Salvation, Redemption, and the Primacy of Christ

Though Bonaventure did not actually subscribe to the absolute primacy of Jesus "ante constitutionem mundi," nonetheless his presentation of "coredemption" a parte rei radically subordinates redemption to the Incarnation willed for its own sake, and implies in the Virgin Mother a unique sanctity enabling Her to act as Coredemptrix in the "objective redemption," or "redemptio ad sufficientiam." Her redemption, contrasted with ours, is simply preservative, and is the key to defining redemption as liberative. It is the sanctity of God revealed in Christ and Mary, not sin, which is the starting point for defining what is the Redemption which actually took place, and why preservative redemption is intrinsically related to our solidarity with Adam, for better (original justice) or worse (original sin). Even if Adam had not sinned, our justice and sanctity would have been mediated by Mary as our Mediatrix with the "new Adam." She is Mediatrix because Virgin Earth or Immaculate,¹ just as Her Son is first Mediator because absolutely predestined, and Redeemer only secondarily.

Very briefly put: the means of our liberation from sin by Christ is Mary's mediation as Coredemptrix. Her redemption, therefore, cannot merely be an exceptional form of liberation: not from sin, but only from the debitum peccati. Her redemption is preservative prior to any consideration of "deliverance from moral servitude," or there is no redemption or liberation for anyone at all. Hence, Her perfect redemption must not first be defined in reference to Adam's moral headship, but only to that of Christ as in the eternal counsels of God. Mary, in this sense, is a daughter of Adam, yet in the moral order, Adam (and all his children) are dependent on Mary and, through Her, on Christ. This is the truest form of redemption and hence, the basis for the most perfect redemption from sin in everyone else redeemed. For this reason, Immaculate Conception is intrinsically related to original sin, not because as Immaculate She still, in some way, comes under the debitum peccati, having sinned in Adam, but because Her justice, as Immaculate, transcends the original justice of Adam and so is basis for both the original justice of Adam and Eve and for the liberation of the rest of their children from the state of original sin and slavery.

Redemption, therefore, is not fully defined as liberation from sin or the debt to contract original sin and from its consequences, such as slavery, death, etc., but liberation from sin by Christ through the preservation of His Mother from being included under the headship of Adam. Such preservation, through the foreseen merits of Her Son and Savior, is the antecedent elevation of Mary from creaturely nothingness, to the most exalted holiness possible to a created person, prior to any consideration of Her dependence on Adam. This preservation is indeed an exemption from being included under the moral headship of Adam and, for this, Mary is more indebted to Christ than any other creature. This is the "lowliness" (cf. Lk 1: 48) so pleasing to the divine Persons, more than sufficient to account for Her "subordination" to Her Son and Savior and for His willingness to be dependent on Her. But the exemption in question is not an exception from contracting, but the consequence of a more perfect moral state which may be said to define Her entire person, and not merely the first moment of Her existence.

The Immaculate Conception cannot be understood apart from this reference-as it is in all theories which are tinged by the views of Pelagius-for it is intrinsic to Her person as solely under the headship of Christ, potentially or actually perfect Redeemer. Hence, like Adam and Eve, Christ and Mary are totally public persons in the economy of salvation, in the words of St. Bonaventure, sharing the patriarchatus or headship lost by the first couple.² In the view of Scotus, all others depend on Christ and Mary in that perfect economy of salvation, both before, as well as after the fall. For the economy, based on original justice, was subordinate qua type to that based on the order of the hypostatic union, viz., on the justice proper to the grace of the hypostatic union and to the grace of the Immaculate Conception.

1.4 This is a very important point, unfortunately obscured by two superficial objections: therefore, Christ's work as Redeemer would not have been 1) all sufficient without Mary, nor 2) would He have been universal Redeemer.

The first is the basis of the Protestant solus Christus unus Mediator, to which the door is opened when, in spite of the Immaculate Conception, a "debt to sin" is ascribed to the Virgin Mother. Were we to pursue the logic of the objection, the Creator in creating would have revealed his imperfection and radical insufficiency. In fact, whatever world God creates, however limited, the Creator remains all good and all sufficient. So the love of the Incarnate Savior, as such, does not increase by suffering, or by working the most perfect redemption.

As to the second, the universality of redemption, it is a matter of question whether one may affirm it absolutely, and then immediately exclude the angels, who could only be redeemed preservatively. If it means anything at all, the decree of Trent, excluding Mary from the universality of original sin, surely relativizes this universality insofar as redemption is defined as liberation from original sin. As understood by the Scotistic theologians who contributed so much to the formulation of this "exemption," it is a privilege, not to be understood as separating Mary from everyone else without any relation to being saved redemptively, but as a privilege guaranteeing Her unique solidarity with us in view of our perfect redemption, and radical goodness of God in creating man with the possibility of the catastrophe of original sin. This is how Scotus and Scotism differ from Pelagius and all his modern disciples, who hold that the Immaculate Conception is an irrelevant exception, or simply the symbol of the sinlessness of all mankind.

