Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 3, No. 2 (2005): 217–30

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Toward a Spirituality of Poverty
M ICHELE M. S CHUMACHER
University of Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland

A SPIRITUAL approach to poverty? Is this not just a sorry attempt of
an “elitist” Church to dismiss the terrible injustice suffered by the poor? In
pointing to the spiritual or redemptive meaning of their suffering are we
not simply burying our heads in the sand and awaiting the eschatological
kingdom that “evidently” has nothing to do with this valley of tears? In
opting for a “gentleman’s conversation” focusing, for example, upon “Lady
Poverty,” the queen of St. Francis, the nada of St. John of the Cross, or the
terrible trials of faith endured by St.Therese of Lisieux, might we not be
guilty of ignoring our own responsibility toward the poor? Is not our own
guilt and our need to act more obviously apparent in the dirty faces of
barefoot and ragged children searching through garbage cans in the tourist
districts of Latin America? If, on the other hand, we were to remove from
this painful picture the shadow of the Cross of Christ, what remains is—
pardon the expression—just plain “hell”!
The theological challenge of poverty—the challenge that poverty
presents to theology—is, it seems to me, that of bringing a certain unity
between the terrible sufferings, often of injustice, which form an integral
part of this “valley of tears” and the immolated Lamb of God who is
forever victorious over sin and death and whose open wounds constantly
give new life to the Church, his body-bride. This is not simply a question of making sense of unjust human suffering, especially those caused
by the unequal distribution of the earth’s resources, and still less of justifying or excusing the often decadent living that characterizes contemporary western (and dare I say “Christian”?) society. It is, however, an
authentic attempt to promote true and lasting justice through the practice of Christian charity.

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Christian, or spiritual, poverty is, I will argue, a share in the poverty of
Christ that is at the service of redemption: “For you know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he
became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).
The admirabile commercium, the wonderful exchange of sin and grace
proclaimed by the fathers of the Church, is a communication of divine
gifts that simultaneously break down the barriers of our resistance: grace
(healing, redemptive) preparing the way for grace (edifying, sanctifying).
Hence spiritual poverty will be presented in parallel with spiritual wealth,
as that which allows the spiritual enrichment of the human person by
Christ.This enrichment is, however, preceded by its absence, by a lacking
of the spiritual treasure of grace, and more properly by the need of
redemption, whereby spiritual poverty may be considered in terms of sin
(Section I). It is, however, more properly understood—especially within
the context of redemption—as a sort of dispossession, a liberation, a
yielding, or a letting-go (II).This act of self-emptying (kenosis) in view of
the divine possession, this act of making place for the Lord within our
hearts, invites an analysis of spiritual poverty also in terms receptivity
(III). In the final analysis, spiritual poverty is, we will see, a share in
Christ’s own poverty, his receptive obedience vis-à-vis the Father and his
generous outpouring upon the world (IV). For this reason, I will argue
that sanctity cannot be separated from generosity nor spirituality from
social justice (V).
I. Two Contrasting States of Spiritual Poverty:
Sin and Redemption
Viewed theologically, the terrible cycle of poverty that scars the lives of so
many of the earth’s inhabitants can only be understood against the backdrop
of the still more vicious cycle of sin that requires the gift of redemption.
“When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate
of rice, a piece of bread,” explains Mother Teresa of Calcutta who
perceived her mission as a service to Christ in the poorest of the poor.
“But a person who is shut out, who feels unwanted, unloved, terrified,
the person who has been thrown out of society—that spiritual poverty
is much harder to overcome. And abortion, which often follows from
contraception, brings a people to be spiritually poor, and that is the
worst poverty and the most difficult to overcome.”1
1 Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “Spiritual Poverty and the Breakdown of Peace,”

speech at the National Prayer Beakfast (February 3, 1994), Origins 23.35 (February 17, 1994): no. 23, 617.

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Giving a very different, even contrasting, definition to spiritual poverty
than that which I will present in what follows, the holy woman of
Calcutta thus presents two categories of persons who qualify as being
spiritually poor: Those who, even with adequate material resources, are
shunned by family, friends, and society—those whom John Paul II
includes within the category of the “newer patterns” of poverty2 —and
those who, for lack of charity or just plain selfishness, are guilty of bringing others to this horrible state. In both cases, the spiritual poverty in
question is, humanly speaking, almost impossible to overcome. At best,
there is temporary relief but no long-term solution; for the suffering that
stems from injustice cannot be obliterated by the best of human intentions and material resources. No amount of food, clothing, shelter, and
health care—not even excellent education and career opportunities—can
purify memories hardened by pain, root out bitterness from hearts
broken by sorrow, and bring forgiveness from the agonizing soul of one
whose self, family, and nation have been betrayed for the glory of
another’s ego. Worse still is the impact that this first form of spiritual
poverty (the privation of love) has upon the second (the poverty of sin)
and vice versa. History has proven time and again that today’s victim is
tomorrow’s persecutor. As a negative counterpart to the communion of
saints, we can thus speak of a communion of sin whereby, in the words of
John Paul II, “a soul that lowers itself through sin drags down with itself
the Church and, in some way, the whole world.”3
2 These “newer patterns” are often encountered, he explains, in “financially afflu-

ent sectors and groups which are nevertheless threatened by despair at the lack
of meaning in their lives, by drug addiction, by fear of abandonment in old age
or sickness, by marginalisation or social discrimination.” (Apostolic letter, At the
Beginning of the New Millennium, Novo millennio ineunte [January 6, 2001],The
Catholic Truth Society, trans., no. 50). Similarly, the U.S. bishops in their 1986
pastoral letter on the economy wrote: “For poverty is not merely the lack of
adequate financial resources. It entails a more profound kind of deprivation, a
denial of full participation in the economic, social and political life of society and
an inability to influence decisions that affect one’s life.” Economic Justice for All
(November 1986), no. 188.
3 John Paul II, post-synodal apostolic exhortation, On Penance and Reconciliation,
no. 16. Similarly, Walter Kasper in Jesus, the Christ, argues: “[E]very sin produces
consequences which the sinner cannot estimate or arrest and thus becomes the
cause of further sin, since it conditions the action of others negatively from the
outset. . . .Thus there is an almost ‘natural’ momentum belonging to the history
of sin: it becomes increasingly enclosed within a vicious circle. If nevertheless
there is to be any salvation, it will require a new beginning, someone who will
enter into this situation and break through it.”Walter Kasper, Jesus, the Christ, V.
Green, trans. (London/New York: Burns & Oates/Paulist Press, 1976), 204–5.

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When flame meets flame, all is ablaze. He alone, however, who is most
deeply affected by sin—the Lamb of God without blemish whose whole
life is an unconditional gift made manifest in vulnerability (from the
vulnerability of the holy infant of Bethlehem and to that of the helpless
victim of Calvary)—can experience the whole destructive force of sin
and death: “He who knew no sin became sin for us” (2 Cor 5:21). This
perfectly innocent One, and he alone, can extinguish the flames of our
hateful passions, destroying them within the infinite depths of his own
heart, passionate with love for all humanity.
From this perspective, sin is, so to speak, absorbed into Christ’s human
body, which is to say that all that this body suffers—every blow, every fall,
every thorn, and nail mark—remains without retaliation. Far from the
popular search for justice in precisely those terms (the retaliation of sin)—
hatred building upon hatred and blood upon blood—Christ’s plea for
pardon marks a new beginning to human history: “Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). The “mediator of a new
covenant” sealed with “the sprinkling of blood that speaks more graciously
than the blood of Abel” (cf. Heb 12:24)—Christ gives new meaning to
innocent blood: “For this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, to be
poured out in behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:27).
Vengeance is replaced with pardon, hatred with love.4 When sin meets
love—authentic love, not just feigned acceptance or benevolent good
wishes that come without the cost of real self-sacrifice—the result is
forgiveness: “not seven times but seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22). The
whole flood of pain and sorrow occasioned by sin, which, throughout the
many centuries of human existence had become a roaring river, is reversed
by the forgiving plea of Christ. Drawing into his own flood of grace all
who acknowledge their need for this gift of pardon, he definitively reverses
the tide of sin and death, installing a new order: that of redemption.
The desire for profit, the thirst for power, and even the “structures of sin”
themselves are, the pope teaches in his encyclical on social concern, “only
conquered—presupposing the help of divine grace—by a diametrically
opposed attitude: a commitment to the good of one’s neighbor with the readiness, in the gospel sense, to ‘lose oneself ’ for the sake of the other instead of
exploiting him, and to ‘serve him’ instead of oppressing him for one’s own
advantage (cf. Mt 10:40–42; 20:25; Mk 10:42–45; Lk 22:25–27).”5 Vice
4 See Gn 4:9–11; 37:26; Ez 24:6–8; Is 26:21; Jb 15;18–19; 2 Chr 24:22; cf. Dominique

Barthélemy, God and His Image (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966), 177, 162.
5 John Paul II, encyclical, On Social Concern, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, no. 83. “And

so it is very important for us to realize,” argues Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “that
love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm

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must give way to virtue, which is to say that the spiritual poverty of sin must
yield to still another form of spiritual poverty: that interior disposition (that
we will treat in what follows), which permits the entry of grace. In contrast
to the spiritually poor or blind—those who are slaves to sin—are thus the
spiritually rich: those who, by the power of Christ’s grace, are rich in virtue.6
II. Spiritual Poverty as Dispossession:
Making Room for God
Nearly all anthropologies, notes the orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov, are in agreement with the presentation of the human person as “ ‘a
being who aspires to self-transcendence,’ a being tending toward that
which is greater, toward the ‘totally other.’ Since man is both a child of
wealth and of poverty, what is ‘poor’ in man can reach out to what is
‘rich.’ ”7 In Augustinian terms, we are made for God and “our hearts are
restless until they rest in him.”8 Not only is man in search of God. God,
in Christ Jesus, is also in search of the sinful man who has hidden himself
from God (Gn 3:10). Born in the “likeness of man” (Phil 2:7), who is
himself the image of God, the Creator is impoverished so as to enrich his
creation.The generous, even total, outpouring of divine life in the Person
of the Son (kenosis) takes on such horrendous proportions, those of
suffering and death (cf. v. 8), precisely because those to whom it was
destined “received him not. But to all who received him, who believed
in his name, he gave power to become children of God” ( Jn 1:11–12).
Salvation, then, is about God making place for himself in our hearts.
This means that objective redemption is not easily distinguished from
subjective redemption whereby the merits of Christ’s life and passion are
appropriated by the human person, with the result that everything is
“grace,” as St. Thérèse of Lisieux was fond of saying. Indeed, riches and
poverty are one and the same in God’s Kingdom, and a pure heart—a
heart that is “poor”—is more fundamentally God’s gift to the human
person than that of the human being to God.This is not to deny one’s freedom with respect to his own salvation.When, for example, St. Augustine
other people and, in fact, to do good to them. This requires that I be willing to
give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no true love in me and I bring injustice, not
peace, to those around me.” Mother Teresa, “Spiritual Poverty,” no. 6, 615.
6 “These poor people maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have not a home to
live in, but they can still be great people when they are spiritually rich.” Mother
Teresa, “Spiritual Poverty,” no. 22, 617.
7 Woman and the Salvation of the World: A Christian Anthropology on the Charisms of
Women, Anthony P. Gythiel, trans. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminiary
Press, 1994), 55.
8 Cf.The Confessions, I, 1.

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argues that “He who created you without you will not justify you without you,” this may be understood as “not without you disposing yourself
to receive grace.”9 This introduces the theological significance of spiritual
poverty in its most proper sense: the absence of all that hinders our
communion with God and neighbor.“[I]nto an impure soul God’s grace
does not steal,” exclaims St. Clement of Alexandria. “An impure soul is
that which is rich in lusts and in travail with many worldly affections.”10
Hence the renunciation and selling of all possessions recommended by
the Lord to the rich young is, he comments, to be understood as spoken
of the passions of the soul.11 Indeed,“it has proved no great gain then for
him to be poor in possessions when he is rich in passions . . . while
depriving himself of what is serviceable he has set on fire the innate
material of evil by the lack of outward things.”12 He, on the other hand,
“is truly and nobly rich . . . who is rich in virtues.”13
Corresponding to these two types of poverty are two sorts of riches
that help to bring out the proper sense of spiritual poverty. Liberating
the mind and heart from attachment to material goods, bodily pleasures,
terrestrial glory, and even other persons—which in se are all very good
and desirable objects—spiritual poverty facilitates our attachment to the
Lord whom we are commanded to love “with all our soul, and with all
our strength, and with all our mind” so as also (consequently) to love
“our neighbor as ourselves” (cf. Lk 10:27; Dt 6:5; Lv 19:18). For this
reason, Christian self-denial is only secondarily negative.“[T]o be Christian it must,” insists Giorgio Buccellati,“affirm in the first place the relation with Christ rather than the relation with the self (as with Paul: ‘if I
gave my body up and had no charity . . .’).”14 “I yield to affirm.”15 If the
9 See Thomas Aquinas, De veritate, q. 28, a. 8, ad. 6.
10 Clement of Alexandria,“The Rich Man’s Salvation,” no. 19, in Clement of Alexan-

dria, G. W. Butterworth, trans., Loeb Classical Library, vol. 92 (London/Cambridge,
MA: Heinemann/Harvard, 1919, 1979), 309.
11 “So let a man do away, not with his possessions, but rather with the passions of
his soul.” Ibid., no. 14, 299.
12 Ibid., no. 15, 301.
13 Ibid., no. 19, 309.
14 Georgio Buccellati, “Religious Vows and the Structure of Love,” Communio 23
(1996): 562. See 1 Cor 13:3.“Concretely, asceticism is not stoicism (which takes
pride in its self-generated detachment), not victimism (which wallows in the
feeling that others ought to pity us); not masochism (which savors some aspects
of self-inflicted wounds), even less suicide (which is the climax of despair). In
other words, it is the positive splendor of personal interaction with the risen Jesus
that entails, by default, as it were, the letting go of certain attachments.”
15 Ibid., 577.

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religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience tend to quiet the mind
from outward solicitude, this, then, is in view of perfect charity to which
all are called: the love of God above all the goods at our disposal (material, corporal and spiritual, including the memory, the intelligence and
the will).16 While poverty as an evangelical counsel (religious poverty)
aims at detachment, and thus interior freedom with respect to material
goods, spiritual poverty aims at the actual dispossession of the self so as
to belong entirely to God.17 “To be poor in spirit means,” explains
Meister Eckhart, “that as the eye is poor and deprived of color, and is
able to apprehend every color, so he is poor in spirit who is able to
apprehend every spirit, and the Spirit of all spirits is God.”18
Simply speaking, spiritual poverty is not just a detaching of oneself
from riches, a sort of voluntary impoverishment; it is also and especially
a liberation of the heart and spirit which permits and even promotes a
universal love, and this love is necessarily expressed as concern for the
poor, the sharing of one’s resources and charitable giving. This—the act
of giving to the poor—is, in turn, a means of facilitating the actual
dispossession that makes room for grace such that giving disposes one to
receive. The very act of letting go out of love—voluntary impoverishment or simple solidarity with the poor—is by its very nature an opening to grace: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”
(Lk 12:34).“What splendid trading!” proclaims St. Clement of Alexandra,
“What divine business! You buy incorruption with money.You give the
perishing things of the world and receive in exchange for them an eternal abode in heaven. Set sail, rich man, for this market, if you are wise.”19
Spiritual poverty is thus a gift of self to God: the gift of availability in
virtue of which one stands in service of love; the spiritually poor man or
woman is given to love, filled with love and thus “equipped” to love.
16 See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II–II, q. 186, a. 7.
17 Although St.Thomas argues that the vow of obedience includes the other vows

(poverty and chastity) but not vice versa (ibid., a. 8), it would be worth considering chastity and obedience within the context of spiritual poverty whereby the
human person offers to God not only all the worldly goods at his disposal, but
also all of his corporal and spiritual goods as well.
18 “The Book of “Benedictus,” The Book of Divine Commentaries, Treatises, and
Defense, Edmund Colledge, OSA, and Bernard McGinn, trans. (New York: Paulist
Press, 1981), 220.
19 Clement of Alexandria, “The Rich Man’s Salvation,” no. 32, 339. See the First
Letter of Saint Clare of Assisi to Agnes of Praque (no. 15): “O blessed poverty, who
bestows eternal riches on those who love and embrace her!” (Clare of Assisi: Early
Documents, Regis J. Armstrong, OFM.Cap, ed. and trans. [New York: Paulist Press,
1988], 36.)

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III. Spiritual Poverty as Receptivity:
Welcoming the Divine Guest
In this sense, spiritual poverty is not primarily an absence (whether of
constraint or of material goods), but an opening to a presence: to that, most
especially, of God himself. “For it is no great or enviable thing to be
simply without riches,” claims St. Clement of Alexandria,“apart from the
purpose of obtaining life.”20
Spiritual poverty is, as it were, a “letting go” to “let God”: not in the
sense of simple resignation (laissez faire), but as a preparation for his divine
and “divinizing” visit, for his sanctifying presence within one’s own soul,
a presence which quickly employs all the resources at our disposal, including our very persons, for the important work (or mission) of charity.
The term receptivity might be evoked here, but with an important
precision. To receive someone, a guest for example, is popularly understood as offering him or her hospitality, welcoming him into one’s home,
sharing what one has; but there is also a deeper, more intimate meaning
that aims at an authentic communion of persons. In this second sense,
one may be said to communicate who one is, to give one’s very self, but
in such a way as to simultaneously welcome the other’s self-gift, as when
a woman is said to “receive” in the sexual embrace the man who loves
her in giving himself. When this “other” is the Lord, the receptive act
implies both surrender and devotion as are simultaneously evoked by the
German term Hingabe. In Scripture, the two forms of receptivity are
perhaps best modeled by Martha, the busy hostess, and Mary, the quiet
contemplative who has chosen “the one thing needful,”“the better part”
(Lk 10:42).21 Like that other Mary, most “blessed among women,” she
receives Christ, not merely as visitor but as Lord; not just in her home,
but in her heart.
Conceiving Christ in her mind before conceiving him in her womb,
as St. Augustine teaches,22 the Virgin-Mother simultaneously realizes
20 Clement of Alexandria, “The Rich Man’s Salvation,” no. 11, 293.
21 For the sake of precision, the two forms can, according to a certain exegesis,

certainly be attributed to both women, even if the emphasis is different for each.
22 Christum prius mente quam ventre concipiens. (Sermo 215, 4: “In redditione

symboli,” PL 38, 1074.) Angelus nuntiat, virgo audit, credit, et concipit. Fides in
mente. Christus in ventre.Virgo concepti miramini: virgo peperit, plus miramini:
post partum, virgo permansit. (Sermo 25. In Natali Domini, XIII, PL 38: 1019.)
Plus est Mariae, discipulam fuisse Christi, quam matrem fuisse Christi. Plus est
felicius discipulam fuisse Christi, quam matrem fuisse Christi. . . . Plus mente
custodivit veritatem, quam utero carnem.Veritas Christus, caro Christus.Veritas
Christus in mente Mariae, caro Christus in ventre Mariae.” Sermo 25, 7: PL 46:
937–38.

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herself and her mission: “By faith she believes, by faith she conceives.”23
She is the “poor Virgin,” proclaimed by St. Claire of Assisi, who
“embrace[s] the poor Christ.”24 In “complete harmony” with his fiat of
obedient love—“Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God” (Heb 10:7)—
is her own fiat of loving obedience: “Let it be to me according to your
word” (Lk 1:38). Hence, “in Mary’s faith, first at the Annunciation and
then fully at the foot of the Cross, an interior space was reopened within
humanity which the eternal Father can fill ‘with every spiritual blessing.’
It is the space ‘of the new and eternal Covenant,’ and it continues to exist
in the Church, which is Christ is ‘a kind of sacrament of sign of intimate
union with God, and of the unity of all mankind.’ ”25
IV. Spiritual Poverty as a Share in Christ’s Salvific Poverty
Marian poverty in the form of receptive obedience—complete availability for God—is, of course, consequent upon the Son’s own poverty
of kenosis, his generous bestowal of divine gifts upon human nature in
the Incarnation and the Paschal Mysteries. This, in turn, is consequent
upon his own receptive availability vis-à-vis the Father: openness to
receive his being from the Father and availability for his mission from the
Father.To be sure, the New Adam does not merely receive the gift of life
that the first Adam refused by his disobedience. He actually gives this life
( Jn 5:21, 6:33; 17:2) and even identifies himself with it (14:6; cf. 5:26;
6:35, 48; 1 Jn 1:2). His mission in the world, his gift of self for the salvation of humankind, is however the Father’s own gift (cf. Jn 3:16; 1 Jn
5:11). It is a gift that is first received before it is communicated further.
“Thou (Father) hast given him (the Son) power over all flesh, to give
eternal life to all whom though hast given him” (17:2). The Father is
glorified in the Son ( Jn 17:4; cf. 14:31) in the very act whereby that
glory—the glory of the eternal Son in the Father’s presence (cf. 17:5;
1:14)—is communicated to the world: “The glory which thou hast
given me, I have given to them” ( Jn 17:22).“For I have come down from
heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and
23 Fide credidit, fide concepit. Idem., Sermo 25, 7: PL 46:937.
24 Second letter of St. Claire to St. Agnes of Prague, no. 18, in Claire of Assisi: Early

Documents, 41. Cf. her third letter, nn. 24–26: “As the glorious Virgin of virgins
carried [Him] materially, so you, too, by following in her footprints (cf. 1 Pt 2:21),
especially [those] of poverty and humility, can, without any doubt, always carry
Him spiritually in your chaste and virginal body, holding Him by whom you and
all things are held together (Wis 1:7), possessing that which, in comparison with all
other transitory possessions of this world, you will possess more securely.” Ibid., 45.
25 John Paul II, encyclical, Mother of the Redeemer, Redemptoris mater (March 25,
1987), no. 28.

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this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that
he has given me, but raise it up at the last day” ( Jn 6:38). Christ’s mission
and obedience are so perfectly coordinated that what comes from the
Father as a “command” ( Jn 10:18; 12:49) returns to him as the Son’s
entreaty: “May they all be one; even as though, Father, art in me, and I
in thee” ( Jn 17:21). There is thus a perfect parallelism in John’s Gospel
between the objective and paternal perspective of redemption ( Jn
3:16–19), on the one hand, and the subjective and filial one ( Jn
12:46–49), on the other. Ultimately this means that Christ’s gift of
himself for the world is the temporal form of his eternal love for the
Father, which is to say that the pro nobis of salvation is, in fact, a revelation of his pro patre. Hence, while the creed explains the meaning of his
death as being “for us and our salvation;” the synoptics, “for you” (Lk
22:19–20) or “for many” (Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24); and Paul,“for us” (Rom
5:8); John recognizes Christ’s final surrender as a gift of love for the
Father: “I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may
know that I love the Father” ( Jn 14:31).
Granted, this verse is often cited as demonstrating the obedient nature
of Christian love. More profoundly, however, it manifests that love, by its
very nature, is communicative; it simply cannot be contained. “As the
Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (15:9–10). By the same disposition of loving availability, Christ is given without reserve to the Father
and to the world alike, thereby setting a precedent for his disciples whom
he commands to love the brethren as an expression of their love for God
(cf. 1 Jn 4:21). By refusing to hold onto the glory that was his from all
eternity in the presence of the Father (cf. Phil 2:6; Jn 1:14), by giving his
Spirit without measure ( Jn 3:34) and by offering his own body as bread
“for the life of the world” ( Jn 6:51), Christ brings to perfection the new
commandment of love through the communication of his own sonship
that is the Father’s gift.The inseparable unity of the love of God and the
love of neighbor is thus attested to by Christ in the culmination of his
mission on the “cross of our redemption (cf. Jn 3:14–15), the sign of his
indivisible love for the Father and for humanity (cf. Jn 13:1).”26
V. Sanctity and Generosity: Spirituality and Social Justice
Spiritual poverty, then, is fundamentally and ultimately a share in the
Son’s own receptive availability, an availability that is revealed as an
absolute gift of self to the Father for the salvation of the world. “The
26 John Paul II, encyclical, The Splendor of Truth, Veritatis Splendor (August 6,

1993), no. 14.

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Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand” ( Jn 3:35), and
the Son’s hands, like his arms, are ever open, outstretched on the Cross
from whence he gathers all humanity to himself (12:32) so as to present
us to the Father. Breathing his Spirit into our hearts (cf. Rom 5:5), which
are “dispossessed” out of love for him, he draws us into his communion
with the Father, into his own sonship. As bearers of his Spirit, we are not
only integrated into the Trinitarian embrace, however; we are also drawn
into the Son’s mission of introducing others into the same. The man or
woman who has really allowed him- or herself to be penetrated by the
love of God—who has (slowly) let fall the obstacles of resistance (the fear
of rejection, of disappointment, of further abuse and pain, of all that is
commonly known as vulnerability), who, by faith, has permitted an entry
for the divine love—is unable to contain it.
Faith that is openness to receive is also faith that, viewed from still
another angle, is willingness to give: It is availability for others. Hence
those who in the early Church,“devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” had, we are
told in Acts,“all things in common; they sold their possessions and goods
and distributed them to all, as any had need” (2:42, 44–45; cf. 4:32).The
connection between the communion of believers—the mystical body of
Christ—and the sacramental communion, or participation, of the same in
the historical body of Christ that is “given up for you” (Lk 22:19; cf. 1 Cor
11:24)—the Eucharist—is so intimate that to sin against the one is to sin
against the other.When, for example, Paul tells the Corinthians that they
are eating and drinking judgment on themselves by not “discerning the
body” (1 Cor 11:27–32), he is, of course, referring to the body and blood
of the Lord in the Eucharist. Commentators are careful to note, however,
that the sins to which he makes reference are sins against the community:
divisions (even factions), self-indulgences, and a lack of consideration for
the poor (vs. 17–22). Hence the body that is not discerned is also interpreted as being the body of the community.27 It is thus no surprise that
St. John Chrysostom chides those who dishonor this union:
You have tasted the Blood of the Lord, yet you do not recognize your
brother, . . .You dishonor this table when you do not judge worthy of
sharing your food someone judged worthy to take part in this meal. . . .
27 See Francis Martin, The Feminist Question: Feminist Theology in the Light of Chris-

tian Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 346. “To receive in truth the
Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must,” as the Catechism teaches,
“recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren.” Cf. The Catechism of the Catholic
Church, no. 1397.

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God freed you from all your sins and invited you here, but you have not
become more merciful.28

In Catholic terms, justification renders the human person “just”:Through
his participation in God’s own justice, revealed by Christ as mercy, he has
the capacity to act justly, even mercifully.29 “Be gods for the poor, in imitating the mercy of God,” proclaims Gregory the Nazianze, for “man has
nothing more in common with God than the faculty of doing good.”30
“Jesus died on the Cross,” says Mother Teresa, “because that is what it
took for him to do good to us—to save us from our selfishness in sin.
He gave up everything to do the Father’s will—to show us that we too
must be willing to give up everything to do God’s will—to love one
another as he loves each of us. If we are not willing to give whatever it
takes to do good to one another, sin is still in us. That is why we too
must give to each other until it hurts.”31

Simply stated, generosity cannot be separated from sanctity, nor the
communion of goods from the communion of saints. Concretely this
means transposing the material to the spiritual. Obviously members of
the body ought to share their material possessions with one another (as
the first Christians who “had everything in common,” Acts 4:32) and
even with those outside the confines of the Church; beyond this is the
willingness to lovingly dispose even of one’s spiritual treasure (cf. Mt
19:21). In popular Theresian terms, this is expressed as “empty hands”:32
hands which have disposed of their “own” merits for the sake of those
arriving empty-handed at heaven’s door.
If I had been rich, I would have found it impossible to see a poor
person going hungry without giving him my possessions. And in the
same way, when I gain any spiritual treasures, feeling that at this very
moment there are souls in danger of being lost and falling into hell, I
28 St. John Chrysostom, Hom. In 1 Cor., 27, 4: PG 61, 229–30; cited in The Cate-

chism of the Catholic Church, n. 1397.
29 See Thomas Aquinas, ST I–II, q. 100, a. 12.
30 14th discours, PG 35, 857–909,“De l’amour des pauvres,” in Riches et pauvres dans

l’Eglise ancienne, ed. France Quéré-Jaulmes (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1982),
123–24 (nn. 26–27).
31 Mother Teresa, “Spiritual Poverty,” no. 6, 615. See Mother Teresa: A Simple Path,
compiled by Lucinda Vardey (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995), 99.
32 See Thérèse of Lisieux to Brother Simeon, January 27, 1897, in St. Thérèse of
Lisieux General Correspondence II, John Clarke, trans. (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1988), 1054.

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give them what I possess, and I have not yet found a moment when I
can say: Now I’m going to work for myself.33

Without merits of their own, these “poor” souls depend upon the
generosity of those who have surrendered all things for Christ and who,
in turn, trust in his generosity for their own salvation:“For having nothing, I shall receive everything from God,” concludes St.Therese.34 At the
extreme are those who, like St. Paul, are willing to forfeit not only their
merits for others, but their salvation as well: “For I could wish that I
myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren,
my kinsmen by race” (Rom 9:3).
This overabundant generosity can, of course, only be understood as an
act of love for him who thirsts for souls and who communicates this same
thirst to those who are already given to him.
“Jesus,” Mother Teresa explains,“is thirsting for our love, and this is the
thirst of everyone, poor and rich alike. We all thirst for the love of
others, that they go out of their way to avoid harming us and to do
good to us.This is the meaning of true love, to give until it hurts.”35

VI. Conclusion
Giving until it hurts is hardly an easy response to the theological challenge
of poverty: material poverty, of course, but also the new forms of poverty
that characterize affluent western society such as the neglect of the elderly
and children, the rejection of the mentally and physically handicapped, and
even the refusal of life itself by abortion, euthanasia, and suicide. Sacrificial
giving is, however, the only adequate response for one who, in spiritual
poverty, is so intimately joined to the poor Christ as to share in his redemptive mission of enriching others (by way of the admiribile commercium).The
gift of self to Christ in the form of receptive readiness, which permits, so
to speak, his generous impoverishment to enrich us, is necessarily a gift of
self to neighbor. Our incorporation into the body of Christ sets us in relation to all to whom he has given his life.The communion of life, of desire,
and of suffering is, for the philosopher Jacques Maritan, a more fundamental order than that of social and political activity.Thus he recommends
as superior to the category of acting for (agir pour) or acting with (agir avec) that
33 Idem., “The ‘Yellow Notebook’ of Mother Agnes” ( July 14, 1897), in St.Thérèse

of Lisieux: Her Last Conversations, John Clarke, trans. (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1977), 96.
34 Ibid., June 23, 1897, 67.
35 Mother Teresa, “Spiritual Poverty,” no. 9, 615.

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of existing with (exister avec) and suffering with (souffrir avec).36 Theologically,
the formula can be pushed even further to existing for and suffering for,
such that sacrificial love takes the place of simple solidarity. The effort to
promote social justice is thus transposed within the context of an authentic Christian spirituality to the level of charity whereby Christ is loved in
one’s neighbor and the neighbor is loved in Christ, that is, by the power of
N&V
his love.

36 “Exister avec le Peuple,” in Raison et Raisons: Essais détachés, vol IX of Oeuvres

complètes (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1990), 379.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 3, No. 2 (2005): 231–58

The Physical Status of the Spiritual Soul
in Thomas Aquinas*
S TEPHEN L. B ROCK
Pontificia Università della Santa Croce
Rome, Italy

Introduction: Form of the Body, or Subject of Truth?
THERE ARE probably several factors contributing to make Thomas
Aquinas’s conception of the human soul difficult for the contemporary
mind to assimilate. But one of them is surely the profound change in the
approach to the study of man initiated in the seventeenth century by
René Descartes.This is the so-called “turn to the subject.”
In relation to Thomas, a particularly interesting figure in the transition
to the modern approach is that of Nicolas Malebranche. As is well
known, Malebranche received Descartes’ L’Homme with great enthusiasm. On the other hand, Malebranche remains in some ways closer to
Thomas than Descartes. Like Thomas, he is first and foremost a priest and
a theologian; and the spirit of his philosophical thought is still very much
in the tradition of fides quaerens intellectum. What he does not share with
Thomas is the aristotelianism of the scholastics (against which, of course,
Descartes also strove).
This difference is nowhere more significant than on the question of
the soul. And no one thinks this question more important than does
Malebranche. A passage from the very beginning of his major work, The
Search for Truth, shows how grave the issue is for him.
* My thanks to Prof. Kevin Flannery, SJ, and Prof. Federica Bergamino for their help-

ful comments on drafts of this paper. A slightly revised version of this article was
published last year in Italian: “Tommaso d’Aquino e lo statuto fisico dell’anima
spirituale,” in L’anima. Annuario di filosofia 2004, ed. Vittorio Possenti, Milan:
Mondadori 2004.

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I do not wonder that the common run of men, or the Pagan Philosophers, only consider the soul in its relation and union with the body,
without recognizing the relation and union that it has with God; but I
am surprised that Christian philosophers, who ought to prefer the
mind of God to the mind of man, Moses to Aristotle, St. Augustine to
some wretched Commentator on a Pagan Philosopher, look upon the
soul rather as the form of the body than as made in the image, and for
the image, of God; that is, according to St. Augustine, for the truth, to
which alone it is immediately united.1

The soul’s true nature is spirit, a subject of truth. Its union with the body
is quite secondary.
Since it is the will of God that rules everything, it is more in the nature
of the soul to be united to God by the knowledge of the truth, and by
the love of the good, than to be united to a body; for it is certain . . .
that God has made the spirits for the sake of knowing and loving, rather
than for informing bodies.2

Elsewhere Malebranche confesses to finding the union of soul and body
philosophically inscrutable (just as Descartes did). He can offer only a
theological conjecture for it.
Do not ask me . . . why God wants to unite spirits to bodies. It is a
constant fact, but the chief reasons for it have remained hitherto unknown
to philosophy. But here is one fit to propose to you. It seems that God
wanted to give to us, as to his Son, a victim that we might offer to him.3

Now, there can be no doubt that for St. Thomas, what is of special
interest about man is his soul. And its interest lies in its being spiritual—
1 Je ne m’étonne pas que le commun des hommes, ou que les Philosophes Payens

ne considérent dans l’ame que son rapport et son union avec le corps, sans y
reconnoître le rapport et l’union qu’elle a avec Dieu; mais je suis surpris que des
philosophes chrétiens, qui doivent préférer l’esprit de Dieu à l’esprit humain,
Moyse à Aristote, S. Augustin à quelque misérable Commentateur d’un
Philosophe Payen, regardent plutôst l’ame comme la forme du corps que comme
faite à l’image et pour l’image de Dieu, c’est à dire, selon S. Augustin, pour la
vérité à laquelle seule elle est immédiatement unie. Nicolas Malebranche, De la
Recherche de la Vérité, I, Préface, in Œuvres de Malebranche, vol. I, Geneviève
Rodis-Lewis, ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1972), 9–10, my translation. The “wretched
Commentator” is surely Averroes.
2 [L]a volonté de Dieu réglant la nature de chaque chose, il est plus de la nature
de l’ame d’être unie à Dieu par la connoissance de la verité, et par l’amour du
bien, que d’être unie à un corps, puisqu’il est certain . . . que Dieu a fait les esprits
pour le connoître et pour l’aimer, plûtost que pour informer des corps. Malebranche, De la Recherche, I, préface, 11.

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an incorporeal subject of existence and activity. Theology studies the
body,Thomas says, only as it relates to the soul.4
At the same time,Thomas fully embraces the Aristotelian conception
of the soul as essentially the form of a body. Indeed, unlike many of his
contemporaries,Thomas insists that the soul is united to physical matter
in an immediate way.5 In a sense its union with matter is for him even
more immediate than its union with truth. For it is united to matter from
the very beginning of its existence. It exists as the “term of human generation.”6 But at that moment it is a sheer tabula rasa.7 It does not begin to
know any truth until some later moment in its career.
We might very well wonder whether Thomas does not, in effect,
subordinate the soul’s spiritual nature to its being the form of a body. One
rather striking source of this suspicion is his understanding of the difference between the human soul and those spiritual creatures that are not
united to bodies, the angels. Souls and angels,Thomas insists, are not the
same kind of thing.8 In fact, they should not even be grouped together
in the same genus. He explains why in his reply to an objection against
the thesis that the soul does not exist prior to the body.
Objection: The rational soul agrees more with the angels than with the
beasts. But the angels were created before bodies, or else right at the
beginning, with bodily matter; whereas the body of man was created
on the sixth day, when the beasts were produced.Therefore the soul of
man was created before the body.9
3 Ne demandez pas . . . pourquoi Dieu veut unir des esprits à des corps. C’est un fait

constant, mais dont les principales raisons on été jusqu’ici inconnuës à la Philosophie. En voici une néanmoins qu’il est bon que je vous propose. C’est apparemment que Dieu a voulu nous donner, comme à son Fils, une victime que nous
puissions lui offrir. Nicolas Malebranche, Entretiens sur la métaphysique, in Œuvres de
Malebranche, vol. XII, André Robinet, ed. (Paris:Vrin, 1984), IV, §12, 96–97.
4 Summa theologiae I, q. 75, proem. Since this paper is not intended only for
medievalists or specialists in Thomas’s thought, I have for the most part confined
my quotations and references to the Summa theologiae, it being the most generally accessible of his works. Happily, it contains sufficient treatments of all the
pertinent issues, in many cases his most complete and mature ones.The translations are mine.
5 See ST I, q. 76, aa. 3, 4, 6, 7.
6 ST I, q. 76, a. 1, ad 1.
7 ST I, q. 79, a. 2.
8 ST I, q. 75, a. 7.
9 Anima rationalis magis convenit cum angelis quam cum animalibus brutis. Sed
angeli creati fuerunt ante corpora, vel statim a principio cum corporali materia;
corpus autem hominis formatum est sexto die, quando et bruta animalia sunt
producta. Ergo anima hominis fuit creata ante corpus. ST I, q. 90, a. 4, obj. 2.

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Reply: If the soul had a species of its own, it would agree more with the
angels. But inasmuch as it is the form of the body, it pertains to the
genus of animals, as a formal principle.10

The soul does not have a “species of its own.” It is not a complete, fully
distinct entity, or what we might call an autonomous unit of signification.
It is only part of a complete entity—a human being. A human being is a
kind of animal, a physical being. Man’s “formal principle” is something
spiritual; but nevertheless it is a principle of something physical, and
essentially so. Its nature is proportioned to that of which it is the principle. Even if it is “on the border” of spiritual and bodily creatures,11 its
natural home is squarely in the physical world.12
How should we judge such a view? Are we seeing just what Malebranche laments—the vestige of a pagan outlook not yet fully purged, a
still imperfect consciousness of man’s uniqueness as “subject”? The
verdict is not so easily drawn. Consider these passages.
The intellectual soul . . . , according to the order of nature, is not naturally endowed with the knowledge of truth, as the angels are; rather it
needs to gather it from divisible things by way of the senses, as Dionysius says in the seventh chapter of On the Divine Names.13
The inferior spiritual substances, namely souls, have a being akin to
the body, insofar as they are forms of bodies; and therefore, from their
very mode of being it belongs to them to attain their intelligible
perfection from bodies and through bodies. Otherwise they would be
united to bodies pointlessly.14
10 Anima si per se speciem haberet, magis conveniret cum angelis; sed inquantum

est forma corporis, pertinet ad genus animalium, ut formale principium. ST I, q.
90, a. 4, ad 2. See ST I, q. 76, a. 3, obj. 2 and ad 2.
11 ST I, q. 77, a. 2.
12 On this point see the excellent study of B. Carlos Bazán, “The Human Soul:
Form and Substance? Thomas Aquinas’s Critique of Eclectic Aristotelianism,”
Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 64 (1997): 95–126, esp.
117–23.“It is only as the most perfect of substantial forms that the soul is at the
borderline between bodily and separate substances, not as the lowest of spiritual
substances (except if we use the term substance in a derivative way, per reductionem).” Ibid., 123.
13 Anima autem intellectiva . . . , secundum naturae ordinem, infimum gradum in
substantiis intellectualibus tenet; intantum quod non habet naturaliter sibi inditam notitiam veritatis, sicut angeli, sed oportet quod eam colligat ex rebus divisibilibus per viam sensus, ut Dionysius dicit,VII cap. De div. nom. ST I, q. 76, a. 5.
On the “divisible things,” see p. 321.
14 Substantiae enim spirituales inferiores, scilicet animae, habent esse affine corpori,
inquantum sunt corporum formae, et ideo ex ipso modo essendi competit eis ut

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Malebranche finds the soul’s union with the body philosophically inexplicable. He considers it incidental to the soul’s end, the knowledge of
truth. Thomas sees the need for truth as the very reason for the union.
And the nature of the union is just what “the Philosopher” said it was.
My aim in this paper is to understand Thomas’s view that the human soul
exists as the form of a body for the very sake of knowing truth. It is a
surprisingly subtle doctrine.The most delicate point concerns the status of
the soul separated from the body. In order to appreciate it, however, we must
first survey various elements of Thomas’s conception of man and his soul.
Soul, Mind, and Subject
Soul and Mind
In Thomas’s vocabulary, “mind” is synonymous with “intellect.” Not
infrequently, he also uses these words to refer to the human soul.
However, he does not actually identify soul and intellect. Rather, intellect is a particular power or faculty of the human soul. It is a principle of
a certain type of vital activity. It is rooted in the soul, but not quite the
same thing.
One general reason for this distinction is simply that the soul carries
other vital powers as well, for instance sensitive and generative powers.
The soul is one, its powers many. No single power can be identical with
it. However, even if intellect were the soul’s only operative power, they
would still have to be distinguished.This will require some explanation.
Earlier we saw that Thomas describes the human soul as man’s “formal
principle.” This means it is a principle, and the dominant one, of man’s
very nature or “essence.”The essence of a thing is what the thing is just
in itself, absolutely, in its own identity with itself and distinction from
everything else. And in a way, for Thomas, the essence of a thing does
constitute a sort of capacity or power. It is the thing’s power to be itself,
to exercise its own being.
“Intellect,” on the other hand, signifies the power for the activity of
understanding. Like any activity, understanding has an object, something
that it bears upon or is about. In general, understanding is about the intelligible. If this is an obscure notion, perhaps we can make do with the
signifiable—that which can be named or targeted for consideration. The
point to notice is that this is extremely broad. Indeed it covers everything.
It is as wide as being itself.Through intellect, a subject can exercise activity about all things—whether identical with or distinct from itself.
a corporibus, et per corpora suam perfectionem intelligibilem consequantur,
alioquin frustra corporibus unirentur. ST I, q. 55, a. 2.

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In a way what has intellect is even able to be all things.15 For although
understanding bears upon many things outside its subject, it is an activity that stays within the subject, “immanent” activity.16 This means that
the things upon which it bears must somehow be united to the subject
and exist in it. Of course, if the thing known has its own being outside
the knower, then it does not exist in the knower in the same way as it
exists in itself. It is only “in a way” that a knower “is” whatever he knows.
What is in the knower is only a kind of likeness of what he knows, a
cognitive “species” or form.17 The knower is “informed” about what he
knows and knowingly signifies.
In a sense, then, mind or intellect is something infinite. As is obvious,
however, a human being is something finite, one particular kind of thing
among many. Human nature, and especially its formal principle, the soul,
is the power to be a human being. But the power of mind extends far
beyond man’s own being. The human form does not, by itself, make
someone be all things. It does not do so even in the qualified way in
which a knower “is” what he knows. Having the human form cannot
suffice to inform someone about all the things he can know. Other things
have their own distinctive forms and perfections, features that human
nature does not display.This is true even of things inferior to man, things
whose perfection is less than his.18 Understanding human nature does
not, for example, provide a sufficient basis for understanding the nature
of the sun.This is why the human form, the soul, cannot be simply identical with the human mind.
In fact, for Thomas, this is true of any created mind, even an angel’s.19
Only in God can intellect and essence—his power to understand and his
power to exist or to be himself—be perfectly identical. This is because
the divine essence is itself infinite.20 Being the very source of all other
things, its own perfection does somehow contains all the perfections
found in other things.And so it “contains in itself, in a supereminent way,
whatever can be signified or understood by a created intellect.”21
15 Thomas never tires of citing Aristotle’s description of the intellectual soul as

quodammodo omnia (De anima III.8, 431b20).
16 See ST I, q. 14, a. 2; also I, q. 54, a. 2; I, q. 87, a. 3; Aristotle, Metaphysics IX.8,

1050a35–1050b1.
17 This species is not what the knower knows, in knowing the thing. It is a princi-

ple by which the knower knows the thing itself. Knowing the species itself
requires a distinct act of reflection. See ST I, q. 85, a. 2.
18 ST I, q. 84, a. 2, c. and ad 3.
19 ST I, q. 55, a. 1.
20 See ST I, q. 7, a. 2.
21 ST I, q. 12, a. 2. See I, q. 14, a. 6.

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Even in an intellectual creature, of course, its nature or form is some
sort of principle of its intellectual activity. Understanding does not just
“happen” to its subject, as though by chance. It is rooted in what the
subject is, and so is the power for it.22 But the immediate result of the
subject’s form is only his own existence, his being himself. The acts by
which he is “all things” must be mediated by a kind of companion principle. In order to be qualified for understanding, he needs additional
power, a connatural quality that further perfects his form.This is his mind.
The Soul and the Self
Human nature is not something added on to some more fundamental
kind of entity. That is, a human being is a “substance.” As the “formal
principle” of a human being, the human soul is also something quite
fundamental, something substantial. In a certain sense, it is even the
“subject” of intellect. This is because, as we shall consider further on,
Thomas thinks that intellect must be an immaterial power, not seated
in any bodily organ. Nevertheless, the soul is not, for Thomas, the
whole substance of a human person. It is not by itself a complete
subject.23 The essence of a human person is not soul alone, but soul and
body together.
Thomas does not simply take it for granted that human beings are
essentially corporeal. Perhaps he would do so if he thought that our
knowledge of their existence must always rest upon observation of their
bodies. But Thomas is quite conscious of the fact that the individual
subject, the particular human being, also has “inward” awareness of
himself, that is, awareness of himself as performing immanent acts such as
understanding or sensation. In fact Thomas follows Aristotle in judging
that this is how a person first knows of his own existence.24 Thomas also
22 On the powers as “flowing” from the soul, see ST I, q. 77, a. 6. Even though intel-

lect is in a way more perfect than the essence of the soul, with respect to its infinity, in another way it is less perfect. For it is only an “accident,” an “addition” to
the soul, not something that subsists on its own. Hence the substantial actuality
of the soul can be a cause of it, even though the soul is also perfected by it. On
intellect as an accident and a quality, see ST I, q. 54, a. 3, ad 2; I, q. 78, a. 1, ad 5.
More generally on the ontology of substance and accident in relation to the
intellect, see Lawrence Dewan, OP, “St. Thomas and the Integration of Knowledge into Being,” International Philosophical Quarterly 24 (1984): 383–93.
23 Thomas’s notion of “subject” is very close to Aristotle’s. On Aristotle’s notion in
comparison with the modern one, see Enrico Berti, “Soggetto, anima e identità
personale in Aristotele,” in Peri Psyche, De homine,Antropologia. Nuovi Approcci, M.
Sánchez Sorondo, ed. (Roma: Herder, 1994), 1–14.
24 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, IX.9, 1170a29–34.

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judges that the human subject’s original awareness of himself is extremely
confused. It does not immediately display his nature in a clear and distinct
way at all, whether as something spiritual, something corporeal, or a
composite of spiritual and corporeal elements. Ascertaining his nature
requires careful analysis of what is targeted in that original self-awareness.
I shall present Thomas’s explanation of this situation in a moment. But
first I wish to stress the fact that for him, even if we do start from the
point of view of the “self,” the “thinking subject” who has inward awareness of himself qua “thinking,” we must still eventually conclude that the
object of this awareness is not the soul alone. It includes both soul and
body.The content of a human person’s inward awareness of himself does
imply his being corporeal. This is because human “thinking” always
includes sensation. (I am using “thinking” as Descartes does, to cover all
types of immanent activity: understanding, sensing, willing, etc.)
Thus, a key premise in Thomas’s effort to prove that the soul is the
substantial form of the human body is that “it is the very man himself
who perceives himself both to understand and to sense; but sensing is not
without the body, and so the body must be some sort of part of the
man.”25 A little earlier he offers an argument for this premise.The soul of
an individual man could be identified with the man,Thomas says,
if it were held that the operation of the sensitive soul were proper to it,
without the body. For all the operations attributed to the man would
belong to the soul alone; and each thing is that which performs the
operations of that thing. Hence that which performs the man’s operations is the man. But it has been shown that sensing is not an operation
of the soul alone. So, since sensing is a certain operation of man, albeit
not his proper one, it is clear that the man is not soul alone, but something composed of soul and body.26

For Thomas, then, the “self ” is not something “inside” a person’s body.
It includes the body. If we took “mind” in the sense of the whole “thinking subject,” then on Thomas’s view matter would be a part of the human
25 Ipse idem homo est qui percipit se et intelligere et sentire, sentire autem non est

sine corpore, unde oportet corpus aliquam esse hominis partem. ST I, q. 76, a. 1.
26 Hoc quidem sustineri posset, si poneretur quod animae sensitivae operatio esset

eius propria sine corpore, quia omnes operationes quae attribuuntur homini,
convenirent soli animae; illud autem est unaquaeque res, quod operatur operationes illius rei. Unde illud est homo, quod operatur operationes hominis. Ostensum est autem quod sentire non est operatio animae tantum. Cum igitur sentire sit
quaedam operatio hominis, licet non propria, manifestum est quod homo non est
anima tantum, sed est aliquid compositum ex anima et corpore. ST I, q. 75, a. 4.

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mind (although for him this would be an improper use of “mind,” since
he restricts this term to intellect).27 The identification of the self with
something incorporeal might be possible if we experienced ourselves
engaging solely in intellectual acts. But for Thomas no human person can
have such experience.This is because a human person’s exercise of intellect must be accompanied by his exercise of some sense-activity, at least
that of imagination.The identification of the self with something incorporeal might also be possible if the sensations that one immediately experiences were not necessarily one’s own. But sensations are immanent acts,
remaining in the subject that exercises them.The only one who can have
immediate experience of them is their own subject.28
Self-Knowledge
Now, if Thomas does not simply take it for granted that the human subject
includes the body, neither does he take it for granted that sensation is an
operation involving the body. He sees the need to reason to this.29 We
shall consider his argument in the next section. But first let us glance at
his explanation for the “confused” character of the interior perception of
oneself as a subject of immanent acts.As we shall see further on, his explanation is closely connected with his understanding of the human soul’s
appropriate starting point for getting at truth.
Thomas judges that the interior perception gives a very high degree
of certainty about one’s own existence. It also gives great certainty about
the existence in oneself of some sort of principle or source of one’s
cognitive acts—the principle that goes by the name “soul.” Nevertheless,
by itself, this perception yields only a very vague and confused apprehension of one’s own nature and of the nature of this “soul.” Speaking of
how the intellect knows itself through knowing its acts,Thomas says that
it does so two ways.
27 St. Paul speaks of the “interior man.”Thomas takes this to refer, not properly to

the whole man, nor even to the whole soul, but only to the intellectual part. See
ST I, q. 75, a. 4, obj. 1 and ad 1.
28 See ST I, q. 57, a. 1, ad 2; also ST I, q. 87, a. 4. By “immediate experience” I mean
an apprehension that consists in union with the object itself, in its real being, not
just with a likeness of it.
29 Compare: C’est par l’instinct du sentiment que je suis persuadé que mon ame est
unie à mon corps, ou que mon corps fait partie de mon être: je n’en ai point
d’evidence. Ce n’est point par la lumiére de la raison que je le connois: c’est par
la douleur ou par le plaisir que je sens, lorsque les objects me frappent. Nicolas
Malebranche, De la Recherche de la Vérité, V. v, in Œuvres de Malebranche, vol. II,
Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, ed. (Paris:Vrin, 1974), 172.

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In one way, in the particular, according as Socrates or Plato perceives
himself to have an intellectual soul from the fact that he perceives himself
to understand. In another way, universally, according as we consider the
nature of the human mind from the act of the intellect. . . . But there is
a difference between these two apprehensions. In order to have the first
apprehension of the mind, the mind’s very presence suffices, this being
the principle of the act from which the mind perceives itself. And
therefore it is said to know itself through its presence. But for the
second apprehension, its presence does not suffice; but rather a diligent
and subtle inquiry is required. Hence many are ignorant of the nature
of the soul, and many have also erred about the soul’s nature.30

Thomas goes on to indicate that these two sorts of cognition go together.
For this reason, in the tenth book of On the Trinity, Augustine says of
such inquiry about the mind that “the mind is not seeking to perceive
itself, as though it were absent; but being present, it is seeking to discern
itself,” that is, to know its difference from other things, which is to
know its quiddity and its nature.31

Why does it take so much work to get at what is truly proper and
distinctive of the human mind, and thereby of man? The reason lies in
the fact that the intellectual acts through which the mind first knows
itself are not themselves acts of knowing oneself, or one’s soul, or even
one’s mind. Rather they are acts of knowing the natures of things
presented by the senses.The human mind
is not its own act of understanding, nor is its own essence the first
object of its understanding; this rather is something extrinsic, viz., the
30 Uno quidem modo, particulariter, secundum quod Socrates vel Plato percipit se

habere animam intellectivam, ex hoc quod percipit se intelligere. Alio modo, in
universali, secundum quod naturam humanae mentis ex actu intellectus consideramus. . . . Est autem differentia inter has duas cognitiones. Nam ad primam
cognitionem de mente habendam, sufficit ipsa mentis praesentia, quae est principium actus ex quo mens percipit seipsam. Et ideo dicitur se cognoscere per
suam praesentiam. Sed ad secundam cognitionem de mente habendam, non
sufficit eius praesentia, sed requiritur diligens et subtilis inquisitio. Unde et multi
naturam animae ignorant, et multi etiam circa naturam animae erraverunt. ST I,
q. 87, a. 1.
31 Propter quod Augustinus dicit, X de Trin., de tali inquisitione mentis, non velut
absentem se quaerat mens cernere; sed praesentem quaerat discernere, idest
cognoscere differentiam suam ab aliis rebus, quod est cognoscere quidditatem et
naturam suam. (ST I, q. 87, a. 1.) In his own study of the soul’s nature Thomas
often appeals to inner experience; see, e.g., ST I, q. 76, a. 1; I, q. 79, a. 4; I, q. 84,
a. 7; I, q. 88, a. 1.

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nature of a material reality. And therefore that which is first grasped by
the human intellect is an object of this sort; and secondly is grasped the
very act by which the object is grasped; and through this act is grasped
the intellect itself, of which the act of understanding is a perfection.32

The mind’s immediate perception of itself engaging in understanding is
not something intrinsic to its primary act of understanding. It is a distinct
act, a reflection upon the primary one.33 And the primary act displays the
mind, not in an absolute way or just by itself, but together with the
corporeal reality that is known in that act.34
The result of this situation is that the mind must inquire into its own
nature, reason to it, as to a cause—the cause of the acts that it perceives in
itself. And it must do so by comparison and contrast with bodily things.
For since these are its first objects, they constitute an indispensable reference point for its knowledge of anything whatsoever, including itself.35
Still,Thomas is remarkably optimistic about the possibility of reaching
a true and complete understanding of the nature of the soul. It is precisely
the phenomenon of understanding that makes the soul fully accessible to
itself. “The human soul understands itself through its act of understanding, which is its proper act, perfectly displaying its power and nature.”36
However, before examining the soul in light of its activity of understanding,Thomas first examines sensation.This is because, in a number of
ways, sensation stands midway between purely corporeal reality and the
mind. Understanding it is a step toward understanding mind. In order to
determine the mind’s own relation to the body, it is a crucial step.
Materiality and Immateriality in Sense and Intellect
The Materiality of Sense
Thomas does not treat it as self-evident that sensation is a corporeal operation. Obviously sensation is somehow associated with the body—and
32 [Intellectus humanus] nec est suum intelligere, nec sui intelligere est obiectum

primum ipsa eius essentia, sed aliquid extrinsecum, scilicet natura materialis rei. Et
ideo id quod primo cognoscitur ab intellectu humano, est huiusmodi obiectum;
et secundario cognoscitur ipse actus quo cognoscitur obiectum; et per actum
cognoscitur ipse intellectus, cuius est perfectio ipsum intelligere. ST I, q. 87, a. 3.
33 ST I, q. 87, a. 3, ad 2.
34 At the same time, the mind’s reflection on itself does put what it first knows in
a new light. For example, it is through such reflection that it knows things as
matters of truth, and as good: ST I, q. 16, a. 4, ad 2.
35 ST I, q. 84, a. 7.
36 [A]nima humana intelligit seipsam per suum intelligere, quod est actus proprius
eius, perfecte demonstrans virtutem eius et naturam. ST I, q. 88, a. 2, ad 3.

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each particular sense with some particular part of the body. But the “association” of a sensitive operation with the body or some part of it may or
may not mean that it is itself a bodily operation, that is, one exercised by
the body or the part. Perhaps the body is only some kind of extrinsic
condition for it. Is the body that I call mine really a part of me, or is it
only somehow attached to me? Is it really intrinsic to my capacity to
sense? According to Thomas’s sources, Plato held that sensation was an
activity of the soul alone.This is why Plato could identify a man with his
soul.37 Thomas treats it as a serious position, even if ultimately mistaken.
For indeed, it does have some initial plausibility.
We first know bodily natures according to their sensible qualities. But
although a power of sense, like intellect, is a certain quality in the sensitive subject, it is not itself a sensible quality. Or at least it is not any of the
qualities that are sensed by it. If it were, then it would be very difficult to
explain why not everything having that quality has sensation of it, or why
the one sensing is not constantly sensing his own quality. Nor does the
exercise of the sensitive power even consist in the subject’s taking on the
same sensible quality as what he senses. Someone seeing green does not
thereby look green. Moreover, every sense is a power for sensing things
in a whole range of qualities. If it were any one of those qualities, or
included any of them, it would in effect “filter out” all of the others.38
Hence, even if the subject that exercises sensation, as such, is corporeal, it is clearly of a different nature from the corporeal subjects that are
only sensible and cannot sense. At least to some extent, sensation stands
opposed to sensible matter.39 It “rises above” what we first grasp about
bodily natures.40 So it is not too surprising to find thinkers who draw the
conclusion that the sensitive nature is not bodily at all.Why does Thomas
think it must be?
Sensation does not rest upon having the same sensible quality as the
thing sensed. It does however rest upon having a likeness of that quality.
Each sense is a kind of natural capacity for having such likenesses. At the
same time, the likenesses of things are not in the sensitive subject simply
by virtue of its own nature or natural capacity. If they were, it would
always be sensing them. In itself it is only in potency to sensing. In order
37 See ST I, q. 75, aa. 3 and 4; I, q. 84, a. 6. His sources on this point seem to be

Nemesius and Augustine.
38 See the passage from ST I, q. 75, a. 2 quoted below, note 44.
39 See ST I, q. 84, a. 2: ratio cognitionis ex opposito se habet ad rationem materi-

alitatis.
40 Thomas even ascribes a qualified sort of infinity to sensation: ST I, q. 54, a. 2.

See ST I, q. 80, a. 1.

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to sense anything, it must undergo a change. It must receive the thing’s
likeness. What produces the likeness in it, the mover or agent of the
change, is the very thing that the likeness is a likeness of: the object, the
thing sensed. This follows the general principle that what is produced is
like what produces it.
For Thomas, in order to see the essential corporeity of the subject of
sensation, we must focus on how it is moved by its object.What we find
is that its reception of the object’s likeness always involves a corresponding change in the body.“Sensation, and the subsequent operations of the
sensitive soul, clearly occur along with some change of the body; as in
seeing, the pupil is altered by the impression of color; and the same holds
in the other cases.”41
This seems undeniable. Still, does it really show that the body is intrinsic to the very subject of sensation? After all, when the sensible object
moves the sense, the medium of sensation also undergoes a corresponding
change. For instance, the transmission of sound involves the propagation
of waves in the air. Yet the medium is not part of the subject of sensation.
What seems to be decisive for Thomas is the way in which sensible
objects can affect the subject’s very ability to sense.“The sensitive subject
is acted upon by the sensible object together with an alteration of the
body; and for this reason, an excessive intensity of sensible objects impairs
the sense.”42 A very bright light dazzles. It hinders subsequent vision in a
dimmer light, at least for a while. What this shows is that sight is not a
totally “pure” potential. It exists in proportion to a determinate set of
conditions. Its own actualization involves a modification of the conditions.When the actualization is too intense, some kind of balance is lost.
And readjustment takes time.This shows that the conditions are physical
or corporeal.
The seat of the conditions is also the seat of the power of sight, and it
is something corporeal. Since it is only a part of a whole animal, the part
that the animal uses to see with, it is called an “organ,” that is, an instrument.The organ of a given sense may or may not be absolutely essential
41 Sentire vero, et consequentes operationes animae sensitivae, manifeste accidunt

cum aliqua corporis immutatione; sicut in videndo immutatur pupilla per
speciem coloris; et idem apparet in aliis. (ST I, q. 75, a. 3.) We might obeserve
that this alteration is not itself sensed, at least not in the very act of sensation that
it is part of. It is the physical accompaniment of the sense’s reception of the
species of the object sensed, and like the species, it is only a means or a principle by which the object is sensed. (See above, note 17.)
42 Sensitivum patitur a sensibili cum corporis immutatione; unde excellentia sensibilium corrumpit sensum. (ST I, q. 75, a. 3, ad 2.) See De anima III.4, 429b1–3.

