Salvation, Redemption, and the Primacy of Christ

3.7 Our second theme concerns the correlation between the redemptive work of Christ and his threefold Messianic dignity and role: prophetic (magisterial), sacerdotal, and royal, a dignity and role shared by His Mother, as part of the order of the hypostatic union. In the thrust he gives to the treatment of these three points, he is, in fact, continuing along St. Bonaventure's line of thought in Mariology and ecclesiology.

3.7.1 In the thought of Bonaventure and, before him, St. Francis of Assisi, Mary Mediatrix, together with Christ, occupies a prophetic or magisterial role in relation to the apostles-a specifically mediatory role in the Church in the theological order, particularly evident in the Mystical City of God by the Venerable Mary of Agreda, which can be found at least implicitly in Vatican II, and quite explicitly in John Paul II and Benedict XVI. As in the public ministry of Christ, the exercise of His prophetic or magisterial ministry is a disposition of His listeners and potential believers for the great sacrifice of Calvary; so the prophetic mediation of Mary in the Church and in the hierarchy, first manifested visibly and is now mostly invisible, is a disposition of the entire Church for participating in the Eucharist and contributing to the realization of Christ's kingly rule and the Kingdom of God. Like the royal dignity of Christ according to Scotus, the prophetic not only touches theology, but philosophy as well. Fully genuine philosophy is Christian, no more so than in metaphysics where the univocal structure of being in full flight from non-being (as a concept, not as a substitute for the analogia entis [analogy of being]) with two intrinsic modes (infinite and finite) reflects in some way the dogmatic formula for the hypostatic union: one person, two natures. Though Scotus seems to abandon Bonaventurian illuminationism he, in fact, subscribes to the essentials of that teaching with this coloratio [nuancing] in terms of the absolute primacy of Christ. And since that primacy includes the Immaculate, a basis is provided for Her role as philosopha [philosopher] and philosophia christiana [Christian philosophy].¹

3.7.2 The sacerdotal role of Christ (and Mary) is fulfilled on Calvary via the passion of Jesus and compassion of Mary. The complete success of this sacrifice perdures under the title of intercession in the Church: militant, suffering, and triumphant, in the form of the unbloody sacrifice-sacrament of the Eucharist, to which all the other sacraments are geared. In this, too, Mary enjoys with Christ a unique sacerdotal role, on which depends for its link with Christ the ministerial priesthood as well as royal priesthood of the faithful. There is no question here of a possible ordination of women. The sacerdotal (rather than priestly) dignity of Mary is unique, like her mediation, in relation to Christ and to the Church.

3.7.3 Finally, the royal dignity or role bears on the consequences of Christ's victory (and Mary's) to be realized in the glorification of the Church and preparations for a new heaven and a new earth. The Queenship of Mary is the Marian coefficient of Christ's kingship. Like his, it touches not only the Church and apostles (with their successors) but all members and potential members, private as well as social lives of these persons in this time of pilgrimage. A fully humane, personal, and social order is one fully Christianized because fully Marianized.

3.8 A third point concerns the long-debated question between Thomists and Scotists concerning the infinite character of the offense given God by sin, whence the need of a reparation in human form infinite in dignity, therefore by a man who is a divine person. Both St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure maintain that the offense is not infinite, but quasi-infinite, and this not because the sinner is capable of an act in itself even quasi-infinite in value, but because sin has as its "passive" object, the divine Majesty and Goodness. By quasi-infinite is not meant something without limit at all, but that which could not be greater. Scotus does not disagree with the fact, but prefers not to use the term quasi-infinite. He prefers to substitute the term maximal for quasi-infinite.

Here are his reasons. Maximal makes clear that in no proper or quasi-proper sense of the term is sin infinite, as though on a par or quasi-par with God. Second, it avoids lending credence to the false deduction that a good work could be so good as to be quasi-infinite. His third consideration reflects an aspect of his reasoning concerning the absolute primacy of Christ. The lesser good cannot be the motive of the greater; hence, the redemption must be willed in view of the Incarnation, not vice-versa. So here, sanctity of itself, is higher than sin, and radically capable of undoing sin, provided it truly is, above all, sanctity. This is true in two cases alone: that of the hypostatic union and of the Immaculate Conception, of the Head and Savior, and of His Mother. Thus, the preference here of Scotus is not a logical quibble, but in view of the absolute primacy of Jesus and its Marian coefficient, a thesis which must account for the possibility of the Marian coefficient of the redemption, viz., the Coredemptrix.

The infinite dignity of Christ as a divine person surely has a role in explaining the perfection of the redemption wrought by Him. But if we were to specify the formal element which, from within, makes the redemptive sacrifice acceptable and pleasing, it is a maximal holiness in the man who is Victim, and in the Mother who supplies the Victim: both without blemish, without spot, to which the sacrifices under the old law allude in the requirement for perfect specimens of objects of sacrifice. And this immaculate character of the Body and Blood of Christ is that to which the Roman canon makes reference in commending our sacrifice to the Father for acceptance. The infinity of the Person is what makes the sanctity in the man: Priest and Victim, maximally perfect, and it is the Mother's intrinsic pertinence to the order of the hypostatic union, in virtue of the Immaculate Conception, which enables Her unique sanctity to be one with Her Son's as Priest and Victim. It is this sanctity, not infinity (which, strictly speaking, cannot be participated), which makes redemption in a Marian mode, formally possible. These two are holy as God is holy; therefore, their satisfaction for us is acceptable to, and accepted by, the Father. Whence the terminological preference, somewhat parallel to Scotus' preference for "perfect redemption" rather than the "quasi-infinite work" of St. Thomas.

