“Thou hast written well of me, Thomas; what reward wilt thou have?”

“None other than Thyself, Lord.”

-St. Thomas Aquinas to the Lord Jesus after composing the treatise on the Eucharist, AD 1273.

Joining the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans, at a young age, Thomas devoted himself to the mystery of God throughout his life. Most know that his chief work is the Summa theologica. Few also know that he commented on the Sacred Scriptures, on the philosophical works of Aristotle, and, earlier, on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (the production of the latter being a standard requirement for attaining the bachelor of theology in the thirteenth century). Thomas composed various disputations drawn from his university teaching on topics such as truth, creation, the nature of evil, and the various types of virtues. Today the Church uses many of his hymns and prayers, particularly in her celebration of the Holy Eucharist. For example, Thomas wrote the liturgy for the feast of Corpus Christi. His method and works have been commended by popes to form priests and laity in the sapiential–that is, wisdom-seeking–quest for the knowledge of God, the universe, and the mysteries of salvation.

Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, OP

Yesterday the Catholic University of America and the Dominican House of Studies celebrated the feast of St. Thomas early with Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, OP, Secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.¹ In his homily, the archbishop correlated two themes one finds in the life of the great saint: an indefatigable thirst for greater understanding of the mystery of God and an intense dedication to Christ Jesus in the Eucharist. One may listen to the homily by watching this video of the Mass, beginning around minute twenty-one. I highly recommend the homily and have prepared a few thoughts in honor of St. Thomas as inspired by Archbishop Di Noia’s preaching.

The first theme is St. Thomas’s understanding that faith is not only compatible with human reason, but that human reason can continually grow in its understanding of the mysteries of faith. The mysteries of faith, according to Archbishop Di Noia, are “by definition without end [...] endlessly comprehensible and explicable [...] Not darkness but too much light [...] An unending and inexhaustible power to attract and transform the minds and hearts of the individual and communal lives in which they are pondered, digested, and ultimately loved and adored.” The light of faith purifies reason and prepares reason to serve the human journey to the blessed communion of the Three Persons. Thomas appropriated elements of Greek philosophy, whether Aristotelian, Platonic, or otherwise, often doing so in conversation with accomplished Jewish and Muslim philosophers of his day. He sat at the feet of the Church Fathers, read and re-read Sacred Scripture, and adverted to the symbols of faith in the Church’s creeds and pronouncements when necessary. St. Thomas thus synthesized various philosophical and theological sources for the mission of understanding more deeply the things of God, the movement of the rational creature to God, and the way in which this is possible in the Lord Jesus Christ. In his writings we can find an astounding coherence to the faith, not only in the correspondence of its various parts but also of the breadth and height of its contents.

A surprising point made by Archbishop Di Noia in this regard is that we often think of a “mystery” as something impenetrable or inscrutable to human reason. “It’s a mystery,” we say as we dismiss further reflection on a topic or event. Yet St. Thomas understood God to be the author of reason and that human reason participates in God’s rationality (cf. I-II q. 94 a. 2 on the eternal law of God and the rational participation therein of the human creature). In fact, God is reason:

Now, the end of each thing is that which is intended by the its first author or mover. But the first author and mover of the universe is an intellect, as will be later shown. The ultimate end of the universe must, therefore, be the good of an intellect. This good is truth. Truth must consequently be the ultimate end of the whole universe, and the consideration of the wise man aims principally at truth. (Summa contra Gentiles, ch. 1)

And because God is infinite, the conclusion is that the mystery of God is infinitely sought by the rational creature. Ultimately man’s journey into the mystery of God is possible only with the ontological, moral, and epistemological elevation of the rational creature to God through grace, but such elevation does not destroy, nullify, or circumvent the human mind. In fact, we pursue with theology now what we behold in substance in the life to come: the unending and limitless expansion of our awe and amazement at the beauty of the Triune God’s very being and love. Although God is simple, we behold the one mystery of God through various means. Included in these means are the seven “mysteries” or sacraments of Christ.

This touches on the the second theme of the homily, which was St. Thomas’s love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and how in that Sacrament Thomas entered into the deep truth of the God who is love. Archbishop Di Noia related how Thomas had the habit of celebrating daily Mass and then attending a second Mass immediately following. At this second Mass, Thomas would serve at the altar. Often the great theologian would be found weeping at the beauty of God’s love shown forth in Christ Jesus. Jean-Pierre Torrell, OP, quotes St. Thomas on the same theme, saying that “the concrete manner in which everything that the Savior did and suffered in the flesh reaches us even today [is...] ‘spiritually through faith and bodily through the sacraments, for Christ’s humanity is simultaneously spirit and body in order that we might be able to receive into ourselves [we who are spirit and body] the effect of the sanctification that comes to us through Christ.’”² Thomas understood that the sacraments are the means of grace, the ways of participating in the divine life. The encounter with the Lord through the consumption of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist vivifies the spirit through the divine nature of Jesus Christ, bringing us to the Father through the work of the Holy Spirit. In the sacraments, believers enter into the mystery of the Triune God, where the inexhaustible mystery may be forever contemplated, searched, and enjoyed. Thomas wept because of the beauty of the mystery.

