Folia Theologica 20. (2009)
Barbour Hugh: The Cosmology of Catholic Worship: Pre-Socratic Sacraments? A Consideration by a disciple of St. Thomas Qauinas
THE COSMOLOGY OF CATHOLIC WORSHIP 15 theology is tantamount to denying the distinct reality and intelligibility of the sacraments themselves, in short, to provide at best only a Pre- Socratic, phenomenal account of the sacraments, if not even a crypto- Calvinist and nominalist one. The order cognitionis humanae described in the text from the De Potentia is to be followed, mutatis mutandis in coming to know any other order. What is the universal cause of human salvation? It is the Passion of Christ. How the effects of this Passion arrive at individuals? By individual contact with Christ. How is this contact effected? By the act of faith and by the sacraments. There is no way that the Passion can be effective for individuals of the human race unless it is applied to them by single acts, any more than any general and universal cause can bring about its effects unless the effects themselves are truly distinct in nature from the cause. The first context in which St. Thomas renders this matter clear, is when he discusses the descent of Christ among the dead. Here is the first case of the application of the completed redemption to men. In all these contexts St. Thomas tells us that Christ applied the principal fruit of His Passion which was the remission of Original Sin to the dead individually so that all who were ready for entry into beatitude, having expiated their personal, actual sins, were given it by His coming among them. Very illuminatingly however, he tells us that those who were in a state of purification for actual sin when Christ descended were not necessarily freed for heaven unless they were otherwise ready, since the power of His Passion operated from the moment of its accomplishment according to the laws which govern its application in the Church, which require a separate application of the fruits of the Passion, and not of its principal fruit which is the remission of Original Sin. Let us hear what he has to say in the third book of his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, distinction 22, question 2, article 2, quaestiuncula 4 in the body: "Passio autem Christi immediate removet impedimentum ex peccato originali proveniens, quod ex altero contractum est; sed ad removendum poenam debitam actuali peccato, quod quisque ex seipso commisit, pertingit ejus efficacia mediante aliquo sacramento circa personam exhibito, aut aliquo actu ipsius personae, vel alterius ad ipsam relato;. Unde tantum per poenam Christi liberari non potuerunt.." In his treatment of the same matter in question 52 article 8 of the third part of the Summa St. Thomas explains very succinctly that the
