In common with the Lombard, Thomas Aquinas recognises all these points of view for the interpretation of the death of Christ, and besides these, that of satisfaction. But in their distribution he distinguishes their relative importance, and particularly presents some as mere corollaries of others. In the first rank, according to him, stands the value of the suffering of Christ in relation to God as merit, as satisfaction, as sacrifice, as redemption-price (Summa Theologiæ, Pars iii. Qu. 48, art. 1-4). And, after that, he treats of the relation of Christ’s death to men and to the devil. With regard to its effect upon men, he repeats the dictum of Abelard and the Lombard, that the death of Christ stirred men up to that love which works the forgiveness of sins; but at the same time he makes this effect dependent upon the fact that the death of Christ is the redemption price paid to God (Qu. 49, art. 1). But the effect upon the devil he, in common with the Lombard, describes as the indirect consequence of the forgiveness of sins which is connected with Christ’s death (art. 2), without prosecuting further (as the other did) the mythico-dramatic exposition of the thought. But further, he brings back the thought of the redemption price to that of satisfaction to God, and that of sacrifice to the idea of merit. With regard to redemption, that is, he says that in so far as the Passion of Christ was satisfaction for the sins and punishment of the human race, it was the price, as it were, whereby we have been released from that double obligation (Qu. 48, art. 4). But Christ’s quality as a sacrifice in which God’s hatred against sinners is appeased and He is reconciled to men, depends upon the freeness of the love and obedience of Christ; which last, however, rank as specific tokens of His merit towards God (Qu. 47, art. 2; Qu. 48, art. 3; Qu. 49, art. 4). Thus, in the end, Thomas has to deal only with the two heads of satisfaction and merit.

8. The application of these notions to the relation of Christ’s Passion to God depends quite essentially upon the general definition of the idea of God. However obvious this maxim may seem to be, it is by no means made use of by the recognised masters of historico-critical analysis of theological systems—Baur and Schneckenburger. Baur’s History of the Christian Doctrine of the Atonement, leaving out of account its nihilistic conclusion, would have been much more instructive than it is if the course of his delineation had been accompanied by constant attention to developments or changes in the doctrine of God. Schneckenburger’s labours towards an understanding of the Lutheran and Reformed doctrines (though, in other respects, they bear evidence of an incomparably greater historical sense and more loving devotion to the subject of investigation than all Baur’s contributions to the history of dogma put together) still suffer from the erroneous notion (shared as regards the matter by Baur also²), that the root of systems is to be found only in subjective dispositions, needs, and aspirations. While Schweizer would, at least, have the deterministic acceptance of the idea of God to be recognised as the principle of the Reformed system of doctrine, this element in the Reformed theology has, according to Schneckenburger, only the importance of a subsidiary notion, by means of which the practical impulse of the Reformed subjectivity guards itself against deviation into a false feeling of freedom: while, according to Baur, it denotes even a corruption and enfeeblement of the common Protestant principle of subjectivity. Still more distinctly does Schneckenburger’s method display itself in the criticism of Socinianism, when he explains its conception of God merely as the reflection of the moral standpoint of this system, in which the human will is paramount.³ A man so acute, doubtless, laid hold of this method in order to secure the separation of the theological systems which found religious parties from the construction of philosophical knowledge, and to guard against that intellectualistic misapprehension of the theological problem—that confusion of it with the problem of philosophy—which was becoming so prevalent in his time. Yet, without intending it, he has thereby promoted that opinion of Feuerbach concerning religion—that the idea of God is in all cases only the fantastic image of the subjective self-consciousness of man, and of the subjective needs of man. If, now, we are to avoid all appearance of this; if, too, the history of theology and of the theologically distinct tendencies and parties in the Church is not to be resolved into an incoherent atomistic succession of impulses which have their origin and method only in subjectivity—nay more, if, in the understanding of the history of theology, a pledge is to be given that its individual systematic products, particularly in so far as they lead to the formation of parties, shall be ranked in subordination to the purpose and development of the religious commonwealth—then we must count upon the tradition of the idea of God (which of course does not necessarily exclude the possibility of an eventual change in it) as upon a decisive factor which all along will stand en rapport with the subjective needs and dispositions of the period when these press forward into activity. The aspects of theological knowledge which lie before us in history will be preserved in all their separateness from philosophical knowledge, if we give heed to the religious need that lies at their root. But at the same time the claim to objective truth on behalf of the products of theological knowledge will be secured, and the coincidence of historical criticism upon theological systems with Feuerbach’s misapprehension of religion will be prevented, if we establish it as a fixed position, that we are never in any case conscious of a subjectively religious disposition as active towards the production of particular theological knowledge, except under the influence of the previously established idea of God, which has been handed down in the Church, and gives form, and measure, and aim to all our discussions.

Thus it is certain, for example, that in all forms of the doctrine of reconciliation, the common Christian subjective craving after assurance of the forgiveness of sins, as also of growing sanctification, is at work; but it would be perfectly absurd if on this account one were to describe this craving, the feeling of which conditions our subjective persuasion of the value of reconciliation, as the sufficient cause of the doctrine and of the satisfaction of the craving which is implied in the truth of that doctrine. A confusion between condition and cause—the sophistry of which is obvious to every one when the relation between the craving after sustenance of the bodily life, and the means or causes of its satisfaction are spoken of—is equally sophistical when it is extended to the facts of our spiritual life. It is the conception of God current in the tradition of the Christian Church, which constitutes the ground of the form of the Christian doctrine of reconciliation:—the conception, namely, in which the Divine purpose of forgiveness, or also of sanctification of believers, is placed in connexion with the means suitable thereto—to wit, the peculiar personality of Christ at the least, and its twofold relation to God and man. Now it will certainly be possible to make out that the particular theological interpretation of the contents of that Divine purpose, and of the standard according to which the person and work of Christ are subservient to it, will be modified just in proportion as the feeling of the evil of sin appears to be slighter or deeper. But this change never appears in history in such a way as to be plainly recognisable as the previous occasion of alteration in the idea of God; nay, rather even the converse assumption may be made—that the sense of the greater or less evil of sin is regulated by the higher or lower estimate of God’s authority. The latter will have to be regarded as the rule, at all events in those cases where that subjective feeling comes so definitely into consciousness as to admit of being expressed at all. So much the more may we venture to assert that although the genetic occasion of a train of theological thinking may indeed be afforded by a peculiar subjective disposition of the theologian, yet the definite idea of God always contains in itself the leading ground and standard of the knowledge that actually results.

