Sin psychoanalyzed

 It is difficult to find true aphorisms of Thomas Aquinas.  He was no rhetorician, his precision and brilliance with language notwithstanding, and so he’s not often good for those ‘one-liners’ that everyone else seems to be able to write.  (E.g., Augustine: “If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe in, but yourself.”)  Nevertheless, I found a cool page that does its best to collect some quasi-aphorisms from Aquinas.  Here is one passage that I liked especially on the nature of weakness, choice, and sin:

  Since the act of sin or of virtue is according to choice, and choice is a desire for something previously deliberated about, and deliberation is a kind of inquiry, it is necessary that in every act of virtue or of sin there be a kind of syllogistic deduction. But a temperate and an intemperate person syllogize differently. The same holds for a continent and an incontinent person.

A temperate person is moved only by a rational judgement, using a syllogism of three statements, as:

 Fornication should never be committed.
This act is fornication.
Therefore it must not be done.

An intemperate person, however, totally follows concupiscence, and likewise uses a syllogism of three statements, as:

Everything pleasurable must be enjoyed.
This act is pleasurable.
Therefore it must be enjoyed.

But a continent and an incontinent person have two moving forces. One is reason, to avoid sin. The other is concupiscence, to commit it. But for the continent person the judgement of reason wins, whereas in the incontinent person the movement of concupiscence wins. Thus each of them uses a syllogism of four statements, but leading to contrary conclusions.

The continent person uses the following syllogism:

 No sin must be committed (a judgement of reason).
Everything pleasurable must be enjoyed (what concupiscence presents to his heart).
This is a sin (the victorious judgement of reason).
Therefore this should not be done.

The incontinent person, for whom the judgement of concupiscence prevails, argues this way:

 No sin must be committed (a judgement of reason).
Everything pleasurable must be enjoyed (what concupiscence presents to his heart).
This is pleasurable (the victorious judgement of concupiscence).
Therefore it must be enjoyed.

Thus the incontinent person has universal, but not particular, knowledge of the issue, since he does not follow the particular judgement of reason but that of concupiscence.

A personal letter from St. Thomas

I found this translation of a letter that Aquinas wrote to a friend, on the subject of study and wisdom:

LETTER OF THOMAS AQUINAS TO BROTHER JOHN
ON HOW TO STUDY

Since you asked me, my dearest in Christ Brother John, how you should study in order to acquire the treasure of knowledge, I offer you this advice on the matter: Do not wish to jump immediately from the streams to the sea, because one has to go through easier things to the more difficult. Therefore the following points are my warning and your instruction:

• I command you to be slow to speak, and slow to go to the conversation room.
• Embrace purity of conscience.
• Do not give up spending time in prayer.
• Love spending much time in your cell, if you want to be led into the wine cellar.
• Show yourself amiable to all.
• Do not query at all what others are doing.
• Do not be very familiar with anyone, because familiarity breeds contempt, and provides matter for distracting you from study.
• Do not get involved at all in the discussions and affairs of lay people.
• Avoid conversations about all any and every matter.
• Do not fail to imitate the example of good and holy men.
• Do not consider who the person is you are listening to, but whatever good he says commit to memory.
• Whatever you are doing and hearing try to understand. Resolve doubts, and put whatever you can in the storeroom of your mind, like someone wanting to fill a container.
• Do not spend time on things beyond your grasp.

Following such a path, you will bring forth flowers and produce useful fruit for the vinyard of the Lord of Power and Might, as long as you live. If you follow this, you can reach what you desire.

Good stuff.  Now I need to work at following it.  (I’m guessing that the “wine cellar” in bullet point four has something to do with the conversation that was mentioned before that?  Otherwise I have no idea of what is going on there.)

Aquinas on Truth, Health, and Urine

(FP; Q16; a6) Whether there is only one truth, according to which all things are true?

  Objection 1: It seems that there is only one truth, according to which all things are true. For according to Augustine (De Trin. xv, 1), “nothing is greater than the mind of man, except God.” Now truth is greater than the mind of man; otherwise the mind would be the judge of truth: whereas in fact it judges all things according to truth, and not according to its own measure. Therefore God alone is truth. Therefore there is no other truth but God.