The further question touching the exact relation between holiness in the man and woman, and acceptance, is discussed by Scotus under the heading of merit. He will stress that in the final analysis, acceptance is at the basis of condign merit, and the rationale of this acceptance, viz., that it does not exclude the created graces of the hypostatic union and Immaculate Conception, yet as their root, is to be found in his thesis concerning the absolute primacy of Jesus (and implicitly the Immaculate).

3.9 The last distinctive feature touches the question of merit and satisfaction for others, once again involving the possibility of coredemption. Two other conferences at this symposium will deal with this question, perhaps the most controversial of all the questions surrounding the notion of redemption with a Marian coefficient.

At the Protestant-in particular Calvinist-extreme are those who hold that the Incarnation is simply for the sake of the redemption, that the redemptive sacrifice is only such because offered by a God who substituted His sufferings for ours, hence the Incarnation, not because He merited our redemption vicariously. Whence, neither the merits nor compassion of anyone else has any, or could have any, active role in the objective redemption or in the subjective redemption. At the other extreme is the Pelagian and neopelagian view that the merit of any man of good will is redemptive, or the fundamental option finalized in its Rahnerian form. Evidently, the role of Christ or of His Mother could, at best, be exemplary, a kind of extrinsic quasiformal causality.

The true concept of redemption entails merit, indeed, hinges on merit. All Catholics agree that Christ indeed merits de condigno for us, and that His merit is acceptable to, and accepted by, the Father. The Thomist tradition holds that the merit of the Coredemptrix is de congruo, whereas St. Bonaventure and his followers on this point today, e.g., Fr. G. Roschini, hold the Coredemptrix merits de digno. With the explicit adoption of the title, Coredemptrix, to connote the unique role of Mary on Calvary, most followers of Scotus claimed Mary merited on Calvary de condigno relative. The possibility of this is rooted in the concept of redemption in an economy of salvation predicated on the absolute primacy of Jesus and Mary, and from many points of view, is best able to simultaneously make clear why neither the Protestant solus nor the Pelagian everybody are anything but radical perversions of the true dogma. As with the Incarnation, the Marian coefficient is the best guarantee for avoiding both Nestorianism and monophysitism.

Finally, the teaching of Scotus on merit underscores the importance of this theme in the quest for perfection and sanctity by the members of Christ. It is merit which is the key feature of this quest, of proximately salutary acts; it is merit, or lack thereof, which determines the presence and is proof of genuine sanctity in trial and, hence, constitutes the proximate preparation for the joys of the communion of saints. All this is intimately bound up with the maternal mediation of Mary, or with its refusal.

Conclusion

The early death of Scotus prevented him from articulating a complete soteriology. Nonetheless, his basic teaching on the predestination of Christ and of the elect provides a frame of reference for showing, as I have done, the interconnection between the joint predestination of Jesus and the Immaculate as Mother of God; the dependence of Mary on the mediation of Christ alone for Her unique sanctity and salvation; and the dependence on all others, angels included, on Christ through Mary. The notion of perfect redemption, perfect because endowed with a Marian coefficient, is the consequence of the absolute primacy of Christ and Mary, and reflects the perfect logic of this divine arrangement: the greater good is willed prior to the lesser, although the lesser, in the order of execution, may precede the realization of the greater. The Immaculate Conception or preservative redemption, or Her not being included under the headship of Adam, means that however successful Satan, either in tempting our first parents or, thereafter, in tempting each of his descendents, the success cannot be absolutely definitive. Whence Mary Immaculate: our life, our sweetness and our hope (cf. Salve Regina).

In any case, a correct understanding of redemption as it actually occurs whether in relation to the Head who recapitulates (mediating), or in relation to the members who are recapitulated with their cooperation-passes through the Immaculate Mediatrix. Hence, "our theology" is clearly nuanced from within by the presence and unique role of the Virgin in the mind of God "before the foundation of the world." Such a theology is especially capable of resisting the errors of those who would so conceive the work of the One Mediator as excluding cooperation on principle, and that of those who would conceive that work merely as a paradigm for transcending the limits of finite existence. A theology claiming to be authentic, therefore a soteriology as well, but without its Marian coefficient, is not true theology or genuine soteriology.

Redemption, then, is not a univocal notion, predicated uniformly of all involved. Rather, it is one embracing Head and members in a certain order of operation and cooperation, whose nature is made plain by the mystery of the Immaculate Coredemptrix, jointly predestined with Christ: He as Head, She as Mother All Holy in virtue of His merits. The order characteristic of a redemption, based on this mystery of their absolute primacy, is as follows: Christ as Redeemer and not redeemed, those freed from sin as only redeemed and not redeeming; and Mary as Immaculate Coredemptrix, both redeemed preservative and redeeming those freed from sin to cooperate in the subjective redemption of others, precisely through and in Mary, our Mediatrix with Christ, as Christ is our Mediator with the Father (St. Francis and St. Bonaventure).

Is this analogical notion of redemption merely a theologoumenon postulated by a plausible hypothesis? Quite the contrary: it reflects the mystery of the Immaculate Coredemptrix, Marian coefficient of the redemptive Incarnation in the eternal counsels of salvation. The definition of redemption and the soteriological system within which it is found, must reflect the divine counsels where the Immaculate Conception is, prior to any consideration of sin or redemption.

This article was excerpted from Mary at the Foot of the Cross – VIII: Coredemption as Key to a Correct Understanding of Redemption, Academy of the Immaculate, 2008.