Sect. 194Holiness of the Human Will of ChristHoliness of the Human Will of Christ
I. As the outpouring of grace on the human intellect of Christ filled it from the beginning with heavenly light, so the effusion of grace on His human will filled this with heavenly warmth, i.e. with supernatural power and inclination to all that is morally good, and especially with the sublimest and most ardent love of God, immensely above that of all Saints and Angels. His exalted Holiness was complete from the first: not subject to increase, or change, or loss, or interruption. Such is the perfection of the holiness which the Saints acquire through the Beatific Vision; to the soul of Christ the highest degree of the same moral perfection is natural. For the plenitude of all grace (gratia consummata) belongs to it by reason of its substantial union with the Logos: in fact, its Holiness is but the Holiness of a Divine Person in His human nature. Again, the love of self, the most natural of all tendencies, is, in the soul of Christ, the love of God—the love of the Logos for Himself. And as all holiness or moral perfection resolves itself into love of God, it follows that holiness in Christ is not dependent on acts of His free will, but is as necessary and natural as the act by which He loves Himself. All the holy actions of His soul were but manifestations of the natural love which God the Son bears to God the Father.
II. Christ’s holiness shines forth most conspicuously in His sinlessness and impeccability. He is “a high-priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Heb. 7:26; cf. 9:14, and 4:15). He is the “Holy” born of the Holy Ghost, without original sin (Luke 1:35). Holy Scripture repeatedly asserts the fact that Christ is without sin, but it nowhere distinctly sets forth His impeccability or inability to commit sin. Tradition, however, is unanimous on this point, which was settled when the Sixth General Council (Third of Constantinople) defined that the human will of Christ cannot be opposed to His Divine will. Christ cannot sin, because He is God. All His actions are the actions of a Divine Person. The Logos controls all the motions of His human soul: to permit a sin in it would be tantamount to committing sin Himself. Again, the soul of Christ has no independent self; it cannot be conceived as acting away from God: hence it lacks the first condition of sin. It also lacks the fundamental form of all sin, viz. love of self as opposed to love of God, for in Christ self-love is Divine Love. These considerations show that Christ’s impeccability is a “metaphysical impossibility to commit sin,” more perfect, therefore, than the physical impossibility to sin granted by the Beatific Vision, or the moral impossibility granted in this life to Saints “confirmed in grace.” Although Christ’s impeccability is grounded on the Hypostatic Union, it is worked or brought about by means of the fulness of His grace.
III. As Christ cannot commit sin, He cannot be tempted from within. When Scripture speaks of the temptations of Christ, it deals with external occasions of practising some virtue, e.g. patience; or with challenges to sin which were temptations only in the mind of those who proposed them.
IV. The perfection of the human will of Christ may be summed up in its conformity with the Divine will: Christ wills all things that God wills and wishes Him to will; and Christ wills them because such is the will of God: “I do always the things that please Him” (John 8:29). In technical terms, the will of Christ is materially and formally conform to the will of God. The ground of this conformity lies in this, that the two wills belong to the same Person Who effectively rules His human by His Divine will. Then His Self-love implies Love of the Divine Person and pleasure in all the dispositions of the Divine will. As the will of the Logos is conform to that of the Father by identity, so the human will of the Son of God is conform to the same by filial submission. See St. Bonaventure, in 3, dist. 17, a. 1, q. 3.
V. Not only actual sin, but all moral imperfection, and whatever may imply a moral stain, is incompatible with the Holiness of Christ. For this reason alone original sin could not have touched Him, even if He had not been exempted from it by His supernatural origin. The exclusion of original sin from Christ, in the sense of the Church, implies the exclusion of all its evil consequences, the full possession of original justice, and especially freedom from the law of concupiscence (fomes peccati). See St. Thomas, 3. q. 15.
I. As the outpouring of grace on the human intellect of Christ filled it from the beginning with heavenly light, so the effusion of grace on His human will filled this with heavenly warmth, i.e. with supernatural power and inclination to all that is morally good, and especially with the sublimest and most ardent love of God, immensely above that of all Saints and Angels. His exalted Holiness was complete from the first: not subject to increase, or change, or loss, or interruption. Such is the perfection of the holiness which the Saints acquire through the Beatific Vision; to the soul of Christ the highest degree of the same moral perfection is natural. For the plenitude of all grace (gratia consummata) belongs to it by reason of its substantial union with the Logos: in fact, its Holiness is but the Holiness of a Divine Person in His human nature. Again, the love of self, the most natural of all tendencies, is, in the soul of Christ, the love of God—the love of the Logos for Himself. And as all holiness or moral perfection resolves itself into love of God, it follows that holiness in Christ is not dependent on acts of His free will, but is as necessary and natural as the act by which He loves Himself. All the holy actions of His soul were but manifestations of the natural love which God the Son bears to God the Father.
II. Christ’s holiness shines forth most conspicuously in His sinlessness and impeccability. He is “a high-priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Heb. 7:26; cf. 9:14, and 4:15). He is the “Holy” born of the Holy Ghost, without original sin (Luke 1:35). Holy Scripture repeatedly asserts the fact that Christ is without sin, but it nowhere distinctly sets forth His impeccability or inability to commit sin. Tradition, however, is unanimous on this point, which was settled when the Sixth General Council (Third of Constantinople) defined that the human will of Christ cannot be opposed to His Divine will. Christ cannot sin, because He is God. All His actions are the actions of a Divine Person. The Logos controls all the motions of His human soul: to permit a sin in it would be tantamount to committing sin Himself. Again, the soul of Christ has no independent self; it cannot be conceived as acting away from God: hence it lacks the first condition of sin. It also lacks the fundamental form of all sin, viz. love of self as opposed to love of God, for in Christ self-love is Divine Love. These considerations show that Christ’s impeccability is a “metaphysical impossibility to commit sin,” more perfect, therefore, than the physical impossibility to sin granted by the Beatific Vision, or the moral impossibility granted in this life to Saints “confirmed in grace.” Although Christ’s impeccability is grounded on the Hypostatic Union, it is worked or brought about by means of the fulness of His grace.
III. As Christ cannot commit sin, He cannot be tempted from within. When Scripture speaks of the temptations of Christ, it deals with external occasions of practising some virtue, e.g. patience; or with challenges to sin which were temptations only in the mind of those who proposed them.
IV. The perfection of the human will of Christ may be summed up in its conformity with the Divine will: Christ wills all things that God wills and wishes Him to will; and Christ wills them because such is the will of God: “I do always the things that please Him” (John 8:29). In technical terms, the will of Christ is materially and formally conform to the will of God. The ground of this conformity lies in this, that the two wills belong to the same Person Who effectively rules His human by His Divine will. Then His Self-love implies Love of the Divine Person and pleasure in all the dispositions of the Divine will. As the will of the Logos is conform to that of the Father by identity, so the human will of the Son of God is conform to the same by filial submission. See St. Bonaventure, in 3, dist. 17, a. 1, q. 3.
V. Not only actual sin, but all moral imperfection, and whatever may imply a moral stain, is incompatible with the Holiness of Christ. For this reason alone original sin could not have touched Him, even if He had not been exempted from it by His supernatural origin. The exclusion of original sin from Christ, in the sense of the Church, implies the exclusion of all its evil consequences, the full possession of original justice, and especially freedom from the law of concupiscence (fomes peccati). See St. Thomas, 3. q. 15.
Seção 66% da obra, de A Manual of Catholic Theology (Wilhelm & Scannell, sobre a Dogmatik de Scheeben). Ver o original.