Objection 2: Further, Anselm says (De Verit. xiv), that, “as is the relation of time to temporal things, so is that of truth to true things.” But there is only one time for all temporal things. Therefore there is only one truth, by which all things are true.

On the contrary, it is written (Ps. 11:2), “Truths are decayed from among the children of men.”

I answer that, In one sense truth, whereby all things are true, is one, and in another sense it is not. In proof of which we must consider that when anything is predicated of many things univocally, it is found in each of them according to its proper nature; as animal is found in each species of animal. But when anything is predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper nature, and from this one the rest are denominated. So healthiness is predicated of animal, of urine, and of medicine, not that health is only in the animal; but from the health of the animal, medicine is called healthy, in so far as it is the cause of health, and urine is called healthy, in so far as it indicates health. And although health is neither in medicine nor in urine, yet in either there is something whereby the one causes, and the other indicates health.

Now we have said (Article [1]) that truth resides primarily in the intellect; and secondarily in things, according as they are related to the divine intellect. If therefore we speak of truth, as it exists in the intellect, according to its proper nature, then are there many truths in many created intellects; and even in one and the same intellect, according to the number of things known. Whence a gloss on Ps. 11:2, “Truths are decayed from among the children of men,” says: “As from one man’s face many likenesses are reflected in a mirror, so many truths are reflected from the one divine truth.” But if we speak of truth as it is in things, then all things are true by one primary truth; to which each one is assimilated according to its own entity. And thus, although the essences or forms of things are many, yet the truth of the divine intellect is one, in conformity to which all things are said to be true.

Reply to Objection 1: The soul does not judge of things according to any kind of truth, but according to the primary truth, inasmuch as it is reflected in the soul, as in a mirror, by reason of the first principles of the understanding. It follows, therefore, that the primary truth is greater than the soul. And yet, even created truth, which resides in our intellect, is greater than the soul, not simply, but in a certain degree, in so far as it is its perfection; even as science may be said to be greater than the soul. Yet it is true that nothing subsisting is greater than the rational soul, except God.

Reply to Objection 2: The saying of Anselm is correct in so far as things are said to be true by their relation to the divine intellect.

Aquinas’ four ways

From an e-mail to a colleague:

Sorry to bombard you with e-mails in the last 24 hours, but I thought I’d take 5 minutes to copy and paste the relevant section of Aquinas that you and I have been referencing (and from which I’ve quoted sections). It comes from his commentary on Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. I’ll put the text from the Ethics first, followed by Aquinas’ commentary, with my gloss in the form of [bracketed] clarifications and a little bit of text formatting. For the ambitious student I’ve included links where Aquinas references Aristotle’s Metaphysics, although you’ll have to scroll down the page to find the relevant chapter of the book that is cited.

Ethics, Bk. 1, Ch. 1:

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. But a certain difference is found among ends; some are activities, others are products apart from the activities that produce them. Where there are ends apart from the actions, it is the nature of the [end] products to be better than the activities [in themselves].

Now, as there are many actions, arts, and sciences, their ends also are many; the end of the medical art is health, that of shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory, that of economics wealth. But where such arts fall under a single capacity- as bridle-making and the other arts concerned with the equipment of horses fall under the art of riding, and this and every military action under strategy, in the same way other arts fall under yet others- in all of these the ends of the master arts are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends; for it is for the sake of the former that the latter are pursued.

COMMENTARY OF ST. THOMAS

1. As the Philosopher says in the beginning of the Metaphysics (Bk. 1, Ch. 2, 982 a 18), it is the business of the wise man to order. The reason for this is that wisdom is the most powerful perfection of reason, whose characteristic it is to know order. Even if the sensitive [sensing, such as eyesight and touch] powers know some things absolutely, nevertheless to know the order of [or relationship of] one thing to another is exclusively the work of the intellect or reason.

Now a twofold order is found in things. One kind is that of parts of a totality, that is, a group, among themselves, as the parts of a house are mutually ordered to each other. The second order is that of things to an end. This order is of greater importance than the first. For, as the Philosopher says in the eleventh book* of the Metaphysics (Bk. XII, Ch. 10, 1075 a 15), the order of the parts of an army among themselves exists because of the order of the whole army to the commander. Now order is related to reason in a fourfold way:

1. There is one order that reason does not establish but only beholds, such is the order of things in nature.
2. There is a second order that reason establishes in its own act of consideration, for example, when it arranges its concepts among themselves, and the signs of concept as well, because words express the meanings of the concepts.
3. There is a third order that reason in deliberating establishes in the operations of the will.
4. There is a fourth order that reason in planning establishes in the external things which it causes, such as a chest and a house.

