Benedicamus Domino

I’m very sorry about this. I’ve asked the St. Blog’s folks for a “Printer Friendly Version” function on this site. The reply was that they are working on developing one. Unfortunately, I’m limitted to the functionality they offer.

There are two workarounds. One is to click on the “Share This” link at the bottom. The file you get will be like a printer friendly version. Your other option is to copy and paste the text from the posting to a word processor and print it from there. (I’ve done this before on sites without printer friendly versions. It’s an easy workaround.)

Still, I hope to get this fixed. God bless you and may Our Lady watch over you.

First, grace is a free gift. Though it is a fulfillment of that for which we were created, it is gratuitous. As I pointed out in the body of the paper, for God to refrain from actualizing a potentiality in our nature (our being”capax Dei”) is entirely just. To argue that God has to fulfill this potency would terminate in Universal Salvation, one of the banes of modern theology.

Second, the “natural happiness,” which I believe is totally compatible with the state of infants in Limbo, is not a fulfillment of our final end. It misses the mark. It is a happiness such as we can have in this life, but without interruption or admixture of suffering — except some minimal suffering of the pain of loss, which must be there as Limbo is essentially hell. So you are right, there would be a real pain and deprivation, but we could liken this to a really good day in our earthly lives, which still has some sort of pain and deprivation, and which is “hellish” compared to the Beatific Vision.

(The Augustinians, by the way, thought the Jesuits were crazy when they speculated thus about Limbo being so “happy,” but the Thomists generally agreed with the Jesuits. The Church always maintained the right of the Augustinians to defend their view, namely, that unbaptized infants suffered the pain of sense as well as the pain of loss. They rejected Limbo, but not for the same reason the neo-modernists on the ITC did!)

Third, te question about St. John’s phrase — “this is the true light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world” — involves digging into the different layers of meaning in that utterance. We are inclined to take this as a supernatural enlightenment, since that is the way we generally use the word “enlighten” in a religious or theological sense. However, one sense in which St. John doubtless meant the phrase — and some of the Church Fathers certainly saw it — is that the Logos is the principle of reason in the world. When we use our minds correctly, philosophically (naturally), we are able to so so because we have been “enlightened” by reason. The order of redemption (the supernatural order) follows the order of creation (the natural order). We were created by and through the Logos and we were redeemed by and through the Logos (check Colossians 1, the Epistle for the traditional Feast of Christ the King). Many of the early Fathers, especially those of Platonic bent, were inclined to see the Divine Logos as the principle of all reason in the world. It would not be a stretch to say that St. John’s thinking was along these lines, at least in part.

One reason we can be sure that the phrase cannot always mean that all men are actually (effectively) enlightened supernaturally is because such an enlightenment would necessarily entail the virtue of faith, which not all men have.

I hope these thoughts help. God bless and Happy Feast of All Saints!