Article I. Natural Intellectual Life and Supernatural Life

Several authors, struck by the difference which they find between the writings of the great mystical theologians (such as Dionysius, Richard of St. Victor, St. Bonaventure, Tauler, St. John of the Cross) and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, are surprised that we should expect to find in St. Thomas’ writings the principles of mystical theology. Some even consider St. Thomas, not a great theologian who from a supernatural point of view used Aristotle for the defense and explanation of the divine truths of faith, but rather a philosopher of genius who gave us an interpretation of the Gospel, a Christian Aristotle, as later on Malebranche was a Christian Plato.

Anyone who accepts this view must lack an intimate knowledge of the writings of St. Thomas, especially his treatises on the Trinity, the incarnation, the Holy Eucharist, grace, the theological virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Certainly such a person never read St. Thomas’ commentaries on St. Paul, St. John, the Psalms, and the Canticle of Canticles. He must be ignorant of St. Thomas’ short treatises on piety, his prayers, his office of the Blessed Sacrament; and he must be unacquainted with the saint’s life, his nights spent before the tabernacle, his ecstasies, the eminent gift of contemplation which made him refer to his Summa as being only straw in comparison with what he beheld.

In this article we wish to show that this judgment of the great doctor springs from an entirely material manner of reading his works. We have a tendency to give a materialistic interpretation to everything—doctrine, piety, rules of conduct, action. This is the inclination of our fallen and wounded nature unless it is profoundly regenerated and completely vivified by grace which heals and elevates, and unless we are free from domination by our temperament; or if, despite the state of grace, we preserve a host of purely natural judgments, quite unconformable to the spirit of faith.

Influenced by these dispositions, we are unintentionally prone to interpret the loftiest doctrines materialistically; that is, we are inclined to note only their material elements which adapt themselves better to our tastes, and to lose sight of the spirit which determines their nature and is the soul of the doctrinal body. Once more St. Paul’s expression is verified: “For the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth.” 1 Following this way, under pretext of reliance on what is tangible, mechanically exact, and incontestably certain even for the incredulous, we would end by explaining the higher by the lower, by reducing the first to the second, which is the very essence of materialism in all its forms. We would be inclined to explain the soul by the body, much more than the body by the soul; in the same way, to explain the life of grace by nature, theological doctrines by the philosophical elements which they have assimilated, the life of religious orders by the social conditions in which they had their origin, without thinking sufficiently of the incessant but invisible work of God, who alone can raise up great doctors and saints. From this point of view, we would rapidly dwarf everything and, instead of living supernaturally according to the true sense of this word, we might, despite certain appearances, flounder about in what is mediocre and mean.

This disposition to explain the higher by the lower is found 1 See II Cor. 3: 9 .

5® in varying degrees, from the gross materialism which explains spirit by matter up to that which places a materialistic interpretation on spiritual philosophy, theology, exegesis, the history of the Church, asceticism, and the liturgy, the letter of which is kept, and not the spirit.

Even with a true desire to learn, we may read St. Thomas from this point of view. In his theological doctrine numerous material or philosophical elements are found, which he intends to subordinate to the idea of God, the Author of grace. If we unduly emphasize these lower elements, which are within the reach of reason, instead of rising to the summit of the synthesis, we will find a real opposition between this doctrine and that of the great mystical theologians, who have treated especially of union with God. The trees will prevent our seeing the forest. Absorbed in the details at the base of the structure, we shall fail to see the keystone of the arch. At least we shall be considering only from below the supernatural principle of this masterpiece of the mind; seeing it only by its reflection on the lower realities which it regulates, instead of judging these matters from above, as ought to be done by the “higher reason,” so greatly prized by St. Augustine, and by theological wisdom, not to speak of the gift of wisdom, which is even more elevated. Thus the reading of St. Thomas’ Summa and commenting on it may be only slightly supernatural and even anti-mystical. This manner of reading it directs the mind away from the view of the great commentators (Capreolus, Cajetan, Bannes, John of St. Thomas, the Carmelites of Salamanca), all of them inferior to the master. But they understood him better than we do, and lead us after him toward the same heights.