 

2. Because the operation of reason is perfected by habit [i.e., through habituation], according to the different modes of order that reason considers in particular, a differentiation of sciences arises. The function of natural philosophy is to consider the order of things that human reason considers but does not establish-understand that with natural philosophy here we also include metaphysics. The order that reason makes in its own act of consideration pertains to rational philosophy (logic), which properly considers the order of the parts of verbal expression with one another and the order of principles to one another and to their conclusions. The order of voluntary actions pertains to the consideration of moral philosophy. The order that reason in planning establishes in external things arranged by human reason pertains to the mechanical arts.

 

Accordingly it is proper to moral philosophy, to which our attention is at present directed, to consider human operations insofar as they are ordered one another and to an end.

* [really the 12th book, as the medieval ordering was mistaken]

books

For a New Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard. I gave this book another read-through about a month ago. Both “readings” have been an audiobook (acquired for free!) that I listened to while driving the daily commute. I think this might be the perfect book to recommend to friends who are mostly convinced of many libertarian ideas, but for whatever reason feel uncomfortable saying things like “the free market would provide a far more effective and moral legal system,” or “the national road system suffers greatly in the hands of our government; making the roads private would benefit the common good like no other highway reform.” Rothbard, as usual, is relentless in his logic, clarity, and persuasiveness in this classic text.

Some Desperate Glory by Edwin Campion Vaughan. This gem of a diary, written by a young (not yet 20 years old) British officer during his front-line experience in the Great War, was discovered in a family cupboard only three decades ago. Though not as polished as other WWI literature in this genre, Vaughan’s account details both the monotonous boredom and the sheer horror of war. Vaughan witnesses and survives one of the worst battles in the war at Ypres: he sees a cat eating the face of a German corpse, he bears the sound of his own wounded men screaming and moaning in pain while they drown in the mucky shell-holes of no-man’s-land, he watches in horror as a soldier cowering on the ground is motivated by Vaughan’s screaming and gathers the courage to run into battle — only to be shot dead 3 paces later, and he recoils in shock when a solider being prodded by Vaughan replies “I’m blind, sir” and turns to reveal half of a face ripped off by shrapnel. These moments are weighty but come interspersed between long periods of boredom, frustration, and the discomfort that Vaughan experiences when he lives in the French mud for 7 straight months.

St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G. K. Chesterton. I picked up this book based on its reputation, and I wasn’t disappointed. Chesterton, who also wrote a much-acclaimed volume on St. Francis, tackles here one of the most monstrously-large figures in all of philosophy, and does so while keeping his project at about a couple hundred pages. Chesterton’s touch is poetic and delicate as he urges the reader to understand the fundamental love Aquinas had for reality, liberty, practical life, and everything that the scholastics are accused of dismissing. Chesterton, a firm Catholic, also makes a (persuasive) argument that, in many ways, Aquinas and Francis — an odd pair indeed — were very much the reformation before the Reformation. Compared to these thinkers, he writes, Calvin and Luther were reacitonaries. Not the typical line of reasoning about the relationship between the church and the reformers.

Thomas dances. . .

  My apologies, because I will probably be posting substantial portions of Tommy ‘Nas in the next few days (weeks? months?) as I start making cursory glances through his works in English, found here and described here in my blog post.

In today’s story, St. Thomas will take on the age old question of free will versus Divine sovereignty.  Does God’s foreknowledge and pre-ordination necessitate specific actions on the part of humans?

***

” . . .[W]e come to the question whether, because of divine ordination or predestination, human acts become necessary. This question requires caution so as to defend the truth and avoid falsity or error.

“It is erroneous to say that human acts and events escape God’s fore-knowledge and ordination. It is no less erroneous to say that God’s fore-knowledge and ordination imposes necessity on human acts; otherwise free will would be removed, as well as the value of taking counsel, the usefulness of laws, the care to do what is right and the justice of rewards and punishments.

