The point of difference among theologians relates to the identity or difference of the relations just noted, Is that relation which intelligence has per se to God, as its ultimate object, the relation which is completed by supernatural elevation, or not? If not, what is the distinction between them? Establish their identity, and you have established the theory which was mentioned in the first place above. Establish their difference, and you have established the second theory.
If the first theory is established, rational creatures are ipso facto in a supernatural order. The natural order is merely the inchoation of the supernatural, cannot be completed without it, and cannot attain its end without a second immediate intervention of God, equal to the act of creation, by which God brings back to himself, as final cause, the creature which proceeded from him as first cause. This second act is regeneration; and creation, therefore, implies and demands regeneration. It follows from this, that reason is incapable of being developed or explicated by the mere concurrence of God with its principle of activity, or his concurrence with second causes acting upon it, that is, by the continuance and consummation of the creative, generative influx which originally gave it and other second causes existence. A regenerative influx is necessary, in order to bring its latent capacity into action, and make it capable of contemplating its proper object, which is God, as seen by an intuitive vision.
One great advantage of this theory is supposed to be, that it leaves the naturalists no ground to stand upon, by demonstrating the absolute necessity of the supernatural, that is, of revelation, grace, the church, etc. This presupposes that the theory can be demonstrated. If it cannot be, the attempt to do too much recoils upon the one who makes it, and injures his cause. Beside this, it may be said that the proposed advantage can be as effectually secured by proving that the natural order is actually subordinated in the scheme of divine Providence, as it really exists, to a supernatural end, without professing to prove that it must be so necessarily.
The great positive argument in favor of this hypothesis is, that rational nature necessarily seeks God as its ultimate object, and therefore longs for that clear, intellectual vision of him called the beatific. If this be true, the question is settled for ever. Those who seek to establish its truth state it under various forms. One way of stating it is, that reason seeks the universal, or the explanation of all particular effects, in the causa altissima, This is the doctrine of St. Thomas. God is the causa altissima, the universal principle, and therefore reason seeks for God.
Again, it is affirmed that there is a certain faculty of super-intelligence, which apprehends the super-intelligible order of being, not positively, but negatively, by apprehending the limitation of everything intelligible. Intelligence is therefore sensible of a want, a vacuum, an aimless, objectless yearning for something unknown and unattainable; showing that God has created it for the purpose of satisfying this want, and filling this void, by bringing intelligence into relation to himself as its immediate object, in a supernatural mode.
In a more popular mode, this same idea is presented under a countless variety of forms and expressions, in sermons, spiritual treatises, and poems, as a dissatisfaction of the soul with every kind of good attainable in this life, vague longing for an infinite and supreme good, a plaintive cry of human nature for the beatitude of the intuitive vision of God. "Irrequietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te"—"Our heart is unrestful until it finds repose in thee," is the language [{154}] of St. Augustine, which is echoed and reechoed on every side.
These considerations are not without great weight; nevertheless, they do not appear to us sufficient to prove conclusively the hypothesis in support of which they are adduced, or to over-balance other weighty considerations on the opposite side.
Reason seeks for the causa altissima, but it remains to be proved that it seeks for any other knowledge of it but that which is attainable by a mode connatural to the created spirit.
Reason is conscious of its own limitation. But this does not prove that it aspires to transcend this limitation. Beatified spirits are conscious of their own limitation. Those who are in the lowest grade are aware of numerous grades above them, and the highest are aware of their inferiority to the exalted humanity of Jesus Christ, united to the divine nature in his person. All together, including Jesus Christ himself, as man, are aware of an infinite incomprehensibility in the divine nature. In the words of the greatest of all mystic theologians, St. John of the Cross: "They who know him most perfectly, perceived most clearly that he is infinitely incomprehensible. To know God best, is to know he is incomprehensible; for those who have the less clear vision do not perceive so distinctly as the others how greatly he transcends their vision." [Footnote 33]
[Footnote 33: Spiritual Canticle, stanza vii. Oblate Ed. vol. ii. p. 44.]