Bellarmine’s discourse on satisfaction.
Bellarmine’s discourse on satisfaction.
§ 124. Let us hear Bellarmine on satisfaction. He first distinguishes (De poenit., bk. 4, ch. 1) between “perfect satisfaction, which is made at perfect and absolute equality (as when an insulting act which occurs between two equal men is repaid through another act having as much honor as the other had of insult), and imperfect satisfaction, which is made at an imperfect equality, as when a person suffers the loss of ten thousand gold coins and allows himself to be satisfied with the giving up of all the other man’s property, though that property may not reach the sum of ten thousand.” He admits that the first can have no place between God and men because “whatever we are or have comes from God and because His infinite goodness is injured by our sin.” But he concludes that the latter, which happens to a person by God’s acceptance, does have a place here. Next, he teaches that “man cannot make satisfaction to God to restore friendship. Yet he can restore the equity of justice with his satisfaction; that is, the debt of punishment which remains after the remission of fault can be redeemed through good works.”
We respond. (1) Bellarmine is departing from those who argue that a sinner vindicates an offense committed against God with his own satisfaction so that divine friendship is restored for him in this way, that is, that we can make satisfaction even for fault [culpa] itself. To such people he responds coldly: “It is not now necessary to dispute about these subtleties.”
(2) Scotus (Sent., 4, dist. 15, q. 1) defines satisfaction in general as “the voluntary rendering of something equivalent that is otherwise unowed.” But this definition is one he will be unable to accommodate to imperfect satisfaction.
(3) Bellarmine sets forth these definitions nakedly; he does not draw them from the foundations of Scripture, which are the proper basis [principium] of theology.
(4) Scripture acknowledges only one satisfaction for sins, an utterly perfect one, which corresponds equally to divine justice. For since it declares that God’s justice is infinite, so also it sets Christ’s infinite satisfaction against it. It is He who has reconciled us to God and has taken upon Himself the punishment for our sins (Isa. 63:3; Col. 2:14; Heb. 1:3).
(5) Scripture never connects or subordinates our own satisfaction to this utterly perfect and infinite satisfaction of Christ, so that neither the name nor the reality of our satisfaction occurs in the Scriptures. In the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit sets forth Christ as the only propitiation not only for the baptized but also for those who have fallen into sin after Baptism and are earnestly contrite. But nowhere does He demand their own satisfaction from such people (1 John 2:2; Rom. 8:34).
(6) On the contrary, since God’s justice is infinite, our imperfect satisfaction cannot restore equity. There is no reason for them to respond that justice as tempered with divine mercy should be considered, since this tempering has a place only in Christ’s merit, which is applied to us through faith.
(7) So, then, there is an implication of contradiction when an imperfect satisfaction is asserted. Surely he who receives an insignificant amount of money for a debt of ten thousand gold coins will never say that he has been satisfied. Rather, arithmetic proportionality6 is required for satisfaction. This is noticed by those Scholastics who place the power of satisfaction in love, from which an infinite dignity is added to our works, since love is the Holy Spirit’s gift. The Catechismus Romanus (p. 308) seeks [its] power and dignity from the merit of Christ’s satisfaction. It says: “The greatness of the force which it has is understood from the fact that it depends entirely on the merit of Christ’s Passion, from which we receive those two great goods. First, we earn the rewards of immortal glory, and, second, we make satisfaction for our sins.” Bellarmine alludes to this when he writes in this chapter: “For satisfaction somehow to be appropriate to equity, it is necessary that just as the offense had an infinity on the part of the object, so also satisfaction should have an infinity on the part of the satisfying principle. Hence it is required that satisfactory works be done by the Holy Spirit dwelling in man or by the man himself as Christ’s member and as now made a child of God through grace and love,” etc. More will be said about this matter in its own place.
(8) It is impossible to draw a distinction between the reforming of friendship and the restoration of righteousness—that is, between the satisfaction for fault and the satisfaction for punishment—in such a way that the one can be attributed to Christ’s merit but the other to our satisfactions. In fact, every sinner is contrary to divine justice (Isa. 59:2; 1 John 3:4). Therefore the natural order is being inverted if the reconciliation of the sinner with God and the reforming of that friendship is placed before the satisfaction of His righteousness. This is why Scripture sets up Christ’s perfect satisfaction as the foundation for our reconciliation with God, for He left no merit or satisfaction to us when He accepted and bore all things. On the other hand, the remission of fault and of universal punishment pertains to the perfect remission of sins (such as they admit occurs in Baptism), whether this punishment is temporal or eternal. But if in the remission of sins after Baptism only fault and eternal punishment are remitted but not the temporal punishment, for whose remission satisfactory works are required, the consequence is that our satisfactions pertain to the forgiveness of sins in some way. In fact, there is a presupposition here that God does not forgive the entire offense in the forgiveness of guilt but retains something of the offense, which He pours out in the temporal punishment that He imposes after forgiving the guilt. For the satisfaction of that offense He requires the satisfaction of our works.
