RTS Papers / Summer 2017
Substance and Signs in the Sentences of Peter Lombard
THE INCARNATION (OF THE WORD) BRIDGES SIGN AND SUBSTANCE
In his book On Christian Doctrine, Augustine adds a third concept to signa and res, and that is verbum — the word. To Augustine every word is a sign, though not every sign is a word. Now a word is a dumb, mute thing if it does not act as a lens to the thing it represents. If we get it right, a word is a clearer sign. So human words are analogous to the divine Word. As human images of God are a clearer sign of God than anything else in creation, so The Image that is the Word is clearest of all: “If you have seen me you have seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9).
1. The nature of the Incarnation
Peter argues that it is more fitting that the Son was sent rather than the Father and Spirit (d.1). It is because he is the Wisdom of the gospel, that he who would be a son in humanity already be the Son in divinity. The Father and Spirit could have taken on flesh but did not. Only the Son incarnated, yet the whole Trinity worked in and through the Incarnation. This fitting nature of the Son in the Trinity being a son in the gospel has implications for the whole work of his flesh. It is not that the human nature is a “mere sign,” but that the flesh is preceded by the Word so that the flesh manifests the Word. It does more than this, but it does not do less.
Divinity and humanity are two perfect and whole substances (d.2). Christ is unique in his two natures. All other humans have a dual nature, namely of a body and a soul, but with Christ it is above and beyond this, while including the whole of this. He cites Augustine against the Docetic error. So in a more distant sense, there is a dual nature of human beings that may form a simple analogy of the dual nature of Christ, but it is crucial to let the analogy be limited. While Christ is Word and flesh, the human nature is not mere body but the whole of the human nature. Consequently, in conceiving of Lombard’s Christology setting up the Word and flesh as substance and sign, this is meant in a very restricted sense. Given that the humanity of Christ is united to the divine essence, the point is not that the flesh is merely a sign. Such an idea may be one step short of Docetism. It is a matter of order.
The primary truth about that order has to do with the difference between person and nature. Peter asks whether a person took on a person, or a nature a nature, or a person a nature, or a nature a person. The answer is that a person took on a nature [III.18]. But whether a nature also took on a nature, the Catholic authorities were at odds with each other and even themselves! Augustine said that a nature took on a nature. The Word did not take a human person, there being no such person yet; so such a human soul never existed apart from the union. There are many easy mistakes to make concerning the substance of the natures. Some will speak of the Word as one thing, man as another; God as one substance, man as another [III.33]. A composite nature cannot be homoousia with either nature from which it is composed. The most concise formula correcting the diverse views is that in Christ, the Son of God is “both and one person” [III.35].
If the most controversial question of Peter’s in his time was whether Christ is “a person or anything,” what might be equally surprising to us is to ask: Is Christ then a creature? Christ as the Son of God was not made, but eternally begotten. Thus because of the unity of the Person, the Christ was not created, as John says, that “all things were made through him” (Jn. 1:3).
That Christ is called a creature with regard to his humanity is no evidence for Arianism. The flesh per se was created at a point in time, yet the appellation “Christ” signifies the Person proper. What about Christ the Man? Did he begin to be? Augustine said “insofar as he is man, he is also made” [III.16; Augustine, Enchiridion, c38], and Peter adds, “that man, insofar as he is a man, had a beginning; insofar as he was the Word, he always was” [III.47].
As the Incarnation was by grace alone, Jesus could have taken the form of a stock other than Adam, but chose it expedient to conquer sin from “within” the same race. Being God he was not able to sin, yet “there is need to distinguish whether we are talking about the person or the nature” [III.48]. Then a further distinction needs to be made, for even though the human nature per se can sin, nevertheless the Son of God was never the human nature per se, but is rather the human nature always united to the Word.
He is not an adopted Son in any manner, since he “was never not a Son” [III.42] — not adopted but yet “a son by grace” must refer to his being the “son of man.” He is the divine Son by nature, while we become sons by grace. Adoptionism may be conceived as a heresy based on a misinterpretation of either the sign of sonship or the sign of sequence. Whether it was at the nativity, the baptism, or the Mount of Transfiguration, or at the ascension to the throne, or wherever else this heresy conceives Christ “becoming” the Son, the word that “today I have begotten you” (Ps. 2:7) is misapplied. This tells us that signs can be misunderstood because their words are misread. The words may be clear in themselves but our minds unclear.