A delicate instrument of precision is easily injured so that it is no longer accurate; likewise the doctrine of St. Thomas is easily distorted. This results if we misplace the emphasis on what is secondary and material, thus explaining in a banal manner and without due proportion what is formal and principal in it. By so doing, we fail to see the glowing summits that should illumine all the rest.

We note here the chief confusions that would render this doctrine essentially anti-mystical. They have been made especially by nominalist theologians, who finally perceived nothing but words in the loftiest spiritual realities, when they did not see as materially evident that these realities had been revealed by God. 2 Nominalist theology is a considerable diminution of the science of God. We point out these confusions to show that the teaching of St. Thomas is, on the contrary, the same as that which St. John of the Cross and his disciples developed. We make this point evident by insisting on what constitutes the grandeur of his teaching, and by manifesting the supernatural wealth it contains. For one who has read the Salamanca theologians, evidently the Carmelite doctrine and that of the Angelic Doctor agree throughout, particularly with regard to the loftiest questions in the treatise on grace.

Let us consider briefly, in the Thomistic synthesis, the fundamental doctrines which are most closely allied to the spiritual life; especially those bearing on our natural, intellectual knowledge; then those bearing on the supernatural life, on the infused virtues, on the gifts of the Holy Ghost, on the efficacy of grace, and lastly on the very nature of God.

2 These confusions have also been made, in a certain measure, by theologians who have undergone the sad influence of nominalism, which is a tendency that must end in seeing only words in everything which exceeds the immediate object of experience, sensible phenomena. For the nominalist there is no longer any human nature essentially distinguished from grace, but only an aggregation of human individuals. With greater reason, according to them, spiritual realities are naturally unknowable. For example, we cannot be certain of the spirituality and immortality of the soul unless God reveals them to us, and our intelligence cannot comprehend revealed formulas, because of the insufficiency of its ideas. This doctrine leads finally to a negation of theology and philosophy, to actual positivism. Occasionally, as a reaction, it has led certain souls to a mysticism, but a mysticism without doctrinal foundation, often composed of sentimentality proceeding from the powerlessness of diminished reason and from the necessity of finding something to cling to, rather than from the idea of the infinite grandeur of God. One can be a nominalist by tendency without knowing it; indeed, this happens frequently.

In the Thomistic synthesis our intellectual knowledge in the natural order is based on the first principles of reason: the principle of contradiction—no being, created or uncreated, can at the same time and under the same aspect be and not be; the principle of causality—all that has potential nonexistence, whether spirit or matter, has a cause; the principle of finality-every agent, whether material or spiritual, acts for an end; the first principle of morality—one must do good and avoid evil. St. Thomas declares that the intellectual knowledge of these primordial truths springs in a certain way from the senses, because our intelligence abstracts its ideas from sensible things. Understanding this doctrine materially, some people have thought that the intellectual certitude of the first principles resolves itself essentially or formally into sensation, and that it relies on sensation as on its formal motive. 8 This point of view would reduce the higher to the lower, intelligence to sense; it would forget that rational principles are absolutely universal and necessary and that they reach even the loftiest realities, God Himself, whereas sensation reaches only sensible, singular, and contingent objects. Were this done, the absolute universality and necessity of rational first truths would no longer be explainable; reason would remain the prisoner of phenomena, like the senses of an animal, and our liberty, which follows from our intelligence, would disappear. We would not be able to resist the attraction of sensible goods, because we would not dominate them. Our nature, like that of animals, would be incapable of receiving grace and of being raised to the vision of God.

According to St. Thomas, on the other hand, intellectual¹ certitude of rational first principles resolves itself only ma terially into the prerequisite sensation;² it resolves itself formally into purely intellectual evidence of the absolute truth of its principles, which appear as the fundamental laws not only of phenomena but of being or of all intelligible real ity, whether corporator spiritual. This evidence presupposes in us a constantly increasing intellectual light of an order in finitely superior to sensation or to the most subtle imagina tion; an intellectual light which is a distant image of the divine light and which can illumine nothing without the con stant concurrence of God, Sun of spirits, Master of intelli gences.³ Although St. Thomas here treats of subjects in the natural order, he already speaks almost as a mystic: “As any human doctrine exteriorly proposed instructs us because of the intellectual light which we have received from God, it fol lows that God alone teaches us interiorly and as principal Cause.” 6

Malebranche and the ontologists exaggerated these words of St. Thomas and seemed to have a still higher idea of our natural intelligence by claiming that our intelligence sees first principles in God Himself. The apparent elevation of this Christian Platonism is not, however, that of true mystical theology because it tends to confound the natural order and that of grace, instead of maintaining the absolute superiority of the latter.

