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God Works for Good with Those Who Love Him: The Church as a Sacrament of Providence, Predestination, and Divine Goodness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2025
Abstract
While various parts of St Thomas’ work have been suggested as places to discern a Thomistic ecclesiology, this article tries to situate the Church in a discussion of creation and the communication of divine goodness that is at the heart of the mystery of providence and predestination. Despite the assurance that God works for good with those who love him, our understanding of divine providence must begin with the frank admission of a tension between our intuition that creation must be ordered, and our experience of contingency. By understanding the Church’s place within creation, in a hidden and shadowy way from Abel until its manifestation in the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, we can see how God’s loving purposes are worked out both in the implicit faith in a Mediator, which finds its expression in a belief in God’s providential care of creation, and in the life of the visible Church where the mystery of predestination is worked out in the lives of the faithful until all is at last made manifest at the end of time. Such an ecclesiology allows us to see the fundamental importance, and mystical meaning, of the visible hierarchical Church.
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- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers.
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1 See, for example, Hans Urs Von Balthasar who identifies the major deficiencies in Thomas’ thought as the Trinity – formally excellent but playing no part in shaping the Summa Theologiæ; his Christology – technically excellent, but separated too much from the Secunda Pars; and his De Ecclesia – ‘which never did have much of any impact, either on Thomas himself or on any other theologian of his time’. Hans Urs Von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), p. 263.
2 Romano Guardini, Vom Sinn der Kirche (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1922), p. 1.
3 Yves Congar, ‘The Idea of the Church in St Thomas Aquinas’, The Thomist Vol. 1 (1939), pp. 331-359.
4 Ibid., p. 339.
5 John Yocum, ‘Aquinas’ Literal Exposition on Job’ in Thomas Weinandy (et al.) eds., Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to his Biblical Commentaries (London: T&T Clark, 2005), p.22. C/f Jean Pierre Torrell, St Thomas Aquinas: Volume 1, The person and his Work, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1996), pp.117-41.
6 ‘The Church visible, the Church institutional, is the ministry of the faith and of the Sacraments of the faith, by which men are grafted into Christ and realise the Mystical Body which is the Church in its inward substance’. Congar, p. 355. This positive appreciation of the institutional and visible is something missing from his later ecclesiology.
7 Through creation, God speaks the Word, a Word that is both expressive and also creative, for in the Word is implied the operative idea of what God makes (ST, I, q. 34, a. 3), which is the desire to communicate some likeness of the divine perfection and goodness (ST, I, q. 44, a. 4). In order to restore creation, that same Word becomes Incarnate (ST, III, q. 3, a. 8).
8 Commentary on Job, Prologue.
9 David Burrell, ‘Aquinas’s Appropriation of the Liber de causis’, in Fergus Kerr (ed.) Contemplating Aquinas: On the Varieties of Interpretation (London: SCM, 2003), p. 82.
10 ST, I, q. 8, a. 1, resp.
11 Exodus, 3:14; ST, I, q. 2, a. 3, sed contra; q.3, a. 4; q.13, a.11. See also Janet Soskice, Naming God: Addressing the Divine in Philosophy, Theology, and Scripture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023).
12 ST, I, q.5, a. 1.
13 Ibid.; I, q. 19, aa. 1 & 2.
14 ST, I, q. 44, a.1, resp.
15 Burrell, p.80.
16 ST, I, q. 5, a. 4; q. 44, a. 4, resp.
17 ST, I, q. 22, a. 1, resp.
18 In making this argument I rely on the insightful essay by Rik Van Nieuwenhove ‘Providence, Divine Causality, and the Gratuitousness of Love: A Thomist Perspective’ New Blackfriars, Vol. 104, Issue 1114, pp. 796-817. Providence is not some kind of omni-causality for God really does endow creatures with the dignity of causal power within the created order. Equally while God’s providence extends to individuals, and ‘… although God knows the total number of individuals, the number of oxen, flies and such like, is not pre-ordained by God per se’ (ST, I, q. 23, a. 7). In this sense, the universe is indeed providentially governed, but not in such a way that contingency is excluded. A focus on final causality helps us to avoid this focus on efficient causality, which makes God the omni-cause and reducing providence to a kind of occasionalism.
19 ST, I, q. 22, a. 2, resp.
20 ST, I, q. 22, a. 3, resp.; ScG, III, 66.
21 ST, I, q. 34, a. 3.
22 Genesis 1: 4; 10; 12; 18; 21; 25; 31.
23 Augustine, Question 60, in Responses to Miscellaneous Questions, trans. Boniface Ramsey (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2008). In this sense, there is an intimate relationship between providence and the divine ideas.
