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Member Since: 07/01/10
Aug 31 13 7:16 AM
PART TWO: THE DIFFERENT EXISTENTIAL STATES OF GRACE
V. THE FIRST EXISTENTIAL STATE: THE EARTHLY PARADISE OR THE STATE OF ADAM
1. So far we have treated of grace considered in itself and in its essence. It is true that we have continually had to relate this to grace as we have seen it to be since the coming of Christ, in the present state of mankind. This was unavoidable. But now we have to treat of the different states, the different actual realizations of grace. We will of course perceive, underlying each of these states, the fundamental structures already indicated; but, in the course of the different ages of mankind, these have been subject to different concrete conditions, taken on different modalities, so that we may well speak of the different existential states of grace.
It is not St Thomas's treatise on grace we have to consult here, but other parts of his theology. Still, I think that nowadays a treatise on grace has to include these matters.
2. The first existential state of grace is that of the grace given to Adam.
The Judaeo-Christian revelation tells us first, of God's love for men and second, of the love men must give God in return. The first, the greater of these two mysteries, is that of the divine condescension towards us. At the very outset it gives an answer to one of the most immediate and visible aspects of the problem of evil. Thy is our life so full of conflict, conflict between the soul, which is immortal, and the body, a prey to sickness and to death; between the reason and the passions, which draw us in opposite directions; between man and the universe, man who struggles daily to wrest a living from the earth, which responds with famines and catastrophes? What is the reason for all this affliction? And, above all, why should little children suffer and die?
3. Did God create man subject to all these conflicts, in this divided, tragic state? From the philosophical point of view, he could have done so. Man's tragic state is the price of his greatness. Compounded of flesh and spirit, he is the meeting-place of the world of visible things and the invisible world of the angels. In the words of St Thomas, he is a boundary line between two worlds. Such an assemblage of qualities, so complex and delicate a balance, can be had and sustained only by victories in constantly recurring conflicts. Given that man is a 'rational animal', we are bound to admit that he is, by definition, a divided and tragic being.
4. That is what philosophy tells us. But how does it comfort the mother who has just lost her child? If we explain to her that the laws of the universe are ineluctable and act blindly, she will say, 'What do I care for the laws of the universe? Let me have my child back!' This inward and spontaneous protest of hers is an implicit appeal (though she may not know it) to the first state of man. For God did not create man—flesh and spirit, boundary between two worlds—in a tragic state, but in a state of harmony. He did not make him to be just a man, a 'rational animal'; he made him, from the outset, to be a 'child of adoption', he clothed him with his grace, he came to 'dwell in him'. 'God created man to his image and likeness'; to his image—that, according to the Fathers, means with an immortal soul; to his likeness—that means with the grace and indwelling of the Trinity. When man sinned, so they tell us, he lost his 'likeness' to God, but kept the 'image' of God, which belongs to his nature and the very structure of his being.
The earthly paradise is no myth. It is the first effect of God's love for man, of the incomprehensible tenderness of his love. Again, he might have created man in what theologians call the state of pure nature, giving him all that the definition 'a rational animal' implies, and that alone would have been a wonderful gift. He did not consider this to be sufficient.
5. He conferred on him from the start the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace, which made of him an adoptive son, in whom the divine Persons might dwell.
This grace was essentially the same as ours, but differed in the conditions of its existence. It exhibited more visibly its power over the whole being of man. It strengthened in a wonderful degree the threefold domination, natural but fragile and precarious, of the soul over the body, of reason over the passions, of man over the universe. The result was that the soul unfailingly kept its hold on the body, and so there was no suffering, no death either for man or for little children. Reason was in full control of the passions, which operated spontaneously in its light, and so there was no emotional conflict. Finally, man really governed the world, the earth was his garden and paradise, and so there was no laborious work, no suffering in creative effort, no struggling at odds with nature. Not that the universe was other than it is now: lions, according to St Thomas, did not feed on grass in the earthly paradise. It was the relation of man to the world that was different, simply because man, irradiated by grace, was different. We catch a glimpse of man's power of dominating all around him, even in the natural order, in the control that animal tamers exercise over beasts incomparably stronger and more agile than themselves. At times it has happened that some hidden force has prevented wild beasts from attacking Christian martyrs. A notable example is contained in the wonderful and quite authentic account of the martyrdom of St Blandina.
The grace given to Adam was in itself an essentially supernatural gift, invisible and mysterious. On the other hand, the threefold reinforcement it brought to the power of the soul over the body, of reason over the passions, of man over the world, belongs to the sphere of preternatural gifts, which we might call miraculous. To understand the difference between the invisible supernatural world of mystery and the visible supernatural world of miracle, consider the paralytic whom Jesus healed first of his sins (the invisible supernatural mystery), and then of his sickness (the visible supernatural miracle) (Mt. ix. 1-7).
