The Cleansing of the Heart THOMISTIC RESSOURCEMENT SERIES Volume 9 Series Editors Matthew Levering,Mundelein Seminary Thomas Joseph White, OP,Dominican House of Studies Editorial Board Serge-Thomas Bonino, OP, Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas Gilles Emery, OP, University of Fribourg (Switzerland) Reinhard Hütter,The Catholic University of America Bruce Marshall, Southern Methodist University Emmanuel Perrier, OP, Dominican Studium, Toulouse Richard Schenk, OP, University of Freiburg (Germany) Kevin White, The Catholic University of America The Cleansing of the Heart The Sacraments as Instrumental Causes in the Thomistic Tradition Reginald M. Lynch, OP The Catholic University of America Press Washington, D.C. Copyright © 2017 The Catholic University of America Press All rights reserved The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standards for Information Science--Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39. 48-1984. ∞ Design and typesetting by Kachergis Book Design Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-0-8132-2944-7 For my father God’s own descent Into flesh was meant As a demonstration That the supreme merit Lay in risking spirit In substantiation. — Robert Frost, Kitty Hawk Contents Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1. Historical Considerations 10 TheVictorine School 10 Lombard and Scholastic Causality 18 TheDevelopment of Interpretive Traditions: TheFranciscan School 27 Aquinas and the Thomist Tradition 36 Moral Causality 43 TheTridentine Reform 49 Contemporary Implications 54 2. Creation, Artistry, and Dispositive Instrumental Causality in Aquinas’ Commentary on the Sentences 67 God and Creation 68 Sacraments as Dispositive Instrumental Causes of Grace 78 TheSacraments as Signs 87 TheReceived Tradition 90 Grace and Re-creation 100 Christological Instrumentality 102 viii Contents 3. From the Sentences to the Summa 111 De veritate and De Potentia Dei 113 Summa Theologiae 120 Grace, Instrumentality, and Obediential Potency 128 Sacramental Grace and Instrumentality: John of St. Thomas 144 4. Early-Modern Approaches to the Sacraments: Melchior Cano 154 Humanism and Scholasticism 155 Cano and Renaissance Humanism 160 De Locis 167 Cano on the Sacraments: Moral Causality 170 Bañez 182 Merit 186 De Auxiliis and Modern Theology 195 Conclusion 201 Selected Bibliography 207 Index 221 Acknowledgements This book originated in 2012 as my Licentiate thesis at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. Thanks are due to the Pontifi- cal Faculty, the library staff, and the Dominican community at the House of Studies for the support they offered me during this time. I am grateful to Thomas Joseph White, OP, for directing this project in its initial phase and for the guidance he offered during subsequent years as I continued to work toward its completion. I am also indebt- ed to Andrew Hofer, OP, Cajetan Cuddy, OP, Romanus Cessario, OP, and Archbishop Augustine DiNoia, OP, each of whom assisted and encouraged me in innumerable ways during the completion of this book. I am thankful for the support of the Friars, staff, and parishioners of St. Patrick Church in Columbus, Ohio. During my assignment there, 2012–2015, I was able to build substantially on the work done for my original thesis to create the book as it now stands. I am also grateful to the faculty and students of the Pontifical College Josephi- num where I taught, 2014–15, and in a particular way to Peter Veracka and the Josephinum library staff, who aided my research during the final stage of this project. I have benefited a great deal from the comments and suggestions of Matthew Gaetano, Sr. Mary Dominic, OP, Jörgen Vijgen, and an anonymous reviewer at the Catholic University of America Press, who read drafts of this book at various stages. Their insights have greatly improved this book, and any faults remaining are certainly of my own design. Parts of chapters 1, 3, and 4 have appeared in articles or rely in part ix x Acknowledgments on previously published material. I am grateful to the editors of Nova et Vetera, The Thomist, and Angelicum for permission to republish re- vised portions of the following works: “The Sacraments as Causes of Sanctification,”Nova et Vetera (English) 12, no. 3 (2014): 791–836; “Cajetan’s Harp: Sacraments and the Life of Grace in Light of Perfec- tive Instrumentality,” The Thomist 78, no. 1 (2014): 65–106; “Domin- go Bañez on Moral and Physical Causality: Christic Merit and Sacra- mental Realism,” Angelicum 91 no. 1 (2014): 105–26. Most of all, I am exceedingly grateful to my parents, Daniel and Ellen, and to Dan and Maureen for their unfailing support. Abbreviations CCL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina CE The Catholic Encyclopedia Conc. Trid. Council of Trent Contra Faust. Contra Faustum CSEL Co rpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum De An. De Anima De Bapt. De Baptismo De civ. De civitate Dei De Doct. De Doctrina Christiana Defensiones Theol. Defensiones Theologiae Divi Thomae Aquinatis De Pot. De Potentia Dei De Sac. De sacramentis Christiane fidei De Ver. De veritate DS E nchridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum de rebus fidei et morum DTC Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique GA De Generatione Animalium Glossa Glossa in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum In Sent. Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (various authors other than Aquinas) xi xii Abbreviations Jo. Ev. Tr. In Johannis evangelium tractatus Leonine ed. Opera Omnia iussu impensaque Leonis XIII P.M. edita. LG Lumen Gentium LS A New Latin Dictionary LSJ A Greek-English Lexicon LThK2 Le xikon für Theologie und Kirche, 2nd edition LThK3 Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3rd edition NABRE The New American Bible, Revised Edition NCE1 New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1st edition NCE2 New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd edition ODCC O xford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed., revised Op. Ox. Opus Oxoniense PA De Partibus Animalium PL Patrologia Latina Quodlib. Q uaestiones Disputatae et Quaestiones Duodecim Quodlibetales Relect. de Sacram. Relectio de Sacramentis RSV The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard Version SC Sources chrétiennes Sent. Sententiae in IV libris distinctae ST Summa Theologiae Summa Sent. Summa Sententiarum Summa Theol. (Halensis) Summa Theologica Super Ioan. Super Evangelium s. Ioannis lectura Super Sent. Scriptum Super Libros Sententiarum Wadding Opera Omnia (1639) The Cleansing of the Heart Introduction In Christian usage, the concept of “sacrament” came to signify a wide array of theological ideas early in the Church’s history, being applied broadly to define essential traits of the Church, both ritually and doc- trinally.1 More than a reference to individual sacraments, “sacramen- tality” says something essential about the Christian mystery and speaks subsequently of particular ritual acts in light of this. To the de- gree that we are tempted to reduce the concept of sacramentality, the Second Vatican Council teaches that the Church herself is the “visible sacrament” of the unity offered to all through the sacrifice of Christ.2 In this, Vatican II refocuses the paradigm for the theological use of the term within the patristic tradition, such that the theological naming of the ritual dimension of the Church’s life links the concept of sac- ramentality intrinsically not only to who the Church is but what she does.3 As the title indicates, this book is concerned with “the cleansing of the heart”4—a phrase borrowed from St. Augustine that describes the effects that natural elements (such as water) have on the human person when taken up by the Church as sacramental signs. 1. See Johann Auer, A General Doctrine of the Sacraments and the Mystery of the Eu- charist, vol. 6 of Dogmatic Theology, ed. Johann Auer and Joseph Ratzinger (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press), 10–11. 2. Vatican Council II, Lumen Gentium (LG). November 21, 1964. 9. All in-text En- glish translations of Vatican II taken from Austin Flannery, ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, vol. 1, new rev. ed. (New York: Costello, 1998). 3. Lumen Gentium traces the concept of the Church herself as sacrament to Cypri- an. Norman Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Washington, D.C.: George- town University Press, 1990), 2:856n1. 4. Jo. Ev. Tr. 80.3. 1 2 Introduction Because the Church exists for a purpose, the efficacy of the sacra- ments has been important to the Church since the beginning of her history. Because the Church is sacrament, her purpose is sacramen- tal, and those theological and ritual realities that we label sacraments must serve this ecclesial reality in order to retain their name. Sacra- mental efficacy, therefore, is in one sense a question of terminolog- ical authenticity. To say that a given theological or ritual reality is a sacrament is to say that it is intrinsically ordered to the essence and purpose of the Church’s life. Because of the ecclesial nature of this question, it essentially concerns theology itself prior to hermeneuti- cal questions of method, theological school, or personal interest. For this reason the question of what the sacraments effect and how they effect it has emerged in a variety of different contexts throughout the Church’s history, driven not only by pastoral or formational concerns but by the contemplative curiosity of theology itself. This book is concerned with sacramental causality as a theologi- cal question—a terminological formulation of this same fundamen- tal question that first emerged explicitly in the early scholastic peri- od and became an essential point of theological reflection and debate for the following centuries for thinkers from across the tradition. The purpose of this volume is to explore the meaning and broader theo- logical significance of sacramental causality from a Thomistic per- spective, situating Aquinas’ approach to this essential question both historically and doctrinally. For Aquinas, theology understood as sa- cra doctrina is essentially one science; therefore, although subjects can be studied individually, positive statements about a single sub- ject cannot be made without implicitly invoking the broader whole.