On the Necessity of the Sacraments

SINCE, however (as has already been said), the death of Christ is, so to say, the universal cause of human salvation, and since a universal cause must he applied singly to each of its effects, it was necessary to show men some remedies through which the benefit of Christ’s death could somehow be conjoined to them. It is of this sort, of course, that the sacraments of the Church are said to be.

Now, remedies of this kind had to be handed on with some visible signs.

First, indeed, because just as He does for all other things, so also for man, God provides according to his condition. Now, man’s condition is such that he is brought to grasp the spiritual and intelligible naturally through the senses. Therefore, spiritual remedies had to be given to men under sensible signs.

Second, because instruments must be proportioned to their first cause. But the first and universal cause of human salvation is the incarnate Word, as is clear from the foregoing. Therefore, harmoniously the remedies by which the power of the universal cause reaches men had a likeness to that cause-, that is, the divine power operates in them under visible signs.

Third, because man fell into sin by clinging unduly to visible things. Therefore, that one might not believe visible things evil of their nature, and that for this reason those clinging to them had sinned, it was fitting that through the visible things themselves the remedies of salvation be applied to men. Consequently, it would appear that visible things are good of their nature—as created by God—but they become damaging to men so far as one clings to them in a disordered way, and saving so far as one uses them in an ordered way.

Thus, of course, one excludes the error of certain heretics who want every visible thing of this kind removed from the sacraments of the Church. Nor need one marvel at this, for the very same men maintain that whatever is visible is evil in its nature, and is produced by an evil author. And this we rejected in Book II.

Nor is it unsuitable that by things visible and bodily a spiritual salvation is served. For visible things of this kind are the instruments, so to say, of a God who was made flesh and suffered. Now, an instrument does not operate by the power of its nature, but by the power of its principal agent who puts it into operation. Thus, also, then, do visible things of this kind work out a spiritual salvation-not by a property of their own nature, but by Christ’s institution, and from the latter they receive their instrumental power.

~St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk. IV, Chap. 56.

Seven Sacraments Altarpiece, by Rogier van der Weyden.
Oil on oak panel, 1445-50; Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.