Why read this book?
Scott Hahn calls Trinité’s book (originally published in 1961) the best presentation of the Catholic doctrine of redemption (the study of soteriology), which is the substance of the Gospel. Therefore, it’s great book to help you more effectively evangelize and proclaim the Gospel.
Chapter 1: Distorting Mirrors
Chapter 1 outlines doctrinal distortions on redemption. For Trinité, these “distorted mirrors” are a false image of the virtue of justice. The false idea is that Christ suffered on the cross in order to satisfy a form of justice called “retributive justice” (in which a judge makes a just punishment on a guilty person, who has to make retribution for his offence).
Some theologians have promoted this distorted mirror of retributive justice through their thesis of penal substitution, in which Christ was our penal substitute and thereby received “the retributive punishment of countless lifetimes of sin since the creation of Adam and Eve.” For Luther, “Christ voluntarily took all our sins upon himself as though he himself had committed them.” For Calvin, going one step further, Christ also felt the severity of divine vengeance through abandonment and damnation (to bear the sorrow of eternal death for us). For others, like some Catholic theologians, its a poor attempt of “oratorical theology” to express how Christ suffered with and for us. As a result, this distorted mirror leads to an image of God the Father as an angry God who takes vengeance out on His Son on the Cross.
But would a just God execute an innocent man for another man’s crimes? No. It would be both cruel and unjust to punish an innocent man in the place of a felon. Since Christ was innocence itself, it’s inconceivable that He should suffer and die in our place to satisfy a just revenge. And if Christ is our substitute—and endured God’s wrath and suffered our punishment—we should not have to suffer and die. But we still do. Therefore, Christ could not be the object of the Father’s wrath. Christ must be something other than a penal substitute…
Chapter 2: The Plan of The Redemptive Incarnation
Scripture reveals that we are not “anthropologically or philosophically fallen,” as if human nature itself has always been wounded, but rather we are “historically fallen” through the specific sin of Adam and Eve, which deprived us at one time of ‘the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace’ (28). Due to the Fall, humanity is still “fundamentally good and so forth but fallen in such a way that it could not rise again by its own strength” (32).
Therefore, out of love for us, God planned a way to pick us up again. “God has twice over, on different but complementary planes, recapitulated all humanity, as it were, in a single pair: first, in Adam and Eve, our first parents; then in Jesus and Mary, the new Adam and the new Eve. Humanity, once marvelously endowed with gratuitous riches in the state of original justice, has been still more marvelously redeemed from its sin under the sign of the cross” (48).
“Instead of asking ourselves what might have happened if Adam and Eve had not sinned let us confine ourselves to a wise and prudent meditation on the data of revelation. The dogma of original sin is, in fact, linked to that of the redemption in an historical continuity from which it may not be abstracted. To the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there corresponds the tree of the cross; to the proud disobedience of our first parents, the lowly obedience of the Son of God made man, “the first born among many brethren” (Rom 8:29). All are sinners in Adam, all are redeemed by the Savior… In fact God would not have permitted the great family of mankind to be lost in Adam and Eve through the devil’s instigation, unless he had meant it to be saved again in Jesus and Mary, the new Adam and new Eve. Shadow implies and only makes sense in terms of light, so that we can only appraise it in terms of light” (54-5).
“This is the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation, which, in some way, deifies the entire human race. In relation to God, in relation to man, and from the only point of view which matters ultimately—that of love and its manifestation to the praise of the glory of God—the redemption is more astounding than the creation, for all the beauty of the latter. God is love, and love is the secret of all his permissions and decrees. A harmonious continuity with love is the basis for our optimism” (55-6).
“St. Thomas is insistent in his affirmation of the primacy of charity in the mystery of the incarnate Word. All the riches of the Incarnation and redemption are, he writes, the work of charity (totum est opus charitatis). It was for love that he became man, for love that he died. All his mysteries spring from the immense love of God which is beyond the knowledge of any creature” (57).
Ultimately, our redemption is found in a living Person, Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man. In all of the mysteries of His life, He fittingly redeems us: “Christ’s sacred humanity has saved us through the cross, but also through his Resurrection and Ascension” (45).
Chapter 3: Vicarious Satisfaction: The Preeminence of Mercy
In Chapter 3, Trinté makes the case that while satisfaction, merit, redemption and sacrifice are ‘concentric notions’ that, taken together, offer a full picture of the mystery of redemption, there is a certain prominence in the Church’s Magisterium for the notion of vicarious satisfaction because it is grounded in love (51).
“Christ was marvelously suited to make such satisfaction since he was both God and man. As man, he possessed as material for satisfaction a passible and mortal body; as God made man, he possessed a heart burning with charity for his Father and for us, with that charity which gives the work of expiation all its value” (90).
Therefore, Christ’s sufferings are not punishments (because He was not the object of the Father’s wrath) but rather satisfactions accomplished by the intensity of His love: “Strictly speaking, the cause of Christ’s death was not sin at all, neither his, for he had none, nor ours, but his love for the Father and for us on the occasion of our sins” (83).
“This fundamental principle of the supreme importance of love in works of satisfaction has, also, a moral application of the greatest value which may be formulated thus: the greater the purity and fervour of love the less does punishment become necessary and desirable for the sake of mere justice, until the point is reached where satisfaction may be totally accomplished by and in the intensity of love. Love and punishment stand in an inverse ratio to one another” (86).
