The Thomist 80 (2016): 329-39 MERCY IN AQUINAS: HELP FROM THE COMMENTATORIAL TRADITION ROMANUS CESSARIO, O.P., and CAJETAN CUDDY, O.P. St. John’s Seminary / University of Fribourg Brighton, Massachusetts / Fribourg, Switzerland Omnes semitae Domini misericordia et veritas (Psalm 24:10) I N QUESTION 21, article 3 of the first part of the Summa theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas outlines the dynamics of mercy: A person is said to be merciful [misericors], as being, so to speak, miserable at heart [miserum cor]; being affected with sorrow [tristitia] at the misery of another as though it were his own. Hence it follows that he endeavors to dispel the misery of this other, as if it were his; and this is the effect of mercy.1 However, when explaining the mercy of God, Aquinas carefully distinguishes the effective and the affective within mercy: “Mercy is especially to be attributed to God, as seen in its effect, but not as an affection of passion.”2 “It does most properly belong to Him to dispel that misery,” but “to sorrow, therefore, over the misery of others belongs not to God.” How then can one claim that God is merciful? Aquinas locates the formal nature of God’s mercy within his power to relieve the misery of the miserable: “in so far as perfections given to things by God expel defects, it [i.e., the communication of perfection] belongs 1 STh I, q. 21, a. 3. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from the Summa theologiae are taken from the translation of the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benziger Bros., 1948; repr. Christian Classics, 1981). 2 Ibid. 329 330 ROMANUS CESSARIO, O.P., and CAJETAN CUDDY, O.P. to mercy.”3 Aquinas, therefore, situates the divine mercy within the divine perfection—a perfection powerful enough to remove all defects. Contemporary theologians may find this account of the divine mercy somewhat unsatisfying. In our conception, a sharing in the misery of another stands as an essential element of authentic mercy. Hence, our untutored experience may incline us to press Aquinas and to ask, Why, exactly, does sorrow over the misery of others not belong to God? If one seeks clarification regarding this point within the abovementioned passage, one does not find it. Aquinas does not here expound at any length upon the reasons why God does not share the misery of the miserable. Thankfully we are not the first students of theology to approach the writings of Aquinas. Nor are we the first to observe the prima facie oddness of a seemingly impassive God within Aquinas’s consideration of mercy. Throughout history, theologians of profound elegance and insight have sought wisdom from the Angelic Doctor. Some have even devoted their academic lives to the task of studying, expounding, and “commenting” upon the Thomistic text. In this essay, we intend to rely upon—and thereby highlight—a few of the valuable insights into divine mercy these Thomist commentators offer within their commentaries. Because the Thomist commentatorial tradition includes far too many figures to summarize in a few pages, we have decided to draw from only a small handful of the major Thomist commentators within a limited period of theological history, roughly from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries.4 Moreover, while the Thomist commentators exhibit a wide range of uniqueness and nuance amongst themselves, we might observe in our analysis a fundamental first principle uniting these major figures: the real distinction between act and potency (as well as between form and matter). 3 Ibid. For a fuller summary of the Thomist commentatorial tradition, see Romanus Cessario, O.P., A Short History of Thomism (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995). 4 MERCY IN AQUINAS 331 While philosophical in nature, this key Thomistic principle serves as the hermeneutical key for understanding what drew the commentators to Aquinas and the essential unity of their theological project. I. INFINITELY POWERFUL MERCY Why does God’s mercy lack any misery? The sixteenthcentury Thomist commentator Thomas de Vio Cardinal Cajetan (1469-1534) explains that “misery” implies some defect in the commiserating subject.5 God is actus purus. His being admits to no potentiality and no passivity within himself. The seventeenth-century Carmelite commentators, the Salmanticenses, note the relevance of the act-potency distinction for understanding the divine mercy: “In God, mercy is not given through the mode of a potency, but through the mode of the highest actuality . . . which extends to the relieving of all misery.”6 The defect of misery requires some degree of potentiality and passivity within its subject. Therefore, God can experience no misery—or even co-misery.7 The seventeenth-century French Dominican Jean-Baptiste Gonet (1616-81) quotes with approval Cardinal Cajetan’s commentary on question 30, article 4 of the Secunda secundae (“Whether mercy is the greatest of the virtues?”).8 Gonet then adds: “sadness and compassion are acts or affections of the 5 “Quoad ly miseria, ut scilicet sonet defectum quemcumque” (Cajetan commentary on STh I, q. 21, a. 3). Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the Latin texts of the Thomist commentators are our own. 6 “In Deo non datur misericordia per modum potentiae; sed per modum ultimae actualitatis: quae quantum est ex se, extenditur ad sublevandam omnem miseriam” (Cursus theologicus, tract. 4, disp. 2, dub. 2, no. 1 [Paris: Victor Palmé, 1876], 2:18). 7 The last major contemporary Thomist commentator, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, reiterates this point: “St. Thomas most correctly distinguishes between the virtue of mercy and the emotion of commiseration, which is a praiseworthy inclination of the sensitive appetite, and is not a virtue” (The One God: A Commentary on the First Part of St. Thomas’ Theological Summa, trans. Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B. [St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1943], 617). 8 Manuale Thomistarum seu totius Theologiae brevis cursus (Venencia: Typographia Balleoniana, 1778), §4. 332 ROMANUS CESSARIO, O.P., and CAJETAN CUDDY, O.P. sensitive appetite, which are not able to be found in God, because that which is sensible is absolutely from something foreign [alienum].”9 Gonet’s slightly older contemporary, John of St. Thomas (1589-1644), confirms the truth of this claim. John of St. Thomas maintains that sadness (tristitia) and anything else pertaining to movements of the sense appetites (passiones) are “in no way able to be attributed to God,” and that one only thinks they are with “grave error” because the sense appetites require bodily existence, which God absolutely does not have.10 He invokes the real distinction between the rational appetite and the sense appetites. Sense appetitional movements are intrinsically bodily. Rational appetitional movements are spiritual.11 Sadness [tristitiam] does not exist in God, because the feeling of sadness arises from those things which happen to us without us having willed them, and against our will [contra propriam voluntatem]. However, nothing is able to happen without God having willed, ordained, or permitted it. Therefore, there is nothing that is able to sadden God. All things are in his hand, and he is able to do what he wills [facere quod voluerit], without any resistance, and therefore without any sadness, because sadness supposes resistance to the will.12 Sadness does not exist within God. However, the loving inclination to alleviate the cause of sadness does.13 The 9 “Tristitiam enim et compassio sunt actus seu affectus appetitus sensitivi, qui non possunt reperiri in Deo, quia quod est sensibile, ab illo prorsus alienum est” (ibid.). 10 “Supponimus tanquam rem clarissimam, quod si loquamur de istis affectibus, ut pertinent ad appetitum sensitivum, et vocantur passiones, nullo modo possunt Deo attribui, nec aliquis potest id cogitare, nisi errore maximo, putando Deum corporeum esse” (Cursus theologicus, t. 2, disp. 6, art. 2). 11 “Loquimur de istis affectibus prout ad voluntatem pertinent, et spirituales sunt” (ibid.). 12 “In Deo tristitiam non esse, quia affectus tristitiae est de his quae accidunt nobis nolentibus, et contra propriam voluntatem: nihil autem accidere potest nisi Deo volente, et ordinate, vel permittente: ergo nihil est quod Deum contristare possit: omnia enim in manu eius sunt, et potest facere quod voluerit, sine ulla resistentia: ergo et sine tristitia, quia tristitia resistentiam supponit erga voluntatem” (ibid.). 13 “The holy doctor [St. Thomas] distinguishes in human mercy towards those who are in misery between being affected with sorrow at the misery of another and dispelling the misery of the other. But this sorrow, by reason of the subject of this sorrow, MERCY IN AQUINAS 333 eighteenth-century commentator Charles-René Billuart explains the difference between human and divine mercy: “For us the good of being merciful arises from the sadness of someone else in misery [ex tristitia miseriae alienae], which sadness is not possible for God, and relates materially to mercy and is the ratio of the subject in which it is found.”14 The sadness of those requiring mercy stands as the material principle of mercy. Both Billuart and the Salmanticenses approach the dynamics of divine mercy through the form-matter / act-potency distinction. The human recipient supplies the potential or material principle of the mercy. God serves as the formal and (pure) active