According to the ontologists, our intellect is capable of knowing being, because it is capable of knowing God; accord-

« De veritate, q. 11, a. 1.

ing to St. Thomas, our intellect is capable of knowing God by grace, because it is first of all capable of knowing being by nature. 7 This teaching places it infinitely above the senses.

In respect to the supernatural life, we know the principle of St. Thomas: “Grace perfects nature and does not destroy it.” 8 A great spirit of faith is necessary, however, if we are always to interpret this principle correctly without inclining practically toward naturalism. Some persons will understand this principle materially, or will be more attentive to nature which must be perfected than to grace which should produce this transformation in us. Furthermore, considering nature as it actually is since original sin, they will not sufficiently distinguish in nature what is essential and good, what ought to be perfected, from what ought to be mortified, egoism under all its forms gross or subtle. By failing to make this distinction, they find a real opposition between the doctrine of St. Thomas thus materialistically interpreted and the famous chapter of the Imitation (Bk. Ill, chap. 54), “On the Divers Movements of Nature and Grace.” They forget what the holy doctor teaches about the wounds consequent upon original sin which remain in the baptized soul. 9

They will forget even more completely what he says about the infinite distance which separates the most perfect nature, even that of the most exalted angel, from the slightest degree of sanctifying grace, which St. Thomas declares “superior to the natural good of the entire universe” 10 of matter and spirit.

7 “Since the created intellect is naturally capable of apprehending the concrete form, and the concrete being abstractedly, by way of a kind of resolution of parts; it can by grace be raised up to know separate subsisting substance, and separate subsisting existence” (la, q.12, a.4 ad 3um). “The soul is naturally capable of grace; since from its having been made to the likeness of God, it is fit to receive God by grace, as Augustine says” (la Ilae, q. 113, a. 10).

8 See la, q.i, a.8 ad 2ura; q.2 ad xum; q.60, a.5.

9 See la Ilae, q.85, a.3; Ilia, q.69, a.3, 4 ad 3um; Contra Gentiles , Bk. IV, chap. 52.

10 See la Ilae, q.113, a.9 ad 2um.

All angelic natures taken together are not equal to the slightest movement of charity.

Nominalists have diminished this doctrine to the point of thinking that grace is not a supernatural reality by its essence, but that it has only a moral value which gives us a right to eternal life, as a bank note gives us the right to claim a certain sum of gold. 11 Likewise for them the baptismal and sacerdotal characters are only extrinsic titles, relations established by reason without a basis in reality (for example, an adopted son). Luther, a disciple of the nominalists, went so far as to say that sanctifying grace is not a reality in us, is not a new life, but only the pardon of our faults exteriorly granted by God.

Without going to such extremes, some theologians have thought that God could create an intelligence for which the beatific vision would be natural. 12 They failed to see the infinite distance which necessarily separates the nature of all created and creatable intelligence from grace, which is a “participation in the divine nature.” 18

To grasp what this distance is, we must bear in mind that grace is really and formally a participation in the divine nature precisely in so far as it is divine, a participation in the Deity, in that which makes God God, in His intimate life. As rationality is what makes man a man, the Deity is the constituent essence of God, such as He is Himself. Grace is a mysterious participation in this essence, which surpasses all natu-

11 The nominalists (such as Occam, Gabriel Biel, and Pierre d’Ailly) judged everything by the facts of experience and not by the formal reasons of things which alone, however, can render facts intelligible. Unable to discern in human individuals that which constitutes human nature, they no longer saw what distinguishes human nature from the gift of grace. In their view this gift was supernatural only by a contingent institution by God, as metal or paper has money value only in virtue of a law promulgated by civil authority. Grace thus conceived is no longer really and formally the seed of glory.

12 They lost sight of the abyss which separates the natural object of the divine intelligence from that of created intelligence.