We who think ourselves theologically attuned can learn many things from St. Thomas. With the collapse of Enlightenment foundationalism under the pressure of the post- or late-modern critique comes also a collapse of confidence in human reason’s ability to wonder at the deep truth’s of existence and, above all, the God who upholds it every moment. Reason has been reduced to innocent delusion at best or hungry quest for power at worst. Sadly, this attitude of suspicion toward reason–even redeemed reason–has had deleterious influence on much modern theology. Despite the origin of man from God, who is pure spirit, many doubt that that which is most spiritual in man–his intellect–is incapable of attaining true sapientia from and in God. St. Thomas Aquinas, the “simple” friar who lived eight-hundred years ago, knew better and his writings stand to show us the way. Let us ask him to help us as we seek the face of the living God in the Body and Blood of the living Savior.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, you always had Jesus, the Wisdom of God and the Bread of God, before your eyes. Pray for us, that we might weep with great joy in His presence!

1. The University news report can be found here.
2. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2: Spiritual Master (CUA Press: 2003), 139, quoting De veritate q. 27 a. 4.

Three years ago, a few friends of mine (including Sean Patrick of Called to Communion) were lamenting that there wasn’t a book that reexamined the Protestant claims about Saint Paul from a Catholic point of view. What we wanted was a book that demonstrated the “Catholic Perspective on Paul.” So I set to work on it. After three years, it’s finally finished and published…The Catholic Perspective on Paul.

If you’re looking for a complete and simple resource to equip you with the Catholic presentation of Paul’s view of salvation, faith and works, baptism, the Eucharist, the sacraments, the priesthood, celibacy, and redemptive suffering, then this new book is for you.

The Catholic Perspective on Paul intends to show once and for all that Saint Paul was thoroughly Catholic, and that Protestant and liberal prejudices against the Catholic perspective on Paul are unwarranted. If we read Paul in his words, we find none other than the great Catholic Apostle of Rome.

You can preview the book for free at amazon.com.

Please watch the book’s trailer on YouTube to get a feel for the book:

Both the new book on Saint Paul and my previous book The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity are available at amazon.com in paperback and Kindle formats. Please click here to view them.

The primary way we both [Catholics and Protestants] talk about justification and about any of God’s operations is based on the way that the Scriptures speak of God. Let me say at the outset that we are not at fault for so doing. But if we use Scriptural language as evidence of philosophical truths, where such language is not intended to do so, we inevitably end up in error. The same thing happens when we use the Scripture to defend scientific propositions, when the Scripture itself is not advocating such propositions. (e.g. Josh 10:13) Some Scriptures do make scientific and philosophical propositions (Gen 1:1), but not all of them do. Deuteronomy 9:8 says “At Horeb you aroused the LORD’s wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you.” But this is not a denial of God’s immutability because it is not meant to be understood in philosophical terms. Likewise, many errors and miscommunications about justification arise because of subconscious renderings of certain passages as if they were making philosophical claims that are actually false. God does not actually get angry, not in the way that we do. So if we took Deut 9:8 as evidence that God gets angry and is therefore mutable, we would be seriously mistaken.

Now the Scriptures often speak of God’s judgment. (e.g. Ex 6:6; Rom 2:2) But what is involved in judgment (as we mean it)? Judgment starts with an ignorance on the part of the judge and proceeds to knowledge in the same judge based on some quality in the thing judged. e.g. A man does not know whether a fruit is suitable for nutrition; then he examines it and judges it based on some quality in the fruit. That is what we mean by ‘judgment.’ But this is not what is meant by God’s ‘judgment’ because such a process involves ignorance and change, both of which are impossible for God. Judgment, as we mean it, necessarily involves a reaction, but there is no reaction whatsoever in God to anything. God does not react; He acts.

Likewise, the Scriptures often speak of God “seeing.” (e.g. Gen 16:13) But God does not “see” as if He had eyes or as if He didn’t already know what was there. “Seeing” is an analogical way to speak about God’s knowledge. We often say “I see” when we mean that “I understand” or “Do you see?” when we want to know whether someone understands something. This is because sight is an analogy for understanding. God never looks at anything because one only looks at something when he lacks knowledge about the thing and God lacks nothing.

