Aquinas’s “donum superadditum” vs the Alien Righteousness of Christ

Here is the heart of the issue between Protestants and Roman Catholics. For those who are following along in my series on “chain-of-being” ontology:

Starting things off: Eastern Orthodoxy: Same as all the other Eastern religions
Part 1: “Metaphysical Religion” and “Becoming One with God”
Part 2: Aquinas, “existence”, and the failure to observe the Creator-creature distinction

Here is the Creator/creature distinction in the ontological sense:

Intrinsically holy, God is qualitatively distinct from creation—not just more than, but different from, his creatures. There is no divine soul, preexisting throughout eternity, thrown mercilessly into the realm of time and matter. God breathed life into Adam in creation, and he “became a living being” (Gen 2:7 NIV)—an embodied soul and an animated body. And yet, God pronounced this creation good (Gen 1:4, 1:10, 1:12, 1:18, 1:21, 1:25, [and “very good” when speaking of man, Gen 1:31]).

It is no crime to be different from God. Finitude is not a “falling away” from some primordial infinitude. There is no part of human nature that is higher, brighter, more infinite, or more real than another. This means that the only legitimate ontological distinction is between the uncreated God and the created world, not between spiritual and material realms (as is posited in the “chain-of-being” ontology). Ontological difference – the strangeness that makes us stand in awe of God’s majesty – is good … (from Michael Horton, “The Christian Faith”, A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan © 2011, pg 42).

So yes, above and beyond the condition “to exist”, Confessional Protestantism holds this Creator/creature distinction. This distinction also exists in the ethical sense after the fall:

Whereas the ontological difference is a good gift of our creation, ethical difference came about as a result of the fall, when Adam transgressed the original covenant. In this sense, god is not only qualitatively different from us but morally opposed to us. We are estranged from God by sin. In his righteousness, goodness, justice, holiness, and love, God is outraged by our collective and personal rebellion. As human creatures, we are made in God’s image; as sinners, we are “by nature children of wrath” (Eph 2:3). Salvation is achieved not by human ascent from the realm of shadows into the unity of divine being but by God’s descent in our flesh (Horton pg. 42).

In both of these senses, the Creator/creature distinction is primary.

It is incumbent on me here to note the Hebrew device used in the language of Genesis 1, that “God saw that it was good … good … good … good … good … good …‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ … And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” John Currid, in his Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1 (Genesis 1:1-25:18) notes:

The phrase ‘It was good,’ appears seven times in Genesis 1. The number seven is often emphatic in Hebrew, and it symbolizes completion and fullness. The seventh appearance accentuates the entire account when it says that all God had made ‘was very good’ (Gen 1:31) (pg 62).

For clarity, in Gen 1:31, Currid notes, “God now surveys ‘all’ his work – that is, the totality of the physical creation. And he pronounced a verdict: ‘Behold it was very good.’ The term ‘Behold …’ often serves to call special attention to a declarative statement. And when the word for ‘very’ occurs after an adjective it is an absolute superlative’” Therefore, the writer is describing God’s judgement of his own creation with great emphasis – it is perfect in every detail, even down to the very intricacies of its being” (Currid 89).

This “absolute superlative” applies to man, in a special way. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” The language here indicates that “the whole man is the image of God, without distinction of spirit and body”.

The point is, nothing is lacking in man, in any way. T.D. Alexander notes, “with remarkable brevity and skill, the narrator conveys a picture of total harmony between God the Creator and the world, his creation (T.D. Alexander, “From Paradise to Promised Land: An Introduction to the Pentateuch” (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, (2012 Third Edition), pg 147).

I could continue to cite other authors who have exegeted the text, but the point is, as created, man is lacking nothing in order to continue to live and work and to fulfill his mission as God designed him.

This contrasts with Aquinas (following both Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius, in the “grand synthesis” that he produces). As Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson describe it:

Aquinas … included in the imago (“image of God”) the “superadded gift” (donum superadditum) granted to humans before the fall so that they could achieve the [both natural and supernatural] good. This gift was lost in the fall and therefore needs to be infused by grace after the fall. For Aquinas, the imago functions at both levels: It is the superadded gift that enables the attainment of the good, and it is also the constant (pre- and post-fall) human nature that enables us to know and love God (Christian Dogmatics, Volume 1, Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press ©1984, pg 332).

This is where “extra-biblical” “tradition” is outright harmful. For it posits things that God himself does not posit in his word. In this case, the “chain of being” ontology requires Aquinas to posit a this “superadded gift” as a way of bridging a gap between the natural man (as created “very good”) and something “supernatural”. In Aquinas’s own words:

I answer that, Some say that man was not created in grace; but that it was bestowed on him subsequently before sin: and many authorities of the Saints declare that man possessed grace in the state of innocence.

