Economical Language

 BY "Economical," I mean language relating to matters beyond the direct apprehension of those to whom it is addressed, and which, in order to have a chance of conveying to them any idea, however faint, of the fact, must be more or less of an analogous or figurative character, as viewed relatively to the truths which it professes to report, instead of a direct and literal statement of the things which have to be conveyed. Thus a child's idea of a king is that of a man richly dressed with a crown and sceptre, sitting on a throne; thus an attempt might be made to convey to a blind man the character of scarlet contrasted with other colours by telling him that it is like the sound of a trumpet; thus, since none of us can imagine to ourselves a spirit and its properties, it is a received economy to represent Angels as bright beings with wings. Hence, again, it is an economy to speak of our Lord as sitting on the right hand of God, as if right and left were possible in Him; and, indeed, Scripture is necessarily full of economies, when speaking of heavenly things, because there is no other way of introducing into our minds even a rude idea, even any idea at all, of matters so utterly out of our experience. About such economies in the statement of revealed truths, two rules must be observed.

 First, while aware of their imperfection as informations, still we must keep strictly to what is told us in them, because we cannot know more exactly what is told us in them than they tell us. Thus we read, "God is a consuming fire;" now fire is a material substance, and cannot literally belong to the Divine Nature; but it is the only, or at least the truest, mode in which His nature, in a certain relation to us, can be brought home to us, and we must accept it and believe it as a substantial truth, in spite of its not being the whole truth or the exact impress of the truth. Secondly, it must be recollected that we cannot argue and deduce freely from economical language as if it were adequate and complete, and that in revealed matters we may fall into serious error, if we argue and deduce except under the magisterium of the Church. Thus it is that some Calvinists have argued against freewill from St. Peter's words in his first Epistle ("Ye, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house,") thus, "This is giving freewill a stab under the fifth rib, for can stones build themselves?" Copleston on Predestinat . p. 129. And thus it was, that Arius argued, from the economical word Son, (given us as the nearest approximation in human language to the ineffable truth itself,) that our Lord was not the everlasting God, because human sons have a beginning of existence.

 Hence it is that mystery is the necessary note of divine revelation, that is, mystery subjectively to the human mind: because, when the mind goes on freely to reason from language which only partially corresponds to eternal truths, and which cannot be adequately expressed in human words, it draws from one revealed information what is inconsistent with what it draws from another, and instead of saying, "This collision of deductions arises from the imperfection of our knowledge," it refuses to accept premisses which are serviceable only in the sense and to the extent in which they are intended. This is acting like a reasoner who, having learned some geometrical truths by means of arithmetic or algebra, and having found that by multiplying a quantity into itself, and again into itself, he could reach a number which in its properties was parallel to a geometrical cube, should in consequence go on to multiply once more, and then should consider that he had been brought to the absurdity of a fourth dimension in space, and should forthwith withdraw his faith from algebraical deductions altogether. Vid. art. Trinity, also Illustrations, and others.

 "Such illustrations and such images," says Athanasius, "has Scripture proposed, that, considering the inability of human nature to comprehend God, we might be able to form ideas even from these, however poorly and dimly, as far as is attainable." Orat. ii. 32, [ amudros ], vid. also [ amudra ]; ii. 17.

 Elsewhere, after adducing the illustration of the sun and its light, he adds, "From things familiar and ordinary we may use some poor illustration, and represent intellectually what is in our mind, since it were presumptuous to intrude upon the incomprehensible Nature." in Illud Omnia 3 fin. Vid. also 6; also Serap. i. 20, and Decr. § 12. And S. Austin, after an illustration from the nature of the human mind, proceeds: "Far other are these Three and that Trinity ... When a man hath discovered something in them and stated it, let him not at once suppose that he has discovered what is above him," etc. Confess. xiii. 11. And again, "Ne hanc imaginem ita comparet Trinitati, ut omni modo existimet similem." Trin. xv. 39. And S. Basil says, "Let no one urge against what I say, that the illustrations do not in all respects answer to the matters in question. For it is not possible to apply with exactness what is little and low to things divine and eternal, except so far as to refute," etc. contr. Eunom. ii. 17.

 Scripture is full of mysteries, but they are mysteries of fact, not of words. Its dark sayings or ænigmata are such, because in the nature of things they cannot be expressed clearly. Hence contrariwise, Orat. ii. § 77 fin. he calls Prov. viii. 22 an enigma, with an allusion to Prov. i. 6, Sept. In like manner S. Ambrose says, "Mare est scriptura divina, habens in se sensus profundos, et altitudinem propheticorum ænigmatum," etc. Ep. ii. 3. What is commonly called "explaining away" Scripture, is the transference of this obscurity from the subject to the words used.

 Nothing is more common in theology than large comparisons which are only parallel to a certain point as regards the matter in hand, especially since many doctrines do not admit of exact illustrations. Our Lord's real manhood and imputed sinfulness were alike adjuncts to His Divine Person, which was of an Eternal and Infinite Nature; and therefore His Manhood may be compared to an Attribute, or to an accident, without meaning that it really was either. The Athan. Creed compares the Hypostatic Union to that of soul and body in one man, which, as taken literally by the Monophysites, became their heresy. Again S. Cyril says, "As the Bread of the Eucharist, after the invocation of the Holy Ghost, is mere bread no longer, but the body of Christ, so also this holy ointment is no more simple ointment," etc. Catech. xxi. 3, Oxf. Tr.; but no Catholic thinks that S. Cyril held either a change in the chrism, or no change in the bread. Hence again we find the Arians arguing from John xvii. 11, that our union with the Holy Trinity is as that of the Adorable Persons with Each Other; vid. Euseb. Eccl. Theol. iii. 19, and Athanasius replying to the argument, Orat. iii. 17-25. And so " As we, receiving the Spirit, do not lose our own proper substance, so the Lord, when made man for us and bearing a body, was no less God," Decr. § 14; yet He was God made man, and we are but the temple of God. And again Athanasius compares the Incarnation to our Lord's presence in the world of nature. Incarn. 41, 42.