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to the animal. But it is certainly essential to the sense, as the sense is essential to it. Neither exists without the other.
The Immateriality of Intellect
In Thomas’s judgment, it is impossible that the human intellect be either
a body or a power seated in a body. His preferred way of showing this
comes directly from Aristotle’s De anima.43 It runs as follows.
It is clear that man, through intellect, can apprehend the natures of all
bodies. But what can apprehend some things must have none of them
in its own nature, because that which is naturally within it would
impede the apprehension of the others; thus, we observe that the
tongue of someone ill, being is infected with a bilious and bitter
humor, cannot perceive something sweet, but everything seems bitter
to it.And so if the intellectual principle had in itself the nature of some
body, it would be unable to apprehend all bodies. But every body has a
determinate nature. So it is impossible that the intellectual principle be
a body.And it is likewise impossible that it understand through a bodily
organ, because even the determinate nature of that bodily organ would
impede the apprehension of all bodies. Thus, not only if some determinate color is in the pupil, but also if it is in a glass vessel, the liquid
poured into the vessel seems to be of that same color. Hence the intellectual principle itself, which is called mind or intellect, has an operation of its own, in which the body does not share.44

The reasoning here is quite straightforward. However, at the least the
first sentence surely raises a question. Is it really so “clear” that man can
know the natures of all bodies? As far as I know,Thomas never offers any
proof for this claim. Like Aristotle (who in fact says simply “all things”),
43 De anima III.4, 429a13–429b6.
44 Manifestum est enim quod homo per intellectum cognoscere potest naturas

omnium corporum. Quod autem potest cognoscere aliqua, oportet ut nihil
eorum habeat in sua natura, quia illud quod inesset ei naturaliter impediret
cognitionem aliorum; sicut videmus quod lingua infirmi quae infecta est
cholerico et amaro humore, non potest percipere aliquid dulce, sed omnia videntur ei amara. Si igitur principium intellectuale haberet in se naturam alicuius
corporis, non posset omnia corpora cognoscere. Omne autem corpus habet
aliquam naturam determinatam. Impossibile est igitur quod principium intellectuale sit corpus. Et similiter impossibile est quod intelligat per organum
corporeum, quia etiam natura determinata illius organi corporei prohiberet
cognitionem omnium corporum; sicut si aliquis determinatus color sit non
solum in pupilla, sed etiam in vase vitreo, liquor infusus eiusdem coloris videtur.
Ipsum igitur intellectuale principium, quod dicitur mens vel intellectus, habet
operationem per se, cui non communicat corpus. ST I, q. 75, a. 2.

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he takes it for granted. How does he know it? Does he think he has actually understood each and every kind of bodily nature?
Perhaps he is not presuming quite so much. The argument does not
really seem to depend upon the assumption that no bodily nature has
remained hidden from us. It only assumes that the intellect is, in itself, open
to the knowledge of all bodily natures.To appreciate this, it seems sufficient
to consider that the intellect can know the general nature common to all
bodies; that is, the very nature of “body,” in abstraction from any specific
kind. Knowing generally what a body is, the intellect already ranges over
the entire field. No specific kind falls outside its scope.The argument then
is that if it were itself some specific kind of body, or if it knew by means of
some such kind, it would not have this universal scope. Its own nature
would block the apprehension of alien or contrary kinds.
Still following Aristotle, whose subtlety on this point he frankly
admires,45 Thomas confirms the incorporeity of mind by way of the very
sort of consideration that establishes the corporeity of sensation.46 Intellect and sense have it in common that they pass from potency to act, from
not knowing to knowing. Hence, as with sense, the mind’s object is
something distinct from it, something that moves it and actualizes it. In
this respect mind is passive.Yet it is not passive to the same degree as sense
is. For it is never impaired by the action of its own objects.A bright light
hinders vision; but highly intelligible things do not make lesser intelligibles harder to understand, even for a while. If anything,Thomas says, they
make it easier.
What does this mean? In general, something is intrinsically more knowable, more apt to present or display itself, the more it is “in act.”The more
intelligible things are those that are more in act, more perfect. But a more
perfect thing may be the very point of reference for the understanding of
a less perfect thing. For instance, of a pair of contraries, one is more perfect
than the other; and the less perfect one is understood by comparison with
the more perfect one. It is defined according to its privation of the other’s
perfection. Dimness is lack of brightness.Thomas is arguing that the mind
can never be acted upon in a way contrary to its own nature.47
45 See his opusculum De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas, cap. 1, §24 (ed. Keeler).
46 See ST I, q. 75, a. 3, ad 2.
47 Non enim invenitur corruptio nisi ubi invenitur contrarietas, generationes enim

et corruptiones ex contrariis et in contraria sunt. . . . In anima autem intellectiva
non potest esse aliqua contrarietas. Recipit enim secundum modum sui esse, ea
vero quae in ipsa recipiuntur, sunt absque contrarietate; quia etiam rationes
contrariorum in intellectu non sunt contrariae, sed est una scientia contrariorum. ST I, q. 75, a. 6.

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Mind, then, is indeed a totally “pure” potential. It is not a function of
a determinate set of bodily conditions. And there is no such thing as a
body that has no determinate conditions. So the mind can neither be, nor
reside immediately in, a bodily subject, an “organ of understanding.” If
the intellectual subject as a whole is corporeal, then his mind must reside
immediately in some incorporeal part of him, and belong to the whole
by way of that part.48 The incorporeal part of the human substance is the
soul. It is in this sense that the soul is the subject of the mind and its acts.
The Bond between Mind and Matter
In arguing for the incorporeity of the human mind, Thomas focuses
upon what he considers to be its first and proportionate objects, the
natures of bodily things.49 This approach underscores the fact that he
does not at all mean to claim that the human mind works in complete
independence from the body.The mind’s first objects are bodily natures,
precisely because it only gains access to its objects through the senses. Its
primary objects are “founded” in sensibles.50 As Thomas puts it, “the
body is needed for the action of the mind, not as an organ by which such
action is excercised, but by reason of the object; for the [sensible] image
is related to the intellect as color to sight.”51
Thus, although the mind’s power cannot be blunted by the action of
any of its objects, it can still be hindered in its operation, indirectly. It can
be deprived of the conditions needed for bearing upon its objects. In
particular, Thomas judges that without the exercise of imagination, the
mind can neither acquire knowledge of things, nor even use knowledge
already acquired. It must gather the likeness of its primary objects from
sensible images, and it must turn back to such images in order to consider
the objects in their proper mode of being.52 If the mind did not depend
48 ST I, q. 76, a. 1; see Aristotle, Physics V.1, 224a31.
49 ST I, q. 84, aa. 7 and 8. This is not inconsistent with the fact that what we first

understand is something more universal than any specific bodily kind, and indeed
more universal even than corporeal nature in general: the common nature of being.
For we first understand this in corporeal instances of it. Obiectum intellectus est
commune quoddam, scilicet ens et verum, sub quo comprehenditur etiam ipse actus
intelligendi. Unde intellectus potest suum actum intelligere. Sed non primo, quia
nec primum obiectum intellectus nostri, secundum praesentem statum, est quodlibet ens et verum; sed ens et verum consideratum in rebus materialibus, ut dictum
est; ex quibus in cognitionem omnium aliorum devenit. ST I, q. 87, a. 3, ad 1.
50 ST I, q. 84, a. 8, ad 1.
51 Corpus requiritur ad actionem intellectus, non sicut organum quo talis actio
exerceatur, sed ratione obiecti, phantasma enim comparatur ad intellectum sicut
color ad visum. ST I, q. 75, a. 2, ad 3.
52 ST I, q. 84, a. 7.

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on the senses for the presentation of its object, it would be unaccountable how a failure of the senses or the injury of an organ could obstruct
its operation, as they obviously can. It could always be exercising understanding, as Thomas believes the angels and God are.
In one place Thomas says that the human intellect, joined to the body
by way of the soul, is at the maximum grade of “concreteness.”53 By this
he seems to mean that it is the most “conditioned” of all intellects. Its
own activity is tied to a bodily activity. They are distinct activities, but
they form an operative unity. This fits with the fact that the intellect’s
spiritual subject, the soul, is joined to bodily matter in a single act of
being, that is, the being of a single substance.
As Thomas sees it, the thesis that the human mind depends upon the
senses for the presentation of its object explains many features of human
understanding. For instance, it explains why the human mind’s first
objects are also the most “concrete,” that is, composite or divisible, of
intelligible objects. It takes work for the mind to reach a grasp of
absolutely indivisible natures, even those which exist in bodies and are
within its power to understand properly.This is because such natures are
at a kind of opposite extreme from the divisible manifolds presented by
the senses.54 Thus, for example, the pre-Socratic “physicists” thought that
everything, even soul, was some kind of body.They did not see that what
first differentiates one kind of body from another, as soul differentiates a
living from a non-living body, cannot be yet another body, but must be
something indivisible and incorporeal, a “form.”55
The mind’s dependence upon the senses also explains why, even
though it is a spiritual power, its way of operating has much in common
with that of bodily or physical things, that is, mobile things.Thomas even
compares the human mind to prime matter: In itself it is merely in
potency and needs to be moved into act.56 The comparison is not
perfect; among other things, the mind’s potency is not only passive but
also, in part, active. It possesses a kind of “light,” the so-called “agent intellect,” which acts upon a thing’s sensible image so as to manifest the thing’s
nature or to make it intelligible “in act.” However, the agent intellect does
not cause any act of understanding immediately or by itself, without
material furnished by the senses. It merely frees the corporeal nature from
the material conditions of the senses,“abstracts” it.This enables the nature
to produce a likeness of itself that has the mind’s own immaterial mode
53 Sentencia libri De sensu et sensato, lect. 1 (Marietti §4).
54 See ST I, q. 85, a. 8.
55 See ST I, q. 75, a. 1.
56 ST I, q. 87, a. 1; see ST I, q. 56, a. 1.

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of being, a likeness that the mind can receive.57 To some extent we could
compare the agent intellect to the nutritive power, which makes the
organism grow, but not without food.
Moreover, the human mind’s “assimilation” of the intelligible, or its
work of attaining a full and proper grasp of the truth of the object, is a
gradual and successive process—again similar to the way in which physical things reach their perfection.58 By contrast, what the angels and God
first know are the natures of simple and absolutely immaterial entities,
separate forms;59 and their grasp of these natures is complete right from
the start, without movement.60 For Thomas, in fact, the mobility of the
human mind serves to sum up the difference between it and other minds.
The human mind is the discursive, rational mind.61 And its mobility,
rooted in its proper subject’s conjunction with bodily matter, is a clear
sign of its lesser perfection.62
Yet Thomas believes that the human soul can exist separately from
matter, as God and the angels do. He also holds that the separate soul can
engage in understanding. As we shall see, this raises some serious doubts
about his view that its union with the body is natural for it.
The Need for the Body
The Knowledge of the Separate Soul
As is well known, St. Thomas holds it to be philosophically demonstrable that the human soul is incorruptible, lacking any inner potential to
cease to exist. His argument rests on the fact that the soul is both subsistent, or a subject of existence, and a form, a pure determination to the
existence that it has.63 It is beyond the scope of this paper to examine
this argument in detail. Our interest is in the intellectual activity of the
soul once it is separated from the body.
Thomas’s own conception of the nature of man’s intellectual operation poses a difficulty for the thesis that the soul outlives the body. He
was well aware of the difficulty.

57 See ST I, q. 79, a. 3; I, q. 84, a. 6.
58 See ST I, q. 85, aa. 3, 5.
59 See ST I, q. 12, a. 4; I, q. 14, aa. 2, 5; I, q. 84, a. 7.
60 See ST I, q. 14, aa. 7, 15; I, q. 58, aa. 1, 3, 4.
61 Homines autem ad intelligibilem veritatem cognoscendam perveniunt, proce-

dendo de uno ad aliud, . . . et ideo rationales dicuntur. ST I, q. 79, a. 8.
62 See ST I, q. 79, a. 4.
63 See ST I, q. 75, aa. 2, 6.

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No thing exists without its proper operation. But the proper operation
of the soul, which is to understand with an image, cannot be without
the body; for the soul understands nothing without an image, and an
image does not exist without the body, as it says in the De anima. So
upon the destruction of the body, the soul cannot remain.64

Nothing exists without its own operation.Things exist for the very sake
of their operations; these are their proper perfections.65 Perhaps the
corruption of the body does not entail the disappearance of the human
soul in the way that it entails the disappearance of non-intellectual or
non-subsistent forms. But it seems to entail the complete suspension of
the soul’s operation. The separate soul would be utterly inert, and so
pointless. Nature does not behave pointlessly.
Thomas answers the objection very briefly. “Understanding with an
image is the proper operation of the soul, insofar as it is united to the
body. But once separated from the body, it will have another way of
understanding, similar to that of other substances that are separate from
the body.”66 The soul can both exist and understand without the body. It
will understand, not by abstraction from sensibles, but in a way similar to
that of the substances that are never joined to bodies, the angels. The
crucial question will be, would this not be positively better for it? First
though, let us look more closely at this “other way of understanding.”
The death of the body does not change the human soul’s essential
nature.67 Nevertheless it does involve the soul’s taking on a different
mode of being. It no longer exists in matter. As regards its intellectual
operation, this is an extremely significant difference. Once again following Aristotle,Thomas holds that a nature existing separately from matter
is by that very fact actually intelligible. There is no need to abstract an
immaterial likeness of it from anything. It is immediately apt not only for
understanding, but also for being understood. For this reason, Thomas
teaches, an angel understands its own nature immediately, and from the
very beginning of its existence. The form or “species” through which it
64 Nulla res est sine propria operatione. Sed propria operatio animae, quae est intel-

ligere cum phantasmate, non potest esse sine corpore; nihil enim sine phantasmate
intelligit anima; phantasma autem non est sine corpore, ut dicitur in libro De anima.
Ergo anima non potest remanere, destructo corpore. (ST I, q. 75, a. 6, obj. 3.) The
reference seems to be to De anima I.1, 403a9.
65 See ST I, q. 105, a. 5; cf. ST I, q. 87, a. 3.
66 Dicendum quod intelligere cum phantasmate est propria operatio animae secundum quod corpori est unita. Separata autem a corpore habebit alium modum
intelligendi similem aliis substantiis a corpore separatis. ST I, q. 75, a. 6, ad 3.
67 ST I, q. 89, a. 1.

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understands its own nature is its own nature, to which of course it is
naturally united.68
This however does not mean that through understanding itself, the
angel understands everything that it naturally can; for it can also understand other things. As we considered before, an angel is only a finite
entity. Its understanding of itself provides only a kind of general and
confused understanding of other things. This is true as regards not only
things above it but also things beneath it.
The things that are beneath an angel, and those that are above it, are in
a way contained in its substance, yet not perfectly, nor according to
their proper definitions, but only according to some common feature;
for the essence of an angel, being finite, is distinguished from others
according to its proper definition.69

Hence, in order to understand all that it naturally can, the angel needs
additional intelligible forms or likenesses of things. It has these by nature,
being endowed with them by the intellectual author of nature, whose own
“intelligible species” is a perfect representation of all things.70 Here of
course Thomas is going beyond anything explicit in Aristotle’s works.71
The angel needs additions to its own nature, additional likenesses of
things, in order to reach its natural intellectual perfection. On the other
hand,Thomas teaches, it does not need a distinct likeness for each of the
natures that it understands, even as regards what is proper and distinctive
of them. It can receive from God a more perfect intelligible species, in
which many natures are all properly and distinctly represented.The more
68 Angelus autem, cum sit immaterialis, est quaedam forma subsistens, et per hoc

intelligibilis actu. (ST I, q. 56, a. 1.) See ST I, q. 55, a. 2; I, q. 87, a. 1, ad 2. For
the Aristotelian basis, see De anima, III.4, 430a3–5, and III.6, 430b24–26; Metaphysics XII.9, 1074b35–1075a11.
69 Ea quae sunt infra angelum, et ea quae sunt supra ipsum, sunt quodammodo in
substantia eius, non quidem perfecte, neque secundum propriam rationem, cum
angeli essentia, finita existens, secundum propriam rationem ab aliis distinguatur;
sed secundum quandam rationem communem. ST I, q. 55, a. 1, ad 3.
70 On God’s “intelligible species,” see ST I, q. 14, a. 5, ad 3. Thomas argues that
angels are simply incapable of abstracting intelligible objects from corporeal
things, since they lack imagination (ST I, q. 55, a. 2, ad 2).
71 He cites Augustine and ps.-Dionysius. In any case, I see nothing in the reasoning that Thomas would consider essentially dependent upon revelation. Bazán,
“The Human Soul,” 125, claims that Thomas’s argument for the separate soul’s
intellectual activity is not philosophical. But he does not enter at all into its
details, and neither does his sole reference: Joseph Owens, CSR,“Aquinas on the
Inseparability of Soul from Existence,” New Scholasticism 61 (1987): 268–69.

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perfect the angel, the more it approaches God’s absolute simplicity, and
the fewer species it needs.72
It is in a way similar to the angels that a soul separated from the body
can engage in understanding.73 So it can know its own nature immediately, and it can know other things through species infused by God.74 Just
as in the case of the angels, this discussion applies independently of any
consideration of grace or the supernatural order. And it applies to souls
that do not conserve any knowledge previously received by way of
abstraction from sensible things.75
The Weakness of the Human Mind
Thomas believes that his aristotelianism carries even so far as to making
a positive contribution to the account of the knowledge of the separated
soul. But the very success of his use of it also raises another doubt about
it.Thomas dedicates a long discussion to its resolution.76
The doubt is this. If the soul separated from the body can understand
in a way similar to that of separate substances, why is it natural for the
soul to be in the body and to know by conversion to sensible images?
Would it not be better for the soul to have the “angelic” way of knowing right from the start? Nature is always ordered toward what is best.
Must God not have instituted the nature of the soul according to the
angelic mode of being, viz. separate from the body, so that it could understand by conversion to the things that are intelligible per se? In other
words, if the human soul can understand without the body, can its union
with the body be deemed truly natural for it? It is a question that challenges Thomas’s entire anthropology.
The core of his answer is a distinction. It is true, he says, that absolutely
speaking, the angelic mode of understanding, through conversion to the
higher intelligible things, is better than the mode of understanding
through conversion to sensible images. But with respect to the human
soul’s capacity for it, the angelic mode is less perfect.
To explain this, Thomas has us consider the fact that the power to
manifest the truth, intellectual “light,” exists in many grades of perfection.77 The most perfect is the light of the divine mind, which is absolutely
72 ST I, q. 55, a. 3; see ST I, q. 14, a. 6.
73 ST I, q. 89, a. 1.
74 ST I, q. 89, aa. 2 and 3.
75 ST I, q. 89, a. 1, obj. 1 and ad 1.
76 ST I, q. 89, a. 1; see Quaestio disputata de anima, a. 15.
77 “Light, as pertaining to intellect, is nothing other than a certain manifestation of

truth.” ST I, q. 106, a. 1.

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one and simple. Created minds are like concentric rings, revolving around
the simple common center at various distances; and their lights derive
from the divine light like lines emerging from the center. As the lines
move outward, toward rings farther from the center, the more divided
and diversified they are.Thus, God understands all things by virtue of his
single essence.The higher intellectual creatures, boasting powerful lights,
need only a few additional intelligible forms, each containing a great
wealth of information about many things. But the lower intellects,
endowed with weaker lights, need many forms, each of which represents
fewer things and contains less information about them.
Consequently,Thomas says, if a lower mind receives intelligible forms
of the sort that suits the higher minds, it will not have sufficient light to
exploit them fully. They will be, as it were, too dense for it to unpack.
Through them, it will only know things imperfectly, in a kind of general
and confused way. Thomas notes that the same thing happens among
different men: Some are able to understand many things, and well, by
means of just a few abstract and synthetic formulations; for others such
formulations mainly produce confusion, and clear comprehension
requires longer, more detailed explanations, accompanied by concrete
examples.78 This is how it stands with the human mind in relation to
“angelic” intelligible forms. Through them it could indeed understand
something, but not well.To understand well, it needs the more particular
forms that are gathered from the experience of sensible things.
The human mind is the weakest of all.Yet it too deserves to exist.“The
perfection of the universe required that there be various grades in
things.”And so,Thomas concludes, it is better after all for there to be spiritual substances that are joined to bodies.The human soul’s natural mode
of being is the one best suited to it. Complete separation from matter
would not, by itself, improve the condition of the human mind; quite the
contrary. The human mind’s inferiority to that of the angels is not the
effect of its union with matter.The inferiority is intrinsic to it, and is the
very reason for the union.
For Thomas, then, the soul’s union with the body is directly in the
service of its knowledge of truth.This is certainly an explanation for the
union that someone like Malebranche could take seriously. But could it
satisfy him? It seems to me that yet another doubt might be raised.
Thomas does acknowledge that separation from matter would have its
advantages for the soul. He concedes that although the body is a necessary vehicle for the soul’s proper knowledge of corporeal things, it is also
78 On varying grades of strength in human intellects, see ST I, q. 85, a. 7.

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a kind of weight and distraction.79 What the separate soul knows, it
knows immediately, effortlessly, without any inquiry or study. Moreover,
Thomas seems to judge that the separate soul’s knowledge of incorporeal
substances, though not perfect, is better than the knowledge that it can
have of them while it is in the body.80 And at least its knowledge of itself,
and of other human souls, is perfect and proper.81
What it cannot have is complete or proper knowledge of the things
below it, corporeal things. It does know something about these things,
through the “angelic information” that it is given about them; but its light
is not strong enough to discern all of the implications of this information.82 It needs to have the natures of corporeal things “spelled out,”
presented singly, according to their own mode of existing in sensible
matter. God conveys the knowledge of corporeal natures to the human
soul by creating things that have such natures, and by uniting the soul to
a body through which they can be presented to it.83
Clearly Thomas is setting a very high value on “proper”—we might
almost say “clear and distinct”—knowledge of things; and precisely of
bodily things. Is it too high? The union with the body entails a lesser
knowledge of the angels. And although it does not simply exclude the
soul’s proper knowledge of itself (since the soul too pertains to the nature
of a bodily entity), it does make this more difficult, a matter of diligent
and careful inquiry rather than of immediate intuition. Moreover, even
the separate soul can know other bodily natures, albeit in a general and
confused way.Yet for Thomas this is not enough. “The effort of study is
not in vain,” he insists, because “the knowledge got through it is proper
and complete.”84 He is talking about getting the proper and complete
knowledge of bodily natures.
Thomas seems to think that this is a sufficient reason for the soul’s union
with the body, despite all the disadvantages thereof.To be sure, it is a reason
pertaining to the knowledge of truth; but only truth about bodily things.
79 ST I, q. 89, a. 2, ad 1; see ST I, q. 65, a. 1, obj. 2 and ad 2.
80 Compare ST I, q. 89, a. 2 with ST I, q. 88, aa. 1 and 2. See Quaestio disputata de

anima, a. 15.
81 ST I, q. 89, a. 2.
82 ST I, q. 89, a. 3; see Quaestio disputata de anima, a. 18. Obviously, in rendering

these judgments about the separate soul’s knowledge, Thomas is not drawing
upon his own personal experience, or for that matter anyone else’s. He is offering a reasoned conclusion. His chief assumptions are that the soul is naturally
united to the body, that its natural end is to know truth, and that the author of
the natural order has done well in giving it this mode of being.
83 See ST I, q. 84, a. 4, ad 1.
84 ST I, q. 89, a. 3, ad 4.

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Could Malebranche possibly be satisfied with this? Surely he would find
such a high regard for merely physical knowledge rather too “pagan.”
However, we should not forget Thomas’s metaphor of lines emerging
from a common center. For him, the truth about bodily things is not
“only” truth about bodily things. It is also a derivation from the First
Truth. What we need to consider is his appreciation of the role of the
truth of bodily things in the human soul’s overall “search for truth.”
To Represent God
First let us go back for a moment to the way in which Thomas defends
the existence of low-grade intellectual substances like us.“The perfection
of the universe,” he says,“required that there be various grades in things.”
This is a point that he explains earlier in the Summa theologiae.85 God
produced the universe of creatures for the sake of the communication
and representation of his own goodness. But no one creature can represent it sufficiently, and what is lacking in one is supplied by another.This
is why he made many things, and especially many forms of things. But
“formal distinction always requires inequality.”86
This doctrine is connected with what we saw earlier about God’s
knowledge of things. Only He can know all things properly and perfectly
just by knowing himself, because he alone contains in himself all the
perfections of things.This means that he contains not only the perfections
common to all things, for instance being or goodness, but also their proper
perfections.Their distinctive forms and differences are perfections too.
Not only that which creatures have in common, namely being, pertains
to perfection; but also those features by which creatures are distinguished
from one another, such as life, and understanding, and so forth, by which
living things are distinguished from non-living, and intelligent things
from non-intelligent.And every form, by which each thing is constituted
in its proper species, is a certain perfection. And thus all things pre-exist
in God, not only as regards what is common to them all, but also as
regards the features according to which the things are distinguished.87
85 ST I, q. 47, a. 1.
86 ST I, q. 47, a. 2. He explains this in ST I, q. 75, a. 7. Formal distinction is the sort

of distinction found among species of a genus.The differences dividing a genus
into its species are contraries, and these are are related as perfect to imperfect.
This is because the root of contrariety is possession and privation.
87 Non solum autem id in quo creaturae communicant, scilicet ipsum esse, ad perfectionem pertinet; sed etiam ea per quae creaturae ad invicem distinguuntur, sicut
vivere, et intelligere, et huiusmodi, quibus viventia a non viventibus, et intelligentia a non intelligentibus distinguuntur. Et omnis forma, per quam quaelibet res in
propria specie constituitur, perfectio quaedam est. Et sic omnia in Deo praeexitunt,

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The perfections of all things preexist in God.They exist in the things
themselves for the sake of representing him. Each makes its own partial,
but special, contribution. What this means is that the lower kinds of
things in the world are not just good; they also contain perfections that
the higher do not.They even represent God’s goodness in ways that the
higher do not.This is true not only of the lowest spiritual things, but also
of the lowest things simply, the bodies.88
Man’s natural end is not to know the truth about corporeal things. But
then, neither is it to know the truth about himself.89 It is to know the
truth about God, and thereby to love him. Man reaches the knowledge
of God through his created representations—through man himself, of
course, and in a special way through the knowledge of his own mind;90
but not solely.The lower creatures also represent God to man, and in ways
that man himself does not. This is why the knowledge of them perfects
him, promotes the achievement of his end.91
“The form of a stone, or of any sensible thing,”Thomas says, “is inferior to man. Hence through the form of a stone the intellect is not
perfected insofar as it is ‘such’ a form.” And nevertheless the intellect is
perfected by it,“insofar as in it is participated some likeness of something
that is above the human intellect, namely an intelligible light, or something of that sort.”92 It is in order to gain access to such participated light
that the soul is united to the body.
We should notice that it is by reason of its form that the sensible thing
shares in this light. The Cartesians rejected the very notion of “substantial form,” not only as a description of the human soul, but also quite
generally as a principle of corporeal reality.93 From Thomas’s standpoint,
non solum quantum ad id quod commune est omnibus, sed etiam quantum ad ea
secundum quae res distinguuntur. (ST I, q. 14, a. 6.) On the presence of the very
differences of things in God, see I, q. 4, a. 2, ad 1.
88 ST I, q. 65, a. 2. Here he argues against Origen’s view that bodies were created
only to bind sinful spirits.
89 Even this judgment has aristotelian credentials: see Nicomachean Ethics X.7,
1177b27–1178a7.
90 See ST I, q. 88, a. 1, ad 1.
91 We might also consider the fact that the goodness of the universe, considered as
a whole, represents the goodness of God in an especially excellent way (ST I, q.
47, a. 1).The unity of the universe consists in the order of its parts (ST I, q. 47,
a. 3), including the lowest ones (ST I, q. 65, a. 2); and the understanding of this
order depends on a distinct and proper understanding of the parts (ST I, q. 15,
a. 2).
92 ST I–II, q. 3, a. 6.
93 See Malebranche, De la Recherche de la Vérité, VI.ii.iii, in Œuvres, vol. II, 309–20.

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this amounts to severing the natural “line of communication” between
the human mind and the divine light. For it is a line that passes through
sensible things, by way of their forms.
Finally, although man is the lowest of the intellectual substances, he
too must resemble and represent God in some way or ways that the
higher do not.Thomas draws our attention to at least two such features.
They are directly tied to the spiritual soul’s being the form of the body
and existing as the term of human generation.
All creatures,Thomas teaches, are in some way like God. But only the
intellectual creatures have that special degree of likeness which goes by
the name of “image.”94 Now, absolutely speaking, the angels are more in
the image of God than are men, because their intellectual nature is more
perfect. Nevertheless, in certain respects, man is more in the image of
God than angels; namely, insofar as man is from man, as God (the Son) is
from God (the Father); and insofar as the soul of man exists whole in his
whole body, and whole in every part, as God is in the world. Thomas
notes that these traits constitute an image of God only on the supposition of an intellectual nature. Otherwise, he says, even the beasts would
be in the image of God.95
“Man is from man”:This is easy enough to understand.That the whole
soul is in the whole body, and also in every part, is difficult. But what it
chiefly means is that the soul’s whole essence, its whole substantial
perfection, is in the whole and in every part.96 This one perfection
embraces a whole range of grades. The soul, “being one and the same,
perfects matter according to diverse grades of perfection. For it is by a
form that is essentially one and the same that a man is a being in act, and
94 ST I, q. 93, a. 2.
95 De imagine Dei loqui dupliciter possumus. Uno modo, quantum ad id in quo

primo consideratur ratio imaginis, quod est intellectualis natura. Et sic imago Dei
est magis in angelis quam sit in hominibus, quia intellectualis natura perfectior
est in eis, ut ex supra dictis patet. Secundo potest considerari imago Dei in
homine, quantum ad id in quo secundario consideratur, prout scilicet in homine
invenitur quaedam Dei imitatio, inquantum scilicet homo est de homine, sicut
Deus de Deo; et inquantum anima hominis est tota in toto corpore eius, et
iterum tota in qualibet parte ipsius, sicut Deus se habet ad mundum. Sed quantum ad hoc non attenditur per se ratio divinae imaginis in homine, nisi praesupposita prima imitatione, quae est secundum intellectualem naturam, alioquin
etiam animalia bruta essent ad imaginem Dei. Et ideo, cum quantum ad intellectualem naturam angelus sit magis ad imaginem Dei quam homo, simpliciter
concedendum est angelum magis esse ad imaginem Dei; hominem autem secundum quid. ST I, q. 93, a. 3.
96 ST I, q. 76, a. 8.

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a body, and alive, and an animal, and a man.”97 Every part of the body is
distinctively human, which is to say, rational.98 Diversified according to
their operative powers, all of the parts are naturally ordered toward
contributing to the work of “gathering truth from divisible things.”
To conclude:The spiritual soul’s natural mode of existence puts it in a
physical genus, making it “belong more with the beasts than with the
angels.”Yet the perfection naturally due to it, which is not its mere existence, is something spiritual, more like that of the angels: the knowledge
of truth. Nevertheless, to exist in their mode would degrade the soul’s
share in this perfection. Man needs the help of the perfection that he shares
with the beasts, the life of the senses. From what we have seen, it seems
hardly a coincidence that the Cartesians denied that beasts have sensation.99 In any case, it should be clear that the “turn to the subject” raises
theoretical issues that go well beyond the “philosophy of man.”
N&V

97 Una et eadem existens, perficit materiam secundum diversos perfectionis gradus.

Una enim et eadem forma est per essentiam, per quam homo est ens actu, et per
quam est corpus, et per quam est vivum, et per quam est animal, et per quam est
homo. ST I, q. 76, a. 6, ad 1.
98 See ST I, q. 76, a. 3, ad 4.When used to express man’s differentia,“rational” does
not signify a faculty or power (ST I, q. 77, a. 1, ad 7). It signifies the grade of
substantial perfection that the power’s operation discloses (see ST I, q. 110, a. 4,
ad 4). Although it is an adjective, it does not refer to accident added to a subject
that is essentially just an “animal.” On the contrary, the differentia constitutes the
subject’s chief essential trait, its determination to true unity of existence and
signification.
99 See Malebranche, De la Recherche de la Vérité, VI.ii.vii, in Œuvres, vol. II, 389–94.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 3, No. 2 (2005): 259–78

259

The Circumcision of the Lord:
Saving Mystery after Modern Oblivion
A NDREW H OFER , OP
Tangaza College of The Catholic University of Eastern Africa
Nairobi, Kenya

“W HAT DO WE HEAR ,” asked Karl Rahner,“of Christ’s Circumcision, Baptism, his prayer, the Transfiguration, the Presentation in the
Temple, the Mount of Olives, the abandonment by God on the Cross,
the descent into the underworld, the Ascension into heaven and so on?”
He then answered his question starkly: “Nothing or pretty well nothing.”1 Since Rahner’s influential essay, theologians have enjoyed lively
discussions on such mysteries of Christ’s life as the abandonment on the
cross and the descent unto the dead. Yet, no comparable debate in the
various schools of theology exists for the first mystery Rahner mentions,
the circumcision of Christ.2
1 Karl Rahner,“Current Problems in Christology,” in Theological Investigations, vol.

1, Cornelius Ernst, trans. (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1974), 149–200,
esp. 190.
2 Two important attempts that have appeared recently are Graham Ward,“Uncovering the Corona: A Theology of Circumcision,” in The Birth of Jesus: Biblical and
Theological Reflections, ed. George J. Brooke (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000),
35–44; and Robert Trent Pomplun, “Israel and the Eucharist: A Scotist Perspective,” Pro Ecclesia 11 (2002): 272–94.Ward seeks to develop a theology of circumcision through an emphasis on cultural politics. Inspired by Duns Scotus,
Pomplun argues that Christ’s circumcision is the wellspring of grace for the
Jewish sacraments and that the Church is forever bound to Israel in one divine
sacramental economy. Also, see the less recent work of Raphael Schulte in
Mysterium Salutis: Dogmatique de l’Histoire du Salut, vol. 11, Christologie et Vie du
Christ (Paris: Cerf, 1975), 378–86.The present essay is an argument taken from a
book in preparation. I am grateful to Lawrence J. Donohoo, OP, Jody Vaccaro
Lewis, Matthew Levering, Bernard Mulcahy, OP, and Austin Murphy, OSB, for
comments on various stages of my research.

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Rahner himself pointed to St.Thomas Aquinas as one who had a great
theological interest in the mysteries of the life of Christ.3 Indeed,Aquinas
pioneered the systematic meditation on Christ’s mysteries for scholastic
theology in his Summa theologiae III, qq. 27–59. In this, he features the
circumcision among the mysteries of the Incarnate Word that seems quite
foreign to modern sensibilities. Jean-Pierre Torrell observes, “The question on the circumcision and the legal observances undoubtedly seems
not far from being folkloric to a Christian today.”Yet, as Torrell continues, “This was not at all the opinion of Master Thomas.”4
This essay argues that by recovering a Thomistic appreciation for the
circumcision of the Lord, theologians can seek a richer understanding of
the things that the Lord Jesus did and suffered for our salvation. It begins
by sketching the historical treatments of the Lord’s circumcision from
revelation through ambivalence to modern oblivion.5 Next, it “researches” the mystery within Aquinas’s systematic appreciation for salvation in Christ.6 Finally, it offers a new way of exploring the mystery by
placing it within the nexus of the mysteries of Christ’s life. Given the
limits of space, this essay explores the circumcision in relation to only one
other mystery of the Savior’s life: baptism.

3 Rahner, “Current Problems in Christology,” 190.
4 Jean-Pierre Torrell, Le Christ en Ses Mystères: La vie et l’oeuvre de Jésus selon saint

Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Desclée, 1999), 179.“La question de la circoncision et des
observances légales n’est sans doute pas loin de sembler folklorique à un chrétien d’aujourd’hui. Ce n’était pas du tout l’avis de Maître Thomas.”
5 I am indebted to Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in
Modern Oblivion, 2nd ed. (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago
Press, 1996).While Steinberg notes approvingly of the importance that Aquinas
placed on Jesus’ circumcision, he argues that Renaissance artists developed an
incarnational theology in the nakedness of Christ—that was painted over, sometimes literally, in the modern era.
6 For my use of “re-search,” see David Novak, Jewish-Christian Dialogue: A Jewish
Justification (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). Novak writes, “It would
seem, then, if Jewish-Christian dialogue is to be authentic dialogue, and a true
expression of Judaism and Christianity, it must be constituted so as to carefully
steer a course clear between the Scylla of triumphalism and the Charybdis of
relativism.Thinkers in each community must re-search their own respective traditions to constitute the integrity of the other community and not lose the
integrity of their own. The task is formidable because this re-search must be
quite radical, working its way back to the roots of the tradition and back out into
the present and toward the future” (19).

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From Revelation through Ambivalence
to Modern Oblivion
Christians have long honored this event in the Savior’s life—an event
from which they deepened their understanding of the dispensations of
the Old Law and New Law, of the mystery of the Son of God as
“complete in all the parts of a man,”7 and of their own new creation in
Christ. Beyond its inclusion in the Gospel in Luke 2:21, the entrance of
the circumcision into the liturgical calendars of Churches around the
world singularly guaranteed that Christians would read, preach, pray, sing,
teach, write poems and stories, and argue about this mystery in innumerable times and places.8 The Basilica of St. John Lateran even boasted
the most holy foreskin of Christ among its relics.9
Still, it must be admitted that this mystery has had quite an ambivalent
reputation in the Church’s history—an ambivalence at times betrayed
even when this mystery was closely studied and joyfully celebrated. By its
very nature, the circumcision of the Lord can frankly be disturbing to the
sensitive and seem irrelevant to those who ignore the Lord’s revelation to
Abraham:“So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant”
(Gn 17:13).10 Four curious examples from Christian traditions are here
adduced. First, Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho is the first text after Luke’s
Gospel to mention explicitly the circumcision of Jesus, but it does so as
something that had already been discussed by him (yet not present in the
extant text).11 Indeed, Justin thinks that circumcision was given to Abraham as a punishment because of God’s foreknowledge that the Jews

7 Steinberg discusses this euphemism in The Sexuality of Christ, 133–35.
8 One might be surprised today by the abundance of evidence in the tradition. A

detailed study of the feast from one western use is in Wulf Arlt, “The Office for
the Feast of the Circumcision from Le Puy,” in The Divine Office in the Latin
Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography,
Margot E. Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000), 324–43.This feast influenced medieval literature, perhaps most famously
the English tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I am thankful to Elise Maglio
for introducing me to this medieval story and its circumcision motif.
9 Cf. Pope Innocent III, De Missae Mysteriis, bk. 4, ch. 30, Acta Sanctorum ( January), vol. 1, 4.
10 All scriptural quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the Revised Standard
Version: Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994).
11 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 67. See translation with note on the lacunae
of the text in St. Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho,Thomas B. Falls, trans., revised
by Thomas P. Halton, Michael Slusser, ed. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 103.

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would kill Christ.12 Second, although Renaissance artists depicted the
nude Christ child countless times, including the preparatory scene of the
knife approaching Jesus on the eighth day, no Renaissance painting
depicts the Christ child, when clearly older than eight days, as circumcised.13 Third, the birth of “modern theology” in the writings of Kant
and Schleiermacher removed Christianity from the Jewish flesh of Jesus
of Nazareth.14 Fourth, having entered the liturgical calendar by the sixth
century in the West,15 this feast of the Octave of Christmas/Circumcision of the Lord was renamed “Mary, the Mother of God” after Vatican
12 Dialogue with Trypho, 16. It can also be noted that some second and third-century

heretics who claimed to be Christians altogether denied the Jewishness of Christ
and his real flesh—two principal characteristics of Jesus at stake in the circumcision. See esp. Tertullian’s response in arguing from the Lord’s circumcision in
Against Marcion, bk. 4, ch. 7, and On the Flesh of Christ, chs. 2 and 5.
13 Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ, 165–67.
14 See R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology, ch. 3: “Christian
Divinity without Jewish Flesh: Kant and Schleiermacher” (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1996), 57–80. As to my own reading of Kant and Schleiermacher, I have
found a few passages particularly frightful. Kant believed that Judaism has “no
unity of concepts” with the ecclesiastical faith of Christianity. For him, Judaism “is
not a religious faith at all” and was completely forsaken by Christianity, which was
grounded upon “a wholly new principle.” See Immanuel Kant, Religion within the
Limits of Reason Alone, Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson, trans. (New
York: Harper & Row, 1960), 116–18. Schleiermacher claimed that we who have
“actual experience” do not need the premonitions of the Old Testament and so
the Old Testament should be viewed as an appendix to the New Testament—and
that only for historical reasons. See Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith,
trans. from the second German edition, H. R. MacKintosh and J. S. Stewart, eds.
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 611.
15 The early sixth-century Caesarius of Arles preached that Christ “wanted to fulfill
all of the precepts of the Law, and on the eighth day, which we commemorate today,
He willed to be circumcised in His body.” See his sermon 191,“On the Circumcision of Our Lord,” in Saint Caesarius of Arles: Sermons, vol. 3 (187–238), Mary
Magdalene Mueller, trans.,The Fathers of the Church, vol. 66 (Washington, DC:
The Catholic University of America Press, 1973), 25–26. Earlier, Augustine
preached a homily on the circumcision of the Lord on a day of sollemnitas. See
his Sermon 196A in Sermons III/6 (184–229Z) on the Liturgical Seasons, The
Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, Edmund Hill, trans.,
John E. Rotelle, ed. (New Rochelle, NY: New City Press, 1993), 64–67, and 75,
no. 1. The feast was established by the early fifth century in Alexandria. Cyril
preaches: “And today too we have seen Him obedient to the laws of Moses, or
rather we have seen him Who as God is the Legislator, subject to His own
decrees.” See his Homily 3 on Luke, the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord,
in Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, R. Payne Smith, trans. (Astoria, NY: Studion
Publishers, Inc., 1983), 55–58.

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II. The liturgical concilium expressly intended that the circumcision
observance be “completely eliminated.”16
Given this uneasiness, it may not be so surprising that little theological work has been done on the circumcision of the Lord in recent years.
Many modern writers on the life of Christ quickly passed over it or
completely ignored it. Consider this nineteenth-century representative of
dismissing Christ’s circumcision.“It was a strange, separate, unaccountable
Bloodshedding,” comments F. W. Faber, “standing, as it seems, in a peculiar relation to the other Bloodsheddings, as it was not only no part of the
redemption of the world, but was utterly detached from the Passion.”17
Finally, some critical biblical scholarship has not served the mystery of
Christ’s circumcision well. For example, Raymond Brown’s magisterial
study of the infancy narratives dismisses the theological importance of
the circumcision in Luke 2:21 as foreign to the evangelist and even posits
that it has “no legal context” in Luke’s Gospel.18
16 Before the Tridentine reforms, Roman sacramentaries and lectionaries have the

January 1 heading In octavas Domini, while Gallican books have In circumcisione
Domini.This latter title appeared in the Tridentine Missal until 1960 when it was
replaced with the Octave of Christmas. Recovering a Marian emphasis in early
Roman antiphonals, Rome changed the feast to “Mary, Mother of God” in
1969. See Pierre Jounel’s essay “The Year” in The Church at Prayer:An Introduction
to the Liturgy, vol. 4, The Liturgy and Time, new ed.,Aimé Georges Martimort, ed.,
Matthew J. O’Connell, trans. (Collegeville, MN:The Liturgical Press, 1986), 84,
no. 18.Annibale Bugnini records in the first concilium report from 1965:“It was
agreed that the Gallican theme of the Circumcision should be completely eliminated.” The Reform of the Liturgy, Matthew J. O’Connell, trans. (Collegeville, MN:
The Liturgical Press, 1990), 306–7, no. 5. Given that one finds this revealed event
as a feast in various ancient (and doctrinally divided) Churches in Africa, the
Middle East, and Europe, the classification of the circumcision of the Lord as “the
Gallican theme” seems belittling. Also, see the January 1 preface for the early
Roman Rite in Jean Deshusses, Le Sacramentaire Grégorien: Ses Principales Formes
d’Après les Plus Anciens Manuscrits, Spicilegium Friburgense 16, vol. 1 (Fribourg:
Éditions Universitaires Fribourg, 1971), 498, no. 1527. It begins, “Cuius hodie
circumcisionis diem et nativitatis octauum celebrantes.”
17 Frederick William Faber, Bethlehem, new ed. (Philadelphia:The Peter Reilly Co.,
1957), 336. This book has on the same page: “He needed not the rite. He
required no ceremonial covenant with God, who was God himself. That Flesh
needed no consecration, which was already united to a Divine Person. . . . [T]he
drops that were shed were not shed to the saving of souls.”
18 Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah:A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives
in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, new updated ed., The Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 432. Brown’s opinion seems strange
given Luke’s concern for legal observances in the infancy narrative, and Lk 2:21
alludes to the circumcision law given in Gn 17:12 and Lv 12:3.

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The modern oblivion toward the Lord’s circumcision requires that a
renewed attention itself be a soteriological work. Accordingly, the subtitle
of this essay,“Saving Mystery,” connotes two aspects of the essay’s purpose.
By “Saving Mystery,” it explores the soteriological implications of this
mystery of Christ receiving in his flesh the sign of “the everlasting
covenant” given to Abraham (Gn 17:7, 13, 19). Moreover, in pondering the
circumcision of the Lord, we “save” its mystery from oblivion and perform
the Marian task in theology of keeping these things in our heart (cf. Lk
2:19, 52). In both aspects, we can take St.Thomas Aquinas as our guide.
St. Thomas Aquinas and the Lord’s Circumcision
St. Thomas quotes a favorite Aristotelian dictum when discussing the
ceremonial precepts in the Old Law: “It belongs to the wise to order.”19
In doing any study of the Summa theologiae, one would do well to step
back first and see how the topic to be studied fits within Aquinas’s
ordered plan, a sapiential theology reflecting the Blessed Trinity’s own
work. Such a survey not only gives us something of Thomas’s methodology, but can also inform us as to the theological significance that Thomas
accorded a subject.20
In the tertia pars, where Thomas treats our way back to God, he innovatively arranged his material on the Savior himself (1–59) into two categories: the mystery of the incarnation, according to which God became
man for our salvation (1–26), and the things that our Savior, God incarnate, did and suffered (27–59).21 Distinguished by their formalities, these
categories should not be seen as a sharp dichotomy between doctrinal
Christology and soteriological scriptural narrative.22 Rather, knowing
who the Lord Jesus is, one can see more clearly the significance of what
the Savior did or underwent.23
19 ST I–II, q. 102, a. 1: cum sapientis sit ordinare, taken from Metaphysics I, 2. Cf. St.

Thomas’s use of it to begin his Summa contra Gentiles.
20 For an accessible overview of the Summa theologiae, see Matthew Levering and

Michael Dauphinais, Knowing the Love of Christ: An Introduction to the Theology of
St.Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002).
21 See the prologue to the tertia pars. Vital to my interpretation is St. Thomas’s
phrase: de his quae per ipsum Salvatorem nostrum, idest Deum incarnatum, sunt acta et
passa. We can see this pairing of action and passion in key moments of the
Summa’s soteriology.
22 See John F. Boyle, “The Twofold Division of St. Thomas’s Christology in the
Tertia Pars,” Thomist 60 (1996): 439–47.
23 In expounding the mystery of the incarnation in questions 1–26,Thomas did of
course borrow from other sources besides the conciliar teachings. Of special
note,Thomas gives the sed contra of ST III, q. 2, a. 5 from the office of the Feast

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The emphasis on Christ’s deeds and sufferings underscores the special
meaning that the traditional axiom Omnis Christi actio nostra est instructio in
St.Thomas’s soteriology.24 In St.Thomas’s understanding of the Incarnate
Word, “all Christ’s actions and passions work instrumentally by the power
of his divinity for human salvation.”25 The context for Aquinas’s encompassing statement is Summa theologiae III, q. 48, a. 6’s “whether the passion
of Christ worked our salvation through the mode of efficiency?” Reflecting the tertia pars’s plan to treat the things that the Savior did and suffered,
Thomas expands the horizon in the article, moving from the passion to all
of Christ’s life.Thus, in considering the passion of Christ,Thomas steps back
to redescribe in terms of instrumental efficient causality all of Christ’s acts
and sufferings. This of course would include his circumcision. He repeats
this expansion of looking back to all of Christ’s life from the perspective of
the cross when asking, “Whether we are liberated from sin through the
passion of Christ?” In Summa theologiae III, q. 49, a. 1,Thomas writes that
the passion of Christ liberated us from sin through efficient causality
because his flesh was the instrument of divinity, “from which his passions
and actions worked by divine power to expel sin.”26 This is another reason
why all of the life of Christ, as recorded in the Gospel, has such importance
in St.Thomas’ soteriology.27 As Aquinas knows,“the least suffering of Christ
of the Circumcision. Here Thomas writes that the Church sings, “Animatum
corpus assumens, de Virgine nasci dignatus est.” I am grateful to Michael Dosch, OP,
for this reference.
24 Thomas quotes this phrase at least seventeen times. See Richard Schenk, “Omnis
Christi Actio Nostra est Instructio,” in La Doctrine de la Révélation Divine de Saint
Thomas d’Aquin, Studi Tomistici, no. 37, Leo Elders, ed. (Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
1990), 104–31, esp. 111. Most pertinent to this study,Thomas quotes it in treating objections to the circumcision of the Lord in In IV Sent. 1, 2, 5, 3 and ST
III, q. 37, a. 1.
25 ST III, q. 48, a. 6. Quia vero humanitas Christi est divinitatis instrumentum, ut
supra dictum est, ideo ex consequenti omnes actiones et passiones Christi instrumentaliter operantur in virtute divinitatis ad salutem humanam. For understanding this, see Schenk, “Omnis Christi Actio,” esp. 127–28.
26 Tertio, per modum efficientiae, in quantum caro secundum quam Christus
passionem sustinuit est instrumentum divinitatis, ex quo ejus passiones et actiones
operantur in virtute divina ad epellendum peccatum.
27 Aquinas also speaks of this in terms of merit. ST III, q. 8, a. 1, ad 1: Et ita actiones
ipsius ex virtute divinitatis fuerunt nobis salutiferae, utpote gratiam in nobis
causantes et per meritum et per efficientiam quondam. St.Thomas believes that
Christ merited our salvation from the moment of his conception. Having dealt
with this in ST III, q. 34, a. 3,Thomas repeats this important point in the context
of how the merit of the passion removes obstacles from us. See ST III, q. 48, a.
2, ad 2.

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would have sufficed for redeeming the human race from all sins.”28 Yet, as
Aquinas makes clear elsewhere, only with the Spirit’s work in our hearts can
we be made capable to receive the doctrine of the Incarnate Word.29
When beginning his treatment of the things that Christ did or suffered,
St.Thomas distinguishes four considerations: things pertaining to Christ’s
coming into the world, things pertaining to the course of his life in this
world, things pertaining to his departing from this world, and things
pertaining to his exaltation after this life.30 Thomas then subdivides the
first consideration into four areas: the conception of Christ, his nativity,
his circumcision, and his baptism.31 Significantly, he ranks the circumcision alongside the three other mysteries of the greatest prominence in
Christ’s life before his public ministry. In his article on the circumcision,
he lists seven reasons—which astounds various commentators.32 These
reasons that he systematized from his patristic research in the Catena aurea
offer a fascinating beginning in re-searching the bodily reality of salvation in Israel’s Messiah. Moreover,Thomas’s attention to this bodily reality should not be overlooked from his rather complex development on
circumcision in the Old Law.33
28 ST III, q. 46, a. 6, ad. 3. [U]na minima passio Christi suffecisset ad redimendum genus

humanum ab omnibus peccatis. Yet, Thomas never mentions the blood that was
drawn from the circumcision, a reason popular in the thirteenth century. Cf. the
Pie Pellicane verse from the Adoro te: cuius una stilla salvum facere/totum mundum
quit ab omni scelere.
29 See Aquinas’s insight on the Spirit in his In Ioannem 14, lect. 6, and his Athanasian
reading of Christ’s circumcision for our circumcision in the Spirit in ST III, q.
37, a. 3, ad. 2. Cf. his In Romanos 2, lect. 4.
30 Prologue to ST III, q. 27.
31 Ibid. Note how Torrell, Le Christ en Ses Mystères, 41, recognizes Thomas’s positioning of circumcision—but Torrell does not follow that fourfold structure.
Instead, his outline has the title for the first part’s fourth section: “La manifestation du Christ à la naissance et au baptême.”
32 For example, see Gilbert Narcisse, “Les enjeux épistémologiques de l’argument
convenance selon saint Thomas d’Aquin,” in Ordo Sapientiae et Amoris: Image et
Message de Saint Thomas d’Aquin, Carlos-Josaphat Pinto de Oliveira, ed. (Fribourg:
Éditions Universitaires, 1993), 143–67, esp. 148–49. Narcisse suggests that Aquinas
gathered all the possible interpretations for these seven reasons. However, besides
consulting Aquinas’s Catena aurea on Lk 2:21, see the exposition of Lk 2:21 by
the team of Hugh of St. Cher in the Postilla and the January 1 entry of the Golden
Legend by Bl. James of Voragine.
33 In In IV Sent. 1, 2, 4, 2, Aquinas believes that the sacrament of circumcision
worked ex opere operato by the power of Christ’s passion. He later denies this
unique status of circumcision in the Old Law, but also changes his mind as to the
power of circumcision before Christ. In his mature position of ST III, q. 70, a.
4,Aquinas subscribes to the sacrament of circumcision the grace that removes all

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From this basis in Aquinas, the next section relates the circumcision to
Jesus’ baptism.To be sure, the circumcision can be related to other mysteries in the Messiah’s life, especially to the nativity through nuptial aspects
of divine love, to the passion through aspects of sacrificial blood, and to
the resurrection through aspects of renewal of the body on the eighth
day.34 Of course, the crucifixion and rising from the dead indisputably
have prominence in the New Testament witness and in Aquinas’s soteriological account.35 Nevertheless, only the baptism will be discussed here so
as to demonstrate one part of a broader appreciation for Jesus’ body in his
saving deeds and sufferings as Israel’s Messiah. Moreover, the circumcision
and the baptism are here studied only under the aspect of obedience.36
This approach is inspired by St. Thomas’s understanding of Jesus’ perfect
obedience for our salvation. Aquinas takes St. Paul’s statement and applies
it to Jesus:“I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he
is bound to keep the whole law” (Gal 5:3).37 Jesus is the Son of God sent
by the Father to be born under the Law, that is, to be circumcised and
bound to the whole Law, in order to give the freedom of adoption in the
Spirit (cf. Gal 4:4). By his circumcision, therefore, Jesus wanted to be
perfectly obedient to the Father through the whole Law—an obedience
that indeed would fulfill all righteousness promised to Israel and given in
mercy to the nations.As St. Paul says,“For I tell you that Christ became a
minister of circumcision to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm
sin and enables one to resist all sin. See Richard Schenk, “Covenant Initiation:
Thomas Aquinas and Robert Kilwardby on the Sacrament of Circumcision,” in
Ordo Sapientiae et Amoris, 555–93. See Aquinas’s pivotal treatment from his
commentary on Romans with analysis in Steven Boguslawski, Aquinas’s Commentary on Romans 9–11 (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1999), esp. 142–50. Also, in
contrast to many scholastics, including Duns Scotus,Aquinas does not label Judaism
a heresy.Aquinas furthermore accords the Jews of his time the right to practice the
Mosaic Law (ST II–II, q. 10, a. 11). For the supersessionism of Duns Scotus not
taken into account by Pomplun,“Israel and the Eucharist,” see Scotus, In IV Sent.
3, 4,“Whether the Institution of Baptism Annuls (evacuet) Circumcision?”
34 The five mysteries of the nativity, the circumcision, the baptism, the crucifixion,
and the resurrection can be meditated as the mysteries of the New Adam’s
nakedness, as suggested to me by Lawrence J. Donohoo, OP, in his discussion of
connecting Pope John Paul II’s catechesis on Genesis with the life of Christ.
35 Matthew Levering gives a lucid explanation of Aquinas’s account of Christ’s
passion as fulfilling Israel’s Torah. See his ch. 3, “The Cross of Jesus Christ,” in
Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation According to Thomas Aquinas (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 51–79.
36 Obedience proceeds from the use of the will, and Aquinas holds that Jesus willed
in his human nature from his conception. See ST III, q. 34, a. 2.
37 See the use of Gal 5:3 in the preface to ST III, q. 37, and in ST III, q. 40, a. 4.

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the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might
glorify God for his mercy” (Rom 15:8–9).38
The Circumcision and the Baptism:
The Obedience for Fulfillment
When John the Baptist protests Christ’s request for baptism, Christ
replies, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Mt 3:15). Both in his circumcision and in his baptism, Christ
demonstrates the perfection of obedience.39 This was the perfect obedience of the New Adam who did not grasp at his equality with God, but
emptied himself by the Father’s will in the incarnation and remained
faithful to that will even to death on the cross.40 This obedience in both
the circumcision and the baptism can be considered under four common
characteristics: It initiates a new kind of kenotic life for the God-mademan that lasts until his death; it makes Christ’s immediate subjection to
his Father “mediated”; it makes him appear as a sinner in need of ablution; and it is undertaken not only in solidarity with sinners, but also in
redemption for sinners. After discussing these four characteristics, this
section will conclude by showing the relevance of the Thomistic account
of Christ’s circumcision as obedience to the Law for the contemporary
debate on Jesus’ faithfulness to the Law.
Kenotic Obedience of the Son of God until the Cross
Both the circumcision and the baptism of our Lord are kenotic acts of
obedience, each inaugurating Christ into a new way of life that culminates in his death. In the circumcision, Christ was made obedient under
the Law. He who as Lord spoke to Abraham, according to his divinity, and
who was the promised descendant of Abraham, according to his humanity, received Abraham’s circumcision in following and fulfilling Abraham’s
life-long obedience.41 He who spoke to Moses from the burning bush
38 I have altered the RSV in order to give a more literal reading of the Greek for

“minister of circumcision.”
39 Ambrose writes that Christ “had received circumcision to fulfill the Law, and had

come to baptism to fulfill justice.” See his letter to Justus 20/7 (written before
381) in Saint Ambrose: Letters, Boniface Ramsey, trans., Carol Harrison, ed.
(London: Routledge, 1997), 105–14.
40 Cf. Phil 2:8.
41 The Venerable Bede preaches, “For the one who now cries out in a terrible but
saving way through the evangelist,‘Unless a man shall be reborn of water and the
Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God,’ is the one who previously cried out
through his law, ‘A male, the flesh of whose foreskin is uncircumcised, that soul

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and was himself the end of the Law began to observe the Law.42 He, the
Circumciser of all, who commanded his namesake Joshua to circumcise,
was himself circumcised in the flesh.43 A revelation in the Gospel especially serves to emphasize this divine kenosis in obedience. At the
circumcision,“he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he
was conceived in the womb” (Lk 2:21). As St. Bernard preaches, his
divinity was proclaimed in this name of Jesus, the name of salvation
revealed by heaven before his incarnation.44 Thus his entire life of human
obedience would give us the divine name of our salvation.
This account of the circumcision prepares for a theological understanding of the baptism. In the baptism, Christ was obedient in undertaking his public ministry. The four Gospel accounts agree that Christ’s
encounter with John the Baptist at the Jordan marked the public beginning of a mission that culminated in his death. Looking back from the
faith of the Church, it is indeed an astounding act of kenosis. He who
was the Lord of sea and sky submitted himself to be washed in the Jordan.
The Fathers loved to speak of this baptism as an epiphany of God’s Triune
power.45 Like heaven giving the name of Jesus in the infancy narrative,
shall vanish from his people because he has made my pact null and void.’ ” Homilies on the Gospels, bk. 1: Advent to Lent, Lawrence T. Martin and David Hurst,
trans. (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1991), 105.
42 Catherine of Siena prays, “You who framed our law submit yourself as one
obedient to the law to give us an example of humility. Let us who are your
creation, then, be ashamed for being hard of heart, for not being obedient to this
law while you, our God, obey it.” See Prayer 25 in The Prayers of Catherine of
Siena, 2nd ed., Suzanne Noffke, trans. and ed. (San Jose: Authors Choice Press,
1983), 225–26.
43 St. Ephrem sings,
“Let the eighth day that circumcised the Hebrews
confess Him Who commanded His namesake Joshua
to circumcise with flint the people whose body [was] circumcised
but whose heart was unbelieving from within.
Behold on the eighth day as a babe
the Circumciser of all came to circumcision.
Although the sign of Abraham was on His flesh,
the blind daughter of Sion has disfigured it.”
See his Hymn on the Nativity, 26 in Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, Kathleen E.
McVey, trans. (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 208–9.
44 Especially see his “First Sermon for the Circumcision,” Sermons for the Seasons &
Principal Festivals of the Year, vol. 1, priest of Mount Melleray, trans. (Wesminster,
MD:The Carroll Press, 1950), 423–29.
45 See Kilian McDonnell, The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan:The Trinitarian and Cosmic
Order of Salvation (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1996), esp. 45–49,
118–19.