Then there is the manner of his conception and birth. The Immaculate Conception and Mary’s subsequent sinlessness are seen by Lombard as substance more than a sign (d.3). Two items are being protected by this notion. First, there is the obvious attempt to ground the sinless nature of Jesus; second, there is the less obvious explanation. Following Augustine, what makes the conception immaculate and Christ’s humanity pure, was specifically the lack of lust in the procreative act (d.3). Because “the Holy Spirit is the charity and gift of Father and Son,” it was fitting that the Son was conceived by him (d.4).
There are further questions regarding the union of the natures. In what sense does God share in that which is human? In other words, how proper is it to speak of the human attributes as predicates of the divine? Can this be done without confusing the human with the divine. Peter tackles the most thorny cases. Can we say that the divine was born or has blood? (d.8) Should the divine nature be said to be born of a virgin? In the same way that God purchased the church with “his own blood” (Acts 20:28); so if the human nature entered the womb, and if the divine person is united to the human nature, it must follow that the divine was born — if meant in this way. But surely we cannot say that the divine nature was born. He quotes John of Damascus on the two-fold "birth" of Christ. This cannot mean that the Son of God was “born twice” in the same way. Was then the birth of Jesus to Mary a sign of being eternally begotten of his Father? This would be the more reasonable way to think of it. The Son was begotten in two senses: one eternally and the other temporally, the latter being a sign of the former.
2. The reason for the Incarnation
Since the whole human nature was corrupted by sin, Christ took on the whole of humanity (d.2). Peter speaks of what modern theologians have called the humiliation of Christ. The “form of” God took on the “form of” a servant (d.5). The humble servant form that Jesus took was a sign of what Peter had already said about why man had a greater dignity than the angels. He served God with body and soul in this world of temptation.
The “likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3) refers to its ability to suffer and die. Christ took on a whole human nature capable of suffering — flesh that could suffer and a soul that could suffer. This includes the defects of a soul like sadness, fear, and pain; though not fault. If a degree of ignorance is natural to man, is this a defect? No. Whatever defects he took on were taken on willingly and not of “the necessity of his condition” [III.59]. A passible humanity was taken in a way so that his divine impassibility remained unchanged.
The ground of justification, for Lombard, is a cross that influences us with the love of God, thereby causing us to love him and so forth. If left to itself this would be the Moral Influence theory of the Atonement and consequently the worst part of Lombard’s theology of signs.
The sign most misread by this master of signs is that gospel message which Christ would never have given to us. In the name of love, be justified! And it is pure command. The one so affected must now act in such a way as to contribute to his justification. But then a possible qualification comes in to save. Peter also adds that “if we look with right faith upon” [III.78] Christ crucified, then we are justified. He places them side by side, the true doctrine with the exceedingly insufficient.
Christ alone is called Mediator, and that according to his humanity, because both positively (obedience) and negatively (punishment), it took a Man to substitute for mankind. But we know that Lombard is not qualifying the moral influence by the faith alone because he heads the second section with the words “We are also said to be justified by Christ’s death in another way” [III.78].
Could he not have saved us in some other way? If so, why in this way? Nothing so shows us the love of God, as the triumph of righteousness (not mere power). In other words, while it would have been just to defeat the devil by power alone, yet it was “the righteousness of humility” [III.85] that put more of Christ on display. Here is the whole gospel acting as a sign. “And so Christ is the priest, as he is also the victim and the price of our reconciliation. He offered himself on the altar of the cross not to the devil, but to the triune God, and he did so for all with regard to the sufficiency of the price, but only for the elect with regard to its efficacy, because he brought about salvation only for the predestined” [III.86]. Perhaps it could be said in these words: God’s way of putting the maximal amount of divine attributes on display in his manner of salvation is good news.
3. Implications of the Incarnation
Peter draws yet another link to the sacrament, this one being nearer to the gospel than what he has said previously about man and woman in the original state. The “sacrament” (signa) and “the thing of the sacrament” (res) comes up here in Distinction 6. The “Church’s sacrifice,” as a unified thing, is held out as an analogy to the unified Son of God [III.27]. The person of Christ becomes part of the gospel.