24 Psalm, 19:1; Romans, 1:19ff; ST, I, q. 2, aa. 2 and 3.
25 For the Church beginning with Abel, see Augustine, City of God, XV, 1; Sermon 341, §11. c/f Wisdom, 7:27-28.
26 ST, II-II, q. 2, a. 7, ad 3.
27 ST, I, q.2, a. 3, resp.
28 Aquinas, Commentary on Job, Prologue, §1.
29 Justin Martyr, First Apology, 46.
30 Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguum 7, 1077C-1081C. This would explain the eagerness of the Apologists to co-opt philosophers as Christians, and the openness of the Christian faith to the insights of pagan philosophy. However, the contemplation of the seeds of the Word that we find in Justin Martyr has been used in recent times to account for the possibility of the salvation of non-Christians and those outside of the visible structure of the Church. This is certainly persuasive but should not be used as a way of explaining how any religious sentiment can be the basis of salvation, especially after the visible manifestation of the Church. Justin makes clear that such knowledge is imperfect (First Apology, 13) and is also clear that it is the Logos who has sown this seed, not an anonymous deity.
31 ST, III, q. 62, a. 6, resp.
32 ST, III, q. 1, a. 3, sed contra.
33 ST, III, q. 1, a. 2, resp.
34 ST, III, q. 1, a. 1, sed contra.
35 ST, III, q. 1, a. 1, resp.
36 ScG, IV, 54.
37 Daria Spezzano, The Glory of God’s Grace (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia University Press, 2015), p. 46.
38 ST, I, q. 23, a. 1, resp.
39 ST, I, q. 23, a. 1, ad. 1.
40 Roger Nutt, ‘Divine Goodness, Predestination, and the Hypostatic Union’, New Blackfriars, Volume 99, Issue 1079, pp. 84–96.
41 Commentary on Romans, Chapter 8, Lecture 6, §706.
42 ST, III, q. 64, a. 3; Commentary on Matthew, Chapter 16, Lecture 2, §1387.
43 ST, III, q. 49, aa. 1-5.
44 ST, III, q. 62, a. 1.
45 ST, I, q. 23, aa. 6 & 7.
46 Michał Paluch, La Profonduer de l’Amor Divin: Evolution de la doctrine de la predestination de saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 2004), p. 269.
47 Gaudium et Spes, §3.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid., §10.
50 Ibid., §22.
51 Ibid.
52 Lumen Gentium, §9.
53 Henri de Lubac, interview conducted by Angelo Scola: De Lubac: A Theologian Speaks (Los Angeles: Twin Circle Publishing, 1985), p. 8.
54 Lumen Gentium, §16.
55 Ibid., §9.
56 Ibid, §20.
57 Ibid., §48.
58 John, 14:6.
59 Exodus, 18:14–26.
60 Commentary on John, Chapter 6, Lecture 5, §938.
61 c/f Romans, 12:1–8; 1 Corinthians, 12:27-31; Ephesians, 4:11–16.
62 Commentary on Romans, Chapter 12, Lecture 2, §974.
63 Ibid., §975.
64 Commentary on 1 Corinthians, Chapter 12, Lecture 1, §721.
65 Ibid., §722.
66 Commentary on Ephesians, Chapter 4, Lecture 4, §211.
67 Ibid., §212.
68 Ibid., §216.
69 ST, I, q. 47, a. 1, resp.
70 ST, I-II, q. 112, a. 4, resp.
71 The prelate is to live the apostolic life, one which excels in contemplation, but is also one that is devoted to apostolic labour (ST, II-II, q. 182, a. 1). Moreover, having been raised to the office of bishop, the prelate is raised to a higher state of perfection where he must be free from sin and free for righteousness (ST, II-II, q. 183, a. 4), and for the active perfection of those entrusted to them by laying down their lives for their sheep.
72 Commentary on Romans, Prologue.
73 STI, I, q. 22, a. 3, resp.
74 Commentary on 1 Timothy, Prologue, §1.
75 ST, I, q. 22, a. 1.
76 For these insights into Thomas’ theology of the episcopate, I am indebted to the work of Michael Sirilla. See Michael Sirilla, The Ideal Bishop: Aquinas’s Commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2017).
77 Commentary on 1 Timothy, Chapter 3, Lecture 1, §98.
78 ST, III, q. 8, a.7.
79 Sirilla, p.20. A similar point is made in Thomas’ Commentary on 1 Corinthians where he says that Paul’s principle task in Corinth was to preach – teaching being proper to the apostle, and therefore their successors. Baptism was undertaken by those who cooperated in his ministry (Commentary on 1 Corinthians, Chapter 1, Lecture 2, §39).
80 De Veritate, q. 9, a. 3, corpus.
81 Romans, 8:28.