Supernatural Order

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The Supernatural Order is the ensemble of effects exceeding the powers of the createduniverse and gratuitously produced byGod for the purpose of raising therational creature above its native sphere to a God-like life and destiny. The meaning of the phrase fluctuates with that of its antithesis, the natural order. Those who conceive the latter as the world of material beings to the exclusion of immaterial entities, or as thenecessary mechanism ofcause and effect to the exclusion of the free agency of the will, or again as the inherent forces of theuniverse to the exclusion of the extrinsic concurrence ofGod, quite consistently call supernatural all spiritual facts orvoluntary determinations or Divine operations. There is no objection to that way of speaking provided the assertion of the supernatural so understood be not made, by a fallacious transference of meaning, to screen the negation of the supernatural as defined above.Catholictheologians sometimes call supernatural themiraculous way in which certain effects, in themselves natural, are produced, or certain endowments (like man's immunity from death, suffering, passion, andignorance) that bring the lower class up to the higher though always within the limits of the created, but they are careful in qualifying the former as accidentally supernatural (supernaturale per accidens) and the latter as relatively supernatural (prœternaturale). For a concept of the substantially and absolutely supernatural, they start from a comprehensive view of the natural order taken, in its amplest acceptation, for the aggregate of all created entities and powers, including the highest natural endowments of which therational creature is capable, and even such Divine operations as are demanded by the effective carrying out of the cosmic order. The supernatural order is then more than amiraculous way of producing natural effects, or a notion of relative superiority within the created world, or thenecessary concurrence ofGod in theuniverse; it is an effect or series of effects substantially and absolutely above all nature and, as such, calls for an exceptional intervention and gratuitous bestowal ofGod and rises in a manner to the Divine order, the only one that transcends the whole created world. Although sometheologians do not consider impossible the elevation of the irrational creature to the Divine order, v. g., by way of personal union, nevertheless it stands to reason that such an exalted privilege should be reserved for therational creature capable ofknowledge andlove. It is obvious also that this uplifting of therational creature to the supernatural order cannot be by way of absorption of the created into the Divine or of fusion of both into a sort ofmonistic identity, but only by way of union or participation, the two terms remaining perfectly distinct.

Not being an a priori conception but a positive fact, the supernatural order can only be known throughDivine revelation properly supported by such Divine evidences asmiracle, prophecy, etc. Revelation and its evidences are called extrinsic and auxiliary supernatural, the elevation itself retaining the name of intrinsic or, according to some,theological supernatural. There are three principal instances of such elevation:

Thehypostatic union and theangelic supernatural are both closely connected with our own elevation. From St. John (i, 12-14) weknow that thehypostatic union is the ideal and instrument of it, andSt. Paul declares that theangels are "all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them, who shall receive the inheritance ofsalvation" (Hebrews 1:14). Leaving for separate treatment the auxiliary supernatural (seeR;M;P), thehypostatic union (seeI), and theangels' elevation (seeA), this article deals with the supernatural order in man both in its history and analysis.

Briefly, the history is this: From the beginning, man was raised, far above the claims of his nature, to a life which made him, even here below, the adopted child ofGod, and to a destiny which entitled him to thebeatific vision andlove ofGod inheaven. To these strictly supernaturalgifts by which man was truly made partaker of the Divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) were added preternatural endowments, that is immunity fromignorance, passion, suffering and death, which left him "little lower than theangels" (Psalm 8:6;Hebrews 2:7). Through their own fault, ourfirst parents forfeited for themselves and their race both the God-like life and destiny and the angel-like endowments. In His mercyGod promised a Redeemer who, heralded by ages of prophecy, came in the fulness of time in theperson ofJesus Christ, the incarnateSon of God. By His Incarnation, labours, passion, and death,Jesus Christ restoredmankind to its former Divine sonship and heavenly inheritance, if not to its quasi-angelic prerogatives, the virtue of Redemption being applied to us through the joint ministrations of the inner Spirit, and of the visible Church, in the form of actual helps, habitualsanctity, and the power of meritingHeaven.

An analysis of the supernatural order, barely inaugurated by the Fathers, but brought to a point of great perfection by theSchoolmen and post-Tridentinetheologians, discloses the various elements that make up order, that is an end, means, andlaws. The end is man's destination tosee God face to face and tolove Him correspondingly. If, as will be shown, theintuitive vision of God is ourtrue destiny and moreover transcends our highest natural powers, then we must be given means capable of attaining that end, that is supernatural. Those means can be no other than our own actions, but invested with a higher power that makes them meritorious ofHeaven. Grace, both actual and habitual, is the source of that meriting power: while habitual grace, with its train of infused virtues or faculties raises our mode of being and operating to a sphere which isGod's own,actual grace spurs us on to justification and, once we stand justified, sets in motion our supernatural powers causing them to yield good and meritorious works. In the supernatural order, as in all others, there are also specificlaws. The work of man's sanctification depends in a manner on the generallaws of theuniverse and most certainly upon the carrying out of all the moralprecepts written in our hearts. Besides theselaws which Christ came not to abolish, there are positive or freely established enactments ranging all the way from the Divinely appointed conditions ofsalvation to the revealedobligations and even the rules governing our growth inholiness. Glory and grace, being the central features of the supernatural order, special reference will be made to them both in the exposition oferrors and the establishment of theCatholic doctrine.