Some things about Christ are made manifest for us. For example, Christ is predestined insofar as humanity is concerned (d.7). Christ made progress in his wisdom and grace (d.13). In Gethsemane, Christ took on the “manner” of doubt to us (d.17). And that he is given a name above every name is also a sign (d.18). In each of these, we see varying degrees of attributes of Christ which cannot be said to be essential to the eternal Son of God. Was it, as Augustine said [III.75; Contra Maximinum, bk 2 c2], the name given to his humanity which was already given to him as God? This is central to Peter’s theology of signs. This thing was “made manifest” here and not ultimately made. The most substantive things of God are not made. Whatever seems to be, and yet contradict this, are made manifest. It is further asked whether Christ could have these things without meriting them? Not being a passible man, Lombard says. By the merit of his passion, he accomplishes these and more for us.
The progress of Jesus in his wisdom and grace is noteworthy in this respect. Some object that he could not have had the fullness dwelling bodily if he also had to progress. Clearly they do not make a distinction between the natures. He cites approvingly Gregory in resolving the tension in this way: that the fullness of grace was in Christ from birth, and that his growth “was in others, not in himself” [III.51], so for the sake of onlookers and the future faithful. Ambrose asked, “How did the wisdom of God make progress?” [III.51; Ambrose, De incarnationes dominicae sacramento, c7 nn71-72] There is a twofold sense of the wisdom of Christ—namely, that which is eternally begotten and that which he is wise by a freely given wisdom: i. e. that in which the human Christ progresses. Peter says that here that the Church “does not accept” that the infant knew not his father or mother [III.53]. So the final answer is that this progress was a sign for the contemplation of men.
Christ’s humanity is properly an object of adoration as much as his divinity because of the union of one Person (d.9). This has implications for the questions of the Lord's Supper and of depicting Jesus in art, especially for religious use. At this point he makes a distinction between the concepts of latria and dulia: the former being that worship reserved for the Creator alone, the latter being a service rendered either to human beings or else to the human nature of Christ. “But,” he points out, “it pleases others that Christ’s humanity is to be adored in one adoration with the Word: not for its own sake, but for the sake of him whose foot-stool it is, to whom it is united” [III.39]. In the midst of the debate over the Second Commandment and images of Christ, is this rationale different than icons as the books of the unlearned?
4. Faith, Hope, and Love
Granted that this section is not meant to be epistemology in the modern sense of that study. However, since this writing clearly stands within the “faith seeking understanding” tradition, a few observations can be made. Both the objects and the instruments for faith become signs. There is the supernatural substance of what has happened (e. g. redemption or resurrection) and the phenomenological thing that has been witnessed (e. g. the crucifixion or empty tomb).
The thing witnessed is often the substance. But the more eternal effect is also often more substantial. So there are the objects of faith; but there are also its instruments in the faculties of the believer. Our senses, flowing through time and space, are not to be confused with our reason, and none of these things of ours are to be confused with revelation. Some things must be believed before they are understood, while nearly all things must be understood in some way before belief [III.105].
Words like “reason” or “understand” can be used in an equivocal manner and pit against faith. This can be done by either a fideist or a rationalist. The assumption seems to be that faith and reason are competing for the same task. This is a category mistake that the Augustinian tradition, to which Lombard belongs, does not commit.
Jesus said “when it comes to pass” you may believe, but the whole “praise of faith” is that what is not seen is believed [III.103]. Augustine called “faith” in one place what is really “truth,” namely, “of things present: that shall be the case in the future” [III.104 Augustine, Quaestiones Evangeliorum, bk 2 q39]. So the tokens given for faith are signs of truth. Faith is not simply mental assent—as any Jewish bystander understood that the crucifixion was happening—but to “believe that it was God who suffered” [III.104], etc. Faith comes through hearing, but this is more than auditory. That outer hearing is a sign [III.105].
Whereas faith entertains past, present, future, and in a sense, all things, hope concerns only the future good things for one’s self (d.26). In this sense the things of faith are signs for the things of hope, as Abraham had to believe in the resurrection in order to hope that his son would be raised.