Therefore it is just as if we are said to make satisfaction for punishment or for fault, that is, for that part of the fault which still remains to be expiated through temporal punishments. Bellarmine himself acknowledges this in some way. For this reason he says (De poenit., bk. 4, ch. 1): “It is unnecessary to deal with these subtleties, namely, whether one makes satisfaction for fault or for punishment.” He speaks still more openly (ch. 13 of the same book): “Although the opinion of Thomas, Durandus, Paludanus, and others may be very probable—namely, that we do not make satisfaction rightly through works otherwise owed—nevertheless the opinion of Hadrian and Cajetan is not improbable, namely, that one can make satisfaction through works otherwise owed because the satisfaction we render to God pertains not only to justice but also to friendship.” (Why, then, does he distinguish here between the reforming of friendship and the restoring of justice?) Again: “Here Basil very openly acknowledges that satisfaction should be completely worthy and demands proportionality with the sin so that the offense is truly compensated through it” (De poenit., bk. 4, ch. 9).
(9) If we are reconciled to God through our own satisfactions, we are no longer justified freely by faith without works.
(10) But the “first lie” of this entire debate about satisfaction must be noted. As is clear from Biel (Sent., 3, dist. 19, art. 3, dub. 2), some of the Scholastics argue that through Christ’s Passion we are freed in this way: “The will of Christ according to His humanity, electing to die voluntarily and elicited from such a great love, pleased God more than the sins of all people displeased Him because of Christ’s very acceptable work which He offered to the Trinity for the reconciliation of the human race, so that the Trinity remitted sin to all who have been incorporated into Christ,” etc. From this it is clear that they do not set the foundation and worth of the satisfaction performed by Christ in the infinity of His person and in an infinite power and efficacy of merit formally inhering in Him and completely satisfying divine justice, but rather in the acceptation of divine mercy, by which God considered Christ’s Passion, which came out of His very great love, pleasing and acceptable. From this they draw the further conclusion that also our works, which proceed from love, are satisfactory, though in a lower degree. We have shown the falsity of this hypothesis in our treatise On the Person and Office of Christ ([1610 Loci Theologici, locus 7], §§ 165ff.). Our Mediator had to be God and man to pay a sufficient ransom for our sins and in this way to be able to satisfy the justice of God.
Thomas ([ST,] part 3, q. 46, art. 2) argues that “God can remit sins to man without satisfaction since He has no one superior to Himself.” And yet God is merciful in such a way that He is also just at the same time. Mercy does not exclude eternal justice in Him. Therefore as long as divine justice is preserved, man could not be forgiven his sin without an equivalent price in the judgment of God. For this reason Cyril concludes (Thesaurus, bk. 1, ch. 7): “Only the incarnation and Passion of the Son of God could have been the means and remedy for our liberation.”
Durandus (Sent., 4, dist. 15) tries to prove that Christ could not have made satisfaction according to the strict rigor of divine justice. He uses two arguments. First: “Whatever there was in Christ according to His human nature was obliged and owed to God. Therefore it could not have been worthy satisfaction for any sin by considering the nature of the work or the thing, but could only have been satisfaction according to His free acceptance.” (We respond. Christ completed the works of a Mediator according to both natures; therefore they are not merely works of a human nature but are the actions and sufferings of the subject [suppositum]. Again, it is doubtless clear that this is denied for the sake of laying the foundation of making our own satisfaction. For if Christ makes satisfaction as a just man but not as the God-man, then just men will be able to make satisfaction.)
Second: “The Passion of Christ was not of the exact quantity as the hellish punishment owed for sins; therefore it was satisfaction by way of [God’s] acceptance but not by way of the rigor of justice.” (We respond. In His very own soul Christ felt truly hellish pains, as we showed in its own place [§§ 118–20; cf. On Justification through Faith (Commonplace XIX), §§ 31–63; On the Person and Office of Christ (1625 Exegesis, Commonplace IV), § 197]. Yet though an infinity of time or an eternity is not involved in those pains, the infinity of His person produces infinite power and efficacy for that satisfaction.)
Biel (Sent., 3, dist. 20, q. 1) argues against Anselm that it was not simply necessary that the Son of God become incarnate and die to redeem the human race, since He could have helped the leprous humanity by other ways and means. He says: “God could have remitted sins through nonimputation alone. He could have made satisfaction through someone else; and anyone could have made satisfaction for himself, if first grace had been given without merit,” etc. All of these ideas arise from this: the rigor of God’s justice is not being considered; they significantly obscure the magnitude of the very great and indescribable benefit that the Son of God came down from heaven and was made man for us and for our salvation; and they are preparing the way for our own satisfactions.