Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 6, No. 1 (2008): 1–62 1 Veritatis Splendor §78, St. Thomas, and (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts S TEPHEN L. B ROCK Pontifical University of the Holy Cross Rome, Italy A WORD that often comes up in contemporary scholarly work on ethics is “physicalism.” It is nearly always a term of reproach. However, it does not always mean the same thing.The senses are at least two. Sometimes it refers to a way of establishing moral norms. In this sense, it means, roughly, an uncritical use of a physical entity or nature as a criterion for judging moral goodness and badness. At other times the word refers to a way of conceiving the items to which moral goodness and badness belong: human acts. It then means, again roughly, an undue reduction of human acts to their physical features, with too little weight given to the role played in their constitution by factors such as intention, or choice, or reason. Not infrequently, Catholic moral doctrine is said to be physicalist on some matters, for instance, sex. Sometimes it is the first sense that is meant; sometimes, the second; sometimes both. An evident concern of the encyclical Veritatis Splendor is to address the charge of physicalism and, I would say, in both senses of the term. Our symposium’s theme, however, points us toward on a tiny portion of the encyclical (§78) and its teaching on “the moral object.”This I think regards less the issue of moral norms, and more that of the constitution of human acts, “action theory.” So the second sense of “physicalism” would be the more pertinent one. In any case it is the only one pertinent to this essay. But I wanted to call attention to the other sense, the one regarding moral norms, so as to keep the issues distinct. I do suspect that despite my efforts to avoid it, some readers will 2 Stephen L. Brock find the account of human acts that I shall be putting forward here to be physicalist. I would ask them at least to remember the distinction. The main question I want to pursue is whether or to what extent a physical or bodily feature can be a principle of the “specification” of human action; that is, whether it can make a human action be of a determinate kind. In the first part I offer a reading of the first lines of Veritatis Splendor §78.There my aim is mostly negative: to show that, despite what it may seem, the passage does not mean to deny that a human action— an object of deliberate choice—can be something physical. In the other two parts I explore some elements in Thomas Aquinas’s account of human actions, first regarding his general conception of how “exterior” human acts are specified, and then regarding his view of how physical entities can be involved in their specification. I hope to show that their involvement can be quite decisive, “formal.” As Professor Levering explained in his invitation to contribute to the symposium, part of its inspiration was provided by an article published in Nova et Vetera by my colleague Martin Rhonheimer.1 My essay is not an assessment of that article. It does cover a good deal of the same ground, and this is not a coincidence. Clearly on some important matters my readings of the encyclical and of Thomas do not match with his.Yet I balk at defining the differences because I am not fully sure of having mastered his views. Further on I shall stress two very fundamental points on which I heartily agree with him. Any contrasts that emerge should be seen in their light. Also, the entire discussion should be taken as a “work in progress.” What Veritatis Splendor §78, Sentences 1–6, Is and Is Not Saying About the Moral Object In this part I present a reading of the first six sentences of Veritatis Splendor §78. My main focus will be the fifth sentence, as to what it is and is not saying about how the “object of the moral act” should be understood. Here is the official Latin version, with the sentences numbered for later reference.The published English translation is given in the footnote. As I go through the sentences I will sometimes suggest alternate renderings. [1] Actus humani moralitas pendet in primis et fundamentali modo ex “obiecto” deliberata voluntate rationaliter electo, sicut evincitur in acuta etiam nunc valida sancti Thomae investigatione. [Note 126: cf. Summa theologiae, I–II, q. 18, a. 6.] 1 Martin Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person and the Nature of Practical Reason: The ‘Object of the Human Act’ in Thomistic Anthropology of Action,” Nova et Vetera 2 (2004): 461–516. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 3 [2] Proinde, ut actus obiectum deprehendi possit, quod ei moralem proprietatem tribuat, se collocare necesse est in prospectu personae agentis. [3] Obiectum enim actus voluntatis est ratio sese gerendi libere electa. [4] Cuiusmodi obiectum, utpote ordini rationali congruens, est causa bonitatis voluntatis, moraliter nos perficit atque expedit ad nostrum agnoscendum finem ultimum in bono perfecto, in amore primigenio. [5] Ergo nefas est accipere, velut obiectum definiti actus moralis, processum vel eventum ordinis tantum physici, qui aestimandus sit prout gignat certum rerum statum in mundo exteriore. [6] Obiectum est finis proximus deliberatae delectionis, quae voluntatis personae agentis est causa.2 The Context Veritatis Splendor §78 appears in chapter 2, part IV, which is on “The Moral Act.” It belongs to a section titled “The object of the deliberate act.” This section is meant to help correct some errors previously surveyed in the chapter. I think that if the sentences from §78 are to be rightly understood, both as to their overall intention and as to the meaning of certain terms and expressions, their context needs to be kept in mind. Here are some passages that I find especially pertinent. After each I make some brief remarks. I will apply them to the interpretation of our sentences in sections B and C. 1. From chapter 2, part I (“Freedom and the Law”), §48. Here is described a mistaken conception of freedom in its relation to human nature and the moral law. In this conception, 2 Ioannes Paulus PP. II, littera encyclica “Veritatis Splendor,”Acta Apostolicae Sedis 85 (1993): 1196. Here is the published English version:“The morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the ‘object’ rationally chosen by the deliberate will, as is borne out by the insightful analysis, still valid today, made by Saint Thomas. In order to be able to grasp the object of an act which specifies that act morally, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person.The object of the act of willing is in fact a freely chosen kind of behavior.To the extent that it is in conformity with the order of reason, it is the cause of the goodness of the will; it perfects us morally, and disposes us to recognize our ultimate end in the perfect good, primordial love. By the object of a given moral act, then, one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world. Rather, that object is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person.” www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0222/__P8.HTM 4 Stephen L. Brock human nature and the body appear as presuppositions or preambles, materially necessary for freedom to make its choice, yet extrinsic to the person, the subject and the human act. Their functions [dynamismi] would not be able to constitute reference points for moral decisions, because the finalities of these inclinations [dynamismi] would be merely “physical” goods, called by some “premoral.” To refer to them, in order to find in them rational indications with regard to the order of morality, would be to expose oneself to the accusation of physicalism or biologism. We see here that the expression “merely physical,” as used by proponents of the erroneous conception, is meant to convey the “premoral” status of the goods in question. Certainly they are “physical” goods, pertaining to the human body. But when they are called “merely” physical, the thought is that they do not contain “rational indications with regard to the order of morality.” The encyclical will insist on the “moral meaning of the human body” (§49). 2. From chapter 2, part III (“Fundamental choice and specific kinds of behavior”), §65. A distinction thus comes to be introduced between the fundamental option and deliberate choices of a concrete kind of behavior. . . . There thus appears to be established within human acting a clear disjunction between two levels of morality: on the one hand the order of good and evil, which is dependent on the will, and on the other hand specific kinds of behavior, which are judged to be morally right or wrong only on the basis of a technical calculation of the proportion between the “premoral” or “physical” goods and evils which actually result from the action.This is pushed to the point where a concrete kind of behavior, even one freely chosen, comes to be considered as a merely physical process, and not according to the criteria proper to a human act. The conclusion to which this eventually leads is that the properly moral assessment of the person is reserved to his fundamental option, prescinding in whole or in part from his choice of particular actions, of concrete kinds of behavior. Here again the erroneous view is said to equate the “physical” with the “premoral.” But note especially the part that I have put in italics. I think it will shed considerable light on §78. 3. From chapter 2, part IV, first section, §71. Human acts are moral acts because they express and determine the goodness or evil of the individual who performs them. They do not produce a change merely in the state of affairs outside of man but, to the extent that they are deliberated options, they give moral On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 5 definition to the very person who performs them, determining his profound spiritual traits. Notice here that the encyclical is not denying that human acts produce changes in the state of affairs in the outside world. It is simply insisting that in addition to this, and more significantly, they also affect the moral character and spiritual traits of their own agents. 