Divinization: A Study in Theological Analogy

Field: Arts and Humanities (Social Sciences)

THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XXIX JANUARY, 1965 No.1 DIVINIZATION: A STUDY IN THEOLOGICAL ANALOGY SANCTIFYING GRACE, the infused virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the light of glory: these are finite perfections intrinsic to a creature, and as such they are infinitely below God. At the same time they make the creature to whom they are given mysteriously but really divine, lifting it to the supernatural plane of God's own life. This is the fascinating and baffiing mystery of divinization, in which a finite gift endows a creature with the proper beauty of the uncreated God.1 Saint Thomas has given a humble, reverent, profound explanation of this mystery. A vigorous Thomist tradition, stemming from the great commentators Cajetan and John of St. Thomas, has repeated this explanation, delved into it, and 1 Thus St. Augustine says: " factus est Deus homo, ut homo fieret Deus " (PL 39: 1997) and St. Leo says: "Agnosce, 0 Christiane, dignitatem tuam; et divinae consors factus naturae, noli in veterem vilitatem degeneri conversatione redire" (PL 54: 19~). 1 KEVIN F. O'SHEA shown that its true greatness lies in giving a synthesis, perfect " pro modulo nostro," of the finite and infinite aspects of the divinizing gifts. Writers like Ambrose Gardeil and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange have made us familiar with this teaching. Through them we are accustomed to the cardinal distinction of the Thomist theory of divinization: the divinizing gifts are materially classified in a finite category of being, but at the same time they are formally defined as participations of the Deity itself. The possibility of this distinction depends on an analogous application of the Thomist doctrine of transcendental relatives to the supernatural order: the divinizing gifts, though collocated in a finite category of being, are transcendentally relative to the depths of the Divine Being, are consequently formally divine, and communicate properly divine perfection to the creature to whom they are given.2 In recent years some writers have been contending that this traditional Thomist theory exaggerates the finite aspect of these supernatural gifts at the expense of their infinite aspect. For Thomism confessedly makes these gifts supernatural and divinizing only as participations of the Deity, not as communications of the Deity in the fullness of a union that is more intimate and complete than participation. The sources of divine revelation, to the minds of these theologians, seem to speak of a higher and more wonderful divinization than that which Thomism ascribes to these gifts, a divinization which is absolutely and totally infinite because it is the entire gift of God Himself to the creature. While the Thomists would, they say, place the accent on finite grace, they would place the accent on the infinite gift of God Himself. Dazzled by the beauty of this intuition of a divine communication, they have tried to • The Thomist commentators treat this problem either in their tract on Grace (concerning the essence of sanctifying grace) re I-II, q. 112, or in their tract on the beatific vision (concerning the essence of the light of glory) re Ia, q. 12. In more recent times this problem is raised in Thomist works of fundamental theology dependent on Garrigou-Lagrange. The modern commentary of J. M. Ramirez, O.P., De Hominis Beatitudine, 3 vols., Salamanca-Madrid, 1942-1947, remains a classic source. DIVINIZATION: A STUDY IN THEOLOGICAL ANALOGY 3 explain it in terms of a unique causality called " quasi formal causality" or" pure formal causality," thinking that God Himself is the unparticipated formal Act of the creature thus perfected . They have then tried to find this superior causality in all the divinizing gifts of grace and glory, thus equating divinization and supernaturality with it, and unifying the explanation of all "grace" under this aspect.3 Traditional Thomism has not viewed this proposal without sympathy. Saint Thomas, Cajetan, John of St. Thomas and the Masters of the modern Thomist school have known a divinizing gift which is not by way of participation, which is totally infinite, which is God Himself as the very...