The doctrines of Thomas and of Duns concerning God are, accordingly, the standards to which their respective doctrines of reconciliation must be referred. Both start from the tradition of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite; and both modify it by means of the conception of the relative will founded upon the Aristotelian notion of final cause.⁴ When that abstraction from the world, which passes with the Areopagite as the right notion of God, dominates the structure of our doctrines concerning God, the absolute transcendence of God over the world is thereby secured, yet only in an essentially negative way. Moreover, that indeterminate Being which had to be regarded as in itself indifferent towards the world, is at the same time described as the Spirit which takes knowledge of itself, and in itself knows every other possible entity, and as the will which causes another entity to arise out of nothing; and thus the world, its existence, and arrangement, are derived from God. But then, as this side of the idea of God, which regards the world, is dominated by His fundamental transcendence, the consequence is that in the works of both of these schoolmen God’s relation to the world, and to all that which in the world is ordered by God, bears the aspect of contingency. In carrying out this thought, however, they differ from each other in the degree of boldness and comprehensiveness with which that contingency in the ordering of the world is asserted.

Thomas subordinates the whole extent and connexion of these purposes which, when realized, form the universe, to the good pleasure of God, who must be the original object of His own volition (Summa Theol. P. i. Qu. 19, art. 1, 2). God wills Himself to be the ultimate end; everything else He wills as means to that end. But on this account the whole existence and course of the world, which God wills, is to Him nothing necessary. For means to an end are necessary objects of His will only when it is seen that there is no alternative—that without the particular means the end cannot be realized (art. 3). But for Thomas it is no matter for investigation whether, perhaps, in the course of the world, such conditiones sine quibus non must be recognised; for it is at the very outset a fixed condition with him that God, who would be perfect even if there were no world, whose good pleasure is immeasurably above all the ends proposed in the world (Qu. 25, art. 5), and to whom no perfection accrues from the world, brings nothing to pass in the world, and in the course thereof that were necessary and not merely contingent to Him. God’s absolute freedom, according to Thomas, shows itself hereby, that He is in a position to do something different from what He actually does; and this (negative) independence of God in relation to the world is his highest point of view, and had to be maintained as such, out of deference to the Areopagite. In this way the incarnation of the Logos, as well as the reconciliation through the death of the God-man, have in the world’s course the significance of only relatively necessary events. It is only a deceptive appearance⁵ when Thomas would fain exclude God’s incarnation from the region of His free choice. It is quite true that he characterizes that act as befitting (conveniens) to God, just as thinking befits a rational creature. According to Thomas, it befits the highest goodness of God that He should unite Himself with the creature in the highest way (P. iii. Qu. 1, art. 1). But he limits the purpose of the incarnation to the taking away of sin—but sin is contingent in the world, and thus also the means used by God for taking it away can only be contingent. In this view he also denies that the incarnation was necessary for the taking away of sin as a conditio sine qua non, and concedes to it in this regard only the appropriateness of an expedient, per quod melius et convenientius pervenitur ad finem (art. 2). Finally, on the question whether the incarnation would have taken place if Adam had not sinned, Thomas decides against this hypothesis—founding his conclusion on Scripture—and while he admits that God had the power to become man even if sin had not entered, he thereby at once excludes the idea that this relation had any necessary foundation in the being of God (art. 3). In accordance with this Thomas comes to the conclusion also that the giving of satisfaction to God by the death of Christ is to be considered only as the most suitable course, but not as the course which, to the exclusion of all others, was necessary; inasmuch as the very justice of God, in relation to which Christ’s satisfaction is necessary, is no unchangeable and essential characteristic of God, but is simply dependent on His free will. A judge indeed who has to punish the fault that has been committed against another, cannot rightly let a crime pass unpunished. But God has no superiors; on the contrary, is the chief and general good of the whole universe; on which account He would commit no unrighteousness if He were to forgive a fault committed against Himself; just as a man acts mercifully but not unjustly, when, without receiving satisfaction, he forgives a fault committed against himself (Qu. 46, arts. 1, 2).

From this view of Christ’s satisfaction it will be seen that though Thomas in words attributes the force of a punishment to the death of Christ, and sees in it the fulfilment of the law of the old covenant (Qu. 47, arts. 2, 3), he yet does this only in a superficial and unconcerned manner, and does not come near the sense in which the Reformers assert both these positions. For the doctrine that God’s good pleasure is immeasurably superior to all the institutions of the universe excludes the Reformers’ assumption that the public institution of the moral law (for the honour of which Christ had to endure the punishment that had been merited by men, and accomplish the fulfilment that had been obligatory on them) corresponds just as fully to the Being of God as to the destiny of men to become images of God. But, by laying the chief emphasis on God’s arbitrary will as the point of view from which the value of Christ’s satisfaction ought to be regarded, Thomas puts himself also in opposition to Anselm; and the teachings of these two, therefore, although nominally the same, are really quite different. The thought in favour of which Thomas pronounces, that God, since He has no superior, could have forgiven sins even without satisfaction out of His pity, is expressed in Anselm’s work by Boso. Hereupon Anselm admits that God is subject to no law, or rather that everything right and proper is so because God wills it; thus letting us see that this thought, towards which the subsequent theology of the middle ages gravitates more and more strongly, had already in his time the prepossessions of men in its favour. But for the case before him he sets about such a limitation of the fundamental proposition as takes away its meaning. He says (Cur Deus Homo, I. 12) that God’s freedom of will and God’s goodness are apprehended in a reasonable way only when they are not placed in conflict with God’s dignity. That freedom has reference only to that which is profitable and seemly, and that goodness would cease if it were to do anything unworthy of God. The dictum that a thing is right because God wills it, is not to be so understood as if in the case of God willing something improper it would therefore be right. God, for example, cannot will to lie. Thus the righteousness of what is willed by God does not extend itself to that which would in any case be unbecoming in God. And in this last category Anselm places the idea of an arbitrary forgiveness of sin. Thus satisfaction is regarded by him as a condition of the forgiveness of sins which is necessary on account of the nature of God. Against this line of thought the authority of the Lombard (p. 43) had already pronounced; but the thought of God’s arbitrary freedom is expressed still more strongly by Duns than by Thomas, and is used as a thorough-going principle for criticism of the doctrine of reconciliation.

Duns (Quæstiones in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum) at the outset conceives of God as a Will that works contingently. For as he presupposes that there is such a thing as contingency in the world, his presupposition would be null if it were to be assumed that God works necessarily and in a predetermined direction. Thus God in all cases works only contingently, and, therefore, as Will. Wherefore God has ideas, anticipatory knowledge of His own operations, only on the ground of His willing; and on that account He thinks even of that which is opposite to the actual course of the world as possible for Himself and His working. We ought not to seek in God for a ground or motive of the direction which the will of God actually takes, or any explanation why a world the very opposite of that which actually exists has not been brought into being. Even the contents of the law prescribed to men are entirely dependent on the arbitrary will of God, and have no necessary standard in God Himself. Accordingly the affirmative answer of Duns (in opposition to Thomas) upon the question whether God would have become man even if sin had not entered the world, does not rise beyond the sphere where the arbitrary choice of God has its place,⁶ and is very far from expressing any necessary relation between God and mankind. Finally the idea of merit (which is preferred by Duns) serves also to place the reconciliation connected with the death of Christ in the light of the full freeness of God’s choice. Indeed it is just in this highly consistent development of the conception of God peculiar to the Catholic middle ages that a tendency is disclosed which will ultimately broadly deny the reality of Christ’s divinity as well as the importance of the idea of reconciliation.