Christ is not our substitute. He rather showed solidarity with us and is the Victim of Love: “The decisive and determining motive for Christ’s Passion is nothing less than the surpassing love of charity of which he, together with his Father, wished to give us evidence in the human nature he had freely assumed” (91).
Chapter 4: Vicarious Satisfaction and Merciful Justice
Chapter 4 builds on the concept of vicarious satisfaction in relation to justice and mercy.
“The mystery of redemption lies in the fact that it entails an act of divine justice in function of and wholly penetrated by divine mercy. We must neither exclude justice (the thesis of liberal theology) nor include it under the aspect of revenge (the thesis of the reformers, Luther and Calvin). Christ atoned for our faults by undergoing a Passion and death which really possess the value of a satisfaction of justice, and this painful satisfaction was willed positively by God as good because making atonement for the sins of mankind; but this divine will does not explain itself, nor ultimately can it be explained save as the overflow of merciful love. In short, retributive justice could not provide the least motive for any part of the satisfaction made by Jesus, even were it for our benefit; yet the fact remains that he redeemed us through the most bitter sufferings. The reason is to be sought in his own and the Father’s superabundant mercy” (105).
“Justice in God is not separable from love but is, on the contrary, aflame with love. It is there, above all, one and the same thing as love itself. Here we touch on the mystery of the divine attributes which entail each other mutually in virtue of God’s ineffable transcendence. God uses this gesture of surpassing love to reveal himself and by himself something of his justice. This justice cannot appear in the Person of the Son of God otherwise than in the form of love. Yet love in God is not distinct from justice, and it is this love which is the object of the mystery of the redemption. That is why this mystery infinitely exceeds our grasp and we fail to understand it. Whichever way we look at it, mercy first and then justice, or justice and then mercy, we find the same, that God desired mercy in justice and justice in mercy. Both are revealed together and inseparably though mercy remains preeminent. They are expressions of the love of God who frees us from sin in drawing us to himself. God is love” (113).
Chapter 5: Merit, Redemption and Sacrifice
Chapter 4 builds on the concept of vicarious satisfaction in relation to merit, redemption, and sacrifice.
Merit: “The source of merit is not suffering and difficulty but the love of charity. Times of difficulty and struggle are opportunities for a person to show the promptness and depth of his good will; but this good will flows from charity; consequently, one may carry out an easy task with the same good will, and hence the same merit, as another who carries out a difficult one, simply because he would be equally willing to do what might cost him more. The stronger and more generous love is the better it is able to overcome difficulties, only it is not the difficulty which causes merit but the love. Hence, in order to become a soul of great merit it is necessary above all to love much, even in easy matters” (135).
Redemption: The “price” Christ paid to redeem us was not a literal financial transaction to God or some deal with the devil but rather a metaphorical expression to express the price of His blood (that can only be understood through the context of “divine merciful love alone” (108)).
Sacrifice: Christ’s sacrifice was ‘the sacrifice par excellence’ because the Son of God was the greatest gift the Father could give to humanity ruined by sin: “Christ’s sacrifice was offered with bloodshed once only, on the cross, but its consummation lasts eternally. Although the saints in heaven have no further need of atonement, they must always continue to receive their fulfilment from him on whom their joy and glory depend” (117).
Conclusion: In the Love of God and the Patience of Christ
Because Christ suffered and died for us, “man knows thereby how much God loves him, and is thereby stirred to love Him in return, and herein lies the perfection of human salvation” (ST III.46.3).
Trinité concludes with a reflection on the spirituality of St. Thérèse of Lisieux as perfectly harmonious with the dogmatic teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas and perfectly expressive of our response to God’s merciful love for us, as shown beautifully in her offering of herself as a victim of merciful love below…
“On the 9th of June this year, the feast of the Holy Trinity, I was given the grace to see more clearly than ever how love is what our Lord really wants. I was thinking about the souls who offer themselves as victims to the divine justice, with the idea of turning aside and bringing upon themselves the punishments decreed against sinners. I felt that this kind of self-immolation was a fine gesture, a generous gesture, but it wasn’t at all the one I wanted to make. The cry of my heart was something different: “My God, why should only your justice claim victims; why should there be no victims of your merciful Love? Everywhere that Love is misunderstood and thrust on one side; the hearts upon which you are ready to lavish it turn away towards creatures instead, as if happiness could be found in such miserable attachments as that; they won’t throw themselves into your arms and accept the gift of your infinite Love. Must this rejected Love of yours remain shut up in your own Heart? If only you could find souls ready to offer themselves as victims to be burnt up in the fire of your love, surely you would lose no time in satisfying their desire; you would find a welcome outlet, in this way, for the pent-up force of that infinite tenderness which is yours. . . .” Ever since that memorable day, love seems to pierce me through and wrap me round, merciful love which makes a new creature of me, purifies my soul and leaves no trace of sin there, till all my fear of Purgatory is lost. To be sure, no merits of my own could even win me entrance there; it is only for the souls of the redeemed. But at the same time I felt confident that the fire of love can sanctify us more surely than those fires of expiation; why should he inspire me with this ambition to become a victim, if he doesn’t mean to satisfy it? “To live in an act of perfect love I OFFER MYSELF AS A BURNT-OFFERING TO YOUR MERCIFUL LOVE, calling upon You to consume me at every instant, while You let the floods of infinite tenderness pent up within You flow into my soul, so that I may become Martyr to Your Love, O my God! . . . When that martyrdom has prepared me to appear before You, may it cause me to die, and may my soul hurl itself in that instant into the eternal embrace of Your merciful Love.” – St. Thérèse
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