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the heavens open at the baptism, sending forth a dove to rest upon him
as Christ’s Sonship is heard in proclamation. Thus his entire public
ministry of human obedience would reveal the Trinity for our salvation.
The Immediate Subjection of Christ
to His Father is “Mediated”
Jesus’ circumcision and his baptism, as it is recorded in the synoptics, reveal
that his obedience to the Father is “mediated.”46 That is, the Son’s perfect
obedience in his human will to the Father is expressed in obeying persons
other than the Father. In the circumcision, we see Christ obedient to the
Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph—just as he would be when he returns
from the Temple at the age of twelve.47 Moreover, Christ’s circumcision
professed his obedience to the Father through his observance of the Law.
He who was always in union with the Father chose to have the relationship “mediated” by the Law, even in ceremonial laws. Accordingly, Christ
was first circumcised, and then was presented in the Temple, observed the
true meaning of the Law’s Sabbath, went up to Jerusalem for the feasts,
paid the Temple tax, etc. A homily from the Venerable John Henry
Newman on the feast of the Circumcision of the Lord supports this interpretation. Evoking the words of Christ at this baptism, Newman offers a
paraphrase from the perspective of Jesus: “It is becoming in Me, the
expected Christ, to conform in all respects to all the rites and ceremonies
of Judaism, to everything hitherto accounted sacred and binding.”48
The conforming of Christ’s human will to another’s appears again at the
baptism when Christ submits himself to John the Baptist. The radical
nature of this act appears in some critical scholarship that does not hesitate
to speak of a “master-disciple relationship of John the Baptist and Jesus.”49
Moreover, the baptism ushers in the public ministry, the time of service to
all. Christ shows himself to be the obedient Son of the Father by being the
servant of all—in preaching, healing, and even dying as a slave. He expresses
his obedience to the Father most fully by obediently becoming the victim
of the unrighteous in order “to fulfill all righteousness.”
46 The fourth evangelist so stresses the direct relationship between the Son and the

Father that this account has the Baptist’s witness of the Spirit’s descent without
any mention of the baptism of Jesus.
47 Lk 2:51.
48 John Henry Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 2, sermon 7,“Ceremonies
of the Church,” on the Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1902), 69–78.
49 Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “John the Baptist and Jesus: History and Hypotheses,” New Testament Studies 36 (1990): 359–74, esp. 371.

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Looking Like a Sinner in Need of Ablution
Christ’s obedience at the circumcision and baptism made him look like
something that he was not: a sinner. Coming in the “likeness of sinful
flesh” (Rom 8:3), Jesus appeared to need an ablution from something
imperfect about him in his birth. From a Jewish point of view, all
newborn males are imperfect until their foreskins are removed and are
marked with the sign of the covenant.50 From a Christian stance, all children inherit Adam’s original sin, but Jewish boys had that original sin
removed by circumcision.51 By being submitted to circumcision, Jesus
looked like any other Jewish boy—his foreskin being a sign that he
needed physical and spiritual healing.
His appearance as a sinner recurs on the banks of the Jordan River
where John offers a baptism for repentance. Sinners came to John,
confessing their sinfulness, but Jesus comes as “the Lamb of God, who
takes away the sin of the world” ( Jn 1:29). He submits as if the river
would cleanse his soul from various sins that he had committed. The
sinless one thus receives not only the remedy for original sin at the
circumcision, but also the baptism for actual sins at the Jordan. On both
occasions, he commits himself totally to solidarity with sinners “yet without sinning” (Heb 4:15).
Redemption for the Children of Adam
Christ not only came to be with sinners, he came to redeem the children
of Adam from their sins.52 As Paul says, “For our sake he made him to be
50 Rabbinic Judaism bases this lack of completion in part on Gn 17:1: “I am God

Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.” By obeying God in the covenant
of circumcision, Abraham can then be blameless. See Genesis Rabbah 46, 1. Also,
the rabbis noted how God made creation in a way that needed further preparation from the part of human beings. As wheat needs grinding, so likewise does
man need to be finished off. See Genesis Rabbah 11, 6. So serious is the covenant
of circumcision that Gn 17:14 gives the punishment of being “cut off from his
people” for a boy not to be circumcised.
51 See the excerpt of Pope Innocent III’s letter “Maiores Ecclesiae causas,” in DS 410.
This follows the Venerable Bede:“For you of the brotherhood ought to be aware
that, under the law, circumcision offered the same help of a health-giving treatment against the wound of original sin that now, in the time of revealed grace,
baptism is wont to do, except that they [who were under the law] could not yet
enter the gate of the heavenly kingdom, until by his coming he who gave the
law could give his blessing.” Homily 1.11 on the Gospels, 104–5.
52 In his Homily 3 on Luke, St. Cyril of Alexandria says, “in order that He might
expiate the guilt of Adam’s transgression, He showed Himself obedient and submissive in every respect to God the Father in our stead, for it is written, That as through
the disobedience . . . (Rom 5:19).” Commentary on the Gospel of Saint Luke, 55–58.

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sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God” (2 Cor 5:21). Both the circumcision and the baptism show Christ’s
redemptive obedience at work. In his circumcision, Christ gave an example
of obedience for sinners to imitate.This can be explained both in terms of
obeying precepts at the proper time and in terms of obeying the precept to
be circumcised in one’s heart.53 Yet the Lord’s circumcision is not only an
example for our spiritual circumcision. It also exercises efficient instrumental causality.That is, the divinity works through the obedience exercised in
Christ’s humanity when he submitted to circumcision and it thereby causes
within us the interior seal of the new covenant, the Holy Spirit within our
hearts. Therefore, the one who was born under the Law redeems those
under the Law, and indeed all people, by his perfect fulfillment of the Law.54
Likewise, his baptism is an example of obedience for us to imitate by
being baptized. But, as St. Ignatius of Antioch writes, Christ was baptized
so that by his suffering the waters would be cleansed.55 More than simply
giving an example, Christ at his baptism instituted the sacrament of
Christian baptism to forgive all sins and punishment due to sin. This
sacrament works by the power of the Blessed Trinity so that others can
receive the Spirit of adoption, have the heavens opened, and know God
as their Father. St.Thomas explains that this causality instituted at Christ’s
own baptism was operative immediately, but it became necessary for
salvation only after the passion and resurrection of Christ.56
Christ’s Obedience to the Law:
Aquinas and Historical Jesus Scholarship
The obedience of Jesus has always been of great concern in Christian
thinking about salvation. Nevertheless, Christians have had varying atti53 For St. Thomas’s teaching on obedience to precepts at the proper time, see ST

III, q. 37, a. 1, ad. 2. Illustrating the link between circumcision of the foreskin and
circumcision of the heart, Blessed Fra Angelico paired the command from Jer 4:4
with Lk 2:21 in his depiction of this mystery. See panel 4, “The Circumcision,”
from Fra Angelico’s “The Scenes from the Life of Christ,” in Jacqueline and
Maurice Guillaud, Fra Angelico: The Light of the Soul (New York: Clarkson N.
Potter, Inc., 1986), fig. 166.
54 Cf. St. Bonaventure, The Tree of Life, in The Works of Bonaventure, Mystical Opuscula, José de Vinck, trans. (Paterson, NJ: St.Anthony Guild Press, 1960), 107.“For
this reason, also, He received the mark of circumcision: that, coming in the likeness of sinful flesh, he might condemn sin in the flesh, and become our Salvation, and
our eternal Justification, by beginning his life with an act of humility, the root
and guardian of all virtues.” Also, cf. Gal 3:10–18; 4:1–7.
55 Ignatius of Antioch, To the Ephesians 18.
56 ST III, q. 66, a. 2.

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tudes toward Jesus’ obedience to the Law, symbolized by the circumcision.
For much of historical scholarship on Jesus in the nineteenth century, the
abandonment of Christian dogmatic readings did not yield portraits of a
Jewish Jesus obedient to the Law—but a man who sought to overturn
Judaism.The Jewish scholar David Novak summarizes:
[T]he new, more secular emphasis on Jesus’s ethical teaching often led to
a new denigration of Judaism as “legalism,” as opposed to the Christian
ethics of love. . . . In this move, the influence of Kant’s subordination of
religious doctrine to practical (ethical) reason is apparent and was often
explicitly acknowledged. In following this line, liberal Protestant
thinkers had a double-pointed prong with which to put down Judaism
and Roman Catholicism on the grounds that they were both essentially
legalistic (“heteronomous” in the pejorative Kantian sense).57

Countering this modern rejection of Jewish particularity, a recent trend in
historical Jesus scholarship places him more firmly as a Jew within the
complexity of Israel’s movements and peoples of two millennia ago.
Exegetes such as Geza Vermes, Paula Fredriksen, and E. P. Sanders are some
of the most influential writers in English to focus on Jesus as an obedient
Jew—albeit with different emphases and understandings.58 Here, the
exegetical work of Sanders can be fruitfully compared with the theological perspective of Aquinas on Jesus’ obedience to the Law.
In the influential study Jesus and Judaism, Sanders devotes a chapter to
the Law.59 Sanders notes that “many New Testament scholars . . . have
concluded that Jesus explicitly and consciously opposed the law.”60 Having
reviewed the evidence concerning the temple, burial of father, relations
with sinners, divorce, Sabbath, handwashing, and food, Sanders concludes,
“We have found one instance in which Jesus, in effect, demanded transgression of the law: the demand to the man whose father had died. Otherwise the material in the Gospels reveals no transgression by Jesus.”61
Sanders thinks that Jesus accepted obedience to the Law as the norm, and
57 Novak, Jewish-Christian Dialogue, 75.
58 Geza Vermes has done considerable work in many books to show Jesus’ Jewish-

ness. Fredriksen pokes fun at the various exegetes that show Jesus as disobedient
to Jewish Law for their concerns of feminism, radical egalitarianism, politics of
compassion, or antinationalism. See her Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews:A Jewish
Life and the Emergence of Christianity (New York:Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 197–214.
For E. P. Sanders, see esp. his Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985).
59 Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, ch. 9, 245–69.
60 Ibid., 246. Sanders discusses the positions of G. Bornkamm and W. G. Kümmel,
in ibid., 30f and 36f.
61 Ibid., 267.

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he posits the fact that Jesus’ followers did not know Jesus to have directly
opposed the law.62 In fact, within Sanders’s various categories of historical
probability, he places the statement that Jesus “did not explicitly oppose the
law” to be in the highest category, certain or virtually certain.63 However,
Sanders situates Jesus within Jewish restoration eschatology so that Jesus did
not see the Law as the definitive and final act of God. Jesus’ own prophecy
concerning the destruction and rebuilding of the temple especially shows
that.64 Therefore, Sanders is sympathetic to those who say that Jesus exercised a sovereign freedom over the law.65 Nevertheless, this freedom over
the Law did not mean that Jesus advocated a disobedience to the Law.
What is striking is the affinity between Sanders’s historical research and
Aquinas’s theology about Jesus’ observance of the Law. Aquinas holds that
Christ was conformed to all the precepts of the Law, for he was circumcised to express the intent of keeping the whole Law.66 According to
Thomas, precisely by observing the Law Jesus showed that its consummation
and end come in himself.67 Some frequently cite Jesus’ controversial acts
on the Sabbath to show that he revolted from the Law. Aquinas sees it
otherwise. In relation to the Sabbath, Thomas gives three reasons to
support how Jesus did not disobey the Law:The prohibition to work does
not forbid divine work, but human work; the prohibition does not
exclude works necessary for health; and the prohibition does not pertain
to the worship of God. For Aquinas, Jesus is completely obedient—as the
Savior who ushers in the new covenant of grace to fulfill the Law.While
Sanders and Aquinas certainly approach the question differently, they
come to a substantial agreement—in opposition to the nineteenthcentury historical Jesus scholarship mentioned above by Novak.
In the one case that Sanders finds Jesus transgressing the Law, that of
not letting the disciple bury his father, Aquinas has another perspective.
In a sense, Aquinas uses the methods of the rabbis known by Sanders.68
Like them, he interprets the different levels and meanings of scriptural
passages without saying that the Law is wrong or that it was disobeyed.
62 Ibid., 325 and 336.
63 Ibid., 326.
64 Sanders thinks that the saying of Mt 26:61 and Mk 14:58 is probably authentic;

see Sanders, ibid., 251 and 61–76.
65 Ibid., 249 and 267. Sanders mentions James D. G. Dunn.
66 ST III, q. 40, a. 4. Aquinas developed his understanding of this after writing In

IV Sent. 1, 2, 2, 1. In his earlier position, Aquinas thought that Jesus showed
himself supra legem in such things as the observance of the Sabbath and touching
the leper.
67 This is the second reason in the corpus of ST III, q. 40, a. 4.
68 Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 248.

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In fact, he shows the true meaning of the fullness of the Law through a
citation of Old Testament texts. Commenting upon Matthew 8:21–22,
Thomas knows that the burial of one’s father is a precept regarding the
honor owed to a father.69 Yet, he cites 1 Kings 19:20 about Elijah’s call of
Elisha. Elisha stipulates,“Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then
I will follow you.” Elijah replies, “Go back again,” only to find that then
Elisha slaughters his oxen and follows Elijah. The Law thus gives an
example of the obedience of discipleship being a higher order than familial obedience. Moreover, Aquinas quotes again from the Old Testament,
this time from Psalm 45:10, “Forget your people and your father’s
house.” Not only is Jesus therefore obedient to the Law, but also he calls
his disciples to the fullness of that obedience, which places God above
obligations to family. By offering Psalm 45 as his support Aquinas further
alludes to divine marital love as the call for obedience. Psalm 45 is a royal
marriage psalm that Aquinas understands as the marriage of Christ and
the Church, begun when the Son of God united to himself a human
nature.70 In the human obedience that has Jesus as the saving exemplar,
Christian disciples can entrust themselves completely to the divine
Bridegroom whose love is made present in that same Christ our Lord,
circumcised and obedient for our salvation.71
Accordingly, Aquinas is able to give a well-argued scriptural account
for the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaching:
Jesus, Israel’s Messiah and therefore the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,
was to fulfill the Law by keeping it in its all-embracing detail—according
to his own words, down to “the least of these commandments.” . . .The
69 In Matt. 8, lect. 3. Although the comments on Mt 5:11–6:8 and 6:14–19 do not

come from Aquinas, the rest of the commentary is a reportatio of Thomas’s teaching. See Gilles Emery’s analysis in Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol.
1: The Person and His Work, Robert Royal, trans. (Washington, DC:The Catholic
University of America Press, 1996), 339.
70 In his commentary on Ps 45(44),Thomas writes,“Est ergo materia hujus Psalmi
de quisbusdam sponsalibus Christi et Ecclesiae, quae quidem primo initiata
fuerunt quando Filius Dei univit sibi naturam humanam in utero virginali: Psal.
XVIII: Et ipse tanquam sponsus procedens de thalamo suo. Unde eadam est materia
hujus Psalmi et libri qui dicitur Cantica canticorum.” For a beautiful translation
of this commentary, see Thomas Aquinas: The Gifts of the Spirit, Benedict M.
Ashley, ed., Matthew Rzeczkowski, trans. (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press,
1995), 101–33.
71 Jews and Christians made many connections between circumcision and marriage
through the Lord’s covenant, as the rite does have an anthropological basis in
preparation for marriage. For a locus classicus in Jewish and Christian meditations,
see Ex 4:24–26.

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perfect fulfillment of the Law could be the work of none but the divine
legislator, born subject to the Law in the Person of the Son.72

The Law’s fulfillment culminates in the saving passion, where Jesus offers
himself as the supreme sacrifice in obedient love.73 However, the fulfillment of the passion should not be seen outside of the context of Jesus’
life-long observance of the Law, which he undertook in the circumcision. Without this perfect bodily fulfillment by Jesus of the Law, the
Christian claim to salvation in the body of Christ seems disconnected from
the everlasting covenant of circumcision.74
Concluding with the Questions
and Beauty of Saving Mystery
Recalling part of Rahner’s question cited at the beginning of this essay,
“What do we hear of Christ’s Circumcision?,” we might answer: Not
much, but surely a lot can be said.A study of the Lord’s circumcision can
reach beyond the limitations of certain modern preconceptions that have
dismissed this mystery. Such a study can recover a profound awareness of
this mystery’s contributions to our salvation, an awareness exhibited in St.
Thomas’s theology.
Yet ours is an agenda for the needs of beginning the third Christian
millennium. Applications from this mystery can be drawn through asking
the right questions. Can the circumcision of Jesus, the enfleshed Son of
God, help us better to understand the everlasting covenant of Genesis 17
in a fulfilled, rather than superseded, sense? After a long custom of decrying Jewish circumcision after Christ as deadly to the soul,75 can a renewed
appreciation for Jesus’ circumcision now give us a more refined outlook on
circumcision today? Can the circumcision of Jesus aid us in developing a
theology of Christ’s body that sees him as the New Adam, naked and without shame for our salvation? Can this mystery enable us to re-examine our
bodily appropriation of salvation, especially in the “circumcision of Christ”
72 See the treatment of Jesus and the Law in the Catechism of the Catholic Church,

nn. 577–582; cf. Mt 5:17–19.
73 Cf. Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, 51–79.
74 Note Levering’s astute observation in ibid., 88: “Aquinas’s view that one can

continue to fulfill the laws, but now according to the new meaning and fullness
that Christ gives them, might seem to be relativizing the laws by ‘spiritualizing’
them.Yet far from ‘spiritualizing’ the laws, Christ’s passion—and human beings’
participation in Christ’s passion through the sacraments and through the life of
charity—gives a radically embodied fullness to the laws.” [original emphasis].
75 Cf. Augustine, Epist. 82, to Jerome.

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received in baptism (Col 2:11)? Can Jesus’ circumcision contribute to
feminist questions about the salvation of women?
For a final meditation that can advance our re-searching, this essay
offers John Milton’s poem on the circumcision of the Lord.76 Perhaps
this poet of Puritan England can rescue us from a lingering puritanism
that in part caused the obliteration of the circumcision’s theological
remembrance. It demonstrates that by beauty we can better behold the
circumcision within the mysteries of Christ.
Ye flaming Powers, and winged Warriours bright,
That erst with Musick, and triumphant song
First heard by happy watchful Shepherds ear,
So sweetly sung your Joy the Clouds along
Through the soft silence of the list’ning night;
Now mourn, and if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distill no tear,
Burn in your sighs, and borrow
Seas wept from our deep sorrow,
He who with all Heav’ns heraldry whileare
Enter’d the world, now bleeds to give us ease;
Alas, how soon our sin
Sore doth begin
His Infancy to sease!
O more exceeding love or law more just?
Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!
For we by rightfull doom remediles
Were lost in death, till he that dwelt above
High thron’d in secret bliss, for us frail dust
Emptied his glory, ev’n to nakednes;
And that great Cov’nant which we still transgress
Intirely satisfi’d,
And the full wrath beside
Of vengeful Justice bore for our excess,
And seals obedience first with wounding smart
This day, but O ere long
Huge pangs and strong
Will pierce more neer his heart.

N&V

76 John Milton,“Upon the Circumcision,” The Student’s Milton, rev. ed., Frank Allen

Patterson, ed. (New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1946), 18–19.

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279

The Psalms as a Particular Mode of Revelation*
F RANCIS M ARTIN
John Paul II Cultural Center
Washington, DC

Introductory Remarks
I N THIS ARTICLE , I wish to revisit an ancient understanding of the
psalms as a God-given way to enter into living contact with him by
allowing him to reveal himself in the words of prayer he has given to his
people. In this act of revelation we are also revealed to ourselves and the
disorders of our soul are healed. St. Athanasius of Alexandria, writing to
his friend Marcellinus, points to this quality of the psalms by which our
own emotions are rectified and brought into deeper contact with the
realities that are mediated there by the word of God.
But in the Book of Psalms, the one who hears, in addition to learning
these things, also comprehends and is taught in it the emotions of the
soul, and, consequently, on the basis of that which affects him and by
which he is constrained, he also is enabled by the book to possess the
image deriving from the words. Therefore, through hearing, it teaches
not only not to disregard passion, but also how one must heal passion
through speaking and acting.1

Our age and our culture are in need of this medicine.We are in a postmodern world, that is, a world that is consciously seeking to go beyond
and to rectify the aberrations of modernity.Allow me to cite the remarks
of two Catholic thinkers who reflected on the deficiencies of a modernism
* This was first given as a lecture of the Joel E. Smilow Chair for Studies in

Catholic–Jewish Relations at the John Paul II Cultural Center,Washington, DC.
The author holds that chair.
1 Athanasius, The Life of Anthony and the Letter to Marcellinus, Richard J. Payne, ed.,
Robert C. Gregg, trans. (New York: Paulist, 1980), 108.

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that is still with us and part of us. Christopher Dawson speaks of our
culture as “detached from spiritual aims and values” and “faced with a
spiritual crisis of the most acute kind”; an atmosphere in which there is
no “spiritual sense of religion as a objective reality transcending our
private experience.” Paul Gallagher, who is citing Dawson, adds:“Modernity in this light, is a case of unbalanced growth, where the mentalities of
secularism and technology are incapable of healing the broken unity of a
previously spiritual culture.” The second Catholic thinker, Romano
Guardini, spoke of the loss of “an objective sense of belonging to existence,” and the need for “root virtues of earnestness and gravity grounded
in truth.”2
There are efforts being made to overcome the isolation effected by
modernity while retaining those positive advances, which it did achieve.
From a Christian perspective this means moving ahead to a deeper understanding that human existence is a gift that finds its perfection in responding to God, the Giver, and in accepting the communion with the Trinity
that is offered to us in Christ. But this also means seeking communion
with others in a mutual relationship of generosity and receptivity. In brief,
the challenge is to recover a genuine interiority.
It is worth noting, then, in this regard how strong is the insistence in the
Encyclical Fides et Ratio that an important aspect of our moving out of the
dilemmas of modernity is to retrieve and develop the interpersonal dimension of our knowledge of the truth.This is particularly stressed in §32:
Human perfection does not solely consist in acquiring an abstract knowledge of the truth, rather it finds its place in a living habit of self-giving
and fidelity towards others. In this very fidelity in which a man learns
how to give himself, he discovers full certainty and firmness of spirit. But
at the same time knowledge that comes through confidence and depends
on interpersonal esteem is not given without reference to truth: a man,
by believing, is committed to the truth which another has shown him.3

Our journey back to truth begins by recognizing that truth is most
often found in a relationship of trust in another that leads us to a move2 I am taking these quotes from Michael Paul Gallagher, Clashing Symbols.An intro-

duction to Faith and Culture (London: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 1997),
79–80. who is citing Christopher Dawson, Religion and Culture (London: Sheed
& Ward, 1948), 217; and idem, Understanding Europe (London: Sheed & Ward,
1952), 241–45.
3 Translation from Laurence Paul Hemming and Susan Frank Parsons, eds., Restoring Faith in Reason.A New Translation of the Encyclical Letter Faith and Reason of Pope
John Paul II Together with a Commentary and Discussion (London: SCM Press, 2002).

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ment of self-giving and of commitment to the truth that the other has
shown us. We must be clear about this: Thinking is an activity of the
person and not merely of the mind, and thus the highest form of truth is
found as an interpersonal possession. The interpersonal dimension of
truth finds its perfection in relation to God. The foundation for this, as
Thomas Aquinas teaches, is that God is known implicitly in every act of
knowledge. Thus, in answering the question whether all things desire
God himself, Aquinas confronts the objection that all things are ordered
to God as knowable and desirable, but not all beings capable of knowledge actually know God, therefore neither do they actually desire him.
This is his answer:
All knowing beings implicitly know God in whatever they know. For
just as nothing is desirable except as it bears a likeness to the First
Goodness, so nothing is knowable except as it bears a likeness to the
First Truth.4

To move from an implicit knowledge of God to an interpersonal
knowledge of him requires faith, an entrusting of oneself to him and an
acceptance of what he says. What John Paul II said above in regard to
interpersonal knowledge among human beings is super-eminently true
of our relation to God: “knowledge that comes through confidence and
depends on interpersonal esteem is not given without reference to truth:
a man, by believing, is committed to the truth which another has shown
him.” This is truth in and through a communion of persons, and this
communion with God comes about through prayer. It is for this reason
that, as I hope to show now, the psalms are a revelation of God and of
humanity, they are the word of God bringing us to that interpersonal
sharing in which we enter into the awesome presence of God.
Psalm 86
I have chosen this psalm for several reasons. First, it is an intensely
personal psalm that appropriates the prayer tradition of Israel even while
4 De Veritate 22, 2, ad 1.The same thing is said in the Summa theologiae (I, q. 2, a. 1,

ad 1). “To know that God exists in a certain common and confused way is
implanted is us by nature, inasmuch as God is the happiness of man. For man by
nature desires happiness. And whatever is naturally desired by man is naturally
known by him. But this is not to know in an absolute way (simpliciter) that God
exists, just as to know that someone is coming is not to know Peter even if it is
Peter who is indeed coming.”Translation from Henri de Lubac, The Discovery of
God, David Schindler, ed., Marc Sebanc Alexander Dru and Cassian Fulsom,
trans. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 75.

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it expresses the suffering of one person.The pronoun “you,” not usually
necessary in Hebrew, is addressed to God six times within a tone of
direct address sustained throughout the whole psalm. Secondly, though it
is personal, it is not individualistic. Not only is the covenant with Israel
evoked by several allusions but also Israel’s role in regard to the nations
is set forth with prophetic insight. Finally, by the place assigned to it in
the final edition of the Psalter, it acquires an added dimension of meaning that is important for Israel’s self understanding and that of the
Church as well.
The discussion of the place of the psalm within a series of “editions”
may strike some as a new notion. Serious work, building on observations
as ancient as the rabbinic writings, has shown that the clearly visible
editorial work that assembled the Psalter into five “Books” was only part
of the profound and refined organization of the psalms that gave them an
enhanced meaning that includes and transcends the meaning that the
individual psalm had in its own right.5 Collecting independent works
and placing them in mutual context is much like placing bells or chimes
in a carillon in order to create a specific sound effect: Collecting psalms
and placing them together serves to create a “meaning effect.”This is part
of the Holy Spirit’s action in revealing both God and humanity to us.
Commentators usually classify Psalm 86 as an “individual lament,”
meaning a prayer in time of suffering that appeals to God for help. The
psalm is surely that, but it is also a psalm whose central section (Ps
86:10–13) includes praise and prayer both for the universal reign of
YHWH and for deeper personal conversion that includes an expression
of confidence in God’s saving help. The title given to the psalm is, “A
Prayer of David,” or less likely, “A Prayer for David,” thus making it one
of approximately seventy-two psalms which bear his name in their title.6
The attribution fulfills various functions and is often, as here, an editorial
designation meant to evoke the figure of David, the ideal king, the model
of prayer, the embodiment of Israel and, as Ezekiel 34:23–24 promises,
5 There are five “books” which make up our present psalm collection: 1–41,

42–72, 73–89, 90–106, 107–50.These books, perhaps modeled on the five books
of the Pentateuch, are clearly delineated by a doxology at the end of each collection: Pss 41:14; 72:18; 89:53; 106:48; Pss 148–50. For an introduction to this
aspect of research in the psalms, one may consult Gerald H.Wilson, The Editing
of the Hebrew Psalter, Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 76 (Chico, CA:
Scholars Press, 1985); and J. Clinton McCann, ed., The Shape and Shaping of the
Psalter (Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, England: Journal for the Study of the
Old Testament Press, 1993).
6 Some manuscripts omit the title, probably correctly, at Psalm 133 while the
Septuagint has the title over fourteen other psalms.

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the king who will be “prince” and “shepherd” when God himself reigns
over his people.7
We may ask the question, then, who is praying this psalm and in what
context? Most likely, this prayer was first composed by a person who was
able effortlessly to incorporate phrases from other psalms and other places
in Scripture in order to express his plight before God, to pray for a universal manifestation of God,“the worker of wonders,” and to ask for the gift
of a unified heart.The fact that the psalm was known and ultimately found
a place in the Third Book in the collection of 150 psalms may point to a
use in the public worship of Israel where the people prayed as one, appropriating as individuals and as a corporate group, the words of the psalm.
At one point, the individual was identified editorially with David in
whom all Israel found expression. Thus, psalms such as this became the
prayer of all Israel in its centuries of suffering during the exile and after.
People prayed individually or collectively in union with the prayer of
David in whom they saw themselves summed up.This ability to identify
with David, the king, as he prayed in suffering was part of the heritage of
Israel that enabled the Christians, seeing in Jesus the new David, to pray
in union with him and with one another. This mystery was plain to St.
Augustine who, commenting on this very psalm, had this to say:
When we speak to God, praying, we do not separate the Son from him,
and when the Body of the Son prays it does not separate its head from
itself.Thus it is he, the one Savior of his Body, our Lord Jesus Christ the
Son of God who prays for us and prays in us and is prayed to by us. He
prays for us as our priest, he prays in us as our Head, he is prayed to by us
as our God. Let us then, recognize our voice in his and his voice in ours.8

In what follows, we must try to bear in mind all the levels of the psalm
as it is now present to us.There is the level of the suffering poor man, then
that of the community identifying itself with him, and then the personification of the community in David, and then in Jesus. Because the first level
is the foundation of all the rest, I will devote most of my time to it, allowing the word of God to reveal him as we enter into it, and in this process
we will come to understand ourselves in dialogue and in communion.9
7 For an early study on this point, see James Luther Mays, “The David of the

Psalms,” Interpretation 40 (1986): 143–55.
8 In Psalm 85,1 (Corpus Christianorum Latinorum 39, 1176 [Turnholt: Brepols,

1956]).
9 A good commentary on this psalm, one sensitive to many of its dimensions and

competent in discussing its technical aspects, can be found in Marvin E. Tate,
Psalms 51–100 (Dallas:Word Books, 1990), 374–84.

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The First Section of the Psalm:Verses 1–7
A prayer of David.

2

3
4
5
6
7

Incline your ear, O YHWH
for I am poor and needy
Preserve my soul
for I am loyal.
Save your servant, you are my God,
save this one who trusts in you.
Be gracious to me, my Lord,
for I call to you all day long.
Make the soul of your servant glad,
for to you, my Lord, I lift up my soul.
For you, my Lord, are good and forgiving
and great in loyal-love to all who call to you.
O YHWH listen to my prayer,
be attentive to the sound of my pleading.
On the day of my distress I call to you
for you will answer me.

Something mysterious happens when we call to someone: We place
ourselves and the other in a new manner of relating.This call activates for
the first time, or reactivates and deepens for a time past counting, the
transition from relation to relationship: to a mutual presence and attention in love.The psalm begins, as do so many, by a direct call and a plea
that the Other turn as well to me. This interior gesture is so instinctive
that even atheists make it: It is an indication of our implicit knowledge
of the First Goodness and the First Truth, and of the fact that we know
that this Other is personal and capable of response. Here, of course, we
are not dealing with a vague and implicit knowledge but are calling to
the God of the covenant, YHWH.
The psalmist, with whom we are identified, asks that the Lord “pay
attention” to him because he is poor and needy. A poor man is one who
finds confidence in the experience of dependence upon God. He is poor,
and therefore has a special right to God’s care who, as the King of Israel,
must, as he has instructed the earthly kings of Israel, care for those who
cannot assert their own rights.Thus, the ideal king to come “shall rescue
the needy when they cry out, and the poor when they have no one to
help them” (Ps 72:12). However, even when we wish to place ourselves
in such a position of being poor and needy, we find in all that we have
absorbed from our culture a pervading cynicism that fears such vulnerability and intimacy. But this is the word of God, given to us precisely to
enable us to move beyond the illusions of our culture to a position of

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communion and trust. It is also being prayed by “David” as the embodiment of the people, and as Augustine often remarks, as Christian see it,
there is one person praying:
All the members of Christ, the body of Christ diffused throughout the
world, are like a single person asking God’s help, one single beggar, one
poor suppliant; and this is because Christ himself is that poor man, since
he was rich became poor, as the apostle tells us: Though he was rich he
became poor, so that by his poverty you might be enriched (2 Cor 8:9).10

The original petition of direct address is followed by three more:
“preserve my soul . . . save your servant . . . be gracious to me.”And three
reasons are given: “for I am loyal . . . you are my God, [I am] one who
trusts in you . . . I call to you all the day long.”The word I have translated
– deriving from the noun, h. esed.
as “loyal” here is the famous word, h. aŝid,
The more one encounters this word in the Scriptures, the more it yields
its secrets, revealing God as affectionately faithful to his promises and
covenant, indeed making him present in the very act of “doing h. esed.”
God is faithful even when his people are unfaithful; he does not revoke
his choice of them, and this consistency is seen as his mercy.The response
to God’s h. esed can be described as obedience born of trust, gratitude, and
praise: all personal actions that lead to intimacy.11 This word is one of the
leitmotifs of the psalm.
The fifth direct address of petition asks:“Make the soul of your servant
glad, for to you, my Lord, I lift up my soul.” In Hebrew the word “soul”
(nepes ∑) evokes the whole physical human being, living, desiring, relating,
but seen, as it were, from the inside.This is not far from the way “subjectivity” is used in modern theological anthropology. The interior gesture
of lifting up one’s soul implies an act of entrustment, of confiding oneself
to God expecting protection and guidance. We read in Deuteronomy
24:15 that a person who hires a day laborer must not withhold his pay:
“For he is poor and he is lifting up his soul for it.” Just as the poor man
10 On Psalm 39,18. Translation is from St. Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms, vol.

2, John E. Rotelle et al., eds., Maria Boulding, trans. (Hyde Park, NY: New City
Press, 2000), 221.
11 H. J. Stoebe describes the reality mediated by the word hesed in these terms: “an
.
expression for magnanimity, for a sacrificial, humane willingness to be there for
the other. . . . It is a given that h. esed always has to do in some way with the life
of the other, and one expects and hopes from the recipient of such h. esed a similar willingness that surpasses the obligatory.” Stoebe, “hesed,” in Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament 2, Ernst Jenni and Claus Westermann, eds. (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 1997), 456

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lifts his soul for his wages, which he needs for his existence, so the one
praying directs his whole being toward God who alone is his trust and
the object of his longings.12
Intimately linked with the interior gesture of “lifting one’s soul,” of
entrusting oneself to the Author of the Covenant, is the prayer for guidance, of needing YHWH’s covenant faithfulness, as the psalm later says:
“Teach me, YHWH, your way; I will walk in your faithfulness.” It is
remarkable that this same type of petition for guidance is found as well in
the only other two psalms that have the phrase “To you I lift up my soul.”13
After the five requests the reason for our confidence is expressed:“For
you, my Lord, are good and forgiving and great in h. esed to all who call
to you.”There has already been an allusion to the psalmist’s covenant relation to God in the phrase “You are my God,” echoing and individualizing the formula:“I will be to you a God, and you will be to me a people.”
Now we find the first of two allusions to a crucial turning point in Israel’s
relation to God, one whose narrative, while difficult to piece together on
our western norms, is fraught with an anxious question: Can a broken
covenant be renewed? This is a question often pondered in the postexilic
editing of the sacred tradition.
According to Exodus 32:1–29, while Moses was receiving the Law
from the Lord, the people rebelled against its very first commandment
and persuaded Aaron to make a golden calf which they then considered
their god and the one who brought them out of the land of Egypt. On
the next day, Moses interceded for them asking that he himself also be
blotted out of the Book of Life if that were how God so intended to
punish his people. God answered, “Him only who has sinned against me
will I strike out of my Book” (Ex 32:33), but then added that he would
no longer travel with his people, “because you are a stiff-necked people,
otherwise I might exterminate you on the way” (Ex 33:3). Moses continues to plead with the Lord who finally accedes to Moses’ request that the
Lord continue to go with his people: “This request too which you have
made, I will carry out, because you have found favor with me and I know
you by name” (Ex 33:17). Moses then goes further and asks for a guarantee that God will keep his promise: “Do let me see your glory!” (Ex
33:18, compare Jn 14:9).The Lord explains that Moses cannot see his face
12 I owe this insight and part of its wording to A. A.Anderson, Psalms (1–72) (Grand

Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), 207.
13 Ps 25:1, 4, et passim; note the prayer for Israel in the editorial conclusion; Ps

143:8. On the contrary, the man who “lifts his soul to Fraud” cannot climb the
mountain of the Lord (Ps 24:4).

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and live, but that he will make all his beauty pass before him and will
pronounce his name.The medieval Jewish commentator Rashi echoes a
long tradition that God did this in order to teach Moses and others how
to call upon him when they intercede for the people.
The time has arrived when you shall see of My Glory so much as I will
allow you to see according as I wish and therefore I find it necessary to
teach you a set form of prayer. Just now when you felt the need to pray
for mercy on Israel’s behalf you besought me to remember the merits
of the patriarchs and you thought that if the merits of the patriarchs are
exhausted there is no more hope—I will therefore cause all the attributes of my goodness to pass before you on the rock whilst you are
placed in the cave . . . to teach you the formula when praying for mercy
even though the merits of the patriarchs should be exhausted.14

The Lord instructs Moses to ascend the mountain alone and to cut two
stone tablets “that I may write on them the commandments which were on
the former tablets which you broke” (Ex 34:1).When the tablets were cut:
YHWH came down in a cloud and took his stand with him there, and
he called on the name of Y H W H . And YHWH passed before his
face and he called out: Y H W H , YHWH, compassionate and gracious
God, long suffering and great in h. esed and faithfulness; keeping h. esed for
a thousand generations, lifting off wickedness, rebellion and sin, and not
declaring the guilty guiltless, visiting the sins of the fathers on the children and the children’s children to the third generation and a fourth
(Ex 34:5–7).

This formula, then, appears at a crucial moment, that is, when Moses is
pleading for a restoration of the Covenant and asking specifically that the
Lord give a sign that he will continue with his people.The Lord answers
with this self-description. Rashi remarked that YHWH gave to Israel this
means of calling upon him when the sin of Israel is so great that “the merits
of the patriarchs” appear to be exhausted. This seems to be borne out in
Numbers 14:8, the only other occurrence of the full formula, where Moses
is pleading for the people who had just openly refused to believe the Lord
and enter the Promised Land as he had commanded them.15
14 Translation from Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos, Haphtaroth, and Rashi’s Commen-

tary, Rev. M. Rosenbaum and Dr. A. M. Silberman, trans. ( Jerusalem: Silberman
Family, 1930), Exodus 190.
15 In addition to the phrases in Psalm 86, which we will discuss now, resonances of
this formula can be found in Pss 103:8; 145:8, and in Joel 2:13; Nah 1:3; Neh
9:17; Jonah 4:2.

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There is yet another echo of this formula in our psalm, it is in verse
15 and thus serves to frame the central section:“And you, my Lord, are a
merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and great in h. esed and faithfulness.” It is certainly true that the psalmist, and any one of us, could evoke
these words in an individual appeal for mercy. But there is more. This
psalm “of David” is clearly inserted in the midst of five psalms attributed
to “the sons of Korah.” Preceding our psalm we find Psalm 84, a pilgrim
song longing for the presence of God in the temple, and Psalm 85, which
expresses a plea for restoration and revival. On the other side of Psalm 86
there are three “Korah psalms.” Psalm 87 celebrates the mystical reality of
Zion as the mother of all the nations;16 Psalm 88 is a bitter prayer of
distress delivered by Israel; and Psalm 89 expresses an anguished questioning of God’s faithfulness to his Covenant with David now that the
monarchy has disappeared.17 In our Psalm, therefore, David, that is, an
individual and the nation (the “servant” of YHWH: verses 2, 4, 16)
through the mouth of David, is pleading for a restoration of Israel and
recalling to the Lord his self-description of being “great in h. esed to all
who call to you,” and “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and
great in h. esed and faithfulness.” In our individualistic worlds such identification with God’s people as a whole, such anguish over our communal
inability to show to the world the h. esed of God, is both a challenge and
a revelation of God who awaits such prayer from us. It is also a revelation
of ourselves as the other dialogue partner who can be enabled by the
word of God to say in the last line of this section, “On the day of my
distress I call to you for you will answer me.”
The Second Section of the Psalm:Verses 8–13
8 There is none like you among the gods, my Lord,
no deeds like yours.
9 All the nations whom you have made
will come and bow down before you, my Lord,
and glorify your name.
10 For you are great, and a worker of wonders;
you are God, you alone.
16 For a commentary on this psalm and its significance for a grasp of Israel’s later

self-understanding in regard to the nations, see Norbert Lohfink and Erich
Zenger, The God of Israel and the Nations. Studies in Isaiah and the Psalms, Everett
R. Kalin, trans. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), chapter 5.
17 Psalm 89 is the concluding psalm of Book III of the present psalter and it also
concludes the “Messianic Psalter” that extends from Psalm 2, includes Psalm 72
(the last psalm of Book II). For a brief treatment of this see ibid., 159.

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11 Teach me, YHWH, your way;
I will walk in your faithfulness;
unify my heart for the fearing of your name.
12 I will thank you, my Lord, my God, with all my heart,
and I will glorify your name forever.
13 Yes, your h. esed is great in my regard;
and you will rescue my soul from the depths of Sheol.

It is remarkable that immediately following a personal and communal
plea for the renewal of the covenant, we find this section whose first part,
in anticipation of the following psalm,18 is a celebration of the universal
rule of YHWH to be realized through Israel, itself embodied in David,
the servant. In Psalm 22, also “of David,” we find the same rhythm: a
lament that begins with the cry of a suffering servant, “My God, My
God, why have you abandoned me?” and ends by celebrating God’s
universal reign in words evoked as well by Psalm 86:“All the ends of the
earth will remember and turn to YHWH; all the families of the nations will
bow down before him” (see verse 9 above).
Israel is praying in David, and David in Israel.The rhythm of suffering
and exaltation is found throughout Israel’s history and is held up for all
here to see and enter into by the word of God. Experiencing the time of
exile and postexile when there is “no prince, prophet or leader” (Dan
3:38), and longing for restoration, Israel remembers the future when the
ideal king will come will come and “All kings shall bow down before
him, and nations shall serve him” (Ps 72:11). But as these horizons
expand through suffering it becomes clear that the renewal of the
covenant for which Israel is praying is somehow going to include all the
nations:“And of Zion they shall say:‘One and all were born in her’ ” (Ps
87:5).That is why:“There is none like you among the gods, my Lord, no
deeds like yours. . . . For you are great, and a worker of wonders; you are
God, you alone.”
Then, as we arrive at the hinge at the center of this section of the psalm,
the direction changes again. Closely connected with this statement of
universality is a petition whose spiritual depth reaches to the very core of
a person and a people:“unify my heart for the fearing of your name.”19 The
heart is the “within” of a person.“In addition to feelings and emotions, the
18 Some of the expressions in Psalm 87 are as follows:“I tell of Egypt and Babylon

among those that know the Lord; of Philistia,Tyre, Ethiopia:‘This man was born
there.’ And of Zion they shall say: ‘One and all were born in her.’ ”
19 For the reading “unify,” preferred by a majority of commentators, rather then
“rejoice,” as read by the Septuagint and some modern translations see Tate,
Psalms 51–100, 376.

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heart contains as well our memories, thoughts and ideas, our plans and our
decisions.”20 Robert Sokolowski, following the lead of Robert Spaemann,
speaks of the heart in these terms.
[The heart] “is the ground for the turning away from the good,” and it
is also, conversely, the ground for the turn toward the good and toward
truth. Furthermore according to Spaemann, this turning toward or
turning against is not just a response to an argument or to an idea, but
a response to someone—God, and in the more immediate situation,
Christ—who discloses the truth. . . .
This concept of the heart is an ultimate “explanation” for the turn
toward truth or darkness, and it is original in the New Testament:“The
heart is the unfounded foundation in a sense for which there is no
thinkable or conceptual equivalent in antiquity.”21

It would seem to me that the newness of the New Testament understanding of “heart” lies rather in uncovering new depths of a reality
already known and spoken of clearly in the Old Testament. In this
instance, as in so many others, the Old Testament provides the initial
understanding that is subsequently needed and taken up in the context
of Christ.22 To pray that God “unify” the heart, then, is to pray that this
“unfounded foundation” within us, the center of our personhood, cease
to be divided between good and evil and respond with integrity to
someone, to God. In one movement of prayer, the carefully constructed
isolation of modern and postmodern humanity is done away with:We are
confronted with our ineluctable orientation to Transcendence and its
accompanying responsibility.
The psalmist prays that God himself work the change, in keeping with
the whole of the biblical understanding that a “pure,” that is, a single or
20 Jean de Fraine and Albert Vanhoye, “Coeur,” in Vocabulaire de Théologie Biblique,

Xavier Léon Dufour, ed. (Paris: Cerf, 1971), 176–79.
21 Robert Sokolowski,“The Autonomy of Philosophy in Fides et ratio,” in Restoring

Faith in Reason: A New Translation of the Encyclical Faith and Reason of Pope John
Paul II together with a Commentary and Discussion, ed. Susan Frank Parsons and
Laurence Paul Hemming (London: SCM Press, 2002), 277–91. Sokolowski is
drawing upon Robert Spaemann, Personen:Versuche über den Unterschied zwischen
‘etwas’ und ‘jemand’ (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta Verlag, 1996), 288.
22 This process is aptly described by Bernard Lonergan, by the term “sublation,”
using an insight he attributes not to Hegel but to Rahner: “What sublates goes
beyond what is sublated, introduces something new and distinct, yet so far from
interfering with the sublated or destroying it, on the contrary needs it, includes
it, preserves all its proper features and properties, and carries them forward to a
fuller realization within a richer context.” Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology
(New York: Herder & Herder, 1972), 241.

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simple heart, is literally the creation of God: “A pure heart create for me,
O God, renew in me a steadfast spirit” (Ps 51:12).What Israel is praying
for in both Psalm 86 and in Psalm 51 is not only moral integrity, but the
new covenant as described in Jeremiah 31:31–34, Ezekiel 11:19–20 and
36:25–28 and elsewhere which will be characterized by an action of God
putting within the heart the power to respond wholeheartedly to
himself. In this, the allusions to the renewal of the covenant found in the
use of YHWH’s self proclamation are made more explicit. Such a renewal
will bring about the perfection of the “fear of God,” that is, “fearing his
name” in a deep experience of the presence of God mediated by singlehearted submission to the expression of his holiness and glory. Holiness
is the inner mystery of God’s unique being. Glory is the outer manifestation of that mystery, and Name is the expression of his being that he
shares with us as a gift.
At this point, the poor man, David, Israel, promises to the God of the
covenant (my Lord, my God) that he will thank him with all his heart,
probably alluding to the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4–5 calling us to love
YHWH “with all your heart.” He promises further: “I will glorify your
name forever.” Is it too much to understand that at this level of the psalm’s
history and in the light of the universalist psalm edited to follow, Israel is
here looking forward to that future restoration when the nations, as just
described in verse 9, will, along with Israel, pray for an undivided covenant
heart and also “come and bow down and glorify your name”?23 In any event
there is little doubt that the prayer is moving in that direction.
The Third Section of the Psalm:Verses 14–17
14 O God, those who defy you have risen against me
and a pack of ruthless men seek my soul;
they do not put you before their eyes.
15 And you, my Lord, are a merciful and gracious God,
slow to anger and great in h. esed and faithfulness:
16 turn to me and be gracious to me;
give your strength to your servant,
and save the son of your handmaid.
17 Work a sign on my behalf
that those who hate me will see and be confounded
that you, YHWH, have helped me and consoled me.

These concluding verses return to the theme and the tone of the opening section, but they have to be understood in the light of the intervening
23 I owe this suggestion to Lohfink and Zenger, The God of Israel, 158.

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section. In the opening verse the poor man asks God to look on his plight:
The words are almost exactly the same as Psalm 54:5, also a psalm “of
David.” It is difficult to determine whether there is any conscious borrowing and, if so, in what direction it took place, but in both contexts, and
especially in Psalm 86, the poor man’s suffering has become that of the king
and the nation.Those who seek his life are ruthless and godless.
In even stronger terms than in the opening section, verse 15 evokes
the covenant gift of God’s self identification as “merciful, gracious, slow
to anger, great in h. esed and faithfulness.”This is followed by a prayer: First
that God save his servant, one born in his house so to speak, and secondly,
that he work a sign in the sight of the servant’s enemies so that those who
hate him will be confounded and see that YHWH has helped and
consoled him.What kind of a “sign” is being asked for? Clearly, some act
of God delivering the poor man from his persecutors, but then also one
that restores kingship to David and to Israel, and perhaps one that draws
the nations into the privileges of Israel as the psalm announces. This
prayer is still echoed in the Catholic liturgy that prays during the Paschal
Vigil: “grant that the fullness of the whole world pass over to the status
of the sons of Abraham and the dignity of Israel.”24 For Christians, therefore, the looked-for sign in its definitive expression is the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. In this event the poor man has been heard (Ps 22:25), David
reigns, and Israel has begun its vocation as the gathering place of a new
people. As Charles H. Dodd expressed it some fifty years ago:
It is this far-reaching identification of Christ, as Son of Man, as Servant,
as the righteous Sufferer, with the people of God in all its vicissitudes
that justifies the apparent employment of the early Church of Hos. vi.
1–3 as a prophecy of the resurrection of Christ; for the resurrection of
Christ is the resurrection of Israel of which the prophet spoke.25

Conclusion
As the word of God, the psalms bear us along into a dialogue with God
as we make their words our own. I said at the outset that our present day
isolation needs this divine help in order to recover an orientation toward
the Transcendent. Our journey toward an openness to dimensions
beyond the reach of our instrumental reason is not so much a movement
back as it is a movement forward, born along by the word of God that is
24 Prayer after the Third Reading (Ex 14:15–15:1).
25 C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures. The Substructure of New Testament Theology

(London: James Nisbet & Co., 1952; reprint, 1961), 103.

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both ancient and always new. Such a movement, as Fides et Ratio reminds
us, requires trust and a recognition that all knowledge is an implicit invitation to communion with God.
Psalm 86, as understood on the various levels of its inclusion within
the faith life and worship of Israel and its inclusion among the collection
of psalms, is capable of bringing us into a living contact with God. First,
we are led to understand that underlying all address to God is the fact
that God has taken the initiative. From out of the depths of his ineffable
holiness he created, and then he chose.There is none among the gods like
him; there are no deeds like his. Needing nothing, yet seeking our love,
he is, by his own self declaration, good and forgiving, merciful and gracious,
great in h. esed, stable, truthful, and loyal. Yet, the power of his love can
make itself felt as wrath and anger: He hates sin and will allow human
evil to play itself out in order finally to bring us back to him.
God acts in the realm of human history and his action is self-authenticating. It is continued when, by this same action, the event is transposed
into word, not as an empty memorial but as a living presence of God.
When we pray we are brought to enter more deeply into those actions
through the words he gives us. We hear him call to us and teach us to
pray:“Return, Israel to YHWH, your God.Yes, you fell in your own evil.
Take words with you and return to YHWH. Say to him: Lift off this guilt,
take the good, and we will restore to you the fruit of our lips. (Hos
14:2–3).We learn that the presence of God does not leave us at ease but
moves us to call out in our own suffering and that of those bound to us
in God.We may be angry, disconsolate, humiliated, and frightened by our
sins, but somehow we know that the initiative of God, his covenant, is
unbreakable from his side.The very words he gives us lead us to become
aware of his presence. For when the Holy Spirit anoints the word of God,
then God is present and we pronounce his name: YHWH,Abba. Little by
little we are led to affirm what we have always dimly known: God is to
be trusted even when he is silent. In this covenant trust we recover and
make more explicit an instinct for his awesome presence and his love that
confounds our small expectations and meager thoughts.
But the psalms also reveal us to ourselves. We come to know our
poverty and need, and are not afraid to own it. We realize that God has
made a covenant and renewed it and that his promises are unalterable.We
pray to be guided because we begin to understand the immeasurable
consequences of our decisions: We are far greater than we wish to be—
we do not want the responsibility that God has placed in our hands. Most
importantly, the psalms in general, and Psalm 86 in particular, reveal to us
our heart: that ineradicable place that is always open to God and that is

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the locus of our relation to him. Our heart bears witness: No matter how
we twist and turn and deny, by our inner decisions we will either move
toward God or away from him. We pray to God, the only one who can
accomplish such a thing, to unify our heart, to create a pure heart, so that
we will worship and obey him and enter into that communion with him
that opens up once again the world we have tried to close to him.
In this movement we also learn that we cannot pray as isolated monads.
We belong to a people and we must carry the weight of that reality
whenever we pray. Together we are the poor and needy man who prays
for a universal sharing in the privileges of Israel, one day to be shared by
us all in that moment when “all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:26). The
radical wing of Islam accuses us, Christians and Jews, of having been false
to our heritage and having succumbed to the isolation created by the
philosophies we have let dominate us. This, they say, has led us to apostasy.When we look at the degree to which the closed system thinking of
the world has shrunk our vision, we have to acknowledge the truth
contained in this charge. Christian persecution, culminating in the
Shoah, has sullied us all, perpetrators, onlookers, and victims, creating a
present climate of uneasy manmade arrangements: guilt on one side, fear
on the other. It may be that the thought of transcendence is too difficult
for us. However, if we turn to God and together pray for a unified heart,
we can show the world what a gift it is to know God’s will, what a privilege to share a heritage.The steps from there are hidden in the same will
of God. Perhaps what we experience now is God’s anger, but as Abraham
Heschel reminds us:
God’s anger is not a fundamental attribute, but a transient and reactive
condition. It is a means of achieving “the intents of his mind.”
Inscrutable though it appears to the people, “in the end of days” they
“will understand clearly” ( Jer. 23.20).26
N&V

26 Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets, 2nd ed. (New York: Perennial Classics, Harper

Collins, 2001).

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295

Of Men and Angels
T HOMAS W EINANDY, OFM C ap.
Oxford University
Greyfriars, Oxford

T HOMAS AQUINAS teaches that angels are more in the image and
likeness of God than are human beings.The basis for this resides in one’s
intellectual nature.“Thus the image of God is more perfect in the angels
than in man, because their intellectual nature is more perfect.” Man may
“accidentally” be more in the image of God than are angels, for example,
“in the fact that man proceeds from man, as God proceeds from God,”
but “absolutely speaking, the angels are more to the image of God than
man is” (Summa theologiae I, q. 93, a. 3).
Now, obviously, angels do possess a higher intellectual ability than do
human beings and so, again, they are obviously, in this sense, more in the
image of God.While I am an ardent Thomist, what has bothered me for
quite some time is that there is very little, if any, biblical warrant for saying
that angels are more in the image and likeness of God. Nowhere in the
Bible is such a statement made. If Aquinas is correct, why was this not
made known within the Old or the New Testament revelation? Since such
was not revealed, could it be that intellectual ability is not solely, or even
primarily, the criteria for establishing a creature’s relative likeness to God,
and thus that human beings, and not angels, could be more like God?
My musings on this question were stirred anew when recently I read
Aquinas’s Commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews, where again, not to my
surprise, he argues that angels are more in the image and likeness of God
than are human beings. Nonetheless, I became, instinctively, more
convinced that this is not so, but I could not figure out why. In frustration I said:“Holy Spirit, somewhere along the line you are going to have
to teach me why men are more in the image and likeness of God than
are angels.” The thought that came immediately to mind was that it all

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has to do with the giving of life.The following is, hopefully, a somewhat
mature expression of my further musings on this issue.
I first want to examine the nature of God as a Trinity of Persons, for
it is this Trinity of Persons in whose likeness human beings (and/or
angels) are created. Secondly, I want to show that human beings are
indeed created more in the image and likeness of God than are angels.
Thirdly, I will discuss, in a somewhat random fashion, though I hope not
totally illogical manner, what I consider various important theological
spinoffs from this truth that have practical ecclesial and social/cultural
consequences.This is not simply an esoteric issue!
The Fecundity of God
The one God is a Trinity of Persons, but not just any sort of persons.
These Persons have names and two of them possess gendered names—
the Father and the Son. The Father is the Father precisely because he
begets the Son.The Father is a begetter; and so, by definition, necessarily
is fecund.The Son is the fruit of the Father’s fecundity.The fecundity of
the Father resides in the Holy Spirit, in that, the Spirit proceeds from the
Father as the paternal love of the Father in whose love the Son is begotten. If the Father did not love the Son in the Spirit, he would not have
begotten him in the love of the Spirit.The Son is not fecund within the
Trinity as is the Father, but the Son, as the perfect Son, loves the Father
with the same love with which he himself is begotten, that is, in the Holy
Spirit.Thus, in the Holy Spirit, the Son confirms the Father’s fatherhood,
for if he did not love the Father with the same love with which the
Father loved him, the Father would not truly be the loving Father of a
truly loving Son. This is one reason why the title “Holy Spirit” is not a
gendered name for the Holy Spirit conforms (literally en-genders) the
Father to be the loving begetter of the Son and conforms (literally engenders) the Son to be the loving begotten Son of the Father. This is
equally why the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as his paternal love
for the Son and proceeds from the Son as his filial love for the Father.
Aquinas, following Augustine, principally sees the image of God in the
mind or intellect, in that,“as the uncreated Trinity is distinguished by the
procession of the Word from the Speaker, and of Love from both of these,
so we may say that in the rational creatures wherein we find a procession
of the word in the intellect, and a procession of the love in the will, there
exists an image of the uncreated Trinity” (ST I, q. 93, a. 6). Now, this may
be true, but in such an understanding what is missing, as the above
demonstrates, is the radically personal and creative nature of this proceeding of the Word and the procession of this Love. We are not dealing,

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within the Trinity, with mere concepts proceeding from an intellectual
source, but with the constitutive inter-relationships of persons. At the
heart of these inter-relationships, which ontologically constitute the
persons and so define the persons as to who they are, is fecundity. The
Father is the eternal loving source of all life, in that he eternally begets
the Son in the love of the Spirit; and the Son would not be the eternal
Son if he were not eternally begotten in the love of the Holy Spirit; and
the Holy Spirit would not be the Holy Spirit if he were not the eternal
love that conformed (en-gendered) the Father to be the eternal loving
Father of the eternal Son and the eternal love which conformed (engendered) the Son to be the eternal loving Son of the eternal Father.
Of Angels and Men
While this section will primarily focus on why human beings are created
in the image and likeness of God, I first want to draw what is probably
now an obvious conclusion. Angels are not, in the absolute sense, created
in the image and likeness of God because, while they may most closely
resemble his intellectual ability, they are unable to reproduce themselves.
Aquinas himself teaches that each angel is his own species and is therefore, by definition, one of a kind. Angels, therefore, are not fecund in a
manner analogous to that of God. Angels never beget.
While there is some Jewish and Christian traditional warrant suggesting that the angels were, in some manner, co-workers with the Father and
the Son in the creation of the world, yet they are not authors of life
themselves. Moreover, while the angels, as God’s messengers, are instrumental in the imparting of divine revelation, both within the Old and
New Testaments, and so nurturers and guardians of the subsequent salvific
life of the Spirit within human beings, they are, again, not the generators
of that divine life. Angels are creative in that they cooperate in the lifegiving activity of the Trinity, but they are not creative in the sense that
they are able to generate, as an essential part of their nature, life. While
Angels may not be absolutely sterile, yet they are deficient in what is
most at the heart of who God is as a Trinity of Persons—eternal fecundity wrought by eternal love.
Human beings are, in the absolute sense, created in the image and likeness of God precisely because they are fecund; they are life-giving. It is
fascinating that Aquinas does say this as quoted above.There is “a certain
imitation of God, consisting in the fact that man proceeds from man, as
God from God.” However, because Aquinas limits this “proceeding” to an
“accident” within human beings and so not a substantial defining element
as is their rationality, he refuses to allow such an ability to be an essential

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element constituting them in the image and likeness of God. While
Aquinas rightly does say that such an ability “presupposes the first likeness,
which is in the intellectual nature; otherwise even brute animals would be
to God’s image,” he forgets that it is the whole human person, body and
soul, that is made in the image of God and not merely that part of him
that is rational, for human rationality is itself dependent upon the bodily
senses and the human brain. Human beings’ ability to procreate rationally
and lovingly is not something then apart from who they substantially are
as human beings and so not something apart from who they substantially
are as images and likeness of God. It is precisely because they can rationally and lovingly procreate that not only sets them apart from animals but
equally that sets them above the “merely rational” angels.
It is not by chance then, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that
the Book of Genesis clearly states: “So God created man in his own
image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created
them” (1:27). Man as “male” and “female” is in the image and likeness of
God, and “male” and “female” have to do specifically with fecundity,
procreation, the begetting of life. This is accurately witnessed in God’s
very next words, a command that is in accord with his own very nature
as a Trinity of Persons: “And God blessed them, and God said the them,
‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over
every living thing that moves upon the earth’ ” (Gen. 1:28).To be in the
image and likeness of God is to possess the ability to be fruitful. As the
Father begot his Son in love, so male and female, in imitation of God, are
to multiply, in love, their own kind.The ability to beget life is indeed at
the heart of being in the image and likeness of God. It is human beings’
ability to rationally and lovingly procreate, moreover, that authorizes their
dominion over the whole of creation. God, as the author of all life, is the
supreme Lord over all of creation, and those whom he has created after
his own life-giving image he empowers to be his vice-regents upon the
earth, rationally overseeing and dutifully husbanding, and so actively
assisting, all else that brings forth life. Human beings, and not angels,
possess divinely constituted cosmic authority.
Men and Jesus as Images of the Father
Based upon this truth that human beings are created in the image and
likeness of the Trinitarian God in that they are able, rationally and lovingly,
to procreate, I want now to begin a series of theological spinoffs. Now, my
first spinoff will be controversial and the height of political incorrectness,
but we must return to the Trinity by way of introduction.

