hence, grace was not created in man, but kept in store until, by the use of reason, he had become in a certain sense fitted for the reception of the same. Merit, in the strict sense of the word, as that on the ground of which something may be claimed as a due, a meritum de condigno, could certainly find no place here; as must be evident, indeed, from the incommensurate relation between things divine and natural; but doubtless, there might be a meritum de congruo (congruit, id quod congruit), a siov пgénov, in perfect accordance with the laws of the moral order of the world, a merit constituting the condition under which God has found it befitting to bestow his grace. So here the principle already appears, that the bestowment of grace is always conditioned on the use made of it by free will. Pure nature stood as yet in no opposition to the divine; the latter was simply wanting to the perfection of nature; nature was informis negative not privative. The divine found still a clear place for its action; it had as yet no opposition to overcome. Nothing was needed as yet but a gratia informans; no gratia reformans. Now as it respects the exact relation subsisting between the state of pura naturalia and that of gratia, Alexander of Hales by no means limits this first state of man to his ethical position. The purely human is to him by no means the merely moral part of man's nature: for he assumes the relation to God as one implanted originally in human nature. This relation, grounded in the very essence of the creature, as such, must reveal itself in man as simply 1 Deus secundum legem communem re- tionem ex parte naturae ad hoc, ut infundat quirit aliquam praeparationem et disposi- alicui gratiam. Deus liberalis salvo ordine sapientiae et justitiae. 490 MAN'S ORIGINAL STATE. BONAVENTURA. conscious of himself. Accordingly, love to God, as the creature's highest good was necessarily present in the state of pure nature. But he distinguishes from this purely human virtue a superhuman one. In the purely human, according to him, something selfish still seems to inhere, which could only be removed by a higher principle. From the above-mentioned love to God as the creature's highest good, belonging to the pure state of nature, Alexander distinguishes a still higher position of love, standing in contradiction with the natural inclinations, which impels a man to do, for God's sake, that to which the natural inclinations are adverse; or to shun that which is the object of natural love; as that love to God which leads men to love their enemies and to despise all earthly goods. This is the supernatural disposition of "charity." Here again that ethical direction is the principle lying at bottom, which proposes not the appropriation of the earthly in subservience to the divine, but the utter renunciation of the earthly, as the highest problem; a view which stands closely connected with the above-mentioned false separation of the divine and human. According to the teachings of this theology, all communication of God to man is conditioned on a certain preparation on man's part, a certain "merit." But now it is inseparably connected with the above view of the relation of the human to the divine, that eternal happiness must be regarded as something far transcending the pura naturalia, as well as everything barely creaturely, so that no proportionality can exist between them. In the condition of pura naturalia, therefore, no "merit," by which man could have made himself worthy of that happiness, was possible. It required a supernatural mediation, in order that man might be fitted for that supernatural eternal life. To the supernatural divine, nothing corresponds but the supernatural divine. A proportionality can exist only between a supernatural divine life bestowed on man already in the present life, and eternal blessedness.2 Bonaventura defines the place assigned to man as the image of God in the creation in accordance with his doctrine already explained concerning the end of the creation.3 God created all things for his own glory; as the greatest light, for his own self-manifestation; as supreme goodness, for his own self-communication. But there can be no perfect revelation without some one to understand it,-no perfect communication of goodness, without some one capable of enjoying it. Since this capacity of understanding and enjoyment belongs only to the rational creatures, the irrational creation stands in no immediate, but only in an indirect relation to God; and that, through the medium of the rational creature. But rational creatures, being created to praise and to know God, and to appropriate other things for the use of a will in submission to God, are therefore created to stand in an immediate relation to God (nata est ordinari in Deum immediate). 'Ipsius gratuitae bonitatis influentia, per quam creatori ipsi creatura grata existat, gratia gratum faciens. Impossibile, quod homo merendo ad illud summum bonum ascendat, nisi per ali quod adjutorium, quod sit ultra naturam. 3 Lib. ii, Distinct. xvi, Quaest. i. 4 Non habent ipsae creaturae irrationales immediate ad Deum ordinari, sed mediante creatura rationali. |