“We must observe that God knows things differently from man. Man is subject to time and therefore knows things temporally, seeing some things as present, recalling others as past, and fore-seeing others as future. But God is above the passage of time, and his existence is eternal. So his knowledge is not temporal, but eternal. Eternity is compared to time as something indivisible to what is continuous. Thus in time there is a difference of successive parts according to before and after, but eternity has no before and after, because eternal things are free from any change.

“Thus eternity is totally at once, just as a point lacks parts that are distinct in location. For a point can be compared to a line in two ways: first as included in the line, whether at the beginning, middle or end, secondly as existing outside a line. A point within a line cannot be present to all the parts of the line, but in different parts of the line different points must be designated. But a point outside the line can view all parts of the line equally, as in a circle, whose central point is indivisible and faces all the parts of the circumference and all of them are somehow present to it, although not to one another.

“An instant, which is a limit of time, is comparable to the point included in a line. It is not present to all parts of time, but in different parts of time different instances are designated. Eternity is something like the point outside a line, like the centre of a circle. Since it is simple and indivisible, it comprehends the whole passage of time and each part of time is equally present to it, although one part of time follows another.

“Thus God, who looks at everything from the high point of eternity, views as present the whole passage of time and everything that is done in time. Therefore, when I see Socrates sitting, my knowledge is infallible and certain, but no necessity is imposed on Socrates to be seated. Thus God, seeing everything that is past, future or present to us as present to himself, knows all this infallibly and certainly, yet without imposing on contingent things any necessity of existing.

“This comparison can be accepted, if we compare the passage of time to travel over a road. If someone is on a road over which many people pass, he sees those who are just ahead of him, but cannot certainly know those who come after him. But if someone stands in a high place where he can see the whole road, he sees at once all who are moving on the road. Thus man, who is in time, cannot see the whole course of time at once, but only thinks that just in front of him, namely the present, and a few things of the past, but he cannot know future things for certain. But God, from the high point of his eternity sees with certitude and as present all that is done through the whole course of time, without imposing necessity on contingent things.

“Just as God’s knowledge does not impose necessity on contingent things, neither does his ordination, by which he providentially orders the universe. For he orders things the way he acts on things; his ordination does not violate but brings to effect by his power what he planned in his Wisdom.

“As for the action of God’s power, we should observe that he acts in everything and moves each single thing to its actions according to the manner proper to each thing, so that some things, by divine motion, act from necessity, as the motion of heavenly bodies [according to ancient cosmology], while others contingently, which sometimes fail in their proper action because of their corruptibility. A tree, for example, sometimes is impeded from producing fruit and an animal from generating offspring. Thus Divine Wisdom orders things so that they happen after the manner of their proper causes. In the case of man, it is natural for him to act freely, not forced, because rational powers can turn in opposite directions. Thus God orders human actions in a way that these actions are not subject to necessity, but come from free will.”

***
That’s about as good and concise a formulation of the ‘classical answer’ (first proposed by Boethius, unless I’m mistaken) that I have seen.  It comes from a short tract authored by Aquinas entitled: Reasons for the Faith Against Muslim Objections.  It isn’t too hard, I don’t think, to show that God (if eternal) can know things without necessitating them.  Yet what is particularly good here, in my opinion, is Aquinas’ elucidation (in the last two paragraphs) of how human choice does not negate pre-ordination, that is, the special action of ordering on God’s part.

Aquinas also has a blistering couple of paragraphs that evangelical Christians of the last century should have read before putting so much thought toward ‘proving’ God’s truth to skeptics in any meaningful sense.

Chapter 2: How to argue with unbelievers

First of all I wish to warn you that in disputations with unbelievers about articles of the Faith, you should not try to prove the Faith by necessary reasons. This would belittle the sublimity of the Faith, whose truth exceeds not only human minds but also those of angels; we believe in them only because they are revealed by God.

Yet whatever comes from the Supreme Truth cannot be false, and what is not false cannot be repudiated by any necessary reason. Just as our Faith cannot be proved by necessary reasons, because it exceeds the human mind, so because of its truth it cannot be refuted by any necessary reason. So any Christian disputing about the articles of the Faith should not try to prove the Faith, but defend the Faith. Thus blessed Peter (1 Pet 3:15) did not say: “Always have your proof”, but “your answer ready,” so that reason can show that what the Catholic Faith holds is not false.

The best website . . . ever?

Or, alternatively titled: The website than which none greater can be conceived.