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While both men and women are created in the image and likeness of
God in that together, as sexual beings, they possess the potential to bring
forth life, yet man, in the restrictive sense of male, most images the Father.
God the Father “makes” himself Father in begetting the Son for it is only
in ontologically begetting the Son that he is constituted ontologically as
the Father (not in the sense that he could not have been the Father, but
rather in eternally begetting the Son he is eternally the Father).While a
man cannot become a father apart from a woman, yet a man becomes a
father in a different manner from which a woman becomes a mother.
This is precisely the point: A man “makes” himself a father in the act of
begetting, and in so making himself a father a woman “becomes” a
mother, in that what is conceived in her is begotten by the father. A
woman cannot “make” herself a mother for, unlike a man, she is not a
begetter. It is specifically in man’s potential ability to beget that he is the
image of God the Father.
Having argued that men bear the image of God the Father, I want
now to return again to the Trinity. The reason God the Father begets a
Son is because the Son, like human fathers, must be a begetter as well if
he is to be truly the perfect image of the Father. If God the Father begot
a Daughter, then that Daughter, unlike him, would not be able to be a
begetter, and so not the Father’s perfect image. She would be dependent
upon another for her fruitfulness. Of course, this is what we find in pagan
mythology. Goddesses are always dependent upon some divine male
consort for their fruitfulness. (This is equally why the term “Mother”
cannot be substituted for the term “Father.” If “God the Mother” actually existed, she would, by ontological necessity, remain sterile unless
some male deity came to her aid, and so we would again return to an
extreme form of pagan anthropomorphism.) But how is the Son of God
a begetter and how does he manifest his perfect imaging of the Father?
Within the immanent life of the Trinity, while the Son is the perfect
image of the Father, he could not manifest his perfect likeness to the
Father as a begetter. However, the Father loved the Son so much that the
Father created the world through his Son so that the Son could manifest
his perfect likeness to the Father.Actually, the Father, if he were to create
the world, had to do so through his Son because his Son is precisely the
perfect likeness to the Father’s creative and life-giving ability.The Father
bears witness to his own and, in turn, his Son’s fecundity in the act of
creation. In the act of creation the Father allows his Son to become a
“begetter” and so manifests his perfect likeness. Moreover, it is the livegiving love of the Holy Spirit, shared by the Father as begetter and the
Son as the perfectly begotten begetter, who compels them to create,

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freely and lovingly, other beings, especially human beings created in their
own image and likeness.
However, it is not the act of creation that fully reveals the Son’s perfect
life-giving likeness to the Father. Rather, it is within the Incarnation and
the work of redemption that the Son fully manifests himself as a life-giver
and so the perfect icon of his Father. The Son, then could not have
become an angel for, if he had done so, he could not have become a lifegiver and so be unable to manifest his divine likeness to the Father—that
of being a begetter.The Son had to become what was created in his own
image.Thus, the Son of God had to become a man and not a woman, for
it is man who bears the image of the Father, and so, if the Son is to reveal
the image of the Father in a human manner, it must be as a man that he
does so. Moreover, in becoming a man, the Son was able to reveal that
he, too, like the Father, was inherently a begetter, a giver of life. (This is
why it is theologically imprecise, if not actually erroneous, to say simply
that the Son of God/Word became “a human being” rather than “a man.”
Jesus was obviously a human being, but it is only as man that the Son
could authentically reveal himself to be the Son.)
Jesus, as the Son of God incarnate, by dying on the cross and rising
from the dead made himself the redeemer of the world and so the begetting cause of eternal life. In union with the Father of life, he becomes of
the author of new life, for the Church, the new Eve, in accordance with
the Johannine imagery and reminiscent of Adam, is born from his pierced
side. Moreover, because of Jesus’ life-giving actions, the Father presented
to him as bridegroom his bride, the Church.The Church testifies, as do
all brides, to the life-giving actions of her bridegroom, for she raises up,
through the Holy Spirit, sons and daughters for the Father. Thus, the
analogical image of Christ, the new Adam bridegroom, and the Church,
the new Eve bride, complements and corroborates the more literal
notion of the risen Christ being, through the Holy Spirit, the life-giving
head of his body the Church. Here the image takes on ontological depth
for the risen Christ, in the unity of the Spirit, actually does become “one
flesh” with his body the Church, and equally, through the same Spirit,
gives life to that body.
This is obviously why Christian marriage is a sacrament.The indissoluble union of husband and wife symbolizes the fruitful indissoluble
union of Christ and the Church, as his body. Equally, this is one of the
reasons why sexual activity is morally virtuous only within marriage for
it too symbolizes the life-giving activity between Christ and his Church
and ultimately of the Trinity itself; and also then why all positive contraceptive sexual activity is immoral for it desymbolizes and so deconstructs

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Christ’s life-giving activity in union with his Church and similarly
desymbolizes and so deconstructs human beings’ fecund likeness to the
Trinity. Moreover, this is why all homosexual activity is unbecoming of
human beings as images of God for such activity is sterile and so fails to
reflect both Christ’s creative relationship to his Church and the loving
and life-giving nature of the Trinity.
Mary as the Perfect Image
Now it might appear that this essay has become an exercise in establishing the superiority of the human male.While I have certainly attempted
to express clearly the importance of maleness, one of the greatest theological spinoffs is equally the supreme importance of Mary and, with her,
of all women.While men, including Jesus, bear witness to the likeness of
God the Father in that they possess the ability to beget and generate life,
yet, if we take fecundity or fruitfulness as the chief characteristic of
human divine likeness, as this essay argues, then Mary in one sense
becomes, from within the economy of salvation, the perfect exemplar of
what it means to be created in the image and likeness of God. She does
not image the Father, but what she does exemplify supremely, in a feminine manner, is human beings’ fecundity.
Again, it would seem that the Son could not become an angel, but if he
could do so, it would have to be done apart from the cooperation of
another angel since angels by their very nature are not fecund. No angel
could conceive the Son of God as an angel. Moreover, no man could
contribute to the Incarnation of the Son, for no man possesses the capability to effect the Incarnation, that is, the coming to exist of the Son of
God as man, and thus no man could fully exemplify the potential fruitfulness embedded within the human divine likeness or the extent of the lifegiving nature of God. However, a woman could conceive as man and give
birth to as man the Son of God—and did. So life-giving is the Father that
the Son of God, through the engendering power of the Holy Spirit, could
become man, and so fruitful is woman that only within a woman’s womb
could the Son assume, through the engendering Spirit, his manhood.
While Mary could not “make” herself the Mother of God on her
own, as no woman is able to “make” herself a mother, yet, because she
conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and not by a man, she became
the perfect image of the God’s inherent fruitfulness. She became the
perfect image of God’s fecundity because, by the overshadowing of the
Holy Spirit, she became the human mother of the Father’s divine Son.
Moreover, because Mary became the Mother of God by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, and not by man, she remains a virgin as well.

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Mary is the Virgin Mother of God because she displays that woman’s
complete potential fecundity, and so her full divine likeness, resides not
in her relationship to man but in her relationship to God.This is why the
Church is exemplified foremost in Mary for only because Mary first
became the Mother of God, by the power of the Spirit, and thus the
Mother of Life, could the Church become the mother of all those begotten again of the Spirit and so born into the likeness of Mary’s Son. Moreover, while men may bear the image of the Father in that they are
begetters, yet all women, like Mary, bear the full image of divine fecundity and fruitfulness, in this sense that only in them is what is begotten
conceived. It is from only within the wombs of women that all human
life comes (or should come) forth.
Celibacy, Priesthood, and the Image of God
I have argued that human beings’ likeness to the Persons of the Trinity
resides specifically in their ability to rationally and lovingly bring forth
life. If such be the case, what is to be said of those men and women, who,
for the sake of the Kingdom, have vowed celibacy and so have forsworn
procreative activity? Here I am not able to develop a theology of the religious life where men and woman, through their vow of chastity, image,
in their unique respective ways, the divine likeness. Suffice it to say that,
within the Church, non-ordained celibate men bear witness to and
actively engage in fatherly activity and celibate women equally bear
witness to and actively engage in nurturing and fostering new life in a
properly maternal manner.What I would like to do is to explore briefly
the truth that celibate priests image Christ as begetters.
Firstly, priests, unlike angels, are begetters, though now the life that
they beget is the new life of Jesus’ Spirit within men and women both
within and outside the Church.This is done specifically in their preaching of the Gospel and in the celebration of the sacraments, particularly in
the Eucharist. Within the Eucharistic liturgy, priests enact and so make
present the life-giving activity, the begetting activity, of Jesus’ death and
resurrection. While all Christians can baptize because of their share in
Christ’s priesthood, yet only the ordained priest, within the Eucharist,
fully symbolizes and so fully enacts the begetting and life-fostering activity of Christ’s redeeming work in relation to his Church.Women are by
nature not begetters and so it is not merely physically impossible but also
metaphysically impossible for them to enact priestly actions that are, by
their very nature,“begetting” actions, of which the liturgical action of the
Eucharist is—Christ, through the priest, “making” himself the bridegroom of the Church, his fruitful bride.

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Secondly, celibacy is an inherent part of these priestly begetting
actions. While men who are married can and do become priests, the
married priest conflates within himself, and so renders unfocused, the
two manners in which a man is a begetter. He is an image of the Father,
as are all men, in that he is able to beget children of his wife. He is also,
as a priest, the image of Christ as the begetter of spiritual life. However,
the very presence of a wife and children weakens and even subverts the
primary vocational task of a priest, that of imaging Christ as the begetter
of the new life of the Spirit within the Church. It is only the celibate
priest as such who bears exclusive and singular witness that his whole life
is modeled after Christ as the begetter and nurturer of the Spirit’s life
within the Church and the world.
While it is often stated that priestly celibacy is merely a Church discipline and so can be discarded at will, I am not convinced. As the above
demonstrates, celibacy is intrinsic to the male priestly witness as a “begetter” after the manner of Christ, and, as such, it is much more than a mere
canonical law. It specifies precisely the manner in which men, as priests,
are in the image and likeness of the Father and so make present the livegiving actions of his perfect image, the risen Christ. Instead of seeing a
development of doctrine in the normative sanctioning of a married
priesthood within the Roman Catholic Church, I would argue that
authentic doctrinal development, which is presently groaning to mature,
will confirm that priests, by the very nature of their priesthood, ought
normatively to be celibate, for only then is that priesthood exercised in
its most complete fashion and to its fullest extent.
The Angels’ Flawed Brief
In approaching my conclusion, it is necessary to examine a couple of
scriptural passages that look to undermine my thesis that human beings
are more in the image and likeness of God than are angels, passages that
the angels themselves might employ in their own defense.The first resides
in the fact that the procreative activity of human beings is limited to this
life.“For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given
in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven” (Mk 12:25). In this passage
Jesus appears to assert two truths. Firstly, it is precisely human beings’ ability to procreate that distinguishes them from angels. This I would agree
with. It confirms my thesis. However, secondly, in heaven human beings
will not procreate because they will be like angels, the seeming implication being that they will be raised to a higher status, that of being in the
likeness of angels.Thus, angels are more in the image and likeness of God
and human beings, having become like angels, will be more like God in

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heaven than they were when on earth. While it is true that heavenly
human beings will be like angels in that in heaven they will not be given
in marriage and so procreate, I do not think that this necessarily implies
that angels are therefore more in God’s image.
In heaven, the risen life of grace perfects absolutely each human
person.What a person was on earth comes to its heavenly completion. I
would therefore argue that as Christ bears the glorious marks of his
earthly life-giving passion as a sign of his salvific risen triumph over sin
and death and, thus, to his supreme lordship, so each human being will
bear a similar glorious mark that will designate his or her singular lifegiving activity on earth.This mark, along with a new heavenly name, will
reveal and designate precisely who this person is and in what life-giving
activity he or she excelled so as to obtain eternal life. Moreover, as human
beings are life-givers in various ways on earth so they do not cease to be
life-givers in heaven.They may no longer procreate, but yet, as functioning risen members of the Body of Christ, they will still, in some real
manner, nurture the life of Christ’s risen body and they will each do so
in a manner in keeping with their earthly vocations. As the risen Christ,
the Head, nurtures perfectly, through the Holy Spirit, the risen life of the
members of his Body, so each risen member, in union with Christ,
nurtures perfectly, through the same Holy Spirit, the same risen life
within of Christ’s body.While angels will contribute to the life of Christ’s
body in heaven, they are not life-giving members of that body, specifically because they do not possess bodies. Moreover, since heaven consists
in the perfect vision of and so the perfect communion with the lifegiving Trinity, so those who perfectly participate in this vision and
communion will share fully, each in their singular fashion, in the lifegiving nature of the Trinity. Thus, I would again conclude that human
beings, precisely because of their life-giving ability, are more in the image
and likeness of God both while on earth and in heaven.
The second passage is found in the Letter to the Hebrews where it is
said that “we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the
angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death,
so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Heb 2:9).
Since the Son of God was made for a little while lower than the angels,
then human beings, in whose likeness he became, are lower than the
angels and so less in God’s likeness. Here we come to a topic that had
been purposely left to the side—sin. While human beings were created
ontologically in the image of God and so being created were ontologically more in his likeness than are angels, yet sin has disfigured and so
partially rendered dysfunctional that ontological image. Human life-

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giving activity bears the traces of God’s image, yet the radiance of that
image is very frequently darkened by the deep shadow of sin.While the
angels, then, have perfectly maintained their likeness to God, human
beings have not. So, while human beings were created ontologically more
in God’s image than were the angels, yet, in the darkness of human sin,
angels presently radiate a truer likeness.This is precisely why the Son of
God became man. “For surely it is not with angels that he ( Jesus) is
concerned but with the descendants of Abraham.Therefore he had to be
made like his brethren in every respect” (Heb 2:16–17).The Son of God
assumed the sin-scarred humanity of his brothers and sisters (and so, in
this sense, he too became lower than the angels) so that he might transform it, through his death and resurrection, and in so doing raise it up
once more to its divine pristine likeness that exceeds the angels.Without
the grace of Jesus Christ sinful human beings cannot fulfill their ontological imaging of God and so, in this sense, they are less than the angels.
However, by the healing and divinizing power of the Holy Spirit human
beings are able to reclaim their true status, that of being more in God’s
image than are the angels.
The King and Queen of Heaven and Earth
Following on from the above, I want, by way of conclusion, to make a
few points that pertain to the heavenly consummation. The most
convincing argument resides within the heavenly hierarchal order, for
such an order is the culminating testimony that human beings are more
in the image and likeness of God than are angels. Firstly, Jesus Christ, the
risen Son of God incarnate, is the King and Lord of heaven and earth.
He is such not simply because he is the Son of God, but, more precisely
and accurately, because he became man and died on the cross.“When he
had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the
Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name
he has obtained is more excellent than theirs” (Heb 1:3–4, see 1:5–13).
Equally, “Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him
the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, in heaven, and on earth and under the earth, and every
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”
(Phil 2:9–11). Supremacy, preeminence, and primacy resides solely in the
Son as the risen incarnate Lord of glory, and it is him that all creatures,
including angels, are to acknowledge as their King.
Secondly, it is Mary, who, in her Assumption, already shares fully in her
Son’s resurrection and so, as his mother, is Queen of heaven and earth. It is
as a risen human woman that Mary reigns alongside her glorious incarnate

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Son. Moreover, it will be the Saints, human men and human women,
who will be raised up and placed beside Jesus and Mary at the end of
time. Beneath the Trinity there ensues, then, a hierarchy of human
beings—Jesus, the incarnate risen Son, Mary, and all the Saints. The
reason they reside in their respective heavenly rank is because they, as
human beings, reflect, each in their own singular way, the very image of
the Trinity and they do so because they, like the Trinity, were and are all
life-givers. Moreover, human beings, in their respective life-giving activity, as the original stewards of creation, have helped bring about, in union
with Christ and by the power of the Spirit, a new heaven and a new
earth. Along with Jesus, then, as the Lord of creation, human beings will
assume the fullness of their divinely rendered cosmic authority. Only
here, within the heavenly hierarchy, appear then the angels. “Are they
(angels) not all ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those
who are to obtain salvation” (Heb 1:14)?
While of a higher intellectual nature than are human beings and so
reflecting more perfectly God’s omniscience, angels do not bring forth
life in the image of God, and so they do not adequately reflect the heart
of who God is as a Trinity of life-giving Persons. From within the Franciscan theological tradition, this lower positioning of the angels within
the heavenly hierarchy was the specific cause for why some angels
rebelled. These “bad” angels could not tolerate the thought that human
beings, including Jesus and Mary, were greater than themselves and that
they would become, within the heavenly hierarchy, their superiors.They
would have argued, as does Aquinas, that as the more intelligent creatures,
they were far superior to feeble-minded human beings. Yet, it is the
“good” angels who possess the humility, which is their supreme glory, to
grasp, in joy, that human beings are indeed created more in the image and
likeness of God, and why, even now, they long to peer (as did and does
the Angelic Doctor), in wonder and awe, into the mysteries of the faith;
mysteries that literally embody the live-giving actions of human beings,
those of Jesus, of Mary, and of all of the Saints.
N&V

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From Providence to Grace:
Thomas Aquinas and the Platonisms
of the Mid-Thirteenth Century
R ICHARD S CHENK , OP
John Paul II Cultural Center
Washington, DC

Thomas between His Two Platonic Traditions
“W HAT IS TIME ?” So begins Augustine’s famous treatise in Book
XI of the Confessions with its equally famous insight:“If no one asks me,
I know what time is; but if I would like to explicate it for them, I do not
know.”1 It is much the same thing with less universal words, such as
“Thomism.” Whether urged as a model or isolated for criticism, the
friends and foes of Thomism, even when using the term in the minimalist
sense, would be hardpressed to explicate the core of Thomas’s own most
programmatic issues, much less the often crooked paths of their later
reception.2 Which claims were most central to Thomas’s thought? Two of
the once most common answers to the questions as to the essence of
Thomism were “realism” and “grace building on nature.” One problem
with those two answers is that, at least in the common understanding of
these terms, realism and a grace building upon nature suggest positions
quite at odds with Thomas’s own thought: positions, too, that would
hardly be able to show Thomas’s relationship to the Platonic tradition.
The thesis behind the following reflections is that the programmatic
1 Augustinus, Confessionum libri XIII, lib. XI, xiv.17 (CCL XXVII, 202, l. 8–9).
2 Among the many recent attempts to situate Thomas anew in the history of his

reception, cf. especially Romanus Cessario, Le thomisme et les thomistes (Paris:
Cerf, 1999); Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas.Versions of Thomism (Oxford et al.: Blackwells, 2002); Brian Shanley, The Thomist Tradition (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002); and
Aidan Nichols, Discovering Aquinas. An Introduction to His Life,Work, and Influence
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003).

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nature of Thomas’s own thought and of what most deserves to be retrieved
from it will become clear only if his interpretation and transformation of
the Platonic tradition is clarified as well.
The topic of the realism/idealism dichotomy cannot be dealt with
here at any length; two observations must suffice. First, if “realism” entails
the stress on the passive or receptive dimension of knowledge, and “idealism” implies a stress on the spontaneous or productive dynamic of human
knowledge, then Thomas was more of an idealist than a realist, precisely
due to his criticism of what he understood as Platonism. From his first
disputed questions in 1257 on, Thomas articulated his own idealism by
appropriating what he understood as Aristotle’s turn away from Platonic
realism, and this was indeed the way many of Thomas’s earliest supporters read him.3 Because human beings have not always already received
the truth (a position that Thomas opposes to Platonic epistemology with
its always already given passivism), and because they expect to gain that
truth that they could have neither from illuminations received from
above nor passively from the senses below, they need that kind of intellectus agens that produces what is not yet given. With an emphasis hard to
classify as traditional, Thomas argues that human truth is made by the
human judgment, itself unlike anything received from without.4 In a
necessary but dialectical tension to internalized sense, the intellectus agens
fulfills in its own limited and self-limiting way the task facere omnia.5 The
same spontaneity that makes human truth also sets limits to that cognitive relationship. It is this stress on finite spontaneity that Thomas uses to
offer novel insights on pedagogical methodology6 or to argue for the
soul’s need of the body.7 In his later Christology Thomas will mention
twice how reflection upon the full humanity of Christ and his intellectus

3 Cf. the genuinely Thomist epistemology of an early fourteenth-century conti-

nental school documented in 1936 by Martin Grabmann, “Mittelalterliche
Deutung und Umbildung der aristotelischen Lehre vom Nous poietikos nach
seiner Zusammenstellung im Cod. B III 22 der Universitaetsbibliothek Basel.
Untersuchung und Textausgabe,” in Grabmann, Gesammelte Akademieabhandlungen (Paderborn: F. Schoeningh, 1979),Vol. I, 1021–22.
4 Cf.Thomas’s first programmatic quaestio disputata as a regent master, especially De
veritate I, 9 (Rome, Ed. Leonina XXII 29 sq.).
5 Like the pair intellectus agens/intellectus possibilis, Thomas traces the phrasing of
their paired operations facere omnia/fieri omnia back to De anima III 4 and 5.
6 Cf. Wolfgang Schmidl, Homo discens. Studien zur Paedagogischen Anthropologie bei
Thomas von Aquin (Vienna:Verlag der Oesterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1987).
7 For example, ST I, q. 76, a. 5; q. 79, a. 3.

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agens had led Thomas to change his Christology to allow for finite knowledge and gradual, experiential learning in Christ.8
The second observation is this: Thomas articulated his “anti-Platonic
idealism” not only with reference to Aristotle, but by appropriating selectively the texts of three Platonic authors: Proclus, Boethius, and Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite.Thomas identified, albeit slowly, the Platonic
provenance of the Liber de causis and On the Divine Names.9 Having once
held both works for Aristotelian in character, Thomas begins his
commentaries on these works only after recognizing their Platonic provenance; and yet Thomas’s hermeneutic here is one chiefly of retrieval, not
of suspicion. He does intend to brush the texts somewhat against their
grain,10 but he is seeking in admittedly Platonic texts positive help for
what he understands as his anti-Platonic (anti-receptionistic) program.
After completing his commentary on Dionysius, perhaps sometime in
the mid-1260s, Thomas continues to use the Corpus Dionysiacum
intensely, citing this authority no less than 400 times11 in his subsequent
work on the Summa theologiae. The Proclan dimensions of the Liber de
causis, recognized by Thomas after William of Moerbeke’s translation in
1268 of Proclus’s Elementatio theologica, continue to help Thomas to define
the human being within a hierarchically conceived cosmos as the horizon of time and eternity, the border zone dividing the animal from the
angelic and sharing attributes of both.This Proclan view of our place in
the cosmic order strengthens Thomas’s convictions about the necessary
finitude of human knowledge and freedom.
In contrast to his reading of Dionysius and the Liber de causis,Thomas
never seems to identify the Platonic character of Boethius. Characteristic of Thomas’s Boethius-reception is his anthropological and idealistic

8 ST III, q. 9, a. 4 and q. 12, a. 2. Only on one other issue, namely the initiation

sacrament of the First Covenant, did Thomas mention twice how his views had
evolved. The Basil quaestio disputata cited above will argue that, unlike the later
circle around Meister Eckhart, Thomas recognized the intellectus agens as by its
very nature and purpose too finite a constructive principle to ever be the subject
of beatitude, which could reside only in the fulfilled intellectus possibilis.
9 For a comprehensive list of Thomas’s explicit remarks on those he terms Platonists, cf. R. J. Henle, Saint Thomas and Platonism:A Study of the Plato and Platonicii
Texts in the Writings of Saint Thomas (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1956).
10 Thomas reserves a good half of the prooemium to his commentary on De divinis
nominibus for a critique of its Platonism, even while extolling the significant
authority of the work.
11 R. Schenk, Die Gnade vollendeter Endlichkeit. Zur transzendentaltheologischen Auslegung der thomanischen Anthropologie (Freiburg: Herder, 1989), 280, n. 869.

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transformation of the principle, “Whatever is known is known in the
mode of the knower.”Where Boethius had been speaking of God’s eternal knowledge of temporal events,Thomas speaks more often than not of
our very human, temporally qualified knowledge of eternal realities.12
But this new paradigm of the finite mode of the human knower could
easily have been inscribed into the Proclan sense of the human place in
the hierarchical order of things.13 Even if Thomas would have recognized
it as Platonic, the Boethian text could easily have supported Thomas’s
larger epistemological and anthropological projects. With its redaction
and recontextualization of materials handed down, reception is always
more than a function of its traditions. Hermeneutical circularity is
evident here, as it is spontaneity that makes authentic receptivity possible,
even where that spontaneity is working chiefly on the materials of an
initial and incomplete stage of receptivity. Although it is not a task that
can be pursued here, there is a need for Thomistic studies to examine the
history of the early reception of Thomas’s epistemology to localize the
advent and progessive dominance of the “realistic” interpretation of
Thomas’s epistemology.
A Platonic Tradition behind the Theological Text
If we turn to that other notion frequently associated with “Thomism,” the
claim that grace builds on nature, we must first notice that the axiom, so
important to Thomas, is phrased by him more broadly. Gratia (prae-)supponit,
extollit, perficit naturam; at the same time, it is often added: gratia non tollit,
non destruit naturam.14 Grace presupposes nature and does not destroy it
or do away with it, even while perfecting it; the how of such graced
perfection and the character of so imperfect a nature must remain here
for the moment open questions. Every “building upon” presupposes its
foundation, but not every kind of presupposition culminates in our relying or building upon the strengths of presuppositions; presuppositions do
not always prove themselves to be reliable. The axiom implies that the
destruction of nature that de facto is avoided by grace’s efforts to perfect
it might well have been expected de iure. Grace betters and steadily even
seeks to perfect nature, which it presupposes; and it can also correct it,
12 The history of this “gewaltsame Auslegung” of De consolatione would make for an

organic complement to Ralph McInerny, Boethius and Aquinas (Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America Press, 1990), which focuses on the commentaries
by Thomas on two of Boethius’s other works.
13 Cf. Proclus, Tria Opuscula, Helmut Boese, ed. (Berlin:W. de Gruyter, 1960), 168.
14 Cf. Schenk, Die Gnade, 286–442.

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but it does so without eliminating its fallibility.15 As will be seen, grace
responds to the weakness of nature as well as to its strength.
The neo-Platonic provenence of the axiom has been largely overlooked. As studies by J. B. Beumer,16 B. Stoeckle,17 and (with reservations) M. J. Marmann18 have shown, we first meet the explicit theological
axiom in the thirteenth century in the context of Bonaventure’s criticism
of its Dionysian application. The commentary by Bonaventure written
around 1250 on the second book of Peter Lombard’s Sentences takes up
the question as to whether humans, like angels, are ranked from their start
into different orders of hierarchical preference; a main source for speaking of angelic orders had been, of course, along with Gregory the Great,
Dionysius’s work On the Celestial Hierarchies. Bonaventure envisions the
argument that if humans are graced in different degrees, which he seems
willing to grant, then this might seem to suggest that they are not equal
by nature either, but by a diversity of natural talents already of such
distinct hierarchical orders as to determine the differences in graced existence—ideas that he rejects. The anticipated objection would run as
follows: This angelic kind of hierarchical order also belongs to human
beings by grace. But since grace presupposes nature, so, too, must a hierarchical order of grace presuppose a hierarchical order of nature; for, if
there were not a hierarchical order of nature, there would be no such
order of grace.”The Minorite Bonaventure first tells us what his existential stake in the question is: “In human beings, however, even when we
can determine certain advantages in matters of nature as well as in those
of grace, nevertheless the two often fail to correspond to one another.
Where nature is better, grace is often less; and who today is rightly called
the lesser (minor) might well be the greater tomorrow.”19
15 Cf. the perspective remarks in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s double article, “Analo-

gie and Dialektik” and “Analogie und Natur,” both with the subtitle, “Zur
Klaerung der theologischen Prinzipienlehre Karl Barths,” in Divus Thomas 22
(1944): 171–216 and Divus Thomas 23 (1945): 3–56. Unfortunately, this highly
refined theory of analogy was replaced by a blunter theory of theological
discourse in Balthasar’s “Krisis” with the Barth monograph of 1951.
16 J. B. Beumer, “Gratia supponit naturam. Zur Geschichte eines theologischen
Prinzips,” in Gregorianum 20 (1930): 381–406 and 535–52, especially 390f.
17 B. Stoeckle, Gratia supponit naturam. Geschichte und Analyse eines theologischen Axioms
(Rome: Herder, 1962).
18 Michael J. Marmann, “Praeambula ad gratiam. Ideengeschichtliche Untersuchung ueber die Entstehung des Axioms ‘gratia praesupponit naturam’ ” (Diss.,
Regensburg 1974); cf. J.Auer, Das Evangelium der Gnade, 2nd ed. (Regensburg:
Pustet, 1980), 189ff.
19 In lib. II Sent. IX 1, 9, co. (ed. Quaracchi 1885, II 257 A).

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Bonaventure then supplies us with a direct answer to the objection:
“That argument is not convincing which claims that, if there be no hierarchical order in nature, there could be no hierarchical order in grace. For
it is not at all necessary that grace match (adaequare) nature, nor is it
necessary, that the order of grace presuppose (praesupponere) any order in
nature, although grace presupposes nature in the sense that an accident
presupposes a subject.And because our grace corresponds to the grace of
the angels, even though our nature is not of the same species as their
nature, thus, if by this (the correspondence in grace) there be in us, too,
a distinction of (graced) orders, then this (alone) is to be understood as
corresponding to the angelic orders. . . .”20 Bonaventure seems less likely
to be polemicizing here against Alexander of Hales’s assertion of a merely
temporal precedence of nature before grace21 than to be recalling the
widespread critique of the Dominicans rallying around their Parisian
confrater, Stephanus de Varnesia (Etienne de Vernizy/de Venizy), who in
1241 and perhaps again in 1244,22 together with other proponents or
defenders (“et assertores et defensores”23 of ten theses), was censured first
by the theology faculty and the chancellor of the University (Odo of
Chateauroux), then more directly and sternly by the bishop of Paris
(William of Auvergne).24 The censure may well be viewed together with
a wider reaction around 1241 against the new Aristotelian influence felt
at the university, since several of the theses suggest a tendency to reduce
salvific-historical theology to philosophical-sapiential theology: a trend
that was destined to be criticized again in the second wave of anti-Aristotelian reaction, now inspired and not just followed by Bonaventure,
beginning in the late 1260s. Among the condemned theses were positions of a negative but also rationalist theology, such as that the divine
essence necessarily cannot be given in beatific vision to any created mind
20 In lib. II Sent. IX, 1, 9 obi. 2 et ad 2. (loc. cit., 256 sq.).
21 Cf. Stoeckle, 105f.
22 On the questions of the date(s) raised by V. Doucet and others cf. J.-G. Bougerol,

“A propos des condamnatios parisiennes de 1241 et 1244,” in AFH 80 (1987):
462–66.
23 For the possibility that these might have included Hugh of St. Cher, cf. H.
Dondaine,“Hugues de S. Cher et la condemnation de 1241,” in Revue des sciences
philosophiques et théologiques 33 (1949): 170–74.
24 William J. Courtenay, “Dominicans and Suspect Opinion in the Thirteenth
Century:The Cases of Stephen of Venizy, Peter of Tarentaise, and the Articles of
1270 and 1271,” Vivarium 32 (1994): 186–95; and Juergen Mietke, “Papst, Ortsbischof und Universitaet in den Pariser Theologenprozessen des 13. Jahrhunderts,” in Albert Zimmermann, ed., Die Auseinandersetzungen an der Pariser
Universitaet im XIII. Jahrhundert (Berlin: De Gruyter), 52–94, especially 63–66.

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(thesis 1), that there are eternal truths apart from those anchored personally in the Godhead (thesis 7), that the single essential dimension of the
Godhead should be given greater weight than the Trinitarian Persons
(reflected in theses 2 and 3), that the beginning of creation should not be
considered temporally (thesis 8), and the first angelic and human sins
were inevitable (thesis 10).The Dominican general chapter of 1243 had
asked the members of the Order to respect the decision of 1241. Stephan
himself seems to have complied, since he was allowed to incept and serve
as a master in Paris, and since he is mentioned by name in few of the
surviving manuscripts;25 but the issue apparently resurfaced around 1256,
just as Thomas was in Paris finishing his commentary on the Sentences.
The general chapter of the Dominicans meeting that year at Paris and the
provincial chapter of the Provence felt the need to reiterate the appeal for
the brethren to comply with the earlier decision.26 Around 1279, one of
Bonaventure’s prize students,William de la Mare, introduces the issue in
the correctories dispute, claiming that Thomas Aquinas flagrantly maintains what was condemned as the ninth thesis in 1241.27
This ninth thesis of the censure, however, reflects a Dionysian origin
more immediately than an Aristotelian one. It also is close to the position that Bonaventure criticized less than ten years later: “that those,
whose natural gifts are better, will by necessity also have more of grace
and glory.”28 The critics of the 1240s spell out their contradictory belief,
leaving open the possibility of a more individualized, more salvifically
historical, and yet also more arbitrary- or mythological-looking form of
divine providence than fits well into a sapiential theology: “We reprove
this error, because we firmly believe that God will give grace and glory
to each one according to what He has elected and preordained.”29 The
censure addresses much the same issue that Bonaventure will address in
his commentary.There, Bonaventure weaves into his problematization of
the Dionysian notion of hierarchy the pretendent axiom gratia praesupponit naturam. Here, as in the slightly later formulations that will continue
with the words “. . . et non destruit eam,” the reference seems to echo
25 Cf. Courtenay, “Dominicans and Suspect Opinion.”
26 Cf. Courtenay, 188.
27 Cf. the remarks by William in P. Glorieux’s edition of Richard Knapwell’s Le

Correctorium Corruptorii “Quare” (Kain: 1927), art. 21, 91–95.
28 “Nonus, quod qui habet meliora naturalia, de necessitate plus habebit de gratia et

gloria” (CUP I, nr. 128, pg. 170–72, here 171); cf. Bonaventura:“Cum enim non
oporteat gratiam adaequari naturae, non oportet ordinem gratiae praesupponere
ordinem in natura . . .” (II 237 B).
29 “Hunc errorem reprobamus, firmiter enim credimus, quod Deus secundum
quod preelegit et preordinavit, dabit unicuique gratiam et gloriam” (ibid.).

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Dionysius’s De divinis nominibus even more than his work On the Celestial Hierarchies.
In his work on divine names, near the end of the long, internal treatise
“Unde malum” in book IV, Dionysius concludes his defense of divine providence’s “coexistence” (so to speak) with—and toleration of—voluntary
human failings. He rejects explicitly the “empty-headed” opinion that providence, should it exist, would have to eliminate all evils, including those
caused by human liberty, thus forcing rational creatures to always make the
right choices. Dionysius counters that it does not belong to providence to
destroy nature, but rather to preserve the nature of each; in this sense, to
“save” it. John Sarracenus’s translation of Dionysius’s free-will defense differs
little at this point from Eriugena’s or Hilduin’s:“Etenim corrumpere naturam non providentiae. Unde, sicut providentia uniuscujusque naturae est
salvativa. . . .”With but very minor revisions, Robert Grosseteste’s translation,
too, will follow the lead of his predecessors here, as indeed in most places.30
In the context of his argument, Dionysius applies his principle that
providence is salvativa naturae (physeos sostike) to that nature which is “selfmoved” (to autokineton), an expression used by Proclus as a technical term
for free human choice, referring both to the autonomous source of its
own activity (self-moved) and the source of its own inconstancy and its
all too variable virtuosity (self-moved).What is “self-moved” takes its place
in the hierarchy of beings between unmoved movers with all their
constancy and reliability, on the one hand, and, on the other, what is so
inconstant as to be moved by others and only by others. Providence
rightly provides even for what is between these two groups, preserving
the per se mobilia as per se mobilia, that is, conserving their tendency toward
inconstancy and occasional moral failure. To force them to constant
virtue would be to destroy them as per se mobilia.
In 1272,Thomas Aquinas used William of Moerbeke’s 1268 translation
of Proclus’s Elementatio theologica to identify Proclus as the authority ultimately behind the supposedly Aristotelian Liber de causis.William would
translate Proclus’s three opuscula on theodicy only in the 1280s, several
years after Thomas’s death. Only in 1895 did Josef Stiglmayr and Hugo
Koch demonstrate simultaneously the general dependence of the
Pseudo-Areopagite upon Proclus31 by comparing the Dionysian treatise
“Unde malum” (in book IV of De divinis nominibus) with Proclus’s opus30 Cf. Philipp Chavallier, ed., Dionysiaca I (Paris: Desclée, 1937), 312.
31 Cf. Josef Stiglmayr, “Der Neuplatoniker Proclus als Vorlage des sogenannten

Dionysius Areopagita in der Lehre vom Uebel,” Historisches Jahrbuch 16 (1895):
253–73, 721–80; and Hugo Koch, “Proklus als Quelle des Pseudo-Dionysius
Areopagita in der Lehre vom Boesen,” Philologus 54 (1895): 438–54.

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culum, De malorum subsistentia. Unfortunately, Koch concludes his analysis with IV 3232, ending just before the beginning of the question as to
how there could be evil at all, if providence exists. Stiglmayr proceeds
only one line further, breaking off before reaching the sentence that will
later prove to be so suggestive: that providence does not destroy nature
but saves it.The texts of Proclus paraphrased here by Dionysius seem to
include passages from another opusculum, the sixth aporia of Proclus’s De
decem dubitationibus circa providentiam. William of Moerbeke seems not to
have noticed the parallel; at least his translation of Proclus’s opuscula
makes no effort to approximate the language of Dionysius’s established
translators.32 And yet the free-will defense of providence and the vocabulary reconstructed by Helmut Boese for the sixth aporia suggests its close
reading by Dionysius: Providence (pronoia) saves (sotzousan) nature (here
to genomenon, not ten phusin), preserves especially the free choice of human
beings as self-movement (autokinesis), including its natural tendency to be
inconstant in virtue.33 “We are not saying that providence, which first
brought freedom of choice into the whole of things, now rules in order
to do away with this freedom, but rather to save-and-preserve it.” It is this
statement by Proclus in its implicit citation by Dionysius that will be
transformed into a key axiom about grace.
Alternative Platonic Traditions
in Alternative Theological Readings
Thomas and his contemporaries needed to define their relationship not
just toward the Platonic tradition as a whole but toward two alternative
forms of Platonism, represented by the difference between the heritages
of Augustine and Dionysius.Although both figures were considered to be
authorities worthy of a favorable reading, wherever possible, thinkers of
the thirteenth century define themselves on many major problems by
their greater proximity or distance to one of these two traditions. It is
ouside the scope of this paper to articulate the unresolved aporiai that an
often ambivalent Plotinus left as an inheritance to his followers34 or how,
32 On the translations and commentaries conceivably available to William, cf. H. F.

Dondaine, Le corpus dionysien de l’université de Paris au XIII siècle (Rome: Editiono
di Storia e Letteratura, 1953) and P. Chevallier, Dionysiaca I-IV (Facsimile of the
1937 edition of Desclee de Brouwer [Stuttgart: Frommann–Holzboog 1989]).
33 Cf. especially nos. 39, 60–63.
34 Cf. Schenk, Die Gnade vollendeter Endlichkeit, 121–30:These productive problems
revolved around the theodicy-related issues of God or the One (architect of evil?
aware of evil? personally provident? provident of each or merely of the whole?
cognizant? punitive?) and what at least seems to be related to this One (good and

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in the process of dealing with these problems, Porphyry and Proclus had
developed distinctly alternative forms of Platonism.35 Through Augustine
and Dionysius, respectively, this bifurcation of the Platonic tradition
passed into medieval Christian thought and formed the matrix within
which every theologian of the mid-thirteenth century needed to locate
himself. Prior to any question of Aristotle vis-à-vis Plato, it was a question of one line of the Platonic tradition vis-à-vis another.
Where Augustine stressed the immediacy of God to the soul and of
the soul to God, Dionysius will stress the necessity of mediation and that
not only by Christ, but by multiple and manifold mediations, of which
Christ was but one. Liturgical ritual is more important to Dionysius than
it was to Augustine. For the former, we touch divine things only through
the mediation of the symbols, never in pure concept, whereas for the
latter there was the greater possibility of direct, intellectual, and interpersonal knowledge of God. Dionysius trusts the self to follow its own
eros, while Augustine had harbored greater suspicion, corresponding,
however, to a greater and more dramatic hope for a conversion of will
from an emphasis on the self to the other-than-self.This lends to Augustine’s thought a dramatic and dialogical dimension together with an
emphatic sense of the self, with its abilities to do much better and much
worse than it has. By contrast, the dialogical dimension together with the
sense of the self is understated in Dionysius; the possibilities of conversion and a transformation of subjectivity are far more muted.36 For
Augustine the human’s place in the world order can change; we can
know more or less, come to love more or less; come to realize or lose
our final hope. Dionysius shows little interest in such dramatic possibilities of change; there is less tension for him between the “is” and the
“ought.” As Bonaventure suspects, the order of grace in Dionysius coincides inevitably with the order of nature. From Dionysius we hear the
voice of a resigned benevolence; Augustine manifests the greater hope,
matched at times to a greater and more urgent severity.Where Augustine
material? matter as a second eternal principle? evil as absolute privation? evil a
concern for the wise? evil for sake of the good of each or of the whole? freedom or necessity?).
35 Cf. Schenk, Die Gnade vollendeter Endlichkeit, 130–253. These issues are again
raised in the context of theodicy.They relate both to the notion of Godhood and
to the fluid (Porphry) or fixed (Proclus) limits of human knowledge, will, and
destiny.
36 In this context, it is not surprising that the transformation of the later Albertus
Magnus “school” into the system expressed in Theodoric of Freiberg and Meister Eckhart had been facilitated by the Latin translation of Proclus’s opuscula
after the death of Albert and Ulrich of Strasbourg.

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strives for perfection, Dionysius accepts systemic imperfection. Dionysius
does not seek to overcome the sensual medium of human knowledge;
rather, he is resigned to it, and his stress on negative theology is the result.
Augustine is less resignative: self-critical dialectic prepares the way for a
more robustly positive theology. For Dionysius, human knowledge is
necessarily in the mode of a very finite knower. Augustinian knowledge
knows of no necessary boundary in the process of receiving illumination; the limits upon our present knowledge are de facto, not de iure.
Dionysius sees God’s love as universal, varying only according to the
mode of the varied receivers needed for an ordered cosmos. Augustine
stresses the particular loves of a God choosing individuals.As the Parisian
faculty of theology would eventually put it in 1241,Augustine’s is a God
of praeelectio and praeordinatio. Dionysius stresses metaphysical structures;
Augustine, salvific historical events, and transformations.The one stresses
a priori experience, the “always-already”; the other waits for the new
experience of new events and new revelations, complementing and
enhancing structures a posteriori.
This general contrast manifests itself in the particular context of
theodicy by the divergent ways our two neo-Platonic theologians interpreted the traditional Platonic axiom that evil is permitted by providence
only for the sake of a greater good. Dionysius understands that good as
non-individual; Augustine looks for new concrete goods. For Dionysius
the possibility of evil was the prior condition of the possibility of finite
goods; the realization of evil was ever a danger, seldom a hope. The
fragility of crystal is the condition of the possibility of its beauty; its actual
fracture helps no one. By contrast, Augustine suspects that the realization
of evil will in the near future promote either some new good of justice
or some new good of mercy; in either case, Augustine sees this new,
future, and particular good chiefly as one for individuals. For Dionysius,
God permits the realization of evil, but he does not cause it; for evil does
not cause the good, but is the condition or at most the occasion of some
of its possibilities. For Augustine, given evil’s more immediate relation to
the good, God can also more directly cause it.
Correspondingly, even human freedom chooses evil for Dionysius only
under the appearance of good; the mistake is more clearly in the intellect.
For Augustine, human freedom can will evil with greater clarity of insight,
with less illusion, with a malice far more intentional and intense. Dionysius goes beyond even Proclus in stressing the non-existence of evil as evil,
while Augustine remains more in the traditional neo-Platonic interpretation of that kind of privatio boni, which, as a violation and robbery of our
well-being, marks the stark reality of our most painful experiences.

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Thomas Aquinas’s Reception of the Axiom
on Grace and Nature
As stated above, the interpretive reception of texts, with its redaction and
recontextualization of the materials handed down, is always more than a
function of its traditions. If we are attentive to how Thomas responded to
the legacy of this bifurcated Platonic tradition, we will see him in the question of theodicy at first staying closer to Dionysius. Even where he cites
Augustine expicitly about God’s permitting evils so as to use them for the
good, Thomas interprets the texts in an initially Dionysian sense. This is
especially evident in Thomas’s use of Dionysius’s axiom on providence
from De divinis nominibus IV, 33. In his commentary on the work, written
sometime in the 1260s,Thomas follows closely in the sense of Proclus and
Dionysius: “Providence preserves the nature of every given thing. And
because rational creatures, according to their nature, are defectible and able
to be defective and to fail through free will, it does not pertain to divine
providence to impede that mobility.”37 What is striking is the consistency
of Thomas’s use of the axiom and the notion of per-se-mobilitas outside of
his commentary. Thomas seems to have settled on the direction of his
thought on this matter as early as during the lectures he heard on Dionysius by Albert between 1248 and 1252. From the time of his own
commentary on the Sentences (1252–1257) and his first disputed questions
(1257–1259), through his middle works such as the Summa contra Gentiles,
the Compendium theologiae, and the first book of the Summa theologiae all the
way up into the Secunda secundae of that work in the early 1270s,Thomas’s
use of the axiom, recorded in at least twenty citations, remains consistent:
With the major premise he cites the axiom that grace preserves nature;
with the minor, he interprets human nature by adducing an anthropological application of Aristotle’s cosmic principle from De caelo: But human
nature is marked by the law that what can fail, will fail.Thomas’s conclusion about God’s preserving the experience of human weakness is allowed
to hold up even for the eschatological vision of God, when our lack of
complete comprehension (1241!) and the continuance of the dialogical
principle of timor filialis are said to remain in patria for this very reason.38
37 In librum beati Dionysii De divinis nominibus IV, lc. 23 (Turin/Rome: Marietti,

1950, no. 596): “Providentia est conservativa naturae uniuscuiusque rei. . . . Et
quia rationalis creatura secundum suam naturam defectibilis est et per liberum
arbitrium potest deficere, non pertinet ad divinam Providentiam ut eius mobilitatem impediat.”
38 Cf. Schenk, Die Gnade vollendeter Endlichkeit, 336–56, for an analysis of texts
following this pattern in In librum I Sent. 39, 2, 2; 46, 1, 3 sq.; In librum II Sent.
23, 1, 1 sq.; 34, 1,1; 34, 1,3; In librum IV Sent. 49, 2,3; QD de ver 5,3 sq.; SCG III,

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319

What distinguishes Thomas from a thorough-going Dionysian, however,
and what defines his way of making Dionysius his own is his approximation to Augustine on God’s attentiveness to individual fates and his belief
that salvific events can alter the course of a priori structures, although in
ways less experiential than Augustine suggests. Evil is not instrumentalized but opposed by God, who opens new possibilities for life for individuals not so much through as in spite of evil.
This cautious note of Augustinian distance to a basically Dionysian
theodicy means that Thomas is further than he often sounds from offering any easy “solution” to the theodicy problem, unde malum, than were
his predecessors.The Dionysian insight into the sheer counterproductivity and the destructive character of evil along with concern for its victims
forbids the theoretical instrumentalization of evil; the suffering of persons
cannot be fully explained by the evolutionary needs of the cosmos.
Augustinian belief in the vocation of individual persons to beatitude
forbids the cosmic explanation with its free-will defense. With Kant,
although less explicitly than he, Thomas seems to think that progress in
theodicy is shown in preserving the niveau of the problem from merely
apparent answers. Unlike Kant,Thomas seems to think it is precisely faith
in the revelation of God’s love of persons, albeit a philosophically
reflected faith, which keeps the question open against the temptations of
all too cosmic a philosophy or all too dramatized a faith.Thomas rejects
both cosmic and dramatic instrumentalizations of evil. This attempt to
find a middle ground between the two Platonic traditions of Dionysius
and Augustine would lead Thomas to a position more radical than theirs,
not just in this general question of nature and grace vis-à-vis God, but
also in its application to the three constitutive questions of anthropology:
What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope for? In comparing the human experience of knowledge, freedom, and mortality with
the Gospel promise,Thomas found reason to keep open the discrimen of
experience and faith. That was an alternative both to the tradition of
Dionysius, with its tendency to reduce faith to philosophical experience,
and to the tradition from Augustine, with its attempt to allow revelatory
events to rewrite basic human experience and its temptation to equate
antecedent and consequent will in God.
The future of what could be retrieved from this genuinely Thomistic
alternative might offer Catholic theology an alternative to today’s sterile
antithesis of dymythologizing doctrine into our prior experience of
71 sq.; In De divinis nominibus IV 33 and VIII 7; Comp.Theol. I 142; and ST I, q.
22, a. 4; q. 48, a. 2, ad 3; q. 62, a. 7; II–II, q. 165, a. 1.

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humanity or remythologizing as the more genuine faith allegedly new
experiences of the Trinity drawn from private revelations.The retrieval of
a genuinely Thomistic alternative would, however, also need to be more
aware than was neo-scholastic Thomism that the nature that is presupposed by grace is not only the source of strong reason and accomplished
virtue, but of the often painful and uncertain experience of a very human
finitude as well.This Thomistic revival would interpret Thomas in closer
proximity to 2 Corinthians 12:10 than was often the case, seeing in
graced weakness the chance for an otherwise impossible strength. It
would also be a retrieval that would not reject but refigure Thomas’s
N&V
Platonic sources.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 3, No. 2 (2005): 321–34

321

In What Straits They Suffered:
St. Thomas’s Use of Aristotle to Transform
Augustine’s Critique of Earthly Happiness
M ICHAEL S HERWIN, OP
University of Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland

Aristotle in the Service of Augustine
I N AN ESSAY on St. Thomas’s appropriation of pagan virtue, Brian
Shanley affirms that “Aquinas admits Aristotelian virtue, but within
Augustinian limitations.” Shanley remarks that “In the end, Aquinas’s
analysis of pagan virtue represents a creative appropriation of Aristotelian
and Augustinian elements into his own theological synthesis.”1 Shanley’s
insight also well describes Aquinas’s theology of happiness.Aquinas admits
Aristotelian happiness, but within an Augustinian recognition of the limitations of earthly happiness. At the same time, however, he uses Aristotelian insights to strengthen and refine Augustine’s critique of earthly
happiness. In this way, Aquinas’s theology of happiness is truly a “creative
appropriation of Aristotelian and Augustinian elements” that integrates
these elements into Aquinas’s Christian theology of happiness.2 In the
pages that follow, we shall investigate one facet of this work of integration.
We shall investigate how Aquinas integrates Aristotle’s analysis of happiness into Augustine’s pointed critique of pagan conceptions of happiness.
1 Brian Shanley, “Aquinas on Pagan Virtue,” Thomist 63 (1999): 554.
2 Kevin Staley offers a similar argument. He asserts “that Aquinas borrows the

crucial premise of his main argument in ST I–II, qq. 1–3 from Augustine and
that Aquinas’s account of happiness in the Summa theologiae should therefore be
characterized as an at-bottom Augustinian tract that incorporates but does not
proceed from Aristotle’s philosophical insights” (Kevin M. Staley, “Aristotle,
Augustine, and Aquinas on the Good and the Human Good: A note on Summa
theologiae I–II, QQ. 1–3,” Modern Schoolman 72 [1995]: 313).

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The thesis of this article is that Aquinas adopts a core Augustinian critique
of the pagan view of happiness, but refines this critique by structuring it
according to Aristotle’s own analysis of happiness and its limitations.
St. Augustine’s Critique of Pagan Happiness
Augustine admires many pagan insights concerning happiness. In his
mature thought, however, there are two things he vigorously attacks: the
notion that happiness is attainable in this life, and the notion that it is
attainable by unaided human effort.3 For the mature Augustine, true
happiness is the loving contemplation of God attained only in the next
life, in the beatific vision.4 Happiness is essentially a gift from God
granted through the grace of Christ with which we must cooperate by
living lives of true virtue.5 During our earthly pilgrimage the most we
3 See De civitate Dei 19.4. See Gerard O’Daly, Augustine’s City of God: A Reader’s

Guide (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999) 199:“Thus two principles of philosophical enquiry are rejected: the principle that the good sought, and thus happiness,
is to be found in our temporal, earthly existence, and the belief that happiness,
and so virtue, can be found by unaided human effort.”
4 De civitate Dei 22.30: “quanta erit illa felicitas, ubi nullum erit malum, nullum
latebit bonum, vacabitur Dei laudibus, qui erit omnia in omnibus. . . . sic enim et
illud recte intellegitur, quod ait apostolus:‘ut sit Deus omnia in omnibus.’ Ipse finis
erit desideriorum nostrorum, qui sine fine videbitur, sine fastidio amabitur, sine
fatigatione laudabitur.” De Trinitate 1.18:“hoc est enim ‘plenum gaudium’ nostrum
quo ‘amplius non est,’ frui trinitate deo ‘ad’ cuius ‘imaginem facti’ sumus.”Augustine’s theology of happiness developed considerably over time. John Rist offers a
concise summary of this development:“After his conversion, as the opening lines
of The Happy Life make clear, Augustine thought of the event in terms of reaching port after a storm. Christ is the way to reach the port; the Christian who
professes faith in Christ and becomes a member of the Christian community is
more or less in the port already. He can now work on perfecting his soul, and
happiness can be attained in this life. It was a view which during the 390’s Augustine came to repudiate; no one can be happy, only on the road (iter) to happiness
in this life (On Human Responsibility 2.16.41). Augustine now professed the strikingly unclassical notion that there are no sages among us. . . . the Stoic sage—even
for the Stoics as rare as the phoenix—has disappeared. Jesus (and perhaps Mary)
alone have achieved perfection in this life, and only because he was the man
‘predestined’ to do so. As for the rest of us, Augustine goes out of his way in the
Reconsiderations to correct those passages of his early writings which state or imply
the possible early perfection of the soul” ( John Rist, Augustine: Ancient thought
Baptized [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994] 169–70). See also Ragnar
Holte, Béatitude et sagesse: Saint Augustin et le problème de la fin de l’homme dans la
philosophie ancienne (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes, 1962).
5 De Trinitate 13.12:“quanto est credibililius natura filios hominis gratia dei ‘fieri dei
filios’ et habitare in deo in quo solo et de quo solo esse possint beati participes
immortalitatis eius effecti, propter quod persuadendum ‘dei filius’ particeps

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can expect is to enjoy a certain foretaste of happiness through the virtue
of hope.6 As St. Paul says, we are saved in hope.7
Peter Brown, in describing the general method Augustine pursues in
the City of God, offers an account that well describes Augustine’s way
of critiquing pagan happiness. Brown states that Augustine’s procedure
is to present a Christian solution to a question against “an elaborately constructed background of pagan answers to the same question.”8 By juxtaposing the Christian answer to the question of happiness with various pagan
answers to this question,Augustine both reveals the inadequacy of the pagan
answers and shows how the Christian answer better fulfills the requirements
implicit in the pagans’ own understanding of the problem of happiness. By
nostrae mortalitatis effectus est?” De civitate Dei 4.3: “quapropter si verus Deus
colatur eique sacris veracibus et bonis moribus serviatur, utile est ut boni longe
lateque diu regnent; neque hoc tam ipsis quam illis utile est, quibus regnant. nam
quantum ad ipsos pertinet, pietas et probitas eorum, quae magna Dei dona sunt,
sufficit eis ad veram felicitatem, qua et ista vita bene agatur et postea percipiatur
aeterna.” De civitate Dei 6.12: “nam cui nisi uni felicitati propter aeternam vitam
consecrandi homines essent, si dea felicitas esset? quia vero non dea, sed munus est
Dei: cui deo nisi Datori felicitatis consecrandi sumus, qui aeternam vitam, ubi vera
est et plena felicitas, pia caritate diligimus? . . . vitam igitur aeternam, id est sine
ullo fine felicem, solus ille dat, qui dat veram felicitatem.”
6 De Trinitate 1.17: “neque enim quaeremus aliud cum ad illius contemplationem
pervenerimus, quae nunc non est quamdiu gaudium nostrum ‘in spe’ est. ‘spes
autem quae videtur non est spes. quod enim videt quis, quid et sperat? si autem
quod non videmus speramus, per patientiam exspectamus quoadusque rex in recubitu suo est.’ ” De Trinitate 13.10: “nam multi per transitoria mala ad permansura
bona fortiter tetenderunt. qui profecto spe beati sunt etiam cum sunt in transitoriis
malis per quae ad bona non transitura perveniunt. sed qui spe beatus est nondum
beatus est. exspectat namque per patientiam beatitudinem quam nondum tenet.”
De civitate Dei 19.20: “quis est qui illam vitam vel beatissimam neget vel in eius
comparatione istam, quae hic agitur, quantislibet animi et corporis externarumque
rerum bonis plena sit, non miserrimam iudicet? quam tamen quicumque sic habet,
ut eius usum referat ad illius finem, quam diligit ardentissime ac fidelissime sperat,
non absurde dici etiam nunc beatus potest, spe illa potius quam re ista.”
7 De civitate Dei 19.4:“sed ut vita humana, quae tot et tantis huius saeculi malis esse
cogitur misera, spe futuri saeculi sit beata, sicut et salua. quo modo enim beata est,
quae nondum salua est? unde et apostolus Paulus non de hominibus inprudentibus inpatientibus, intemperantibus et iniquis, sed de his, qui secundum veram
pietatem viverent et ideo virtutes, quas haberent, veras haberent, ait:‘spe enim salui
facti sumus. spes autem quae videtur non est spes. quod enim videt quis, quid et
sperat? si autem quod non videmus speramus, per patientiam exspectamus.’ sicut
ergo spe salui, ita spe beati facti sumus, et sicut salutem, ita beatitudinem non iam
tenemus praesentem, sed expectamus futuram, et hoc ‘per patientiam.’ ”
8 Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1967), 306.