9. To that arbitrary choice of God, to which Thomas subordinated his view of the doctrine of reconciliation, corresponds in a certain measure the arbitrariness of Thomas himself, with which he decides between two modes of viewing sin, which are referred to by him, in order, by means of that decision, to establish the one presupposition that is requisite to the conception of satisfaction by the death of Christ. “In sin are comprised two things: on the one hand it implies departure from the unchanging and infinite good, wherefore sin is in one aspect infinite; on the other hand, it implies a disorderly devotion to the changeable good, and in this respect sin is finite, especially because even the devotion itself is something finite. For the acts of the creature as such cannot be infinite” (P. ii. Prima, Qu. 87, art. 4). Now, under the last point of view, it would certainly be impossible to show that satisfaction is a necessary condition of the forgiveness of sins, or at least it would be impossible to show that there was need for the God-man in order to give it. This will appear in the system of Duns, who judges sin to be a finite thing, and rejects the other view for reasons given. But Thomas declares for assuming the infinite import of sin, because to him the truth of the satisfaction by the God-man was a thing decided, and the presupposition had to be established in a way suitable to this proposed consequence. His declaration, therefore, is made thus vaguely,—that sin as committed against God has a “sort of” infinitude according to the infinitude of the Divine Majesty; for certainly an offence is all the graver according to the greatness of him against whom it is committed (P. iii. qu. 1, art. 2). The “sort of” infinitude (quædam infinitas) of sin appears all the more clearly to be surreptitiously introduced into this argument. because it is not reconciled with the fact recognised by Thomas himself, that sin as an act, i.e. in its essence, and at all events in a more important respect, is finite. The infinitude of sin in respect of its merit or demerit, as assumed by Thomas, does not prevent him from holding that as offence against God it is finite, or at least is not pronounced to be of the highest conceivable gravity. This, of course, results from the relation of indifference which is assumed to subsist between God and the moral order of the world. In other words, if it is acknowledged that God can forgive sins without anything further, because He, as the highest good, is subordinated to no universal ordinance of law, and thus is justified like any private individual in forgiving an offence committed against Him (p. 49), then there is attributed to sin, even as it comes into collision with the infinite God, the character not of crime against the public order of morally-ordered society, but only of violation of the personal rights of a subject of higher rank, which violation can, at the option of the latter, be withdrawn from the sphere of public litigation. The sin which, as injury to God, has the “sort of” infinitude which immeasurably transcends the idea of crime, nevertheless as injury to God, who can at pleasure overlook it, or also can suffer it to be wiped out by means of a satisfaction to be appointed by Himself, comes far short of the idea of crime.

Now, Thomas assumes that, with a view to the forgiveness of sins, God chooses the latter procedure as the more suitable. He decrees to grant to the sinful human race the forgiveness of sins only on condition that satisfaction be given Him for the injury He has endured—which satisfaction must consist of something which the injured person loves as much as and more than he hates the injury (Qu. 48, art. 2). Now, Thomas distinguishes between the possible degrees of congruity between a satisfaction and the judgment of God. “If the satisfaction is to be complete, i.e. suitable (condigna), by reason of a ‘certain’ adaptation for compensation of the fault committed, then the satisfaction offered by a mere man is not sufficient, inasmuch as the whole of human nature is destroyed by sin, and the goodness of one person, or of several, cannot make up for the injury which has been caused by the whole race. For this, a prestation of infinite efficacy alone suffices, i.e. such a one as only the God-man can accomplish. But, on the other hand, if satisfaction of an imperfect sort were to be sufficient through the acceptance (acceptatio) of him who is satisfied with it, notwithstanding its insufficiency in itself, then would the satisfaction of a mere man be adequate” (Qu. 1, art. 2). Thomas, however, in deciding, just as Anselm does, in favour of the validity of the perfect sort of satisfaction as given by the God-man, did not bar the way to that opposite view which we see Duns afterwards adopting. In this distinction, it fares with Thomas just in that other one regarding the infinite or finite gravity of sin. Precisely as by his decision in favour of the latter he by no means renders the former altogether untenable; so in like manner his recognition of the complete satisfaction which must be given by the God-man, but which even yet includes in itself only a “sort of” compensation for the fault committed against God, leaves open the conclusion that here too must come in the “acceptation” of God, wherein he overlooks the deficiency wherein the satisfaction falls short of perfection; that is to say, the two sorts of satisfaction distinguished by Thomas have no fixed mark of distinction between them.

While Thomas in these premisses to his doctrine follows in Anselm’s track indeed, and yet in the above-stated vague declarations regarding the idea of sin and of satisfaction in general, abandons the close dialectical style of his predecessor, thus inviting and preparing the way for the loosening of all the joints of the doctrine by Duns, his successor, he in so doing brings out on one point of divergence from Anselm a thought which is of great importance. It is this: the God-man being considered to be, in virtue of the infinitude of His Divine Nature, properly qualified to give such a satisfaction as would be a full compensation for infinite sin, Anselm had held it was sufficient that He should be at the same time designated as member of the human race, so as to represent that race in His atoning passion. The value of His work for man thus arose, according to this view, only from His Divine nature, which separated Him from men, and was the ground of His sinlessness and of the specific value to God of His death. So that in order to explain the operation of this satisfaction for men, Anselm had to resort at one time to the thought that the God-man had thereby given the example of surrender to God; at another time, to a substitution of the idea of merit in room of that of satisfaction (p. 33). Thomas escapes these difficulties by at once designating the God-man, both in so far as He gives satisfaction and in so far as He acquires merit, as the Head of the human race that is to be renewed, i.e. of the Church.⁷ “As a natural body is a unity, so is the Church, the mystical body of Christ, reckoned along with Christ her Head as one Person” (Qu. 49, art. 1; Qu. 48, art. 1). By this definition of the Person of Christ as the subject of the expiatory Passion, it becomes possible to comprehend in one act the double efficacy of that passion towards God and towards men.

