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August 08, 2005
Ch.XI. Q.70. Divine Economies
THE Divine economies signify the particular external operations which revelation teaches us to attribute to the several Divine Persons. Thus the economy of the Father is creation of the world; of the Son, redemption of mankind; of the Holy Ghost, sanctification of the elect people of God.1
2. The term economy, οικονομία, was used in sub-apostolic days to signify (a) a dispensation or plan of God's government; in which sense it was especially applied to the Incarnation; (b) the method of reserve discernible in Divine revelation, adapted to meet the necessities of the slow understandings of men by progressive enlightenment.2
3. In later theology the word has had the following uses: (a) the progressive method of Divine revelation; (b) the special work and revelation of each Divine Person (so used in this question); (c) certain successive dispensations or covenants in the history of God's chosen people; e.g., the Mosaic economy; (d) the "disciplina arcani," or guarded instruction of Catechumens in the ancient Church.3
4. A doctrine is called economic to signify that the truth to which it refers has not been fully revealed, because of the limitations of our understandings. The revelation is true economically, i.e., so far as it goes; but it is partial. A doctrine of this sort is also called a mystery, μυστήριον, because it contains inscrutable implications, although intelligible in part, so far as revealed.
5. The greater part of Dogmatics is concerned with the economies of the Divine Persons. The economy of the Father is treated of in Cosmology, Angelology, and Anthropology; that of the Son in Christology; that of the Holy Ghost in Pneumatology and Ecclesiology; the consummation of them all in Eschatology.
Posted by Debra Bullock at August 8, 2005 06:29 PM
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