- THAT change in the attitude of God towards the sinful human race, which Anselm had explained by pointing to the merit earned by the God-man in His work, was subsequently limited by the thought that it took place only with regard to those men who, through imitation of the active self-surrender of Christ, should evince themselves to be His spiritual kinsmen. But men could be thought of under this category only in so far as they should recognise the forgiveness of sins applied to them by Christ, to be the ground of their connexion with Him (p. 33). Still more directly had Abelard connected the reconciliation of men unto God through Christ with their own spontaneous activity, in so far as the proof of God’s love which He has given in the manifestation and passion of Christ has stirred men up to such counter-love, as forms an indissoluble bond to unite them to God, and brings in its train forgiveness of the sins they had formerly committed. Since, however, according to him, this spontaneous activity is realized only in the case of the elect, we see also that Abelard regards it as governed by the special act of God’s grace (p. 37). However diverse, then, these theories of the theologians on the threshold of the middle ages may be, they yet coincide with one another in this point, that while they connect the thought of the individual appropriation of redemption with the specific ethical action of the individual, they yet at the same time make this to depend on a definite form of the grace of God. For, by the self-surrender to God, of which Anselm speaks as an example given by Christ to be followed by all His spiritual kinsmen, we can only understand a life of practical religion; and the counter-love in which, according to Abelard, the elect are to gain that forgiveness of their sins, which by the love of God is pledged to them in Christ, necessarily includes the active exercise of love towards their fellow-men. But as Anselm views that attitude of Christ’s spiritual kinsmen as arising only out the forgiveness of sins granted to them by Christ, and consciously felt by them, while Abelard assigns the active love which results in the forgiveness of sins to the elect only, there is postulated in both cases the dependence of man’s activity upon God’s antecedent work of grace.
These two elements, then, are taken together in the mediæval doctrine of justification, which ought to be considered as the completion of the doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction and merit, although through the influence exercised by the arrangement followed in the Lombard’s manual, it is wrought out quite separately, and indeed precedes the doctrine which dominates it, not only in the commentaries on the Sentences, but even in the systematical form of the Summa Theologica. The idea of justification is understood to mean—in the sense sanctioned by Augustine, and accordant with the Latin etymology—that God by His grace makes righteous the unrighteous man—the sinner, and really or substantially changes him. In subordination to this leading view, there is recognised by Augustine himself, in the idea of merit, a measure of spontaneous activity conducive to salvation in the subject that is made righteous. The dialectic of the schoolmen subsequently fixed in a special way the relation of these two ideas to each other. It suffices for my present purpose to unfold the doctrines of Thomas and Duns, the realists, and those of Occam and Biel, the nominalists, in order afterwards to bring into contrast with them that mode of looking at the matter which, while it belongs to the middle ages, yet does not fit in with the mediæval scheme of doctrine, but lies in the line of thought which was subsequently worked out by the Reformers.
Thomas’s doctrine of justification, which is set forth in the Summa Theologica at the close of the prima secundæ, is led up to not merely by an exposition of the idea of grace, but even from the very beginning, by a definition of the idea of freedom. The principal ideas are as follows:—The actions which are peculiar to man as such, and which distinguish him from the other creatures, have it as their distinctive feature that they are elicited by the deliberate contemplation of an end. Herein lies the condition under which man is the master of his own actions or is free in them. Liberum arbitrium dicitur facultas voluntatis et rationis. Quæ rationem habent se ipsa movent ad finem cum cognoscant rationem finis. By the contemplation of an end is meant that man directs his energies towards a general aim and towards good in general (bonum universale), or that he regulates his action by the thought of an ultimate end, even in cases where the thing which he is immediately pursuing is a particular end, even in cases where he mistakes the value of an end, or of the good which he proposes to himself. The irrational creatures, on the other hand, are only impelled towards particular ends as such, though, of course, under the guidance and protection of the divine reason which thereby designs the general good (Qu. 1, arts. 1, 2, 7). But neither is the spontaneous effort of man towards his ultimate end in the perfection of his own being excepted from the sphere of divine guidance; on the contrary, the ground of its possibility rests wholly in God. For man reaches his highest, his perfect self-satisfaction—that is blessedness—in the contemplation of the Being of God (Qu. 3, art. 8). But inasmuch as this transcends the sphere of created being, it can be granted only by God (Qu. 5, art. 6). Yet since man’s final end demands at the same time the exercise of his own activity, that blessedness which ultimately rests on God’s gift is attained only by means of a number of performances called merits rendered by man himself (art. 7). It is obvious that the attribute of spontaneity is inseparably connected, so far as man is concerned, with the distinguishing mark of movement towards the deliberately recognised end. But this does not mean that knowledge is the sole basis of volition; rather knowledge moves the will only in respect of the particular activity, while, on the other hand, it is the will that stirs up all the faculties (and consequently also that of knowledge) to their general activity. But if the will of the creature alternates between capability unexercised and activity, then the latter presupposes as a universal law that the human will is set in motion ab extra just like the mechanism of material nature. Since, however, no movement can be originated in the last-mentioned sphere, unless the outward cause stand in some sort of connexion with the universal cause of all nature, in like manner the movement of the will can arise from no outward cause other than that which is the cause of the will as a whole. This then is God: on the one hand as Creator, or the universal operating cause of all things, but on the other hand as the highest final cause, as that universal good which puts the will in motion in the manner appropriate to it (Qu. 9. art. 1, 6,) in so much as it necessarily strives after the highest good (Qu. 10, art. 1), while only as respects the particular good which it sets before it as such does it possess freedom of choice (Qu. 13, art. 2). Amongst these general postulates upon the relation between God and free will, there is introduced as a third, under the name of grace, that influence of God upon men which is laid down as indispensable for the bestowal of blessedness.