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drawing on principles that the pagans themselves accept, Augustine reveals
the painful inadequacy of the happiness attainable by unaided human effort.
Augustine’s basic argument is straightforward. All people desire happiness, although they do not all agree on what constitutes happiness.9
Nevertheless, if you analyze this desire, Augustine believes, you discover
the following.
—All who desire happiness want to be free from evils such as ignorance,
sickness, and death. In short, they want their happiness to be lasting.
—Our life on earth, however, can never be entirely free from the evils
of this world:We all suffer from ignorance, sickness, and eventually we
all die.We are unable to prevent this.
—Therefore, happiness is not possible in this life, nor are we able to
attain it by our own efforts.10

Augustine believes that this conclusion is inescapable. He takes it for
granted that all of his pagan interlocutors agree that happiness consists in
having what you desire (as long as you desire rightly).11 From this shared
premise, Augustine believes he can show that happiness must be lasting
and not subject to suffering, and thus that it cannot be attained in this
life.The only way to escape this conclusion is by trying to deny that this
life contains suffering.Augustine argues that this is, in fact, what the bulk
of pagan philosophers have attempted to do.
These philosophers . . . attempt to fabricate for themselves a happiness
in this life, based upon a virtue that is as deceitful as it is proud.12
9 De Trinitate 13.6-7:“at si [mimus] dixisset:‘omnes beati esse vultis; miseri esse non

vultis,’ dixisset aliquid quod nullus in sua non agnosceret voluntate. quidquid enim
aliud quisquam latenter velit, ab hac voluntate quae omnibus et in omnibus satis
nota est non recedit. mirum est autem cum capessendae atque retinendae beatitudinis voluntas una sit omnium, unde tanta exsistat de ipsa beatitudine rursus
varietas et diversitas voluntatum, non quod aliquis eam nolit, sed quod non omnes
eam norint. si enim omnes eam nossent, non ab aliis putaretur esse in virtute
animi, aliis in corporis voluptate, aliis in utraque, et aliis atque aliis, alibi atque alibi.
ut enim eos quaeque res maxime delectavit ita in ea constituerunt vitam beatam.”
10 See the extended arguments that Augustine offers in De civitate Dei 19.4; De Trinitate 13.6-12, 24-26; and De Trinitate 14.23-26.
11 De Trinitate 13.8: “omnes autem beati habent quod volunt, quamvis non omnes
qui habent quod volunt continuo sint beati; continuo autem miseri qui vel non
habent quod volunt vel id habent quod non recte volunt. beatus igitur non est
nisi qui et habet omnia que vult et nihil vult male.”
12 De civitate Dei 19.4: “quam beatitudinem isti philosophi . . . hic sibi conantur
falsissimam fabricare, quanto superbiore, tanto medaciore virtute.” James Wetzel

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They attempt this because they have despaired of eternal life.
As long as they despair of immortality, without which true happiness is
impossible, they will look for, or rather make up, any kind of thing that
may be called, rather than really be, happiness in this life.13

Augustine recognizes that some philosophers acknowledge the immortality of the soul and place happiness in the next life when the soul will
be freed from the body.Yet, even these fail to discern the true nature of
happiness, because they believe that their unaided powers of contemplation can bring them to this beatitude. Moreover, their belief in the transmigration of souls means that for them too what they call happiness is
only a temporary reality.14 From this perspective, the plight of the pagan
philosophers is that they are unable to discover a lasting happiness.
People have tried to work these things out by human reasoning, but it
is the immortality of the soul alone that they have succeeded in getting
to some notion of, and then only a few of them, and with difficulty,
and only if they have had plenty of brains and plenty of leisure and
plenty of education in abstruse learning. Even so, they never discovered
a lasting, which is to say a true, life of happiness for this soul.15

The pagan philosopher, therefore, is left in distress. He desires lasting
happiness but is unable to attain it.The pagan sage,Augustine informs us,
“is not truly happy, but is bravely unhappy.”16
has noted that in holding that all pagan philosophers essentially agreed concerning
the essential features of happiness, Augustine was eliding the views of various
different schools of philosophy. “When Augustine applied this syncretic view of
beatitude to pagan philosophy, he was under the impression that nothing of importance distinguished the ethics of Stoics from those of Peripatetics or Platonists”
( James Wetzel, Augustine and the Limits of Virtue [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992], 48).
13 De Trinitate 13.11: “sed qualiscumque beatitudo quae potius vocetur quam sit in
hac vita quaeritur, immo vero fingitur, dum immortalitas desperatur sine qua
vera beatitudo esse non potest.”
14 De Trinitate 13.12: “ad miserias eam quippe vitae huius etiam post beatitudinem
redire dixerunt. et qui eorum de hac erubuerunt sentntia et animam purgatam
in sempiterna beatitudine sine corpore conlocandam putarunt talia de mundi
retrorsus aeternitate sentiunt ut hanc de anima sententiam suam ipsi redarguant.”
See note 25 on page 366–67 of the Edmund Hill, OP,translation of De Trinitate
(St. Augustine, The Trinity [Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991]).
15 De Trinitate 13.12: “humanis quippe argumentationibus haec invenire conantes
vix pauci magno praediti ingenio abundantes otio doctrinisque subtilissimis
eruditi ad indagandam solius animae immortalitatem pervenire potuerunt. cui
tamen animae beatam vitam non invenerunt stabilem, id est veram.”
16 De Trinitate 13.10: “non est beatus veraciter sed miser fortiter.”

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Michael Sherwin, OP

Augustine explains that what the philosophers lack is a mediator who
can give them faith in eternal life—faith in resurrected life—and lead
them to this resurrected life through the empowering gift of his grace.
The philosophers’ inquiry into truth “is not enough for the unhappy, that
is for all mortals who have reason alone without any faith in the mediator.”17 “All will to be happy, but not all have the faith which must purify
the heart if happiness is to be reached.”18 What they lack is Christ, who
is the only way to the true life of happiness. “Although he is our native
country, he made himself also the way to that country.”19 “Thus, he says,
‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life;’ that is, you are to come through
me, to arrive at me, and to remain in me.”20 Augustine explains that the
grace of Christ empowers us with efficacious virtue and enables us to
attain lasting happiness.
And thus it is written,“the just one lives by faith,” for we do not as yet
see our good, and must therefore live by faith; neither have we in
ourselves power to live rightly, but can do so only if he who has given
us faith to believe in his help does help us when we believe and pray.21

In essence, therefore,Augustine presents Christ as the answer to the pagan
question of happiness. More accurately, Augustine argues that the vision
of God made possible through Christ is the answer to the human person’s
natural desire for happiness.“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and
our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”22
In advancing this argument Augustine sharply distinguishes both
Christian virtue from pagan virtue and Christian happiness from pagan
happiness. In fact, Augustine contrasts them so sharply that he ends up
denying that the pagans have virtues or that they in any way enjoy happi17 De Trinitate 14.26: “sed iste cursus qui constituitur in amore atque investigatione

veritatis non sufficit miseris, id est omnibus cum ista sola ratione mortalibus sine
fide mediatoris.”
18 De Trinitate 13.25: “beatos esse se velle omnium hominum est, nec tamen
omnium est fides qua cor mundante ad beatitudinem pervenitur.”
19 De doctrina Christiana 1.11: “cum ergo ipsa sit patria, viam se quoque nobis fecit
ad patriam.”
20 De doctrina Christiana 1.38: “sic enim ait: ‘ego sum via et veritas et vita,’ hoc est
‘per me venitur, ad me pervenitur, in me permanetur.’ ”
21 De civitate Dei 19.4: “propter quod scriptum est: ‘iustus ex fide vivit;’ quoniam
neque bonum nostrum iam videmus, unde oportet ut credendo quaeramus,
neque ipsum recte vivere nobis ex nobis est, nisi credentes adiuvet et orantes qui
et ipsam fidem dedit, qua nos ab illo adiuvandos esse credamus.”
22 Confesiones 1.1: “fecisti nos, domine, ad te, et inquietum est cor nostrum donec
requiescat in te.”

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ness.23 In Augustine’s view, what is commonly called happiness in this life
is “a false happiness and a profound misery.”24 In Augustine’s terms pagan
happiness is false, because it is not lasting, and pagan virtue is false,
because it cannot lead us to lasting happiness. Christian virtue, on the
other hand, is true virtue because it empowers us to attain true, that is,
lasting, happiness.
It is at this juncture that the power of Augustine’s rhetoric begins to
draw the contours of his larger argument out of focus. Just as an eye by
focusing sharply on a point in the foreground blurs the background, so
too Augustine by focusing so sharply on the inadequacy of pagan happiness and virtue blurs his background insight that the grace of Christ
fulfills the aspirations of the human heart. As we have seen, Augustine’s
intention is to underscore that pagan virtue is not meritorious toward
eternal happiness and that pagan happiness does not fulfill the requirements of happiness.Yet, by denying that pagan happiness and virtue are
in any way a true, albeit imperfect, happiness and virtue,Augustine begins
to undercut the foundation of his argument.As is well known,Augustine
maintains that the actions that the philosophers style as virtues only
become true virtues and only lead to true happiness when they are motivated from true piety (pietas): from a faith enlivened by charity and
directed toward God as our end.25 What this terminology fails to convey,
23 De civitate Dei 19.25: “virtutes, quas habere sibi videtur, per quas imperat corpori

et vitiis, ad quodlibet adipiscendum vel tenendum rettulerit nisi ad Deum, etiam
ipsae vitia sunt potius quam virtutes. Nam licet a quibusdam tunc verae atque
honestae putentur esse virtutes, cum referuntur ad se ipsas nec propter aliud
expetuntur: etiam tunc inflatae ac superbae sunt, ideo non virtutes, sed vitia iudicanda sunt. sicut enim non est a carne sed super carnem, quod carnem facit vivere:
sic non est ab homine sed super hominem, quod hominem facit beate vivere.”
24 De civitate Dei 19.20: “illa beatitudo falsa et magna miseria est.”
25 De moribus ecclesiae catholicae 15.25:“quod si virtus ad beatam vitam nos ducit, nihil
omnino esse virtutem affirmaverim, nisi summum amorem Dei. namque illud
quod quadripartita dicitur virtus, ex ipsius amoris vario quodam affectu, quantum
intelligo, dicitur. itaque illas quatuor virtutes . . . definire etiam sic licet, ut temperantiam dicamus esse, amorem Deo sese integrum incorruptumque servantem:
fortitudinem, amorem omnia propter Deum facile perferentem: justitiam, amorem
Deo tantum servientem, et ob hoc bene imperantem ceteris, quae homini subjecta
sunt: prudentiam, amorem bene discernentem ea quibus adjuveretur in Deum, ab
iis quibus impediri potest.” De civitate Dei 5.19: “dum illud constet inter omnes
veraciter pios, neminem sine vera pietate, id est veri Dei vero cultu, veram posse
habere virtutem, nec eam veram esse, quando gloriae servit humanae.” De civitate
Dei 19.10: “sed tunc est vera virtus, quando et omnia bona, quibus bene utitur, et
quidquid in bono usu bonorum et malorum facit, et se ipsam ad eum finem refert,
ubi nobis talis et tanta pax erit, qua melior et maior esse non possit.”

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however, is that whether or not these actions are informed by charity and
rightly ordered to God, they retain their natural goodness and thus afford
the agent some measure of natural happiness. This is important because
unless the natural act of contemplation generates some natural happiness,
it is difficult to see how the eternal contemplation of the divine essence
can be regarded as fulfilling a natural desire for happiness. Unless there is
at least some continuity between natural and supernatural happiness, how
is it possible for grace to be intelligibly understood as a perfection and
elevation of human nature? Elsewhere in his works Augustine demonstrates that he recognizes this continuity, but his rhetorical division
between true and false happiness obscures this fact. John Rist well
describes this tension in Augustine’s thought.
Towards the end of the City of God (19.25), Augustine says that the
“virtues” of pagans may seem to be true and beautiful, but that they are
vices rather than virtues, just as a Stoic might speak of the “good” deeds
of the non-sage. In fact,Augustine does not go quite as far as the Stoics
who would insist that the “virtues” are really vices. He seems to wish
to assert that, if a choice must be made, such acts must be classed as
vices rather than virtues, but to recoil from condemning them outright
as vicious. The virtues of pagans are “sterile” (i.e. ineffective, like
Donatist sacraments), hence not good, but not explicitly bad either
(Against Julian 4.3.33). Pagan virtues are significantly different from
pagan vices and will therefore be punished less severely by God (4.3.25,
etc.).The Romans, says Augustine, have a “certain uprightness of their
own” (Letter 138.3.17).Assuming—as is reasonable—that Sermon 349 is
genuine, Augustine is even prepared to say in about 412 that pagan
virtues exhibit a certain “human love” (caritas humana).26

In other words, on the deepest level Augustine recognizes that what is at
work in pagan virtue and happiness is the wrong use of something good,
and not merely the use of something evil.Yet, by calling pagan virtue and
happiness “false” and “deceitful,” he obscures this fact. Augustine, therefore, leaves future generations a mixed inheritance. On the one hand, he
offers a powerful way to understand the relationship between the Gospel
and the natural desires of the human heart.The grace of Christ leads us to
the happiness for which we all long but cannot of ourselves attain. On the
other hand, Augustine’s manner of describing the limitations inherent to
human virtue and happiness undercuts his own best understanding of the
relationship between grace and our natural desire for happiness.
26 John Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1994), 171–72.

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St. Thomas, Aristotle, and Augustine’s Critique
When we read St. Thomas’s theology of happiness in light of his mixed
Augustinian inheritance, we discover similarities as well as differences.
First, the similarities. Like Augustine, Aquinas affirms that all people
desire happiness.27 Like Augustine, Aquinas also maintains that only the
unending vision of God fulfills this universal desire, and that this vision is
only attainable in the next life.28 So, too, Aquinas shares with Augustine
the Christian recognition that happiness is essentially a gift of God’s grace
with which we must cooperate.29 For our present purposes, however, the
most interesting similarities concern their way of portraying the relationship between Christian and pagan conceptions of happiness. Augustine and Aquinas both regard the happiness attainable in Christ as the
fulfillment of pagan philosophy’s search for happiness. Likewise, they both
appeal to the principles of the philosophers themselves to reveal the inadequacy of the happiness attainable by philosophy on its own.
This last similarity, however, also points to their primary divergence:
While Augustine employs the philosophers’ principles in order to reveal
what he regards as the perfidy of the philosophers’ own conclusions,
Aquinas employs Aristotle’s conclusions as well as his principles to reveal
the limits of philosophy. Aquinas regards Aristotle as one who himself
recognized the inadequacy of the happiness attainable by unaided human
27 Summa theologiae I–II, q. 5, a. 8: “appetere beatitudinem nihil aliud est quam

appetere ut voluntas satietur. quod quilibet vult.” Summa contra Gentiles III, 25,
14: “ultimus autem finis hominis, et cuiuslibet intellectualis substantiae, felicitas
sive beatitudo nominatur: hoc enim est quod omnis substantia intellectualis
desiderat tanquam ultimum finem, et propter se tantum.”
28 ST I–II, q. 3, a. 8: “ultima et perfecta beatitudo non potest esse nisi in visione
divinae essentiae.” ST I–II, q. 5, a. 3: “habet. bona autem praesentis vitae transitoria sunt, cum et ipsa vita transeat, quam naturaliter desideramus, et eam
perpetuo permanere vellemus, quia naturaliter homo refugit mortem. unde
impossibile est quod in hac vita vera beatitudo habeatur.” In this second passage,
Aquinas explicitly cites De civitate Dei 19.4 to support his claim that perfect
happiness is not attainable in this life.
29 ST I, q. 12, a. 4:“impossibile est quod aliquis intellectus creatus per sua naturalia
essentiam dei videat.” ST I, q. 12, a. 5:“cum autem aliquis intellectus creatus videt
deum per essentiam, ipsa essentia dei fit forma intelligibilis intellectus. unde
oportet quod aliqua dispositio supernaturalis ei superaddatur, ad hoc quod elevetur in tantam sublimitatem. cum igitur virtus naturalis intellectus creati non sufficiat ad dei essentiam videndam, ut ostensum est, oportet quod ex divina gratia
superaccrescat ei virtus intelligendi.” ST I–II, q. 109, a. 5:“vita autem aeterna est
finis excedens proportionem naturae humanae, ut ex supradictis patet. et ideo
homo per sua naturalia non potest producere opera meritoria proportionata vitae
aeternae, sed ad hoc exigitur altior virtus, quae est virtus gratiae. et ideo sine
gratia homo non potest mereri vitam aeternam.”

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effort. Although Aquinas acknowledges that Aristotle only describes
“happiness as it is attainable in this life,” he does not begrudge Aristotle this
practice because “happiness in a future life is entirely beyond the investigation of reason.”30 As a pagan living without explicit knowledge of revelation, Aristotle cannot be expected to investigate a happiness he knows
nothing about. Indeed, from Aquinas’s perspective, part of the power of
Aristotle’s account is that he both identifies the requirements for complete
happiness—identifies what happiness must be if it is to quiet the natural
desires of the human heart—and recognizes that this type of happiness is
“something divine” and beyond the strength of humans, as human, to
attain.31 Thus, in his commentary on Book One of the Nicomachean Ethics,
recognizing the discrepancy between Aristotle’s description of the requirements for human happiness and his description of the happiness that is in
fact attainable by us, Aquinas offers the following observation.
But since these things seem not to fulfill entirely the conditions
required for happiness described above, [Aristotle] adds that we call
these people happy “as men,” who in this mutable life are not able to
attain perfect happiness.32

The philosophers,Aquinas elsewhere explains, are not able to attain perfect
happiness because they are not able to satiate the deepest desire of the
human heart:They are not able to satiate their desire to know.33 Drawing
30 In Ethic. 1.9 (113):“loquitur enim in hoc libro philosophus de felicitate, qualis in

hac vita potest haberi. nam felicitas alterius vitae omnem investigationem rationis excedit.”
31 Nicomachean Ethics 10.7 (1177b27-31): “But such a life would be too high for
man; for it is not in so far as he is man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in him; and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its activity superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind
of virtue. If intellect is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according
to it is divine in comparison with human life.”
32 In Ethic. 1.16 (202):“sed quia ista videntur non usquequaque attingere ad conditiones supra de felicitate positas, subdit quod tales dicimus beatos sicut homines,
qui in hac vita mutabilitati subiecta non possunt perfectam beatitudinem habere.
et quia non est inane naturae.” See SCG III 48.9: “unde nec felicitas, secundum
suam perfectam rationem, potest hominibus adesse: sed aliquid ipsius participant,
etiam in hac vita. et haec videtur fuisse sententia aristotelis de felicitate. unde in
i ethicorum, ubi inquirit utrum infortunia tollant felicitatem, ostenso quod felicitas sit in operibus virtutis, quae maxime permanentes in hac vita esse videntur,
concludit illos quibus talis perfectio in hac vita adest, esse beatos ut homines,
quasi non simpliciter ad felicitatem pertingentes, sed modo humano.”
33 SCG III, 39, 6: “voluntas cum consecuta fuerit ultimum finem, quietatur eius
desiderium. ultimus autem finis omnis cognitionis humanae est felicitas. illa

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331

on the Aristotelian principle that knowledge of an effect arouses in the
mind a desire to know its cause, a desire that does not come to rest until it
knows the cause’s essence, Aquinas asserts that the human desire to know
only comes to rest in union with the divine essence in the vision of God.
When a person knows an effect, and knows that it has a cause, there
naturally remains in him the desire to know about that cause, what it is.
And this desire is one of wonder, and causes inquiry, as is stated in the
beginning of the Metaphysics. . . . Hence, if the human intellect, knowing the essence of some created effect, knows no more of God than that
he is, the perfection of that intellect does not yet reach simply the first
cause, but there remains in it the natural desire to seek the cause.
Wherefore it is not yet perfectly happy. Consequently, for perfect
happiness the intellect needs to reach the very essence of the first cause.
And thus it will have its perfection through union with God as with
that object in which alone human happiness consists.34

The result of this inquiry is what Jan Aertsen has called “the ‘distress’ of
philosophy.”35 The summit of philosophical inquiry is the discovery that
philosophy cannot fully attain the end it seeks. Aquinas unequivocally
proclaims that “every intellect naturally desires the vision of the divine
essence.”36 It naturally desires this, but it cannot on its own know what
igitur cognitio dei essentialiter est ipsa felicitas, qua habita non restabit alicuius
scibilis desideranda cognitio. talis autem non est cognitio quam philosophi per
demonstrationes de deo habere potuerunt: quia adhuc, illa cognitione habita, alia
desideramus scire, quae per hanc cognitionem nondum sciuntur. non est igitur
in tali cognitione dei felicitas.”
34 ST I–II, q. 3, a. 8: “si ergo intellectus aliquis cognoscat essentiam alicuius effectus, per quam non possit cognosci essentia causae, ut scilicet sciatur de causa quid
est; non dicitur intellectus attingere ad causam simpliciter, quamvis per effectum
cognoscere possit de causa an sit. et ideo remanet naturaliter homini desiderium,
cum cognoscit effectum, et scit eum habere causam, ut etiam sciat de causa quid
est. et illud desiderium est admirationis, et causat inquisitionem, ut dicitur in
principio metaphys . . . causae. si igitur intellectus humanus, cognoscens essentiam alicuius effectus creati, non cognoscat de deo nisi an est; nondum perfectio
eius attingit simpliciter ad causam primam, sed remanet ei adhuc naturale
desiderium inquirendi causam. unde nondum est perfecte beatus. ad perfectam
igitur beatitudinem requiritur quod intellectus pertingat ad ipsam essentiam
primae causae. et sic perfectionem suam habebit per unionem ad deum sicut ad
obiectum, in quo solo beatitudo hominis consistit.” See Jan Aertsen, Nature and
Creature:Thomas Aquinas’s Way of Thought (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988), 42–53.
35 Aertsen, Nature and Creature, 213.
36 SCG III, 57, 4: “omnis intellectus naturaliter desiderat divinae substantiae
visionem.”

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this is, or know that it is attainable or how it is attainable.37 Philosophy
culminates in what Thomas Hibbs, borrowing from von Balthasar, has
called the “aporia of finitude.”38
Hibbs argues that Aristotle’s great merit is that he is faithful to philosophy’s limits. He is faithful to the disjuncture existing between what we
desire and what we can attain. Unlike some Platonists or even some of
his own Arab commentators,Aristotle does not appeal to myth or unwarranted speculation to overcome philosophy’s distress. Instead, he leaves us
with a faithful account of the “straits” into which unaided reason falls
without the gift of revelation. Far from criticizing “the Philosopher,”
Aquinas, in one of his most poignant passages, sympathizes with Aristotle’s plight.
Since Aristotle saw that there is no other knowledge for humans in this
life than through the speculative sciences, he maintained that humans
do not achieve perfect happiness, but only their mode of happiness.
From which it is sufficiently clear how even the brilliant minds of these
men suffered from the narrowness of their perspective.39

Perhaps a better translation of this final phrase is “in what straits these
brilliant minds suffered” (quantam angustiam patiebantur hinc inde eorum
praeclara ingenia). As Hibbs notes, these straits, or “narrowness of perspective,” offer an opening to the message of the Gospel.40 The discovery that
we have a desire for something that nothing in this life can fulfill renders
an aspect of the Gospel message intelligible: In Christ, God’s grace
empowers us to attain the happiness we all desire but only vaguely understand and cannot on our own attain.
We shall be freed from these straits if we hold . . . that man is to reach
perfect happiness after this life, when man’s soul is existing immortally.

37 Kevin Staley, “Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas on the Good and the Human

Good,” 312, n. 4: “the philosopher can show that the human good requires an
immediate relationship with an infinite and transcendent Good without being
able to say much about what such happiness would be like, how it is to be
achieved, or Who the Supreme Good is.”
38 Thomas S. Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas:An Interpretation of the Summa
Contra Gentiles (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 115.
39 SCG III, 48, 14–15: “quia vero aristoteles vidit quod non est alia cognitio
hominis in hac vita quam per scientias speculativas, posuit hominem non consequi felicitatem perfectam, sed suo modo. in quo satis apparet quantam angustiam
patiebantur hinc inde eorum praeclara ingenia.”
40 Hibbs, Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas, 28.

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. . . For which reason our Lord promises us “a reward in heaven” and says
that the saints “shall be as the angels . . . who always see God in heaven.”41

The flowering of philosophy leads us to the sad recognition of our own
inability to fulfill our deepest desires. By doing so, however, it also
renders the Lord’s promises intelligible. What we cannot attain on our
own, we can attain through the grace of Christ that leads to the promised glory of heaven.
Aristotle at the Service of Augustine
In Aquinas’s view, therefore, when philosophy is true to itself, far from
attacking the Gospel, it points to why the Gospel is necessary. In which
case, philosophy becomes truly the maidservant of theology. From this
perspective,Aquinas is able to describe Aristotle’s happiness as a participation of ultimate beatitude. It does not fulfill the full notion of happiness.
It remains a painfully imperfect happiness. (It is not lasting, stable, nor free
from evils.) Nevertheless, it is a true participation of heavenly beatitude.
By recognizing this fact, Aquinas is able to show, more successfully than
Augustine, how the Gospel fulfills the deepest longings of the heart.
Aquinas can say to Aristotle: the joy you receive from contemplating the
truth is a foretaste of what the Lord is offering you in the grace of Christ.
Aquinas, therefore, uses Aristotle’s own recognition of philosophy’s limitations to proclaim, but also refine, Augustine’s insight that only in heaven
and only by God’s grace can our desire for happiness be fulfilled. In short,
Aquinas draws on Aristotle’s insights to render more intelligible Augustine’s Christian proclamation that “you have made us for yourself, O Lord,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
N&V

41 SCG III, 48, 15: “a quibus angustiis liberabimur si ponamus, . . . hominem ad

veram felicitatem post hanc vitam pervenire posse, anima hominis immortali
existente. . . . propter quod, matth. 5–12, dominus mercedem nobis in caelis
promittit; et matth. 22–30, dicit quod sancti erunt sicut angeli, qui vident semper
deum in caelis.”

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 3, No. 2 (2005): 335–400

335

Discussion
On Anthony Kenny’s Aquinas on Being
L AWRENCE D EWAN, OP
Collège Dominicain
Ottawa, Canada

I N 2002, Anthony Kenny published a book on St. Thomas Aquinas’s
doctrine of being.1 He presents his aim as follows:
The subject of Being is one of the most important of all philosophical
concerns. St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the greatest of all philosophers. It will be the aim of this book to show that on this crucial topic
this first-rank philosopher was thoroughly confused. (preface, v)

He also describes what he is doing as “writing about a philosopher at his
weakest” (x). The book takes the form of a chronological survey of
Thomas’s works beginning with De ente et essentia and ending with the
Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle.2 Kenny looks at some key texts
on being, and ends with the judgment he indicated at the beginning. I
hope, here, to offer some ray of hope for the student of St.Thomas, that
things may not be quite as bad as Kenny thinks.To do so, I must follow
him somewhat in his visits to texts, and indicate not only where I think
he is mistaken but also what other texts he might have considered, and,
more fundamentally, why he might have trouble with Thomas’s teachings.
It would be absurd to deny that there are disagreements about the meaning of Thomas’s doctrine of being. Without going outside the classical
1 Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Being (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Reference to this text will be in the body of the article, simply indicating the
page number.
2 Actually, a given chapter is named for the work mainly considered in it, but there
are small supplementary considerations, as, e.g., in the chapter on the Commentary
on Aristotle’s Metaphysics there is a very brief consideration of De substantiis separatis.

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Lawrence Dewan, OP

Thomist school, one thinks of the complaint of Banez so heavily insisted
upon by Gilson, that when Thomas proclaims that “esse is the act of all acts
and the perfection of all perfections” “Thomistae nolunt audire!”: The
Thomists do not wish to hear it! As regards the doctrine of being, the
Thomists have not agreed among themselves.3 Gilson himself assures us that
nobody has ever demonstrated the real distinction between essence and esse.
That suggests that one of those who “most admire” Thomas (to use a
“Kenny-ism”) has considerable difficulty with his doctrine of being.4 It
would also be absurd to deny that Thomas has had, outside the school of his
interpreters, many doctrinal adversaries.
Moreover, there is certainly development in Thomas’s presentations,
considering his views in morals, ontology, and elsewhere, whether that
bears witness to a change in theory or to a change in pedagogical
context. The nature of the development has to be judged instance by
instance. In general, it has seemed to me that Thomas was always fundamentally Aristotelian, and that, if anything, he became more thoroughly
so as he went along; that he benefited from the work of Avicenna and
Averroes in this respect, and that he exercised critical discernment about
them all. In his earlier work,Avicenna is very prominent: He notably criticizes Avicenna in De potentia in favor of Averroes, as to some creatures
having absolutely necessary being;5 but while Avicenna is criticized as
regards the accidentality of the act of being in Commentary on Aristotle’s
Metaphysics,6 he is praised in the same Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics regarding the inclusion of matter in the essence of material things,
and thus as having the authentic view of Aristotle.7 Averroes, while he is
praised for his view of the existence of necessary beings in De potentia, is
3 Banez, Scholastica

commentaria in primam partem Summae Theologiae s. Thomae
Aquinatis. P. 1, Q. 3, a. 4; ed. Luis Urbano, Editorial F.E.D.A. Madrid-Valentia, 1934
(Biblioteca de tomistos espanoles, v. 1. Valentia, 1934), 141a.: Et hoc est quod
saepissime D.Thomas clamat, et Thomistae nolunt audire: quod esse est actualitas
omnis formae vel naturae, sicut in hoc art. in ratione secunda dicit, et quod in
nulla re invenitur sicut recipiens et perfectibile, sed sicut receptum et perficitur id
in quo recipitur: ipsum tamen, eo ipso quod recipitur deformitur, et ut ita dixerim
imperficitur.
4 Cf. my paper “Etienne Gilson and the Actus Essendi” (revised version of 1999
publication), International Journal of Philosophy [Taipei] 1 (2002): 65–99. At one
moment in his career Gilson thought Cajetan was someone who had truly seen
the light, but later, Cajetan fell out of favor with him: cf. Gilson, “Compagnons
de route,” in Étienne Gilson, Philosophe de la Chrétienté (Paris: Cerf, 1949), 275–95,
at 293. Gilson is not mentioned in Kenny’s book.
5 De potentia 5.3.in corp. and ad 12.
6 Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 4.2 (556 and 558).
7 Ibid., 7.9 (1469).

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criticized in Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics for his failure to understand
Aristotle on the cause of being as being.8
We must certainly ask ourselves why the line of argument concerning
essence and esse so famously present in De ente et essentia and Commentary
on the Sentences of Peter Lombard is not repeated in later works, and notably
not in Summa contra Gentiles 2.52.9 In short, we do not have the ideal
presentation we all (who are in metaphysics) would like Thomas to have
provided. He was not, after all, primarily a metaphysician, but rather a
professor of Christian theology,“sacra doctrina.”10 What I do not think for
a moment is that Thomas was “confused” about being.
Form as Cause of Being
Kenny’s first chapter concerns the De ente et essentia prior to its discussion of immaterial substances. One can hardly fault Kenny for beginning
with the De ente, which has been used by some prominent Thomists to
present Thomas’s doctrine of being.11 It is only after his two chapters on
the De ente that Kenny comes to speak of the Commentary on the
Sentences of Peter Lombard. It is regrettable that he completely ignored
such fundamental presentations as the probably earlier Commentary on
8 Ibid., 8.2 (ed. Maggiolo, no. 974 [4]–975 [5]); cf. also Commentary on Aristotle’s

Physics 8.21 (1154 [14]). Cf. also In De caelo 1.6.5, where Averroes is seen to
misunderstand the potentiality that belongs to form with respect to being.
9 This most remarkable text is never alluded to by Kenny! I quote it in the next
section.
10 Kenny’s book is not a place to find out about Thomas’s history or the nature of
his works.Thus, we have the statement that the Summa contra Gentiles is “a work
not of revealed theology, but of natural theology, and natural theology is a branch
of philosophy” (81). Even if we limit this, as Kenny presumably intended, to the
first three books, it is quite untrue. Of course, the reasons for its being an untrue
description are not of the sort that interest Kenny, but they are solid nevertheless. The title “On the Truth of the Catholic Faith” is quite truly appropriate.
Kenny, after translating the words “Summa contra Gentiles” as “summary or
synopsis against unbelievers” and mentioning that the most frequently used
English translation bears the title “On the Truth of the Catholic Faith,” opts to
keep the Latin. He tells us he will be referring in the notes to the Pera edition
(81n1), but he does not mention that that edition bears the primary title: “Liber
de Veritate Catholicae Fidei contra errores Infidelium,” i.e., “Book concerning the
truth of the Catholic faith, against the errors of the unbelievers” (it adds “seu
‘Summa contra Gentiles’ ” in smaller print).Thomas is only interested in the truth
that the Catholic faith professes, i.e., the revealed truth. This truth, he tells us,
includes two modes: truth that the faith professes and reason can investigate, and
truth professed by the faith but beyond the investigatory power of human reason.
11 I think especially of Joseph Owens.

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the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8, which, in my judgment, could have
saved him some difficulties.
What I notice first of all about Kenny’s presentation of the De ente is
that he fails to comment on the introductory passage, which speaks of the
hierarchy of being to be discussed.Thomas explains:
But because “ens” is said absolutely and primarily of substances, and
posteriorly and in a somewhat qualified sense of accidents, thus it is that
essentia also properly and truly is in substances, but in accidents it is in
a certain measure and in a qualified sense. But of substances, some are
simple and some are composite, and in both there is essentia; but in the
simple in a truer and more noble degree [ueriori et nobiliori modo], inasmuch as they also have more noble esse; for they are the cause of those
which are composite, at least [this is true of] the first simple substance
which is God.12

This picture of “truer and more noble” essence in separate substance, and
“more noble esse” as related to causal hierarchy, should have been noted.
We will eventually see Kenny puzzle over Thomas’s Fourth Way (of proving the existence of a God), claiming that it cannot be about hierarchy of
existence. But, indeed, that is just what it is about, just as it is here what
the De ente et essentia is speaking of.
I will begin with the doctrine that form is the cause of esse. Kenny
expresses puzzlement about this already in his chapter 1, and it is repeated
in chapter 2.
In chapter 1, Kenny raises a question concerning the following:
[I]t is necessary that the essence, in function of which the thing is called
“a being,” be not merely the form nor merely the matter, but both,
though the form alone, in its own mode, is the cause of such esse.13

Kenny wonders why matter is omitted from the causal picture, since
there is obviously such a thing as material causality. He says that surely
the point cannot be that only form is the formal cause.14
12 De ente et essentia c. 1 (ed. Leonine, lines 53–63), emphasis added.
13 Ibid., c. 2 (lines 50–66), emphasis added:

oportet quod essentia, qua res denominatur ens, non tantum sit forma neque
tantum materia, sed utrumque, quamvis huiusmodi esse suo modo sola forma sit causa.
14 Cf. Kenny at p. 11 ca n. 18. I would say that the point of the limitation, i.e., “in
its own mode,” is to exclude the idea that the form is the efficient cause of the esse
of the thing; i.e., the form alone (excluding the matter) is the cause of being, but
only the formal cause, not the efficient cause. Thomas is not saying that the
matter is not a formal cause since, as Kenny says, that is too obvious to need
saying. Cf. De ente et essentia c. 4 [lines 127–35]:

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In Kenny’s chapter 2, the same point seems to be at issue. Thomas,
having argued (De ente et essentia c. 4) that the intelligences or the soul
must be immaterial, explains the doctrine of the Liber de causis, that they
are forms without matter, by the argument that since form gives being
to matter, form can exist without matter (since a cause of being can
exist without its effect, but not inversely). Thomas says that if there are
forms that cannot exist without matter, this is not proper to form as
form, but because these forms are remote from the first cause, which is
pure act.15
This troubles Kenny. He does not see form as the cause of esse simpliciter,
but only of esse quid, relative to the matter (cf. 31n11; the Latin is Kenny’s).
Already from the point of view of vocabulary Kenny’s view of is alarming.
Thus, in the early treatise De principiis naturae, c. 1,Thomas explains:
Be it known that something can be though it is not, whereas something
else is.That which can be is said to “be in potency”; that which already
is, is said to “be in act.” But being [esse] is twofold: viz. the essential or
substantial being of the thing, as for example: being a man; and this is “being”
in the unqualified sense [esse simpliciter].The other is accidental being, for
example, that the man is white; and this is “being something.”16
Omne autem quod convenit alicui vel est causatum ex principiis naturae
suae, sicut risibile in homine, vel advenit ab aliquo principio extrinseco,
sicut lumen in aere ex influentia solis. Non autem potest esse quod ipsum esse
sit causatum ab ipsa forma vel quiditate rei (dico sicut a causa efficiente) quia sic
aliqua res esset sui ipsius causa et aliqua res seipsam in esse produceret, quod
est impossibile. . . . [Everything which belongs to something either is
caused by the principles of its own nature, as capability of laughter in man,
of comes from some extrinsic principle, as light in air from the influence
of the sun. Now, it cannot be that being itself be caused by the form itself
or quiddity of the thing (I mean as by an efficient cause), because thus some
thing would be cause of its very own self, and some thing would launch
itself into existence; which is impossible.]
15 The first cause itself is not termed “pure form” here in the De ente et essentia,
which is indebted here to the De causis; however, in the Summa theologiae I, q. 3,
a. 2,Thomas has no qualms about presenting God as “through his own essence,
form” [per essentiam suam forma].
16 De principiis naturae, c. 1:
Nota quod quoddam potest esse licet non sit, quoddam vero est. Illud quod
potest esse dicitur esse potentia; illud quod iam est, dicitur esse actu. Sed
duplex est esse: scilicet esse essentiale rei, sive substantiale ut hominem esse, et
hoc est esse simpliciter. Est autem aliud esse accidentale, ut hominem esse
album, et hoc est esse aliquid. [emphasis added]
And we see this in many texts throughout Thomas’s career. Cf. ST I, q. 5, a. 1,
ad 1:

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For Thomas, “being a what” and “being unqualifiedly” go together:That
is, esse quid is esse simpliciter. I would say Kenny fails to grasp the existential importance of generation and hylomorphism; a thing that is
corrupted ceases to be. Yes, matter is “incorruptible,” but only in the way
that matter “is” at all.17
The question for me is what Kenny means by “esse simpliciter,” such
that he distinguishes it from “esse quid.” In the main text, which his note
11 complements, Kenny writes:
When Aquinas says that form gives esse to matter, all that he can mean
is that form makes matter to be the kind of thing it is; he cannot mean
that it brings matter into existence. When a substantial change takes
place, no new matter enters the world, but matter that already existed
under one form begins to exist under another. (31)

What this suggests to me is that Kenny’s word “existence” really refers to
the answer to the question:“Does it exist?” rather than to the act of being
(actus essendi).18
Thomas’s word “esse,” though it does the work of signifying the answer
to the question:“does it exist?” (thus signifying the truth of propositions),
cum ens dicat aliquid proprie esse in actu; actus autem proprie ordinem
habeat ad potentiam; secundum hoc simpliciter aliquid dicitur ens, secundum quod primo discernitur ab eo quod est in potentia tantum. Hoc
autem est esse substantiale rei uniuscuiusque; unde per suum esse substantiale dicitur unumquodque ens simpliciter.
And ST I, q. 76, a. 4:
forma substantialis in hoc a forma accidentali differt quia forma accidentalis
non dat esse simpliciter, sed esse tale, sicut calor facit suum subiectum non
simpliciter esse, sed esse calidum. . . . Forma autem substantialis dat esse
simpliciter, et ideo per eius adventum dicitur aliquid simpliciter generari, et
per eius recessum simpliciter corrumpi.
17 Indeed, while Thomas appeals to the incorruptibility of matter when arguing
that God will not annihilate things (cf. ST I, q. 104, a. 4), it is also part of that
picture that matter can only be incorruptible as participating in actuality through
a form: cf. ST I, q. 46, a. 1, obj. 1 (if you have matter, you must have form and a
world), and De potentia 5.7.in toto and ad 11.
18 Cf. ST I, q. 3, a. 4, ad 2. I notice in the above-mentioned review by Jörgen Vijgen
that at p. 217 he criticizes Knasas for insufficiently distinguishing “between esse as
actual existence and esse as the intrinsic act of being (actus essendi).” Without
making any judgment here about Knasas, I would insist that the word “existence”
is ambiguous, and must be used at times not only for the answer to the question
“does it exist?” but also for the intrinsic act of being. My point is that Kenny uses
the word “existence” exclusively for the answer to the question “does it exist?”

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also signifies the thing’s own act which is “to be,” as meaning the perfection which terminates a thing’s generation.19 It is what characterizes, we
may also say, the effect of an efficient cause, which, in giving form to
matter, gives the thing its peculiar existence.Thomas speaks of the situation, for example, in Summa contra Gentiles 2.54 (a most prominent ontological text never referred to by Kenny), as follows:
Now, the composition out of matter and form is not of the same sort as
that out of substance and being: though each is out of potency and act.
Firstly, this is because matter is not the very substance of the thing:
for [if that were so] it would follow that all forms were accidents: just
as the ancient natural philosophers opined; but rather, matter is a part
of the substance.
Secondly, because the very act of being is not the proper act of the matter,
but rather of the substance as a whole: for being is the act of that
concerning which we can say: “it is”; now, “being” is not said of the
matter, but of the whole; whence, matter cannot be called “that which is,”
but rather the substance itself is that which is.
Thirdly, because neither is form the very being [esse], but they [viz.
form and esse] stand related in an order: for the form stands related to
the very being as light [the quality] stands to illuminating, or as whiteness stands to being white.
Then again, because the very being [esse] has the role of act relative
even towards the form itself; for it is through this that in things composed
out of matter and form the form is said to be the principle of being [principium essendi], viz. because it is the completion of the substance whose act is
being itself: just as the transparent is for the air the principle of being
actually illuminated, in that it makes [the air] the proper subject of light.
Hence, in things composed out of matter and form, neither the matter
nor the form can be called the very “that which is”; nor also [can] the
very esse [be called “that which is”]. Nevertheless, the form can be called
“that by which it [viz. the substance] is,” inasmuch as it is the principle of
being; but the substance as a whole is “that which is”; and the very being
[ipsum esse] is that in function of which the substance is called “a being.”20

19 Cf. Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.33.1.1.ad 1 on meanings of

“esse.” For the connection of the act of the essence with terminus of generation,
cf. e.g., SCG 2.52 and 1.26.
20 SCG 2.54 [in part]:
[1287] Quod non est idem componi ex substantia et esse, et materia et
forma.
Non est autem eiusdem rationis compositio ex materia et forma, et ex
substantia et esse: quamvis utraque sit ex potentia et actu.

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The substance as a whole has the act of being. It has it from an efficient cause
which confers a new form on matter: In that way, a new mode of substantial existence, that is, a new mode of unqualified existence, for example,
being a dog, is conferred on the matter, which previously had some other
mode of unqualified existence, as the matter of a quite other substance.The
matter in itself is only that which receives unqualified existence from an
agent through a form:Thus, in its “substance,” it is a pure receptive potency
for unqualified existence. Indeed, it is never unqualifiedly true that the
matter “is”: It participates in the act of being only through form.
Because of its precise ontological status and role, the matter cannot exist
save as under form. No miracle could bring about “pure matter.”21 If Kenny
thinks of the matter as something having its own act of being, its own existence, he is returning to the error of the ancient naturalists. This is not
surprising since, as Aristotle says concerning his notion of primary matter, it
is the answer to a most difficult problem. In De generatione et corruptione he
shows how difficult it is to conceive of unqualified coming to be, precisely
because of the difficulty of conceiving of primary matter, that which is
potentially a substantial actuality.22 Only when it is realized that such matter
[1288] Primo quidem, quia materia non est ipsa substantia rei, nam
sequeretur omnes formas esse accidentia, sicut antiqui naturales opinabantur: sed materia est pars substantiae.
[1289] Secundo autem quia ipsum esse non est proprius actus materiae, sed
substantiae totius. Eius enim actus est esse de quo possumus dicere quod
sit. Esse autem non dicitur de materia, sed de toto. Unde materia non
potest dici quod est, sed ipsa substantia est id quod Est.
[1290] Tertio, quia nec forma est ipsum esse, sed se habent secundum
ordinem: comparatur enim forma ad ipsum esse sicut lux ad lucere, vel
albedo ad album esse.
[1291] Deinde quia ad ipsam etiam formam comparatur ipsum esse ut actus.
Per hoc enim in compositis ex materia et forma dicitur forma esse principium essendi, quia est complementum substantiae, cuius actus est ipsum esse:
sicut diaphanum est aeri principium lucendi quia facit eum proprium subiectum luminis.
[1292] Unde in compositis ex materia et forma nec materia nec forma
potest dici ipsum quod est, nec etiam ipsum esse. Forma tamen potest dici
quo est, secundum quod est essendi principium; ipsa autem tota substantia est ipsum quod est; et ipsum esse est quo substantia denominatur ens.
21 Cf. Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 4.11.2; ST I, q. 66, a. 1; Quodl.
3.1.1 (a full discussion).
22 Aristotle says:
it is extraordinarily difficult [thaumasten aporian] to see how there can be
“unqualified coming-to-be” (whether we suppose it to occur out of what

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never does and indeed cannot exist separately is there a satisfactory solution
to what Aristotle describes as the “wondrous difficulty.” Primary matter
exists only as part of the composite of form and matter.23
On the other hand, the peculiar ontological role of form, as the principle of actual being, includes in itself no obstacle to its existing by itself.
Its role of formal cause is all that is needed to make the argument that
the cause of being can exist without its effect.24
Kenny asks what about material causality and its role as cause of being?
The answer to this, I would say, one sees in Thomas’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. Matter has a causal role as regards the being of the resulting
generated thing inasmuch as that thing must preexist in something else.
However, speaking of the resulting thing, just in itself, only the form is
the cause of its being.We read:
It is necessary that the causes be four. Because, since a cause is that upon
which the being of another follows, the being of that which has a cause
can be considered in two ways: in one way, absolutely, and thus the cause of
being is the form, through which something is in act; in the other way, according as from potentially a being there is brought about what is actually a
being. And because everything which is in potency is reduced to act by
that which is a being in act, on this account it is necessary that there be
two other causes, viz. the matter, and the agent which reduces the matter
from potency into act. Now, the action of the agent tends towards something determinate, just as it proceeds from some determinate principle:
potentially “is” [ek dunamei ontos], or in some other way), and we must
recall this problem for further examination. (317b18–20) [Oxford trans:
Harold H. Joachim]
Thomas’s paraphrase, In De gen. 1.6 (49 [8]), runs:
because even after the preceding determination there still looms a
wondrous difficulty [mirabilis dubitatio], one must once more attempt [to
determine] how unqualified coming to be occurs [sit], whether out of
being in potency or how it comes about in any other way.
23 Aristotle, De gen. et corr. 1.3 (317a32–318a27); cf.Thomas, In De gen. 1.6–7.
24 That argument, just by itself, does not establish there does exist any separate
form; it is merely about the possibility (in contrast to the case of separate matter).
The actual existence of subsisting form is established, for example, by showing
that the human soul must be subsistent form, on the basis of the requirements of
intellection: cf. ST I, q. 75, a. 2 and 5, but also De ente et essentia c. 4 [lines 8–40],
and in Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8.5.2 and 2.17.1.2. On
Thomas’s use throughout his career of that argument for the possibility, cf. my
paper: “St. Thomas Aquinas against Metaphysical Materialism,” in Atti del’VIII
Congresso Tomistico Internazionale, t. V, 412–434 (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice
Vaticana, 1982), 412-34.

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for every agent brings to actuality that which is suitable for itself; and
that towards which the action of the agent tends is called the “final”
cause.Thus, it is necessary that there be four causes. But because the form
is the cause of being absolutely, whereas the others are causes of being inasmuch
as something receives being, thus it is that in immobile things the other
three causes are not considered, but only the formal cause.25

This, of course, as a text from the Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, takes
a rather restricted, that is, physical, view of the final and efficient causes,
and even a limited view of “immobile things,” by which Thomas seems
here to mean mathematicals. In the perspective of metaphysics, which
considers things precisely as beings, one considers the “receiving” of
being where the receiving is not a change, that is, creative efficient causality. Form has an instrumental role, under the creative cause, but matter is
strictly in the role of effect.Thus, in De veritate we read:
God causes in us natural esse by creation, without the mediation of any
efficient cause, but nevertheless through the mediation of a formal
cause: because natural form is the principle of natural esse.26
25 Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 2.10.15 [Maggolo 240], emphasis added:

Necesse est autem quatuor esse causas. Quia cum causa sit ad quam sequitur
esse alterius, esse eius quod habet causam, potest considerari dupliciter: uno
modo absolute, et sic causa essendi est forma per quam aliquid est in actu; alio
modo secundum quod de potentia ente fit actu ens. Et quia omne quod
est in potentia, reducitur ad actum per id quod est actu ens; ex hoc necesse
est esse duas alias causas, scilicet materiam, et agentem qui reducit materiam de potentia in actum. Actio autem agentis ad aliquid determinatum
tendit, sicut ab aliquo determinato principio procedit: nam omne agens
agit quod est sibi conveniens; id autem ad quod tendit actio agentis, dicitur causa finalis. Sic igitur necesse est esse causas quatuor. Sed quia forma
est causa essendi absolute, aliae vero tres sunt causae essendi secundum
quod aliquid accipit esse; inde est quod in immobilibus non considerantur
aliae tres causae, sed solum causa formalis.
Cf. also Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 3.2 (346), 3.4 (369), and 3.4 (384),
and my paper,“St.Thomas, Metaphysics, and Formal Causality,” Laval théologique
et philosophique 36 (1980): 285–316, at 289–90.
26 St.Thomas, De veritate 27.1.ad 3 (ed. Leonine, t. 22/3, lines 182–86). An important remark is to be found at De potentia 3.1.ad 17. The question is posed: Can
God make something out of nothing? The objector reasons that the maker gives
esse to the thing made. If what receives the esse is nothing, then it is nothing thatis
constituted in existence [esse]—and thus nothing is made. If, on the other hand,
it is something that receives the esse, then this is not making something out of
nothing.Thomas replies:
God, simultaneously giving esse, produces that which receives esse: and
thus it is not necessary that he work on something already existing. This

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And Thomas says in Quaestiones disputatae de anima:
In substances composed out of matter and form, we find three [items],
viz. matter, and form, and, [as a] third, esse, whose principle is form. For
matter, by the fact that it receives form, participates in esse.Thus, therefore, esse follows upon form itself, nor nevertheless is form its own esse,
since it is its principle [cum sit eius principium].27 And though matter
does not attain to esse save through form, form nevertheless, inasmuch
as it is form, does not need matter for its esse, since esse follows upon
form itself [cum ipsam formam consequatur esse]; but it needs matter since
[cum] it is such form as does not subsist by itself.28

It occurs to me that another way of making my point is to stress that
there is no divine idea of matter just in itself. As Thomas says:
Plato, according to some people, held that matter is not created, and so
he did not posit that there is an idea of matter, but that matter is a
concause [along with God]. But because we hold that matter is created
by God, but not without form, it has indeed an idea in God, but not
other than that of the composite: for matter, taken as regards its very
self, neither has being [esse] nor is knowable.29

allows us to see that, God being posited on high as agent, we analyse his
product, a being, i.e., ens, in which are found together a multiplicity of
intelligible ontological factors, such as esse, form, matter, etc., i.e., only by
what I would call “formal analysis” does metaphysics make sense. One
should not view the esse of the thing as something that itself has esse and
gives it to essence; this is to view it as an agent, i.e., a subsisting thing. Least
of all should matter be regarded as itself having esse.
27 I translate “cum” here as “since” rather than “though” because a few lines below
it twice clearly means “since.”
28 Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de anima q. 6, lines 229–40 (Opera omnia,
t. XXIV, 1. Roma-Paris: Commissio Leonina/Cerf, 1996, ed. B.-B. Bazan). On
the argument concerning form in this passage, see my paper,“St.Thomas Aquinas
against Metaphysical Materialism,” in Atti del’VIII Congresso Tomistico Internazionale, t.V (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1982), 412-34.
29 Thomas, at ST I, q. 15, a. 3, is asking whether all items which God knows have
ideas in the divine mind. The third objection holds that whereas God knows
primary matter, it cannot have an idea since it has no form.The reply is:
Ad tertium dicendum quod Plato, secundum quosdam, posuit materiam
non creatam, et ideo non posuit ideam esse materiae, sed materiae [read:
materiam] concausam. Sed quia nos ponimus materiam creatam a deo, non
tamen sine forma, habet quidem materia ideam in deo, non tamen aliam
ab idea compositi. Nam materia secundum se neque esse habet, neque
cognoscibilis est.

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Separate Entity: Form without Matter
Kenny’s second chapter considers De ente et essentia 4, on essence as found
in separate substance: the human soul, intelligences, and the first cause.30
Kenny begins (25) by speaking as though we had not been told at the
outset of De ente et essentia that essence was to be found more truly in
simple substances. In fact, Aquinas does not “spring” separate substance
on us at the beginning of De ente et essentia 4, as a reader of Kenny alone
could very well think.
He notes that Thomas does not bother to prove the existence of the
beings he is speaking of here, but that he does undertake to prove their
substantial immateriality. In fact this amounts, in the case of the human
soul, whose existence is evident,31 to proving that it is a subsisting form.
This has its importance, since Kenny seems immediately to think of
Platonism whenever form by itself is mentioned; Thomas’s route to the
existence of subsistent form is not at all Platonic. Opposing here Solomon
Ibn Gebirol’s doctrine that all beings but God must be matter-form
composites, Thomas calls the argument he himself uses “the strongest
demonstration” of the philosophers. Kenny questions the argument’s
adequacy to show that the intellective soul must be immaterial. He accuses
(28) Thomas of not distinguishing between sense and intellect here, but
Thomas actually does so, mentioning that the intellect considers things in

30 Kenny, presumably because of the term “separate,” says [p. 25] that we are

discussing the human soul as in an intermediate state, between death and the
final resurrection.This is not so. In fact, we are simply considering the ontology
of the human soul, whether in a body or out of a body. Perhaps Thomas starts
out with the expression “separate substances” because he wants to indicate the
distance that exists between what Gebirol teaches and what the philosophers
teach, calling spiritual beings below God “separate,” i.e., from matter: cf. lines
5–11. (Thomas, at this point in the De ente et essentia, is using the vocabulary of
the Liber de causis: cf. De veritate 5.9.ad 7, where we are told that the term “anima
nobilis” in the Liber de causis will apply to any rational soul.) In the present chapter, it is clear that it is the operation of the human soul in this present life that is
providing the basis for saying anything about intellectual substances: cf. De ente
et essentia c. 4 (lines 13–22).Thus,Thomas neatly speaks in the chapter of “intellectual substances,” and especially in lines 178–92, where the ontology of the
human soul is focused upon.
31 That the existence of the human soul is evident by itself is clear from the fact
that in ST I, q. 75, on the essence of the human soul, the first article does not
address the question: “Does it exist?” Instead, it asks whether the soul is a body:
Since “soul” means “first principle of life in those living things which are in our
realm (of corporeal reality),” soul exists as evidently as does the distinction
between living and non-living thing.

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abstraction from matter and material conditions,32 something not true of
sense.33 Kenny also conjectures that Thomas is using some unspoken
premise, such as that like is known by like. That of course is something
Thomas would hold, but I would suggest that two truly relevant unspoken premises would be (1) that things are received in keeping with the
mode of the receiver, and (2) that every agent produces something like
itself. I say this because Thomas’s extremely compact argument neatly
includes the roles of both possible and agent intellects.We read:
Of this the strongest demonstration is from the power of understanding which is in them [viz. intelligent substances]. For we see that forms
are not intelligible in act save according as they are separated from
matter and from its conditions, nor are they rendered intelligible in act
save by the power of the intelligent substance, according as they are
received in it and according as they are effected by it. Hence, it is necessary that in any intelligent substance whatsoever there be complete
immunity from matter, in such a way that it have neither a material part
of itself nor even that it have the status of a form impressed on matter
as is the case with material forms.34

The separation is from matter and its conditions. The being of actual
intelligibles requires reception in something entirely immaterial, in that
something is received in accordance with the mode of the receiver.The
coming to be of the actual intelligibles requires the sort of agent that can
produce such a product:The agent produces something like itself.Thus,
we have the respective roles of possible and agent intellect.35
Kenny objects to the very notion of “form” as applied to the separate
substances. In doing so, he says that form was introduced in this book,
that is, the De ente et essentia, in relation to the Aristotelian categories:
32 De ente et essentia c. 4 (lines 13–15).
33 Cf. the De ente et essentia contemporary text, Commentary on the Sentences of Peter

Lombard 1.38.1.2. Cf. also SCG 2.82.
34 De ente et essentia c. 4 (lines 11–22):

Cuius demonstratio potissima est ex virtute intelligendi, quae in eis est.
Videmus enim formas non esse intelligibiles in actu nisi secundum quod
separantur a materia et a condicionibus eius, nec efficiuntur intelligibiles
in actu nisi per virtutem substantiae intelligentis, secundum quod recipiuntur in ea et secundum quod aguntur per eam. Unde oportet quod in
qualibet substantia intelligente sit omnino immunitas a materia, ita quod
neque habeat materiam partem sui neque etiam sit sicut forma impressa in
materia ut est de formis materialibus.
35 At p. 26 Kenny says that Aquinas is great on “mind,” but his remarks here on the
roles of agent and possible intellect [“the storehouse of ideas and knowledge
once acquired”] do not suggest he is the best judge.

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substantial forms being what corresponded in reality to true predicates in
the first category, and accidental forms being what corresponded in reality to true predicates in the remaining nine categories. But it is hard to
see how pure form can be explained by reference to predication. (29–30)

This is rather odd.This may have been Kenny’s way of approaching substantial form, but it is clearly not Thomas’s.There is no doubt that the predicational considerations are helpful, but they require supplementation from
more philosophical considerations, such as generation and corruption.
Indeed, substantial form is first actuality relative to matter’s potentiality.
Thus, in the very context,Thomas speaks of form giving being to matter.
When we come to Thomas’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics we are
told that the predicational approach is only a preliminary, and that when
one comes to matter and form, one has introduced the real principles of
things; this is done by the physical route.36 Accordingly, the proper approach
to form is one that gets us into being as divided by act and potency, and it
is no wonder that the term “form” is used according to priority and posteriority, in order to speak of what is substantial in immaterial beings.37
In the De ente et essentia, in fact, c. 2 begins with the statement that
form and matter are known, and gives as example soul and body in man.
Thus, it does not really explain form or soul, but takes it for granted that
36 On the logical and the physical approaches to essence, form, and matter, cf.

Thomas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 7.2 (1286–287); on the general role
of these approaches in metaphysics, cf. Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 7.11
(1535–536), and my aforementioned paper: “St. Thomas, Metaphysics, and
Formal Causality,” 293–304.
37 Thus in his QD de immortalitate animae, obj. 17 and ad 17,Thomas explains how,
even though the human soul is incorruptible, the common definition of soul as
“form of a natural, organized body” is verified.We read:
Ad decimum septimum dicendum, quod sicut supra dictum est (ad
primum), forma non est corruptibilis nisi per accidens. Unde ex hoc quod
anima vegetalis est corruptibilis, non autem rationalis, non sequitur quod
aequivoce dicatur utraque: nec tamen oportet quod omnino univoce, nam
forma et actus et hujusmodi sunt de his, quae analogice praedicantur de diversis. It
is to be said that, as was said above (ad 1), form is not corruptible save
through association. Hence, from the fact that the vegetative soul is
corruptible, but the rational soul is not, it does not follow that they are
called [“form”] equivocally, nor nevertheless need it be altogether univocally: for “form” and “act” and the like are among those items which are analogically predicated of diverse items. [emphasis added]
This work is to be found in Leonard A. Kennedy, “A New Disputed Question
of St.Thomas Aquinas on the Immortality of the Soul,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge, 45 (1978): 205–8 (introduction) and 209–23 (text).

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there is some acquaintance with such a doctrine as one finds in Aristotle’s Physics and De anima.
Kenny tells us:
Forms are forms of the entity which is the subject of predication:
Socrates’s wisdom is what corresponds to the predicate in the sentence
“Socrates is wise,” and Plato’s humanity is what corresponds to the predicate in the sentence “Plato is human.” In the same way, a pure form
would be something that corresponded to a predicate in a sentence that
has no subject; but this seems close to an absurdity.38 What, we wonder,
is the difference between the angelic pure forms that Aquinas accepts and
the Platonic Ideas or Forms that he rejects? (30)

What I wonder is why it does not occur to Kenny that he has got things
wrong somehow. It is very clear in De ente et essentia 4 that we are working with conceptions that pertain to the study of cognitive beings and the
nature of the intellective soul, as presented in Aristotle’s De anima and
commentaries on it. Kenny’s merely predicational approach will not do.
If Kenny really did wonder how Thomas’s subsisting forms differ from
Platonic Ideas, he might have looked at the texts where Thomas explains
this. I have not found him doing so in the book.What is clear in the De
ente et essentia is that it is on the basis of the argument for the human
intellective soul as incorporeal, subsisting and pure form that he develops
a discussion of such beings. It is simple enough to find him explaining his
rejection of the Platonic approach to the existence of separate entity.39
38 This is very odd for a reader of Aristotle, let alone Thomas Aquinas. As we see in

the logical or predicational treatment of a thing and its quiddity, in Metaphysics 7.6
(1031b28–1032a2), and cf. Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 7.5 (1373–375),
the thing, i.e., the subject of predication, and its quiddity, i.e., the predicate, are
identical, not in just any way, but even notionally. A separate entity is excellent for
per se predication, precisely because of the identity of subject and predicate. Cf.
Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 7.11 (1536), concerning pure subsistent forms;
and Aristotle, 7.11 (1037a33–b4).The problem posed by Kenny reminds one of the
objection made to predicating anything of God, in that, as Boethius says, pure form
cannot be a subject: ST I, q. 13, a. 12, obj. 2; as St.Thomas says, the objector has
not taken into consideration the way our minds must approach simple things.
39 Of course, one thinks especially of the relatively late De substantiis separatis c. 2,
where Thomas begins by rejecting the Platonic approach at its very root; nevertheless such texts exist at every stage in Thomas’s career: cf. e.g., In Boeth. De trin.
5.2 and 5.4.The general criticism is best spelled out in ST I, q. 84, a. 1. Nevertheless, one can establish the existence of subsisting form and even of subsisting
esse and goodness, and in that way can see a truth in what Plato held: cf. e.g., ST
I, q. 6, a. 4.

