Cajetan’s Harp: Sacraments and the Life of Grace in Light of Perfective Instrumentality

65 The Thomist 78 (2014): 65-106 CAJETAN’S HARP: SACRAMENTS AND THE LIFE OF GRACE IN LIGHT OF PERFECTIVE INSTRUMENTALITY REGINALD M. LYNCH, O.P. Pontifical College Josephinum Columbus, Ohio T IS NO LONGER common to hear discussion of the sacraments as causes in theological circles.1 Where the concept does resonate, moreover, it may well be associated only with a bygone theological era, in which topics like “sacramental causality” might have seemed to be little more than fodder for neo-Scholastic polemics. Upon closer examination , however, the teaching of the authentic Thomistic commentatorial tradition may be seen to represent a long and painstaking engagement with the texts of Aquinas, which has at once yielded both disagreement and deeper penetration of the mystery of sacra doctrina. Despite the ditch of history that may seem to separate the classical Thomistic commentators from modern concerns, the sapiential nature of the Thomistic project renders the fruit of their inquiry still ripe, with as much to say in the present as in the past. This study concerns a particular moment within this commentatorial tradition in which a shift—or rather a development—in Thomistic doctrine can be observed in progress . As I will show, this development does not represent a departure from the thought of the Angelic Doctor, but rather parallels a development within the texts of Aquinas himself. Specifically, I will examine the doctrine of Thomas de Vio 1 A happy exception can be found in Romanus Cessario, “Sacramental Causality: Da Capo!” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Catholic Theology, Washington, D.C., May 22-24, 2012). I 66 REGINALD M. LYNCH, O.P. Cajetan on sacramental causality as an interpretation of Aquinas’s later thought (as expressed in the Summa Theologiae). Unlike his Thomistic predecessors, Cajetan argued that the sacraments are instrumental efficient causes in a true and unqualified sense, able to cause even supernatural effects because of the power of the God who wields them. Although eventually adopted by the vast majority of Thomists, Cajetan’s doctrine of perfective instrumental causality met with some initial disagreement within the Thomistic school. The implications of Cajetan’s interpretation will be unfolded first by examining the doctrinal disagreement on this subject between Cajetan and Sylvester de Ferrara, who represents the older Thomistic commentatorial tradition on this matter. Close attention will be paid to the role played by the doctrine of grace in this disagreement.2 Focusing on this moment of development within the commentators highlights both the underlying textual development within the works of Aquinas and the value of Cajetan’s work as an interpretation of Aquinas within the context of the broader Thomistic tradition. Following this, we will examine the implications of Cajetan’s doctrine for contemporary sacramental theology in light of the doctrine of sacraments as signs, comparing Cajetan’s integrated approach to the signate and causal dimensions of sacramentality with that of Louis-Marie Chauvet, for whom the categories of sign and cause are necessarily opposed.3 I. A COMMENTATORIAL DISPUTE A) Cajetan In question 62 of the Tertia Pars of the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas describes the sacraments as instrumental causes of 2 The importance of grace in the context of sacramental causality is accurately described by J. Gallagher. See John F. Gallagher, Significando Causant: a Study of Sacramental Efficiency, Studia Fribugensia New Series 40 (Fribourg: The University Press, 1965), 138-41, et al. 3 See Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence, trans. Patrick Madigan and Madeleine Beaumont (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1995), 9-36, et al. See note 103. CAJETAN’S HARP 67 grace, which is the final end of the sacraments.4 He teaches that where instrumental causality of this kind is concerned, the effect is properly attributed not to the instrument, but to the principal agent whose intended finality governs and directs the movement of that same instrument towards an end. Aquinas views the relationship of the instrumental efficient cause to the finality of the principal agent as a kind of analogical participation.5 The sacraments are real instrumental causes, yet because grace is understood most fundamentally as a participation in the divine nature, the effect...