10. Complete satisfaction for the injury to God implied in the sin of the human race is thus given, according to Thomas, by the suffering and death of the God-man. This Person does not merely belong to the human race in virtue of His nature; even before His exaltation He was already also the ruling Head of the Church—of that portion of the human race upon which the Divine forgiveness of sins actually comes to take effect. This Person possesses, at the same time, in His Godhead that infinite value which counterweighs or rather overweighs the demerit of sin, although the Godhead of Christ as being incapable of suffering does not directly take part in His Passion (Qu. 46, art. 12). But it is not merely on this estimate of the value of His Person, it is also on the motive which led Christ to endure suffering, on His love and obedience, and finally, also on the extent of the pain endured by Him that Thomas grounds the expiatory work of Christ (Qu. 48, art. 2). Thus Thomas is in this matter essentially at one with Anselm (p. 28). Nor is there any surprising innovation in the assertion made by Thomas that Christ’s Passion was non solum sufficiens sed etiam superabundans satisfactio pro peccatis humani generis. Rather this follows as a necessary consequence from the accessories of the idea of satisfaction, and of the application of that idea to Christ. For if satisfaction implies the giving of such a thing as the injured party loves as much as or even more than he hates the injury, as Thomas says; and if the passion of the God-man is fitted to give satisfaction to God because it outweighs the evil of sin, as Anselm says, then it follows very naturally that the required perfection of that satisfaction evinces itself not merely in a “sort of” compensation of the injury done, but also in an excess of God’s complacency over His displeasure on account of sin. This becomes clear, according to the premisses of Thomas, from the circumstance that Christ’s Person (by virtue of His Godhead), and the love and obedience shown by Him, possess a really infinite value, while only a “sort of” infinity is attributed to sin. It should not, however, be overlooked that a modification upon Anselm’s view is, after all, involved in the doctrine of the superabundance of Christ’s satisfaction, which is laid down for the first time by Thomas. For Thomas expressly says that the voluntariness of Christ’s Passion rendered to God more than would have been needed as compensation for all sins. But Anselm had given prominence to this very circumstance as just the condition of the equivalence of that satisfaction. Now, Thomas in this way succeeds in keeping quite clear of an inconsistency in which Anselm got involved. It has already been pointed out (p. 32) that Anselm connects Christ’s satisfaction with His Passion in so far as that was personally spontaneous, and in so far as it was not a matter of duty; but that either the personally spontaneous character of the action implies its obligatoriness, or the circumstance of its not having been a matter of duty, excludes its personal value. But Thomas proceeds with logical consistency; for in any satisfaction whatever he counts only upon an equivalence of material value, thus recognising in the voluntariness of Christ’s Passion (which was not matter of duty) something in excess of the satisfaction which would have been equivalent. But now the idea of satisfaction has really its natural force only when it bears the stamp of equivalence. When this is excluded in the particular instance before us by the assertion of Christ’s satisfactio superabundans, the circumstance proves that the idea of satisfaction does not occupy any fixed position at all amongst the various aspects of Christ’s death which were brought into comparison with each other. I refer back to a criticism which has already been made upon the applicability of the idea à propos of the theory of Anselm (p. 30), and now give prominence only to the fact that the lawfulness and regularity of God’s procedure with a view to the forgiveness of sins, though seemingly arrived at by means of that idea, are traversed at every point by the premisses of Thomas. Thomas, it is true, like Anselm, traces the demand for satisfaction on account of injury caused by sin to the relation which is assumed to exist between God and man as private parties; but then Thomas admits (what Anselm had repudiated) that God might have forgiven injuries even without receiving satisfaction. Now, even Thomas is concerned to prove a perfect satisfaction, the adequacy of which to the injury should be grounded on the nature of the thing; but inasmuch as he does not venture to affirm more than “a sort of” equivalence in these, he makes out no fixed distinction between perfect and imperfect satisfaction (p. 53); and hence also his assertion of the perfection of Christ’s satisfaction leaves us to infer that its deficiency is to be supplemented by the assertion of God’s arbitrary acceptation, which, of course, is an element in the imperfect sort of satisfaction. Thomas, to be sure, does not avow this as his doctrine; but, on the other hand, the unsuitableness of the idea of satisfaction to the end proposed is involuntarily admitted in his recognition of superabundant satisfaction founded upon the voluntariness of Christ’s work. In all these combinations of ideas there betrays itself a hesitancy in carrying out the legal manner of viewing the subject which is intended in the idea of satisfaction. From this, as I think, we can see an inner longing on the part of Thomas to maintain regard to the justice of God in the forgiveness of sins by some other method.

This he now undertakes to accomplish by applying to the life and passion of Christ the idea of merit—an idea laid to his hand by tradition. “If any one,” says he, “out of a just will deprive himself of that which he was entitled to possess, he then deserves that something should be superadded to him as the reward of his just will (justæ voluntatis). But Christ in His Passion humbled Himself beneath His dignity, wherefore by His Passion He merited exaltation” (Qu. 49, art. 6). But “Christ received grace not so much as a single person, but rather as Head of the Church, in order that grace might be extended from Him to His members. Every one standing in grace who suffers for righteousness, merits salvation for himself. Wherefore, Christ by His Passion merited salvation not merely for Himself, but also for all His members. Christ from the moment of His conception merited for us everlasting salvation; but on our side there were obstacles in the way which hindered the efficacy upon us of His first merits, wherefore, in order to remove these, it was necessary that Christ should suffer” (Qu. 48, art. 1). To this we must now append the general explication of the idea of merit taken from P. ii. Prima, Qu. 114. “Merit and reward (merces) are interchangeable ideas founded on the idea of justice. As in justice (simpliciter justitia) the price is according to the goods received, so the reward is according to the work. But this rule is valid only for the relation between such persons as stand over against each other with equal rights; on the other hand justice is modified (justitia secundum quid) where this is not the case. Between parties of equal rights, therefore, the relation of merit and reward holds good simply and unconditionally; but between parties who are not of equal rights this relation holds good only on condition that regard be had to justice, as in the case of a slave who acquires merit towards his master, or a son (who by Roman law is subject to the patria potestas in the family) towards his father. Now, between God and man there subsists the greatest, yea, infinite dissimilarity; therefore, between the two no right holds good in the proper sense of the word, but only according to a certain measure, so far as each works after his own fashion. Now the manner and measure of man’s strength both come from God; and thus merit of man towards God is possible only on condition of a Divine arrangement, so that man by his efforts obtains as reward that for which God has given him strength. So that in as far as man on this presupposition acts freely and to the glory of God, his works have that which we mean by merit; but God assigns their reward to them not as if He were man’s debtor, but, so to speak, as debtor to Himself, in order that His own arrangement may be carried out” (art. 1). Now the special point under consideration is, the manner in which eternal life is gained. The merit which earns this as a reward is only possible under the previous assumption that the free will (or love as its principal power) shall be operative in accordance with the previously received grace of the Holy Ghost. Only under this condition does the “condignity” of merit find any place, for without it there would be the greatest disparity between man and God. Through the supply of grace man becomes partaker of the Divine nature, and is adopted as God’s son; thus put in parity with God, in virtue of which parity the reward follows the merit according to strict justice. Out of a state of grace, on the other hand, a voluntary act has only the character of meritum de congruo, which, on account of the existing disparity, can only expect some sort of consideration from the reasonableness of God (art. 3). Since now this fundamental grace cannot be merited on account of its distance from human nature (art. 5), it is connected as a result with the merit of Christ, who having merited ex condigno exaltation for Himself, did, at the same time, as Head of the Church, earn for its members everlasting life (art. 6).