4. From chapter 2, part IV, first section (“Teleology and teleologism”), §72. If the object of the concrete action is not in harmony with the true good of the person, the choice of that action makes our will and ourselves morally evil, thus putting us in conflict with our ultimate end, the supreme good, God himself. In this passage the concrete action that is the object of a choice is presented as having an object of its own, one that may or may not be in harmony with the true good of the person.This will be important for my discussion of the objects of commanded acts (part II). 5. From chapter 2, part IV, first section, §74. Certain ethical theories, called “teleological,” claim to be concerned for the conformity of human acts with the ends pursued by the agent and with the values intended by him. The criteria for evaluating the moral rightness of an action are drawn from the weighing of the non-moral or premoral goods to be gained and the corresponding non-moral or premoral values to be respected. For some, concrete behavior would be right or wrong according as whether or not it is capable of producing a better state of affairs for all concerned. Right conduct would be the one capable of “maximizing” goods and “minimizing” evils. The passage is saying that on the erroneous view, “concrete behavior” is judged only for the overall balance of premoral goods and evils that it can produce.As in (3), the encyclical is not saying that a chosen action cannot be considered with respect to such results. It is saying that this is not the sole or even the primary consideration bearing on their moral evaluation. 6. From chapter 2, part IV, first section, §75. But as part of the effort to work out such a rational morality (for this reason it is sometimes called an “autonomous morality”) there exist false solutions, linked in particular to an inadequate understanding of the object of moral action. Some authors do not take into sufficient consideration the fact that the will is involved in the 6 Stephen L. Brock concrete choices which it makes: these choices are a condition of its moral goodness and its being ordered to the ultimate end of the person. Others are inspired by a notion of freedom which prescinds from the actual conditions of its exercise, from its objective reference to the truth about the good, and from its determination through choices of concrete kinds of behavior. Here the document is explicit about the fact that the central problem is the way in which chosen action is understood. On the mistaken views, even when a “concrete kind of behavior” is chosen, it may not be, in itself, a “moral object,” with its own intrinsic moral value and its own influence on the moral quality of the agent’s will. 7. From chapter 2, part IV, first section, §75. The teleological ethical theories (proportionalism, consequentialism), while acknowledging that moral values are indicated by reason and by Revelation, maintain that it is never possible to formulate an absolute prohibition of particular kinds of behavior which would be in conflict, in every circumstance and in every culture, with those values.The acting subject would indeed be responsible for attaining the values pursued, but in two ways: the values or goods involved in a human act would be, from one viewpoint, of the moral order (in relation to properly moral values, such as love of God and neighbor, justice, etc.) and, from another viewpoint, of the premoral order, which some term non-moral, physical, or ontic (in relation to the advantages and disadvantages accruing both to the agent and to all other persons possibly involved, such as, for example, health or its endangerment, physical integrity, life, death, loss of material goods, etc.). This is another place where “physical” is shown to be taken as equivalent to “premoral.” 8. From chapter 2, part IV, first section, §77. In order to offer rational criteria for a right moral decision, the theories mentioned above take account of the intention and consequences of human action. Certainly there is need to take into account both the intention . . . and the goods obtained and the evils avoided as a result of a particular act. Responsibility demands as much. But the consideration of these consequences, and also of intentions, is not sufficient for judging the moral quality of a concrete choice. The weighing of the goods and evils foreseeable as the consequence of an action is not an adequate method for determining whether the choice of that concrete kind of behavior is “according to its species,” or “in itself,” morally good or bad, licit or illicit. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 7 Again, the problem is the denial that the choice of a concrete kind of behavior always has an intrinsic moral quality. 9. From chapter 2, part IV, third section (“ ‘Intrinsic evil’: it is not licit to do evil that good may come of it”), §79 (first sentence). One must therefore reject the thesis, characteristic of teleological and proportionalist theories, which holds that it is impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its species—its “object”—the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behavior or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned. This passage, following on the heels of §78, confirms that the thrust of §78 is chiefly against the position that an object of choice—a freely chosen kind of behavior—may not be a “moral” object, such that the choice of it is intrinsically apt for moral qualification. Some Glosses Now let us go through our six sentences one at a time, keeping the above passages in mind. In this section I will examine all but the fifth sentence, leaving that for section C. [1] The morality of a human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the “object” rationally chosen by the deliberate will, as is borne out by the insightful analysis, still valid today, made by Saint Thomas. (126) Note 126 cites Summa theologiae, I–II, q. 18, a. 6. In several of the texts given above, we saw that the erroneous views were said to assign a merely “premoral” character to the object of choice, not recognizing that what is chosen, as such, is inevitably a “moral object.” In light of those texts, I think a good way to gloss this sentence would be to say: so far is it from being the case that the object rationally chosen by the deliberate will can be merely premoral, that in fact the morality of a human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the object of choice.This is the moral object par excellence. What may not be quite so clear is why the note sends us to Summa theologiae, I–II, q. 18, a. 6. That article is not about the inevitably moral character of the object of choice. In fact choice is not even mentioned. The question raised in it is whether the good and evil that human acts have from their ends diversify their species.Thomas says they do.Acts are human insofar as they are voluntary.Voluntary acts are of two sorts, interior (or elicited) acts of will and exterior (or commanded) acts. Each of Stephen L. Brock 8 these has its own object, giving it its species.The specifying object of an exterior act is “id circa quod est,” that which it bears upon. But the specifying object of an interior act is an end. And since an exterior act is an act of a power used by the will, and is voluntary on that account, the species of the interior act is formal relative to that of the exterior act. Human acts are chiefly specified by ends. Although I am not sure why sentence [1] cites this text, the very fact that it does so will be important for my discussion in part II, where I stress the fact that commanded acts have genuine objects,3 which specify them: their circa quod or, as Thomas more often says, their materia circa quam. Whatever the reason for the citation, there can be no doubt that the sentence’s affirmation of the primacy of the object of choice is in harmony with Thomas’s view. Thomas teaches that what gives the first moral quality to any human act is the object specifying it;4 and clearly, for him, the human or moral act par excellence is choice.At the very beginning of the Prima secundae he tells us that human acts are those over which a man is dominus or has control. These are acts falling under his power of liberum arbitrium, free decision, and proceeding from a deliberate will.5 Earlier he asserted that the proper act of liberum arbitrium, the act that properly terminates the process of deliberation, is choice.6 [2] In order to be able to grasp the object of an act, which confers on it its moral quality, it is therefore necessary to place oneself in the perspective of the acting person. I notice that although the encyclical refers often to the person, this is its only use of the phrase “the perspective of the acting person.” The phrase’s meaning is not elaborated. I do not find this a problem. I think it suggests that nothing very abstruse is intended, and that all the help needed to determine its meaning is supposed to be provided by the context; maybe especially by the next two sentences, which are tied to it (as is clear from the Latin version’s enim in the third sentence).These tell us what it is that we see when we take the perspective of the acting person. We see that the objects of a person’s choices cannot but have a bearing on his moral quality, because they are objects of his will. This is the power by which he is related to the last end,“primordial love.” Moral goodness consists in a person’s conformity with the rule of reason order3 See also text 4 in the previous section. 4 See Summa theologiae, I–II, q. 18, aa. 2 and 5.Translations of Thomas in this paper are mine. 5 ST I–II, q. 1, a. 1. 6 ST I, q. 83, a. 3. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 9 ing toward the last end; and the will, which is nothing other than rational appetite, is its proper subject.This point was already asserted in several of the texts cited above; those which, albeit without mentioning the “perspective” of the acting person, insist that a person’s moral goodness or badness is a function of his specific choices.7 So the gist of our second sentence seems to be this:We are not going to grasp anything as an object of a human act, or understand how it qualifies the act morally, unless we are considering the human act as proceeding from the acting person’s will. We must see the act in function of its agent’s power to determine his own will, or to order himself to an end, through deliberation and choice. To see it so is nothing other than to consider it as a human act, originating from its agent according to his status as dominus sui actus; that is, as person.8 The sentence is rooting the properly moral approach to the human act in the consideration of its proper agent.We find something similar in St. Thomas’s account of the subject matter—that is, the center of focus—of moral philosophy. First he speaks in terms of a certain kind of act, but then he roots this in a certain kind of agent. “Just as the subject of natural philosophy is movement, or mobile reality, so too the subject of moral philosophy is human operation ordered to an end, or indeed man, insofar as he is one who acts voluntarily for an end.”9 [3] A freely chosen kind of behavior is in fact an object of an act of will. As I said, I take this sentence, together with the fourth, to be aimed at explaining what it is we see when we take the perspective of the acting person. But I should note that here my translation departs considerably from the published version. That runs, “The object of the act of willing is in fact a freely chosen kind of behavior.”This sounds like a definition, 7 See especially texts 2, 3, 4, and 6 in the previous section. 8 On the connection between “dominus sui actus” and “person,” see ST I, q. 29, a. 1. 9 In I Ethicorum, lect. 1, §3. (Cf. ST I–II, proem.) As Kevin Flannery observes, the “therefore” in sentence [2] of Veritatis Splendor §78, ties it to sentence [1], which appeals to Thomas; so there are hardly grounds for interpreting sentence [2] as a shift away from Thomas’s approach. Quite perspicaciously, Flannery sees Thomas giving us the “perspective of the acting person” precisely in ST I–II, q. 18, a. 6, where Thomas says that exterior acts do not have morality except insofar as they are moved by the will’s interior act and are voluntary. See Kevin L. Flannery, S.J., “Placing Oneself ‘In the Perspective of the Acting Person’: Veritatis Splendor and the Nature of the Moral Act,” in Live the Truth:The Moral Legacy of John Paul II in Catholic Health Care, ed. Edward J. Furton (Philadelphia: National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2006), 47–49. Stephen L. Brock 10 or at least a universal affirmation, making any and every object of an act of will to be a freely chosen kind of behavior.The official Latin version does allow for such a reading, but it also allows for mine. “Obiectum enim actus voluntatis est ratio sese gerendi libere electa.” I do not think this is meant to be taken as a universal statement about the object of the will’s act. For one thing, to take it so would hardly fit with Veritatis Splendor §78 itself. It tells us that our last end is the perfect good, primordial love— God himself, who alone is good—and that the ultimate and decisive moral perfection is that by which our acts are ordered to God through charity. None of this would make sense if an object of will were always a “freely chosen kind of behavior.” God is not a freely chosen kind of behavior, and yet he is, or at least should be, the will’s primary object, what it loves above all, its utterly last end. Another reason is that if a freely chosen kind of behavior is an object of the will, then so is that behavior’s own object. But this need not, in turn, be another freely chosen kind of behavior. We already saw that St. Thomas, in the text cited in the first sentence, asserts that not only the will’s interior act, but also the exterior act, has an object. Below I will discuss the nature of the exterior act’s object at some length. Still another reason is that not all objects of will are freely chosen.The will wills some things naturally, not deliberately or freely. At least this is Thomas’s view, and I see no reason to think that the encyclical opposes it.10 So I would suggest that the sentence be read simply as affirming that freely chosen kinds of behavior are, as such, objects of the will. Surely this is the point that the encyclical is concerned to uphold.What is problematic about the positions that it is criticizing is not their holding that realities other than freely chosen kinds of behavior, for instance God, or “states of affairs,” can be objects of the will.What is problematic is their neglect of the fact that freely chosen kinds of behavior too are objects of the will, and are, as such, moral objects.11 [4] To the extent that it is in conformity with the order of reason, it is a cause of the goodness of the will; it perfects us morally, and disposes us to recognize our ultimate end in the perfect good, primordial love. 10 See ST I–II, q. 10, a. 1. 11 Of course my translation alters the word order of the Latin version. I treat “ratio sese gerendi libere electa” as the subject, and “obiectum actus voluntatis” as the predicate complement. Such constructions are very common in Latin. See, for example,“Spiritus est Deus” ( Jn 4:24).This is not a definition of spirit, nor even a universal proposition about it. (Cf. 1 Jn 4:1.) It means that God is spirit. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 11 This requires little comment. It is giving us the proper criterion of morality: the order of reason toward the true last end. It is in relation to this that we evaluate a freely chosen kind of behavior, when we are looking at it from the perspective of the acting person. [5] (See section C below.) [6] The object is a proximate end of deliberate choice, which is a cause of the will of the acting person. Here, I assume, “the object” is the one indicated in the previous sentence, the “object of a given moral act.”A moral act is an act proceeding from a deliberate will. Not every moral act is a choice, but if it is not, it is at least an object of a choice. The object of a choice, that which is chosen, relates to the choice as “proximate end.” It relates as “end,” because a choice is nothing other than a kind of desire or inclination, a deliberate one, and to be an object of inclination is to be an end; and it is called “proximate” so as to distinguish it from any further end or ends for the sake of which it is chosen. Further ends are of course important, but they do not enter into the very substance of the choice, or specify it, as its object does. By presenting the object of choice as an end, the sentence shows how the choice is a “cause,” a determination, of the acting person’s will. A person’s power to relate to things as ends is nothing other than his will. The sentence is reaffirming that what is chosen always pertains to the domain of that upon which the goodness or badness of the will depends. For the present purposes, I do not think the rest of Veritatis Splendor §78 needs to be examined in detail. It gives the conclusion toward which our sentences are moving. While granting that the chooser’s further intentions (“remote” ends) and the “totality of foreseeable consequences” are important factors in moral evaluation, it insists that these are not the only “moral objects.” The object of the choice itself is a moral object, indeed the first to be considered. It is good when it is in accord with the pursuit of the person’s true good, which requires respect for the “elements of human nature” and which has as its ultimate terminus and measure the goodness of God. But now let us go back to our passage’s fifth sentence. The Object of Choice Is Always a Moral Object [5] It is therefore wrong to understand, as object of a given moral act, a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world. 12 Stephen L. Brock This is the sentence that bears most directly on the main question of this paper: whether physical or bodily entities can be objects of moral acts. Taken by itself, the sentence does seem to answer negatively. Nevertheless I think it would be a mistake to read it in this way, because I do not believe that it is meant to answer that question at all.The question that it is meant to answer is whether an object of choice can be something “premoral,” or “ontic,” or “merely physical”—something that is not in itself a moral object. To this the answer is no. But this is not to say that the object of choice cannot be something physical. It is only to say that the object cannot be merely physical.Whatever else an object of choice is, it must be moral too. It must be susceptible, in itself and not just in view of what it can bring about, of evaluation according to the rule of reason ordering to the last end, that is, moral evaluation. Read in its context, can the sentence admit any other interpretation? Prior to Veritatis Splendor §78, the document has repeatedly signaled the existence of erroneous positions according to which the object of choice may be something that in itself is “non-moral” or “premoral” or “ontic” or “merely physical.” Of course no one is saying that what is merely premoral can itself be a moral object. But according to the encyclical, there are those who say that the object of what is in fact a moral act, indeed what is in some way the primary moral act—choice—may be only premoral.They are divesting choice itself of its moral character. As we read in passage 6 above, Some authors do not take into sufficient consideration the fact that the will is involved in the concrete choices which it makes: these choices are a condition of its moral goodness and its being ordered to the ultimate end of the person. Others are inspired by a notion of freedom which prescinds from the actual conditions of its exercise, from its objective reference to the truth about the good, and from its determination through choices of concrete kinds of behavior. Our six sentences from Veritatis Splendor §78 are a synthetic response to both groups. The fifth is a very direct and explicit response to the view presented in text 2, according to which specific kinds of behavior, which are judged to be morally right or wrong only on the basis of a technical calculation of the proportion between the “premoral” or “physical” goods and evils which actually result from the action. This is pushed to the point where a concrete kind of behavior, even one freely chosen, comes to be considered as a merely physical process, and not according to the criteria proper to a human act. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 13 The entire concern of Veritatis Splendor §78 is to affirm the moral character of all choices—not just the “fundamental options”—and the evaluability of their objects according to the criteria proper to a human act, moral criteria. The objects of the chooser’s further intentions and the “totality of foreseeable consequences” are important too; but they are not the only “moral objects.” The erroneous positions treat the object of choice as though it were not always something embraced by the chooser’s own will. They are making it subject to moral evaluation only in a kind of indirect way. It is as though the chosen behavior were on a par with an event that the chooser’s will does not directly originate or intend, one that is “in his power” only in the sense that he could voluntarily prevent it.12 Whether or not he should prevent it would depend on factors outside the nature of the event itself: its foreseeable consequences, the chooser’s other responsibilities at the time, and so on. Only if, in view of these other factors, he ought to intervene to prevent it, can he be held responsible for its occurring or be considered a voluntary cause of it.13 On this account, nothing about the moral quality of the chooser’s will can be determined by looking solely at the chosen behavior or the choice of it.The behavior cannot even be judged morally indifferent. It is simply premoral, not yet pertaining to the moral order, “merely physical.” But in truth this is not how a person relates to his chosen behavior. It is not just something that he does not will to prevent. It is something that he positively, directly wills to do. It has become an end of his, by his very choice of it. But does this say anything about what a person’s chosen behavior can or cannot consist in? The sentence is certainly not denying that the behavior can bring about results in the outside world.14 It is saying that these are not the sole factors to consider in assessing the behavior. The chief factor is the behavior itself. As is clear from passage 2, what is at stake is whether moral criteria, moral norms, are applicable to the behavior itself. Of course the theories being criticized give the term “physical” a technical sense that excludes moral criteria, the sense of “premoral.” But if we take the term in the ordinary sense of “bodily,” I see no reason to read the sentence as a denial that the behavior can be something physical. 12 In this paragraph I am drawing on the interpretation given by Enrique Colom and Angel Rodríguez Luño, Elegidos in Cristo para ser santos (Madrid: Palabra, 2000), 163–67, 182–85.The authors explain that the erroneous positions treat the object of choice as though it were praeter-intentional, to be evaluated according to the principle of “double effect.” See also Angel Rodríguez Luño,“Veritatis splendor un anno dopo.Appunti per un bilancio (II),” Acta Philosophica 5 (1996): 57–58. 13 On this sort of situation, see ST I–II, q. 6, a. 3. 14 See also texts 3, 5, and 8 above. 14 Stephen L. Brock If anything, it seems to me, the document’s argument is much more to the effect that no matter how physical or bodily a chosen behavior is, it is nevertheless also a moral object. It is moral by the very fact that it is chosen. Surely one of the chief concerns of Veritatis Splendor is to reject the relegation of bodily entities and bodily goods to the domain of the merely “premoral.” It is insisting on the “moral meaning of the human body.” Passage 1 is just one place where this concern is expressed. Of course the “moral meaning” is not itself a bodily feature. It is a relation to man’s whole true good and to the order of reason directing the pursuit of that good. But what has this relation is the body itself. As I indicated earlier, I will not address the question of how moral norms about the use of our bodily parts and functions are formed. I think this is complex. It surely involves more than simply considering how a given use of a bodily part or power relates to that part’s or power’s own particular nature. For instance, although amputation goes against the nature of the part amputated, it may in some cases be quite legitimate or even praiseworthy.The primary moral question is always how the action relates to the order of reason toward the last end.15 But how moral norms are reached is one question, and what the norms apply to is another. Does the rebuttal of the charge of physicalism require denying that the actions that moral norms measure, or that pertain to the moral order, can even consist in uses of bodily parts and powers? Would that not render some of the norms themselves nugatory? In any case, what I have tried to show is that Veritatis Splendor §78 is making no such denial. It is not drawing a rigid separation between objects of choice, or moral objects, and the “physical order.” It is only insisting that an object of choice cannot belong solely to the physical order. An object of choice must in any case belong to the moral order; that is, it must be a moral object. Now I shall turn to Thomas’s account of moral acts, their objects, and their specification. As I said, I am not sure just how far my reading of Thomas on this differs from that of Professor Rhonheimer. I am not even sure how far the reading I have just given of Veritatis Splendor §78 differs from his, though some difference seems undeniable.16 In any case, before looking at Thomas, let me note two very fundamental points on which I fully concur with Rhonheimer. The first point is one of the most prominent ideas in his ethical writings: that the first proper principle and measure of moral acts is reason. We 15 See Veritatis Splendor §72. 16 Cf. Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 461–62. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 15 should be grateful to him for insisting on this and keeping it before us. There can be no doubt that it is Thomas’s view.17 The other point is that many human acts have a bodily dimension. In these, Rhonheimer says, “a materiality proper to the ‘physical’ nature of the act is also present,” and sometimes so much so that it is “a materiality that enters into the constitution of the object. In particular cases, this natural matter of the act can have a special importance for reason, due to the fact that we are speaking of a nature that doesn’t merely surround us, but that we ourselves are.”18 Where I think I differ from Rhonheimer is on exactly how far a physical nature can enter into the constitution of a moral act and its object. I wish to say that it can play a formal role. I do not see how to say otherwise without consigning everything physical about what we do to the domain of the praeter-intentional, and so, ultimately, to the “merely premoral” domain. However, I stress that if indeed a physical nature can play this role, it will only be insofar as the role is conferred upon it by reason. Reason is the first formal principle of human acts. All others depend on it. In a way, then, the issue would be only the scope of reason’s dominion. I think my account makes it broader. St. Thomas on Commanded Acts and Their Objects Before getting into the question of the possibility of physical or bodily objects of human acts, it will be helpful to survey some general elements of St. Thomas’s doctrine of the human act, especially regarding what he calls exterior or commanded human acts and their specification. I take these up in section C below. Before that, I explain why I focus on commanded acts (section A), and I offer some reflections on the general notion of the “specification of action” and on what it means to say that acts are specified by their objects (section B). The Typical Object of Choice: A Commanded Human Act As we saw, the central concern of Veritatis Splendor §78 is choice and its object. I suggested that for St.Thomas as well, choice is in some way the moral act par excellence.What sorts of things can be objects of choice? The field is very broad. But it does not include absolutely everything.Thomas identifies three features that any object of choice must have.19 One is that it is ad finem, ordered toward some end that is distinct from it (though perhaps intrinsic to it). Every choice presupposes a desire for 17 See, inter alia, ST I–II, q. 18, a. 5; q. 100, a. 1; q. 104, a. 1. 18 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 508. 19 ST I–II, q. 13, aa. 3–5. 16 Stephen L. Brock some end.What is chosen is understood to be somehow favorable to the end, and it is chosen on this account. Another feature is possibility. No one chooses what he thinks impossible.What is impossible cannot be favorable to anything. And third, what is chosen is always a human act, something the chooser can do. In saying this, Thomas does not entirely exclude other entities, which he lumps together under the term res, “things,” from the scope of choice. We do speak of choosing a president, a tie, a color; and indeed such entities can be both possible and favorable to an end. But, Thomas says, some action will also fall under the same choice: an action by which the “thing” chosen is either made or used. We choose to name a president, to wear a tie, to paint the wall green. Now, as we saw, Thomas divides the genus of human acts into two sorts, elicited or interior, and commanded or exterior.20 These are not quite on a par. That is, they are not two independent species of the genus. Commanded acts are human in virtue of elicited acts. All human acts proceed from the will. Some proceed from it immediately, such as to will, to intend, to choose, and so on; they are elicited from it. Others proceed from it mediately, through powers under the will’s command.The powers are moved to them by elicited acts of will. Note that in fact Thomas calls both types acts of will. “ ‘Act of will’ is of two sorts: one which is of it immediately, namely, to will; and another which is an act of will commanded by the will and exercised through another power, such as to walk and to speak.”21 Choice is of course an elicited act. As for its object,Thomas makes it clear that both elicited and commanded acts can be chosen. We can choose between willing and not willing, and between doing and not doing; and also between willing this or willing that, and between doing this or doing that.22 Still, I think that we can say that the more typical object of choice is a commanded act, one carried out by some power other than the will—what Veritatis Splendor calls a “freely chosen kind of behavior.” The things that we choose are the things that we deliberate about. Do we not deliberate more about whether and what to do than about whether and what to will? In any case, Thomas characterizes the relation between the will and the power that exercises a commanded act as that of a principal agent to 20 Very helpful on this distinction is David M. Gallagher, “Aquinas on Moral Action: Interior and Exterior Acts,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 64 (1990): 118–29. 