Much of the Protestant-Catholic debate and misunderstanding regarding justification is rooted in understanding Scriptural passages in a philosophical sense when they were never intended to make such propositions. The problem is not with using such analogical language but in basing doctrines on philosophical propositions that seem to be supported by Scriptural language when in fact those propositions are false. That is, it is not wrong to speak of God as if He “sees” something or as if He “judges” us because that is how the Scriptures speak. But if we understand these terms as denoting philosophical claims and then build doctrines on that understanding, then we err.

Let us examine justification by dialogue:

Jack: Justification is by faith alone.

Billy Bob: Faith formed by love right?

Jack: No. True faith is formed by love of course but only the faith part is judged in the process of justification.

Billy Bob: So God looks at us and sees that we have faith and love, but He only considers the faith part (and does not consider the love part) in justification?

Jack: Yes, that is correct.

Billy Bob: But your belief presupposes that God sees, judges, and reacts. If we understand these terms analogically, then nothing you just said makes sense. Your doctrine depends on God’s mutability – on His ability to react.

Jack: No it doesn’t, I too affirm immutability.

Billy Bob: But if God doesn’t actually react, then He reacts neither to faith, nor to love, nor to faith and love, nor to faith alone, nor to faith formed by love. Is that correct?

Jack: Yes.

Billy Bob: Then what prohibits us from agreeing with St. Augustine that “Faith without love profits nothing”? ‘Justification’ seems to fall into the category of “something” so how can faith without love profit justification?  There seems to be no Scriptural case for salvation by faith alone.

Jack: The Scriptural case is that salvation is by faith apart from works. Even if we consider faith as an act of fidelity rather than a passivity, then we include works and attribute something of ourselves to salvation which is impossible. Salvation is by grace alone – nothing originates in us to make us worthy of salvation. Only the free gift of faith justifies.

Billy Bob: I agree. But suppose God’s grace entailed faith, hope, and love.

Jack: It does.

Billy Bob: Then on what basis do we exclude hope and love from justification? God does not judge based on any of them because He does not judge in the way we judge (that His judgment should be a reaction), rather His grace is not distinct from His judgment. To receive God’s grace is to be judged as righteous. To lack God’s grace is its own judgment.

The Reformed position is that God gives us faith and then judges us based on that faith alone. If taken as an absolute description of what actually happens, this is as unintelligible as saying that God gets angry or reacts. The way we Catholics speak of God’s judgment is often unintelligible (taken in that sense) as well. But if we understand this language as analogical rather than absolute then this manner of speaking does not necessarily lead to errors.

Describing God’s judgment is emphatically not like describing what happens at our local courthouse. We err when we start understanding God’s judgment as a reaction to something He learns by seeing us (or even seeing His gift in us).  That understanding leads us to think that we have to concoct a doctrine that protects the doctrine of sola gratia. This is what the Protestants have done. If salvation is a gift, then it can’t be a reaction to anything in us (so the Reformed reason). They are right so far. But they err when they deny that there’s anything in us. The sentence is correct: “It’s not a reaction to anything in us” not because there’s nothing in us – but because it’s not a reaction!

It seems to me that the Reformed conception of salvation de fide depends on a reactionary conception of God’s judgment. It looks at an isolated aspect inhering in the salvation process and claims that “this is the basis” on which God judges us. That argument falls apart if it turns out that God doesn’t actually judge in a reactionary sense. According to the Reformed doctrine, it’s as if God gives us a gift and then looks at us to see if we have that gift He gave us and then reacts accordingly. Well that won’t work.

On the contrary, charity is the sine qua non of justification exactly because God is love and justification is nothing but participation in the life of the Trinity. God’s judgment is identical with infused charity which is the gift that leads to participation in the Divine Life.  God is not a reactionary in any sense. He does not even react to His own act – He does not re-act; He simply acts.

Ultimately, when we talk about God’s grace, we’re not referring to something different than His judgment. His grace is His judgment. The (perceived) difference is in us – in our state; not in Him.   As Billy Bob said above, God’s grace includes faith, hope, and love (shall we say His grace is faith without love?) and so if to receive God’s grace is to be judged righteous, then we cannot say that salvation is by faith apart from love.  Salvation is the reception of God’s grace, and God’s grace infuses the gift of faith formed by love into the believer.

A simple answer of why God allowed the Fall of man runs like this. God did not desire man’s sin but He respected man’s free will by allowing him to eat the apple. If that works for you, then I say let it continue to work for you (and don’t continue reading).

But in fact that argument doesn’t work. Imagine the parent that placed a knife in his child’s crib, hoping that the child wouldn’t play with it. The parent does not will for the child to play with it, but he will respect the child’s free will. It would be better, apparently, for the parent to avoid placing dangerous objects in the child’s crib. The parent can preveniently protect the child from evil by not allowing him access to it. This prevenient protection does not violate the child’s free will. On the contrary, it allows the free will to be even freer since it cannot make a dangerous mistake. Likewise, God could have simply not placed the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden.

