The good of Good Friday 2: faith and hope

Thomas Aquinas says that the appropriateness of God becoming “incarnate for the restoration of human nature” can be seen, first, from the perspective of our “furtherance in good,” and he names five ways in which that happens.

First, with regard to faith, which is made more certain by believing God Himself Who speaks; hence Augustine says: “In order that man might journey more trustfully toward the truth, the Truth itself, the Son of God, having assumed human nature, established and founded faith.”

Secondly, with regard to hope, which is thereby greatly strengthened; hence Augustine says: “Nothing was so necessary for raising our hope as to show us how deeply God loved us. And what could afford us a stronger proof of this than that the Son of God should become a partner with us of human nature?”

Thirdly, with regard to charity [‘love’], which is greatly enkindled by this; hence Augustine says: “What greater cause is there of the Lord’s coming than to show God’s love for us?”

Then two more.
     Here what have been called the “theological virtues” — that is, the Pauline trio of faith, hope, and love (e.g., 1 Corinthians 13:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:3), which was later often followed in the structuring of catechesis (teaching of the faith to those new to it), including by Augustine and Aquinas. This trio represents, therefore, what is foundational and universally applicable among us. They represent, that is, the constant shape of our Christian lives. And Thomas says that these three things are “made more certain,” “greatly strengthened,” or “greatly enkindled” by the incarnation of God.
     Faith is “made more certain” because it is given an earthly focal point, which is the one man Jesus. Jesus is where our faith in God is centered. Because he is that focal point of our faith in God, the New Testament calls us to faith in that man and makes that specific faith the key to our salvation (e.g., Romans 3:22; 2 Timothy 3:15). Because our faith in God is centered on Jesus, Christians came to understand Jesus as God himself, God the Son of God, God incarnate.
     The incarnation bursts through some borders set up by the Old Testament, which does not tolerate any earthly focal point for faith, least of all a human (Exodus 20:4-6; Isaiah 31:1). And so the place we give to Jesus is an offense to Jews and Muslims (1 Corinthians 1:23), or simply blasphemy (John 10:33). We might respond by thinking of our God as different from God as understood by those relatives of ours in faith, at least in that our God is capable of incarnation. But that would be to begin with the incarnation rather than God, which is not the order followed by the history of God’s dealings with humanity or by the Bible and which for that reason takes away the shock of the incarnation. In some way or other we must first be offended along with other monotheists in order to appreciate just how far God went in reaching out to us. We have to feel the weirdness of it. God set up certain rules for worshippers of him and then apparently broke the rules in order to save us. That is how badly sin alienated us from God and how much God loved us.
     Or in the terms that Thomas borrows from Augustine (City of God 11.2), the incarnation shows how far from the truth we are and how much God wants us to know the truth.
     Similarly, again borrowing from Augustine, “Nothing was so necessary for raising our hope as to show us how deeply God loved us. And what could afford us a stronger proof of this than that the Son of God should become a partner with us of human nature?” (On the Trinity 13). Our appreciation of this proof depends on our understanding of the sheer craziness of the idea of the transcendent God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who began his program for human living with “don’t make any pictures of me” (Exodus 20:4-5), of this God becoming one of us. The one who could not be kept resident in even the biggest and best temple (1 Kings 8:27) came to reside in Nazareth and Capernaum (Luke 4:16; Matthew 4:13). It is crazy, transgressive, even blasphemous by any standard informed by Israel’s Scriptures, but, in Thomas’s terms, fitting and even necessary for our restoration.
     The next installation in this series will look at love. In the meantime, take a look at what else I’ve said about love, beginning with “Love 1: The Original.”

• The good of Good Friday
  1: introduction
  2: faith and hope
  3: and love
  4: doing and being
  5: bodies
  6: humility
  7: brought low and lifted up