But the very rectitude of the primitive state, wherewith man was endowed by God, seems to require that, as others say, he was created in grace, according to Eccles. 7:30, "God made man right." For this rectitude consisted in his reason being subject to God, the lower powers to reason, and the body to the soul: and the first subjection was the cause of both the second and the third; since while reason was subject to God, the lower powers remained subject to reason, as Augustine says [*Cf. De Civ. Dei xiii, 13; De Pecc. Merit. et Remiss. i, 16]. Now it is clear that such a subjection of the body to the soul and of the lower powers to reason, was not from nature; otherwise it would have remained after sin; since even in the demons the natural gifts remained after sin, as Dionysius declared (Div. Nom. iv). Hence it is clear that also the primitive subjection by virtue of which reason was subject to God, was not a merely natural gift, but a supernatural endowment of grace; for it is not possible that the effect should be of greater efficiency than the cause. Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiii, 13) that, "as soon as they disobeyed the Divine command, and forfeited Divine grace, they were ashamed of their nakedness, for they felt the impulse of disobedience in the flesh, as though it were a punishment corresponding to their own disobedience." Hence if the loss of grace dissolved the obedience of the flesh to the soul, we may gather that the inferior powers were subjected to the soul through grace existing therein.

It is the presupposition of “chain-of-being” ontology that crafts this paragraph. Nature, “very good” though it was, could not have “subjected the body to the soul” nor “the lower powers to reason”. The “first subjection” was the cause of both the second and third”.

For Aquinas (following Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius), there simply has to be something in addition to what’s given in the biblical account, in order to fill in every part in the “chain-of-being”. This something is a “superadded” grace.

In the Biblical account, Man, being “very good”, and “perfect in every detail, even down to the very intricacies of [his] being”. According to Michael Horton (in “Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ” (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, ©2007, pg 194):

According to federal theologians (Peter van Mastrich, Rollock, Ussher, Perkins, Ursinus, Olevianus, Zanchi, Owen, and others), Adam and Eve were never in a state of grace [“superadded” or otherwise” before the fall. Endowed in their creation with all of the requisite gifts necessary for fulfilling God’s eschatological purposes, there was nothing lacking requiring a gracious supplement.

But that’s not good enough for Aquinas (and nor is it good enough for Rome). More – “Roman-style” – must be added to this perfection. This “more”, a “transcendent good”, which is above and beyond the “very good” of Genesis 1. Arvin Vos in his work “Aquinas, Calvin, & Contemporary Protestant Thought (Washington DC: Christian College Consortium, ©1985 pg 146), suggests that “Aquinas’s position is brilliantly summed up in his treatise on grace”:

I answer that, Man's nature may be looked at in two ways: first, in its integrity, as it was in our first parent before sin; secondly, as it is corrupted in us after the sin of our first parent. Now in both states human nature needs the help of God as First Mover, to do or wish any good whatsoever, as stated above (A[1]). But in the state of integrity, as regards the sufficiency of the operative power, man by his natural endowments could wish and do the good proportionate to his nature, such as the good of acquired virtue; but not surpassing good, as the good of infused virtue. But in the state of corrupt nature, man falls short of what he could do by his nature, so that he is unable to fulfil it by his own natural powers. Yet because human nature is not altogether corrupted by sin, so as to be shorn of every natural good, even in the state of corrupted nature it can, by virtue of its natural endowments, work some particular good, as to build dwellings, plant vineyards, and the like; yet it cannot do all the good natural to it, so as to fall short in nothing; just as a sick man can of himself make some movements, yet he cannot be perfectly moved with the movements of one in health, unless by the help of medicine he be cured.

And thus in the state of perfect nature man needs a gratuitous strength superadded to natural strength for one reason, viz. in order to do and wish supernatural good; but for two reasons, in the state of corrupt nature, viz. in order to be healed, and furthermore in order to carry out works of supernatural virtue, which are meritorious. Beyond this, in both states man needs the Divine help, that he may be moved to act well.

Man, described by God as “very good” in Genesis 1, (meaning he is “lacking nothing in order to continue to live and work and to fulfill his mission as God designed him”), is lacking what the “chain-of-being” ontology posits that he must be able to do over-and-above what God says he must do, and that is to “carry out works of supernatural virtue, which are meritorious.”

This “gratuitous strength superadded to natural strength” is not biblical at all, and yet it is foundational for Rome’s concept of “infused grace” in justification.

* * *

According to Horton (C&S, pg 194), “this reveals a fundamentally different understanding not only of the original condition of humanity in Adam (under a covenant of works) but of grace itself. After all, “the image of God is not a superadded gift (“donum superadditum”) but integral to the essence of humanity.”

For Aquinas, his “chain-of-being” ontology necessarily requires that the biblical “image of God” be supplemented with a non-biblical “superadded gift” – in order that “the Church” could then “infuse” this grace back into man through its sacramental system.

This “infusion” then became opposed to what the doctrine that the Protestants were professing: that of the “alien righteousness of Christ” and of the positive imputation of Christ’s righteousness to sinners.

In an earlier blog post, I mentioned that both Bruce McCormack and Michael Horton suggest that the early reformers failed to look at the ontological aspects of justification, and thus they missed an opportunity to “finally … raise the question in the most decisive way possible”.

While some of the later “federal theologians” (Peter van Mastrich, Rollock, Ussher, Perkins, Ursinus, Olevianus, Zanchi, Owen, and others) did stress this ontological aspect – noting especially that Adam and Eve were whole – “very good” – with “nothing lacking that required a gracious supplement”, it is Aquinas and Rome whose “chain-of-being” ontology required that something – a thing not of the Word of God – be “superadded”.

Coming up: Lord willing, I’ll work through some of the areas of Luther and Calvin where McCormack and Horton believe their own treatment of this “ontological issue” was lacking.