Now could God have created a world without evil? Absolutely speaking, that is possible. God could have created a world where evil didn’t exist. But for at least two reasons, God desired that evil should exist. First, so that all possible good might exist, and second, that we might know Him.

The good of perseverance and fortitude cannot exist without the evil of pain and suffering. Without evil, we would lack the good of martyrs. It was God’s desire that the good of perseverance, etc. would exist.

Another reason why God created a world with evil is so that we might know Him. Following Aquinas, as quoted in my article on the Divine Metaphor, “We can speak of simple things only as though they were like the composite things from which we derive our knowledge.” Now in God there is no evil, nor is there a hierarchy of diversity, one thing more perfect than another.  God is simple, but we can only know the simple through complex things.  Therefore, in order for us to know God, it was necessary to create a complex universe organized into a hierarchy of diversity.

This hierarchy of diversity, which God created, is intended to show us what He is like by analogy. The Scriptures teach us that God is like a king, for example. This is meaningful to us because a king is the highest office; in that particular respect, God is like a king. Of course, we cannot compare God to a human king in any direct sense because whatever can be said of God, in truth cannot be said of anyone or anything else. Our kingship is only like God’s “kingship.” Even the goodness and beauty of the world is only like God who is truly good and truly beautiful. God the Son, is also compared to a lion. This is meaningful for us because lions hold a place of honor among the beasts. They are mightier and fiercer than the other beasts. In this regard, God the Son is like a lion. Rather, a lion is like God the Son.

To simplify this thought, imagine that all beasts were exactly the same. God could not be referred to as a beast because He would not be like a beast. He is only referred to as a lion because lions are greater than other beasts. Imagine if there were no government. God could not be likened unto any human office because no man would be above any other man. But God is above us, and in that way is likened unto a king. This is only a simple way to conceptualize the point I’m trying to make. Imagine (the absurd proposition) that God created a world without this hierarchy of diversity or distinction. If all things were equal, we could in no way relate to God because in our finite capacity, we cannot comprehend God. We only know Him by knowing things which He has revealed to us via the material world. We understand His greatness only by understanding the greatness of kings and lions, etc. and by amplifying that greatness to the best of our ability.

Evil is not a thing that God created. As St. Augustine taught, evil is simply a privation of good as a shadow is a privation of light. But the good of a king cannot be grasped without the privation of that kingly goodness which exists in his subjects. The goodness of the lion cannot be known to us without the privation of that same goodness in his prey or in the lesser beasts. That is: If privation of good didn’t exist in this world, we would have no way to  understand God’s goodness.

God could have instantly given us the capacity to see Him directly (which is the Beatific Vision or Heaven), but He chose not to for reasons given above (that the good of fortitude, perseverance, etc. should exist). Thus, in order for us to know Him at all, without the Beatific Vision, it was necessary to create a world wherein privation of good existed so that there would be a hierarchy of diversity whereby we might know what God is like. Our participation in evil, which is by no means necessary, consists in turning away from the Creator and choosing a created good. Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, overcame the world by never choosing a created good over God the Creator. May we imitate Him this Easter season and until we finish the race. Amen.

Is this not the sentiment expressed by the Preacher?

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to happen among those who come after. (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3,11).

For of the wise man as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise man dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a striving after wind. (2:16-17).

For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again (3:19-20).

Indeed all is vanity and all is pointless, at least from a purely materialistic perspective. There is great grief in this world because this world has been infected by a foreign invader, namely sin and death. Sin and death are enemies, not our friends (1st Cor 15). Sin and death are not “things” we come to grips with, they are realities that need to be defeated.

When we look at life from a purely materialistic perspective, in short, as if this world is all there is, there are two basic postures we can take. One is to try to indulge ourselves with every whim and desire and attempt to make the best of a bad situation to find happiness. The other is to prefer death and non-existence for life is intolerable.

It is so easy to beat up the Existentialist, especially in its nihilistic form, yet, is that fair? It seems to me that apart from the belief in the One True and ever living God who has made Himself known in this world through Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the nihilist is brutally honest about life and the way things appear to be. Indeed, apart from the revelation of God in Christ by the Spirit, then all would be vanity, pure vanity. Indeed this God is not the god who creates a world and then sits back and watches, in the words of the popular song, “from a distance”. This God is not the god who “runs” the world as an absentee landlord. No, this God is not a tame god and He is not a god that fits into our neat little categories. This God is not ashamed to be brought to the condition of the crushed and lowly. This God is not ashamed to take up residence in the womb of a Virgin. This God is not ashamed to call us His friends. This God is not ashamed to have nowhere to lay His head. This God is not ashamed to shed tears at the death of His friend. This God is not ashamed to weep over the city He loves. This God is not ashamed to cry in the garden drops of blood. This God is not ashamed to identify with the sinner and the forsaken by dying the death of forsakeness on a Friday afternoon. This God is not ashamed to give of His flesh and His blood as our food and drink for the life of the world. Indeed this God, the God we worship as Christians, indeed as Catholics, is not ashamed to meet with us everyday especially in the liturgy and say, “This is My Body broken for you, Take and eat, this is My Blood poured out for you, take and drink.”