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Thomas, having argued that the intelligence or the soul must be immaterial, explains the doctrine of the Liber de causis, that it is form without
matter, by the argument that since form gives being to matter, form can
exist without matter (since a cause of being can exist without its effect, but
not inversely, and form gives being to matter).Thomas says that if there are
forms that cannot exist without matter, this is not proper to form as form,
but because these forms are remote from the first cause, which is pure act,
that is, pure form.We discussed the meaning of this argument earlier.
Treatment of the “Intellectus essentiae” Argument
It is true that the argument in De ente et essentia 4 for the distinction
between the essence or quiddity of a thing and its esse has occasioned
much argument. It is also true that it is an argument that Thomas used
only in the first Parisian period (indeed, while still a Batchelor of the
Sentences). Is this to say that it is not valid? I do not think so.40
One source of puzzlement is the examples used, man and phoenix. In
parallel texts of the period, sometimes the example is man alone.41 In one
text man is omitted and an eclipse is mentioned along with the phoenix.42
As I read the argument, while it clearly has a background in Avicenna
(and Algazel’s presentation of him), it should be seen as using the doctrine
of Aristotle in Metaphysics 7, chapters 10 and 15.Aristotle teaches that we
can know the definition of man, and yet not know whether the individual man exists.43 Aristotle is speaking of the individual as an individual;
40 Cf. my paper “St. Thomas, Joseph Owens, and the Real Distinction between

Being and Essence,” Modern Schoolman 61 (1984): 145–56.
41 Cf. Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8.4.2, where the argument (as

to why God is not in any genus), whose subtlety Thomas notes, is traced to
Avicenna. Cf. Avicenna, Liber de philosophia prima sive scientia divina, tr. 8, cap. 4 [S.
Van Riet, ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1980), tr.V–X, 404, especially lines 97–100: There,
Avicenna is arguing that the first principle is not in a genus.An objection is made,
contending that the first principle is in the genus of substance: It maintains that
the notion of substance is simply “being, and not in a subject.” Avicenna argues
that this is not the notion of substance.That notion is rather of something having
a quiddity to which not being in a subject belongs. In order to prove the difference between what he is saying and what the objector contends, he continues:
The proof that between the two there is a difference, and that one of them
is a genus and the other not, is this: that concerning the individual
[substance] of some man of whose existence one is ignorant it can be said
that it is that whose being is that it not be in a subject; nor do you say that
he now is and not in a subject. [I translate with the help of the editor’s
supplements from the Arabic.]
42 Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 2.3.1.1.
43 Cf.Aristotle, Metaphysics 7.15 (1039b20–1040a7), and especially 7.10 (1036a2–8).

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in the 7.10 passage, his example is the individual circle, whether physical
or mathematical.
The Intellectus essentiae argument bears on this situation. We have
encountered essence in our experience. Thus, we already know what we
mean by an “essence,” and what its real requirements are; and so we can
formulate the premise that no essence is understandable if one omits a part
of it. This should be something one can appreciate with respect to either
of the two examples Thomas uses, the man and the phoenix. I generally use
the approach of presenting a well-known artifact, the bicycle. We understand the operation and can appreciate what are the essential parts of the
thing that make operation possible. It is this grasp of a thing as a coherent
viable entity that is meant by understanding the essence. We understand
what it would be for it to be missing an essential part. Our conceptions of
artifacts are imitations of our conceptions of natural things. However, there
is this significant difference, that what we mean by an “essence” is tied to
that in a natural thing that is a principle of reproduction.44 We also see that
the sort of thing we are primarily aware of is destructible.Thus, when the
individual is absent, we do not know whether it exists.
While Kenny found the argument odd when the example of the man
was used, obviously because when no one else is present, still we are always
present to ourselves when we are thinking about such things, I see no
difficulty because I take it that the argument is about knowledge of the
essence and knowledge of the existence of the individual, taken as regards
such things. If one’s own humanity gets in the way of making the point,
then by all means substitute elephants. St. Thomas points out elsewhere
that if all lions or horses were eliminated, one could still know their
essences, speaking of knowledge in the mode of “what the thing is.”45
Thus, for me, the more problematic example is the phoenix. I pointed
out in my paper on the Intellectus essentiae argument that it must be taken
as at least a pseudo-essence. Kenny draws from its use, I would say, the
conclusion that the argument must be about the meanings of words, not
about real essence having real definition. I think the real point is that even
44 I would say that it is crucial that our knowledge of essence, as used in the argu-

ment, arises from experience of the reproduction of natural things, and is not
merely based on predicational considerations. Cf.Thomas, Expositio libri Posteriorum 1.37 (ed. Leonine, lines 173–87, Spiazzi no. 330), commenting on Aristotle, 85b15, on the mode of being which pertains to the common nature, in
contrast to the existent individual; on the reality of the form which grounds the
common nature, cf. Expositio libri Posteriorum 2.20 (lines 183–92), concerning
Aristotle at 100a7b.
45 SCG 1.66.5.

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pseudo-essences are based on our prior knowledge of real essence.We do
not have to know, when we deal with the meaning of a substantial name,
whether we are dealing with a real thing or not. We already understand
the general sort of thing our words are meant to signify, and that is
enough.That is why we can raise a question such as “does it exist?” It is
because we already have words like “man,” “stone,” etc., which do not
normally require an investigation to see whether there is such a thing,
that we can raise such a question about some unknowns. The general
situation, with respect to generable and corruptible things, on which our
conceptions and language are based, is that we can know what they are
and not know whether an individual exists in such a nature.
How was the phoenix example used by Algazel? Algazel, presenting a
doctrine concerning the necessary being (that is, God), viz. that it is not
called “a substance,” even though it is existent by itself and not existent
in a subject, uses the phoenix as follows:
For just as they [the philosophers] have agreed that substance is nothing else but that which is a thing whose being is not being in a subject,
that is, that when it will be, it is not in a subject, not that it has in itself
being actually: of which thing let an example for you be the animal
which is called “a phoenix”: it is a substance, without doubt, and nevertheless you are in doubt whether [now] it is or is not; and it is similar
with many other substances.46

Surely it is chosen because it is the sort of thing about which one is not
sure of its existence; yet it is meant to illustrate the case of every substance.
This is obviously a reporting of Avicenna’s doctrine that the meaning of
“substance,” as naming the genus, is that which has a quiddity such that
being per se belongs to it, though the quiddity is other than the being. Such
a meaning of “substance,” he teaches, should not be used concerning the
Necessary Being, who has no quiddity other than being.Algazel, aiming to
show that this is indeed what we think under the name of “substance,” that
46 Algazel, Metaphysica, J. T. Muckle,CSB, ed. (Toronto: St. Michael’s College, 1933),

part I, tract. 2 (ed. cit., 57, lines 25–30):
Sicut enim convenerunt substancia nichil est, nisi id quod res est, cuius esse
non est esse in subiecto, scilicet quod cum fuerit non sit in subiecto, non
quod habeat esse apud se in effectu. Cuius rei tibi sit exemplum animal quod
dicitur fenix quod quidem substancia est sine dubio; tu tamen dubitas si nunc sit
vel non, similiter et multe alie substancie [II, no. 11; 57, lines 25–30]
[In Appendix B, 222, we are told that a variant omits the word “nunc” in the last
line above.]

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is, that we do not include the substance’s being in act in our so thinking,
takes “phoenix” because it is quintessentially a case of knowing what I
mean by “substance,” and yet not knowing whether the thing exists.47
Of course, with an item such as a phoenix it is not really authentic
quidditative knowledge that we have, since we have never encountered
such a thing, and do not know whether there is such a nature at all. But
even when we have encountered a thing and seen that there really is such
a nature, such as a horse, if no horses are in evidence, we do not know
whether there are any (though we may have a solid opinion).
This situation is the fruit of our experience of the beings with which
we live. Accordingly, it is quite in order to argue that since quiddity is a
kind of completeness, if we can know one, we can be sure that what we
do not know about it does not belong to the quiddity, but is a somehow
adventitious associate. And this is true of the existence of that quiddity.48
It is not surprising that Thomas takes this line in De ente et essentia, since
it has already been suggested that the essences of the material things he has
discussed have being in reality only in individuals.49 However, here in
chapter 4 he is no longer aiming to speak of the essences of those kinds of
things. In fact, his argument has satisfied merely for such things, and it is only
by going further that he can make his point about separate substances.
Could not the essences of the separate substances be cases of pure esse?
Accordingly, he now sets out to show that there can only be one case of
pure esse, one ipsum esse subsistens.Thus, he will be able to conclude that the
conclusion he has just reached applies even to the acknowledged multitude
of intelligences that are below the first cause. And he will then go on to
show that they must be caused by that one first cause.
This should be stressed.The Intellectus essentiae argument is not a general
argument that proves the real distinction between essence and esse in all
47 “Phoenix” here is playing a role similar to “centaur” in Aristotle, APo 2.1 (89b33),

Thomas In Post. An. 1.2 (Leonine lines 100–108).
48 If we put the question:“Why does Thomas not continue to use this argument?”

I would suggest that it might be seen as suggesting the idea that the esse of things
is an accident, the point on which Thomas criticizes Avicenna in Commentary on
Aristotle’s Metaphysics 4.2 (556 and 558); instead, he subsequently tends to present the distinction in the light of efficient causality and its implications (cf. e.g.,
SCG 2.52 in general; and cf. ST I, q. 3, a. 7, ad 1). Cf. also my paper “St.Thomas
and the Distinction between Form and Esse in Caused Things,” Gregorianum 80
(1999): 353–70. He also begins to feature the per se relationship between the
thing’s form and its esse: cf. my paper “Saint Thomas, Form, and Incorruptibility,” in Jean-Louis Allard, ed., Être et Savoir (Ottawa: Les Presses de l’Université
d’Ottawa, 1989), 77–90.
49 Cf. De ente et essentia 3 [lines 52–72].

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things other than the first. It only clearly applies to essence as known in
generable and corruptible things.
Kenny says that the phoenix argument does establish something other
than a merely conceptual distinction (36) and that “the doctrine, whether
or not its formulation is confusing, seems to be true and important” (37).
He contends that a thing’s essence and a thing’s existence provide answers
to “questions of totally different kinds” (36). He then says:
The query “is there a real distinction between essence and existence?”
should bring us up short like the question “In three blind mice is there
a distinction between the threeness and the blindness?” (36)

Here, I take it that he means that the predicating of existence about a
thing is not the predication of a real predicate (just as “blindness” names
a mere absence). Thus, Kenny goes on, not to complain about distinguishing essence from existence, but about making existence the essence
in the case of God (37). In so doing, he makes it plain that his recognition of a distinction between essence and existence does not bear upon
the distinction meant by Thomas.Thomas was, of course, thinking of the
actual existence of the human being as some positive actuality such as is
found at the terminus of generation. Form gives being to matter.50
Kenny says:
It is when the doctrine is employed to mark a fundamental difference
between creatures and God that it becomes more difficult to comprehend. For it seems that, in the same way that I can have a concept of
phoenix without knowing whether or not there are phoenixes, so I can
have a concept of God without knowing whether or not there is a God.
Atheists, after all, have a concept of God; otherwise they wouldn’t know
what it was they were denying when they deny that God exists. (37)

Kenny goes right on to say that “this, no doubt, is too crude a way of
disposing of St. Thomas’s celebrated thesis.” Why say it, then? Is it a bad
and misleading point, or does it have some truth in it?
50 As we read in SCG 1.26:

Generation, speaking precisely, is the road to being [esse], and corruption
the road to not being [non esse]: for form would not be the terminus of
generation, and privation [the terminus] of corruption, were it not that
form brings about being and privation not being; for, given that some
form did not bring about being, what received such a form would not be
said to be generated.
Cf. also SCG 2.52, a perfect text which associates esse with both the terminus of
generation and what is proper to the efficient cause as such.

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In fact, it is a point on which Thomas himself insists when teaching that
the existence of a God is not self-evident for the human mind. In other
words, such meanings of the word “a God” as are actually used in the proof
of the existence of a God have exactly the same status as “phoenix,” as far
as St. Thomas is concerned. Whether the meaning is “first origin of
change, which is changed by nothing” or “something than which a greater
cannot be thought,” or even “something in which essence and existence
are identical,”51 a thoroughgoing understanding of what is said does not,
in itself, require affirmation that that thing exists. Thus, Kenny’s point is
not merely “crude.” Mentioning it in the way he has is grossly misleading.
In fact, he could only say what he says by ignoring the importance of the
last line of Thomas’s argument:“unless perhaps there is some thing whose
quiddity is its very own being; and this thing can only be one and first,”52
that is, he is about to undertake to prove that such a thing exists.
Or should we speak of it as the “last” line? In fact, what Thomas has
set out to prove is that in beings, which are forms subsisting without
matter, other than God, there is a composition out of form and esse. At
the present point in his argument, he has brought forward beings that are
composites of quiddity and esse, yet there is apparently still room for a
being to be its own esse; only by showing that such a being can only be
one and first can he conclude that the multitude of intelligences, spoken
of by the philosophers, must be composites of form and esse.
Treatment of the One-Only Status of Ipsum esse subsistens
In any case, Kenny proposes to follow the steps by which Thomas establishes that in God essence and esse are identical. He first comes to the
contention of Thomas that a thing in which essence and esse are identical
would necessarily be one only. (This will serve as the key premise for concluding that the intelligences, whose multiplicity is taken for granted, fall under
the judgment of the just seen Intellectus essentiae argument.) We have the
passage in which the modes of multiplication of something are examined:
unless perhaps there be some thing whose quiddity is its very esse; and this
thing can only be one and first; because it is impossible that multiplication
51 Of course, assuming the proper stance of supernatural faith, which looks at things

from God’s own point of view, one can say, with the sed contra of ST I, q. 2, a. 3:
Sed contra est quod dicitur Exodi III, ex persona dei, ego sum qui sum. [But on the
contrary, there is what is said in Exodus 3 [14], [speaking] in the very person of
God: I am Who Am.], i.e., God so truly exists that his very name is “I am.” Cf.
ST I, q. 13, a. 11 (the first argument in the body of the article).
52 De ente et essentia c. 4 (lines 103–5).

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of something be effected save through the addition of some difference,
the way the generic nature is multiplied in species; or else by the fact
that the form is received in diverse matters, the way the specific nature
is multiplied in diverse individuals; or else by the fact that one is all by
itself and another is received in something, the way that, if there were
a separate heat, it would be other than non-separate heat by virtue of
its very separation.
Now, if some thing be posited which is esse alone, such that esse itself
be subsisting, this esse will not receive the addition of any difference, for
then it would not be esse alone, but rather esse and besides that some
[particular] form; and much less could it receive the addition of matter,
for then it would not be subsisting esse, but rather material [esse]. It
remains, then, that such a thing which is its esse, can only be one.53

Kenny uses a variant reading that speaks of a separate “color” [Latin: color]
rather than a separate “heat” [Latin: calor]. He says he does this only “to
facilitate discussion in translation,” and that the variation does not affect the
argument. However, he then gets into discussions of “the color of the sky”
as a modern example of “a color that is not the color of anything.” He says:
The blue of the sky is not the property of any substance: yet it is a
distinct entity from the blue of this thrush’s egg, even if it is exactly the
same shade. So we can, for the time being at any rate, accept Aquinas’s
schema of three types of multiplicity. (38)

Now, I am sure that Thomas would not accept the example.The point is
that even the blue of the sky is taken as extended.Thus, for Thomas, it is
a quality received in a quantitative base. Such a base provides multiplication.The blue of one part of the sky is distinct from the blue of another
part of the sky. Kenny has not understood Thomas’s hypothetical exam53 Ibid., c. 4 (lines 103–21):

nisi forte sit aliqua res, cuius quiditas sit ipsum suum esse; et haec res non
potest esse nisi una et prima, quia impossibile est, ut fiat plurificatio alicuius
nisi per additionem alicuius differentiae, sicut multiplicatur natura generis
in species, vel per hoc quod forma recipitur in diversis materiis, sicut multiplicatur natura speciei in diversis individuis, vel per hoc quod unum est
absolutum et aliud in aliquo receptum, sicut si esset quidam calor separatus, esset alius a calore non separato ex ipsa sua separatione. Si autem
ponatur aliqua res, quae sit esse tantum, ita ut ipsum esse sit subsistens, hoc
esse non recipiet additionem differentiae, quia iam non esset esse tantum, sed
esse et praeter hoc forma aliqua; et multo minus reciperet additionem materiae, quia iam esset esse non subsistens sed materiale. Unde relinquitur quod
talis res, quae sit suum esse, non potest esse nisi una.

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ple, and so his understanding of the third mode of multiplication is
skewed from the start.
Thus, when Kenny reads the rest of the argument, applying the modes
of multiplication to the case of esse subsistens, he cannot understand the
result. Kenny rightly says that the third case of multiplication will make
possible that there be created and uncreated being. He says that if one
asks:“More than one what?” the answer will be “ens,” which he translates
as “being” (that is,“that which is”).This is accurate inasmuch as what we
are attempting to multiply are the instances of esse, the act of being; and
“ens” signifies “esse habens.” Thus, the point is: If esse must be multiplied
on the “all by itself ” (on the one hand) and “in a receiver” (on the other
hand) model, then obviously there can only be one ipsum esse subsistens.
(Ipsum esse subsistens is “esse habens,” we may concede, with the proviso
that God is whatever he has.)54
However, Kenny has misunderstood the application to the third sort
of multiplication, as we see in his complaint:
[I]n the first premise the third kind of multiplicity came about because
one of the items to be counted was an instance of a property in the
abstract, belonging to nothing.55 In the application to esse, the first item
to be counted is not at all abstract; it is not esse with no owner, but esse
identical with its owner. So the parallel with color, however charitably
interpreted, does not provide the parallel that is needed for Aquinas’s
conclusion. (39)

Now, this is quite wrong. In the first premise, what is posited in the third
case is merely an item taken all by itself.The example is a “separate heat”
(or, if one will, a “separate color”).That is not supposed to be something
“abstract” at all, if by “abstract” one is speaking of the abstraction proper
to the first act of the intellect.56 Rather, we are speaking of an actually
existing separate heat or color. One sees such a hypothetical entity
discussed in one of Thomas’s early quodlibets:
[B]y a miracle, therefore, it could be brought about that the nature of
whiteness subsist without any quantity ; nevertheless, that whiteness would

54 Cf. SCG 1.23. So also, in ST I, q. 2, a. 3 (the Fourth Way), God is “maxime ens.”
55 Does Kenny thus mean that the blue of the sky is an abstraction?
56 On the two senses of “abstract,” as pertaining to the first (“absolute considera-

tion”) or the second operation (“composing and dividing”) of the intellect, cf.
ST I, q. 85, a. 1, ad 1.

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not be like this sensible whiteness; rather, it would be a particular intelligible form, along the lines of the separate forms that Plato posited.57

This is the sort of thought experiment Thomas is proposing. In the
quodlibet it is indeed compared to a Platonic separate form, but it is also
proposed on the basis of a miracle whereby God bypasses secondary
causes, such as the quantity which naturally is the immediate subject of
color. It should also be noted that it is not the same thing as proposing
that there exist the Platonic idea of a material substance: that is the sort
of Platonic Idea that Thomas holds is intrinsically impossible.58 As the
quodlibetal discussion makes plain,Thomas gives careful consideration to
questions of intrinsic impossibility, especially in that he is in the context
of the possibility of miracles.
Thus, Kenny’s contention that the argument of Thomas is invalid is
wrong. As I have argued elsewhere, the argument for there being only
one ipsum esse subsistens works only if “esse” names something known as
intrinsically common, after the manner of a form. It is of this sort of thing
that Thomas is providing a list of modes of multiplication: A generically
common nature such as “animal” must have added to it some particular
form, such as “rational” or “irrational,” and thus one would seem to have
the common esse plus form.59 A specifically common nature such as
57 Quodl. 7.4.3, emphasis added:

Posset ergo fieri miraculo ut natura albedinis subsisteret absque omni quantitate;
tamen illa albedo non esset sicut haec albedo sensibilis, sed esset quaedam
forma intelligibilis ad modum formarum separatarum, quas Plato posuit.
58 Cf. Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 7.11 (1535–536) and 7.9 (1469–470);
also De veritate 3.1, ad 4. It is still another point that, if per impossibile there were
many Platonic Ideas, they would have to be composed of essence and esse.
Thomas makes this point in lect. 2 of his In De Hebdomadibus. At p. 80, in
concluding his extremely inadequate discussion of Thomas’s In DH, Kenny
makes the complaint: “what are those of us who are not Platonists to make of
the notion of subsistent immaterial forms?” He completely omits reference to
the fact that Thomas there explicitly says:
it makes no difference, on this score, if we posit those immaterial forms at a
higher level than are the natures of these sensible things, as Aristotle maintained: each of them, inasmuch as it is distinguished from the others, is some
special form participating in being itself [ipsum esse]; and so none of them will
be truly simple. [nihil differt quantum ad hoc, si ponamus illas formas immateriales altioris gradus quam sint rationes horum sensibilium, ut Aristoteles
voluit: unaquaeque illarum, inquantum distinguitur ab alia, quaedam specialis
forma est participans ipsum esse; et sic nulla earum erit vere simplex.]
59 That the logical considerations such as genus and species require the backing of the
real distinction between form and matter I also discuss in my paper “St. Thomas,

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“man” must be multiplied by material individuals, such as “Peter” and
“Paul,” and thus, if esse were so multiplied, it would be esse in the material mode.The last possibility of retaining a subsisting esse and yet multiplying esse is to have a subsisting esse, on the one hand, and esse received
in something other than esse, on the other.All of this supposes that “esse”
names something that is somehow common to all.
Now, this is already a point that separates Thomas from Kenny.Thomas
is thinking of the sort of act or perfection that the things we most immediately know have by virtue of an efficient cause. An efficient cause has
esse and it communicates esse when it produces its effect.60 Indeed, as
Thomas implied at the beginning of De ente et essentia, the esse of the
cause is more noble that the esse of the effect (the esse of separate
substance is more noble than the esse of material substance).To a hierarchy of essences there corresponds a hierarchy of acts of being. Let us
repeat the passage from the beginning of De ente et essentia:
[O]f substances, some are simple and some are composite, and in both
there is essentia; but in the simple in a truer and more noble degree,
inasmuch as they also they have more noble esse; for they are the cause
of those which are composite, at least [this is true of] the first simple
substance which is God.61

I would say we need everything that Thomas deploys in such a text:
causal hierarchy, hierarchy of esse, hierarchy of essence. A causal hierarchy
is understood in terms of grades of natures. And a hierarchy of esse is an
integral part of the same picture.
Kenny is working with an idea of “esse” as merely expressing our
awareness that an item is found outside of thought.Trees “exist” and God
“exists” and blindness “exists”; thus, not a predicate expressing a formal
reality in the thing.

Joseph Owens, and the Real Distinction between Being and Essence,” Modern
Schoolman 61 (1984): 145–56.
60 Cf. SCG 2.52: “Since every agent activates [agat] inasmuch as it is in act, therefore it belongs to the first agent, which is most perfect, to be in act in the most
perfect way. . . . Now, the most perfect act [ipse actus perfectissimus] . . . is esse, at
which all generation and all change has its terminus: for every form and every
act is in potency until it acquires esse.Therefore, to God alone does it belong that
he be being itself [ipsum esse] : just as [to him] alone does it belong that he be the
first agent.”
61 De ente et essentia c. 1 (lines 58–63), emphasis added.

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Ipsum Esse Subsistens Must Exist and Be Causally First,
Since an Efficient Cause Is Needed for All Else
Kenny already mentions his question as to whether “ipsum esse subsistens,”
the subsisting act of being, expresses a coherent notion (40).And we immediately think: No wonder!—given what he means by “esse.” However, he
proposes to put that issue off until after examining the argument for saying
that Ipsum esse subsistens must be first causally. (The argument is not just for
the causal primacy of Ipsum esse subsistens; it is primarily an argument for
the existence of Ipsum esse subsistens.)62 Kenny looks through the argument,
and notes that “esse” here must mean “existence.” He says that it depends
on the point that nothing can be the efficient cause of its own existence,
but he adds in parentheses that the Intellectus essentiae phoenix argument
“implied that nothing could be the formal cause of its own existence.”63
Here again, Kenny is in error.The phoenix argument merely implies that
if the phoenix is to exist, its essence cannot be the efficient cause of its existence. A formal causality on the part of the essence is quite conceivable if
the thing depends on an outside efficient cause. Thus, as we saw, Thomas
teaches in the De veritate:
God causes in us natural esse by creation, without the mediation of any
efficient cause, but nevertheless through the mediation of a formal
cause: because natural form is the principle of natural esse.64

Thus, God being the efficient cause, formal causality can be seen as the
role of form vis-à-vis the thing as a whole. Kenny should have said that
the phoenix argument implies the need for the phoenix, if it is to exist,
to have an efficient cause.65
The Coherence of Ipsum Esse Subsistens
It is at this point that Kenny begins his discussion of the coherence of the
notion of Ipsum esse subsistens. He has not really questioned the validity of
62 I agree with Joseph Owens here, against Gilson, that there is a proof of the exis-

tence of Ipsum Esse Subsistens in De ente et essentia; cf, my paper “St.Thomas and
the Existence of God: Owens vs Gilson, and Beyond,” in God and Argument,
William Sweet, ed. (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1999), 115–41.
63 Page 41. Could Kenny mean, here, that there could never be absolute identity
between the formal cause and its effect? Thomas would not agree with that, as
we see in ST I, q. 39, a. 2, ad 5.
64 St.Thomas, De veritate 27.1.ad 3 (ed. Leonine, t. 22/3, lines 182–86).
65 I take it that it is the generability and corruptibility of the things we most readily know that is at once the evidence that they need an efficient cause and the
reason why we do not know whether they exist when they are absent.

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the argument of the need for a God. He rather questions the possibility of
conceiving of the God it proves as Ipsum esse subsistens.“There seems to be
an absurdity in saying of anything that its essence is pure existence” (41).
One cannot reasonably say:“There is a God, that’s what God is.”
Now, of course, so put, the point holds. But should it be put that way?
Do we not have ample answer in Thomas’s writings as to why it should
not be put that way? The statement: “There is a God” is the normal
expression of the conclusion of a human argument answer to the “does
X exist?” question.66 On the other hand, suppose that we prove that there
exists a first efficient cause, and we say that that is what we mean by “a
God.” Obviously such a being is going to have to have an essence and an
act of being. It turns out by subsequent argument that they must be identical. We in fact conclude that such an essence is beyond our comprehension. As for existence itself to be the essence of something, while we
can see that the proposition is necessarily true, we cannot comprehend
such an act of being, such an “existence.” Thus, we say that both God’s
essence and his existence are beyond our mode of knowing. Of this, we
are sure, just as we are sure that they are identical.We can even draw the
conclusion that this is the highest mode of identity.67
As for “there is a God,” if one wishes to envisage God himself considering his own existence, then the same act by which he grasped it would

66 Of course, it would also be the expression of a human conviction by someone

saying that no argument is needed by the human being in this matter. I have
heard Peter Van Inwagen take such a stand.
67 This is well explained in both SCG 1.12 and ST I, q. 3, a. 4, ad 2, both extremely
prominent texts. SCG 4.11 is a passage from St.Thomas that shows the ineluctable
variety of intelligible roles of the various items in the metaphysical analysis:
it has been shown in the First Book (ch. 31) that those things which in
creatures are divided are unqualifiedly one in God: thus, for example, in
the creature essence and being [esse] are other; and in some [creatures] that
which subsists in its own essence is also other than its essence or nature: for
this man is neither his own humanity nor his being [esse]; but God is his
essence and his being.
And though these in God are one in the truest way, nevertheless in God
there is whatever pertains to the intelligible role [ratio] of [1] the subsisting thing, or of [2] the essence, or of [3] the being [esse] ; for it belongs to
him not to be in another, inasmuch as he is subsisting; to be a what [esse
quid], inasmuch as he is essence; and being in act [esse in actu], by reason of
being itself [ipsius esse].
On the highest mode of identity, cf. ST I, q. 11, a. 4, and ad 3.

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be the act by which he grasps what he is. But we cannot really “tune in”
on that, at least in the present life.68 As Thomas says:
to know being itself subsisting [ipsum esse subsistens] is connatural to the
divine intellect alone, and . . . it is beyond the natural power of any
created intellect whatsoever.69

Kenny presents his case as one already made by Peter Geach. Kenny says
that he believes it “is effective in disposing of the notion of subsistent
existence” (41). In what follows, then, he is merely seeking alternative
ways of understanding “that God is his own esse,” ways that “do not
involve the nonsensicality just exposed.”
My contention is that no nonsensicality has been exposed—merely
the inability of Kenny and Geach70 to cope with the real doctrine of the
text. When one considers the centrality of this point for the entire
doctrine of being of St.Thomas, it gives one pause.
We need not follow out Kenny’s effort to offer an alternative
doctrine.71 He eventually contends that to say that God’s essence is existence sounds like saying that one knows what the essence of God is. It
would “sound more respectful, as well as more plausible” (45) to say that
his essence entails existence. This again is quite misleading. As Kenny
must know,Thomas affirms that we know neither what God’s essence is
nor what his existence is. That is part of the same doctrine that his
essence is his existence.72
Kenny suggests reducing the doctrine to “for God to exist is for God
to continue to be God,” but then observes that this applies to anything.
What then happens to the distinction between essence and esse in creatures? Quite so. The real doctrine is that God is Ipsum esse subsistens.
Kenny has simply failed to grasp it. He has failed to consider esse as we
know it: the perfection of the efficient cause and of its effect.73
68 On the question whether Paul in his rapture saw the divine essence and whether

he was in his body, cf. ST II–II, q. 175, a. 1, and 5.
69 ST I, q. 12, a. 4:

cognoscere ipsum esse subsistens, sit connaturale soli intellectui divino, et
quod sit supra facultatem naturalem cuiuslibet intellectus creati.
70 Supposing that Kenny has understood him.
71 We should note the Kretzmann link concerning IES as “thin,” and the absurd
contention on Kretzmann’s part that Thomas “prefers” “God being his own
existence.”
72 ST I, q. 3, a. 4, ad 2.
73 An excellent place to see this as the approach to esse is Quaestiones de quolibet
12.4.1 [6], in Leonine ed., t. 25–2 (Rome/Paris: Commissio Leonina/Cerf,

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Did Thomas Posit Essences of Non-Existent Beings?
Kenny, in puzzling over the doctrine that God’s essence is identical with
his existence, is led, at page 45, to wonder about the doctrine of the real
distinction between them as applied to dogs.We read:
Can we say that Fido’s essence and Fido’s existence are distinct? If a real
distinction between A and B means that we can have one without the
other, then it seems that the answer must be in the negative. For a dog
to continue to exist is simply for it to go on being a dog, and for a
human being to continue to exist is for it to go on possessing its human
nature or essence. . . . But would Aquinas agree with the statements we
have just made? (45)

Thomas would certainly agree with Kenny’s statement about a dog
continuing to exist and continuing to be a dog; and so also for the case
of man.74 This is to say, as we said earlier, against Kenny, that esse quid and
esse simpliciter are identical.What Thomas would not agree with is Kenny’s
premise that “a real distinction between A and B means that we can have
one without the other.”75 Anyone thinking that would clearly rightly go
on to conclude that essence and existence cannot ever be really distinct.76
However, anyone thinking that would not have arrived at the sort of
ontological analysis one finds in Thomas Aquinas. By a “real” distinction,
here, we do not mean one such that each (or even one) of its members
is a thing, a subsistent being, or in Latin, a “res.” Rather, we mean that
the distinction is one to be found within the thing and not merely within
our minds considering the thing (a mere “distinction of reason”). Thus,
the distinction is called real, that is, pertaining to things themselves. It was
not said, in presenting the distinction between a thing’s essence and its act
1996), 403–4. See my paper “St.Thomas and the Distinction between Form and
Esse in Caused Things,” Gregorianum 80 (1999): 353–70.
74 So true is this that, as Thomas teaches, when a man dies, even though the soul is
immortal, the individual man does not exist; the person does not exist:The ceasing to exist of the complete nature is the ceasing to exist of the person. Cf. e.g.,
Charles De Koninck,“La personne humaine et la résurrection [part 1],” LTP 10
(1954).
75 Thus, though we say that God is the subsisting act of being, we do not say that
he is existence without essence; we rather say that in him the two are identical.
In fact, as we have noted, at the very outset of the De ente et essentia, Thomas
makes it clear that essence and esse are both found most truly of all in God.
76 Indeed, this is a classical wrong-headed argument against the real distinction
between essence and existence; cf. for example, the attempts to argue against it
by Peter Aureol, which I present in my paper “St.Thomas, Capreolus, and Entitative Composition,” Divus Thomas 80 (1977): 355–75.

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of being, its esse, in De ente et essentia, that I can have a real phoenix or
man, and not have that thing’s actual existence. The distinction was not
proposed on the basis of having the one reality without the other reality.
The argument was rather based on the discerning of distinct targets of
intelligible necessity within the thing. One may object to such a procedure as such, but one should at least recognize that it was that which was
at stake.77
Does that procedure reduce ultimately to finding one of the items
without the other? How is essence as completeness discerned, and how
does its discernment stand with respect to the existence of individuals?
Essence, or its principle, namely form, is seen as that in generable and
corruptible individuals whereby the individual maintains itself in being
and causes the reproduction of something similar, that is, another selfmaintaining and reproducing individual. It is on the basis of the success
in carrying out such operations that we form the conception of the
essence, and what it is for the individual to be “all there.” All of this is
recognized even though we also see the perishability of the individual.
We thus see what it is to be an essence, and that it is something with a
completeness that constitutes its intelligibility: As such, it “makes sense”
(like seeing that a bicycle without one of its wheels needs that other
wheel). However, the essence is seen to exist only in the “larger context”
of the perishable individual: Existence is the actuality of the whole individual. It is, indeed, the fact that one distinguishes the essence from the
existence only inasmuch as one appreciates the thing’s need for outside
help in order to exist. The essence is a principle of existence, but in a
generable and corruptible thing it is obviously an inadequate principle of
existence:The thing only comes to be through something prior, which is
an efficient cause, and one even needs the contribution of outside efficient causes to maintain the thing in existence. All this I would maintain
is wrapped up in the experience that I can know what a man is, and not
know that this or that man exists. One can very well say that the real
distinction of essence and existence within the thing is grounded in the

77 No one who had given the least consideration to the argument regularly used

by Thomas to establish the incorruptibility of the rational soul could think that
a real distinction implies that one can have one of the components without the
other; on the one hand, the form is other than the act of being; on the other
hand, the form and the act of being are inseparable: cf. ST I, q. 50, a. 2, ad 3, and
I, q. 50, a. 5; I, q. 75, a. 5, ad 4, and I, q. 75, a. 6, and my paper “Saint Thomas,
Form, and Incorruptibility,” in Jean-Louis Allard, ed., Être et Savoir (Ottawa: Les
Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1989), 77–90.

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real distinction between the efficient cause and its effect, and there,
indeed, the one can be without the other.78
Kenny has quite another reason for suggesting that Thomas might not
agree with what he has just said. Here Kenny becomes a master of suspicion. He tells us that Avicenna, whose influence is apparent in Thomas’s De
ente et essentia,
may perhaps have believed that there were individual essences of nonexistent beings; that long before Adam and Eve were created there were
already such things as the essence of Adam and the essence of Eve, and
that the creation of Adam and Eve consisted precisely in God giving
existence to these essences, actualizing these potentialities.This was an
error which Aquinas, later in life, would explicitly reject as mistaken;
but it is not clear whether at this stage he had seen through its confusions. Someone who thinks in this way will regard the relation of existence to essence as being exactly parallel to that of form to matter or
accident to substance—all three cases will be in the same way instances
of the actualization of a potentiality. And that is indeed how Aquinas
speaks in this context. (45–46, emphasis added)

Leaving Avicenna aside,79 it is easily seen that in the period when
Thomas wrote the De ente et essentia, he was quite clear concerning the
ontology of creation as it touches the remarks of Kenny. Kenny is clearly
referring to a preexistent passive potency. However, in the Sentences presentation of creation we read:
78 Cf. my paper “St.Thomas and the Distinction between Form and Esse in Caused

Things,” Gregorianum 80 (1999): 353–70. In the above I have limited myself to
speaking about essence as the other member of the composite; eventually one
must speak of the matter-form composition of such essence. In that discussion it
is clear that the essence itself is a real composite, one of whose members does
survive the ceasing to be of the composite; the matter remains, though this is
only possible inasmuch as it is under another form. As we have said, the matter
is not, in itself, the subject of the act of being.
79 I leave him aside only for simplicity. Thomas, as we see, refers to Avicenna in
making the very point we are about to show.While I have myself often seen this
claim of Avicenna proposing essences as possibles, which are “out there,” so to
speak, awaiting actual existence, I notice that as anti-Avicennian a Thomist as
Beatrice Zedler, following A. Forest, says: “in Avicenna the possibles are offered
eternally to the divine action because they are not constituted as such by his will.
God necessarily thinks his own nature; his liberality is only his acquiescing to this
universal order of things that he does not constitute.” Cf. my paper:“St.Thomas
and the Possibles,” New Scholasticism 53 (1979): 76–85, at p. 76. In that picture,
the possibles would have more the role of active potency in God than passive
potency awaiting the coming of existence. The difference from Thomas would
be rather in the conception of God and his freedom with respect to his ideas.

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[A]ccording to Avicenna there are two sorts of agent: the one natural,
which is an agent by means of change, and the other divine, which [is
an agent as] giving being [esse], as has been said. And similarly it is
necessary to recognize two sorts of product of action or of making: one
is through change [effected] by the natural agent: and in the case of all
such making it is necessary that a potency precede temporally, and not
merely an active potency, but also a passive [potency]: because change is
the actuality of what exists in potency. But there is another [sort of]
made item, inasmuch as it receives being from the divine agent without [there being involved any] change: and if this made item is new,
then it is necessary that an active, not a passive, potency precede, as to
both nature and duration, its esse: and from the active potency such a
made item is said to be “possible with respect to being made.” But if it
is not new, then the active potency does not precede durationally, but
only by nature.80

There is, of course, throughout Thomas’s career, the doctrine that every
nature pre-exists in the potency of the divine nature and in the divine
ideas (and also an infinity of natures that never will exist in their own
being outside the divine essence).81
Thus, it is clear that Thomas already rejects the sort of pre-existing
potential essence that Kenny conjured.82 However, since the entire basis
for the Kenny suspicion seems to be Thomas’s use of the word “receive”
to describe the relation between the essence of the creature and its esse,83
80 Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 2.1.1.2, ad 1.The distinction within

this text between newness of the product of creative causality and non-newness
is simply the distinction between a doctrine of the production of an eternal creature and that of a creature with a beginning of duration.
81 At Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.36.2.3, ad. 3 and ad. 2, we see
that particulars (“Peter,” “Martin”) have divine ideas, but not as perfectly as do
the composites in function of the form: “man,” “horse.”
82 And so, as Thomas reads him, does Avicenna.
83 Kenny continues the passage I quoted from pp. 45–46, illustrating Thomas’s way
of speaking with the following text:
Everything which receives something from another is in potency with
respect to that, and the item which is received in it is its act.Therefore, it is
necessary that the quiddity itself or form, which is the intelligence, be in
potency with respect to esse, which it receives from God, and that received
esse has the role of act. And thus one finds potency and act in the intelligences, though not matter and form, save equivocally. Hence, it is clear that
“to be affected by,”“to receive,”“to be subjected” and all like [expressions],
which seem to belong to things by reason of matter, belong equivocally to
intellectual substances and to corporeal things, as the Commentator says
in De anima 3. And because, as has been said, the quiddity of the intelligence is the intelligence itself, therefore its quiddity or essence is the very

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we should note the following passage from very early in Thomas’s Sentences,
speaking of the ontology of angels (and the human soul):
But if it is not esse itself, it is necessary that it have esse acquired from
another, which is the case for every created quiddity. And because this
quiddity is posited not to subsist in matter, esse would not be acquired
for it in another, as with composite quiddities; rather, it will be acquired
for it in itself; and thus the quiddity itself will be the thing which is,
and its own very being will be that in function of which it is. And
because everything that does not have something from itself is possible with
respect to that, this sort of quiddity, since it has esse from another, will be
possible with respect to that esse, and with respect to that from which
it has esse, in which no potency is to be found; and thus in such a quiddity potency and act will be found, according as the quiddity itself is
possible and its esse is its act. And in this way I understand a composition of potency and act in angels, and of “by which it is” and “that
which is”; and similarly with the soul.84

Thomas here uses a slightly more vague “acquire” rather than “receive,”
but the reason I cite this text is the doctrine of “having” and “not from
itself,” which are the ontological grounds of the use of such words as
“acquire” and “receive” in this context. No pre-existence of the essence
is envisaged in such usage. Kenny is a victim of failure to abstract from
matter and change.
This failure on Kenny’s part is important. On its basis, he conjures a
change in Thomas’s doctrine, as we move from the De ente et essentia to
such later texts as he mentions on page 116. Kenny stresses that later in
life Thomas insisted against Avicenna
that there can be no individuation without actualization (only what
actually exists can be identified, individuated, counted). But once this
is made clear, then the real distinction between essence and existence
appears unintelligible, or at best vacuous. (46)
thing which is, and its esse, received from God, is that by virtue of which it
subsists in natural reality. And for that reason such substances are said by
some people to be composed out of that by which it is and that which is,
or out of that which is and being, as Boethius says. [emphasis added]
The translation of the passage is my own, as are the stresses. Kenny in fact quotes
only to just before the words “save equivocally.” Thomas himself goes on to note that
the word “receive” here is not to be taken in the way that matter receives form.
Kenny should have noted this, instead of proposing an exact parallel between
essence/existence and matter/form as Thomas’s thinking.
84 Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8.5.2.

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Here he refers us to page 116, but there we find Kenny finding no trace
of a doctrine we have found he merely dreamt up here on page 46.
Kenny’s Aquinas is far from the real Aquinas.
He has exhibited so far no understanding of the real distinction, so it
is understandable that he calls it “unintelligible.” His conception of a
necessary separability of one from the other of essence and existence for
the distinction to be real is mistaken.85
What does he mean by “no individuation without actualization” as
constituting the change in doctrine? He imagines Avicenna as positing
preexistent possibles that are individuals. (This comes out more clearly on
page 90, where, in connection with the conception of generables and
corruptibles as in themselves possibles with respect to being and not
being, and needing a cause in order to be actually, Kenny posits as the
generable and corruptible being being discussed “my dog Stigger.”) Thus,
in note 13, page 89, he says that there is no need to discuss merely possible individuals in presenting Thomas (presumably because of what he
finds later, at page 116). All of this I find rather odd, since obviously
Thomas has a doctrine of the preexistence of the individual in the divine
ideas, just as Avicenna had a doctrine of the preexistence of things in the
divine being.Thus, at ST I, q. 15, a. 3, and ad 4, it is clear that there are
ideas, in the sense of exemplars, in God of all individuals that are created.
Taken as merely in the power and cognition of God, they are possible
individuals.The possibility is quite definite and real.
The question is why Kenny thinks that the doctrine of De ente et essentia on the distinction between essence and existence involves the preexistence of individuals as possibles. Is it merely the word “receive”? It
would seem so, since it was on the basis of this mistake that Kenny saw
the supposed exact parallelism between matter and form, essence and
existence. Both of course pertain to the analogy of potency and act, but
the parallel is not “exact” in the Kenny sense. Kenny thinks that a real
distinction means that one can have one without the other. That this is
not the case with essence and existence should be clear.
85 As I have said, we see the unsuitability of Kenny’s conception of the essence-

existence composition from the way that Thomas argues for the incorruptibility
of the human soul. In his Quaestiones Disputatae de immortalitate animae, ad 5, he
distinguishes carefully between matter-form composition and form-esse composition. Esse and form are distinct but inseparable. Moreover, as I have shown in my
paper on this, the argument actually derives from the much-maligned (in this
respect) Avicenna. I date this text around the beginning of Thomas’s first teaching in Italy. For the Avicennian background, cf. my paper “Saint Thomas, Form,
and Incorruptibility,” in Jean-Louis Allard, ed., Être et Savoir (Ottawa: Les Presses
de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1989), 77–90, at p. 87 and n. 37.

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One can understand the desire to have a text which makes it clear that
the composition out of essence and esse, a potency and act composition,
involves no pre-existence outside of God of the potency in question.And
it is entirely possible that one will find such a text later that was merely
presupposed earlier.Thus, I certainly value such a text as QD de anima 6.
ad 10: The topic is whether the human soul is composed out of matter
and form.The tenth objection runs:
Besides, an agent is necessary for this, viz. that it reduce something from
potency to act. But to be reduced from potency to act belongs solely
to those things in which there is matter and form. If, therefore, the soul
is not composed out of matter and form, it does not need an efficient
cause: which is clearly false.

And the reply is:
[I]t is to be said that a thing acting by virtue of change reduces something from potency to act; but a thing acting without change does not
reduce something from potency to act, but rather it makes to be in act
that which according to [its own] nature is in potency with respect to
being [esse], and this sort of agent is creating.86

However, attentive reading of the earlier texts, such as that I have indicated from Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8.5.2, gives the
same understanding.
It is remarkable that Kenny ignores the end of the chapter, in which
we have the conception of the hierarchy of separate entity, a hierarchy in
terms of act and potency and proximity to the first cause, together with
the grades of esse and form, right down to the mere perfecting of primary
matter by the most material of forms. Investigating this would have
suggested more readily the meaning of “esse” as the effect of the highest
efficient cause on lower things through efficient causality and form.The
86 QD de anima 6.obj. 10:

Praeterea, agens ad hoc necessarium est ut reducat aliquid de potentia in
actum. Sed reduci de potentia in actum competit solum illis in quibus est
materia et forma. Si igitur anima non sit composita ex materia et forma
non indiget causa agente; quod patet esse falsum.
And the ad 10:
Ad decimum dicendum quod agens per motum reducit aliquid de potentia in actum; agens autem sine motu non reducit aliquid de potentia in
actum, sed facit esse actu quod secundum naturam est in potentia ad esse,
et huiusmodi agens est creans.

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creator uses form as his instrument in giving being to things. This is
hardly a part of the doctrine of being to be neglected.
God Is Not in a Genus
Kenny does consider what is said of God in the next chapter. He says that
Thomas, in reporting that there are philosophers who have said that God
has no essence, is saying that “this is correct if all it means is that he does
not have an essence that is distinct from his esse” (46). In fact Thomas says
nothing about their being “correct.” He simply reports what leads some
people to make such a statement. I think it is a good moment to repeat
that at the very outset of De ente et essentia Thomas taught that essence is
found most truly and nobly in God (just as esse is so found there).87
Kenny devotes only one sentence to the point that God is not in a
genus. Oddly, he even provides a different argument than the one found
in the text he is reading, mentioning Thomas’s argument only in a footnote. Kenny in his main text says:“God does not fall under any genus; no
doubt God and creatures are both beings, but ‘being’ does not denote a
genus” (46–47). Here Kenny is touching upon the second of three arguments given in the ST I, q. 3, a. 5.88 However, the argument that Thomas
uses here in the De ente et essentia and that is still given as third argument
in the same ST article (and in fact comes first and second in the Summa
contra Gentiles) he finds “puzzling.”89
The actual text of Thomas runs:
And from this [viz. the fact that God’s essence is his very own esse] it
follows that he is not in a genus, since the quiddity or nature of a genus or
species is not distinguished in function of the intelligibility of the nature in those
things whose genus or species it is, whereas esse is diverse in diverse things.90

Kenny quotes in a footnote only the part of the text I have blackened. His
comment, in the footnote, is this: “But surely two different species of
87 This is worth pointing out when one is dealing with a critic who seems utterly

incapable of appreciating that in God the act of being or existence could be such
as to verify in the maximal way what one here calls “essence.”
88 It is the last of four arguments given on the point in SCG 1.25.
89 Kenny, 47, n. 29.The De ente et essentia argument is related to the point made in
the entire Summa contra Gentiles 1.24, that a thing in a genus exists in act only as
designated by an essential difference, and in 1.25, the first three arguments of four.
90 De ente et essentia 5, emphasis added, Leonine lines 8–14:
Et ex hoc sequitur quod ipse non sit in genere; quia omne quod est in
genere oportet quod habeat quiditatem preter esse suum, cum quiditas uel
natura generis aut speciei non distinguatur secundum rationem nature in illis
quorum est genus uel species, sed esse est diuersum in diuersis.

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animal—cats and dogs, for example—do differ in nature and not just in
esse.” Kenny again has failed to cope with the text.Thomas is not denying
that cats and dogs have different natures. If anything, he is affirming it! Take
a genus, viz.“animal”; it is said of both cats and dogs, and if one asks for its
meaning, the same reply is given for both.Thus, the nature of the genus, as
such, does not differ in those admittedly diverse things, cats and dogs.
Again, take a species:“cat”; it is said of both Sylvester and Krazy Kat. If one
asks what is meant by their being “cats,” the answer is the same for both,
yet the two cats are different as to the actuality of being. In short,Thomas
is not saying that the specific natures do not differ from each other; he is
saying that the species is said in common of the individuals of that species,
which individuals differ from each other; and the genus is said in common
of the diverse species, which indeed are diverse from each other. To take the
genus as divided by its species is to take the genus as it actually exists.
The De ente et essentia argument is beautifully spelled out already in the
earlier Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8.4.2, and attributed
to Avicenna:
The third argument [to prove that God is not in the category of
substance], more subtle [than the two previous] is that of Avicenna. Everything which is in a genus has a quiddity differing from esse: for example,
a man: for humanity by the mere fact that it is humanity, does not necessitate existing actually [esse in actu]: for humanity can be conceived and
nevertheless it remain unknown whether some particular man exists.And
the reason for this is that the common item which is predicated of those
which are in the genus predicates the quiddity, since the genus and the
species are predicated as to what the thing is; but being [esse] is not owed
to that quiddity save inasmuch as it is received in this or that. And therefore the quiddity of the genus or the species is not had in common in
function of one esse for all, but only in function of one common intelligibility. Hence, it is clear that its esse is not its quiddity. But in God, his esse
is his quiddity; otherwise it would happen to the quiddity, and thus would
be acquired for him from another, and he would not have esse through his
own essence. And therefore God cannot be in some genus.91
91 Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8.4.2:

Tertia ratio subtilior est Avicennae. Omne quod est in genere, habet quidditatem differentem ab esse, sicut homo; humanitati enim ex hoc quod est
humanitas, non debetur esse in actu; potest enim cogitari humanitas et
tamen ignorari an aliquis homo sit. Et ratio hujus est, quia commune, quod
praedicatur de his quae sunt in genere, praedicat quidditatem, cum genus
et species praedicentur in eo quod quid est. Illi autem quidditati non debetur esse nisi per hoc quod suscepta est in hoc vel in illo. Et ideo quidditas
generis vel speciei non communicatur secundum unum esse omnibus, sed
solum secundum unam rationem communem. Unde constat quod esse

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Notice how thoroughly this chimes in with the De ente et essentia setting.
And Kenny finds it “puzzling” (47n29)!
God is not common being
Next Kenny comes to the point about God’s esse not being esse commune.
In the De ente et essentia we read:
Nor need it be, if we say that God is being alone [esse tantum], that we
fall into the error of those who say that God is that universal being [esse
universale] by which any being whatsoever formally is; for this esse which
God is is of this condition, viz. that no addition can be made to it; hence,
by virtue of its very own purity it is esse which is distinct from every
[other] esse. For this reason it is said in the Book of Causes, proposition 9,
that the individuation of the first cause, which is being alone, is through
its pure goodness. On the other hand, the common esse, just as in its
notion it includes no addition, so also in its notion it does not include
exclusion of addition; if that were not so, nothing could be understood
to be in which, besides esse, something would be added.92

Kenny’s problem now (47) is that he cannot see how “esse” here, as said
of God, can mean “existence,” as the context would seem to require.This
is because he focuses on the divine esse, as that to which no addition can
be made. He does so because he attempts to formulate what we mean
when we say that “God exists.” Our question must be: Does he distinguish two meanings of “God exists”?, as, for example, we see in Summa
contra Gentiles 1.12.7 and in ST I, q. 3, a. 4, ad 2. In fact, he does not, and
that is why he has so much trouble here. He is talking about “esse” as
suum non est quidditas sua. In deo autem esse suum est quidditas sua; aliter
enim accideret quidditati, et ita esset acquisitum sibi ab alio, et non haberet
esse per essentiam suam. Et ideo deus non potest esse in aliquo genere.
Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8.2.3: expositio primae partae
textus, [Mandonnet, 209–10] also includes the Intellectus essentiae argument. It
even has God in a genus all by himself! (explaining Hilary).
92 De ente et essentia 5 [Leonine lines 15–29]:
Nec oportet, si dicimus quod deus est esse tantum, ut in illorum errorem
incidamus, qui deum dixerunt esse illud esse universale, quo quaelibet res
formaliter est. Hoc enim esse, quod deus est, huius condicionis est, ut nulla
sibi additio fieri possit ; unde per ipsam suam puritatem est esse distinctum ab
omni esse. Propter quod in commento IX propositionis Libri de causis dicitur quod individuatio primae causae, quae est esse tantum, est per puram
bonitatem eius. esse autem commune sicut in intellectu suo non includit
aliquam additionem, ita non includit in intellectu suo praecisionem additionis; quia
si hoc esset, nihil posset intelligi esse, in quo super esse aliquid adderetur.
[emphasis added]

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related to the truth of a proposition, and Thomas here is speaking of
God’s act of being as identical with his essence. In fact,Thomas makes this
clear when speaking of the “esse” said commonly of things here: He
speaks of it as “by which formally every thing is.” He is speaking of something formal within the thing itself, and not merely of the “esse,” which
is used in replying to the question: “Does it exist?”93
The Individuation of the Human Soul
Kenny takes a quick look at the doctrine of the individuation of the
human soul, as presented in De ente et essentia at this point, which passage
of De ente et essentia reads:
[there is no multiplication of individuals within one species in created
intellectual substances] save in the human soul, on account of the body
to which it is united.And though its individuation depends on the body
as the occasion for its beginning, because individuated esse is not acquired
by it save in the body whose act it is, nevertheless it is not necessary that,
the body being taken away, the individuation perish, because since [the
human soul] has absolute esse, by the very fact that individuated esse has
been acquired for it inasmuch as it has been produced as the form of this
body, that esse remains always individuated. And therefore Avicenna says
that the individuation or multiplication of souls depends on the body as
far as its beginning is concerned, but not as concerns its end.94

Kenny suggests that Thomas is referring to the idea that “the effects of a
cause may remain after the cause has disappeared” (48). The reason for
this judgment is clearly that Kenny is mistranslating. He quotes only part
of the argument, and he translates:
cum habeat esse absolutum, ex quo acquisitum est sibi esse individuatum
ex hoc quod facta est forma huius corporis, illud esse semper remanet
individuatum.
93 The distinction in meanings of “esse” is discussed in more detail than in the De

ente et essentia c. 1 in Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 2.34.1.1, on the
existence of the bad.
94 Emphasis added. De ente et essentia 5 [Leonine lines 58–71]:
nisi in anima humana propter corpus, cui unitur. Et licet individuatio eius
ex corpore occasionaliter dependeat quantum ad sui inchoationem, quia non
acquiritur sibi esse individuatum nisi in corpore, cuius est actus, non tamen oportet
ut subtracto corpore individuatio pereat, quia cum habeat esse absolutum, ex
quo acquisitum est sibi esse individuatum ex hoc quod facta est forma huius
corporis, illud esse semper remanet individuatum. Et ideo dicit Avicenna quod
individuatio animarum vel multiplicatio dependet ex corpore quantum ad
sui principium, sed non quantum ad sui finem. [emphasis added]

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as:
Though it has absolute esse by acquiring individuated esse as the form of
this body, its esse always remains individuated.

Though he uses a capital letter to begin (both in his translation and in
the Latin in footnote 31), in fact he is breaking into the sentence. The
whole argument is needed so as to stress, first of all, the fact that the body
is the mere “occasion” for the soul’s acquiring its individuated being.
Thomas obviously carefully chose the word “occasionaliter” to characterize the role of the body in this situation. It is the occasion because the
soul only acquires individuated esse by coming to be as the act of the
body; but St.Thomas then hastens to add that this does not entail that its
individuation perishes if the body is removed.The reason this is so is:
because, since it has absolute esse, once that individuated esse is acquired
for it inasmuch as it is made as the form of this body, that esse will
always remain individuated.

that is, the insistence is on the absoluteness of the esse that has been
acquired.95
Accordingly, Thomas is not making a reference to the idea that an
effect can remain after its cause has disappeared (like a house after the
builder leaves?).96 The reason that the soul remains individuated is that
the individuated esse it has obtained in being made as the form of this
body is an absolute act of being.97 Thus, the soul remains in its own
95 Armand Maurer, in his translation, On Being and Essence (Toronto: PIMS, 1949),

52, has:
Although the soul’s individuation depends on the body for the occasion
of its beginning, since it comes into possession of its individuated act of
existing only in the body of which it is the act, it is not necessary that the
individuation come to an end when the body is removed. Since its act of
existing is independent, once it has acquired an individual act of existing
from its being made the form of this particular body, that act of existing
always remains individuated. [emphasis added]
96 In fact, as is well-known,Thomas’s conception of causality is such that the effect
cannot remain if the cause is removed.That the builder can leave and the house
remain means that the builder is not the cause of being of the house, but only
the cause of its coming to be: cf. e.g., ST I, q. 104, a. 1.
97 Notice that translation of St.Thomas can require some adaptability. At De ente et
essentia 5, lines 47–48, he uses the adjective “absolutum” in contrast to “receptum”
in order to distinguish the esse of creatures from that of God: God’s esse is “all by
itself,” not received in something. At line 65, he uses “absolutum” concerning the
human soul’s esse, in order to deny any dependence on the body for its existence.

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being, with a relation to a body. Kenny should have paid more attention
to the word “occasionaliter.” Union with the body is the occasion for the
individuation of the soul; the body is not a sort of physical cause of the
individuation of the soul.
I make this last remark because Kenny says:
This [the idea that the body is the cause of the individuation, but the
effect can remain when the cause is no longer there] seems to involve
an insouciant passage from one kind of causation to a very different
kind. Individuation is surely something logically prior to relationships
between physical causes and effects. (48)

Kenny is the one who has introduced the whole system of causes and
effects he is placing individuation before. He is simply not coming to
grips with the text (having taken the “cum” for a “though” instead of a
“since”). He should have looked at such a text as the earlier Commentary
on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8.5.2, ad 6, as well as the whole article.
The individuation of the human soul is not “ex corpore,” that is, is not
caused by the body, though it is acquired “in corpore,” in the body.98
This concludes our look at De ente et essentia. There really seems no
hope for much better from Kenny, but I will touch a few other points
just to be sure.
A Visit to the Summa contra Gentiles
The Anselmian Argument
Already, in the remarks on Thomas’s treatment of the Anselmian argument, we see the Kenny weakness as to Thomas’s doctrine concerning
God as Ipsum esse subsistens. On page 84, concerning Aquinas’s presentation of Anselm’s Proslogion 2 argument, firstly, I do not agree with the
Kenny criticism of the presentation of the Anselmian argument.While it
is true that Thomas, in formulating the argument, does not use the literal
form of the self-contradiction that is involved in saying that “that than
which a greater cannot be thought does not have being outside the
mind,” he does use the very meaning of “God” to say that one cannot
say it exists only in the mind and not in things. The argument is the
same. I would concede that Anselm’s own formulation is more arresting
or dramatic.
98 Of course, later texts are also clear: cf. SC 9.ad 4; and DA 1.ad 2. I would grant

that in Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8.5.2, ad 6 there appears to
be a minor textual difficulty. Near the beginning the text speaks of the individuation as “ex corpore,” but this is clearly rejected in the detailed explanation.