In the light of this consideration, a brief reference here, to the long disputed question about the debitum peccati originalis, is appropriate. From the point of view of those who hold redemption as the primary motive of the Incarnation, it is obvious that if preservative redemption is not a form of liberation from the need (however defined) on the part of Mary to contract original sin as a daughter of Adam, She has no relation to Christ as Redeemer and is in no way indebted to Him for Her salvation, a thesis contrary to faith. Redemption for Her requires an antecedent, potential subjection to the consequences of Adam's sin for all his descendents. On this premise, however, does there remain any realistic difference between liberative and preservative redemption, except the accidental one that Mary did not actually contract original sin? On such grounds, the notion of redemption is strictly univocal, viz., liberation from sin or inclusion in an order of sin.

Scotus does, indeed, seem to refer to preservation from need to contract original sin as a way of relating the Immaculate Conception intrinsically to the work of redemption.³ But what is rarely noted, even by Scotistic commentators, is that Mary's indebtedness to Christ as Her Savior - "His looking on Her lowliness" or Her debitum, is not primarily defined in relation to a daughter of Adam who, in some way, is included in that "sinning of all in Adam," but as a daughter of Adam who, in some real sense, even if not historical, preexisted Adam as the "Virgin Earth" out of which the Creator directly made Adam and then, Eve from Adam-preexisted Adam and Eve in the first decree of God's saving will, predestining Christ and Mary absolutely. Mary's debt to Christ for Her innocence-realized historically by a preservative redemption effecting that paradox which is one person both "mother" and "daughter" of Adam (Daughter of Zion), one person both Mother and daughter of Her divine Son (filia Filii)-is the point of reference for defining redemption: first in terms of preservation and then, analogically, in relation to this preservation as liberative; the first, realizing in the "Full of Grace" what is most perfectly participated in by those freed via the maternal mediation of the Immaculate Coredemptrix qua Immaculate. Mary, in fact, contracts neither the debitum peccati originalis, nor original sin, because She is Immaculate, in a state of justice more perfect than original justice and the holiness of which original justice is an adumbration.

That this explanation of references to a debitum in Scotus corresponds to the thrust of Scotus' logic, is clear from his explanations of how, in fact, original sin is actually contracted.⁴ Geneological descent is a condition, not cause of contraction. Contraction of original sin occurs instead, because the human nature now begotten in each of the offspring of Adam is lacking an element, according to God's will, indispensable for the infusion of sanctifying grace, viz., original justice, and not merely the natural innocence of the will (as Pelagians, paleo and neo- both claim). In Mary, in virtue of the Immaculate Conception, there is already at conception a higher justice, that of the fullness of grace, of holiness, greater than which none can be conceived, and which God alone can grasp:⁵ a holiness which makes Mary not only daughter, but Salvatrix of Adam and Eve. The Immaculate Conception pertains not simply to the first moment of Her existence, as it were, not simply an exception in the normal course of conception after original sin; but it is that which defines Her personhood, both in relation to Christ and to Christians, even apart from any consideration of original and personal sin. With this, the analogical character of the notion of redemption as a possibility in the economy of salvation-and as, in fact, it has occurred-becomes plain, provided one accepts the basic thesis, the absolute primacy of Jesus and Mary as motive of the Incarnation.

1.5 The problem, then, is to determine concretely in what way "being redeemed" in Mary includes a relation to sin, without reducing the Immaculate Conception to a merely special case of liberative redemption, so undermining the basis of co-redemption and so perfect redemption. How can Mary be redeemed without some relation to the state of fallen nature? And how can She truly be Immaculate Coredemptrix if She contracts original sin or is subject to the debt of contracting it? Evidently there is no satisfactory way out of the dilemma without acceptance of the Scotistic thesis on the primary motive of the Incarnation, where redemption is a sub-category of salvation, when it involves all players, in one way or another, in redemption: Redeemer, Coredemptrix, redeemed collaborators. Redemption from sin is subordinated to collaboration in the work of recapitulation of all things under Christ.

Evidently, Christ alone, as man only, redeems and saves and is not redeemed or saved. Those who have sinned, either in Adam or personally, are saved in being redeemed. They cannot take active part in the objective redemption. Mary, however, is unique. Insofar as She is predestined jointly with Christ in virtue of His merits, She is saved and redeemed. But insofar as that redemption is preservative, She cooperates under Christ in the work of objective redemption, or is a cause of our liberative redemption; and insofar as we are in Her as Her children, we can cooperate in the subjective redemption. Her position as our Mediatrix with Christ is unique: both redeemed and redeeming; hence, the basis of Her mediation is Her preservative redemption or Immaculate Conception: not an exception within the definition of redemption as primarily liberative, but an indication of the basic means by which the Redeemer, in fact, effects that liberation.

Mark well: to be under the headship of Adam, a type of that of Christ, no collaboration is necessary on the part of those included. Contrariwise, to be fully recapitulated in Christ requires not only the distinctive work of Christ, and then of Mary, but also our cooperation which, after original and personal sin, requires redemption: liberative dependent on preservative. Only on this basis can we have a balanced view of redemptive mediation: in Christ a pure gift of being predestined absolute Head of creation; in Mary a gift also, but via the satisfactory merits of Christ. To redeem perfectly, one must first be Mediator, and such mediation de facto also includes Mary. Whence Her redemptive preservation through the merits of Christ on the Cross independently of any inclusion under the law of transmission of original sin. Neither is Her immaculate justice dependent on original justice; rather original justice is but a weak reflection of the holiness of the Immaculate Conception.