13 See la Ilae, q.no, a.3.

ral knowledge. Even stones, by the fact of their existence, have a remote likeness to God in so far as He is being; plants also distantly resemble Him in so far as he is living; human souls and angels are by nature made to the image of God and resemble Him by analogy in so far as He is intelligent; but no created or creatable nature can resemble God exactly in so far as He is God. Grace alone can make us participate really and formally in the Deity, in the intimate life of Him whose children we are by grace. The Deity, which remains inaccessible to all natural created knowledge, is superior to all the divine perfections naturally knowable, superior to being, to life, to wisdom, to love. All these divine attributes, diverse as they appear to be, are one and the same thing in God and with God. They are in the Deity formally and eminently as so many notes of a superior harmony, the simplicity of which is beyond our comprehension. 14

Grace makes us participate really and formally in this Deity, in this eminent and intimate life of God, because grace is in us the radical principle of essentially divine operations, that will ultimately consist in seeing God immediately, as He sees Himself, and in loving Him as He loves Himself. Grace is the seed of glory. In order to know its essence intimately, we must first have seen the divine essence of which grace is the participation. By grace we are veritably /‘born of God/’ as St. John says. This is what makes Pascal say: “All bodies together and all spirits together and all their productions are not equal to the slightest movement of charity, which is of another and infinitely more elevated order.’*

If we clearly understand this doctrine, we know that grace not only vivifies and spiritualizes us, but also deifies us. “As

14 "All perfections existing in creatures divided and multiplied, pre-exist in God simply and united” (la, q. 13, a.5). "As regards the object intended by the name, this name God is more proper than the name ‘He who is,’ as it is imposed to signify the divine nature” (Ta, q.13, a. 11 ad lum). "The formal reason of the Deity is before all in its being and in all its attributes, for it is above being and above unity, etc.” (Catejan on la, q.39, a. 1, nos. 7, 8).

only fire can render a body incandescent,” says St. Thomas, “God alone can deify souls.” 15

Hence the slightest degree of sanctifying grace is infinitely superior to a sensible miracle, which is supernatural only by reason of its cause, by its mode of production (quoad modum ), not by its intimate reality: the life restored to a corpse is only the natural life, low, indeed, in comparison with that of grace. The paralytic, when his sins are forgiven him, receives infinitely more than his cure. At Lourdes the greatest blessings are not those which heal the body, but those which revivify souls. The “modal” supernatural, or the preternatural, does not count, so to speak, in comparison with the essentially supernatural.

The slightest degree of sanctifying grace is, as a result, infinitely superior to the phenomenon of ecstasy, to the prophetic vision of future events, or to the natural knowledge of the loftiest angel.

The natural knowledge of the highest angel could in its natural order grow indefinitely in intensity, yet it would never reach the dignity of the supernatural knowledge of infused faith or of the gift of wisdom. It would never even obscurely attain the intimate life of God, just as the indefinite progress of the imagination would never equal the intelligence; as the indefinite multiplication of the sides of a polygon inscribed within a circle never equal the latter, for the side, no matter how small it may be, never becomes a point. While in the state of probation, the angels, and likewise man, possessed, over and above the natural knowledge of God, the knowledge which proceeded from infused faith and from the gifts.

From all this we see the distance separating the essentially supernatural character of sanctifying grace from the supernatural character of sensible miracles or even of prophecy.

is "For it is as necessary that God alone should deify, bestowing a partaking of the divine nature by a participated likeness, as it is impossible that anything save fire should enkindle” (la Ilae, q. 112, a. 1).

5«

We have elsewhere 14 examined at length the value of this division of the supernatural, which is generally admitted, and of its subdivisions. This is an important point in theology, and a particularly important one in mystical theology. This fact can be noted in the tabulation on page 59, where the supernatural quoad substantiam (by its essence) is clearly distinct from the miraculous quoad substantiam (miracles of the first order). In the first we consider the formal cause; in the second, an extrinsic cause, the efficient cause. Thus sanctifying grace is supernatural by its essence, or formal cause; miracles, even of the first order, are supernatural only because no created force can produce them. By the resurrection of a dead person, natural life is supernaturally restored to him.

The problem to be discussed in the present work can be reduced to the following terms: Does the mystical life belong to the category of sanctifying grace, the virtues, and the gifts, or to the relatively inferior category of miracles and prophecy?