21 ST I–II, q. 6, a. 4. 22 ST I–II, q. 13, a. 6. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 17 an instrument. By the will, we use the powers that are subjected to it. Several of the powers of the human soul are subject to the will’s use: reason, the will itself, the sense-appetites, and the motor powers of the external bodily members. Concerning the bodily members, Thomas quotes St. Augustine: “the mind commands that the hand move, and it is so easy, that the command is hardly distinguished from the service.”23 Some commanded acts, then, include bodily movements. This is not to say that they are nothing but bodily movements. Here I am not referring to the fact that they are also “moral” acts, as Veritatis Splendor is insisting any object of choice must be. I am referring to the fact that every commanded action includes, as an integral component, a certain elicited act of the will; namely, the will’s very use of the power or member by which the command is executed.24 This “usus” is an act distinct from the choice to perform the action. The choice is a certain tendency or inclination in the will toward the action, and it may exist before the action is even begun; as one might choose today to take a walk tomorrow. But when tomorrow comes, it is not that one’s legs simply set off on their own, as though they had been preprogrammed by the choice. What is preprogrammed by the choice is only the will itself.There must also be an act of will that begins simultaneously with the exercise of the motor powers. This is not another choice. (Of course one could make another choice at that time.) It is the will’s application of the powers to the execution of the chosen action, its use of the powers. It is I who take a walk, using my legs. Commanded acts are acts of the will.Although they are attributed to other powers too, this is only as to their instruments. What they are chiefly attributed to, the primary agency, is the will. Because a commanded act is an act of will, which is intellectual appetite, it also involves a certain act of practical intellect.The will’s application of a power to some act, its use of the power, requires a conception of the act and of the power’s order to it. Conceiving order is proper to intellect. In fact the choice of an action already depends on the intellect’s having formed a conception of the action and a judgment of its choiceworthiness, typically through deliberation. But in virtue of the choice, the conception takes on a kind of moving force or active thrust. It becomes a command. This is the intellect’s most properly practical kind of act.25 And just as the will’s use of the power of executing is integral to the act as a whole, so is the intellect’s command. Thomas in fact says that the 23 ST I–II, q. 17, a. 9, sed contra. 24 See ST, I–II, q. 16, passim; and q. 17, a. 3. 25 See ST II–II, q. 47, a. 8. On command as an act of intellect having “moving force,” see ST I–II, q. 17, a. 1. Stephen L. Brock 18 command and the act commanded constitute a single, composite human act.The command is the formal component.26 So a commanded human action is never a purely bodily affair. Nor is it only something that has previously been conceived by the intellect, in deliberation, and accepted by the will, in choice.Acts of intellect and will are also integral to it, as an action; that is, as proceeding from its agent.27 This is why it is intrinsically voluntary, even if only secondarily so. But of course the operation of the power that is used to execute the action is also integral to the action. It is the use’s very terminus and completion. Sometimes the power used is bodily. Can we say, then, that sometimes a “freely chosen kind of behavior,” a commanded human act, is a kind of bodily operation? Or more precisely: in order to have before us an item that is fit for moral evaluation, can it suffice to name a kind of bodily operation and add the qualification “voluntary”? Do such names, by themselves, even allow that qualification? Can, for example, raising one’s arm, or swallowing a morphine capsule, or stabbing someone with a dagger, or copulating, be, as such, a voluntary action—and so, as such, a moral object? It may seem that the answer is obviously yes.Yet there are serious problems.28 These begin to emerge when we consider more closely what is meant by a “kind of behavior” or a “kind of action,” and what is required for a kind of action to be a possible object of choice, and a moral object, at all. What is called the “specification” of commanded human acts is a more complicated topic than one might suspect. I shall return to the particular issue of bodily kinds of acts in part III. In the rest of this part, I shall explore some problems concerning the specification of commanded acts generally.They all have to do with Thomas’s simple affirmations in the article cited by Veritatis Splendor §78 (ST I–II, q. 18, a. 6), that the interior and exterior acts of the will each has its object, and that the exterior act takes its species from the object that it bears upon,“ab obiecto circa quod est.” In the following section, I offer a few reflections aimed at avoiding misunderstandings about the meaning of the “specification of acts by their objects.” Then in section C, I take up three problems concerning the possibility of specifying commanded human acts by objects. 26 ST I–II, q. 17, a. 4. 27 “Actio consideratur ut egrediens ab agente”: ST III, q. 13, a. 1, ad 2. 28 Several of the problems that I shall entertain reflect arguments advanced in Rhon- heimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” which I shall signal with “cf.” However, the formulations of them are my own. I cannot always be sure that Rhonheimer would endorse these. If not, then of course my resolutions are not genuine responses to him. (What I most hope is that they are genuine resolutions.) In a few places I do firmly ascribe certain assertions to him and discuss these. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 19 The Meaning of “Specification by Object” Acts are specified by their objects. This is a very familiar teaching of Thomas’s. But we should make sure not to lose sight of what “specification of action” refers to in the context of this teaching. It is easy, I think, to take it as referring to the identification of what an agent is doing at a given time. “What is he doing?” Is this not a request to “specify” his action? In a sense it is, but not in the sense in which an action is specified by an object. It is one thing to say or show or display that something is of this or that kind; it is quite another to be the formal principle in virtue of which the thing is of the kind that it is. Objects “specify” in the latter sense. It is analogous to the way in which substantial forms specify substances. Horses, for instance, are specified by horse souls.Their souls are what make them to be the kind of substance that they are—horses. But if you see some beasts roaming far off in the field, and you cannot quite make out what kind they are, it will not help much to be told that they are whatever kind their souls make them to be.What could help is a pair of binoculars. Now, whereas a single substance can only be of one kind, it is quite possible for a single agent to perform many different kinds of action, even at the same time. There can be many true answers to the question, “What is he doing?” For each answer, or for each kind of action that he is performing, there will be something, distinct from the action, to which the action is related, and on which the action’s being of that kind depends. This is the object of that kind of action.The kind depends on it, in the sense that it is included in the kind’s essence or definition. In the definition of stealing, for instance, there is what Thomas calls res aliena, “a thing that is not one’s own.”29 To steal is to take a thing, secretly, that is not yours to take.30 Of course, even with a substance, it is possible to give many different true answers to the question, “What is it?” by using terms of greater or lesser generality. A horse is at once a horse, and an animal, and a living 29 Thus, “res aliena est proprium obiectum furti dans sibi speciem”: De Malo, q. 2, a. 7, ad 8. 30 I say “not yours to take.” For Thomas, the relation of aliena that the thing has to the thief may be solely with respect to his taking it. There are cases in which something taken does, absolutely speaking, belong to the taker, but his taking it is nevertheless wrong; and Thomas calls such taking theft: ST II–II, q. 66, a. 3, ad 3, and a. 5, ad 3. Conversely, I think we can say that although a policeman who confiscates stolen goods in order to restore them to their owner takes things that, absolutely speaking, are not his, nevertheless, under the circumstances of the confiscation, they are his to take. Cf. Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 464–65. (As for the case of someone who takes something from its owner merely in order to play a joke, this would be blameless only on the supposition that he restores it quickly, such that practically speaking the owner is not really deprived of it.) Stephen L. Brock 20 thing, and a body, and a substance. Likewise, if someone is committing murder, then he is also injuring someone, and sinning, and performing a human act. But this is not the only way in which many answers might be given to the question of what someone is doing. It is possible for a person to be performing many equally specific kinds of action at the same time. None is merely a genus to which another belongs. To use an example from Elizabeth Anscombe: A man may be, at one and the same time, moving his arm up and down, pumping water, replenishing a house’s water supply, and poisoning the house’s inhabitants.31 There is an order among these:The man performs each subsequent kind of action by performing the previous one. However, his performing any one of them does not, by itself, entail his performing any of the others; any prior one is a kind of action that might be done for some other purpose instead, and any subsequent one is a kind that might be done by some other means.The fellow might also be doing something that is not even part of the chain; for instance, she says, beating out the rhythm of “God Save the King” with the pump.This is not related to poisoning the inhabitants either as means to end or as end to means.There is no order between them at all. He just happens to be doing both. In Anscombe’s presentation, all of these are kinds of action that the man performs intentionally.They are human actions. He can be doing them all at once, because he can be intending many termini of action at once. There may be order among the termini, one being a means to another; or there may be no order.Thomas is explicit about these possibilities.32 He is also explicit about the fact that an object that gives a species to a human act must fall under the agent’s intention. Indeed every “agent,” human or not, acts from an inclination or a tendency toward something.33 What is peculiar about human agents is that they can form their own tendencies, through deliberation and choice. But of all the things that are somehow involved in a human agent’s action, only what the agent bears or trains the action upon is properly an object that specifies it.34 A speci31 G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1963), §§23 and 26. 32 See ST I–II, q. 12, a. 3; I–II, q. 18, a. 7, ad 1. 33 ST I–II, q. 1, a. 2. 34 It need not be that the action always “touches” or “affects” its object.The expres- sion materia circa quam is in fact quite felicitous, because it covers the objects of both “transitive” and “immanent” actions. Only the former really affect the things they bear upon; the action as it were passes from agent to object. An immanent act remains in its agent, even when the object is external. The act bears on the object by way of a likeness of it in the agent. See ST I, q. 54, a. 1, ad 3; and I, q. 56, a. 1; also I, q. 85, a. 2; I–II, q. 67, a. 6, ad 2. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 21 fying object of action is something that the agent “targets” and to which he knowingly proportions or adjusts the instruments by which he performs the action, as the archer adjusts his bow and arrow.35 The target is the object of his bowshot and falls under his intention.36 Thus, in his account of the specification of sins,Thomas says that even if the object of a sin is the “matter about which the act terminates,” nevertheless it also has the ratio of an end,“insofar as the intention of the agent is borne toward it”; and it is in this way that the object gives the act its “form,” its species.37 If a hunter mistakes a man for a deer and kills him, he has not performed a human action of the sinful kind “murder,” because a man was not what he intended to kill. More succinctly,Thomas says that a sin has its species chiefly according to that which is related per se to the sinner, “who intends to perform such a voluntary act in such matter”: qui intendit talem actum voluntarium exercere in tali materia.38 In a sense, then, we can say that actions are specified by the intentions that they embody. But this is not to eliminate the specifying role of the object or the “matter,” or even to subordinate its role to that of the intention.39 The matter specifies the intention too. An intention is not specified in an “absolute” way.40 It is essentially relative to something else, and what it is relative to is a principle of it, part of its definition. For instance, the definition of the intention embodied by an act of murder includes “a human being,” the intended victim. If one and the same agent can perform many kinds of actions, even at the same time, it is also possible for one and the same thing to be the object of many kinds of action, even at the same time. Chesterton has a story about a man who devises a “gun camera”: as you shoot someone’s picture with it, you also shoot him.The same person is at once the object of both “shots,” and although they have the same name, they are hardly the same 35 ST III, q. 45, a. 1:“Sagittator non recte iaciet sagittam nisi prius signum prospexerit in quod iaciendum est.” 36 Thomas calls the target (signum) the end of the arrow’s movement in ST I, q. 103, a. 1. In I–II, q. 4, a. 4, ad 2, he presents the end as striking the target. See below on the distinction between finis cuius and finis quo. 37 ST I–II, q. 73, a. 3, ad 1. 38 ST I–II, q. 72, a. 1. 39 For a very helpful inquiry into the relation between intention and materia circa quam in the specification of action, see Steven Jensen, “A Defense of Physicalism,” The Thomist 61 (1997): 377–404, esp. secs.VI and VII. 40 I take this expression from ST I–II, q. 35, a. 4: “Est autem considerandum quod quaedam specificantur secundum formas absolutas, sicut substantiae et qualitates, quaedam vero specificantur per comparationem ad aliquid extra, sicut passiones et motus recipiunt speciem ex terminis sive ex obiectis.” 22 Stephen L. Brock kind of action.This might tempt us to think either that there is nothing in the object of one to differentiate it from the other, or alternatively, that the specifying object of each is something other than the “thing” (the person) that it bears on. But what we need to remember is that if a thing has the power to be a formal principle of a certain kind of action, this is because, and insofar as, it has in itself a certain form or ratio.This ratio is what the action’s kind is a function of. It is what sets up the proportion, between the action and the object, that constitutes the kind. The very same thing can be the object specifying different kinds of action, because it has diverse formal rationes in it. A person is object of the act of photographing by reason of his color, and so on; he is object of a gunshot by reason of the features enabling him to be struck by a bullet. The same particular formal ratio may even specify different actions, insofar as this ratio is itself an instance of diverse common ones, relating it to diverse powers.41 Each power is defined by a ratio that is common to the particular rationes of the objects that specify its various acts.Acts of diverse powers differ generically.Yet the ratio that specifies the acts may be the same. For example, heat, insofar as it has the common ratio of physical quality, functions as a ratio according to which a body is altered. Insofar as it is a type of tangible form, it functions as a ratio according to which something is felt by touch. Insofar as it is a type of sensible form, it functions as a ratio according to which something is perceived by the common sense.42 Insofar as it is a type of perfection or goodness, it functions as a ratio according to which something is desired (“turn up the heat!”). And insofar as it 41 Joseph Pilsner, in his fine book, suggests that the object’s specifying role is seen when the object is viewed “not as an isolated component, but as the final and decisive element to be added to what is already assumed about the external action”: Joseph Pilsner, The Specification of Human Actions in St. Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 90, original emphasis. Pilsner is examining how “a spiritual thing” can be considered the object specifying simony. Simony is not the only kind of action that bears on a spiritual thing; a spiritual thing makes an action bearing on it to be simony only if the action is selling it. So in saying that object specifying the action of simony is a spiritual thing, we are already assuming that the action of simony is some kind of selling. I think this is right. I would only add that in assuming this, we are also assuming something about the object itself. That the action is a selling depends on something in the thing, namely, its being sellable or having a potential buyer. So we could say that the object of simony is a sellable spiritual thing. 42 Thus, “obiectum sensus communis est sensibile, quod comprehendit sub se visibile et audibile; unde sensus communis, cum sit una potentia, extendit se ad omnia obiecta quinque sensus”: ST I, q. 1, a. 3, ad 2.The same ratio falls under “visible” and “sensible.” On the general doctrine, see ST I, q. 77, a. 3, esp. ad 3 and ad 4. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 23 is a type of form simply, it functions as a ratio according to which something is understood.This point will be important when we return to the question whether a moral act can be a physical act. The Object of the Exterior Act Now let us look at some problems connected with the very idea that the exterior act has an object by which it is specified.The discussion of these will help with the question of the possible physical character of the exterior act and of the object of choice.The problems all have to do with the fact that, as can be seen from the various examples already considered, the typical object of an exterior act is a “thing.” I use this term in a very general sense: something that is not an action. I say “typical,” because it is indeed possible for one exterior action to have another for its object.The object might be someone else’s action, as when I listen to someone speak; or it might even be another action of mine, as when I watch myself type. But it seems to me that even if we have a series of actions, each having the next for its object, eventually the series must finish with an action whose object is a non-action. Otherwise there would be either an infinite regress or an action with no distinct object at all.43 The examples in Thomas of actions whose objects are “things” are beyond counting. We already saw that he makes the object of stealing a res aliena.The object of simony is a spiritual thing.44 The object of teaching is twofold: the subject-matter and the students.45 The object of almsgiving would be the alms and the recipient. Quite generally the objects of acts of justice and injustice are “exteriores res,” exterior things—not as to producing them, since production is the domain of art or skill rather than of morals, but as to using them in relation to another person.46 In the article in which he argues that human acts have their first moral goodness or badness from their objects, Thomas illustrates the point by contrasting accipere aliena, which is morally bad, with the morally good uti re sua.47 And so on.48 43 I would maintain that for Thomas, only in God is there action whose specifica- tion is not by something distinct from it. Some texts would be ST I, q. 14, a. 2; a. 4; a. 5, ad 3; I, q. 54, a. 1, c. and ad 3. 44 ST II–II, q. 100, a. 1. 45 ST II–II, q. 181, a. 3. 46 ST II–II, q. 58, a. 3, ad 3. 47 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2. Literally this means “using one’s own thing.” Perhaps its moral goodness would be better conveyed by something like “minding one’s own business.” 48 For other examples, see Pilsner, The Specification of Human Actions, 79–80. 24 Stephen L. Brock The Materia Circa Quam as an End But even if it seems obvious that many actions bear upon “things,” nonactions, can it really be a “thing” that gives an action its species? A first problem—the chief one, I think—arises from something we saw earlier. What specifies an action must be something that falls under the agent’s tendency or intention. This means that it must be an end. Ends are what intentions bear upon, and human acts are specified by ends. We did see that Thomas says that the object of an action, even though it is the “matter” about which the action terminates, also has the character of an end insofar as it falls under the agent’s intention.49 But how should we understand this? Are not the ends that specify human acts practical goods, and is not a practical good precisely an action?50 An exterior action that is chosen and intended is certainly the object of the choice and the intention, and it specifies them. But if the exterior action in turn has an object and end of its own, and if this is some “thing,” a dilemma seems to arise. It comes to a head in relation to the question of the agent’s “ultimate” end. If an agent’s intended action is always ordered to an object that is not an action, and if this too is something he intends, then there seem to be only two possibilities. Either this non-action is the agent’s ultimate end, or else he intends it for the sake of some still further end. If that further end is another action, then ex hypothesi there will also be another non-action that he intends as this other action’s own object. So the same alternatives arise again: Either this non-action will be his ultimate end, or else it will be intended for something further. Now, this series of ends, alternating between actions and non-actions, either does or does not come to a stop. If it does, there will be both a last action intended and a last non-action intended; but the absolutely last end will be the non-action, since this will be the object and end of the last action itself.Yet Thomas teaches both that whenever a person acts humanly, there must be something that he intends as his last end, his beatitude (so the series comes to a stop); and that whatever it is that is truly fit to be human beatitude must be an action.51 Nevertheless Thomas could hardly be clearer about the fact that the goodness of good actions is a function of the “things” that they are about, their materia circa quam, and that the things too, as such matter or objects, have the character of goods and of ends. This comes out perhaps most 49 See above, at notes 37 and 38. Another text: “Ad quartum dicendum, quod est duplex materia: ex qua, vel in qua, et materia circa quam: et primo modo materia dicta non incidit in idem cum fine: sed secundo modo est idem cum fine: quia objectum finis actus est”: In II Sent., d. 36, q. 1, a. 5, ad 4. 50 Cf. Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 485. 51 ST I–II, q. 3, a. 2. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 25 sharply in his treatment of the last end. It is true that the ultimate perfection in man is an action, and this is what happiness is. But happiness is only this: the ultimate perfection in man, inhering in him.That which is truly fit for a human agent to intend as the ultimate perfection inhering in him cannot be his mere existence, nor can it be some mere part or power or quality: It must be an action. But, this action will have an object. And the object of the action that is true human happiness is a res that is not a human action and not something inhering in man, not something of which man is the subject or the agent at all. It is God. True beatitude is to behold God. God is what the beholding bears upon, its materia circa quam. Of the two—beholding God, and God himself—that which Thomas judges to be most unqualifiedly “the last end of man” is in fact the latter, the res, God himself.52 That man’s absolutely last end is God himself certainly seems to be the teaching of Veritatis Splendor as well. Thomas is aware, I think, that it can sound odd to attribute the status of an end to what is not a human action, especially if it is not even caused or affected by one. God is neither an agibile nor a factibile. He is entirely outside the domain of the contingent and the mobile.Aristotle too was aware that it can seem odd to posit an end or a final cause in the domain of the immobile. This is why he called attention, though only very succinctly, to two distinct senses of “end.” Thomas spells out the distinction. Something can be another’s end in two ways. In one way, as pre-existing: as the center [of the earth] is called the pre-existing end of the movement of heavy things. And nothing prevents an end of this sort from existing among immobiles. For something can tend by its motion toward sharing somehow in something immobile. And thus the first immobile mover can be an end. In the other way, something is said to be the end of something, as that which is not in act, but only in the intention of the agent by whose action it is generated, as health is the end of medical activity; and this sort of end is not in immobile things.53 At many points in his treatment of man’s last end, and also elsewhere, Thomas appeals to this distinction under the expressions finis cuius and finis quo.54 He uses it to explain how God can be man’s last end: as finis 52 ST I–II, q. 2, a. 8; q. 3, a. 1. 53 In XII Meta., lect. 7, §2528 (Marietti). The passage concerns Metaphysics XII.7 (1072b1–3). On its seeming that there can be no final cause in immobiles, see Metaphysics III.2 (996a22–35). 54 See, inter alia, ST I, q. 26, a. 3, c. and ad 2; I–II, q. 1, a. 8; q. 2, a. 7; q. 3, a. 1; q. 3, a. 8, ad 2; q. 5, a. 2; q. 11, a. 3, ad 3; q. 13, a. 4; q. 16, a. 3; q. 34, a. 3; q. 56, a. 1; Quodl. VIII, q. 9, a. 1. 26 Stephen L. Brock cuius. This is “the res itself in which the ratio of good is found.” The finis quo is “the use or attainment of the res.”55 Here Thomas again illustrates the distinction with the movement of heavy bodies, the end of which is in one sense the “lower place,” and in the other, “being in the lower place.” He also gives an example from worldly affairs: The miser’s last end is in one sense money, and in the other sense the possession of money.56 The money, of course, is the object of the possession, its materia circa quam. The distinction is not confined to the last, overarching end. Human agents also have “intermediate” practical ends. In comparison with the last end these are only means, ad finem; but each is still a genuine terminus toward which the agent orders and aims himself. Most of the actions that we choose to apply ourselves to are “intermediate” ends. What is chosen is, as such, something toward which the chooser, as such, tends.As Veritatis Splendor §78 says, it is the “proximate” end of the choice. Thomas explicitly applies the distinction between the two senses of “end” to the object of choice. He does so in the very article in which he argues that choice is properly of human actions.57 A “thing” can very well be chosen, and be the proximate end of a choice, though only insofar as some action about it is too. So I think it is clear that both an exterior action and the thing that the action bears on, its materia circa quam, can be understood as ends. I have already used the term “target” to try to convey how the thing that an action bears on can be understood as an end. Of course, insofar as things are “ends” and fall under intention, they must be objects of the agent’s will. It is the will that relates to something sub ratione finis, and intention is an interior or elicited act of the will. But Thomas leaves absolutely no doubt that the will can relate to “things,” non-actions, in this way.58 Indeed he insists that anything that functions as the materia circa quam of a commanded or exterior human act, specifying it, must also be functioning as an object of an elicited or interior act of the will; this is why it specifies the exterior act.59 55 ST I–II, q. 1, a. 8. Here Thomas cites Physics II and Metaphysics V. The Metaphysics V reference is unclear; there is a brief discussion of final cause in V.2 (1013a33–b3 and b25–28), but the distinction between the two senses is not mentioned. Perhaps the intended reference is to Book XII. The Physics passage is II.2 (194a95–96). The distinction also appears in De anima II.4 (415b2–3 and 17–21). 