Indeed, time is chasing after all of us and eventually overtakes us and then we become food for the worms. And if that were the final word, “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.” But there is something more real than that. Indeed this reality defines and makes sense of all other reality. The God who is outside of Time has entered into time and gave of His flesh and blood for the life of the world. He gave His flesh and blood to us to be our food, the food that is the medicine of immortality. Indeed this is the God we celebrate this Lenten Season. This is the God who comes to us. This is the God who desires, as Pope Benedict recently reminded us, that we rid ourselves of the illusion of self-sufficiency. This is the God who enters our humanity and redeems it from the inside out and dare we say, invites us, poor, pitiable and feeble sinners that we are, to participate in His suffering in order to complete it, to fill it out, that in my suffering, your suffering, He is carrying out His redemption, in and through us.

Nothing is in vain, nothing, not a drop of suffering, as hard as it is, is wasted! As the late Monsignor Luigi Giussani said, “God took pity on our nothingness.” Why? He adds, “That He might give us everything.” This is the God not ashamed to shed some tears!!! And this is the God, who on that day, shall wipe clean every tear, and behold, make all things new!

The reason that God cannot lie is simply this. There is nothing which exists except that which God has created, and things exist solely and uniquely by God’s declaration of their existence. God did not say “Let there be light” and then subsequently create light. God said “Let there be light” and by that very act, there was light. It would have been impossible for God to say “Let there be light” and light not exist. Men can say things that are not true or will not become true, but God cannot do such a thing because God is truth. ¹ If God could lie, it would contradict His very essence, which would make Him incoherent with Himself which is impossible. Further, a lie is a corruption of goodness, and no corruption of goodness (evil) comes from God whatsoever; neither can God do any evil.

This truth has a wide range of implications. Among the most prominent is the doctrine of Transubstantiation. For in the same way that a private becomes a captain by the very words of his general, “You are a captain,” so too does the bread become the Body by Christ’s words, “This is My Body.”

But while God cannot lie, He can speak metaphorically. But if He speaks metaphorically of a thing, then its result or consequence must be understood metaphorically.  Obviously it was metaphorical when Jesus spoke of gathering Jerusalem as a hen does her chicks, and so if Jerusalem actually did comply, it would only be metaphorically that the “chicks” (Jerusalem) would be gathered under His ‘wings.’ Likewise, if Jesus spoke metaphorically when He said, “This is My Body,” then it is only metaphorically that we shall receive His Body. i.e. We will not receive His Body any more than Jerusalem shall be gathered under His “wings.” And if God the Father speaks metaphorically when He declares us righteous, then we shall only metaphorically go to Heaven. i.e. We will perish in our trespasses.

But clearly God cannot be speaking metaphorically when He speaks of justification. He is therefore either saying something true (you are justified) or something false (you are Simul justus et peccator). Now we know the second is impossible since God cannot lie, so it must be the case that God’s declaration of man as justified is true. God did not look on man and find him to merit initial justification by anything in him. In the same way that light came into existence by God saying “Let there be light,” grace comes (is infused) into man by God declaring Him righteous because God cannot lie.

1. cf. John 14:6

It needs to be stated that the doctrine of the Ascension is one of those doctrines that has been neatly tucked away under the”what does this have to do with anything” file, stored away in the filing cabinet. When we encounter the Ascension we usually are left with more questions than answers and the answers we usually get are not very satisfying. So where does the season of Advent fit with the reality of the Ascension? When our Lord descended from heaven in great humility to take on human nature, He did so that in His Ascension He would exalt our human nature and make us, shall we dare say, partakers of the divine nature! Our Lord lowers Himself in becoming Man, stoops down, in order that He might redeem and restore man/woman back to his/her proper place, God’s image bearer, and even more, that we might share in the very life of God.

The Advent of God’s Son is ordered toward the Ascension of the Son of Man! God comes down so that Man might go up! As Douglas Farrow (a convert to the Catholic Church) has pointed out in his book on the Ascension, reflection on the Ascension had led to some allowing our Lord’s humanity to be swallowed up by His deity. We must always be careful to remember that our Lord is fully God and fully Man. As has been pointed out by many theologians, Jesus is both the manifestation of the faithfulness of God and the faithfulness of humanity. In Jesus there is God’s “Yes” to man, and man’s “Yes” to God. Thus, in the one person Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Word made flesh, there is manifested both the reign of God and the reign of humanity. In Jesus God exercises his reign as God and in Jesus humanity exercises their reign as the image of God. In Jesus God rules his world and orders all things and brings them to perfection as He always intended from the beginning through His image, humanity (Psalm 8; Heb 2).