It started with my last post, when I made a Google search for “Aquinas commentary metaphysics,” with the aim of arriving at the Amazon.com page. What I found in addition to this, however, was something quite unexpected: an online, HTML, English version of the text, available here. Seeing that the url contained a root directory “CDtexts”, and thinking that the plural “texts” sounded promising, I did some manual navigating around the web page, and came across this index.

It looks like we have here about 90% of the known works of Aquinas, translated into English, available for all to read. This includes a full translation of the Summa Contra Gentiles, which up until this point I had only found abridged, even after extensive Google searching!

Notable also are a number of commentaries on scripture, a number of commentaries on Aristotle, and works on prayer, the creeds, and some sermons. You can find passages and complete translations of the Summa Theologiae almost anywhere; it’s Aquinas’ other works that can be murder to find, even in hard copy!

This is the kind of thing that I couldn’t have discovered soon enough. All hail the internet!

O’Rourke and Aquinas (of course!)

  I happened upon some P.J. O’Rourke quotations on a blog, and wanted to get a couple down, for potential future use.

 ”Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”

“And whom do you draft in a war against drugs? Certainly not eighteen-year-old boys. They’re the enemy.”

“You say we’re distracting Clinton from the business of government. Well I hope so. Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby.”

“Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs.”

“You can’t get rid of poverty by giving people money.”

(on socialism) “Everyone knows that life ought to be fair and that God’s a lousy guy for not making it happen. Everyone should get what everyone else gets. And, if everyone else gets broke, hungry, and dead, well fair’s fair.”

and, of course: “Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”

Which reminds me; I’ve got some reading to do in Aquinas. . .

Oh!  Which reminds me again . . . in two ways.  Thing one: my birthday present from my mom and dad, namely these two books, will be arriving at my doorstep any afternoon now.  (Said my mom when telling me about my present, “I had a really hard time buying this, even though it was on your list.  I just kept thinking, ‘this doesn’t look like fun.’”)  Do I need to add that I am tremendously excited?

Thing two: I am putting together material for a book of philosophy, to be used by the discussion group in which I participate.  The book will contain writings from Dionysus, Boethius, Maimonides, and more — including Tommy ‘Nas.  I’m going through the Summa Theologiae to gather selections for the book, and I’m working with Google Documents to compile everything.  One of the nice things about Google Documents — among many, many things — is that you can ‘publish’ your work.

My progress on the Summa can be found here, and as I continue to add / edit the document, these changes will be reflected on that webpage.  In other words, that web link will always display the most recent ‘version’ of my work.

Merit, grace, and reward

Is there any sense in which we can say that we (ever) merit (anything whatsoever) from God?

The quick reformed answer is “No, never, not in any circumstance.” But I think that the context of this reply is, in general, a concern that if we can merit anything whatsoever, it appears as though some grace was earnable from God, insofar as we acted (apart from? in spite of?) Him and thereby put Him in our debt. Hence, the definition of grace is negated, and we are left to wonder why it is that we believe a human did anything apart from grace.

I’ve been pondering this passage in the Summa Theologiae, trying to weigh these thoughts in my head and come to some semblance of clarity:

***

Whether a man may merit anything from God?

Objection 1: It would seem that a man can merit nothing from God. For no one, it would seem, merits by giving another his due. But by all the good we do, we cannot make sufficient return to God, since yet more is His due, as also the Philosopher says (Ethic. viii, 14). Hence it is written (Lk. 17:10): “When you have done all these things that are commanded you, say: We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which we ought to do.” Therefore a man can merit nothing from God.

Objection 2: Further, it would seem that a man merits nothing from God, by what profits himself only, and profits God nothing. Now by acting well, a man profits himself or another man, but not God, for it is written (Job 35:7): “If thou do justly, what shalt thou give Him, or what shall He receive of thy hand.” Hence a man can merit nothing from God.

Objection 3: Further, whoever merits anything from another makes him his debtor; for a man’s wage is a debt due to him. Now God is no one’s debtor; hence it is written (Rm. 11:35): “Who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made to him?” Hence no one can merit anything from God.

On the contrary, It is written (Jer. 31:16): “There is a reward for thy work.” Now a reward means something bestowed by reason of merit. Hence it would seem that a man may merit from God.