In explaining Christ’s work as merit, Thomas describes it in a manner that differs little from the way of viewing it as a satisfaction. Even as merit, it has not for God a purely ethical, but only a legal value. Nevertheless this explanation of the fact to be explained secures certain advantages in the presentation of it which were not gained by means of the idea of satisfaction. In the first place, its spontaneousness on Christ’s part, which in the judgment of Thomas exceeds the limits of the idea of satisfaction, is included in His merit as its distinguishing mark. Further, under this name, the whole life of Christ acquires its proper significance for the beatification of the Church, while under the idea of satisfaction in the writings of Thomas, as well as in those of Anselm, the death of Christ is isolated from His life, and put in contrast with the value of it. Lastly, the idea serves to carry out to the positive bestowal of everlasting life upon the Church, the merely negative result of forgiveness of sins which is obtained by satisfaction. Yet we must not omit to notice how insecure is the footing on which the idea of merit in relation to God is placed. Merit ex condigno, as it is conceded through the bestowal of Divine grace on Christ’s account, and afterwards on account of believers themselves, is regarded as a claim for the highest conceivable reward, according to that justice which presupposes an equality in point of law between the parties, in the very same way as such equality is implied in the legal transactions of private individuals. But yet the possibility of such a valuation of merit in accordance with the rules of private transactions, has been created by God Himself through the bestowal of that grace in which alone has any one, according to Thomas, the ability to acquire merit. How dull is the dialectic which allows judgment on the effect to be isolated from consideration of the cause! which would have us imagine a parity between parties of which the one stands in absolute ethical dependence on the other! Is that justice—is it not rather arbitrariness of God—which concedes parity with God in point of law to him, who, in the grace bestowed on him, ever carries within him the evidence of dependence upon God—and thus of disparity with Him? Can, then, the specific superiority of God over Christ and over Christ’s people be got rid of on these terms? This is possible only with the same degree of truth as that wherewith Thomas deduces from the purely negative conception of God’s independence as the supreme good, the inference that God can forgive sin without receiving satisfaction, just as a man who, in forgiving injuries at pleasure, acts mercifully but not unjustly (p. 49). If the deduction be right, “God being the Supreme Good can therefore act as a private individual,” then we may also consider it to be a convincing argument that God bestows grace on men to the end that, in rewarding their voluntary good works thereby rendered possible, He may be fulfilling an obligation of private law; and that He proceeds on the same principle in rewarding Christ’s merit by the exaltation of His person, and by the bestowal of grace upon His Church.

11. Nothing more clearly shows the want of close reasoning in the declarations made by Thomas upon the satisfaction and merit of Christ, than comparison with the consistency of inference which distinguishes the teaching of John Duns Scotus on the latter point. Like Thomas, he gives the supreme place to the free choice of God as the determining cause of the saving work connected with Christ’s death: while by means of that view of sin which Thomas states as a possible one—thus not repudiating it though he did not adopt it,—and by accurately defining the idea of merit, he reaches a result, which in details is at variance with the opinions of Thomas, but yet, as a whole, carries out the tendency that lies in the views of that theologian. The attitude assumed by Catholic Christendom in the middle ages towards our problem is therefore seen much more clearly in the scientifically rounded doctrine of Duns than in the doctrine of Thomas, which, although it has been received by the Church, cannot thereby conceal the arbitrariness of the distinctions and the lameness of the definitions by means of which it has been established.

Thomas had admitted that sin as a turning towards changeable good, and as the act of the creature, is finite. But for the doctrine of satisfaction he had availed himself of the other view, that as a turning away from the unchanging good, and as injury to God, it has a sort of infinitude (p. 51). Now Duns lays hold of the first thought and tries it against the other (Comm. in Sent. Lib. iii. dist. 19, qu. i, sect. 13):—“ If thou sayest that sin is infinite, and intendest thereby that evil, according to the very idea of it, is intrinsically infinite, then that is untrue; for in that case it would be necessary to assume a supreme evil and a Manichæan God. And if thou allegest in proof, that sin is just as great as He against whom it is committed, then that is untrue if intrinsic equality in magnitude is ascribed to the notions of the two things compared. Although, in respect of the object from which sin revolts, it may be called infinite in a superficial sort of sense, it notwithstanding is still in itself, according to its idea, a finite act. That is to say, sin against God is graver than sin against any other being, just as sin against an earthly king is greater than sin against his soldier; but it is impossible that there should exist an evil infinite according to its very idea. In like manner (sect. 14) is the punishment of mortal sin infinite only in the superficial sense, if the will persist unchanged in sin: not in any sense implying that God could not punish sin in any other way.” These considerations show the assumption by Thomas of a “sort of” infinitude of sin to be simply a mode of expression, and refute that way of looking at the question whereby Anselm and Thomas established the necessity of a satisfaction of infinite value on account of sin.