Thanks be to God for the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. And thanks be to God for the Advent of our Lord, who in great love and humility, shunned not the Virgin’s womb and became Man for our sake, so that in Him we might be exalted, so that in Him, we might share in the communion of love of the Blessed Trinity. As Pope Benedict XVI reminded us in his first Christmas homily, God is being in communion and God invites us to share in that communion.  See, brothers and sisters, the generosity of God!!!!  He gives us not a token of love, He gives us not a symbol of love, NO!  He gives us all He has, His very life! May we say in response to such love the words of the Little Flower (St. Therese), “Oh, how I love thee!” Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, Amen.

It is false to say that God absolutely wills all men to be saved; rather, He contingently wills all men to be saved. His will in this case is contingent upon men freely responding to His grace, which is, per His absolute will, a necessary condition for eternal life.

Now there is no force which is outside of God so we know that all things Fall under God’s providence. If God puts a thing into motion, it would seem that it cannot be stopped whatsoever because since no force outside of God exists, no other force is present to stop what God has put into motion. But things which were set in motion do stop; they are stopped by God Himself. This happens because one thing He wills contingently is stopped by another thing which He wills absolutely.

When God wills that an apple should Fall to the ground per His natural law, He wills it contingently. He wills it contingent upon whether or not He wills another thing to intervene. A branch below the apple may catch it and prevent it from Falling, but that branch prevents the apple from hitting the ground because God wills that a branch should have the power of stopping an apple – not that the branch has its own power outside of God. God’s contingent will is only hindered by other things which He wills. God’s motion is only stopped by His own power.

But there are agents with their own will. Do they upset the order of God’s providence? Certainly not. God may will that man shall not eat the apple that fell, but He wills it contingent upon whether or not man should will to eat it. But whatever caused man to will to eat it, and remember that man is not his own final cause, is also under God’s providence.

Did God will evil then? Far be it from us to suggest such a thing; it is impossible. At this point we need to look at the broader picture and see that God did not absolutely will that man should not Fall. Whatever God absolutely wills is true by necessity. God wills absolutely that squares should not be circles and that such a thing should not be possible. Whatever God wills contingently also happens unless something else which He wills absolutely causes it to not happen.

In this way, all things are under God’s providence. So we can know for certain that it was not in God’s absolute will that man should avoid the Fall. God willed contingently that man should not Fall, but in His wisdom, He willed absolutely that creation should be precisely as good as it is, and to achieve that, it was necessary per His absolute will, that the Fall should take place to bring about the greater good which resulted. We would not know the good of perseverance, for example, without the Fall. But God absolutely willed that the good of perseverance, again for example, should exist and be manifest, and so His contingent will of avoiding the Fall was stopped by His absolute will for a greater good. We must conclude that even the Fall of man was under God’s providence.

1. 2 Peter 3:9
2. e.g. Matthew 25:41

God is Simple
The more we learn of the universe, the more we appreciate its complexity. But this itself is, in some way, counter-intuitive because we observe that in the natural world, whatever is complex must have a creator which is more complex. A house is complex, but more so an architect. It would seem to follow that since the universe is so complex, God must be even more complex. But complexity entails a composition of various parts and God is not composite. An individual man includes things, like his particular attributes, which are not included in ‘humanity’, but God, who is not composed of “matter and form”, does not include anything which does not belong to ‘divinity’. Humanity is the form of a man; his particular physical components are his matter. Together, this form and matter compose a man. But God is not composed; He is pure form and is not a body. God is altogether simple. Therefore, it is wrong to say that lesser complexity necessarily comes from greater complexity as is shown by God’s simplicity.¹ It is however, true that lesser unity necessarily comes from greater unity although it is beyond the scope of this paper to demonstrate. It is important to understand God this way because it informs how we interpret Divine revelation.

Now this may sound too philosophical for some appetites or maybe superfluous. Why do we need philosophy if we have the Scriptures? The problem with this attitude is that it is impossible to start with the Scriptures as our absolute basis for theology. When we approach the Scriptures, we already have some beliefs which are formed by reason and these beliefs are presuppositions through which we will read every verse. This is why it is important to have a theological starting point which is based on sound reason and is then informed by the divine Scriptures.

