Joseph Wawrykow Aquinas and Bonaventure On Christ and Human Flourishing

38 Pages·2015·1.05 MB·English

Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Joseph Wawrykow

Aquinas and Bonaventure On Christ and Human Flourishing

Prepared for the Yale Center for Faith & Culture consultation
on “Christ and Human Flourishing,” December, 2014
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AQUINAS AND BONAVENTURE ON CHRIST AND HUMAN FLOURISHING
Joseph Wawrykow
Theologians in the high medieval West were convinced of the close link between Christ
and human flourishing; it is highly likely that they would have approved of this
consultation. In the telling of the theologians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to
live authentically as human and to reach the goal set for humans by God, doing so in the
company of others called to God as end and in solidarity with them as led by God—all of
this requires the indispensable, manifold contribution of Christ. The Christological
dimension of human flourishing in high medieval theology is, it is true, only occasionally
acknowledged in the scholarship; and some scholars may in fact doubt the universality of
the claim. Might Christ, in at least some medieval theologies, be an afterthought or
marginal, with the main points of a theological anthropology attained and advanced
without attending to Christ? The claim, however, still holds. In a theologian such as
Bonaventure, Christ is front and center in the depiction of the good life, and the link
between human flourishing and Christ is incessantly, repeatedly, observed. In Aquinas,
the centrality of Christ in human flourishing may be less obvious. But, Aquinas is no less
convinced of the importance of Christ, and the case for that importance is made very
nicely in his greatest writing, the Summa theologiae. In this paper, I will look at how
Christ figures in the account of human flourishing offered by these two great theologians,
here taken as representative of the high medieval consensus about Christ and human
flourishing.
I approach our topic as a scholar of medieval Christology (I am not an historian of
moral theology, although I have written on particular issues that should be of interest to
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moral theologians, such as grace and the gifts of the Holy Spirit). A few comments about
medieval Christologies are in order, to set the stage. Medieval scholastic Christologies,
including those of Aquinas and Bonaventure, are unfailingly incarnational. An
incarnational Christology affirms an act: the Word was made flesh. That act informs the
account of the incarnate one. To employ the language of person and nature: from eternity,
the Word is the second person of God. The Word is a distinct person in the Godhead. The
Word is also fully God; and whatever is true of God, is true of this divine person (and
true of the other divine persons). In the act of incarnation, the Word does not cease to be
the fully divine second person. In the act, the fully divine Word takes up a second
nature—human nature—construed as a potential for a human form of existence, and
comes to express it as well. A second nature is joined to the first (the divine nature, what
is true of someone as God), in the person or hypostasis of the Word. By incarnation, the
fully divine Word is also truly human; the Word is the subject of the humanity in the case
of Jesus. The person of Jesus is the Word; that person is from eternity fully divine, truly
God; by incarnation, that person is now also human, truly human, capable of human
activities. Thirteenth-century theologians strive mightily to adhere to a one person, two
natures Christology. And, in their renderings of the Word, and of Jesus, they will attempt
to attend to the different aspects of the Word who is incarnate. With greater or lesser
success, a one person, two natures Christology in the thirteenth century will also attempt
to do justice to the three sorts of statements that have been made of the Word. Some
statements are made of the Word as that particular divine person. Such statements are
exclusive to the Word, not made of the other divine persons, and are true from eternity.
Some statements are made of the Word as God; such statements are true, and equally and
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eternally, of the other divine persons. And, some statements are made of the Word as
incarnate, as truly human. These last statements attend to the fact of incarnation, and why
it matters that this fully divine person has without loss to itself become human, is human,
and acts as human.
In their investigation of Christ and human flourishing, Aquinas and Bonaventure
agree that Christ’s personal holiness, his acting and concomitant flourishing, is pertinent
to the analysis; and as it happens the two theologians consider that holiness with
reference to the third type of predication. Both theologians insist that statements about the
moral and spiritual goodness of Jesus are examples in the final category, having to do,
not with the Word as Word or the Word as God, but with the (incarnate) Word as human.
For both Aquinas and Bonaventure, what accounts for the moral or spiritual success of
any human is grace and the virtues attendant on grace, the stable dispositions that ennoble
their possessor and make possible actions pleasing to God. This is true of this human as
well: Jesus did and could do what he did because he had grace and the virtues. Indeed, as
scripture informs us (e.g., John 1:14), he had the fullness of grace; and by that fullness,
his moral and supernatural acts were unfailingly good, and fully pleasing to God. Hence,
for both of our theologians, Jesus is the model for authentic human behavior, showing
what is possible for those who are in correct relationship to God and how they might act
as they move toward God as their end. (Of course, for these two theologians, Christ is
more than model; he is savior, and his saving work is not to be reduced to his moral
exemplarity. But, he is nonetheless the moral exemplar.)
