necessary from necessity of the end proposed;
and this can be accepted in three ways. First of all, on our part,
who have been delivered by His Passion, according to John (3:14):
"The Son of man must be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him
may not perish, but may have life everlasting." Secondly, on Christ's
part, who merited the glory of being exalted, through the lowliness
of His Passion: and to this must be referred Luke 24:26: "Ought not
Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His
glory?" Thirdly, on God's part, whose determination regarding the
Passion of Christ, foretold in the Scriptures and prefigured in the
observances of the Old Testament, had to be fulfilled. And this is
what St. Luke says (22:22): "The Son of man indeed goeth, according
to that which is determined"; and (Luke 24:44, 46): "These are the
words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all things
must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in
the prophets, and in the psalms concerning Me: for it is thus
written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise again
from the dead."

Reply Obj. 1: This argument is based on the necessity of compulsion
on God's part.

Reply Obj. 2: This argument rests on the necessity of compulsion on
the part of the man Christ.

Reply Obj. 3: That man should be delivered by Christ's Passion was in
keeping with both His mercy and His justice. With His justice,
because by His Passion Christ made satisfaction for the sin of the
human race; and so man was set free by Christ's justice: and with His
mercy, for since man of himself could not satisfy for the sin of all
human nature, as was said above (Q. 1, A. 2), God gave him His Son to
satisfy for him, according to Rom. 3:24, 25: "Being justified freely
by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God hath proposed to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood."
And this came of more copious mercy than if He had forgiven sins
without satisfaction. Hence it is said (Eph. 2:4): "God, who is rich
in mercy, for His exceeding charity wherewith He loved us, even when
we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together in Christ."

Reply Obj. 4: The sin of the angels was irreparable; not so the sin
of the first man (I, Q. 64, A. 2).
_______________________

SECOND ARTICLE [III, Q. 46, Art. 2]

Whether There Was Any Other Possible Way of Human Deliverance Besides
the Passion of Christ?