Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/767

 THOMISM

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THOMISM

essentia (pssence) and the existenlia (existence); be- tween the essentia and the subsislentia; between the real relation and its foundation; between the soul and its faculties; between the several faculties. There can be no medium between a dislinclio rcalis and a dis- iinclio Tationis, or conceptual distinction; hence the distinctw formalis a parte rei of Scotus cannot be ad- mitted. For Thomistic doctrines on free will, God's knowledge, etc., see below.

B. In Theology. — (1) In the beatific vision God's essence takes the place not only of the species im- pressa, but also of t he species expressa. (2) All moral virtues, the acquired as well as the infused, in their perfect state, are interconnected. (3) According to Billuart (Dc pecc, diss, vii, a. 6), it has been a matter of controversy between Thomists whether the mahce of a mortal sin is absolutely infinite. (4) In choosing a medium between Rigorism and Laxism, the Thomistic school has been Antiprobabihstic and generally ha.s adopted Probabihorism. Some de- fended Jj]quiprobabilism, or Probabilism curn com- pensatione. Medina and St. Antoninus are claimed by the ProbabiUsta. (5) Thomistic theologians gen- erally, whilst they defended the infalhbility of the Roman pontiff, denied that the pope had the power to dis.solve a matrimonium ratum or to dispense from a solemn vow made to God. When it was urged that some popes had granted such favours, they cited other pontiffs who declared that they could not grant them (cf. Billuart, "De matrim.". Diss, v, a. 2), and said, with Dominic Soto, "Factum pontificium non facit articulum fidei" (The action of a pope does not con- stitute an article of faith, in 4 dist., 27, Q. i, a. 4). Thomists of to-day arc of a different mind, owing to the practice of the Church. (6) The h\-postatic union, without any additional grace, rendered Christ impeccable. The Word was hypostatically united to the blood of Christ and remained united to it, even during the interval between His death and resurrection (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 718). During that same interval the Body of Christ had a transitory form, called /orj/io cjidarerica (Zighara, P. 16, 17, IV). (7) The sacraments of the New Law cause grace not only as instrumental moral causes, but by a mode of causaUty which should be called instrumental and physical. In the attrition required in the Sacrament of Penance there should be at least a beginning of the love of God; sorrow for sin springing solely from the fear of hell will not suffice. (8) Many theologians of the Thomistic School, especially before the Council of Trent, opposed the doctrine of Mary's Immaculate Conception, claiming that in this they were following St. Thomas. This, however, has not been the opinion either of the entire school or of the Dominican Order as a body. leather Rouard de Card, in his book " L'ordre des freres precheurs et I'lmmaculce Con- ception" (Brussels, 18t)4), called attention to the fact that ten thousand professors of the order defended Mary's great privilege. At the Council of Trent twenty-five Dominican bishops signed a petition for the definition of the dogma. Thousands of Domini- cans, in taking degrees at the I'niversity of Paris, sol- emnly pledged themselves to defend the Immaculate Conception (.see bibliog. to Thomas .\qcinas. Saint; also Kennedv, "The Imm. Con." in "Cath. Univ. Bulletin", M'arch, 1910). (9) The Thomistic School is distingui.shed from other schools of theology chiefly by its doctrines on the difficult questions relating to God's action on the free will of man, God's foreknowl- edge, grace, and predestination. In the articles on these subjects will be found an exposition of the differ- ent theories advanced by the different .schools in their effort to explain these mysteries, for 8\ich they are in reality. As to the value of these theories the follow- ing points should be borne in mind: (a) No theory has a."* yet been proposed which avoids all difficulties and solves all doubts; (b) on the main and most difficult

of these questions some who are at times listed as Mohnists — notably Bellarmine, Sudrez, Francis de Lugo, and, in our own days. Cardinal Billot ("De dec uno et trino", Rome, 1902, Th. XXXII) — agree with the Thomists in defending predestination ante prce- insa merita. Bossuet, after a long study of the ques- tion of physical premotion, adapted the Thomistic opinion ("bu fibre arbitre", c. viii). (c) Thomists do not claim to be able to explain, except by a gen- eral reference to God's omnipotence, how man re- mains free under the action of God, which they con- sider necessary in order to preserve and explain the universality of God's causality and the independent certainty of His foreknowledge. No man can ex-plain, except by a reference to God's infinite power, how the world was created out of nothing, yet we do not on this account deny creation, for we know that it must be admitted. In like manner the main question put to Thomists in this controversy should be not "How will you explain man's liberty?" but "What are your reasons for claiming so much for God's action?" If the reasons assigned are insufficient, then one great difficulty is removed, but there remains to be solved the problem of God's foreknowledge of man's free acts. If they are valid, then we must accept them with their necessary consequences and humbly con- fess our inability fully to explain how wisdom "reach- eth . . . from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly " (Wis., viii, 1). (d) Most important of all, it must be clearly understood and remembered that the Thomistic system on predestination neither saves fewer nor sends to perdition more souls than any other system held by Cathohc theologians. In regard to the number of the elect there is no unani- mity on either side; this is not the question in dispute between the Mohnists and the Thomists. The dis- cussions, too often animated and needlessly sharp, turned on this point: How does it happen that, although God sincerely desires the salvation of all men, some are to be saved, and must thank God for whatever merits they may have amassed, whilst others will be lost, and will know that they them- selves, and not God, are to be blamed? — The facts in the ca.se are admitted by all Catholic theologians. The Thomists, appeahng to the authority of St. Au- gustine and St. Thomas, defend a system which fol- lows the admitted facts to their logical conclusions. The elect are saved by the grace of God, which oper- ates on their wills efficaciously and infallibly without detriment to their liberty; and since God sincerely de- sires the salvation of all men, He is prepared to grant that same grace to others, if they do not, by a free act, render themselves unworthy of it. The faculty of placing obstacles to Divine grace is the unhappy faculty of sinning; and the exi.stence of moral evil in the world is a problem to be solved by all, not by the Thomists alone. The fundamental difficulties in this mysterious question are the existence of evil and the non-salvation of some, be they few or be they many, under the rule of an omnipotent, all-wise, and all- merciful God, and they miss the point of the contro- versy who suppose that these difficulties exist only for the Thomists. The truth is known to lie .somewhere between Calvinism and Jansenism on the one hand, and Semipelagianism on the other. The efforts made by theologians and the various ex-planations offered by Augustinians, Thomists, Mohnists, and Congruists show how difficult of .solution are the questions in- volved. Perhaps we shall never know, in this world, how a just and merciful God pro\ ides in some special manner for the elect and yet sincerely loves all men. "The celebrated Congregatio de Auxihis (q. v.) did not forever put an end to the controversies, and the ques- tion is not yet settled.

III. Neo-Thomism and thk Revival of Scholas- ticism. — When the world in the first part of the nine- teenth century began to enjoy a period of peace and