I answer that, Merit and reward refer to the same, for a reward means something given anyone in return for work or toil, as a price for it. Hence, as it is an act of justice to give a just price for anything received from another, so also is it an act of justice to make a return for work or toil. Now justice is a kind of equality, as is clear from the Philosopher (Ethic. v, 3), and hence justice is simply between those that are simply equal; but where there is no absolute equality between them, neither is there absolute justice, but there may be a certain manner of justice, as when we speak of a father’s or a master’s right (Ethic. v, 6), as the Philosopher says. And hence where there is justice simply, there is the character of merit and reward simply. But where there is no simple right, but only relative, there is no character of merit simply, but only relatively, in so far as the character of justice is found there, since the child merits something from his father and the slave from his lord.

Now it is clear that between God and man there is the greatest inequality: for they are infinitely apart, and all man’s good is from God. Hence there can be no justice of absolute equality between man and God, but only of a certain proportion, inasmuch as both operate after their own manner. Now the manner and measure of human virtue is in man from God. Hence man’s merit with God only exists on the presupposition of the Divine ordination, so that man obtains from God, as a reward of his operation, what God gave him the power of operation for, even as natural things by their proper movements and operations obtain that to which they were ordained by God; differently, indeed, since the rational creature moves itself to act by its free-will, hence its action has the character of merit, which is not so in other creatures.

Reply to Objection 1: Man merits, inasmuch as he does what he ought, by his free-will; otherwise the act of justice whereby anyone discharges a debt would not be meritorious.

Reply to Objection 2: God seeks from our goods not profit, but glory, i.e. the manifestation of His goodness; even as He seeks it also in His own works. Now nothing accrues to Him, but only to ourselves, by our worship of Him. Hence we merit from God, not that by our works anything accrues to Him, but inasmuch as we work for His glory.

Reply to Objection 3: Since our action has the character of merit, only on the presupposition of the Divine ordination, it does not follow that God is made our debtor simply, but His own, inasmuch as it is right that His will should be carried out.

***

All merit is understood with the presupposition that God pre-ordains certain rewards for certain actions. Aquinas thinks that this pre-ordination doesn’t negate the idea that we yet might merit reward from God, as a reformed protestant might. (E.g. ‘If God pre-ordains it you cannot be said to have merited it.’) I can’t figure out in this context if he’s referring specifically to salvation, to merit in general, or to rewards that would presumably be given based on post-regeneration merit.

That last category — actions post-regeneration — really interests me when thinking about grace, reward, and merit. I guess one way I could pose my initial question, stripped of the ’salvation puzzle’, would be to say: “Can the regenerated saints merit anything whatsoever from God?”

Can I, as a regenerated human, have any discernible part of righteous action that is rewarded in accordance with what God has decreed?

If not, then all righteous acts — even after regeneration — must be God supernaturally imposing righteousness on me. I don’t like this option very much, and I don’t think that it aligns with scripture.

Or, alternatively, I can do righteous action but there are no decreed rewards that this merits — i.e. my life of practicing righteousness is merely the returned thanks for my salvation. I can understand this option (see the scripture passage quoted in Objection 1), but I wonder whether it is scriptural.

–

Some additional thoughts after having a conversation with a friend last night. Here are some (roughly stated, badly put, etc.) options for how one might view merit:

(1) Regenerated humans cannot perform righteous action. Everything that humans do is sinful in some sense. All perceived righteous action is some intervention by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, all merit is due to Christ in every sense. (I don’t think it’s too hard to reject this.)

(2) Christians can and do perform “good” actions in a qualified sense. Of course, there will always be the taint of sin on any given action, due to our old nature, with which we must wrestle until our death, resurrection, and glorification. However, since Christ’s sacrifice has covered all sins, even the ‘tainted’ good actions will be seen as good actions based on their incorporation into Christ’s merit. God will see the good in our actions as good, and will not see the bad due to Christ’s mediation. Humans, therefore, receive some degree of “merit” from God, decreed rewards for certain actions, although only Christ’s intervention makes even this possible.

(3) Christians, having a new nature, can perform good actions that merit rewards based on God’s decrees and pre-ordination.

I lean toward option (3), if only because (2) seems to cut out options that scripture seems to uphold. I have no doubt that I have performed very few truly good actions — if any! — in my life. Sin and my sin nature permeate my habits, thoughts, and actions. Nevertheless, to uphold option (2) is to claim that no regenerate Christian may ever perform an action that has no aspect of sin to it.

