Chapter 56 — Of the necessity of the sacraments

We have already observed (Ch. 55.) that Christ’s death is a kind of universal cause of man’s salvation, and that a universal cause needs to be applied to each individual effect. Consequently, it was necessary for man to be supplied with certain remedies, so that thereby the benefit of Christ’s death might be brought to him. These remedies are called the sacraments of the Church.

And it was expedient that they should be supplied to man under the guise of visible signs.

First, because God provides for man, as for other things, according to the condition of his nature. Now it is a condition of man’s nature that he be naturally led to things spiritual and intelligible by objects of sense. Therefore, it was expedient for man to receive spiritual remedies under the guise of sensible signs.

Second, instruments should be proportionate to the first cause. Now the first and universal cause of man’s salvation is the incarnate Word, as we have already stated. (Ch. 55.) Therefore, it was fitting that the remedies whereby the power of the universal cause reaches mankind should bear some likeness to that cause—namely, that in them the divine power should work invisibly under visible signs.

Third, man had fallen into sin by adhering to visible things unduly. Lest, therefore, it be thought that visible things are evil by nature, and that it was sinful to adhere to them for this reason, it was expedient that by means of visible things man should receive salutary remedies. For thus it was made evident that visible things are by their nature good, as being created by God, and that they become hurtful to man through his adhering to them inordinately; but they are beneficial to him as long as he makes proper use of them.

Hereby we refute the error of certain heretics, who would remove all such visible elements from the sacraments of the Church. This is naturally so, because they deem all visible things to be evil by nature, and to be produced by an evil author. We have refuted this in the second book. (Cc. 4. seqq.)

Nor is it unreasonable that spiritual well-being be dispensed by means of visible and corporeal things, since these visible elements are, as it were, instruments of God’s Incarnation and Passion. Now an instrument is effective not by virtue of its nature, but by virtue of the principal agent, by whom it is applied to act. So too these visible elements effect spiritual well-being not by any property of their nature, but by Christ’s institution, from which they derive their instrumental efficacy.