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Lawrence Dewan, OP

Most of all I disagree with what Kenny says about Thomas’s view of
the meaning of the name:“that than which a greater cannot be thought.”
He claims Thomas is saying it is intrinsically incoherent, and Kenny says it is
probably the case, like “the greatest possible natural number.” If Kenny
thinks Thomas means this, Kenny is quite wrong. For Thomas, the
Anselmian formula has nothing wrong with it, and rightly is said of God
(though not as the meaning of the word “God”). However, the God so
characterized is not available to the human mind as an immediately
evident existent.The human being needs a demonstration that there is a
“that than which a greater cannot be thought.”
When he comes to Thomas’s point about the existence of God being
per se nota in itself but not to us, he accuses Thomas of confusing being
with existence (85), but it is he himself who is confused as to the ambiguity of “existence.”That it be the same item by which one answers the
question “does he exist?” and “what is he?” is true in the unique case of
God. It is also true that we cannot know God’s esse any more than his
quiddity.We know his effects and can conclude to the truth that there is
a God.And, of course, such a cause must be an extra-mental existent, not
a privation, etc.What we know is the truth of the conclusion that couples
God and real existence. Eventually we can even conclude that in God
there must be identity of essence and existence.
Ipsum Esse Subsistens Revisited
Kenny rightly spends time on Summa contra Gentiles 1.22, that in God
there is no essence other than his esse. Let us examine his discussion of
one of the arguments, described by Kenny as Thomas’s “longest argument.” He is referring to Pera edition no. 207, the third of the six arguments, based on God being the first cause, itself having no cause.
Thomas’s argument is actually very simple and one that he often uses.
Since the divine essence is simple, if the esse is other than it, it cannot be
a part of the essence; it must be a sort of attachment. Such an attachment
belongs to a thing only through a cause. If the cause is other than God
himself, he will not be the first cause, itself uncaused. But if the cause is
the essence itself, what follows? The essence is [that is, “exists”] in virtue of
that esse.Thus, the essence will be cause of its own existence, something
obviously impossible since it would have to be prior to itself.
I put the one sentence in italic letters because I notice immediately
(100) that Kenny has once more mistranslated the text.The text has: “Essentia autem est secundum illud esse.” Kenny translates it as “The essence is determined by the esse.” Obviously, the proper translation is: “The essence is in
virtue of that esse.” And it thus continues: “it follows that something is for

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its own self the cause of being.”The argument itself should have suggested
the translation.99
Now, Kenny’s problem with the argument has to do precisely with this
mistranslation. He asks what is meant by saying that the essence is “determined by esse.” He interprets it to mean “not, clearly, that essence is determined by existence, but that to have a certain essence is to have a certain
kind of being, to be in a certain way.” Now, again, this is not what Thomas
means, even though it is true.This interpretation of Kenny’s comes down
to saying that the essence determines the act of being, something Thomas
teaches,100 but that is not his point here. His point here is that through esse
the essence is, that is, exists.This is not merely the “exists” that answers the
question “is it?”This is the actuality of the essence, and is the “most perfect
act”; thus, in Summa contra Gentiles 2, we read:
Since every agent activates [agat] inasmuch as it is in act, therefore it
belongs to the first agent, which is most perfect, to be in act in the most
perfect way. . . . Now, the most perfect act [ipse actus perfectissimus] . . . is
esse, at which all generation and all change has its terminus: for every
form and every act is in potency until it acquires esse. Therefore, to God
alone does it belong that he be being itself [ipsum esse]: just as [to him]
alone does it belong that he be the first agent.101

It is the very contribution proper to an efficient cause that is meant by
“esse.” It is the existence of the nature. (On the other hand, the “exist” that
answers the question “does it exist?” can apply even to blindness and
other privations, even though they have no essence and so no act of being
or existence.)
Kenny read the “determination” of the essence by esse as “not, of course,
one of efficient causality; it is a conceptual determination.” On the contrary,
the esse here is the proper effect of the efficient cause. A thing whose
essence is not its esse is a thing that requires an efficient cause in order to be
or exist. In fact, the argument Kenny is discussing here, though he does not
99 The sentence is correctly translated by Anton Pegis: cf. On the Truth of the Catholic

Faith: Book One: God (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955), 1.22 (para. 6): “the
essence is through that being.”
100 Cf. e.g., SCG 2.52:
Esse autem, inquantum est esse, non potest esse diversum; potest autem
diversificari per aliquid quod est praeter esse; sicut esse lapidis est aliud ab
esse hominis. [The [act of] being, precisely as such, cannot be diverse; but
it can be diversified by something which is other than [the act of] being:
the way that being a stone is diverse from being a human being.]
101 SCG 2.52 (1279).

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know it, really is a repeat of the argument in the De ente et essentia, c. 4,
where Thomas is explicit about it being a matter of efficient causality:
Everything that belongs to something either is caused by the principles
of its own nature: as capability of laughter in man, or else comes to it
from some extrinsic principle: as light in air from the influence of the
sun. However, it cannot be the case that being itself [ipsum esse] be caused
by the very form or quiddity of the thing (I mean, as by an efficient cause),
because then some thing would be cause of its own self, and some thing
would produce itself in existence [esse]: which is impossible.102

This is the argument again given in first place in the ST I, q. 3, a. 4 (corpus
articuli), absolutely central to Thomas’s doctrine of being.
Thus, once more Kenny has failed to understand the argument. He has
not made contact with Thomas Aquinas on this at all. Indeed, after reading
the section on Summa contra Gentiles 1.22, I have concluded that Kenny
does not understand it at all. His rejection of the arguments is worthless.
We now come to c. 23, the topic of which is that in God there is no
accident. In it God is spoken of as “ipsum esse” [that is, Ipsum esse subsistens]. Kenny contends that the thesis has been changed here. Previously
(here in Summa contra Gentiles), we were saying that God is “his esse,”
whereas now God is said to be “esse itself.” It is certainly true that the
thesis of the previous chapter was expressed almost entirely as “in God
the esse and the essence are identical” or that “God is his esse.”We notice
there, nevertheless, that the confirmation of the thesis at the end of the
chapter, with the citation of Boethius, is that God is “ipsum esse” and that
from him is “esse” (1.22). Still, does any argument in 1.22 lead one to
expect that God is “esse itself”? If there is one that prepares the reader for
this, it is the last, not discussed by Kenny:
Every thing is through this, that it has esse.Therefore, no thing whose
essence is not its esse is by its very essence, but rather by participation
in something, viz. in esse itself [ipsius esse]. But that which is through
participation in something cannot be the first being [primum ens],
because that which something participates in order to be is prior to it.
102 De ente et essentia 4 (lines 127–35) [my stress]:

Omne autem quod convenit alicui vel est causatum ex principiis naturae
suae, sicut risibile in homine, vel advenit ab aliquo principio extrinseco,
sicut lumen in aere ex influentia solis. Non autem potest esse quod ipsum
esse sit causatum ab ipsa forma vel quiditate rei (dico sicut a causa efficiente)
quia sic aliqua res esset sui ipsius causa et aliqua res seipsam in esse produceret, quod est impossibile.

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But God is the first being, to which nothing is prior. Therefore, the
essence of God is his esse (1.22).

Even though this merely concludes that God is “his esse,” it is obvious
that “esse” is here being taken along the lines of a common nature that
can exist either in its purity, that is, as an essence, or as something participated.Thus, it emerges that the esse of God is “ipsum esse,” that is, that it
is esse as having the status of an essence.
Quite explicitly, this depends on God being proved to exist as the first
being, something established in an argument in 1.13, which Kenny left
out of the discussion.There God was seen as maxime ens, that is, the being
having most of all the status of a being.
Of course, we will get further information about God being “ipsum
esse” as we go along, but it is not true that it did not get into 1.22.
Here in 1.23 the point is that there can be no accidents in God.The
argument that leads off, and on which Kenny is focusing, is as follows:
Esse itself cannot participate in something which is not of its essence,
though that which is can participate in something else. [The reason is]
that nothing is more formal or more simple than esse.And thus esse itself
cannot participate in anything. But the divine substance is esse itself.
Hence, it has nothing that is not of its own substance. Therefore, no
accident can inhere in it.103

This is practically a quotation from Boethius’s De hebdomadibus or Thomas’s
commentary on it (already discussed by Kenny).
Kenny asks about the meaning of this argument. He says, “It cannot
mean that God is pure existence, as is widely recognized by philosophers” (105). In support of this, seemingly, Kenny refers us to Christopher Hughes, and Norman Kretzmann approving of Hughes. He adds
that the reason for this impossibility is not that “pure existence” would
be “too thin a predicate” (the reason given by the other two), but that it
is not a predicate at all.
Thomas himself means something which Kretzmann, Hughes, and
Kenny have not caught sight of.104 I would again stress the ambiguity of
“existence,” which can mean either the answer to “whether it exists” or
signify the act of the essence.“Existence” as truth sign is, indeed, too thin.
103 SCG 1.23.
104 I criticize Kretzmann and Hughes in “Review of Norman Kretzmann, The

Metaphysics of Theism,” in EIDOS 14 (1997): 97–121. I will return to them in a
forthcoming article in Nova et Vetera, “St. Thomas, Norman Kretzmann, and
Divine Freedom in Creating.”

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380

It expresses no essence at all. That is why it is said of blindness. On the
other hand, the act of existence is the actuality of the essence, and is the
“most perfect act,” as we saw above.105
Kenny says “pure esse”; this is his translation of “ipsum esse,” which
more literally is “esse itself.” Still, there is nothing wrong with saying
“pure esse,” provided it is clear that it can be identical with “pure essence”
(and indeed with essence at its most authentic). The expression “esse
purum” does occur once, at least, in Thomas’s writings, in his Super librum
de causis expositio, lect. 9. where the esse of the first cause is said to be pure
rather than participated. Kenny is wondering how to conceive of it. The
way, I would say, is to develop a hierarchical picture starting from below
(actually, this is already underway with a distinction between potency and
act: Act “has more of the nature of esse than potency has”).106 In fact, an
efficient causal hierarchy involves lower and higher modes of esse. Thus,
one eventually develops a “trajectory” toward an act of being that is not
received in anything, but rather is pure. One is not supposed to be able
to imagine it, as such; it is not an object of imagination. Indeed, as the
essence of God, the constant lesson is that it is humanly inconceivable.
We know that there is such a thing, but we do not know it in the mode
of knowing “what a thing is.”
Thomas presents the overall project of climbing to Ipsum esse subsistens
time after time in his writings, from beginning to end of his career.Thus,
at the very beginning of the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard,
asking whether there is one God,Thomas presents the following argument:
It is necessary that every nature which is found in many instances according to priority and posteriority descend from one first in which it is had
105 SCG 2.52. On the “esse” had by that which has no essence, and so is “thin” and no

“predicate” in Kenny’s sense, cf. ST I, q. 48, a. 1, and 2, ad 2. Cf. SCG 3.7 and 9.
106 De substantiis separatis c. 7:

the more something has of the nature of being [de ratione essendi], the
higher it is among beings. But it is evident that, while being [ens] is divided
by potency and act, act is more perfect than potency and has more of the
nature of being: for we do not say of that which is in potency: “it is,”
unqualifiedly; [we say that] only of that which is actually. Therefore, it is
necessary that that which is higher among beings attain more to act, but
that which is lower among beings be closer to potency. (tanto aliquid in
entibus est altius, quanto magis habet de ratione essendi. Manifestum est
autem quod cum ens per potentiam et actum dividatur, quod actus est
potentia perfectior, et magis habet de ratione essendi: non enim simpliciter esse
dicimus quod est in potentia, sed solum quod est actu. Oportet igitur id quod
est superius in entibus, magis accedere ad actum; quod autem est in
entibus infimum, propinquius esse potentiae.) [emphasis added]

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perfectly: for unity in the effect attests to unity in the source: as all heat
originates in one thing which is hottest, which is fire. But entity [entitas]
is found in many according to priority and posteriority. Therefore, it is
necessary that there be one first most perfect being [ens] from which all
beings have being [esse]; and this is God.Therefore, there is one God.107

This is repeated at the beginning of book 2, where the topic is
creation, and it is asked whether there is one first principle of all
things.108 One sees it again in the presentation of the overall metaphysical project in another youthful work,Thomas’s Commentary on Boethius’s
De trinitate.Thomas is explaining that metaphysics is about things that are
without matter or change. In order to present a hierarchy of more and
more universal causes, he says:
the principles of the accidents are reduced to the principles of substances,
and the principles of corruptible substances are reduced to the incorruptible substances, and thus by a stepwise order all beings are traced back
to certain principles.And because that which is the principle of all beings
must be maximally a being, as is said in Metaphysics 2, therefore such principles must be most complete, and for that reason they must be maximally in act, such that they have nothing or little of potency: because act
is prior and more powerful that potency, as is said in Metaphysics 9. And
for that reason they must be without matter, which is in potency, and
without change, which is the act of what exists in potency.And such are
divine things, because if the divine exists anywhere, it exists most of all in
such an immaterial and unchangeable nature, as is said in Metaphysics 6.109
107 Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.2.1.1.sed contra 1 [Mandonnet,

59–60]:
omnis natura quae invenitur in pluribus secundum prius et posterius,
oportet quod descendat ab uno primo, in quo perfecte habeatur. Unitas
enim principiati attestatur unitati principii, sicut omnis calor originatur ab
uno calidissimo, quod est ignis. Sed entitas invenitur in pluribus secundum
prius et posterius. Ergo oportet esse unum primum ens perfectissimum, a
quo omnia entia habent esse, et hic est deus. Est igitur unus deus.
In the context the arguments sed contra are approved by Thomas.
108 Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 2.1.1.1 (Mandonnet, 12–13): It is the
second of three arguments in the body of the article.
109 In De trin. 5.4:
principia accidentium reducuntur in principia substantiae et principia
substantiarum corruptibilium reducuntur in substantias incorruptibiles, et
sic quodam gradu et ordine in quaedam principia omnia entia reducuntur. Et quia id, quod est principium essendi omnibus, oportet esse maxime
ens, ut dicitur in II metaphysicae, ideo huiusmodi principia oportet esse
completissima, et propter hoc oportet ea esse maxime actu, ut nihil vel

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In short, there is no shortage of presentations of ontological hierarchy
based on efficient causal hierarchy in Thomas. I generally begin such
discussion by considering how the “being up high” of a book depends on
the “being up high” of my hand, holding the book on high.The one existence flows from, depends on, the other.This relates to the nature of the
book and of the hand, as regards being sources of efficient causality.
Kenny, in footnote 32, page 109, concerning Summa contra Gentiles
1.30, on the words we use about God, speaks of Thomas speaking of
“Platonic subsistent forms.” In fact, there is no mention of such beings in
the chapter. One must assume that any reference to subsisting form is
“Platonic” for Kenny. Kenny speaks of Thomas ruling out the subsistent
form Kenny is speaking of only because of “the imperfection of sublunar
entities.” All this is very hard to make correspond to the discussion in
chapter 30.Thomas does say there that our minds have a way of understanding and speaking that is suited to things composed of form and
matter.This, of course, is not merely “sublunar entities,” since for Thomas
the heavens were matter/form composites. Thomas teaches that the
human soul is a subsistent form, and so are the angels.Thomas certainly
is affirming the existence of wisdom, goodness, and being, just in themselves subsisting. This is his doctrine concerning God. Such an entity is
not necessarily “Platonic.”What is rejected by Thomas is the Platonic way
of establishing the existence of immaterial reality, whether secondary or
supreme. Now, how a thing’s existence is established has a great deal to
do with what one ends up talking about. This is presented especially in
De substantiis separatis, one of St. Thomas’s most mature and thorough
presentations of ontology. Thomas there rejects the very root of the
Platonic approach to separate entity.This is not discussed by Kenny.
Obviously, Thomas thinks there is much to commend in Plato, even
though he criticizes him.110 Nevertheless, he takes an Aristotelian
approach to separate entity, including God. Aristotle, in the Metaphysics,
teaches that there is one principle of the entire universe, and that it is
minimum habeant de potentia, quia actus est prior et potior potentia, ut
dicitur in IX metaphysicae. Et propter hoc oportet ea esse absque materia,
quae est in potentia, et absque motu, qui est actus exsistentis in potentia.
Et huiusmodi sunt res divinae; quia si divinum alicubi exsistit, in tali
natura, immateriali scilicet et immobili, maxime exsistit, ut dicitur in VI
metaphysicae.
110 Thus, in De potentia 3.5 Plato is presented along with Aristotle and Avicenna as
among those philosophers who attained to a consideration of universal being and
its need of a cause; we see the same thing in ST I, q. 44, a. 1, in Commentary on
Aristotle’s Physics 8.2 [5], and in the De substantiis separatis 3.

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good.111 Its simplicity and primacy certainly would merit it being designated linguistically by the abstract form, as discussed in Summa contra
Gentiles 1.30: that is, that it need not merely be called “good” or “the
highest good,” or “the source of all good,” but indeed could well be called
“goodness itself.”Thomas’s general appeal to a philosophical predecessor
as regards climbing to being itself subsisting is Aristotle, as presenting a
hierarchy of being as being, especially in Metaphysics 2.112
Kenny ends his chapter on the Summa contra Gentiles with 2.28,
comparing esse to whiteness, with the idea that whiteness, if separately
subsisting, would have all the power of whiteness. Kenny sees this whiteness as a “Platonic Idea” and concludes that for Thomas esse is a Platonic
idea.This is not true. It is certainly true that Thomas sees some truth in
Plato speaking about the highest Ideas. However,Thomas does not think
that one arrives at the existence of esse subsisting by a Platonic route. One
cannot make an adequate judgment of the meaning and suitability of
Thomas’s doctrine of esse without considering how it is arrived at.There
is little sign of Kenny ever having done so.
As we come to the end of the treatment of Summa contra Gentiles, I
repeat that it is amazing that Kenny chose to omit 2.52–55, which bear
on the most important and fundamental ontological issues. It is interesting that there is no mention of the Qq. de anima, with their many interesting ontological considerations. We also have from this period the
Divine Names commentary, of which nothing is said.113
111 On the first principle as immaterial and pure act, cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 12.6

(1071b17–22); 12.7 (1072a24–26);Thomas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics
12.5 (2495–99) and 12.6 (2518); on the first principle as both end and agent,
good and unique, 12.10 (1075a38–b1; b8–10; 1076a3–4); Thomas, Commentary
on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 12.12 (2644–5; 2648 and 2662–63).
112 Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 2.1 (993b19–31); Thomas, Commentary on Aristotle’s
Metaphysics 2.2 (289–98).
113 Thomas’s Divine Names is notable, besides the more important reasons, for using
the vocabulary of “existentia” for “esse” at many points.This is simply because of
options exercised by the translation of Dionysius that he is using. It would not
be of any significance were it not that Kenny has trouble understanding that
“existence” can name a formal perfection in things themselves. Cf. for example,
DN 5.1(628):
Thirdly, to the note of being [essendi] pertains generation, which is change
[terminating] at being [esse]; and so [Dionysius] adds that God is generation, [speaking] causally, for all items generated in whatever degree: because
he confers generation on all, as is said in Isaiah 66 [verse 9]. And thus it is
clear that from the first existent itself [ex ipso primo existente], which is God,
are caused perpetuity [aevum], which is the measure of being, and also
substance, which is that which exists through itself [per se existente], and

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A Visit to the De potentia
In his chapter on De potentia, Kenny again comes to the argument for
God not being in a genus. In De potentia 7.3 it is the first of the three
arguments that interests Kenny, and which he thinks presents esse in a way
contrary to what we have been seeing. It runs:
[God cannot be in a genus] because nothing is located in a genus in
function of its esse, but by reason of its quiddity; this is clear on this
basis, that the esse of each thing is proper to it, and distinct from the esse of any
other thing, whereas the intelligibility of the substance can be common;
for that reason, also, the Philosopher says that being [ens] is not a genus.
But God is his very esse; hence, he cannot be in a genus.114

Now, what bothers Kenny is that we have seen esse presented as most
common of all, and the above has esse as diverse in diverse things. Is it
common or individual?
In fact, the doctrine being presented is not new in the De potentia. It
harkens back to De ente et essentia 5, that God cannot be in a genus
because his essence is esse, and things in a genus or species must have
diversity of essence and esse; this is because “esse is diverse in diverse
things,” whereas a generic or specific quiddity is not distinguished as
regards the intelligibility of the nature in the things of which it is predicated.115 And Thomas repeats this in ST I:
All those things which are in one genus have in common the quiddity
or essence of the genus, which is predicated of them as to what they
are. However they differ in function of being [esse]: for the being of a man
and of a horse are not the same, nor of this man and of that man. And thus it
is necessary that for whatever things are in a genus, there differs in them
being and “what it is,” that is, essence. But in God these do not differ,
as has been shown.116
everything which exists in whatever way [omne existens quocumque modo];
and again, by God is caused that which is the measure of change, and
generation itself and that which is generated, and not only are existents
themselves [ipsa existentia] caused by God, but also whatever are in existents
[in existentibus], such as parts and natural properties and those which in any
ways either inhere, as accidents, or have the role of subject, as substances.
114 De potentia 7.3: quia nihil ponitur in genere secundum esse suum, sed ratione
quidditatis suae; quod ex hoc patet, quia esse uniuscuiusque est ei proprium, et distinctum ab esse cuiuslibet alterius rei; sed ratio substantiae potest esse communis: propter
hoc etiam philosophus dicit, quod ens non est genus. Deus autem est ipsum
suum esse: unde non potest esse in genere. [emphasis added]
115 De ente et essentia 5 (lines 8–14).We saw earlier that Kenny, 47, n. 29, misunderstood this text.
116 ST I, q. 3, a. 5.

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Still, the question is a good one. If both the generic nature and the esse
are common, why is it that whereas the generic nature is the same as
predicated of two individuals belonging to the genus, the esse of each
individual is diverse from the esse of the other?
I believe that the answer is to be found in a contrast between particularity of form and universality of form.117 Even though a generic nature
is universal, it is a particular nature as compared to the nature of being.118
Being is, as we know, the proper effect of the highest or most universal
cause.119 Thus, its proper influence extends to everything whatsoever that
is in the thing, including the matter as individuating.120 Accordingly, esse
is the absolutely completive actuality, embracing everything within a
thing.121 Thus, it is the subsisting thing as such that is “that which itself has
esse.”122 The particular form is a merely instrumental cause relative to the
efficient cause’s conferring of esse on the thing.And the efficient cause of
which we are primarily speaking is not merely the particular cause of
generation, but the cause of creation/conservation.123
The act of being has the mode of a nature or essence only in the first
efficient cause, and thus is present only by participation in all else.124 It is
diversified by its receivers. Moreover, as the proper effect of the most
universal cause, it is most deeply within all its recipients, and so is the proper
perfection of the supposit, the thing in its totality, the “concrete” thing. In
material things it thus is diverse numerically from individual to individual.
In this way it stands in contrast to particular common natures such as
constitute things in genera and species, and which have an intrinsic formal

117 Let us recall that esse is what is most formal of all, having the role of an item

received in a receiver: ST I, q. 4, a. 1, ad 3, and I, q. 7, a. 1.This relates to the identification of form and first actuality; it pertains to first actuality to be “in” its
subject [cf. Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 9.5 (1828)], and esse is most
intrinsic of all perfections: ST I, q. 8, a. 1: “esse is that which is most ‘within’ any
thing, and most deeply inheres in all, since it is formal with respect to all [items]
that are in a thing.”
118 ST I, q. 19, a. 6.
119 ST I–II, q. 66, a. 5, ad 3.
120 ST I, q. 44, a. 2, ad 3.
121 Quodl. 12.5.1.
122 ST I, q. 45, a. 4.
123 Another most helpful text for understanding the doctrine of esse is SCG 3.66,
that nothing gives esse save as acting under the influence of the divine power.
This might have helped Kenny.
124 ST I, q. 44, a. 1 and again Quodl. 12.5.1.

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diversity.125 They are considered in themselves inasmuch as they are
abstracted from being, and so are predicated commonly of all the relevant
individuals. However, when considered according to being, they are seen as
individuated by the supposit, just as the act of being is. The argument of
the text we are here considering takes the common nature as predicated of
the individuals: Thus, it is taken in itself absolutely, and thus is taken as
abstracting from the act of being (as was explained in De ente et essentia).126
This is then contrasted with the consideration of the same nature taken
“according to being,” that is, as actually found in the supposit, where along
with the act of being it has individual distinction from all other instances
of that particular nature.
The question raised by Kenny is helpful, though it might have been
raised already with the text of the De ente et essentia, which Kenny found
puzzling. It helps to bring out the difference between the two sorts of
formal and received metaphysical targets of attention, the act of being, on
the one hand, and the particular forms, on the other.We nowhere experience the act of being with the kind of intellectual experience we have
of particular form. It has the status of essence only in God, who is beyond
our properly quidditative knowledge. It obtains diversification only in
receivers. It is the proper perfection of the thing taken as complete, that
is, the supposit.This, I would say, helps explain why there is the possibility of confusing what is meant by saying that blindness exists and what is
meant by saying that existence is the proper effect of the efficient cause
and the terminus of generation and all becoming. Both have a certain
“facelessness,” but for different reasons.
A Visit to the Summa theologiae
Anselm Revisited
Kenny (132) declares his primary interest in questions 2 and 3. Let us
then see what he does with question 2. He begins by criticizing the
rejection of the Anselmian position. Kenny again fails to appreciate
Thomas’s position. Thus, he now says that Thomas fails to consider that
the notion of “that than which a greater cannot be thought” is incoher125 I take this point from Johannes Capreolus, Defensiones theologiae divi Thomae

Aquinatis [C. Paban and T. Pègues, ed. (Turonibus: Alfred Cattier, 1900), vol. I,
305b–306a].
126 This was a primary teaching of De ente et essentia 3 (ed. Leonine, lines 26–72):
The nature of man, e.g., absolutely considered, abstracts from every esse whatsoever, in such a way that it does not exclude its having esse happen to it; and it is
the nature so considered that is predicated of all individuals.

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ent (133). In fact, as we have already pointed out, Thomas’s position is
that God is indeed that than which a greater cannot be thought; that is
what is demonstrated in Summa theologiae I, q. 7, a. 1 (the divine infinity
of being). This should be clear from the approach, in ST I, q. 2, a. 1, in
terms of “self-evidence” in itself but not to us. Just as the article looks
ahead to the doctrine that God’s essence is Ipsum esse subsistens, a point
that for us requires demonstration, so also in Thomas’s notion of God it
is clear that he is unqualifiedly infinite (ST I, q. 7, a. 1), and thus is that
than which a greater cannot be thought;127 but for us, the existence of
such a thing requires demonstration, not because of the notion, but
because of the nature of human access to reality.128 Thomas gives exactly
the right answer for someone affirming the metaphysics he does. Admittedly, the appropriateness of his answer is better seen as one goes on to
the next article, on what is involved in a demonstration of existence. If
there is a genuine question of existence, one must start with “the meaning of a name,” that is, with a mere verbal formula.129 Thomas thus treats
“that than which etc.” as a verbal formula similar to “goat-stag”; we know
what it means, but we do not know whether there is such a thing, since
all we have is a verbal formula. I suggest that Kenny’s criticisms of
Thomas’s approach here reveal his failure to take seriously the body of
the article and its epistemological implications. Kenny actually notes the
point about starting with the meaning of a name, not about a genuine
“what the thing is,” where the question is whether the thing exists (134),
but he fails to see the relevance of that to the way Thomas handled the
Anselmian argument.
The Third Way
Coming to ST I, q. 2, a. 3, the demonstrations of the existence of a God,
Kenny chooses to speak about the third and fourth ways, as pertaining to
the “theory of being.”While we might note that he would do well to pay
more attention to the metaphysics of efficient causal hierarchy (which is
the very starting point of the second way), let us see what he does do.
Pages 135–138 are on the Third Way, and indeed on its first part.
Kenny immediately tends to identify it with a Summa contra Gentiles 1.15
argument,130 save that it is not as well expressed! He begins by saying that
there is a resemblance, but then slips into identity, saying that “this cosmological argument is not as well presented in the later as in the earlier
127 Cf. ST III, q. 10, a. 3, ad 3.
128 Cf. ST I, q. 88, a. 1, and 3; Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 2.1 (279–86).
129 ST I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2.
130 SCG 1.15.

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Summa” (135, emphasis added). This already causes me concern, since I
hold that the arguments are quite different.131 Kenny tells us that Thomas
“includes material that would have been better omitted,” this of course
in the perspective that he is adding to the Summa contra Gentiles argument,
rather than making a different argument.
The first suspected fallacious premise that Kenny mentions is:“a possible with respect to not being, at some time is not.” Kenny asks why there
cannot be something that has the “power not to exist” but as a matter of
fact always does exist. He does not enter into any lengthy discussion about
this.132 I believe that the answer is to be found in Thomas’s Commentary
on Aristotle’s De caelo. Thomas introduces the very question that Kenny
asks here, and replies that the premise is based on the intrinsic tendency
of things to maintain their being with all their strength.Thus, a thing that
does cease to be is of a nature that it must cease to be. Accordingly, a
“possible with respect to not being” is not like “a possible with respect to
sitting down or standing up”; those latter are neutral options, but things
that cease to be reveal an intrinsic incapacity to remain in being. It should
be stressed that the Third Way is asking whether intrinsically necessary
substantial being exists, and not just generally about necessity in things.
Otherwise, it could not formulate necessary premises about the natures
being discussed. The premise in question is akin to “it belongs to the
nature of things that what can go wrong eventually will go wrong.”133 It
also is to be taken in the context of eternal existence. We are supposing
that the thing has always maintained its existence if it still exists.
In any case, Kenny here merely casts doubt on that premise in passing
(having said in note 6, page 134, that he has already discussed these two
Ways, the third and fourth, in detail in his book on the Five Ways). His
focus here is whether it follows that if everything has what he calls “the
power of not being,” then at some time there is nothing. It should be
remarked that “power” is an odd word for someone linguistically sophisticated to choose to translate “quod possibile est non esse”:Thomas, at any
rate, does not say “virtus,” and “power” in English normally means active
potentiality. “Power to not be” sounds like the rational agent’s ability to
commit suicide.
131 Cf. my paper “The Interpretation of St. Thomas’s Third Way,” in Littera, sensus,

sentential: Studi in onore del Prof. Clemente J. Vansteenkiste, OP, A. Lobato, OP, ed.
(Milan: Massimo, 1991), at n. 22.
132 I have criticized his approach to this in my paper: “The Distinctiveness of St.
Thomas’s Third Way,” Dialogue 19 (1980): 201–18.
133 Cf. ST I, q. 48, a. 2, ad 3, “ipsa autem natura rerum hoc habet, ut quae deficere
possunt, quandoque deficiant.”

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Kenny contends that there is a logical flaw in Thomas’s argument that if
all beings are possibles with respect to not being, then, since a possible with
respect to not being at some time is not, it follows that at some time nothing was. In order to bring out what he sees as the flaw he asks why corruptible beings should not overlap each other, so that each one comes to be and
passes away, but there is never any time when nothing at all exists (136).
In reflecting on this, seemingly, he notes that Thomas contends that
the non-being of all would already have occurred.Why, Kenny asks, think
the time of general non-existence was in the past rather than the future?
Kenny then suggests that Thomas is addressing “Aristotelian philosophers
who believed that the world always existed.” Thomas may be thinking,
says Kenny, that “a possibility that has not been realized in an infinite time
is not a real possibility.” Kenny says that this too is fallacious, since one
cannot argue from “each thing has the possibility of corrupting” to “there
is a possibility of everything corrupting” (137).
Indeed, Thomas here is thinking of an eternal world scenario. As he
says in the Summa contra Gentiles, the most efficacious way to prove the
existence of a God is on the supposition of the eternity of the world,
since that supposition makes it less evident that there is a God. If the
world and its change have begun to exist, then the existence of a cause is
evident, since nothing brings itself from potency to act, or from nonbeing to being.134
Now, within this picture of eternal generation and corruption, Kenny
is suggesting that there might be eternal “overlap.” However, that is
precisely to posit a “failsafe” system.What guarantees this eternal arrangement? That is, of course, what leads to Thomas’s conclusion that there
must exist a substance not subject to corruption, that is, precisely to
account for such a system. As we read, for example, in a passage on quite
another subject
If there are many successive agents, that is, one of which acts after the
action of another, the continuity of action of these [agents] cannot be
caused by some one of them, because none of them always acts; nor by
all [of them], because they do not act together; hence, it is necessary that
it be caused by some superior [agent] which always acts; just as Aristotle
proves in Physics 8 [c. 6 (258b28–32)] that the continuity of generation
in animals is caused by some perpetually [existent] superior [cause].135
134 SCG 1.13.
135 SCG 3.155:Thomas is teaching that a human being needs the help of grace in

order to persevere in the good. One should read all of the argument of Aristotle, right to 259a14.

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This is how I read the Third Way. It bears upon the mode of substantial
being we most immediately know, namely that of corruptible things.The
question he is posing may thus be framed as: Can all substance be
corruptible? Is it conceivable that there exist no other mode of substantial being? The law of such being is that it ceases to exist. If one posit that
as the sole mode of being, it will apply to all there is. At some time, we
can conclude, the “all” will have ceased to be.136 If one posits a failsafe
system, so that while all cease to be, something always exists, one must
posit the adequate principle of such a system, and that can only be a
necessary being. Otherwise, one must be saying that a system that clearly
can fail, and indeed must fail, has eternally succeeded.
That reading is in accordance with Thomas’s argument being a rewrite
of the well-known argument of Maimonides. Albert the Great wrote a
version of it in his Metaphysics, but I think that Thomas’s is the most
precise statement of the case, and expressed in terms of ontological necessities.137 I find that the flaws Kenny accuses Thomas of committing are
not applicable. It is true that if the mode of being of every substance is
that of corruptible being, then the entire assembly of individuals engaged
in reproduction will not have sufficed to maintain reality eternally.
Kenny goes on to speak of people suggesting that a universe of temporal beings might be everlasting. I would say, rather, that this is impossible
unless one posits, for example, matter as a necessary substance. In fact,
Thomas so presents it in ST I, q. 104, a. 4: Matter is incorruptible, in its
role of subject of generation and corruption (626a27–31). However, the
necessary being of primary matter seems to me less evident than the
conclusion of the first part of the Third Way that we are discussing:
“Therefore, there must be something necessary among things.” Of course,
if one makes primary matter the uncaused necessary being, one assumes
the position of David of Dinant.138 And if one thinks that the existence
of primary matter implies that there must be necessary actual being, one
is moving in the right direction. In any case, I would say that Kenny has
failed to grasp the power of the argument.
136 Am I conceiving of the “all” as a system that is built to fail, or am I conceiving of

the “all” as not truly a system at all, and thus whose failure is accidental? It is the
latter that Thomas has in mind in the sort of argument I have indicated (see the
previous note), i.e., if reality is made up of reproducers that may well “overlap,”
nevertheless unless the overlap has a substantial source of guarantee, i.e., is a failsafe system, then in the eternal-world perspective it must already have failed.
One has posited no cause of the continuity of the agents.
137 See my paper, “The Interpretation,” mentioned above.
138 Cf. ST I, q. 3, a. 8: David “most stupidly” identified God with primary matter.

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The Fourth Way
Kenny discusses the Fourth Way at pages 139–141.139 He tells us:
One thing is immediately clear: If we can talk about degrees of esse,
then esse must be something different from existence. . . .Things either
exist or they do not; there is no halfway house between existence and
non-existence. Of course, things may exist for longer or shorter periods, but they cannot exist to a greater or lesser degree (139).

In a footnote to this (page 139, note 15), he claims that elsewhere in
Summa theologiae Aquinas seems prepared to accept that there cannot be
degrees of esse. His reference is to I, q. 5, a. 1, obj. 3, and ad 3. Here again
Kenny seems unable to cope with the inevitable ambiguities, due to
change of context, of metaphysical writing. In the context of 1.5.1, where
the issue is whether “good” adds to “a being” some reality or a mere
notion,Thomas is speaking of the situation within one thing, contrasting its
substantial being or existence with its being good. That the substantial
being or existence, in function of which a thing is called “a being” unqualifiedly, is not had by that thing in terms of “more and less” is clear; whereas
“good” is said according to more and less because it is said more properly
in function of the perfections added to substantial being. But what about
the Fourth Way context, a context of hierarchy of diverse things? Kenny
should have seen the difference.
Thus, the question is: Can existence be found in a hierarchy of things
according to the more and the less, the more noble and the less noble?
We might begin with a discussion we have already had reason to visit a
few times, the well-known text early in Commentary on the Sentences of
Peter Lombard, that is, 1.8, thus before the De ente et essentia. Thomas is
defending the text of Peter Lombard (and St. Augustine) against misunderstanding. Peter has quoted Augustine on the divine esse, as follows:
“And who is more [magis est] than he who said to his servant: ‘I am who
am?’ ”140 The objector, a Kenny precursor, complains: “This seems to be
139 I would not translate quite as Kenny does. He translates “magis et minus” by

“more or less.”Thomas is taking his start from a vision of things actually in hierarchy, the more and the less (my hand is good and my head is better, i.e., has more
of the nature of the good.).The expression “more or less” might, if only unconsciously, suggest a doubt as to whether a thing is good or not. It is better to use
the more literal rendering, since it is meant. (The old Dominican translation has
this right. The French translation from Editions du Cerf, that of A.-D.
Sertillanges, has “ou” rather than “et.”)
140 Peter Lombard here is quoting St.Augustine, De trinitate 5, cap. 2 [PL 8 (of Aug.),
col. 912]: Augustine’s own text, taking a first step in speaking of God, runs:

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said inappropriately, because “is [esse]” is not susceptible to the more and
the less.”Thomas replies:
It is to be said that something can be spoken of as “more” and “less” in
two ways: (1) either as regards the participated nature itself, which just in
itself is more intense or less intense in virtue of approach to or distance
from a term: and this occurs only in accidents; or else (2) in function of
the measure of participating: and in this way even in essential things [in
essentialibus] one speaks of the more and the less in virtue of diverse measure of participating: for example, an angel is said to be “more intellectual”
than a human being. Now,141 “God purely is [tantum est], he who does
not know ‘was’ or ‘will be’,” by experiential knowledge so to speak, such
that successions of time be experienced in his own being.142
[II 3] Est tamen sine dubitatione substantia uel si melius hoc appellatur
essentia, quam graeci ousian uocant. Sicut enim ab eo quod est sapere dicta
est sapientia et ab eo quod est scire dicta est scientia, ita ab eo quod est esse
dicta est essentia. Et quis magis est quam ille qui dixit famulo suo: Ego sum qui
sum, et: Dices filiis Israhel: Qui est misit me ad uos? Sed aliae quae dicuntur
essentiae siue substantiae capiunt accidentias quibus in eis fiat uel magna
uel quantacumque mutatio; deo autem aliquid eiusmodi accidere non
potest. Et ideo sola est incommutabilis substantia uel essentia quae deus
est, cui profecto ipsum esse unde essentia nominata est maxime ac uerissime
competit. Quod enim mutatur non seruat ipsum esse, et quod mutari potest
etiamsi non mutetur potest quod fuerat non esse, ac per hoc illud solum
quod non tantum non mutatur uerum etiam mutari omnino non potest sine
scrupulo occurrit quod uerissime dicatur esse. [emphasis added]
I would say that this doctrine of “esse” is most important. Notice that
it is presented as the act whence “essence” or “substance” or “ousia” gets
its name.To an objector who challenges this doctrine that wisdom gets its
name from wisely knowing and essence gets its name from esse, Thomas
Aquinas replies that Lombard (and Augustine) are speaking in terms of the
order of human knowledge, which proceeds from acts to habits; the implication is that esse, the act of being, is the effect of essence.
141 I am taking this further remark as part of the explanation of the “is more” text,
though it also explains the sense of the word “know” in saying that God does
not know past or future.
142 Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard 1.8.2.3.expositio textus [Mandonnet,
209]:
“Et quis magis est quam ille qui dixit famulo suo: ego sum qui sum?”Videtur inconvenienter loqui: quia esse non suscipit magis et minus. Dicendum,
quod magis et minus potest dici aliquid dupliciter: vel quantum ad ipsam
naturam participatam , quae secundum se intenditur et remittitur secundum
accessum ad terminum vel recessum; et hoc non est nisi in accidentibus;
vel quantum ad modum participandi; et sic etiam in essentialibus dicitur magis
et minus secundum diversum modum participandi, sicut Angelus dicitur
magis intellectualis quam homo. Deus autem tantum est, qui non novit

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We see that we are already very much in the Fourth Way picture. God is
being viewed as what Thomas will eventually call “ipsum esse subsistens,”
and is thus existence itself subsisting. In contrast, all else is viewed as
participating in existence in a way proportionate to the thing’s substantial
nature, as being closer or more remote from the divine:Thus, some things
“are more” and some things “are less,” whereas God maximally is.143
How is it that Thomas himself clearly sees existence as admitting of the
more and the less? We must note, to begin with, that we are saying that the
word “existence” translates both meanings of “esse,” that is, signifying the
true and as signifying the act of being. It appears to us that by “existence”
Kenny really means the “esse” that signifies the true (“Blindness exists”).
Secondly, if one is to understand the act of being as subject to the more
and the less, one must view it, in things other than God, as caused by both
the form of the thing whose being it is and the efficient cause of the thing
whose being it is. Indeed, one must view the efficient cause as conferring
existence on the thing by conferring form.144
Within the confines of this review I will merely indicate generally the
hierarchical situation in Thomas’s metaphysics.Thus, if we take the presentation already quoted from In De trin 5.4, we see that the main hierarchy is that between generable/corruptible beings and permanent beings.
Being in act is found originally in the efficient cause, and since there
can be no procession to infinity in efficient causes, most originally of all
in the first efficient cause. If one thing dominates another in the line of
efficient causality, this is because its proper nature has a more primary
fuisse vel futurum esse, notitia quasi experimentali, ut scilicet successiones
temporum in suo esse experiatur. [emphasis added]
143 Here in Thomas’s explanation, the defense of the Augustinian quotation makes
use of a quotation from St. Jerome, one also included in the same text of Peter
Lombard, i.e., the presentation of the divine esse as excluding “was” and “will be.”
Jerome, Epist. 15.4 (PL t. 1, col. 357). It is interesting, in this regard, to consider
the presentation of Peter Lombard himself, who, having quoted a text of Augustine explaining our use of all the tenses in speaking of God, goes on to explain
the statement of Jerome that excludes past and future in speaking of God.We see
that he rightly speaks of the “essentiam sive existentiam” of God (Mandonnet, 188);
he has no doubt that “esse” here is existence.
144 Consider the way Thomas argues in Summa contra Gentiles 2.43, where the issue
is whether the forms whereby created things have distinction from each other
are caused by some angel, God providing merely the matter:
Just as esse is first among effects, it accordingly corresponds to the first
cause as its proper effect. But esse is through form and not through matter.
Therefore, the primary causing of forms is to be most of all attributed to
the first cause.

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“purchase” on actual existence than does the nature of the effect.We thus
see grades of participation in actual existence.A thing’s place in the hierarchy of actual existence is proportionate to its essential nature.
We see this in Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 2.2.The hierarchy
presented is of (1) generable and corruptible things, (2) caused things that
never cease to be, and (3) uncaused things.Thus, we read:
the principles of those things which are always, viz. of the heavenly
bodies, must necessarily be truest. And this for two reasons. Firstly, they
are not sometimes true and sometimes not; and by this they transcend
in truth generable and corruptible things, which sometimes are and
sometimes are not. Secondly, because nothing is a cause relative to
them, but they are the cause of being for the others; and by this they
transcend in truth and entity [in veritate et entitate] the heavenly bodies:
which though they are incorruptible nevertheless have a cause, not only
as regards their being moved, as some have opined, but also as regards
their being [suum esse], as here the Philosopher expressly says. (295)

And we have a corollary:
Since the situation is such that those which are to others the cause of
being [causa essendi] are most true, it follows that each thing, as it stands
towards precisely this, that it is [quod sit], so also it stands towards the
fact that it has truth [quod habeat veritatem]. Those things whose being
[esse] does not always stand in the same way, neither does their truth
remain always. And those whose being [esse] has a cause, also have a
cause of their truth. And this is because the being of the thing [esse rei]
is the cause of the true assessment [verae existimationis] which the mind
has concerning the thing. For the true and the false are not in things,
but in the mind, as is said in book 6 of this work. (298)
It is surely clear that Thomas is considering a hierarchy of measures
of the act of being, that is, of existence, the perfection of the efficient
cause and of its effect.
Kenny admits that we can “arrange things in hierarchies” in terms,
for example, of beings having cognition and beings lacking cognition.
However he says:“This provides a scale of beings, not of being. Socrates
is not more real than his dog, and his dog is not more real than his
cactus” (140). On the contrary, as Thomas explains in ST I, q. 14, a. 1,
the nature that knows is more ample than the nature that lacks the ability to know, precisely inasmuch as the nature that knows “is in a way all
things.”This is to say that the hierarchy is one in function of “measure
of being” of the things involved. Hierarchy here also pertains to distinguishing what has more of the nature of an efficient cause from what
has less of that nature.The efficient causal hierarchy is essentially divided
by the members “reason” and “mere nature,” a doctrine presented by

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Aristotle in Metaphysics 9.2, and followed by Thomas in for example, ST
I, q. 19, a. 4 (first argument in the corpus), and I, q. 4, a. 1 (efficient causality and being in act). Kenny is simply unconscious of the existential
meaning of natural being.145

Kenny asks, apropos of the approaching a maximum, whether the maximum is supposed to be ideal or real. Kenny does not seem to appreciate
the universality of the method used in Fourth Way.This is perhaps in part
because it appeals to the doctrine of the elements, and to fire as the source
of heat in all hot things.A more sympathetic reader might ask what was at
the foundation of this early chemistry. I would say that it is an experience
that is universal, and on which all scientific investigation is based.We see it
in such devices as sonar (asdic) and radar. We see it in the etymology of
“investigation” (the trailing of an animal by its footprints being deeper or
shallower, the trail being “hot” or “cold”). It is the experience of the
bonfire. If one is warm, one is close to the source, the maximum. If one is
less warm, one is further from the source. All doctrines of “traces” follow
that schema.146 Thus Thomas can write:
To the extent that something is closer to the cause, to that extent it
participates more in its effect. Hence, if something is all the more
perfectly participated by some things the closer they get to some thing,
this is a sign that that thing is the cause of that which is participated in
diverse degrees: as, for example, if some things are warmer the closer
they are to a fire, this is a sign that the fire is the cause of the warmth.147

Now, in the Fourth Way, we are not simply dealing with particular
natures and their derivatives.The starting point of the way is a vision of
reality in terms of the more and the less in the line of goodness or truth
or nobility, what Thomas on one occasion calls “universal form.”148 It
might be as well to mention that these are all aspects of reality presented

145 Aristotle, Metaphysics 9.2 (1046a36–b24): active power [dunamis] is either linked

to rational soul or is merely natural; cf. Thomas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 9.2. Efficient causal power is precisely the active dunamis discussed here.
146 See The Works of Aristotle, translated into English under the editorship of Sir
David Ross, vol. XII: Selected Fragments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), 87–88
(fr. 16): Simp. In De Caelo 289.1–15. Aristotle speaks of this in the work On
Philosophy. In general, where there is a better there is a best. Since, then, among
existing things one is better than another, there is also something that is best,
which will [p. 88] be the divine.
147 SCG 3.64.
148 ST I, q. 19, a. 6 (136a47–b4).

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by Aristotle in terms of being as divided by act and potency.149 Thus,
speaking of nobility,Thomas says:
Everything which is, whether substantially or accidentally, is actually, and
is a likeness of the first act, and by virtue of this [situation] it has nobility.Also, what is potentially, by its order towards act, is a participant in nobility: for it is in this way that it is said to “be.” It remains, then, that each
thing, considered in itself, is noble; but it is called “lowly” [Latin: vile]
relative to a more noble [thing].150

Of course, such a text presupposes that one has recognized the existence
of a first in the hierarchy of “being in act.”This is an efficient causal hierarchy, or a hierarchy of the effects of an efficient cause.151 Clearly, to be
a being and to be noble are one and the same thing.
There should be no doubt that Thomas is reasoning toward a real, actual
maximal in the order of goodness and being and intelligibility and perfection. This means a “by nature” first, and so, given that it is the source of
goodness for all that is good, it is also the ideal.We are proving the existence
of an actual ideal.This pertains to the universality of the forms involved.
Kenny asks why the object occupying the maximum point on a scale
should cause the other objects to occupy the place they do on the scale.
Mount Everest is not the cause of all lesser mountains (141)—the asking
of this question is a measure of Kenny’s remoteness from what is being
discussed. Kenny is in the realm of corporeal quantity. Thomas is in the
realm of quantity of power.152
Kenny notes that Thomas refers to “a piece of Aristotle’s physics to the
effect that fire is the cause of heat in objects.” However, Kenny claims that
it is the Platonic doctrine of Ideas that really “fills the gap.” One wonders
why Kenny does not refer to the philosophical text to which Thomas
himself explicitly refers in the fourth way. Indeed, it is the only occasion
in the five ways where he explicitly refers to a text. It is Aristotle’s Metaphysics 2. As is well-known, it is a cornerstone of Thomas’s approach to
being. If we look further into the Metaphysics of Aristotle we see this hierarchy as pertaining to the distinction between being in act and being in
potency. Thus, it is important to realize that the Aristotelian doctrine of
149 Aristotle, Metaphysics 9, shows (ch. 8) that act is prior to potency, i.e., more noble;

that it is better than potency (ch. 9); and that it is truer and more intelligible than
potency (ch. 9 and 10).
150 Summa contra Gentiles 1.70.
151 ST I, q. 4, a. 1.
152 On the distinction between quantity of mass and quantity of power, cf. ST I, q.
42, a. 1, ad 1.

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being as divided by act and potency is what might well be called the
“existentialism” of Aristotle.153
A Visit to the Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle
I will note only some remarks on book 7. On pages 185–187 Kenny looks
at Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 7.5. It concerns the question:
whether a thing and its essence are identical. Kenny sees a change in
terminology, and a new distinction, between the quiddity of Peter and the
essence of Peter (187). He says that a new point is that in God there is no
distinction between “the concrete quiddity” and “the abstract essence.”
I would say that Kenny should have considered the procedure of Metaphysics 7 as Thomas explains it. He would then have realized that the
section he is commenting on here is the pure “logical approach” to the
question, and that later we will have a different presentation, fully philosophical.We see this spelled out in 7.11 (1535–1536).
As Thomas explains in 7.5 (1375), following up on what Kenny quotes
at page 185, note 18, here the thing and its quiddity are one not in just
any way, but one in notion [secundum rationem].What that means is that,
pace Kenny, we are not really speaking of “Peter” at all, but of “man,” the
subject of the definition. It is not the individual that is defined, but the
species. The distinction that Thomas introduces is between “homo” and
“humanitas.” He is not speaking about “Peter.” In 1378 it is said that the
quiddity is what the definition signifies. Since the definition is predicated
of the defined item, the quiddity of “man” is not “humanity,” but rather
“rational, mortal animal.” Thomas continues in 1379 to talk precisely
about “homo,” not about “Socrates.” As he says, “homo” does not exclude
accidents but neither does it include them.
That is why he can conclude in 1380, that a thing such as God, having
in it no accidents, could have predicated of it both the abstract and the
concrete indifferently. Notice that he says this is most evident of all in the
case of God. He does not here make it proper to God.
My point is that in 7.11 (1536) the passage in 7.5 that Kenny has been
discussing is explained as having been about “man” as abstracting from
the singular. Now, in the fully philosophical treatment at 7.11, we find
out that the concrete human being, Peter or Socrates, is not identical with
his quiddity. And in this mode of consideration, the realistic mode, the
quiddity of Socrates is signified by “humanity” (1535). Also, it is pointed
153 Here I touch on matters which I have dealt with more fully in my paper,“Aris-

totle as a Source of St. Thomas’s Doctrine of esse,” which can be read on the
website of the Notre Dame University Maritain Centre, the “Summer Institute”
papers for the year 2000.

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out that “subsisting forms” (not just God) have identity of the thing and
its quiddity (1536).154
A Visit to On Separate Substances
Kenny comes to De substantiis separatis on pages 187–188. He focuses on
the answer to Gebirol concerning universal hylomorphism. I would say
that, considering all his complaints about “Platonism” in Thomas, he
should have said something about the earlier chapters in which Thomas
carefully explains the difference between Plato and Aristotle, what he saw
them as agreeing on, and what he saw as their limits.
Kenny reads the passage he selects as saying “that the esse that is identical with God is the esse that is common to all entities” (188). This is
obviously not what is said. In God esse is universally, and in creatures it is
particularly. There is a unity of ratio, as was taught in for example, ST I,
q. 4, a. 3, by analogy.The De substantiis separatis text is exceptionally clear.
The very response begins by arguing that there can only be one esse
subsistens and that is God.
What is happening here is that Kenny understands the word “universal” only as pertaining to predication, whereas it is clearly meant here to
signify the mode of being that pertains to causal domination. Thus, for
example, in the ST we read:
[I]t is to be said that something is called “general” in two ways. In one
way, by predication, as, for example,“animal” is general relative to “man”
and “horse” and to other such items; and so taken, it is necessary that
the general be identical essentially with those items relative to which it
is general: because the genus pertains to the essence of the species and
falls within its definition. In the other way, something is called
“general” as to power, as the universal cause is general relative to all
effects: for example, the sun relative to all bodies which are illuminated
or changed by its power. And so taken it is not necessary that it be
essentially identical with those things relative to which it is general,
because there is not the same essence of the cause and of the effect.155
154 On the distinction between the two modes of consideration, as presented in

Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics 7, cf. my paper “St. Thomas, Metaphysics,
and Formal Causality,” Laval théologique et philosophique 36 (1980): 285–316.
155 ST II–II, q. 58, a. 6,“Respondeo dicendum quod generale dicitur aliquid dupliciter.
Uno modo, per praedicationem, sicut animal est generale ad hominem et equum
et ad alia huiusmodi. Et hoc modo generale oportet quod sit idem essentialiter
cum his ad quae est generale, quia genus pertinet ad essentiam speciei et cadit in
definitione eius. Alio modo dicitur aliquid generale secundum virtutem, sicut
causa universalis est generalis ad omnes effectus, ut sol ad omnia corpora, quae illuminantur vel immutantur per virtutem ipsius. Et hoc modo generale non oportet

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For the direct application of this distinction to the study of being as
being, consider again In De trin. 5.4.We read:
But just as for each determinate genus there are some common principles which extend to all the principles of that genus, so also all beings,
inasmuch as they agree as to being, have some principles which are the
principles of all beings. Now, these principles can be called “common” in
two ways, according to Avicenna in his Sufficientia: in one way, by predication : as when I say “form is common to all forms,” because it is predicated of any one; in the other way by causality : as we say that the
numerically one sun is the principle for all generable things. Now, there
are common principles of all beings, not only according to the first way:
which the Philosopher in Metaphysics 11 [read: 12] calls “all beings
having the same principles according to analogy,” but also according to the
second way : such that there be things remaining numerically the same
and the principles of all things.156

This is obviously what Thomas is saying in De substantiis separatis, viz. that
God is being itself in the mode of the universal cause of existence. This
is his doctrine from start to finish of his career. Kenny never comes in
contact with it. It is a mark of the problem of the book that here, at the
end, he is unable to understand the word “universal” as applied to the esse
of God.
Kenny here also expresses his surprise at Thomas allowing that form
can be called both “ens” and “non ens.” He sees this as testimony to
Thomas’s dissatisfaction with his theory of being. That Thomas might
have experimented with new modes of expression regarding being
would not be surprising. Any professor who has to deal with a variety of
quod sit idem in essentia cum his ad quae est generale, quia non est eadem essentia causae et effectus,” emphasis added.
156 In De trin. 5.4, emphasis added:
Sicut autem uniuscuiusque determinati generis sunt quaedam communia
principia quae se extendunt ad omnia principia illius generis, ita etiam et
omnia entia, secundum quod in ente communicant, habent quaedam
principia quae sunt principia omnium entium. Quae quidem principia
possunt dici communia dupliciter secundum Avicennam in sua sufficientia: uno modo per praedicationem, sicut hoc quod dico: forma est
commune ad omnes formas, quia de qualibet praedicatur; alio modo per
causalitatem, sicut dicimus solem unum numero esse principium ad omnia
generabilia. Omnium autem entium sunt principia communia non solum
secundum primum modum, quod appellat philosophus in XI metaphysicae omnia entia habere eadem principia secundum analogiam, sed etiam
secundum modum secundum, ut sint quaedam res eadem numero exsistentes omnium rerum principia.

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adversarial arguments must vary his language in order to clarify. In fact,
there is nothing surprising about the point that form, for example, can be
called “ens” and “non ens” from two very carefully distinguished points
of view.The passage is in entire agreement with what Thomas taught in,
for example, Summa contra Gentiles 2.52–54 (key texts on being that are
not discussed in this book). It merely adds considerations helpful in
answering the Gebirol arguments.
Conclusion
The primary weakness of Kenny’s outlook is his failure to see the
doctrine of the act of being, that is, existence, as related to efficient
causality and the terminus of generation. Secondly, I would mention his
failure to consider Thomas’s criticism of Plato’s doctrine, as necessary for
understanding any use Thomas makes of Platonic elements.
In the matter of texts considered, it is remarkable that no use was made
of Summa contra Gentiles 2.52–54, extremely important statements of
fundamental ontology. So also, absence of consideration of the role of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 2.1 is most surprising. All in all, Kenny seems to me to
have remained rather remote from the real doctrine of being of St.Thomas.
Kenny accuses Thomas of being confused. In the above I have tried to
show that, reading the texts he read, Kenny’s accusation was unjustified.
Nor do I think that such an accusation would be justified by reading
other texts. However, that does not mean that I do not find causes for
concern about consistency in texts of St.Thomas on being.Thomas did
change his techniques for making his point about essence and actus
essendi. I am sure he had good reasons for doing so, and that some texts,
compared with others, can cause difficulty.
In particular, there are some texts that speak of the act of being as
providing the answer to the question: “Does it exist?”This is most especially true of Quodl. 2.2.1 (3).157 This is also a view that might be gathered from the general line of what I have called the Intellectus essentiae
argument in De ente et essentia. I will address this situation in a forthcoming paper. However, since my main criticism of Kenny is that he fails
to distinguish the act of being from the “esse” that answers the question:
“Does it exist?” I consider it only fair that I note the existence of such
N&V
texts that can cause trouble.