Finally he comes to love. It begins in God, as “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8). The charity by which God and neighbor are loved is in Christ and in us. Charity has two commandments in the law — the first and second greatest (cf. Matt 22:36-40). “The love by which God and our neighbor are loved is certainly the same, and it is the Holy Spirit” [III.113-14]. So our love of neighbor is a sign of the triune love. But if they are the same, why does Jesus call them two-fold? Answer. Two diverse objects are loved. This matters because if we love the lower apart from the higher, then we do not love. Even the Golden Rule is a model, as we love ourselves toward our greatest good, so this is the only way to love others. If we love the body at the expense of the soul, we hate the person.
Augustine lists four things to be loved in a very important order: 1. what is above us, God; 2. what is us, ourselves; 3. what is near us, our neighbor; 4. what is below us, the body (d.28). Now our love is not only a sign of the God who is love. We can also see that its proper ordering is a sign of the way God loves. God loves some things more and others less; we must do the same as a sign (d.33). God loves the essence of God first, the image of God second, and the rest of creation afterwards.
God’s love is immutable. The works of God pleased him no more or less, before or after he made them. That is because he perfectly loves that which he plans to do, and he loves what plans because he plans according to who he is. As to those things outside of himself he loves some for greater goods and uses, others less for lesser goods and uses. God’s love is to be considered in two ways: according to its essence and its efficacy. For example if we ask whether someone can be loved by God more at one time than another, “if it refers to the working of love, it may be granted; but if to the essence of love, then it is to be denied” [III.134]. He loved the reprobate only insofar as they were his work, his image; yet we may say of the elect that he loved them with a special love from all eternity.
It was said by way of introduction that everyone who enjoys also uses; but not everyone who uses also enjoys. Even of man, we enjoy others not as ends in themselves, but only as they are in God. The same is true of God’s use of us. He loves to make all people because of their use in signifying his common graces, but he loves to make the elect new people because of their use in signifying his more special grace. This is instructive for us. Since we are made for heaven, we are to use that which aids in gaining that end. It is not even enough to love the spiritual principle above the bodily. The spirit may be evil. One must love the Godward person or else he or she will be loved less. Any sinner, for example, is to be loved for God’s sake and that he is an image of God, not that he is a sinner. In one sense, all are to be loved equally, but there “is some difference in the doing of it” [III.122].
5. Virtue and the Law
Are the four classical, cardinal virtues pagan signs of true godliness or fruits of the Spirit? Augustine’s gives his definitions: “Justice consists in helping the wretched, prudence in guarding against treacheries, fortitude in bearing troubles, temperance in controlling evil pleasures” [III.135]. These each begin in the mind. These each can be used with an aim to the future state — so they can be Christianized? There are seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Are these gifts virtues, will they cease in the future, and are all in Christ? Lombard’s answers will tell us whether God has used pagan signs for Christian virtues. … The six other fruits (virtues) of the Spirit are signs of love, as love fulfills the whole law and binds all these together (cf. Rom. 13:8, 10, Col. 3:14).
The whole of the Ten Commandments is “contained” in the two commandments of charity. So naturally there are two tables of the law, one dealing immediately with God and the other the image of God. So the objects of the second table are a sign of the Object of the first (d.37). As an obvious case in point, the earthly father is a type of our heavenly Father.
The threefold kind of lying, following Augustine: 1. for the advantage of another, without malice; 2. for amusement; 3. with malignity and duplicity. All have fault, the third far more than the other two. In his book On Lying, Augustine actually broke lying down into eight. But the essence of a lie is a fraudulent sign: “A lie is a false signification of speech with the intent of deceiving” [III.158; Augustine, Contra mendacium, c21 n26]. Is what we mean by “sign” sometimes really just more like a symptom, or species, or extension? For example, Peter brings in perjury? This is a lie confirmed by an oath [III.161]. Of oaths it is sometimes evil to swear, but sometimes not. Stealing is the extension of coveting, from the heart to the hands. So is adultery.
I must admit to disagreeing with Augustine and Peter on elements of their view of the guilt of lawbreaking, assuming they have been understood, and that disagreement being from a more covenantal ethical proposal. Lying and theft admit of nuance, not because “lying” or “theft” are ever anything but themselves, but that they often exist in a matrix of good and evil ends, arranged in such a hierarchy, where to do otherwise would be more dastardly than to do. Truth-telling and property-protecting are covenantal acts, such that the individual or group that violently removes themselves from the covenant is, to that extent, less privy to the duties normally owed to members. Rahab hiding the spies in the Bible and those hiding Jews in Nazi Germany are classic examples that make this point.
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