I really haven’t found Scripture that compels me toward upholding (2). Scripture is very clear that our actions don’t merit a righteous standing before God, but I would want to see some kind of support for believing that no regenerate Christian may do good things, especially since we are commanded to do so.

The Bible clearly says that no person may keep the law to his or her own righteousness, but where does it say that our actions while on this earth cannot merit pre-ordained reward, or that any and all actions of regenerate humans are tainted with sin? I think that’s the ‘missing link’ in scriptural support that I’m looking for.

Hmm.

Aquinas on the Eucharist

“BECAUSE spiritual effects are produced on the pattern of visible effects, it was fitting that our spiritual nourishment should be given us under the appearances of those things that men commonly use for their bodily nourishment, namely bread and wine. And for the further correspondence of spiritual signs with bodily effects, in the spiritual regeneration of Baptism the mystery of the Word Incarnate is united with us otherwise than as it is united in this Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is our spiritual nourishment. In Baptism the Word Incarnate is only virtually contained, but in the Sacrament of the Eucharist we confess Him to be contained substantially, as nourishment must be substantially united with the nourished.

“And because the completion of our salvation was wrought by Christ’s passion and death, whereby His Blood was separated from His Body, therefore the Sacrament of His Body is given us separately under the species of bread, and His Blood under the species of wine.”

. . .

” IT is impossible for the true Body of Christ to begin to be in this Sacrament by local motion, because then it would cease to be in heaven, upon every consecration of this Sacrament; as also because this Sacrament could not then be consecrated except in one place, since one local motion can only have one terminus; also because local motion cannot be instantaneous, but takes time. Therefore its presence must be due to the conversion of the substance of bread into the substance of His Body, and of the substance of wine into the substance of His Blood. This shows the falseness of the opinion of those who say that the substance of bread co-exists with the substance of the Body of Christ in this Sacrament;* also of those who say that the substance of bread is annihilated. If the substance of bread co-exists with the Body of Christ, Christ should rather have said, Here is my Body, than, This is my Body. The word here points to the substance which is seen, and that is the substance of bread, if the bread remain in the Sacrament along with the Body of Christ.

“Every operation of nature presupposes matter, whereby subjects are individuated; hence nature cannot make this subject become that, as for instance, this finger that finger. But matter lies wholly under the power of God, since by that power it is brought into being: hence it may be brought about by divine power that one individual substance shall be converted into another pre-existing substance. By the power of a natural agent, the operation of which extends only to the producing of a change of form and presupposes the existence of the subject of change, this whole is converted into that whole with variation of species and form.* So by the divine power, which does not presuppose matter, but produces it, this matter is converted into that matter, and consequently this individual into that: for matter is the principle of individuation, as form is the principle of species.* Hence it is plain that in the change of the bread into the Body of Christ there is no common subject abiding after the change, since the change takes place in the primary subject [i.e., in the matter], which is the principle of individuation. Yet something must remain to verify the words, This is my body, which are the words significant and effective of this conversion. But the substance does not remain: we must say therefore that what remains is something beside the substance, that is, the accident of bread. The accidents of bread then remain even after the conversion.

“This then is one reason for the accident of bread remaining, that something may be found permanent under the conversion. Another reason is this. If the substance of bread was converted into the Body of Christ, and the accidents of bread also passed away, there would not ensue upon such conversion the being of the Body of Christ in substance where the bread was before: for nothing would be left to refer the Body of Christ to that place. But since the dimensions of bread (quantitas dimensiva panis), whereby the bread held this particular place, remain after conversion, while the substance of bread is changed into the Body of Christ, the Body of Christ comes to be under the dimensions of bread, and in a manner to occupy the place of the bread by means of the said dimensions.”

– Summa Contra Gentiles 4.61; 4.63

” THOSE conditions must be observed which are essential for bread and wine to be. That alone is called wine, which is liquor pressed out of grapes:* nor is that properly called bread, which is not made of grains of wheat. Substitutes for wheaten bread have come into use, and have got the name of bread; and similarly other liquors have come into use as wine: but of no such bread other than bread properly so called, or wine other than what is properly called wine, could this Sacrament possibly be consecrated: nor again if the bread and wine were so adulterated with foreign matter as that the species should disappear.