157 Quodl. 2.2.1 [3] (Leonine ed., t. 25-2, Rome/Paris: Commissio Leonina/Cerf,

1996, at pp. 214–15). I am even led to wonder whether this text belongs with
the generally considered late texts it is placed with.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 3, No. 2 (2005): 401–28

401

Book Reviews
Mystical Consciousness:Western Perspectives and Dialogue with
Japanese Thinkers by Louis Roy, OP (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2003), xxi + 229 pp.
I N F IDES ET R ATIO , Pope John Paul II calls for an increased study of
Asian metaphysics. Fr. Louis Roy’s Mystical Consciousness might be read
fruitfully as a response to this demand. By subjecting a variety of mystical texts to modern epistemological readings, this Dominican scholar has
forged a curious—if cautious—alliance between thinkers East and West
on the subject of consciousness.
Roy’s work aims to explicate the various forms of consciousness and
clarify their epistemological importance, especially in regard to the
insights of those skilled in meditation. To this end, he identifies three
main forms of consciousness.The first,“consciousness C,” is the ordinary
consciousness we have of things and people. It is often referred to as
“consciousness-of,” “positional consciousness,” or “awareness.” The
second form of consciousness, “consciousness B,” is the non-positional
but reflexive consciousness-in that permeates every act of consciousnessof. Finally, Roy considers “consciousness A,” the mystical consciousness
that obtains beyond ordinary acts and states when consciousness B is
appropriated in an extraordinary way, such that one’s consciousness-in or
non-positional consciousness becomes a permanent state or basic disposition by which the mind is united to God. Such consciousness is, by
definition, consciousness without an object: Beyond ordinary consciousness-of and consciousness-in, mystical consciousness is a knowing that
transcends thinking-of and a loving that surpasses and unites all of our
ordinary intentions.
After establishing this basic framework, Roy goes on to address the
insights and oversights of several philosophies of consciousness. The first
part of Mystical Consciousness explores western philosophies of consciousness and includes discussions of well-known philosophers, such as Franz
Brentano, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl

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Book Reviews

Rahner, Bernard Lonergan, and John Searle, as well as lesser-known
figures such as John Crosby, Daniel Helminiak, Elizabeth Morelli, Robert
K.C. Forman, Sebastian Moore, and David Granfield.The second part of
the book contains separate chapters devoted to Plotinus, Meister Eckhart,
and Friedrich Schleiermacher, while its third part is an extended dialogue
with Zen philosophy, embodied by two luminaries of the Kyoto school,
Kenji Nishitani and Shin’ichi Hisamatsu. Roy, it should be said, does not
claim originality in his interpretations of these Japanese thinkers (xi). He
wishes only to show the similarities, indeed the basic convergence, among
several western and Japanese intimations of that which “escapes the
purview of ordinary consciousness” (189). In this regard, Roy’s choice of
the philosophers of the Kyoto school as dialogue partners is ideal because
they have already appropriated the more typically European discourses of
epistemology and existentialism for their own religious ends. More
importantly, this choice allows him to address two problems in most studies of consciousness. In Roy’s estimation, most studies restrict consciousness to an individual’s consciousness, which either rules out mystical
consciousness altogether or misrepresents it in terms of a subject/object
duality that is either false or misleading. Roy’s inclusion of Japanese
thinkers is most helpful here, since both Nishitani and Hisamatsu have
detailed accounts of mystical consciousness that stress its freedom from
such subject/object duality. Even so, Roy believes that those familiar with
meditation often ignore non-positional consciousness-in, which prevents
them from understanding the relationship between mystical consciousness
and ordinary positional consciousness-of. This ignorance of non-positional consciousness causes scholars to ignore the hermeneutic point he
wishes to emphasize: Mystical consciousness, far from being a night in
which all cows are black, is indeed able to judge ordinary consciousness
in a proper analogical fashion.
The relationship of mystical states of consciousness to more ordinary
states is a topic fraught with hermeneutic, metaphysical, and theological
implications.While Roy rightly raises the issue—and correctly indicates
the way forward—one may legitimately ask whether the language of
consciousness is truly the language of interfaith dialogue or whether it is
the philosophical language most adequate to addressing questions of
judgment and analogy. Consider the following passage from Roy: “The
advanced meditator then partakes of the consciousness that permeates all
beings, with no definition added to their suchness. Everything is dereified, de-substantialized, de-dualized, including ‘I,’ ‘God,’ ‘world,’
‘Being,’ ‘Nihility.’ Mystical consciousness then includes all particulars
dynamically.The Self refashions the selves, in its own image and likeness

Book Reviews

403

perhaps, instead of abolishing them” (188). The meaning of a statement
rife with such metaphysical terms is difficult to understand in terms of
the language of consciousness alone. It seems to imply that those skilled
in meditation can judge metaphysical realities such as God, Being, the
“Self,” and “Nihility” without submitting to the usual rigors of metaphysics. How, though, might a judgment remain analogical if both
“Being” and “Nihility” are “de-dualized?”We risk an almost Heideggerian disregard of the Thomistic tradition here, in which the supposed “dereification” of being makes it not convertible with truth, goodness, and
beauty but rather with the “Nothing” itself, and one is left only with the
breeziest of tautologies so favored by Heidegger, in which the “world
worlds” or the “nothing nothings.”
More to the point, Roy does little to address other scholars who might
object to his characterization of mysticism. Indeed, he and his reader
seem to share a tacit agreement that all the thinkers under discussion
share enough of an epistemological framework to converse about mysticism without much further ado. He simply assumes that mysticism is the
cross-cultural phenomenon that is best discussed epistemologically—
apart from concerns of language, history, or culture—and sets about his
task. This assumption can be seen in Roy’s description of Hisamatsu’s
conception of emptiness, the ultimate reality according to Mahayana
Buddhism: “Far from being a mere psychological concentration that
would exclude all forms of consciousness-of, this void integrates all
components of our finitude. It embraces history as well as the cosmos. It
is the Self that takes up all that is valid in the self, purifies it, and energizes it. Despite differences owing to cultural diversity, that absolute reality consists of the mystical consciousness that parts 1 and 2 of this book
have characterized” (186).The final caveat “despite differences owing to
cultural diversity” might appear a bit too easy for those inclined to
believe consciousness, even mystical consciousness, is historically effected,
linguistically mediated, and/or metaphysically grounded.
In all fairness, if Roy has not delved into the metaphysical ramifications of his claims, neither has he denied the legitimacy of doing so.The
question, which I shall leave to the reader to answer, is whether one can
pursue such epistemological reflections coherently without addressing
such concerns. One’s answer to this final question will largely determine
how one responds to Roy’s work. I fear that his discussions will convince
those who are already predisposed to think that one can address epistemology apart from metaphysics and hermeneutics, but madden those
who are not. Either result would be unfortunate. Roy’s judgments are
often sound, and one need not be advanced in meditation to appreciate

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Book Reviews

them. He rightly criticizes the false peace and self-serving placidity that
endanger mysticism and chastises meditators who are averse to philosophical rigor. Above all, his analyses are clear and straightforward, which
is no mean feat in a field where technical jargon often obscures the issues.
Although Roy clearly states that he does not aim to present the
complex whole of Christian mysticism (xx), readers of Nova et Vetera
might have liked to see a greater attention paid to traditional Dominican
contributions to mystical prayer. Roy occasionally invokes Thomas
Aquinas and devotes an entire chapter to Meister Eckhart, but both seem
strangely divorced from their Dominican context. Indeed, Roy’s Eckhart
is less the Eckhart of Armand Maurer or Bernard McGinn than the
Eckhart of D. T. Suzuki and Thomas Merton. Even so, further investigation of traditional sources might very well support many of Roy’s findings. The scholastic tradition, for example, explores any number of
subjects that might be of interest to theoreticians of mystical consciousness, including frankly exotic topics such as the natural omniscience of
Adam, the temporality of angels, and the relationship of Christ to space
and time, among others. Much the same might be said for the traditional
philosophical texts of both Buddhism and Hinduism, which—it must be
said—contain many of the most refined discussions of consciousness in
the history of epistemology, East or West.
Apart from these quibbles, the book has minor problems in editing (vii,
58, 184 et al.), and its index is incomplete, lacking full entries for Paul,
Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas. Nevertheless, Roy’s achievements are
solid. His work makes an important advance beyond much of the work on
cross-cultural comparisons of mysticism by avoiding typologies of mysticism and actually interpreting the writings of different mystics. More
importantly, Roy has raised a series of crucial questions about the relationship of mysticism to the analogical judgments of ordinary consciousness.
Still, he will need to clarify some of the ramifications of his research in
future publications. At its current stage, Roy’s work is an excellent primer
for those interested in the major participants in this discussion but will be
less satisfying for those who have deeper training in the older philosophical traditions of the Church or non-Christian religions.This, however, is all
N&V
the more reason for those so trained to follow his lead.
R.Trent Pomplun
Loyola College in Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland

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Bioetica: Storia, princìpi, questioni by Lino Ciccone (Milano: Edizioni
Ares, 2003), 408 pp.
I F WE HAD to rank the most recent and most successful neologisms of
our time, “bioethics” would certainly be in the top five. Since its first
appearance in an article by Van Renselaer Potter published in 1970
(“Bioethics: The Science of Survival”), it has given titles everywhere to
research centers, university chairs, and national and international
committees. The specific literature and the legal documents related to
bioethics increase every day. Many people who would carefully avoid
getting involved in philosophical questions as such end up today involved
in bioethical issues.
In Italy, there are now many textbooks trying to offer a systematic
account of bioethics. The best and most eminent one is the Manuale di
Bioetica by Elio Sgreccia (Milano:Vita e Pensiero, 1999).The most recent
one (and a good one at that) is Lino Ciccone, Bioetica: Storia, princìpi, questioni. Ciccone is not a beginner; he is a well-known Italian moral philosopher who has already published several good and useful books, including
Non uccidere and Salute e malattia. Those who, like me, have already had
the chance to appreciate his style, will easily detect in this last book too
his ability to approach ethical issues, not only with great clarity, but also
highlighting their many aspects related to law, medicine, biology, psychology, and so forth.
The “Second Part” of Bioetica deals with many “Questioni particolari”
[particular issues] such as the identity and status of human embryo, artificial insemination, cloning, prenatal diagnosis, experiments on human
embryos and on animals, transplantation of organs, drug abuse, alcoholism, smoking, and AIDS. The “First Part,” on the other hand, is
“fundamental and general,” and, besides two chapters on the “origins of
bioethics” and its “general principles,” includes one chapter bearing the
title “Verso uno statuto epistemologico” (“Towards an epistemological
status”)—a title which is “un po’ inconsueto” (a little unusual), the author
warns us immediately, but which is justified because “the very young age
of bioethics makes it problematic and, according to some, premature to
draw a precise epistemological status” (21).
Problematic and premature . . . or simply wrong? Ciccone himself has
already dealt in other moral books with many particular issues now
addressed in the same way in Bioetica, but not under the label “bioethics.”
What changed now? Whatever it is, we should be able to find it in the
object and method of bioethics as explained in the chapter on the “epistemological status” and as applied in the “second part” of the book.

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The object of bioethics, says the author, relates to the field of “biological and medical sciences” as they have brought about an “enormous
increase of man’s possibilities to intervene on life, especially at its origin
and at its decline. Old problems have thus acquired a new physiognomy”
(22). Fair enough. But human beings’ possibilities of intervention on the
world have enormously increased in almost every field—from economics to law, to the weapons industry, to the means of communication, and
so forth—and there are plenty of “old problems” that acquired “a new
physiognomy” (think, in the economic field, of usury). Should we coin
many neologisms, like “warethics,”“internetethics,”“economyethics,” and
“lawethics,” and draw a specific epistemological status for each of those
fields? This would obviously be mistaken.
Ethics has a peculiar scientific physiognomy: It is reflection on human
action as good (or evil), not in a particular technical sense, but absolutely
speaking, everything considered. Consider the formal difference between
the two following judgments on my good. Medical judgment:“It is good for
me to stay three days in bed in order to heal from fever.” Moral judgment:
“It is good for me to get out of my bed straight away even at the cost of
making my health condition worse (because, for example, I have to take
care of my little baby).” The physician as physician does not have a scientific
competence on moral judgment. More: if he expresses a moral judgment
as physician he contradicts the very science in which he is expert.
Ethics is a practical science:That is to say, it concerns human action. And
human action must always be understood in its real context, which
involves a multiplicity of aspects often related to highly specialized scientific disciplines. In these cases (which are not only those of medicine and
biology), a qualified (scientific) knowledge of reality is a necessary
presupposition of moral reflection. This, however, does not reduce the
formal difference between moral good and the proper objects of the
other disciplines. It is certainly useful to group together some ethical
issues as they refer to specific scientific fields. So, we speak of economy
ethics, medical ethics, and so forth. However, it is not good to create
confusion about the proper object of ethical reflection.
Ciccone himself, I hasten to say, does not run any such risk of confusion.The risk does not usually involve philosophers, who know that ethics
belongs to philosophy and that the term “bioethics” is in fashion, generates interest, and is expedient. Rather, Ciccone’s use of the term poses a
problem because it may encourage other people to think that they can do
ethics without knowing philosophy. For instance, I know of university
courses on bioethics entrusted to physicians who expressly do not know
anything about philosophy. This induces not only confusion but also

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unjustified, not grounded, moral judgments. Physicians, biologists, and
others, ought to raise moral questions, but they also should know that the
answers to these questions require specialized philosophical knowledge
that is different from the knowledge specific to their sciences.
In short, the key question has to do with methodology.We might agree
that the object of bioethics does not make it different from ethics. But is
it not true that the method of bioethics is specifically different in that it
requires “a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach” (22)? In this
regard, we should say that bioethics (like business ethics) is indeed leading
the way, but not in constituting itself as a specific science, but (a) in freeing many philosophers from a kind of academic segregation they had
chosen for themselves, and (b) in recalling experts, in fields particularly
charged with moral questions, to the importance of facing these questions
in a serious and rationally disciplined manner, which includes discussions
about them with expert moral philosophers. Again, ethics is a practical
science that concerns the moral good to be done in concrete human
choices.Thus ethics is interdisciplinary because human life is interdisciplinary. In some cases (law, economics, medicine, biology, and so forth), the
need for interdisciplinarity emerges in a more evident and intense way, but
never in such a way as to create a different science.
N&V
Fulvio Di Blasi
LUMSA School of Law
Palermo, Italy

The Power of God: Dynamis in Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian
Theology by Michel Rene Barnes (Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America Press, 2001), 333 pp.
T HIS FIRST BOOK of Michel Barnes is a revision of his doctoral dissertation at University of St. Michael’s College,Toronto. It provides a helpful window into the formation of early Christian doctrine after the
Council of Nicaea by detailing the debate between Gregory of Nyssa and
Eunomius of Cyzicum on correct understandings of the term homoousios.
Barnes explains Nyssa’s orthodox understanding of consubstantiality
through an exploration of the term dynamis, which for Gregory conveyed
the idea that whatever shares the same power must share the same nature.
Barnes says his study will proceed with three tasks in mind: (1) to
recover power as a technical term; (2) to look at Gregory’s Trinitarian
theology in its historical context; and (3) to understand the role of
philosophy in the development of Christian doctrine via Gregory’s
thought, taken as a patristic case study. The first two tasks he completes

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with thorough and attentive study, but it is the third that deserves more
direct attention in this review.
For his first task, Barnes looks at pre-Platonic usages of power, especially the medical writings of the Hippocratic and Empedoclean schools,
which are later appropriated by Christians. He focuses on how the term
is understood as working oppositionally and also how power can be either
constitutive of a thing or derivative of a thing. This latter understanding
becomes important in attempts to determine the kind of power the Son
has: Is it the same power as the Father, or one delegated and hence derived
from the Father, making the Son purely an instrument without his own
proper power? The primary description of power by pre-Platonic philosophers is that it is the causal capacity of a material entity.
The development of the Platonic use of the term eventually moves
away from purely material causality to “teleological causality.” Barnes sees
Plato as using the term to explain an entity in terms of why it is what it
is. Here we see that power has become an ontological term (though
Barnes tells us he is unhappy about using words like ontology and metaphysics, he grudgingly acknowledges that this is the sense in which Plato
understands it). For Plato, power is said to belong to a thing insofar as it
exists; its existence is somehow constituted by its particular powers.
Chapter 3 turns to the second- and third-century Trinitarian controversies, focusing upon Tertullien, Hipploytus, and Origen. Here the development of the understanding of the term power has evolved from the
medical to the metaphysical to the psychological, and finally to the transcendent or theological. It is precisely this kind of movement that
provides the seeds of an answer to the third main task of Barnes’s study,
but unfortunately receives little commentary beyond the observation that
such an evolution has indeed occurred. Such an evolution is that which
interests most of those who desire to know how theology, and not just
doctrine, develops.
This time period sees the development of two doctrines of power in
relation to the Godhead: one which expresses the power of God insofar
as his nature is one, the other which applies the term specifically to the
Son, who uniquely manifests God’s power. All three of the fathers highlighted in this chapter have representations of both of these senses of
power. Questions begin to arise, however, about the second sense. Is the
Son the very power of God or is he a produced power, a power from a
power? In the early Nicaean controversy, there was no problem with the
language of “X from X” to describe the relation between the second and
first Persons of the Trinity.The concern to distinguish the Son as distinct
from the Father was the motivation of such language, but their relation-

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409

ship could not be conceived of as an effect generated from a cause that
is different from the effect in nature.The result of such confusion saw the
expense of the Son’s full divinity, leading to a necessity for greater precision with theological language and thought.
This is the subject of the fourth chapter, the Trinitarian debates of the
fourth century. All parties in the debate use power language in ways that
have historical precedent, as the author has been at pains to detail in the
previous chapters. Athanasius, Marcellus of Ancyra, Eusebius of Caesarea,
Asterius, the creeds from 340–360, and even the western fathers Phoaebadius of Agen, Hilary, and Ambrose receive attention here in the attempt
to show how the concept of dynamis is vital and functioning, and which
lead to the main chapters of the book where we finally enter the argument between Eunomius and Gregory.
Barnes sees this debate as much more important than the “overstated”
battle between Athanasius and Arius (148–49). His reading of the second
half of the fourth century is that Arius has receded in importance and the
new heretics on the block who receive the brunt of ire and wrath are
Eunomius and Aetius. It is certainly true that the years leading up to
Constantinople in 381 focused on a new type of Arianism, but that Arius
has vanished from the picture seems a hard saying.The main argument of
Eunomius, though meant to protect the transcendence of God, is in fact
another species of subordinationist Arian theology. Eunomius establishes
a theological hierarchy of essence (God)-activity (Son)-product
(creation) in which the highest, as utterly transcendent, has no part in the
lower. If God is unbegotten and unproduced, then it would compromise
his essence to enter into the messy business of production. It is the Son,
then, who is produced (first among creation, yet distinct from it), and in
turn produces the rest of creation. The only relation between God and
the Son is that of a moral or political union in which the Son is obedient to the will of the Father, but there is no unity of essence.This creates
obvious subordinationist problems, but behind it is the even greater threat
to Christian doctrine and theology: the rejection of any doctrine of
participation in God, and hence the rejection of analogy. For Eunomius,
the only way in which God can be known is through language that
expresses God’s unbegotten stature.
Gregory has the burden of proof on him to show how God’s transcendence is not threatened by the act of creation. As we have seen, the stakes
in the debate are high, since it ultimately becomes a question about the
knowability of God.The early Trinitarian debates are wrestling with more
than just the doctrine of God; they are establishing the grounds for the
possibility of a Christian theology, in which humans attempt to understand

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who God is. Scholars have drawn attention to this point in the Gregorian/Eunomian debate, but Barnes points out that it is often from within
an unfortunate paradigm. Traditional scholarship tended to artificially
divide Gregory’s “mystical theology” from his Trinitarian/doctrinal theology, such that he has earned the reputation of being radically apophatic. In
fact, the contextual (and polemical) background for his work is the Eunomian theology that privileges univocal language.
Here is where Barnes sees the importance of the power controversy
coming to a head, and how Gregory can answer Eunomius:There is no
division between the nature and power of God. God’s nature is to be
creative, to be productive, to be generative. Because Eunomius has
divided God’s activity from his essence, there can be no “analogical
ladder.” But because Gregory insists upon the unity of nature and power,
there exists the possibility of analogy.
The importance of such a possibility for Christian thought cannot be
underemphasized, which again ties into the third main point of Barnes’s
study. But again, the meaning of analogy and how it is demonstrated or
revealed to us by Gregory is given short shrift. Examples of analogies
Gregory uses, especially that of fire, are noted but what exactly Gregory
thinks he is doing (or not doing) by giving such analogies is never developed.This point is merely hinted at as an implication of the importance
of the power debate. One hopes that Barnes’s further work on this “father
of fathers” will draw out these tantalizing implications in the future.
There are two other important contributions that Barnes makes in his
study that should be mentioned.The first is that his rereading of Gregory’s
Trinitarian theology focuses upon the text Contra Eunomium, instead of
the two texts to which scholars have traditionally shown preference: De
Sancta Trinitate (On the Holy Trinity) and Ad Ablabium (On Not Three Gods).
The Contra Eunomium is Gregory’s longest, and arguably, most comprehensive doctrinal work, providing a much more thorough and representative picture of his thought. Secondly, through his study, Barnes has
managed to debunk again the faulty scheme still dominant in parts of
theological discourse that “Eastern theologians begin Trinitarian discourse
with persons, Western theologians begin with nature.” If Barnes’s “De
Regnon Considered” (Augustinian Studies 26 [1995]) did not persuade
one, this work certainly provides a more in-depth exposure to the work
of one eastern father who had no qualms “beginning with” the nature of
God, since his adversary Eunomius had identified divinity with one
Person (God) and one Personal relation (Unbegotten).
Overall, Barnes’s work contributes positively to the task of “re-examining” Gregory of Nyssa that has rightfully been undertaken by patristic

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scholars of late. His willingness to move beyond schemes dominant in
previous scholarship has far-reaching implications not only for the understanding of Gregory’s thought, but also for ecumenical dialogue and bridging the difference between eastern and western theological methods. N&V
Jennifer Clark
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA

The Resurrection of the Son of God, volume 3 of Christian
Origins and the Question of God by N. T. Wright (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2003), 817 pp.
S IMPLY PUT, The Resurrection of the Son of God is a book that in its
breadth, argumentative vigor, and capacity to raise questions about basic
aspects of New Testament studies is unlikely to be surpassed by any
scholar in Wright’s generation.The work engages relevant material from
the classical world, the Old Testament, the period known as Second
Temple Judaism, the New Testament, the New Testament Apocrypha, the
Apostolic Fathers, the early Apologists, early Syriac Christianity, and Nag
Hammadi, to name only the general textual “groups,” most of which can
be subdivided many times over into areas that provide enough space for
entire academic careers.Yet, in this vast expanse of material Wright loses
neither his focus nor his energy in expression. Indeed, the ability to present a witty and coherent case through multiple, detailed exegetical investigations and wide cultural and chronological gaps is a large part of what
makes the book so compelling.
Wright’s argument, so he reminds the reader over and again, is a
historical one. It has profound theological implications to be sure (see
esp. part V, “Belief, Event, and Meaning”), but the argument itself
proceeds not at the level of metaphysical reflection but at that of historical, textual investigation. Four of the book’s five parts (roughly 680 of
the 740 pages of main text) thus deal with resurrection in ancient paganism and in Old Testament and “post-biblical” Judaism, resurrection in
Paul, resurrection in early Christianity (apart from Paul), and, finally, the
resurrection narratives themselves.The historical insight here, evident in
each section and taken cumulatively, is actually most radically—at its
roots—linguistic, in the sense that the investigation discloses something
about the vocabulary of resurrection upon which the entire argument
can later be seen to depend.
In antiquity, to speak about resurrection was to say something rather
definite about postmortem existence. It was to say that the deceased

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would be made alive again bodily. Leaving aside some of the Nag
Hammadi documents (cf. esp. the Epistle to Rheginos) and allowing for
variation and nuance, in no way was resurrection understood in any
other way than as corporeal. Indeed, its somatic nature would hardly have
appealed to pagans (“not an option,” despite Alcestis and Nero redivivus).
Resurrection of the dead, that is, was a distinctively Jewish affirmation,
though it became widespread only in the postexilic period and was
denied in the days of Jesus and Paul by the “aristocratic” Sadducees.
Jewish belief in the resurrection was not, however, a belief about what
happened to individuals immediately after their physiological demise—least
of all, the Messiah (see, for example, 205, 700). Instead it was both corporate and two-staged: In the eyes of the Second Temple Jews, resurrection
was an affirmation about the restoration of Israel and about “life after life
after death.” Immortality of the soul, conceived in strictly Platonic terms,
evidently played little to no part in Jewish theology (even in the Wisdom of
Solomon the notion of immortality is “pressed into [the] service” of resurrection [168]), but neither did resurrection as corporate and future exclude
an “intermediate state,” a kind of ongoing existence immediately after
bodily death.This intermediate state, the life after death, will be followed by
resurrection, in which the deceased will receive bodies and Israel be
restored—the “life” after the life after death (sections 3 and 4 of part I).
For the early Christians to speak at all about resurrection was thus for
them to speak Jewishly (specifically, for Wright, with Pharisaic intonation). Yet the early Christian claim—across the board, from the earliest
Pauline material (part II) through the rest of the New Testament and on
to even Origen (part III)—involved two profound and historically unexpected “mutations” within the Jewish affirmation of resurrection: first,
that something had already happened that merited resurrection language,
and, second, that this something had happened not to all Israel but to a
particular individual. Both of these mutations obviously find their locus
in the early Christian conviction about Jesus of Nazareth, namely, that
after his crucifixion he was raised bodily from the dead.
To observe and document textually these mutations is not, however, to
get at their historical cause. That requires a further step, one that Wright
takes in the direction of the belief of the early Christians. Perhaps obviously, but no less significantly, the Christian mutation in the Jewish view
of resurrection occurred because the early Christians believed these things
to be true of Jesus.The language of “resurrection” fit the Christian faith.
The Christians spoke what they believed. It is here that many scholars
have been content to stop: The faith of the early Christians is alone
enough to account for the language of resurrection. Not so N. T.Wright.

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413

Wright avers strongly that to claim “faith” or belief as that which
motivated the early Christians to speak about Jesus as they did is already
to ask—whether acknowledged or not—what could have caused them
to believe in this particular way.Their language betokens their belief, but
what is it, historically speaking, that moves them toward belief? Wright’s
answer, noetically logical if historically contentious, involves yet another
step, this time toward the empty tomb and the resurrection appearances.
In contrast to many scholars and theologians who deny the importance
of the empty tomb,Wright mounts a case for its unsubstitutable significance.The point is simple, though (for some) shocking, and its bite equals
Wright’s bark about resurrection vocabulary: Given the bodily meaning of
resurrection, it is historically improbable—Wright might say, if he were
pressed, inconceivable—that the early Christians would have used resurrection language of Jesus had his body still in fact been in the tomb. In
other words, the thesis runs, a body in a tomb could bring forth all
manner of language about postmortem life except that of resurrection.
By itself, however, an empty tomb would not lead to talk of resurrection (the body could have been stolen, for example, as one hoary theory
would have it). To speak of resurrection requires something further. This
something further is found in the appearance narratives. For Wright, the
description of Jesus in the resurrection stories of the canonical Gospels
confirms the emptiness of the tomb (part IV), for the appearances illustrate
and even stress the bodily nature of Jesus’ resurrection.The empty tomb on
the one hand and the corporeal nature of Jesus’ appearance on the other
thus both require and explain the use of “resurrection” as that language—
in fact, the only language—that fits or corresponds to the reality.
For critical New Testament scholars after Bultmann, Wright’s final
move is probably the most controversial, not necessarily in its question—
What best accounts for the language of resurrection, the empty tomb, and
the appearances?—but rather in its answer: the actual, bodily resurrection
of Jesus of Nazareth.Wright is careful here to draw a distinction between
the knowledge of a mathematician and a historian (historians should not,
because they cannot, offer “mathematical proof ”) and also to avoid a kind
of crude natural theology that would read God directly off the face of
certain events.Yet he is nevertheless resolutely insistent that the historical
explanation, both in the sense of what happened and in the sense of being
open to investigation, for the phenomenon as a whole is the actual, bodily
resurrection of Jesus. No other solution, so Wright argues, can wield the
explanatory power needed to coordinate the meaning of “resurrection” in
its cultural encyclopedia with the language and belief of the early Christians, the empty tomb, and the resurrection appearances.

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N. T.Wright’s newest big book is thus in a sense about origins (it is after
all part of a series with the words “Christian origins” in the title). It is
disarmingly simple in its main contention: that if one moves back through
history step by step, the bodily resurrection of Jesus is the best historical
explanation for all that followed.The resurrection, that is, is the origin for
the experience that was described as resurrection in all its various ways.
Quibblers of all kinds will find plenty here to satisfy them (for example, the understanding of the Imperial cult, the treatment of the resurrected “bodies of the saints” in Matthew 27:52–53, and the implications
for resurrection expectations in the first century, etc.). But it is certainly
questionable whether even cumulative quibbling could offer anything
like a challenge to the book. Strictly theological queries along the lines
of human access to the resurrection (for example, the nature and role of
faith) will come from across the theological spectrum, though both
stanch skeptics and devout pietists, let it be said clearly, will likely misunderstand Wright to say that he has proven scientifically the resurrection
of the Son of God and all the subsequent (Christian) meaning engendered by this conviction. Historically, however, the primary threat to
Wright’s overall interpretation would be the accumulation of evidence—
either examples to the contrary or different, equally plausible readings of
the same texts—along a linguistic line that would divide the language of
resurrection from that of bodies. One might also conceive, at least theoretically, of the possibility of an analysis that would show the bodily
language of resurrection to be inextricably bound with ancient cosmology such that we cannot receive its meaning without an essential reinterpretation. But this is probably a much larger question about the nature
of time and language, hermeneutics, and theological truth. In any event,
producing a serious historical challenge to the book as a whole is a
massive undertaking, one which will certainly not be forthcoming any
time soon, and one which may not even be forthcoming at all.
N&V
C. Kavin Rowe
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina

Thomist Realism and the Linguistic Turn: Toward a More
Perfect Form of Existence by John P. O’Callaghan (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2003), ix + 358 pp.
O N THE EVIDENCE of the Oxford English Dictionary, the terms “representationalist” and “representationism” were first used in the 1840s in
discussions of Hume’s critic Thomas Reid, the “great aim” of whose philos-

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415

ophy, wrote J. D. Morell in 1846, was “to controvert the representationalist
hypothesis.” (The form “representationalism” apparently wasn’t used until
1899.) Reid himself had called what he was attacking “the theory of
ideas,” and although he was particularly concerned with its development
from Descartes to Hume, he seems to have thought that it had infected
philosophy from Plato onward. Hilary Putnam, in his anti-representationalist Representation and Reality of 1988, suggests that the trouble really got
going with a brief passage on meaning and reference in Aristotle’s De interpretatione (16a3–9), according to which, in Putnam’s explanation, when we
understand a word we associate it with a “concept” or “mental representation” that determines what the word refers to. Putnam insinuates that the
subsequent philosophical tradition is, by and large, guilty of a fundamentally Aristotelian representationalism.The present work offers a Thomistic
response to the implicit accusation.
Two first-person remarks in the Introduction, “Words, Thoughts, and
Things,” establish that the Thomism will be partly exegetical and partly
innovative. “In this work I hope to make some progress toward a better
understanding of what the Thomistic-Aristotelian tradition does and does
not claim about the relations that hold among words, thoughts, and things”
(3). “I want to contribute toward moving my tradition forward by a critical engagement with one aspect of the Linguistic Turn. In doing so, what I
will argue will in some ways be implicitly and at times explicitly critical of
aspects of my own tradition. So, for instance, I will make no use of the
verbum mentis, one of the most venerable interpretations of St. Thomas,
because I believe it is not part of his philosophical account of understanding and language” (12).This renunciation is explained by the absence of the
theme of verbum mentis from Aquinas’s “latest and most extensive philosophical discussions” (300, n. 16); thus it seems to be related to the author’s
reluctance to make use of Aquinas’s earlier works because of their
“pronounced Augustinian flavor on cognitive issues that is much more
strongly mediated by Aristotelian analyses in the later work” (322, n. 40).
The first chapter,“Aristotle’s Semantic Triangle in St.Thomas,” begins
by discussing Boethius’s translation of and Aquinas’s commentary on the
passage of De interpretatione referred to by Putnam, as well as the theme
of “absolute consideration” of a nature in Aquinas’s De ente et essentia.This
sets the scene for two definitions, both offered in the first person. “Let
me introduce the term ‘intelligible character’ to designate the determinate form delimiting or structuring the first operation [of the intellect]
in act—I am attempting to pick out one of the senses of the multifaceted
Latin word ratio” (26). (“Intelligible character” is synonymous with
Aquinas’s “nature absolutely considered” [31]; as a principle of knowing

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it is distinguished from “intelligible species,” which is an accident of intellect [165]). “Let me introduce ‘concept’ as a technical term to designate
the first act so informed or intelligibly delimited by the intelligible character, that is, ‘concept’ names the first act of understanding” (31). The
reason why the author emphasizes that this sense of the term “concept” is
his own would seem to be that it is certainly not the sense Aquinas gives
to the cognate terms conceptus and conceptio, which he rather identifies with
the verbum mentis that is here left undiscussed; the conceptus, conceptio, or
verbum is, for Aquinas, not the first act of the intellect, but something that
this act produces. Accordingly, the author’s subsequent attribution of his
definition of “concept” to Aquinas (168, 255) is surprising.
He suggests that readers not concerned with close examination of historical issues can pass over the second chapter, “Three Rival Versions of Aristotle,” without much difficulty (12), but its careful discussion of the terms
for “sign,” “symbol,” and “first” in the Greek text and Latin translation of,
and in some Latin commentaries on, De interpretatione 16a3–9, both is interesting in itself and leads to a significant conclusion:“[T]his chapter provides
at least an initial historical understanding of the plausibility of the charge of
mental representationalism directed at the Aristotelian tradition in its
account of language.When contemporary philosophers make this charge, it
cannot simply be dismissed as completely unfounded.There is evidence for
it in Ammonius and Boethius, even if, as I have just argued, there is no
evidence for it in St. Thomas’s commentary on Aristotle” (77). Still, apart
from his work as a commentator, what did St.Thomas himself think?
Before coming to this question, the author turns in chapters 3 to 5
from “the Thomistic-Aristotelian tradition” to modern developments
favoring and opposing representationalism. Chapter 3, “Language and
Mental Representationalism: Historical Considerations,” begins by tracing the intensification of representationalism in Locke, Berkeley, and
Hume, with increasing insistence on an internal mental entity as what is
directly known and increasing skepticism about the knowability of an
external world (99). The chapter then sketches the emergence of antirepresentationalisms in Reid, Husserl, Frege, and above all Wittgenstein,
and it concludes by identifying the following representationalist themes:
the dichotomy between the internal and the external; the structure of
mind, concept, and thing; the question of the relation, if any, between
representation and thing; and the representation as what the mind knows
directly by introspection (111–12).
The next two chapters profile contemporary authors. Chapter 4,“The
Language of Thought:A Revival of Mental Representationalism,” samples
representationalism in the work of Jerry Fodor, who substitutes a causal

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relation for the traditional resemblance relation between representation
and object. Although perhaps unnecessary to the argument of the book,
the chapter is of interest as an exposition of a self-conscious, contemporary version of representationalism, and as a background for the central
and pivotal chapter 5,“Hilary Putnam’s Criticism of Aristotelian Accounts
of Language and Mental Representationalism.” Putnam severely criticizes
Aristotelianism for its “cryptographer” model of language use, according
to which the mind is supposed to think in mentalese, encode its thoughts
in the local language, and transmit them to a hearer, who then decodes
them. Putnam objects that “meanings just ain’t in the head,” for “environment rather than mental representation is determining reference”
(148–49). From Fodor’s defense and Putnam’s attack the author extracts
three “theses” of representationalism: that “in addition to the mind and
external things, there is a third realm of mental things” (the Third Thing
Thesis); “that the mind in its activity of thinking directs itself to these
internal objects as what it primarily knows, or attends to, or is related to”
(the Introspectibility Thesis); and “that there is no intrinsic or necessary
relation between the so-called ‘mental representations’ in the mind and
the represented things outside it” (the Internalist Thesis) (155–56). At the
book’s crucial juncture, the philosophical first-person steps forth: “In the
next three chapters, I examine the Thomistic-Aristotelian account I have
been providing against the background of these three theses” (157,
emphasis added). But soon it becomes clear that the deeper intention is to
test Aquinas himself against the theses.
Addressing the first thesis, chapter 6 asks whether St.Thomas’s intelligible species and concepts are a third kind of thing in addition to mind
and external things. First of all, when we say that forms are in things (or,
more to the point, that we have something in mind), what do we mean
by “in”? Locke and Hume seem to take the preposition at face value, at
least as a metaphor; Aquinas rather follows Aristotle’s metaphysical interpretation of it as meaning “dependence” of whatever is said to be “in” on
that in which it is said to be. “The spatial sense of ‘in’ for ‘classical representationalism,’ whether taken metaphorically or literally, is simply not at
play in St. Thomas’s discussion of intellect and world. . . . [I]t is more
appropriate to ask which beings actively depend upon me for their existence, and which do not? But this question does not lend itself to imagining two ‘spaces,’ the inner space of the mind, and the outer space of the
world, as well as a gulf between them” (165). A concept is not the product of the intellect’s act of grasping something outside the soul, for it is
by definition the act itself. (Occasionally, for example on 170–71, the
dense style exposes the reader to a hazard of English-speaking Thomism,

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that of confusing “act” meaning “actuality” [actus] with “act” meaning
“action” or “operation.”) To the objection that we speak of “having”
concepts, the author allows that “concept” in a secondary sense means a
“stable capacity or developed potency” to engage in an act of conceiving
or understanding; in this sense, it is a habit, the habitually conserved intelligible species (174–75). To Robert Pasnau’s claim that the intelligible
species is a third thing, the author replies that it is rather the form of the
act of understanding (176).Then, in a dramatic move, he partly takes back
what he has said: There is a sense in which a concept, as an act, may, in
keeping with Aquinas’s thought, be called a thing, a res, as a comparison
of the meanings of ens and res in Aquinas’s work shows (182–94). As the
operation of a substance, a concept is an accident with a quiddity, as well
as an act of being, of its own, and in this regard it may be called a thing.
“But the result is that it is not a thing or res in the sense that pertains to
the Third Thing Thesis; it is not a thing distinct from the act of understanding” (194). “Thing” must be understood analogically, which, incidentally, answers Putnam’s call for recognition that terms such as “thing,”
“being,” “existence,” and “object” are not univocal (ibid.).
Chapter 7 begins by clarifying that the term “object” in Aquinas’s
vocabulary means “formal aspect,” not “thing” or “being.” It then measures the Thomistic intelligibile species against the introspectibility thesis
by means of a close analysis of Summa theologiae, I, q. 85, a. 2, the classic
text for proving that the intelligible species is the “by which” (quo) of
knowledge, and not, primarily, the “what” (quod) or object, but that it
nevertheless can be an object secondarily. St. Thomas regularly calls the
form in the intellect a “likeness” of what is known, but “there are two
characteristics of likeness in the Introspectibility Thesis missing from St.
Thomas’s Aristotelian account. First, likeness is not specific to his account
of knowledge the way it is in the Introspectibility Thesis.” Rather, it is
simply an instance of the general Aristotelian principle that any effect
somehow resembles its cause:The intelligible species is a likeness because
it is an effect of a causal engagement with the object. “Second, likeness
does not provide the mechanism by which a known internal representation becomes knowledge of something else.” Instead, it is the form of the
act of understanding, which is an identification of the mind with its
object (228–31). The chapter goes on to address Pasnau’s un-Thomistic
hypothesis of a psychological, noncognitive apprehension of intelligible
species, then concludes by appropriating a phrase of John McDowell’s.
“McDowell is correct when he writes that ‘the possibility that goes missing in Putnam’s argument could be described as the possibility of mental
representing without representations.’ St. Thomas provides just such an

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account” (236).The intended contrast, it seems, is between, on one hand,
a lively action of representing, and, on the other, a collection of inert
items designated for representational purposes, although “representation,”
like repraesentatio, is ambiguous as between an action and a product.
Chapter 8 responds to the internalist thesis by considering in turn two
Thomistic themes. First it attempts to explain the admittedly difficult
Thomistic notion of a formal identity of concept and res: “Absolutely
considered what it is for an act of understanding to be of an X, the act’s
essence or quod quid est esse, does not differ from what it is for the X to be,
the X ’s quod quid est esse” (240). If there were a Thomistic skepticism, it
would concern not things, but concepts, and not the existence of
concepts—which are, after all, operations of intellect—but the difficulty
of characterizing them beyond their existence, except in terms of the
things with which they are formally identical; but a better term than skepticism might be “negative psychology” (242–43).The second theme is that
of the intellect’s “reception” of forms, which should not be thought of as
some kind of transfer or “exchange,” but as the active response of intellect
in its encounter with an object: “The form of understanding, the intelligible species, is the formal principle of the active response of the human
person to the res that it engages in its experience” (249). St. Thomas’s
account of knowledge is a form of what Colin McGinn calls “externalism,” that is, a theory that individuates mental states by reference to something other than the states (238), although it is difficult to situate St.
Thomas in McGinn’s taxonomy of “strong” and “weak” externalists:With
respect to simple concepts, he is a “strong externalist,” requiring that the
non-mental item corresponding to a simple concept be in some sense in
the environment of the one who knows; with respect to fictions and
nominal definitions founded on simple concepts, his position might be
called a “fundamental strong externalism” (255–56). The chapter closes
with some metaphysical contrasts: For Putnam essence is at most part of a
classificatory scheme, but for St. Thomas it is an intrinsic principle of a
being (271); for Putnam metaphysics begins with the latest results of
contemporary science, against which common sense must be defended,
but for St. Thomas metaphysics provides a context and a support for the
world of common sense (274).
The concluding chapter, “Toward a More Perfect Form of Existence,”
takes a Thomistic linguistic turn, reflecting on Aquinas’s remarks on
language in relation to the various Aristotelian sciences that study human
nature. Consideration is given to John Haldane’s criticism that the
Thomistic account of mind is overindividualistic, insufficiently recognizant of the public and linguistic aspects of concept acquisition, to which

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the author responds with measured Thomistic counter-considerations:
“human language is rooted in understanding, which is an act of a person,
that is, an act of a subsistent individual of a rational nature” (291); “to insist
upon the priority of understanding over linguistic expression is not to
retreat into” the “modern privacy” that seals thought off from the bodily,
the social, and the political (296). “Thought is not by nature private, but
rather public. But the public is not just the educated or even uneducated
speaking public.A better, and non-reductive, understanding of the sciences
under which human beings fall presents an opportunity for developing an
authentic philosophical anthropology. Here, perhaps, one can see a deep
affinity between Thomist Realism and a certain understanding of Wittgenstein and the Linguistic Turn” with respect to the ordering of conceptual
functioning to linguistic and non-linguistic acts (298).
The foregoing summary hardly does justice to the details of the
author’s argument, but perhaps it suffices to indicate how his bridgebuilding between Thomism and analytic thought will be instructive and
thought-provoking to both parties and to others. He shows an admirable
willingness, even a sense of obligation, to perpetuate the Thomistic tradition of engaging contemporary modes of thought (12), which, as he is
aware, involves assuming all the difficulties of being simultaneously an
expositor, a defender, and a renovator of the Thomistic position, of alternating between the first and the third persons, and of learning the ways
of thinkers very different from Aquinas. Of course it also involves the
prospect of criticism from both sides, and in this regard one can perhaps
identify some basic points of possible contention.Thomistic scholars will
be inclined to regret the omission of any treatment of the verbum mentis,
and to object to the use of “concept” to name the first act of the intellect; anti-representationalists will not fail to be struck by the eventual
admission that Thomistic concepts are in some Thomistic sense things,
and even, as habitually conserved species, enduring possessions. But all
will agree that the author has succeeded in condensing and articulating a
large and interesting philosophical problem.
His defense of St.Thomas on the charge of representationalism depends
in part on setting fairly strict requirements for the latter. A more relaxed
understanding of the term—say, as meaning “any theory of cognition
which attributes a crucial and indispensable role to some sort of mental
representation”—might seem to lead rather quickly and definitively to a
verdict of “guilty” (see Claude Panaccio,“Aquinas on Intellectual Representation,” in Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality, D. Perler, ed.
[Brill: Leiden, 2001], 185 ff.). But perhaps Thomists should embrace the
charge, recalling that “represent” and “representation” entered modern

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languages from scholastic Latin, where they may have had overtones that
have been lost in translation or eroded over time. Do we know exactly
what Aquinas, who had a keen ear for etymologies, had in mind when he
said that intelligible species represent things? Did he think that “represent”
just means “stand for”? The word is built on a root that means “being”
(esse); the prae- makes it mean “be before” or, as we say,“be present to”; the
re-, which means “again,” indicates that what is represented is made present by being made to be in a second way, which nicely harmonizes with
the Thomistic theme of a second, intentional being that things acquire in
being known. As for intelligible species, it seems relevant to note that
Jacob Klein tried to suggest the paradox of the Platonic term eidos by
translating it as “invisible looks,” an expression that might also serve to
convey something of the oxymoronic flavor of “species intelligibilis.” In
knowledge, then, the “invisible looks” of a visible thing’s nature would be
said to come to be in a second way,“before” and “in” the mind, in a “likeness” that is both a transparent medium and a qualification of the knower.
This kind of rumination, which would try to preserve the residue of opacity and metaphor in Aquinas’s language, might lead Thomists to capitulate
in the face of accusations of representationalism, but then to reconsider
N&V
the whole question on their own terms.
Kevin White
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC

Traité des sacrements. I. Baptême et Sacramentalité. 1. Origine
et signification du baptême by Jean-Philippe Revel (Paris: Cerf, 2004),
688 pp.
FATHER J EAN -P HILIPPE R EVEL has undertaken, as a crowning
achievement of almost fifty years of teaching, the publication of a treatise of sacraments, which will include five volumes that cover the whole
of sacramental theology.The present volume is the first of the forthcoming series (5). The general introduction defines the method and situates
sacramentology in the realm of theology as a whole, especially in regard
to ecclesiology and liturgy.The fundamental choice of Revel is to tackle
the classical questions of a treatise De sacramentis in genere from and within
the study of baptism. By doing so, he wants to avoid treating first the
sacraments in general, and then applying deductively this “prefabricated
form” (26) to the seven particular sacraments, which risks—as often
experienced in the past—missing the originality of each of the sacraments. Revel prefers rather an inductive approach, which allows drawing

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the issues addressed by theology from the sources, especially from baptism
(27).This does not mean that the Medieval elaboration of the treatise of
the sacraments in general loses all of its interest. On the contrary, Revel
presents carefully the general framework of this treatise as it appears in
the Summa theologiae, suggests some corrections (28–32), and presents
his own proposal (32–34).The latter is ordered by four questions: origin
(institution, efficient cause); nature (formal causality in particular); destination (final causality, both efficacy and fruit); and subject (extrinsic
material causality).The present volume treats the first two questions.
The second important point of this long and rich general introduction
concerns manifesting the intrinsic link between sacramental theology and
the theology of the Church. Revel takes one step at a time. He presents
first the connection between the sacraments and the liturgy (42–46). We
have here a small treatise of fundamental liturgy that starts with the principal aspects of the virtue of religion to present Christian worship in the
general framework of sanctification. He then addresses the mystery of the
Church. Revel shows that the Church itself is a sacrament, by placing the
sacraments in the Christian community both as lifegivers and as its most
significant acts (67–89).The general introduction ends with a long reflection on ecclesial time (92–121), ordered according to the different stages of
salvation.This perspective is very illuminating for the rest of the treatise.
The first part, the institution of baptism (125–245), poses right away
the so-called question of Christ’s divine institution of the sacraments.The
presentation is widely based—and rightly so—on the historical dimension, which dismisses the “naïve” thesis, according to which all the sacraments were entirely, completely, instituted by Christ. However, the
testimonies of the magisterial tradition in this regard are not to be overlooked. Rather, they have to be deepened. The author undertakes this
task in a very convincing way, to my mind (150 ff.), in two ways. First,
he mentions the important role of Christ’s miracles that, by their repetition and chosen symbolism, design . . . a proper meaning of sanctification.
Revel underlines then (153 ff.) the anthropology first assumed by the
Word through the Incarnation and then honored in those that he saves.
Revel amply develops this “incarnation law,” which structures in some
way salvation, and which is manifested first in Christ, the primordial
sacrament (162). These Christological developments are truly the foundation for any sacramental theology, since they show themselves to be
fitting and coherent throughout the history of salvation (177). Revel then
tackles explicitly the issue of the institution of baptism (181 ff.). A long
study of the prehistory of this rite—both in ancient religions and in
Judaism—allows us to grasp the fundamental symbolism assumed by

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Christ taking its origin from John’s baptism. This long review of the
progressive institution of baptism results in the promulgation by the risen
Christ of baptism in the Spirit and to the practice of the Church since
Pentecost, as described in Acts.These developments highlight the appropriateness of the establishment of the institution from the repetition of
Christ’s deeds.This thesis is indeed the most illuminating.
The second and last part of the volume is dedicated to the nature of
baptism (249–end). It is ordered in three steps: the description of baptism
(rite), the nominal definition (the verb baptizein, the word sacrament, and
the word mystery), and the essential definition (starting from the notion of
sign).We will reflect upon this third consideration, not without remarking
that the first two give a very accurate classical presentation.
The essential definition (431–622) starts with a long presentation of the
Latin tradition, which is rooted in St.Augustine (431–460). From then on,
it is the logic of the sign on which the whole tradition has been based.This
tradition, however, is not strictly homogeneous in the sense that the weakening of symbolic meaning toward the end of the high Middle Ages
(eighth to tenth centuries) introduced the scholastic debate between sign
and cause. This allows Revel to enhance the effort accomplished by St.
Thomas Aquinas, who, at the end of a long evolution, will put the sign back
into its central place (477–92). The speculative analysis of the concept of
sign (493–518) is very well developed. It is followed by the study of symbol
(520–81)—the most significant contemporary contribution—allowing,
in particular, to show both the depth of the meaning and its historical
enrichment. Finally, Revel offers an analysis of what has been conventionally called, not without risk of misanderstanding, sacramental hylemorphism.
Starting from a precise analysis of Aquinas’s major text on this matter (ST
III, q. 60, a. 4–8), he shows the profound unity, which is a sacrament as a
compound of gestures and words. From this doctrine, classical after all, but
purified from the logical rigidity added by a certain scholastic tradition
(597), Revel offers a deepening based on E. Schillebeeck’s observations.
The fundamental intuition is kept with very meaningful comments, but
carefully corrected in order to better distinguish the Christian sacraments
from both “natural” and Old Testament rituality.This is also an occasion for
Revel to enhance the stimulating aspects of Dom O. Casel’s work for the
sacramental renewal of the twentieth century (611–15).
Given the abundance of materials treated by Revel, it is impossible to
comment on each of his developments individually. We will rather
attempt to give a global impression in the most precise way possible.
As for the form, first of all, the book is very well-written. It reads easily
and uses precise and accessible language.This easily understood treatise is

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written both for an academic audience and more widely for a cultivated
public.The book reveals the talent of a teacher gifted for pedagogy, as is
apparent on every page.The mass of documents is treated with great ease;
the reader is never overwhelmed with an avalanche of facts, footnotes,
and developments that could make the text heavy, even though the
inquiries of the sources are well-documented and critical.This expose is
the work of a master, who goes to the positive sources, shows the continuity as well as the shifts, proposes solutions, invites us to enter into the
meaning of the evolution, and incessantly ties the parts together in one
coherent whole.
As a matter of fact, we note that the theological method, clearly manifest and justified from the beginning (9–13), demonstrates its aptness and
fruitfulness throughout the book. It is a properly scientific theology. It
constantly gathers its revealed data with the resources of disciplines
including history, exegesis, and patristic studies (positive theology or theology of sources). It then penetrates them with a profound intelligibility,
thanks to properly speculative reflection, that has found, manifested, and
exploited all the resources offered by the tradition that follows St.Thomas.
Revel demonstrates the faith’s profound intelligibility in its actual state,
while suggesting often very pertinent developments yet to come.The last
word is not pronounced, of course, on a subject as vast as the sacraments,
that is not the intention of Revel. But he does present the matter in its
fundamental architecture, and studies each of its parts as well as the relation that unites them. In this way, all the specialized inquiries that are
evoked by such a perspective can receive their own place and the necessary clarification. From their side, they can contribute to the enrichment
of all matter.This method allows a permanent development of the theological effort. This is the first important quality of the book to have
recalled in mind and to have illustrated this very way of doing theology.
Revel’s major methodological option is to present the sacramentality of
salvific acts starting with baptism.This is a justified choice (25–33) that we
would like to discuss.We in no way contest the fact that the general treatise of St. Thomas needs to be continually thought out with personal
investment. On the one hand, the deductive method proper to the Summa
theologiae bears a risk—from which we think that St.Thomas knew how
to protect himself—of an excessive logical constriction of theology. The
danger is—as Revel rightly underlines—to lose sight of the very analogical character of the sacraments by restrictively arranging them in a genus
of which they would be too closely related species. It is necessary then,
not to replace the deductive approach, but to unite it with the more
inductive approach that offers its own resources. This being the case, the

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debate exists concerning the starting point. Revel has chosen baptism, as
we already mentioned. This permits him to follow the order—which is
not fortuitous—of the sacraments of initiation in order to show what is
essential to sacramentality, and to be able then to understand better the
other sacraments.This approach is legitimate and fruitful. But is it the only
one? Moreover, is it the best one? Let us discuss this point.
We consider that it would have been fruitful to ask these questions first
and then to make a proposition. However, one choice seems obvious for
Revel.The treatise of sacraments belongs “inside the treatise on baptism from
which it has been taken” (26). We readily accept a historical basis for this
claim. But as we will now demonstrate, we think that another approach
is possible and perhaps even better.
If we perceive sacramentality as the “structuring law” of the economy
of salvation, we should start from the mystery of Christ, the fundamental
sacrament, and continue with the ecclesial sacrament. These two sacramental realities are united like the head to the body or the spouse to the
bride.They accomplish the salvation of humankind through the particular sacraments. Revel does not ignore this (cf. 78 ff. for the Church, 162
f. for Christ), even though he presents this matter in a more scattered way
and the recent developments on the sacramentality of the Church are not
sufficiently taken in account.The order preferred by Revel for the particular sacraments starts with the sacraments of initiation: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, and, then in this perspective, the other sacraments. It is
an order of generation that shows the progressive generation of Christian qualities. But this generation presupposes the generative sacramental
realities, namely Christ and the Church.
There is, however, another order, an order of perfection, which
mentions first the most complete element according to which the other
elements are arranged. This order puts forward the Eucharist, the most
perfect sacrament, the Holy Sacrament.What is the nature of this Eucharistic perfection? First of all, the Eucharist is the major place where we find
the combined presence of the two primordial sacraments—Christ, the
founding sacrament, and the Church, the founded sacrament. The
Eucharist is the fruit of their common action, as the source and the end
of the other sacraments. It is the Eucharist that, out of its own perfection,
nourishes the other six sacred acts and finalizes them. The sacramental
“structure” is accomplished perfectly and therefore interpreted the more
precisely in the Holy Sacrament. It is only through the Eucharist that we
can grasp the other sacraments that do not reach the same perfection.To
our mind, we cannot move, according to an order of intelligibility (from
the more perfect to the less perfect), when we move from baptism toward

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the Eucharist, but rather the other way round.The perspective chosen by
Revel puts the receiving subject first, who will determine the theological
significance of the other sacraments, through his birth to grace and the
progressive accomplishment of his vocation. The other perspective, starting from the Eucharist, privileges the study of sacraments starting from
their fundamental actors, namely Christ and the Church. It then demonstrates how sacramental beings enact salvation in a sacramental way and
how they model the receiving subject on themselves.
The sacramental “structure” of the Eucharist is the most completely
formed in its three instances (sign only, sign and reality, reality only). On
this account, the Eucharist serves to explain very clearly the sacramentality of the particular sacraments. This ternary structure is central and has
to be applied, analogically of course, in every sacrament.This task will not
always be easy, especially regarding the intermediate reality. But this is a
task to accomplish. Even in the Eucharist’s specificity in this regard (the
intermediary reality is in the signs before being in the receiving subject
in order that it can be received), this sacrament is most illuminating:The
“real presence” is the highest expression of salvation in its continuous self
offering (this presence lasts as long as the sign that expresses it lasts) and
in its power to attract us. In some way, we find in any particular sacrament this intermediate instance, which is the continuous offering of
salvation. This offer is permanent, inherent to the subject, a real sign of
paschal mystery accomplished by Christ, the true assistance promised by
the Spirit, an ultimate disposition to receive the grace given for Easter
and to be accomplished by the subject.This intermediate instance can be
clearly found in the sacrament of the Church (it connects unfailingly the
social reality of the mystery and the theological final reality). Starting
with baptism, in this point of view, runs the risk of delaying too long,
until the end, the consideration of this intermediary reality (the character in this case), and for an aspect that, although historically grasped first,
is not the most determinant (the case of baptism received in unfavorable
conditions, cf. 34).The baptismal character is just as important and necessary in the sacrament when received with the best possible dispositions.
On the other hand, the Eucharist shows very well the temporality of
the whole life of grace. It focuses on typically Christian time (good
remarks on 93 f.), which is the time of the acquired perfection in its
source and its communication. Man cannot add anything to the accomplished Christological perfection, if not to add himself as a member of
the Body of Christ that is the Church. This idea of an acquired perfection at its source, which communicates itself, makes man, as the subject
of sacraments, particularly receptive to this sacramentality that sacramen-

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talizes him. What we mean is that baptism, if it comes from paschal
mystery, gives the quality of being a member of the Church, and it lets
the baptized person enter into this paschal logic of the intimate eucharistic life of the Bridegroom and the Bride that precedes him and attracts
him to itself.
The fact that the usual liturgical place for the celebration of sacraments
is the celebration of the Eucharist confirms what has already been said.This
shows that the paschal mystery of the union between Christ and the
Church is the “context” of Christian life.We distinguish between the sacraments as being (Christ and the Church) and the sacraments as actions
(baptism, confirmation, etc.).The Eucharist is at the junction of the two: It
is the presence of Christ and the Church according to a unique realism
(being) in view of the unique source of action (Christ’s sacrifice) and end
(the sacrifice of Christians in Christ’s sacrifice), which accomplishes our
salvation.The other six sacraments exist in order to enter into this redemptive “logic,” to come back to it after being drawn away by sin, to provide
ministers for it, and to model one’s whole life on it. Moreover, the
Eucharistic mystery allows us to grasp the distinction between objective
redemption (Christ’s deeds) and subjective redemption (the act through
which grace is given to each person).Though illuminating from the standpoint of the dispositions of the receiving subject, the Eucharistic mystery
(from Revel’s approach) risks being seen as a repetition of Christ’s very
action.This is wrong, since it is always the act of objective redemption that
reaches us today—Christ’s paschal mystery in the Eucharist—which is
“spread” through the other sacraments according to their specific meaning.
These remarks are present in the volume, but they may not be sufficiently brought forward.When he presents the unfolding of Incarnation
(165–69), Revel shows very well that all the actions in Christ’s life are
oriented toward Easter. When the mystery of Easter has been accomplished, it is Christ who communicates himself in and through the
Eucharist. Therefore, the Eucharist represents Christ’s Easter in men’s
lives in order to model them on this mystery. Here is the meaning and
the purpose of all the other sacraments. Thus, like Christ’s life, the lives
of Christians—and even more so the life of the Christian community, the
Body of Christ, who forms with his a single mystical Person—can be
modeled on the Eucharist. In short, the fact of considering the Eucharist
first because of its excellence reveals maybe better the mystery of salvation; it also allows us to consider according to this center the individual
appropriation perspective that is served by the other sacraments, but
always in the perspective of the accomplishment of the Christ-Church
mystery in the receiving subject.

428

Book Reviews

If he would have chosen this perspective, according to which the
Eucharist is the real and explanatory center of the sacraments as a whole,
would the treatise on sacraments have been deeply changed? We do not
think so. Indeed, the Christological and eccesiological developments
would have been more ample and better connected, but the order chosen
by Revel to examine the issues could have remained the same.The first
chapter would still have treated the question of the origin, since the institution of the sacraments is the extension of the developments on the
mystery of Christ and the Church. The second step, treating the nature
of the sacraments, would have tackled the question of sign concerning
the Eucharist and would have allowed us to grasp in its perfect realization the realism expressed by the sacrament, and so forth for the finality
(the instrumental causality would have linked together the Christological and the sacramental issues), and for the subject of the sacraments
(communion as integral part of the sacrament).
Apart from these observations, it has to be said that this Treatise of Sacraments is a very remarkable work that fills a long and deplorable gap. The
courteous but clear discussion of other less satisfying proposals (518–19,
531–32, 637) shows even better the relevance of this beautiful and fruitful
theology of salvation.We wait impatiently for the next volumes.
N&V
Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole, OP
University of Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland

Other titles from Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University
Papal Diplomacy and the Quest for Peace, by Robert John Araujo, SJ and John A. Lucal, SJ
Papal Diplomacy and the Quest for Peace examines the relationship of the Holy
See’s involvement with the League of Nations and concludes with the Papacy
of Pope Pius XII in 1939. Both authors have represented the Holy See in international organizations. As a result, the work has been influenced not only by
their academic study of papal diplomacy, but also their participation with the
activities of the Holy See with international organizations. Papal Diplomacy and
the Quest for Peace introduces the reader to the Holy See and its long relationship with the international order and presents the case for why the Holy
See should continue in its labor in the venue of international organizations to ensure that the
voices of all, not just some, human beings are heard.
ISBN: 1-932589-01-5

Paperback, 301 pages, $24.95

A Poetic Approach to Ecology, Peter A. Milward, SJ
Ecology is too important to be left to self-appointed “environmentalists.” Drawing together the wisdom of the Bible with his vast knowledge of the Western
literary tradition and his experience of nature as a longtime resident of Japan,
Fr. Milward conveys the beauty that those attentive to God’s creation discover.
He reawakens us to the sense of contemplative wonder and delight that children
experience but that adults so easily forget. Each short chapter is a conversation
with a spiritual master, guiding us toward the pearls of God’s glory imprinted in
the delicate patterns of the world.
ISBN: 1-932589-06-6

Paperback, 218 pages, $14.95

Thomas Aquinas and the Liturgy, by David Berger
Drawing together St. Thomas’s life and theology, Berger illumines the role in St.
Thomas’s theology of his youthful training at the Benedictine monastery of
Monte Cassino and his devotion to the Eucharist. Rightly renowned for his articulation of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist by transubstantiation, St.
Thomas deserves also to be regarded as a master of liturgics. Berger demonstrates that liturgy belongs to the heart of St. Thomas’s speculative theological
syntheses. As Berger shows, St.Thomas provides a supremely incarnational view
of the Christian liturgy, in which man, as a body-soul unity, is drawn with the angels into Christ’s
redemptive sacrifice.
ISBN: 0-9706106-8-8

Paperback, 144 pages, $14.95

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Master’s and Doctoral Degrees in Theology
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