sacramental presence to which he has only attached his infinite energy and power, he disposes and fits human persons for the real incorporation into himself in the following manner: By the sacramental moment of order, through the moral instrument in whom this moment is realized, he propounds and explains his doctrine, the gnosis respecting God, and the cosmos which he came to reveal to men. By the sacramental moment of regeneration, he infuses into human persons the term of the supernatural order in its essence and faculties, and thus raises them to a higher state of being, and to a closer communication with the Trinity, but all this in an initial and inchoative state. By the sacramental moment, called confirmation, he brings that essence and its faculties to a definite and determinate growth. When human persons are thus fitted and prepared, he by his substantial presence incorporates them into himself, and enables their supernatural being to live and develop itself by being put in real, actual communication with all the proper objects of its faculties. Thus, the cosmos of personalities, perfected in its initial supernatural state, can act and develop itself—the Theanthropos himself, through his moral agents, organically constituted, governing and directing its action to the safest and speediest acquirement of its last perfection.
From this metaphysical idea of
the church, derived and resulting from its very essence, it follows:
First, That, next to the Theanthropos, the Catholic Church is the end of all the exterior works of the infinite. The supreme end of the exterior works was the highest possible communication of the infinite to the finite. This was primarily realized in the hypostatic union which bound all created natures to the infinite, and is realized next in the union of all personalities with the Theanthropos, and through him with the Trinity. Now, the very essence of the Catholic Church consists in this union. Consequently, as such it is the last supreme imperative law of the cosmos. The last, because with it closes the cycle of the creative act, and begins the cycle of the return of the terms to their principle and cause. Supreme, because no higher initial perfection of the cosmos can be realized after supposing its existence. Imperative, because it is a necessary complement of the plan of the cosmos.
Hence, without the Catholic Church the cosmos of personalities would have no aim or object. It would stand alone, and unconnected with the other parts of the cosmos, the particular end of each personality could never be attained, and the whole would present a confused mass of elements, without order, harmony, or completion.
It follows, in the second place, that the Catholic Church is fashioned after the hypostatic moment, and is its most lively representation. For as that moment implies the bringing together of a human and divine element, finite and infinite, absolute and relative, necessary and contingent, independent and subject, visible and invisible, in the unity of one divine personality, so the Catholic Church is the result of a double element,
one human, the other divine; one visible, the other invisible; one finite, the other infinite; one necessary, the other contingent; one immutable, the other variable; the one independent and authoritative, the other subject and dependent, in the union of the Theanthropos with the sacramental element. This union of the Theanthropos with the sacramental element, both moral and physical, is, as we have said, the very essence of the Catholic Church, and which endows it with that double series of attributes and perfections, one belonging to God, the other essentially belonging to the finite, but which are brought together in one being in force of that union; and all the difficulties brought against the church hinge upon that very thing—the sacramental union of all the divine attributes of the Theanthropos with the finite attributes of the sacramental element. All those who object to all or some of the Theanthropic attributes of the church object to the possibility and existence of that union.
But that union, as the last supreme imperative law of the cosmos, is such a strict consequence of the plan, is so connected and linked with all the other moments of God’s action ad extra, depends so entirely upon the identical principle which originates the others, that once we deny it we are obliged to yield up all the other truths, and take refuge in nihilism, and proclaim the death of our intelligence. For once we admit the impossibility of the union of the attributes or substance of the Theanthropos with the sacramental element, on the plea that the attributes of each are opposite and contradictory, for the self-same reason we must admit the impossibility of the union of the Word of God with the human nature, and sweep the hypostatic moment clean away; because, if it
is impossible to bring together opposite attributes in one sacramental being, it is much more impossible, so to speak, to bring not only attributes but two natures quite opposite together, into one subsistence and personality, and entirely exchange attribution and names, and call man God, and God man, and attribute exclusively divine acts to human nature, and vice versa. But, having denied the hypostatic moment in consequence of that pretended impossibility, we cannot logically stop here. We must generalize the question, and deny all possible union between the finite and the infinite. For what can there be more opposite and more contradictory than these terms, absolute and relative, necessary and contingent, immense and limited, eternal and successive, immutable and changeable, universal and particular, self-existing and made, infinite and finite? And could they possibly be brought together into any kind of union? Nay, we must go further, and deny the very coexistence of both terms, because one certainly seems to exclude the other—the universal being, for instance, including all possible being, must necessarily imply the impossibility of the coexistence of any particular, circumscribed, limited being. Arrived at this, we must conclude that all finite things which come under our observation, not being able to coexist with the universal being, must be only modifications and developments of that same, and throw ourselves into pantheism. But once pantheism is admitted, we must, to be logical, suppose the existence of a universal something impelled by an interior instinct of nature to unfold and develop itself by a succession of efforts, one more distinct, marked, and perfect than the other. Now, taking this substance at one determinate
stage of development, and going backward, from a more perfect development to one less perfect, and from this to one still less perfect, we must necessarily arrive at the most indeterminate, indefinite, abstract something, at the idea-being of Hegel—that is, at nihilism.