“A valid Sacrament may be consecrated irrespectively of varieties of bread and wine, when the varieties are accidental, not essential. The alternative of leavened or unleavened bread is an instance of such accidental variety; and therefore different churches have different uses in this respect; and either use may be accommodated to the signification of the Sacrament. Thus as Gregory says in the Register of his Letters*: “The Roman Church offers unleavened bread, because the Lord took flesh without intercourse of the sexes: but other Churches offer leavened bread, because the Word of the Father, clothed in flesh, is at once true God and true man.” Still the use of unleavened bread is the more congruous, as better representing the purity of Christ’s mystical Body, the Church, which is figured in a secondary way (configuratur) in this Sacrament, as the text has it: Christ our passover is sacrificed: therefore let us feast in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth (1 Cor. v, 7, 8).”

– Summa Contra Gentiles, 4.69

Whether the whole Christ is contained under this sacrament?

Objection 1: It seems that the whole Christ is not contained under this sacrament, because Christ begins to be in this sacrament by conversion of the bread and wine. But it is evident that the bread and wine cannot be changed either into the Godhead or into the soul of Christ. Since therefore Christ exists in three substances, namely, the Godhead, soul and body, as shown above (Question [2], Article [5]; Question [5], Articles [1],3), it seems that the entire Christ is not under this sacrament.

Objection 2: Further, Christ is in this sacrament, forasmuch as it is ordained to the refection of the faithful, which consists in food and drink, as stated above (Question [74], Article [1]). But our Lord said (Jn. 6:56): “My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.” Therefore, only the flesh and blood of Christ are contained in this sacrament. But there are many other parts of Christ’s body, for instance, the nerves, bones, and such like. Therefore the entire Christ is not contained under this sacrament.

On the contrary, Ambrose says (De Officiis): “Christ is in this sacrament.”

I answer that, It is absolutely necessary to confess according to Catholic faith that the entire Christ is in this sacrament. Yet we must know that there is something of Christ in this sacrament in a twofold manner: first, as it were, by the power of the sacrament; secondly, from natural concomitance. By the power of the sacrament, there is under the species of this sacrament that into which the pre-existing substance of the bread and wine is changed, as expressed by the words of the form, which are effective in this as in the other sacraments; for instance, by the words: “This is My body,” or, “This is My blood.” But from natural concomitance there is also in this sacrament that which is really united with that thing wherein the aforesaid conversion is terminated. For if any two things be really united, then wherever the one is really, there must the other also be: since things really united together are only distinguished by an operation of the mind.

Reply to Objection 1: Because the change of the bread and wine is not terminated at the Godhead or the soul of Christ, it follows as a consequence that the Godhead or the soul of Christ is in this sacrament not by the power of the sacrament, but from real concomitance. For since the Godhead never set aside the assumed body, wherever the body of Christ is, there, of necessity, must the Godhead be; and therefore it is necessary for the Godhead to be in this sacrament concomitantly with His body. Hence we read in the profession of faith at Ephesus (P. I., chap. xxvi): “We are made partakers of the body and blood of Christ, not as taking common flesh, nor as of a holy man united to the Word in dignity, but the truly life-giving flesh of the Word Himself.”

On the other hand, His soul was truly separated from His body, as stated above (Question [50], Article [5]). And therefore had this sacrament been celebrated during those three days when He was dead, the soul of Christ would not have been there, neither by the power of the sacrament, nor from real concomitance. But since “Christ rising from the dead dieth now no more” (Rm. 6:9), His soul is always really united with His body. And therefore in this sacrament the body indeed of Christ is present by the power of the sacrament, but His soul from real concomitance.

Reply to Objection 2: By the power of the sacrament there is contained under it, as to the species of the bread, not only the flesh, but the entire body of Christ, that is, the bones the nerves, and the like. And this is apparent from the form of this sacrament, wherein it is not said: “This is My flesh,” but “This is My body.” Accordingly, when our Lord said (Jn. 6:56): “My flesh is meat indeed,” there the word flesh is put for the entire body, because according to human custom it seems to be more adapted for eating, as men commonly are fed on the flesh of animals, but not on the bones or the like.”

– Summa Theologiae, Third Part, Question 76, Article 1