principle. The miserable subject requires loving trans-formation that only the merciful impartation of grace can bring about.15 To summarize: The affective element that characterizes human mercy arises from the imperfect (i.e., potential) nature of the merciful person. Because potency has no place within God, sorrow has no place within God. However, the perfecting element within mercy not only applies to God but, indeed, it constitutes the formality of his very essence: his infinitely powerful, divine goodness. He is goodness.16 “Therefore mercy, according to its formal signification, belongs properly and not merely metaphorically to God.”17 constitutes the material part of mercy; whereas, on the other hand, by reason of the object of this sorrow, the inclination of the will to alleviate the misery of another constitutes the formal element in sorrow” (Garrigou-Lagrange, The One God, 616-17). 14 “Quod vero in nobis haec bona miserendi voluntas nascatur ex tristitia miseriae alienae, quae tristitia non competit Deo, id se habet materialiter ad misericordiam, et ratione subjecti in quo reperitur” (Summa Sancti Thomae hodiernis academiarum moribus accommodata; sive cursus theologiae juxta mentem, et, in quantum licuit, juxta mentem Divi Thomae: insertis pro re nata digressionibus in historiam ecclesiasticam [Paris: Victorem Lecoffre, 1886], t. 1, 395-96). 15 Cf. STh I-II, q. 109. 16 “The motive of divine mercy is not properly the misery of the creature (this being the matter about which it is concerned), but it is God’s goodness to be made manifest in the alleviation of a person’s misery” (Garrigou-Lagrange, The One God, 618). 17 Ibid., 617. Garrigou-Lagrange explains the analogy of mercy: “Mercy in this sense is a most beautiful example of the analogy of proper proportionality. There is a relation of proportion between God’s merciful attitude toward sinners imploring His pardon and that of man toward those who are in misery, all imperfections being removed, such as sorrow or a feeling of compassion” (ibid.). 334 ROMANUS CESSARIO, O.P., and CAJETAN CUDDY, O.P. The denial of any affective or “miserable” element within the God who is merciful may strike some of our generation as coldhearted or aloof. However, upon further inspection, one discovers that the commentatorial distinction between the formality of mercy and materiality of misery actually preserves the universal applicability of God’s mercy to all those who need it—no matter what their state or condition. Rather than limiting its range and power, the immunity of the divine mercy from suffering any misery of its own actually serves as the foundation for its applicability to all forms of misery. Here Cardinal Cajetan offers a perspicacious explanation in his examination of the virtue of mercy: From its act, it appears that mercy in itself requires an immunity from misery. For if we distinguish between mercy simpliciter and mercy with respect to one or another kind of misery, we discover why mercy with respect to a particular kind of misery [is free from the misery it seeks to relieve]. For example, mercy for the poverty-stricken is, as such, immune from poverty because it seeks to give poverty relief. For the same reason, mercy is simply and absolutely free from misery, because mercy relieves misery [in general]—not [only] this or that kind of misery. And since every potentiality is a certain kind of misery (because every creature is subjected to some kind of misery in some way), it follows that as mercy in itself requires such and so great a superiority that it would be pure act [actus purus], that it would be the highest nature, that it would be God. Therefore, it properly pertains to God to be merciful and [thereby] to manifest his omnipotence, which is founded upon his pure actuality.18 God’s own being (actus purus) explains his immunity from misery (whether felt or suffered). However, God’s pure 18 “Ex actu autem eius apparet quod misericordia in seipsa exigit immunitatem a miseria. Nam si distinguamus misericordiam in misericordiam simpliciter et misericordiam respectu talis vel talis miseriae, inveniemus quod qua ratione misericordia respectu talis miseriae, puta paupertatis, immunis est ut sic a paupertate, quia ad ipsam spectat dando sublevare paupertatem; eadem ratione misericordia simpliciter et absolute libera est a miseria, quia eius est sublevare a miseria non hac vel illa. Et quoniam omnis potentialitas miseria quaedam est (propter quod omnem creaturam miseriae alicui subiectam esse aliquo modo oportet), consequens est ut misericordia secundum se exigat in seipsa superioritatem talem ac tantam ut actus purus sit, ut summa natura sit, ut Deus sit. Et propterea Deo proprium ponitur misereri; et eius omnipotentiam, quae super