Creation Reveals the Truth of God
Now God is simple, but our means of knowledge are all complex. That is, we derive knowledge of God, who is simple, through His complex creation. Aquinas says: “We can speak of simple things only as though they were like the composite things from which we derive our knowledge.”² This does not mean that we cannot arrive at reliable knowledge of God because this is precisely how God chose to reveal Himself to us. When I speak of “the divine metaphor”, I do not mean that our means of knowledge are not real, but that they are divinely established metaphors, teachings from the mouth of God, as it were, about Himself. The universe teaches us of the truth; that is, God.³

Big things in nature have important things to teach us of God and His nature. Though He is not male or female, our sex tells us something about God. But this is not to say that God’s masculinity, as divinely revealed, is merely metaphoric (as if it weren’t true). On the contrary, it is true and it tells us something important about Him. Masculinity is not our metaphoric projection onto God’s identity; it is exactly the other way around. Masculinity is a divinely established reality intended by God to teach us something about who He is. In the same way, fatherhood is not our metaphoric projection onto God’s person, man’s fatherhood was established by God to show us who He is. To be clear, God is properly called Father.⁴

This is why we must handle with care the way the Scriptures speak of God. We have a tendency to project ourselves onto God as if He were only an all powerful and sinless version of ourselves in the sky. On the contrary, we were made in His image and not the other way around!⁵ A potent example of this important point is passion as applied to God. God is immutable and therefore is free of passions.⁶ That is, a passion is never properly applied to God, only analogically⁷ The Scriptures, however, often speak of God’s “anger” (e.g. Exodus 4:14, Leviticus 26:28). Thus, it must be understood that the Scriptures speak analogically of God’s anger.

When we hear the word “metaphor”, it has the connotation of something being false. For example, if I tell you something and then later I say, “I was only speaking metaphorically”, you get the impression that I haven’t told you the whole truth or that I haven’t been straight forward. But this is not the case with the divine metaphor(s) precisely because they are divine. God has established these efficacious ways for us to understand Him, and these are the best means available to us to know Him although the Truth exceeds what can be expressed to those of us with limited capacity.

Implications
Nature itself is divinely established to lead us to Truth. That is why errors cannot be illustrated by nature except with great difficulty. St. Paul compares the Church to a human body⁸ and the fullness of this metaphor is only found in the Catholic Church as shown in Called to Communion’s recent paper on the Visible Church. It is important to mention that the Catholic Church is a body, but it is only analogically compared to a human body. The model of an essentially invisible Church does not fit this metaphor nor any metaphor which can be found in nature and this is part of the reason why we know it to be false. True things are easily illustrated by natural phenomena but nature must be falsely interpreted to be used as a supporting metaphor of a false proposition. Recalling that man’s fatherhood is divinely established to teach us about God’s Fatherhood, we can see how the human body is created, in part, to teach us the nature of the Church and her unity. This is why Paul’s analogy of the Church to a human body is not merely a helpful illustration; it is a “divine metaphor.”

Seeing that nature itself, revealed by God, is so inclined to teach us truth by metaphor, it comes as no surprise that the divinely revealed Scriptures make frequent use of allegory and symbolism. When the modern skeptic reads that John the Baptist wore camel’s hair and a leather belt⁹ , he thinks that the author is trying to conjure up a connection between St. John and Elijah¹⁰ . It has never occurred to the skeptic that what is said of John may actually be true. But on the other hand, when the Scriptures speak of the sun standing still¹¹ , it has never occurred to the skeptic that the Scriptures might be speaking metaphorically. It’s obvious in the latter case, but in the former as well, a metaphor is at play. The divine metaphor opposes both fundamentalism and skepticism. The gospels record that Jesus rose on the third day, and the skeptic wants to insist that the gospel authors are inserting their own symbolic theology. This assumes the very antithesis of my argument: that God is not capable of enacting anything with meaning!

On the contrary, the Scriptures are the God-breathed account of the created universe and the salvation story. It is not surprising that this account is full of symbolism and metaphoric language. This is not to say that the accounts must only be taken metaphorically. In fact, those who appreciate the “divine metaphor” prefer a literal reading in some cases (like the three days in the tomb). On the other hand, it informs and validates the allegoric method of Old Testament exegesis that the Catholic Church has long employed. Now, as Origen showed, an allegoric method of interpretation does not indicate that a thing cannot be literally true. ¹² This is because God uses real things in nature to teach Truth by allegory. We call this, again, the “divine metaphor.”

The consequences of misunderstanding God’s simplicity may seem subtle but they can have far reaching effects. Fundamentalism, for example, is replete with errors caused by an oversimplication of Biblical language concerning God and His actions. This is why it is important to have, among other things, a solid understanding of God’s simplicity and immutability. It will demonstrate that some things said of God must be analogical and thus help us avoid certain theological errors.