While thirteenth-century Christologies are incarnational, affirming a single
subject, double account, Christology, differences do emerge among different
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theologies—in the way that scripture is used in a particular Christology; the extent to
which a theologian knows and makes use of the preceding theological and ecclesial
traditions (Aquinas, in particular, is quite exceptional for his knowledge of the early
Greek councils, with their supporting documentation); where the accent is placed in terms
of the different aspects of Christ; the skill with which the triple predication is deployed
by individual theologians. In terms of our two theologians, a substantial difference
emerges in their accounts of the causality of the humanity taken up and expressed by the
Word. Bonaventure and Aquinas agree that when it comes to ‘spiritual goods’—grace,
the glory of heaven—God is the principal cause. Only one who essentially has
something, can share that with others. If grace is a ‘participation in the divine nature’ (an
echoing of 2 Peter 1:4, a favorite way of defining grace), then only God can cause grace.
But, is there a sense in which the humanity of Christ—that is, what the incarnate Word
does through and in the Word’s assumed humanity—is productive of grace, of glory?
Bonaventure thinks here in terms of sine qua non causality, which would appear
to be the majority thirteenth-century position.1 It is God who causes grace, brings to
glory; but God does so on the occasion of Christ’s human actings and sufferings, thus
conveying grace, glory, in conjunction with this human acting, on the basis of a promise
or agreement binding God’s rendering of grace to that human’s doing. Aquinas for his
part by mid-career (that is, by the time of the Summa contra Gentiles and the chapters, in
book IV, on Christ; see in particular IV.41, and 36) comes to think of Christ’s humanity
standing to his divinity as a personal, conjoined, animate instrument. The instrument is
personal, for it is the Word’s: the Word is the subject of this humanity, has instantiated it,
and is the subject of Christ’s human acts and suffering. It is conjoined, because the
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second nature has been united to the first, in the person of the Word; and it is animate,
because body and soul—and the capacities brought by soul—have been truly taken up by
the Word in becoming incarnate, and the Word is truly active, precisely as human. The
claim about ‘animate’ in fact nicely acknowledges a key feature of Aquinas’s version of a
single subject, double nature, Christology. It is not just that the Word incarnate has two
natures; those natures are operative, are each operative. The Word incarnate operates both
as God and as human. As God, the Word knows and wills in a divine way; as incarnate
Word, the Word knows and wills as is appropriate to a true human, one who, in
accordance with his salvific mission, is perfectly good and operating, as a human, at the
highest level.
AQUINAS
A closer examination of our theologians on Christ and human flourishing is in order. I
begin with Aquinas, concentrating on the teaching in his most famous writing, the
Summa theologiae. 2 That writing is immense, over one and a half millions words in
length; in it Aquinas offers his most extensive accounts both of the moral life, and, of
Christ. In this writing his pedagogical skill in teaching Christ and human flourishing is on
full display.
The ST is divided into three Parts. The first is on God, and, on the procession of
creatures from God (so, on God in Godself, and as the beginning of all creatures as
creator). The Prima Pars offers the basics of an anthropology in a lengthy ‘treatise on
man’ (I.qq.75-102), reflecting on the constitution of the human person in body and soul,
as well as offering some questions on the original state. However, it is the Second and the
Third Parts of the ST that principally concern us here.
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The Second Part of the ST is on the movement of the rational creature to God as
end (for this description, see the Prologue to ST I.2), and is itself divided into two parts.
The First Part of the Second Part (the Prima Secundae; I-II) looks at the movement of the
rational creature to God as end in general terms, treating first of beatitude (the end of
human beings, in which their fulfillment rests) (qq.1-5); then human acts, including a
review of the main components of a complete, good act, and, an extensive set of
questions on the passions (qq.6-48); and then the principles of human acts (qq.49-114),
both intrinsic (qq.49-89), and extrinsic (qq.90-114). The intrinsic principles of human
acts are the habits, and Aquinas discusses in turn habits in general (q.49-54), the virtues,
that is, the habits that are good and dispose a person well (qq.55-70), and vice (bad habit)
and sin (qq.71-89). The extrinsic principles of human acts are law in its various types
(qq.90-108), and, grace (qq.109-114). The opening questions, on beatitude, set the tone
for the entire Second Part. Objectively, beatitude is found in God, for God, when known
and loved directly, completes a human, fulfills that human; subjectively, then, that is,
with regards to the human, it is through human operation (knowing and loving) that
beatitude is attained. The beatific vision is the goal of human existence, of human acting;
and it is reached, if it is, in the next life, when the human person knows and loves God
directly.
God as beatifying end should provide the orientation to life in this world. What is
willed and done here, in this life, should be ordered to God as beatifying end; and what is
willed and done, when correct, prepares for that end, moves one closer to that end, and
can anticipate that end. The beatific vision involves human operation at its highest pitch:
the direct knowing and loving of God in the next life. Talk of movement lends itself to
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the notion of a ‘journey.’ In the present life, this is a journey of act, of operation; and one
makes progress in the journey by acts of knowing and loving that are appropriate to life
in this world, as ordered to God as end.