actualitate eius pura fundatur, manifestare” (Cajetan commentary on STh II-II, q. 30, a. 4, n. 4). MERCY IN AQUINAS 335 actuality is also the reason why God can remove the misery of those who are not pure act, those who do experience passivity, and those who do suffer the defects associated with contingent being. Because God is actus purus, he is omnipotent. And because he is omnipotent, he can be mercy. When we extend this reflection outside of God himself, to the troubled realities of the human condition, we arrive at a most consoling truth. God’s mercy reaches all forms of struggle. It applies to all miseries. Because God is pure act—and suffers no passivity—divine mercy admits to no material limitations or restrictions. All forms of misery are potential recipients of the all-powerful, all-actual mercy of God.19 Hence, one understands why Aquinas maintains that mercy is the greatest virtue only if it is possessed by the greatest being—“surpassed by none and excelling all.”20 In other words, by removing the element of passivity—even the shared passivity of “co-miseration”—from divine mercy, Aquinas and his major commentators illuminate the limitless range and power of God’s mercy. II. GOD’S WISE JUSTICE, TRUTH, AND MERCY Within the careful division and architecture of question 21 of the Prima pars, truth (a. 2) literally stands as the link between 19 Cajetan also explains that, in God, charity is higher than mercy: “Because it is better for God to love himself than to relieve others from their misery [quia melius est Deo diligere se quam sublevare cetera a miseria]. However, because God’s love serves as the foundation for mercy and extends his love to the benefit of all, mercy is greater simpliciter [ideo simpliciter loquendo, misericordia Dei, etiam in ipso Deo, melior est quam caritas, utpote extendens suppositam caritatem suam ad benefaciendum omnibus)” (Cajetan commentary on STh II-II, q. 30, a. 4, n. 7). Garrigou-Lagrange also maintains this position: “All God’s works have their foundation in His love for creatures, and it is manifested first by mercy, either in the broad or in the strict sense of the term, rather than by justice, which may be considered the branch in this tree of God’s love; whereas mercy is, as it were, the principal part of the tree, its trunk, so to speak, which comes directly from the root. . . . [M]ercy is the first manifestation of love, whereas justice is, so to speak, its second manifestation” (Garrigou-Lagrange, The One God, 620). 20 “Sed quoad habentem, misericordia non est maxima, nisi ille qui habet sit maximus, qui nullum supra se habeat, sed omnes sub se” (STh II-II, q. 30, a. 4). 336 ROMANUS CESSARIO, O.P., and CAJETAN CUDDY, O.P. God’s justice (a. 1) and his mercy (a. 3). Aquinas always carefully considers what he treats. In their exposition of the Thomistic texts, moreover, the Thomist commentators frequently advert to this careful consideration. Aquinas does not believe that divine justice and divine mercy stand in tension with each other. Divine justice and divine mercy maintain their union in the divine truth. In his consideration of divine justice, Aquinas observes that there are two types of particular justice, but only one is applicable to God. The first type of justice is commutative justice. This justice involves “mutual giving and receiving, as in buying and selling, and other kinds of intercourse and exchange.”21 Unsurprisingly, Aquinas denies that this type of justice is applicable to God (citing Rom 11:35). Commutative relationships of alterity are impossible with respect to him who is infinite, per se, and pure act. Such would pose a metaphysical impossibility.22 However, the second type of justice is applicable to God: distributive justice “whereby a ruler [gubernator] or a steward [dispensator] gives to each what his rank deserves.”23 Here Aquinas offers a key metaphysical insight often overlooked in considerations of divine justice and divine mercy: “the order of the universe, which is seen both in natural things and in volitional things, demonstrates the justice of God.”24 God’s universal order of all of reality—both natural and volitional (i.e., moral) being—manifests his justice. His divine ordering extends to all parts of reality.25 No created being can stand outside of God’s divine order. Moreover, Aquinas highlights the importance of the divine wisdom in the just execution of the divine order.26 God is his 21 STh I, q. 21, a. 1. See Cajetan commentary on STh I, q. 21, a. 1, n. 4., as well as the commentaries of Bañez and John of St. Thomas. 23 STh I, q. 21, a. 1. 24 “Ita ordo universi, qui apparet tam in rebus naturalibus quam in rebus voluntariis, demonstrat Dei iustitiam” (STh I, q. 21, a. 1 [n. 4]); translation ours. 25 Cf. Billuart, Summa Sancti Thomae, 395. 