Errors

The theories denying or belittling the supernatural order may be classified from the standpoint of both their historical appearance andlogical sequence, into three groups according as they view the supernatural;

To the first group belongPelagianism and Semipelagianism. Influenced, no doubt, by theStoic ideal and their own ascetic performances, thePelagians of the fifth century so magnified the capacity ofhumannature as to pronounce natural to it both thebeatific vision and thehuman acts by which it is merited. They were condemned by the Councils ofMileve and Carthage, 418. Less daring, the Semipelagians, censured by the Council of Orange (529), subtracted from the supernatural only certain phases of man's life as the beginning offaith andfinal perseverance. To this group belong also, in a manner, thefalse mystics of the fourteenth century, theBeghards condemned by the Council of Vienne (1312), for claiming that therational creature possesses beatitude in itself without the help of thelumen gloriœ andEckhart, whose identification of the Creator and the creature in the act of contemplation was censured byJohn XXII in 1329.

To the second group belong the earlyReformers and theJansenist School, though in different degrees. Misinterpreting the still imperfect terminology of the Fathers who called natural, in the sense of original, the elevation of ourfirst parents, the earlyReformers held that, according to Patristic teaching and contrarily to theSchoolmen, that elevation was not supernatural. Theirerror, rejected by theCouncil of Trent (Sess. V, decretum de peccato originali, can. 1), was taken up again, but in a more refined form, byBaius who, indeed, designated as supernatural man's original condition but nullified the meaning of the word by stating that our first parent's elevation was demanded by and due to the normal condition of humanity. In spite of his condemnation byPius V (Denzinger, 9th ed., nn. 901, 903, 906, 922) he was followed by theJansenistQuesnel and the pseudo-Synod of Pistoia, the former censured byClement XI (Denzinger, nn. 1249, 1250) and the latter byPius VI (Denzinger, nn. 1379, 1380, 1383). A confusion between the moral and the supernatural order, frequently found in theBaianist andJansenist writings, was reproduced more or less consciously by some Germantheologians like Stattler,Hermes, Gunther, Hirsh,Kuhn, etc., who admitted the supernatural character of the other gifts but contended that the adoption to eternal life and the partaking of the Divine nature, being a moral necessity, could not be supernatural. That revival of an olderror found a strong and successful opponent inKleutgen in the second volume of histheology on the supernatural.

To the third group belongs theRationalist School fromSocinus to the presentModernists. While the foregoingerrors proceeded less from a direct denial than from a confusion of the supernatural with the natural order, theRationalisterror rejects it in its entirety, on the plea ofphilosophical impossibility or critical non-existence. The Syllabus ofPius IX and the Vatican Constitution "De fide catholica" (Denzinger, n. 1655) checked for a while that radicalNaturalism which, however, has reappeared lately in a still more virulent form withModernism. While there is nothing common betweenRosmini and the presentModernists, he may, all unwittingly, have paved the way for them in the following vaguely Subjectivist proposition: "The supernatural order consists in the manifestation of Being in the plenitude of its reality, and the effect of that manifestation is a God-like sentiment, inchoate in this life through the light offaith and grace, consummate in the next through the light of glory" (36thRosminian proposition condemned by the Holy Office, 14 Dec., 1887). Preserving the dogmatic formulæ while voiding them of their contents, theModernists constantly speak of the supernatural, but they understand thereby the advanced stages of an evolutive process of the religious sentiment. There is no room in their system for the objective and revealed supernatural: theirAgnosticism declares it unknowable, their Immanentism derives it from our own vitality, their symbolism explains it in term of subjective experience and their criticism declares non-authentic the documents used to prove it. "There is no question now," saysPius X, in hisEncyclical "Pascendi" of 8 Sept., 1907, "of the olderror by which a sort of right to the supernatural was claimed forhumannature. We have gone far beyond that. We have reached the point where it is affirmed that our mostholy religion, in the man Christ as in us, emanated from nature spontaneously and entirely. Than this, there is surely nothing more destructive of the whole supernatural order."

Catholic doctrine

From the above documents, it may be summarized in three points: (1) The fact of man's elevation to grace and glory as against thePelagian error; (2) the supernatural character of that elevation as against theProtestant andJansenist theory; and (3) as againstRationalism, its possibility and the validity of its credentials.