Aquinas is keenly aware of divine transcendence, and affirms that God’s
establishment of the triune God as beatifying end of human beings is a gift of God, not a
due of the nature. Indeed, Aquinas has made this point in the very first article of the
Summa (ST I.1.1c), in which he asserts the necessity of sacred doctrine, that is, of the
divine revelation of the truths needed for salvation. Some truths of God can be attained
by natural reason; these include that God exists, and is one (these are the preambles of
faith). But, other truths needed for salvation simply exceed the reach of reason, and
humans can come to know these truths only on the basis of God’s revelation (these are
the articles of faith); and the example that Aquinas gives in the Summa’s opening article
is God as beatifying end, a point that he illustrates with a quotation of Isaiah 64:4.3 That
Isaiah is quoted as well by Paul, in I Corinthians 2:9-10, in the course of his meditation
on Christ and God’s wisdom, which differs from worldly wisdom. Incarnation, and the
work of the incarnate One, for Aquinas is also counted among the articles of faith.
Aquinas’s first readers would have picked up on the implicit Pauline reference.
That God has freely and generously appointed God as the end of human existence
informs the discussion in the Prima Secundae, of human act, and of the capacity for the
acts that bring one to beatitude. Acting presupposes capacity. The natural powers of the
human person (qua human) are insufficient to attain the glory of heaven and for acts that
would prepare one for heaven. Hence, throughout the Second Part (including the Second
Part of the Second Part), in light of the ontological gap between God and the rational
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creature, Aquinas returns repeatedly to those endowments, having to do with added
capacity, that God provides, to make possible the successful journey to God as beatifying
end. Thus, to hit the most important examples: in his taxonomy of the virtues, he
introduces infused virtues, which include the theological virtues (faith, hope, charity) and
moral virtues (I-II.63.3-4), all of which orient their possessor to God as beatifying end
and incline to acts that bring one to that end;4 defines the New Law as in its essence the
grace of the Holy Spirit (I-II.106.1c), which Law not only directs to good action (as do
other laws reviewed in ST I-II.90-108) but provides the power to do what God seeks of
humans; treats as part of the discussion of virtue, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, habits that
make their possessor more docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit (I-II.68); and,
brings the Prima Secundae to term by stressing grace itself, understood both as habitual
grace, elevating the self and providing the fundamental orientation to the beatifying God,
and as auxilium, the direct involvement in human acting of the Spirit who is leading,
urging, directing, the person to God as end and to acts that are pleasing to God (I-II.109-
114). Grace, virtue, gift: all augment capacity, providing an elevating that in principle
bridges the ontological gap.
Yet, in Aquinas’s telling, there is more to the ‘eudaimonean gap’ than the
ontological distance between God and humans (I first came to know of ‘eudaimonean
gap’ as a way of putting what complicates the attainment of beatitude from David Elliot’s
recent University of Notre Dame dissertation).5 Aquinas is acutely aware of sin—original
sin, actual sins, the predisposition to sin by vice (I-II.71-84)--and how sin complicates,
might frustrate, the journey to God as beatifying end. Thus, in his account of grace,
Aquinas insists as well on the healing function of grace. ST I-II.109.2c nicely conveys
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the riches of Aquinas’s account. Is grace needed to will and do the good? Here, Aquinas
doubles the question: are we talking about the natural good, or, the supernatural good?
The natural good in principle lies within one’s natural powers. But, Aquinas adds, we
need further to consider whether the willing and doing of good is pre- or post-Fall. Prior
to the Fall, habitual grace would be needed only for the supernatural good, not for the
natural good. For the latter, one’s natural powers would have sufficed. But, after the Fall,
those natural powers do not suffice for the full natural good. Someone after the Fall and
under sin can still do some naturally good things; Aquinas, making use of a Ps-
Augustinian text, mentions such activities as planting vineyards and building stone walls.
But, for the full range of naturally good activities, after the Fall grace is required. Thus,
grace elevates, but for Aquinas it will also heal, needed to do so in face of the weakening
of the self by sin.
The Second Part of the Second Part of the Summa (Secunda Secundae; II-II)
moves from the general to the particular. Most of the Secunda Secundae is given over to
lengthy examinations of each of the major virtues: of the theological virtues, faith (II-
II.1-16), hope (II-II.17-22), and charity (II-II.23-46), and, of the cardinal virtues (and the
virtues adjacent to prudence (II-II.47-56), justice (II-II.57-122), fortitude (II-II.123-140),
temperance (II-II.141-170)). Aquinas includes in the treatise of questions on each virtue a
review of its appropriate act(s); its opposed vice(s); the gift(s) of the Holy Spirit
associated with a particular virtue; and the precepts of the virtue. The Secunda Secundae
concludes with a discussion of the graces, given to some, that function in the building up
of the Church (II-II.171-78), and, of religious states (II-II.179-189) (with attention to the
contemplative and active lives, and their respective perfection). In the particular