Duns, moreover, completes and alters the idea of merit, both in general and in its application to Christ, far beyond the line taken by Thomas, in a perfectly convincing manner. Thomas had thought of the essence of merit as consisting in the marks of spontaneousness, and an intention of honouring God; but had grounded the correspondence between merit ex condigno and the reward upon the objective parity in law between the parties (p. 57), upon which Duns comments as follows (Dist. xviii. qu. 1, sect. 5):—“ Merit as the good act of the will has its root in an affection of the will by justice; not in an affection of the will by utility, or by justice, in so far as that ordains what is advantageous. This is clear, inasmuch as the first object in respect to which one acquires merit for himself is God Himself, in so far as one through an affection of justice wills that which is good for God. But the will which is determined by the thought of utility, strives after its own good. Wherefore merit is that deliberate movement of the will whereby one strives after good for God, and also, respect to the circumstances being had, after this end that one by one’s-self or in connexion with others, should be allied to God.” “So far as Christ in a certain sense was a pilgrim, and capable of suffering in His feelings and in the inferior part of His will, there were a multitude of objects, corresponding to His faculty of feeling and desiring, from which He was able to turn away His will contrary to His advantage. Wherefore, by fasting, watching, prayer, and many other such acts, He was able to acquire merit, either by the practice of these, or by intention of them for God’s sake.” Then over-against the objective legal view of the idea of merit he sets the moral subjective standard in the definition Meritum est aliquid acceptatum (sect. 4). “Merit is anything which is accepted as merit, and for which he who accepts it as such is in a certain sense bound to give something in return.” This definition to which Duns carries back his judgment upon Christ’s work, calls for supplementary notions which Duns has omitted to develop. Yet these readily occur to one on comparing the analogous thoughts of Thomas, which he certainly tries hard to keep away from any application to Christ. For Thomas also recognised acceptatio as the mark of imperfect satisfaction with which he that receives it expresses himself satisfied, even although it be not materially adequate—no equivalent for the injury (p. 53), and it is by this subjective arbitrariness in the judgment of the value of what is offered, that he explains the value of a merit ex congruo (p. 58). As the standard for this arbitrary judgment he points to that relative justice (justitia secundum quid) in which the idea of “reasonableness” had to be admitted. Now it is plainly this very mode of viewing the matter that is made by Duns to be the foundation of his general idea of merit. And so far as ordinary clear use of language is fitted to influence our understanding of such thoughts, Duns, in his opposition to the exceptions and saving clauses of Thomas, certainly has reason on his side. By a merit is never understood a performance which is estimated according to the standard of a legal contract, as Thomas asserts of merit ex condigno. On the contrary, a performance is thought of as meritorious, just in proportion as it does not admit of being tried by that standard. Nor do we ever understand by merit a performance for judging of which a fixed objective standard is presupposed as available, but only a performance which, in so far as it is merit, is judged of according to one’s good pleasure secundum acceptationem. And certainly our judgment, in so far as it recognises a merit, is fixed upon a moral value of the performance, though originally perhaps in a given instance that performance may have originated in a legal contract. Let us suppose that a certain service has been fixed by stipulation, and at the outset brought under the standard of law by previous agreement upon equivalent reward. If that service be given under circumstances which manifest the special regard of him who renders it to the interests of the recipient, then the latter will recognise in these moral accompaniments of the legal performance a merit towards himself which he is impelled to reciprocate by a special recognition. But then, as it may also happen that through a deficiency in moral delicacy of feeling, a man may disregard this consideration, as a man is not bound to take notice of a favour as such, the recognition of merit is thus laid upon the good pleasure, and more particularly the reasonableness, of men. The judgment of reasonableness can be applied only however to the ethical value of such acts as, from the circumstances of the case, do not come under the notion of moral duty—do not come under that point of view according to which a man’s every action in his intercourse with his fellows ought to be directed to the good of his neighbour. In other words, a deed done from ethical motives can be recognised as meritorious only in cases where an exclusively legal relation is assumed to exist between two parties, or where we take for granted a complete ethical indifference between him who acquires for himself a merit and him who recognises it as such. Where, on the other hand, two persons stand morally related to each other, in such a manner that the one is superior and the other subordinate—in such a manner that the one has nothing but rights, the other nothing but duties—then, according to our ideas, the assumption of a merit can find no place. In view of this, our judgment is entirely opposed to the opinion of Thomas, that a son can possess any merit ex congruo towards a father (p. 60). We assume without any question that the son lies under unconditional moral obligations to the father; and in this we follow the unambiguous meaning of the Christian principles of social life. Thomas was led to the opposite opinion, because he assumed the absolute legal subordination of son to father, as that is laid down in Roman law, to be the sole positive relation between the two, thus supposing to subsist between them in all other respects an ethical indifference, which is, in a measure, qualified only by the merit of the son and reasonableness of the father respectively.

12. In harmony with the doctrine of the finitude of sin and with the subjective standard of merit, is the doctrine also of the finitude of the merit of Christ. As Duns does not consider the Divine nature of Christ to be the subject of suffering and of merit, any more than Thomas did, he therefore restricts Christ’s capability of either to his human nature; and in fact does so in such a way that neither the one nor the other can for a moment be predicated of the higher spiritual powers, inasmuch as these are connected with the Divine nature—for in this Christ from the very beginning was in the enjoyment of blessedness—but only of the lower faculties of His soul, according as these were ordered and appropriated by His will to the service of God. But on this account “the merit of Christ is finite; for it essentially depends on a principle which is itself finite, even if we take it in all its bearings, whether in respect of the Divine Word that entered into the constitution of the person of Christ, or in respect of the end that was proposed by it. Or else (if the principle were infinite) there could be no merit at all; for merit can be attributed only to the created will, but not to the uncreated will of the Word. What then was the value of that merit in respect of its sufficiency? Since everything that is distinct from God is good in virtue of its having been willed by God, so is that merit good just to the extent to which it was accepted by God as such. It was ideo meritum quia acceptatum. In its very idea it could not be accepted as infinite in itself and for an infinite number of persons, but only as available for certain persons limited as regards number. Yet from the circumstances of the suffering and meriting subject, and from a reasonable regard to that subject Himself, the God-man, there was, according to Duns, a certain external respect, according to which God was able to accept it as infinite in regard to its extension to an infinite (innumerable) number. “But as is the number of those on behalf of whom God chose to accept that passion or that good-will, so great is the number of those for whom it is sufficient. Yet, according to the idea of the thing to be accepted, when regarded in itself, it did not admit of being accepted on behalf of an infinite number, as it was not in itself infinite” (Dist. 19, qu. 1, sect. 7). The transition in these last sentences, and their conditional tone, make it clear that Duns assigns to Christ’s merit a limited effect, just as he assigns to it a limited power; and that here, as in his judgment on sin (p. 60), it is only superficially, and with an important difference of meaning, that he accommodates himself to the Thomist formulæ of the infinitude of sin and of Christ’s satisfaction. Thomas understood the infinitude of Christ’s satisfaction to arise from the intrinsic value of his work as estimated by the Divine standard. Duns understands the infinitude of Christ’s merit to arise from the unmeasurableness of its outward efficacy when estimated by the human standard. In this way Duns finds himself unable to concur in the statement of Thomas, that the sufficientia of Christ’s work exceeds the efficacia, its intrinsic value counterbalancing the sins of the whole world, while yet its operation is restricted to believers (Summa, P. iii. qu. 49, art. 3.) Duns, logically carrying out to its consequences his assumption that the Divine Incarnation, as having relation to those who had been elected unto salvation, would have taken place even if sin had not entered into the world, decides against this opinion of Thomas (p. 51). On this view, not the entire human race, as an apparently unlimited natural unit, but the Church of the elect, limited as to number by the will of God, forms the body to which God looked from the first, in determining, on the supposition of sin, the operation of Christ’s merit. “The Incarnation of Christ was not foreseen by God as an incidental occurrence (occasionaliter), but as the ultimate End was immediately and from all eternity contemplated by Him, so Christ, in His human nature, as standing in immediate contact with that ultimate end, was foreordained earlier (in the logical order) than the rest. As then the elect are predestined before the passion of Christ is foreseen as a means of saving them after their fall into sin, it follows that the whole Trinity chose the elect unto grace and blessedness in view of the execution of this decree, before foreseeing the passion of Christ as a means of salvation that was to be accepted on behalf of the elect who fell through Adam. Thus the whole Trinity actually accepted Christ’s passion on behalf of these; and for no other has that passion been made effectual, or from all eternity been accepted. Wherefore, so far as the efficacy of His merit is concerned, Christ earned initial grace (gratia prima) only for those who are predestinated to eternal blessedness” (Dist. 19, qu. 1, sect. 6). “As the merit in itself was finite, so the reward in accordance with the justice that awarded it was also finite. Wherefore also Christ did not earn merit for an infinite number of persons in respect of the sufficiency of that merit to be accepted by God” (sect. 4).