For the solution of the actual mystical problem, the greatest consideration must be given to the supernatural elevation of sanctifying grace as it was conceived by St. Thomas. 17 No theologian, as we have shown, 18 has been able to make as clear a distinction as he did between the natural order and the essentially supernatural order. No one has better affirmed the absolute gratuity of the life of grace, and its elevation infinitely surpassing, as it does, every claim and innate desire of human and angelic nature. Yet no one has better shown how this gift, gratuitous though it is, is wonderfully suited to our loftiest aspirations. Nothing is more gratuitous and desirable than the beatific vision, and in this life nothing is more so than holy communion. 19 i® De revelatione, I, 197-217.

17 See Ha Ilae, q.110, a.3, 4; q.112, a.i.

18 De revelatione, I, 206, 337-403, and especially pp. 395-403: Why there cannot be in our nature or in that of the angels an innate desire of the supernatural life or an active obediential power, but only a faint desire and the passive capacity of being raised to this infinitely superior order.

1® See Ilia, q.79, a.i ad 2um.

Uncreated quoad substantiam (in essence)

Created

God in His intimate life, mystery of the Blessed Trinity.

Uncreated Person of the Word made flesh.

Light of glory.

Habitual grace of the virtues and the gifts, and actual grace.

By reason of final causality

The natural act of an acquired virtue, supemat- - urally related by charity toward a supernatural end.

quoad modum (in mode)

By reason of efficient causality

Miracle quoad substantiam (e. g., glorious resurrection) and prophecy.

Miracle quoad subjectum (e. g., resurrection without glory) and knowledge of the secrets of hearts.

Miracle quoad modum (e. g., sudden cure of an illness curable in time); gift of tongues and similar graces.⁴

When we consider the conformity of Christianity with our natural aspirations, very often we cease to note the absolute gratuity of the divine gift and thus we incline toward practical naturalism. On the other hand, whoever fails to see this admirable conformity is led to conceive a rigid supernaturalness which is contrary to nature and lacking in simplicity. This conception would lead to exaltation and the follies of false mysticism.

St. Thomas maintains the infinite elevation of grace above our nature and also the harmony between the two. But he adds that this harmony really appears only after a profound purification of nature by mortification and the cross, as the lives of the saints show. He repeatedly tells us that this harmony has been fully realized in this world only in our Lord Jesus Christ. Bossuet says the same thing in speaking of Jesus: “Who would not admire the condescension with which He tempers the loftiness of His doctrine? It is milk for children and, at the same time, bread for the strong. It is full of the secrets of God, but it is evident that Jesus is not astonished at this, as other mortals to whom God communicates Himself. Our Lord speaks naturally of these matters, as one born in this secret and in this glory; and what He has without measure (John 3: 34) He bestows with measure that our weakness may be able to bear it.” 20

By this marvelous conciliation of qualities so diverse, that is, of the absolute gratuity and supreme fitness of grace, St. Thomas directs us toward the loftiest orthodox mystical theology, which is in reality a commentary on our Lord’s expression: “If thou didst but know the gift of God.”

We shall see this better when we speak of the supernaturalness of the infused virtues, both moral and theological, and of the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

20 Discours sur Vhistoire universelle, Part II, chap. 19.

Footnotes

1. Sensation has two elements: one material, the action of the nervous system carrying a stimulus from an exterior object to the brain, an action that fol lows laws governing similar actions in the lower order of nature; and one formal and specific, the role of which is to produce a representation of what disturbs the sense. It is almost always in this latter sense that St. Thomas uses the word “sensation.” To restrict his use of the term to the material element is to materialize his doctrine still further. On the real sense of sentient being, cf. St. Thomas, la, q.14, a. 1; q.78, a. 3 ↩

2. “It cannot be said that sensible knowledge is the total and perfect cause of intellectual knowledge, but rather that it is in a way the material cause” (la, q.84, a. 6). ↩

3. “For the intellectual light itself which is in us, is nothing else than a participated likeness of the uncreated light, in which are contained the eternal types” (la, q.84, a.5). “Therefore there must needs be some higher intellect, by which the soul is helped to understand” (la, q.79, a.4). Cf. Ia, q. 105, a.3. Some Scholastics seem to consider in this intellectual light only its abstractive function and not its illuminating function which continues after the abstrac tion. Cf. De veritate, q.10, a. 6. ↩

4. o ↩