Supernatural perfection?

Thomas (ST II-II, 2, 3) asks whether faith is necessary for salvation or the “perfection” of human nature. Citing Hebrews 11:6, he concludes, of course, that faith is necessary, and in the process argues that rational creatures reach perfection not only “in what belongs to it in respect of its nature, but also in that which it acquires through a supernatural participation in Divine goodness.” This seems a very un-de-Lubacian Thomas.

But I think the argument mostly confirms de Lubac.

First, Thomas’s entire argument is about the perfection of rational human nature. The perfection of that nature, of created human existence, is found in participation in God. This seems quite consistent with de Lubac’s claim that Thomas believes in a “natural” inclination and desire for “supernatural” union with God.

Second, and more importantly, the form of Thomas’s argument points away from a sharp nature/supernatural divide. He begins his defense of the necessity of faith with this general comment: “Wherever one nature is subordinate to another, we find that two things concur towards the perfection of the lower nature, one of which is in respect of that nature’s proper movement, while the other is in respect of the movement of the higher nature. Thus water by its proper movement moves towards the centre (of the earth), while according to the movement of the moon, it moves round the centre by ebb and flow.” He also uses the example of planets that by “proper movements” move west to eat, but “in accordance with the movement of the first heaven” move east to west.

Then he explains the force of the analogy: “the created rational nature alone is immediately subordinate to God, since other creatures do not attain to the universal, but only to something particular, while they partake of the Divine goodness either in being only, as inanimate things, or also in living, and in knowing singulars, as plants and animals; whereas the rational nature, in as much as it apprehends the universal notion of good and being, is immediately related to the universal principle of being.” Thus, “the perfection of the rational creature consists not only in what belongs to it in respect of its nature, but also in that which it acquires through a supernatural participation of Divine goodness.”

The analogy is thus: water flowing down v. water ebbing and flowing in response to the moon is like created human nature being and living v. created human nature responsive to and participatory in the goodness of God. The “higher nature” that Thomas refers to is not a higher nature within man, as if man were divided between a natural bit (body) and a supernatural bit (soul). The high nature to which humans are responsive is God, to whom human beings and angels are alone “immediately subordinate.” What “concurs” in the perfection of human beings in relation to God is, on the one hand, the nature of human beings in their “proper movement” and, on the other, that nature moving toward participation in God.

That all sounds very de Lubac. Even so, I’m not sure it’s right. It seems to leave the “nature’s proper movement” somehow detached from movement in response to God. When water flows downhill, it’s not responding to the moon; so (it would seem) when human beings act in their “proper movement” they are not moving in response to God. But there the analogy breaks down, because human beings were created so that the proper movement of their nature is itself not merely “what belongs to it in respect of its nature.” Even the proper movement of its nature is in, through, and to the “higher nature” to which we are created to be responsive.