In this representation also Duns succeeds in giving the religious view of the universe in a more precise form than does Thomas in his corresponding positions. The declaration of the latter, that Christ’s satisfaction and merit proceed from Him as Head of the Church, is indeed a very significant one. It means that even in the setting forth of Christ, as the personal instrumentality on whom God makes the work of reconciliation to depend, regard is had to the result which actually, as matter of experience, does ensue—this, namely, that reconciliation is not actually brought about in the case of all men individually, but takes effect only upon the narrower circle of Christ’s Church. If then Thomas’s distinction between the infinite value and the limited efficacy of Christ’s satisfaction has no practical application to that line of reasoning in which what actually in experience takes place supplies a test for our knowledge of God’s purpose, it would seem to follow that the assertion of the infinite value of Christ’s satisfaction is superfluous when taken along with the fact of its limited efficacy. But it appears, moreover, to be even questionable, if we consider that all the conclusions of Thomas respecting the infinitude of the human race, of sin, of Christ’s satisfaction, do not rest upon any positive meaning attached by him to the idea of infinity, but only upon the negative ground that we men cannot measure either the extent of the human race, or what is contained in that divine essence, which is presupposed to be in Christ, and which causes such a degree of demerit to be assigned to sin. As however this remark passes beyond that circle of vision which is common to Thomas and to Duns in their idea of God, the divergence of the latter from the former, on the point immediately under consideration, is seen to amount to this, that Duns represents God’s revelation of salvation to be limited by Him both in respect of its end (the Church), and in respect of the means employed (Christ’s merit), while Thomas seeks to gain a guarantee of the divineness of that revelation of salvation by involving the possible end and the power of the means in the nimbus of an infinitude, the assertion of which, however, implies only the limited nature of our knowledge of God. Duns does not say plainly that it is as Head of the Church that Christ earns merit, and he by no means comes up to the full meaning of this thought of Thomas, when (like Anselm, p. 33) he declares, that since Christ, being already perfect, did not stand in need of the reward of His merit, He earned that merit for the benefit of others, and the reward due to Himself is applied to them (Dist. 18, qu. 1, sect. 4). Of course by these “others” must naturally be understood the predestinated, the community of those who believe in Christ. But he does not see at all more clearly than does Anselm, that as matter of course Christ must be conceived of, on that account, as having at the very outset that general character in relation to them. According to Duns, they are first of all united to Him by His merit (Dist. 19, qu. 1, sect. 5). As we proceed we shall also see the reasons for which he did not adopt this thought of Thomas, which seemingly lay so to his hand. Duns, in this connexion, is thinking of Christ only as of a divine-human individual, denying (on account of the blessedness which Christ had from the beginning) that His merit earned blessedness for Himself, and declaring that He merited for Himself only the glorification of His body, namely, the removal of that impediment which in His earthly life checked the overflow to His body of the blessedness of His soul (Dist. 18, qu. 1, sects. 12-15). But now, if the whole relation between merit and reward is made to depend on the good pleasure of the party who accepts that merit, we at once understand why it is that Duns does not consider it a thing to be proved, or a matter for closer examination, either that the reward of Christ’s merit accrues to others than Himself, or that the greatness of the reward—which is the blessedness of the predestinate—exceeds in value that degree of merit which has its ground only in the lower powers of the soul of Christ. Both are simply asserted by him as facts (Dist. 18, qu. 1, sect. 4; Dist. 19, qu. 1, sect. 8).

As, moreover, Duns applies to Christ the idea of merit only, but not that of satisfaction, the result for those who are Christ’s is consequently represented as being not the negative benefit of forgiveness of sins, but the positive benefit of grace and the prospect of glory (opening of Paradise). The respective connexions of these references will at once be obvious. When an action is judged to be a merit on the ground of its moral value (ethical indifference and legal equality being presupposed to have existed up to that point between him who merits and him who rewards), the reward of that merit can be represented only as a positive good, but not as the cancelling of a legal obligation, the idea of the existence of which is excluded by the previous conditions of merit which have just been specified. It is quite true that if the reward of the meritorious person result in the good of other parties who lie under an uncancelled legal obligation to the rewarder, then the positive reward can in that case be made to consist in the cancelling of a pressing legal obligation towards the rewarder: thus, in the instance before us, the forgiveness of sins can come in as a result of the prima gratia merited by Christ. This sequence of thought, however, throws a peculiar light upon the position of the ideas of merit and satisfaction in the system of Thomas, and also in that of Anselm. It now begins to be seen why it was that neither the one nor the other of these was able to work with the single idea of Christ’s satisfaction without having resort to that of His merit. For satisfaction denotes merely the means whereby the formerly subsisting legal obligation of sinners towards God is taken away, but it does not lay the foundation for the establishment of such a relation between man and God as shall render impossible the recurrence of the old complication between human sin and divine right. The conception of such a positively and ethically-ordered fellowship is reached by means of the idea of merit, in the application of which the divergency between Thomas and Duns, in their estimate of that idea, is unimportant. This particularly confirms the criticism already made above (p. 34), when it was said that Anselm withdrew his laboriously developed theory of satisfaction, and substituted for it the thought of Christ’s merit, because he was unable to reach by the other theory the idea of the Church, which, in the forgiveness of sins through Christ, gains a standing-ground whereon the contrariety, which formerly prevailed between human sin and divine right, shall no more find any place, because the legal standard, formerly applicable to the relation between the Christian and God, has now been completely merged in the moral. But since, finally, it is clear that the idea of Christ’s merit practically amounts to the founding of the community of believers as the supernatural development of humanity, and since therein is suggested Duns’ thought that such a result can only correspond to the eternal purpose of God (ultimum in executione primum in intentione), the genius of Abelard is put before us in a strong light. His short hints (p. 39) point in the direction of this line of thought, and they even reach beyond it, so far as it has been developed by Thomas and by Duns.