26 STh I, q. 21, a. 1, ad 2. 22 MERCY IN AQUINAS 337 own law—an infinitely wise and just law. And as infinitely just, God gives to each creature that which is its “due” in his wise providential plan. Nothing escapes the “suaviter et fortiter” governance of the divine, providential wisdom.27 Aquinas continues: “God’s justice, which establishes things in the order conformable to the rule [ratio] of His wisdom, which is the law of His justice, is suitably called truth.”28 Truth is the law of God’s justice. Both justice and truth conformingly terminate in the real order of his divine wisdom. There is no imaginary or illusory justice and truth within the sapiential order God establishes. No being can claim immunity to divine truth. This order of divine wisdom serves as the essence of every law that claims God as its origin.29 Therefore, Cajetan invites the student of theology to understand the “truth of justice” (veritas iustitiae)—a truth which the human person receives.30 While all contingent creatures are subject to defects of various sorts, only creatures of a rational nature experience the “misery” of their defect.31 The just truth proper to the human person also establishes the human need for mercy. Within the sapiential order of truth, justice and mercy embrace. Divine wisdom establishes the just and true distributive order all creatures receive. Divine wisdom also serves as the foundation for the reestablishment of this true order through God’s mercy. The wise—truthful—order of all of reality is present in justice and mercy. Justice establishes a being as the kind of being that it is, in truth. Mercy reestablishes the truthful order forfeited through sin. Here one recalls the sacrament of God’s mercy (Catechism of the Catholic Church §1422) and 27 Cf. STh I, q. 22. STh I, q. 21, a. 2. 29 “Iustitia Dei facit ordinem in rebus conformem sapientiae suae, quae est omnium lex” (Cajetan commentary on STh I, q. 21, a. 2). 30 “Et confirmatur tota manifestatio ex eo quod etiam in nobis sic invenitur veritas iustitiae” (ibid.). 31 STh I, q. 21, a. 4. 28 338 ROMANUS CESSARIO, O.P., and CAJETAN CUDDY, O.P. God’s divine work of image-restoration and image-perfection within the human creature, created ad imaginem Dei.32 Perhaps now we can begin to recognize the integral union of the topics Aquinas and his commentators examine: reality, truth, justice, mercy. God creates us with a certain kind of “truthful” existence—an existence that exists in conformity to the proportions his divine wisdom establishes in reality. God alleviates the misery of those who have fallen into the unhappiness that necessarily accompanies moral vice. His misericordia really, truly, actually, alleviates their miseria. Because of the creative and re-creative power of God’s loving wisdom, justice and mercy meet in the reality of truth: “God acts mercifully, not indeed by going against His justice, but by doing something more than justice; thus a man who pays another two hundred pieces of money, though owing him only one hundred, does nothing against justice, but acts liberally or mercifully.”33 With this, Aquinas can conclude without any hesitation or reservation: “it is clear that mercy does not destroy justice, but in a sense is the fullness thereof.”34 In justice, God creates us in the truth. In mercy, God restores us to the truth. *** It is little wonder that the sixteenth-century Thomist Domingo Bañez (1528-1604) begins his commentary on this question with the remark that those consecrated to the Holy Preaching should pay special attention to all that Aquinas says in question 21 of the Prima pars, “On the Justice and Mercy of 32 See Romanus Cessario, O.P., “Sonship, Sacrifice, and Satisfaction: The Divine Friendship in Aquinas and the Renewal of Christian Anthropology,” in Theology and Sanctity, ed. Cajetan Cuddy, O.P. (Ave Maria, Fla.: Sapientia Press, 2014), 69-98. 33 STh I, q. 21, a. 3, ad 2. 34 Ibid. MERCY IN AQUINAS 339 God.”35 What else does the authentic preacher of grace do than proclaim the real and true power of God’s mercy? “Mercy is accounted as being proper to God: and therein His omnipotence is declared to be chiefly manifested.”36 With their master, St. Thomas Aquinas, the members of the Thomist commentatorial tradition cease not to rejoice in the truth: God’s omnipotent mercy suffers no limitations in its power to save the miserable. 37 35 “Haec tota quaestio notetur pro praedicatoribus” (Bañez commentary on STh I, q. 21, a. 1). Bañez certainly has in mind the praedicatores of the Ordo Fratrum Praedicatorum. 36 STh II-II, q. 30, a. 4. 37 A version of this paper was delivered in the Aquinas Group of the Catholic Theological Society of America convention (June 9-12, 2016) in San Juan, Puerto Rico.