Thomas frames the gifts of the Spirit within a larger theological scheme of what he calls instrumentality. It is a concrete, non-theological term that identifies God’s chosen modus operandi, his usual way of working in the world. Instrumentality means that God acts in and through physical, created things, or instruments. At the heart of this doctrine is the Incarnation and it is the basis of his doctrine of the Sacraments. Thomas scholar, John Yocum explains the connection between the incarnation and the sacraments:
The divine saving work is effected ‘from the inside’, as it were, of humanity. These human historical acts are effective precisely because the divine redeemer has entered human history in order to act from within for the accomplishment of redemption. Thomas’ sacramental theology is an implication of a soteriology that is much more ‘Greek’ than has often been perceived .... The sacraments, then, are an extension of the effects of the Incarnation. In the sacraments, God continues to act in and among human beings through the organ of Christ’s humanity to bring human beings to life in Christ, and to nourish, sustain and perfect the life in conformity with Christ.[1]
However, in Thomas the implications of the Incarnation extend beyond just the efficacy of the sacraments. It is also the cornerstone of his teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It could be said that the sacraments and the gifts are a matched pair; neither is complete without the other. Even as common bread and wine become instruments of grace by virtue of the Incarnation, so also members of the body of Christ, the church, become instruments of grace as the gifts of the Spirit operate in and through them. Contemporary author, Leanne Payne, captures the same idea in her term Incarnational Reality[2]. For both writers, the Incarnation is at the heart of divine reality. In sum, the gifts of the spirit are a part of God’s instrumental or Incarnational pattern of loving and redeeming the world.
[1] John Yocum. “Sacraments in Aquinas”. In Aquinas on Doctrine: A critical introduction. Thomas Weinandy, Daniel Keating and John Yocum, ed. New York, NY: T.T. Clark, Ltd., 2004, 172.
[2] Leanne Payne. Real Presence. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1995 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1979); Leanne Payne. Healing Presence. Grand Rapids, MI: 1995 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1989).
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