13. That good pleasure of God to which Duns attributes the acceptance of Christ’s merit, and the rewarding of it upon those who receive initial grace, is regarded by him in accordance with His premisses, as the sole ground for the necessity of redemption through the God-man. In his twentieth distinction (Qu. 1, sect. 10), which is specially directed against Anselm’s theory, Duns explains that “ everything performed by Christ in order to our redemption, is to be regarded as having been necessary only on the previous understanding that God had ordained that it should so fall out. And accordingly His passion was necessary only in virtue of its place in the chain of events; but the whole chain—that is to say, the previous decree of God along with its results—was purely contingent.” That this is the state of the case, he proves to his own satisfaction by the assertion that not merely a good angel but even a mere man, had he been conceived without sin and furnished with the utmost grace, would have been able to merit the abolition of sin and the bestowal of all blessedness for men (sect. 9). For it depends simply on the question, how highly will God be pleased to appreciate as merits the performances that are well-pleasing to Him, which are rendered by such subjects as those that have been mentioned; and what reward He in His reasonableness will be pleased to render them. Anselm, arguing to prove that a satisfaction required to be given by the God-man, had controverted the admissibleness of either of the cases supposed, on the ground that we should then owe to creatures those obligations which are due only unto God. Yet Duns effectually repels this objection by pointing out that the duty of thankfulness for such deeds would still be referable to God alone, who should accept as meritorious for the end proposed the performances of those creatures. If the achievement of redemption by the God-man be thus a fact merely, but no necessity grounded in the nature of God and in the moral destiny of men, then the indifference of Duns to the thought of Thomas, that the God-man is the subject of merit as being Head of the Church, becomes very easy of explanation. Duns goes even further. He declares it to be possible that, if to each man initial grace had been given even without merit, each might then have been able to earn for himself the remission of sins (sect. 9). Nay more, as it was not necessary that satisfaction for the sin of the first man should, in its very idea, exceed the whole creation in greatness and perfectness (it being enough to offer to God a greater good than was the evil of the sin of that man), Duns goes on to say, “ If Adam, by means of the gifts of grace and love, had exercised one or more acts of love to God for God’s sake, with a stronger impulse of the free will than was that which he had experienced in sinning, such love would accordingly have sufficed for the forgiveness of his sins. So that just as by love of a less worthy object he had sinned infinitely, so also might he by love of a more worthy object, have given an infinite satisfaction: and this would have sufficed; that is to say, possibly, if God had willed to have it so” (sect. 8).

These conjectures are by no means designed to weaken or destroy the common belief of the Church in the fact of redemption by the God-man. As hypothetical deductions from the fundamental idea of the freedom of the Divine will with reference to its own determinations, they were intended in the first instance to maintain this theological principle in scientific security. Still, inasmuch as that principle was established by the Lombard in opposition to Anselm (p. 43), and received currency from Thomas and Duns (who are essentially at one on this question), the principle that lay at the foundation of scholastic theology in the most flourishing period of its history indicates also what was the religious interest of the Christian middle ages. Those expressions of Duns may indeed have a questionable sound therefore to ears that have been disciplined under Reformation influences, and yet they are quite correct when judged according to the principles of mediæval religion. We are led by this to remark, however, that the theological interpretation of the reconciliation wrought by Christ which Thomas and Duns give, has no firm foundation in that idea of God which we have mentioned. A beginning is made with the absolute elevation of God, not only above the world, but also above everything which God does therein, and yet in explaining the atonement, God’s position with regard to man is reduced to the standard of a relation of equality between private persons, or of a relation regulated by “reasonableness,” such as holds good only in the ethical relations of private life. It is true that we take higher ground in looking at the matter as determined by reasonableness, than we do when we regard it as determined by private law; for in the former case we move at least within the sphere of directly ethical ideas. But even the notion of reasonableness can here lay claim only to a limited application, and not to the subsumption under it of all conceivable ethical relations. The moral ordering of human actions in general is accomplished by means of the moral law and the idea of moral duty; in which last the inward compulsion exercised by social feeling and moral law harmonizes with the spontaneousness and unselfishness which are the distinctive marks of moral action. If now it is the task of theology to take up the relation which subsists between God and man, and treat it in accordance with the highest standards of life which are recognised for men; and if the atoning work of Christ must also be viewed in conformity with that standard; then it cannot be conceded to the mediæval system of doctrine that it has adequately solved the problem of reconciliation through Christ with reference to this end. In the application of his idea of merit to Christ, Thomas does not at all get beyond the idea of religious relations regulated by the principles of private law; and Duns finds the moral standard for all that is expressed by the word “merit” in the good pleasure of God (for which there is no rule), as if he were a reasonable private person. Surely it is possible to develop the doctrine of atonement in other forms than these!

The fact that the Roman Catholic Church, since the time of the counter Reformation, has expressly favoured Thomism as regards the doctrine we are now speaking of, while, as a publicly acknowledged form of doctrine, Scotism has been set aside, does not hinder me from affirming that Duns has only logically carried out the premisses which were common to both, and at the same time replaced the uncertain and vacillating assertions of Thomas with precise expositions that cannot be misunderstood; and that if, in regard to this doctrine, Thomas represents the interests of the Catholic Church, Duns does not at least override them in any way. His greater scientific precision accordingly enables us to recognise more clearly in his view of reconciliation through Christ than in that of Thomas, what was the mediæval type of doctrine. Between this mediæval type of the doctrine and that of the Reformation there exists a complete difference in kind. We can therefore on this point perceive no influence of the mediæval school of doctrine upon that of the Reformation save in the formal reception of the ideas of satisfaction and merit. There is certainly, however, a real connexion between the mediæval type of the doctrine of reconciliation as that is apprehended by Duns Scotus, and the entire rejection by the Socinians of the doctrine of reconciliation through Christ. In the Socinian school, the Scotist notion of God is so carried out as to exhibit the clear characteristics of finite restricted arbitrariness; and amongst the possibilities stated by Duns this one also is suggested, that God, had He so chosen, might have allowed each man to merit the forgiveness of sins for himself (p. 69). This possibility could first indeed present itself to the Socinian as being the actual state of the case only under conditions which cannot yet be fully expounded here. For the present we desire only to call attention to the department of Church history in which we are to look for the consequences of the mediæval doctrine of reconciliation, if we consider the influence it has exerted beyond the limits of Roman Catholicism.

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Footnotes

1. Compare Baur ut supra, p. 207. ↩

2. Ueber Princip und Charakter des Lehrbegriffs der reformirten Kirche.—Theol. Jahrb., 1847, pp. 309–390. “The fundamental principle of Protestantism is the self-consciousness of the subject at peace as regards its eternal welfare” (p. 376). ↩

3. Vorlesungen über die kleineren protestantischen Kirchenparteien (p. 40). ↩

4. Compare my Geschichtl. Studien zur christlichen Lehre von Gott, Art. I., Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. Bd. x. (1865) pp. 277-318. ↩

5. By which Baur has allowed himself to be misled (Versöhnungslehre, p. 267: Trinitätslehre, ii. p. 789), completely ignoring that aspect of Thomas’s conception of God which is divergent from the Areopagite’s view, and amounts to arbitrary freedom. Cp. Jahrb. f. deutsche Theologie, x. p. 297, f. ↩

6. Compare Baur, Trinitätslehre, ii. p. 834, f. ↩

7. In this he follows St. Bernard, Tractatus contra errores Abaelardi, cap. vi. 15. Si unus pro omnibus mortuus est, ergo omnes mortui sunt (2 Cor. v. 14), ut videlicet satisfactio unius omnibus imputetur, sicut omnium peccata unus ille portavit, nec alter jam inveniatur qui forefecit, alter, qui satisfecit, quia caput et corpus unus est Christus. Satisfecit ergo caput pro membris, corpus pro visceribus suis. ↩