So this brings us back to where the discussion began: the atonement. In recent times, the concept of Christ suffering vicariously for our sins has surfaced under the Protestant atonement theory known as Penal Substitution. This is caused by a misreading of key texts especially regarding God’s wrath. I do not intend to fully engage the theory, which is still popular among Protestants, but a couple points would be worth mentioning. First, wrath belongs to the passions and as mentioned above, it is not properly attributed to God, as if He were subject to it, but only analogically. Secondly, the theory falsely teaches that God is moved from wrath to forgiveness by the act of the vicarious sacrifice of Calvary. If God could be moved from a state of love, to a state of wrath, and then back to a state of love, then the Penal Substitution theory of the atonement, in which God the Father pours out His wrath on His Son until His anger is spent, would be a possibility. But if God cannot be moved at all, as the doctrine of immutability insists, then a conception of the atonement in which the Father pours out His anger on Christ until His wrath is spent is not possible.

Further, if we understand God’s simplicity and immutability in this way, it has implications regarding justification. It follows from God’s immutability that justification must entail a change in man not a change in God. Christian theology has no room for a change in God nor a change in how God sees His people. Penal Substitution, as described above, and the concept of imputed righteousness, which teaches that we are moved from enmity to friendship with God without actual change in ourselves, both seem to contradict God’s immutability because they entail changes in God rather than changes in the created order.

The Reformed would argue for a third option since they too affirm God’s immutability. They would say that the change, at initial justification, is not a change in God or a change in man but a change in the relationship between the two. Now there are two types of relationships: intrinsic, such as familial, and extrinsic, such as geographical. In the case of the latter, a change in the relationship may take place without any inherent change in the involved parties. That is, the change in relationship may be effected by extrinsic change. If one party moves, the geographical relationship is altered, but neither party has been inherently changed. On the other hand, in the case of an intrinsic relationship, a real intrinsic change must occur in one or more of the involved parties in order for the relationship to change. For the relationship of two men to go from friendship to enmity, something must happen in one or more of the friends. They must undergo a change in disposition toward the other.

Now it is clear that God did not change when man first sinned. It should also be clear from the above that God does not change during the process of justification. So if it is true that in order for an intrinsic relationship to change, a real change must occur in one of the involved parties, then the doctrine of imputed righteousness must be false. But it is conceivable, at this point, that it is not universally true that in order for an intrinsic relationship to change, a real change must occur in one of the involved parties. Ordinarily it certainly is true, but suppose that God, from eternity, decreed that the righteousness of His Son would effect the necessary change in the relationship between man and Himself such that a real change was not necessary in either party. This is impossible because it is like saying that God could make a square circle. God can’t do something that is not capable of being done by its own terms. God cannot cause an intrinsic change by non-intrinsic means because then it would not be an intrinsic change. Further, the model of imputed righteousness has no precedent in nature, i.e. it is not supported by the divine metaphor.

Now I would not pretend to have sufficiently dealt with the nuances and arguments that the Reformed would readily employ in defense of this pivotal Evangelical “dogma”, but I hope I have at least given the reader something to consider.

Conclusion
The Divine Metaphor is one primary way that we begin to know God. It is the pedagogy of nature itself. It informs our understanding of God and is confirmed by the Scriptures. It may not be apparent to some why it is so important to understand God rightly from the start. But if we start with a proper understanding of who God is, informed by divine revelation, then it will help us avoid errors like fundamentalism, penal substitution, imputed righteousness, and many others. I should make it clear that I have not intended, in this post, to advance a particular theory of hermeneutical method, the atonement, or justification. I brought these up as brief examples of errors caused by a misapprehension of the divine metaphor and consequently God’s nature. Whatever is left wanting in the discussion of these points will be handled at a later date with more thorough treatments.

Going forward let me encourage you to look closely at nature expecting the Divine Metaphor.

1. Summa Theologica I Q.3 a.1-8
2. Summa Theologica I Q.3 a.3
3. John 14:6
4. Summa Theologica I Q.33 a.2
5. CCC 370; Gen 1:27
6. Summa Theologica I Q.9 a.1-2
7. Summa Theologica I Q.20 a.1 r.1 – Aquinas says, “Therefore acts of the sensitive appetite, inasmuch as they have annexed to them some bodily change, are called passions; whereas acts of the will are not so called. Love, therefore, and joy and delight are passions; in so far as they denote acts of the intellective appetite, they are not passions.”
8. 1 Cor 12:12-31
9. Matt 3:4, Mark 1:6
10. 2 Kings 1:8
11. Josh 10:13
12. See, for example, McCartney, Dan “Literal and Allegorical Interpretation in Origen” Westminster Theological Journal 1986. Online text. Origen said, “The incidents which are historically true [in the OT] are much more numerous than the spiritual interpretations which have been woven in by the Holy Ghost for pedagogical reasons.” – De principiis (4.3.4)