Supernatural

Roger Haight offers this summary of the notion of “supernatural”: “God is not supernatural in himself; he is simply the infinite and transcendent being; he is God. But viewed in relation to the human he is supernatural; that is to say, spiritual union with God transcends human nature and all its dynamisms absolutely. The first meaning of ‘supernatural,’ then, is ‘utterly transcendent to the human and everything finite.’ But the end of human existence as known through revelation is personal union with God, a spiritual ‘possession’ in knowledge and love. Since there is an infinite and absolute distance between that end and human power or nature, human nature must be supplemented with a power of capacity proportionate to an end that infinitely transcends it and is added to it. There is a tendency today to reduce the idea contained in the word ‘supernatural’ to gratuity. This contemporary understanding is correct. But in Aquinas this cannot be said . . . .

“Supernaturality is not simply gratuity; it is also the reason for gratuity, that is, the utter transcendence of God in relation to human nature . The idea of the supernatural depends on a concept of nature that is itself closed to the end of human existence promised in Christianity. Thus one cannot escape, in Aquinas at least, the idea of something that must be added to nature. Human nature is insufficient for its de facto end; human existence needs another and a new nature, and this augments, or is added to, human nature and being.”

However this stands up as an interpretation of Thomas (and I’m sympathetic enough to de Lubac, Kerr, and Milbank to distrust it), there are a couple of intriguing things here. First, the notion of supernatural as stated is incompatible with a strong creationist theology. The doctrine of creation implies that human capacities of every sort – whether “natural” or “supernatural” or “subnatural” or “ultranatural” – are gifts of God. The nature/supernature paradigm assumes that there is “an infinite and absolute distance between [union with God] and human power or nature.” In fact, there is, if we want to use the language, an infinite and absolute distance between my next breath and my own power, between walking to the store and my own power, between finishing this post and my own power. Unless I receive the next breath as a gift from God, I am wholly unable to reach that very natural end. The “infinite distance” lies between human capacity “in itself” and every end of human action, not merely between human capacity in itself and some “supernatural” ends.

Haight’s definition of supernatural, second, is intringuingly similar to the opening lines of the Westminster Confession of Faith 7.1: “The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him, as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescencion on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.” Some of the basic elements of the medieval scheme are here: God’s “great” (though not “infinite”?) distance; the inability of man to reach blessedness on their own; the need for God to add some structure to his “natural” relation as Creator to enable man to reach Him. This is, perhaps, evidence that the Confession still operates within the medieval nature/grace scheme. (Note, for clarity, I am not saying that man can reach God “on his own steam”; I am denying he’s got steam of his own.)

Third, if the suggestion that certain features of the medieval nature/supernature or nature/grace scheme infect Reformed covenant theology is accurate, this will help explain some aspects of the current soteriological debates within Reformed theology and the strange twists that those debates sometimes take. It mystifies me when I hear people charge that folks, like me, who insist on the graciousness of creation are “undermining grace.” But if one’s definition of grace depends on its distinction from “nature,” then emphasizing the gratuity of “nature” is an assault on what is understood as “grace.” If one thinks of covenant as a structure “added” to the pre-existing “natural” relation of God and man, then the notions that the Persons of God are in covenant with one another and that Adam was created in covenant relation with God, sounds like an assault on covenant theology. If the covenant of works/grace scheme is understood as a variation on the nature/grace scheme, then an insistence on the gratuity of the covenant of works sounds like an assault on the system. In short, the Reformed debates appear to be revolving around the same issues (worked out in a quite different context) that convulsed Roman Catholic theology during the early and middle 20th century.

But this raises a critical challenge (not least to myself): Is the nature/grace scheme so deeply worked into the Reformed Confessions that those who are suspicious of it or overtly challenge it abandon the Reformed system? Can someone who has rejected the nature/grace scheme subscribe in good faith to the Westminster Confession?