1

The fact of man's elevation, probably alluded to in the likeness ofGod imprinted in Adam (Genesis 1:26), in the tree of life from which he was barred in consequence of hissin (Genesis 3:22), and in the intimate union of man withGod, as described in the Sapiential and Prophetic books, has its full expression in the discourses ofJesus Christ (John 6 and14-17), in the prologue of theFourth Gospel compared withJohn 2 and3, and in the introduction to several Epistles like1 Corinthians,Ephesians, and1 Peter. The direct and face-to-facevision of God is our future destiny (1 Corinthians 13:12;1 John 3:2). In this world we are not in name only but in very fact the sons ofGod (1 John 3:1), being born anew (1 John 3:7) and having the charity ofGod infused in our hearts by theHoly Ghost who is given to us (Romans 5:5). The emphasis laid by the early Fathers on man's deification has been shown elsewhere (seeA). In view of all this it is nottrue that the Fathers had not even a name to designate the supernatural, as is often asserted by modern critics. De Broglie (Le surnaturel, p. 45) shows that there were at least four different phrases to express thesupernatural gifts:hyper physin (above nature), adscititia (superadded),exothen tes ousias (foreign to the essence),charis, charismata (gratuitous).

2

The gratuitous or supernatural character of thebeatific vision was placed in bold relief bySt. Paul (1 Timothy 6:15) and St. John (1:18 and6:46).St. Irenæus merely paraphrases their teaching in the famous sentence: "Homo a se non videt Deum; ille autem volens videtur hominibus quibus vult, quando vult, quemadmodum vult; potens est enim in omnibus Deus" (Contra hæres., v, 20). Neither can one read such passages asEphesians 1:16-19 and3:14-21;Colossians 1:10 sq.;2 Peter 1:4; etc., without realizing that the supernatural character of theintuitive vision applies likewise to present charity "which surpasses allknowledge". The transcendence of the supernatural order, not only above our presentde facto condition, but also above our native constitution viewed philosophically in the elements and properties and exigencies ofhumannature, is not emphasized inearly Christian literature, which deals not with abstractions.St. Paul, however, describing the rôle of the Redeemer which is to renovate, repair, and restore, comes very near the point by hinting that our present, clearly supernatural elevation is but a return to the no less supernatural condition of the "old Adam"; and while the point is not fully discussed by the Fathers before thePelagian controversies concerningoriginal sin, yet some passing remarks bySt. Irenæus (Contra hæres., III, xviii, 1, 2) andSt. John Chrysostom (X Homily on St. John, 2) show that there is no chasm between the early Fathers,St. Augustine, who presented a bold, if not finished, delineation of the supernatural as such, and theSchoolmen and post-Tridentinetheologians (asSoto, "De natura et gratia";Ripalda, "De ente supernaturali"; Francisco Suárez, "De variis statibus") who carefully distinguished the various states ofhumannature.Ripalda's opinion to the effect that thebeatific vision which isde facto supernatural to the whole actual creation might become natural to some possible higher creature, has never been formally condemned by theChurch; it is however unanimously rejected bytheologians, as it seems less conformable to Scriptural sayings and tends to destroy the absolute transcendence of the supernatural order.

3

Thephilosophical possibility and the critical ascertainment of the supernatural order are the central point ofChristianapologetics. Against the prejudicial views of theRationalists who pronounce it inexistent, or unnecessary, or mischievous, or even impossible,Christian apologists urge, and to good purpose, the critical value of the records on which it rests, its quasi-necessity for the correct conduct of life, the profits it brings to its recipients, and the utter want of foundation of its so-called antinomies. Having thus cleared the ground, they proceed to collect and interpret and organize the various data of Revelation, the result being a harmonious and truly grandiose system of overlife. From the commonly received axiom that "grace does not destroy but only perfects nature" they establish between the two orders a parallelism that is not mutual confusion or reciprocal exclusion, but distinction and subordination. TheSchoolmen spoke freely of nature's possibilities (potentia obedientialis) and even conations (appetitus naturalis) towards the supernatural. To those traditional methods and views someChristian writers have, of late, endeavoured to add and even substitute another theory which, they claim, will bring the supernatural home to the modern mind and give it unquestionable credentials. The novel theory consists in making nature postulate the supernatural. Whatever be the legitimity of the purpose, the method is ambiguous and full of pitfalls. Between theSchoolmen'spotentia obedientialis andappetitus moralis and theModernist tenet according to which the supernatural "emanates from nature spontaneously and entirely" there is space and distance; at the same time, theCatholicapologist who would attempt to fill some of the space and cover some of the distance should keep in mind the admonition ofPius X to those "Catholics who, while rejecting immanence as adoctrine, employ it as a method ofapologetics, and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit that there is inhumannature atrue and rigorous necessity with regard to the supernatural order and not merely a capacity and suitability for the supernatural such as has at all times been emphasized byCatholic apologists" (Encyclical "Pascendi").

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