PRIMACY OF JESUS CHRIST
The primacy of Jesus Christ in the history of humanity is a fact, attested by chronology. His appearance in the world marked the reversal of the course of the centuries; the entire world, one might say, dates from His coming as the definitive stage of its existence. The most ancient civilizations have merged or are daily merging into that which bears His name and, though often unknowingly, bears the imprint of the "good news" proclaimed to all peoples from His birth in Bethlehem.
This primacy undoubtedly derives from His miracles, from His doctrine, and from the influence exerted by the Church, which He established as the "pillar of truth"; but it derives above all from the supreme dignity and power of His person. "Who is this man?" asked those who first saw Him command the winds and the waves, heal the sick, and raise the dead. "Who is this man?" ask even today those who are strangers to His Gospel and see millions of people, even after so many centuries, ready to sacrifice their lives rather than renounce their faith in Him. "He is the Son of God," all Christians respond in unison, and the Churches scattered throughout the world are unanimous in confessing that "He came down from heaven for us and for our salvation." "He was also crucified for us," add those who, reciting the Creed, prostrate themselves at the memory of the mystery of His Incarnation.
God and Savior are, in fact, the two titles upon which the primacy universally recognized in Jesus Christ is founded. Center and summit of the religion He founded, He dominates and commands all that is greatest and most holy within II. Infinitely above His Angels, His Prophets, and His Apostles, infinitely above even His own Mother, He alone is worshipped, believed in, and served for Himself. The Church, with its hierarchy, its dogmas, and its worship, is subordinate to Him; it exists only through Him and for Him; its task consists essentially in leading men to Him so that they may adhere to His person and render Him a cult of trust, submission, and love. He has also been constituted a body whose members are spread throughout heaven and earth, of which He is the sole and true Head. In them and through them, all things converge to Him: "All things are yours, but you are Christ’s" (1 Cor 3:23). Such, indeed, is the design of God regarding Jesus Christ, namely, that He should have primacy in all things, and that all things, throughout the ages, should tend to be constituted and conformed to Him (Col 1:1-18; Eph 1:10).
Catholic theologians have vied with one another in seeking the best way to convey the magnificence of God’s plan. Thus, two currents of thought have emerged, whose very opposition serves to reveal the height, depth, breadth, and sublimity of God’s design for Christ. Proceeding from the present fact that all men and beings are subordinate to Jesus Christ and to Jesus the Redeemer, both schools admit that the God-Man could not and would not, in any hypothesis, have been willed by God without being established as Head of humanity. They further admit that this primacy, from the moment the God-Man was willed, belongs to Him by right on account of His divine personality even more than on account of His redemptive work. They then ask whether, in fact, humanity was oriented toward Him from the beginning of its existence.
The first school, believing it recognizes in the traditional teaching of the Church that Jesus Christ was willed solely with regard to men to be redeemed, cannot therefore consider Him as having been given from the outset as Head to Adam: the first man would not have been foreseen, willed, and ordered to Him except consequentially to his sin and as his Redeemer.
The second school, deeming it unworthy of Jesus to have been given as Head to humanity and to creation only on the occasion and as a consequence of original sin, believes it finds in divine wisdom proof that Adam, even before his sin, was in a state of dependence upon Jesus Christ. To support this assertion, they appeal to the immutable order which, in their view, must have governed the divine designs, and they argue that in willing, in contrast to Himself, beings ordered to His glory, God must first have willed Him who could give Him the greatest honor and glory. Moreover, they cannot conceive that God, decreeing to create Adam, did not foresee his fall with all its consequences. If, therefore, God overlooked this foreknowledge, it was because in the same perspective He saw included the remedy to be brought to so great an evil, and that this remedy would be Jesus Christ. In short, the acceptance of the perspective of original sin does not seem to these theologians conceivable except in function of the determined will to remedy II. And since on this last point they seem to agree with the Fathers of the Church, who dwelt upon this consideration, they hold that the conclusion imposes itself, namely, that the Incarnation of the Son of God must be conceived as willed for its own sake and as the sole explanation of the reason why God could accept the prospect of a first man who, in his fall, would drag all his descendants down with him. In this sense, the primacy of Jesus Christ appears absolute.
Of these two opinions, the first is that of St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae, III, q. 1, a. 3) and is the most taught in schools (Cajetan, Toledo, Vázquez, Petavius, Pesch, Billot, Hugon, D’Alès); the second, that of Scotus (Reportata Parisiensia: III Sent., d. 7, q. 4), has found in St. Francis de Sales an advocate, followed by a discreet number of authors.