6. We might regard the first man as having been in a psychologically primitive state, very primitive even (not, however, in the sense in which we now speak of primitives, when we ought to say degenerate). He had, of course, his immortal soul, without which he would not be, philosophically speaking, a man. A great power of intuition, but complete absence of experience. And in this soul was original grace, with its preternatural gifts, giving to the passions and instincts the 'sleep of love'.
In a passage of her "Progress of the Moral Conscience in the First Ages" Raissa Maritain writes:
There is nothing to stop us imagining the body of this man, free from all trace of degradation, as nearer to the primitive types—in spite of perhaps enormous distances of time, and ruling out the marks of degeneration these may have—nearer to the primitive types studied in pre-history and anthropology, than the developed types which the canons of Egyptian and Greek artists have taught us to consider as the supreme human exemplars.
7. That then is the first existential state of grace. Notice, this was the epoch of 'religion without intermediaries'. Grace was not given by Christ, who had not yet come; nor was it given by anticipation, in view of the future redemption, because, had man not sinned—this is the teaching of St Augustine, St Bonaventure and St Thomas—the Son of man would not have come. So there was no mediation of Christ. Neither were there sacraments, the visible instruments between God and man. The grace of Adam, infused into man's soul, flowed out to reinforce the triple domination of the soul over the body, reason over the passions, man over the world; all this was the result of a movement of the spiritual coming down to make contact with the things of sense. Now, however, the order is reversed. All graces come to us by the visible mediation of Christ. His teaching, for which the prophets prepared the way, is oflfered to us by the Church's magisterium. His power is brought to us by the sacraments. Once, in the first state of mankind, religion without intermediary or mediation was a fact. It is a fact no longer.
8. Original grace exhibited a power grace no longer has in the present state of things. It exercised virtualities that now lie dormant within it. By its use of preternatural gifts it transformed, in some degree, the state of via or pilgrimage. Because of this character of power, we may say that the age of Adam's grace was the age of the Father. For we attribute omnipotence primarily to the first Person of the Trinity, the Father: 'I believe in God the Father almighty, creator . . .' (wisdom is attributed primarily to the second Person and love to the third, although power, wisdom, and love belong to the divine essence and are possessed communally and inseparably by all three Persons). Besides this character of power, original grace had a character of virginity. It had no previous sin to expiate or repair; it was, as it were, young, fresh, entirely new—nothing preceded it. Now the Father in the Trinity is the first Person; from him the Word is begotten and the Holy Spirit proceeds. Nothing then is anterior to him. Because of this second resemblance it may be said, once again, that the age of original grace is the age of the Father.
We have just spoken of the transforming power of original grace, which ruled out suffering and death, emotional conflict, the pain of creative effort. Had this state continued, had Adam not sinned, he would have passed from the transfiguration of the state of via to the transfiguration of the state of glory, without ever knowing death.
9. We are not to think that the earthly paradise is a myth, simply because all religions speak of a golden age. No: the earthly paradise is, before all else, a free gift of divine love; and when men came to compose myths of a golden age, it was probably because there still remained, if not, as some maintain, a memory of their origins, at least some obscure instinct that inclined them to believe that God, in the tenderness of his love, could not have created them in their present state. Their myths and imaginings are poor things in comparison with what this God, whose love is fully revealed only by the Gospel, really did for them, in the beginning. Yet it is curious how man clings to the notion of a golden age. Those who deny its existence in the past are precisely those who assure us it will come in the future.
10. What exactly was the fall of man, and what were its effects? In view of what we have already said, man's first sin could not be a sin of sensuality, intemperance, impurity; for, so long as he remained subject to God, his passions were suyect to reason. His first sin could be committed only at the highest point of his being, that is by breaking with God. A Norwegian proverb says that the fish rots from the head down. The fall was a revolt against God's love, man wishing himself to be no longer in God, but against God: 'You shall be as gods' (Gen. iii. 5).
Straightway man lost grace, the essentially supernatural gift of God; we may call it the gold. At the same time, he lost the preternatural gifts, which we may call the silver, as compared with the gold: 'You will die the death'; 'They perceived themselves to be naked' (iii. 7); 'Cursed is the earth in thy work' (iii. 17). Moreover, his human nature was, not indeed destroyed, as Protestantism alleged, but wounded, enfeebled in its striving towards good.
11. In the cathedral of Sens there is to be seen on the north side a great window representing all this, and completing and illustrating it by the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke x. 30-35). It would be quite possible to use it to teach children the story of the fall and the redemption of man. Emile Male gives an explanation of the window in his book, L'art religieux au XIIIe siecle en France.
At the top is a city of light: Jerusalem, the city of peace, the earthly paradise.
Next, one below the other, are three sections, lozengeshaped. In the first of these, a man is beset by robbers beating him: 'A certain man went down from Jerusalem (city of peace) to Jericho (city of pleasure, of change, of corruption)'. The robbers attack him, take his gold (grace), his silver (the preternatural gifts), and leave him wounded.
In the second section, the unfortunate man is lying unconscious; the priest and the levite, who pass by, are the Mosaic law, powerless to heal him.
In the third section is the good Samaritan, Jesus. He has set the man on his horse to bring him to the inn, which is the Church. He will return at the end of the world to pay the innkeeper.
Each of these sections is framed by four small round medallions, which give the meaning of the Gospel parable. Around the man going down from Jerusalem in search of adventure, the world of multiplicity and change, we see Adam and Eve in the peace of Paradise, Eve offering Adam the fruit, God intervening from the height of heaven: 'What hast thou done?', and the angel expelling Adam and Eve, then putting back his sword into the scabbard, which signifies that man is forgiven.
In Paradise Lost, Milton (something of an anti-feminist) represents Eve asleep, while the angel explains to Adam all that is to happen: it is true you will be expelled from paradise, but there is to be a great and glorious redemption. And Adam, who wonders whether he may not therefore have done well to sin, expresses himself in terms which are a prelude to the Exsultet—although his theology is slightly suspect!
Around the second section, in which the priest and the levite pass by, we see Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, Moses receiving the law of God, Moses lifting up the serpent, the golden calf—the old law was powerless to save man.
Around the third section, we have the New Testament: Pilot judging the Saviour; Jesus fastened to the pillar, then nailed to the cross; and, finally, the angel announcing the Resurrection.
The entire history of man is thus explained by the parable of the Good Samaritan.
12. Why was the fall permitted, why indeed? It was 'permitted', that is to say tolerated, sufjrered as contrary to the divine will, and endured by God as an offence against him. At the very moment of temptation, God offered to help man, to succour him by an initial grace, which man was able to refuse and, in fact, did refuse. If man wills to persist in resistance to God he can do so, but the 'permission' is by no means an authorization. As Ozanam said, 'When man is no longer ready to do the will of God, God leaves him to his own devices, and catastrophe results'.
God allowed the fall to come about. But what else could he subsequently do than forgive man? He promised him to help him, yet not return to the earthly paradise. In Eastern theology u e sometimes meet with the idea that man, at the end of time, will recover a state like that of the Garden of Eden (we see it in the beautiful Recits d'un pelerin russe); the human adventure will, in some way, come full circle. But it is not to be. It is not in keeping with the divine power and goodness simply to restore man to his first state; according to the Carmelite school of Salamanca, it would even be cruel to allow such a catastrophe, in case it should turn out to be useless.
Why, then, did God permit, why did he tolerate the fall? To build up, out of the ruins of the first universe, the universe of Adam's grace, the 'universe of creation', one more sublime, more mysterious, more divine, the 'universe of Christian grace', the 'universe of redemption'. The first universe was centred on Adam, who was wholly man and should never have known death. The second universe is centred on Christ, who is God, who knew death and all its bitterness, so as to enter on his Resurrection. In the first universe, evil had no share; in the second, the effect of evil, immense as it is, is overcome by a love that is greater still.
13. These mysteries are made known to us, not only in the great theology of St Augustine and St Thomas, but are found already expressed in the liturgy and in the Greek Fathers.
In one of the magnificent prayers of the Easter Vigil—omitted in the new liturgy—we find the words: 'O God, who didst wonderfully create man, and still more wonderfully redeem him. . . '. It is the same theme as that of the Exsultet: 'O wonderful tenderness of love! To redeem the slave, you gave your Son. O truly necessary sin of Adam that Christ's death came to destroy! O blessed fault which gained us such and so great a Redeemer!' St Cyril of Alexander writes: 'The first age of human life was indeed holy in our father, Adam. But holier still is the last age, that of the second Adam, Christ, who has regenerated our fallen race by newness of life in the Spirit.'
The finest description is that of St Francis de Sales: Our loss has been gain to us, since, in fact, human nature has received more grace by the Redemption of its Saviour than it would ever have received through Adam's innocence had he continued therein. For although divine Providence has left in man great marks of severity amid the very grace of its mercy, as, for example, the necessity of dying, diseases, labours, the revolt of sensuality, yet the divine favour hovering over all these is pleased to turn all these miseries to the greater profit of those who love him, causing patience to issue from toil, scorn of the world from the necessity of dying, and a thousand victories from concupiscence; and, as the rainbow touching the aspalathus-thorn makes it smell more sweetly than the lily, so the Redemption of Our Lord touching our miseries makes them more useful and desirable than original innocence would ever have been. The angels have more joy in heaven, says Our Lord, over one penitent sinner than over ninety-nine just that have no need of repentance. In the same way, the state of redemption is worth a hundred times more than that of innocence. It is certain that, sprinkled as we are with Our Lord's blood by the hyssop of the cross, we have been restored to a purity mcomparably more excellent than that of the snow of innocence.
Such, then, was the first existential state of grace, as compared with what it now is.
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