56 See also ST I–II, q. 16, a. 3. 57 ST I–II, q. 13, a. 4. 58 See Pilsner, The Specification of Human Actions, 87–91. 59 ST I–II, q. 72, a. 3, ad 2: “Obiecta, secundum quod comparantur ad actus exteriores, habent rationem materiae circa quam; sed secundum quod comparantur ad actum interiorem voluntatis, habent rationem finium, et ex hoc habent quod dent speciem actui.” For further discussion of this text, see below at note 112. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 27 The exterior act has no object that is not also an object of an interior act. As we saw before, what an action is properly “about” is not just anything that it happens to be involved with. It is what the action is trained upon or targets, and what a human action targets is what its agent intends that it target, what he applies it to by his will. We should not misunderstand this. It is not that the matter of an exterior act is merely something “out of which” something else is constituted as an end, an object of the will, and a specifying principle of the exterior act.60 The matter itself is an end and object of the will, and it thereby plays a formal role relative to the exterior act, specifying it.61 At the same time, the exterior act itself, as trained upon and specified by its object, is also an object and end of the will.62 The will bears on the action as specified by the thing, and it bears on the thing as object of the action. The action’s status as an end and the thing’s status as an end are inseparable from each other. Here is a crucial implication of the distinction between finis cuius and finis quo. Although action and object are distinct, and although both are ends, we should not think of them as distinct ends. They are the same end. This is not absurd, because each “is” that end in a distinct sense. Thus Thomas:“[A]s was said above,‘end’ is said in two ways: in one way, the thing itself; in another, the attainment of the thing. Which indeed are not two ends, but one end, considered in itself, and applied to another . . . ; therefore God is not one end, and the enjoyment of God another.”63 Here Thomas speaks of the “enjoyment” of God. Elsewhere the distinction is between the thing and the “use” of the thing. In the case of the very last end, the “use” is the same as the enjoyment. Moreover, it does not in any way affect the thing. In many kinds of action, of course, the “use” of the object is not merely a “having” or a “beholding” it, some sort of “resting” in it and “sharing in its goodness.”The use often does affect and modify the object. Sometimes it even destroys the object, as in eating food. Still, we should not have any difficulty seeing food as falling under 60 The places in which Thomas absolutely identifies the object of an action with its matter are far too many to leave any doubt about it. One place is this: “circumstantia, inquantum huiusmodi, non dat speciem actui morali, sed eius species sumitur ab obiecto, quod est materia actus; ideo oportuit species luxuriae assignari ex parte materiae vel obiecti.” ST II–II, q. 154, a. 1. 61 See ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 2:“obiectum non est materia ex qua, sed materia circa quam; et habet quodammodo rationem formae, inquantum dat speciem.” 62 ST I–II, q. 20, a. 1, ad 1. See Pilsner, The Specification of Human Actions, 83, note 37. 63 ST I–II, q. 11, a. 3, ad 3. Stephen L. Brock 28 the eater’s intention, and as something he considers good: Food is what he intends to eat, and he considers it good, that is, good to eat. We can say something of this sort even when the agent whose action destroys what is acted upon does not expect anything further from the product of the destruction, as an eater may from the product of his eating. For example,Thomas says that sexual pleasures are matter that the virtue of temperance operates about, materia circa quam operatur ; yet not in the sense that temperance intends to cling to such pleasures, but in the sense that, by curbing them, it tends toward the good of reason.64 But we can still say that they fall under the intention of temperance, as objects of this act of “curbing.” Temperance intends to curb them, for the good of reason. In this respect, the temperate agent even sees something good about them, though no doubt he would be less likely to say simply that they are good in the way that the eater might say that about food. However, even when the eater says this, what he means is that the food is good to eat; and although the temperate person will regard some sexual pleasures (those outside of marriage, for instance) as in themselves positively bad and contrary to reason, he will also, and for the same reason, regard them as good to curb. Similarly, a doctor regards his patient as good to heal, and a murderer regards his victim, whom perhaps he considers his enemy, as good to kill. What I am arguing is that it is sufficient that the action’s matter be considered good by the agent, and fall under his intention, in this way in order for it to be the action’s true object and a formal principle giving it its species. Recall again that an action and its materia circa quam are one and the same end.They are object of the same intention.The action is not a means to its materia circa quam. Of course it may be a means to something, some effect. An order to some effect may even be in its very definition, as its proximate and proper terminus. This entails that it is specified by the effect. For instance, an action of killing is a means to the death of the one killed, and it is at this that the act properly terminates; and so the death is what specifies the action as “killing.” But the killing’s materia circa quam is not the victim’s death. An action’s materia circa quam is simultaneous with the action.When the victim is dead, the killing has ceased.The materia circa quam is the victim not yet dead, the victim undergoing the action of killing.65 64 De virtutibus, q. 5, a. 4, ad 5. 65 Thus,“alimentum transmutatum est effectus nutritivae potentiae, sed alimentum nondum transmutatum comparatur ad potentiam nutritivam sicut materia circa quam operatur.” ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 3. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 29 The ultimate specification of this action, however, is from the materia circa quam. Killings differ according to differences in their victims.This does not short-circuit the specification by the effect. It does not dissociate the killing’s species from the death. It means that the materia circa quam gives the ultimate specification to the effect itself. The death to which the killing of a man is ordered is a human death; that to which the killing of a dog is ordered is a canine death.The deaths differ in kind, as the killings do, by virtue of what they are of. As for the dilemma about the last end, we can now see that it involves a misunderstanding. It treats an action and the action’s object as two different ends, one a means to the other.The series of ends does indeed come to a stop; but it does not stop at a non-action rather than an action. It comes to one stop, one ultimate end, which in one respect, in one sense of “end,” is an action, and in another respect, a non-action. The action that is the last end is not a means to the non-action that is its object. The action is not a production, which is only a means to the thing that is the product. A production cannot be man’s last end in any sense of the term “end.” Even if someone does treat a product as his last end (finis cuius), there is also some action, other than the production of the product, which is also his last end (quo).The res that is the glutton’s last end is food. His cooking it is only a means to it. But his eating it is not (for him) a means. It too is his last end, the same one.That the eating is good is a function the food’s being good, its being good to eat. Of course the res that is man’s true last end is not a human product, nor is it any merely physical thing. It is not even man himself, nor anything in him. Nor is it a human action. The Materia Circa Quam as Giving Moral Goodness and Badness A second problem concerning things as objects of commanded human acts arises from the fact that commanded human acts are moral acts, with moral species. If their objects are principles of their species, they must be also be principles of the moral goodness or badness that the acts have according to their species. In Summa theologiae I–II, q. 18, a. 2,Thomas in fact says that the object that determines the species of a moral act is that which gives the act its primary moral goodness or badness. I have already suggested that Veritatis Splendor §78 need not be understood as asserting that the only moral act is choice or that only the object of choice is a moral object.We have also already seen that in some way “things” can indeed fall under choice, albeit only together with actions bearing on them. It is not difficult to see that exterior actions themselves can be moral objects, since they are moral entities in their own right,“acts proceeding from a deliberate will.” However, the “things” that are their typical materia circa quam are not of this 30 Stephen L. Brock sort.The res aliena that is the matter of the thief ’s action is not a moral act, nor is it morally evil. How then can it make the action to be so?66 Thomas raises this objection quite explicitly. “An object of action is a thing.Yet evil is not in things, but in the use of sinners, as Augustine says in Book III of De doctrina christiana. So a human action does not have goodness or badness from its object.”67 In his reply, Thomas first makes the objection a little more precise, indeed a little more “Thomistic” (and, I would say, “Augustinian”), and then he resolves it.“Granted that exterior things are, in themselves, good, nevertheless they do not always have a due proportion to this or that action. And therefore, insofar as they are considered as objects of such actions, they do not have the ratio of good.”68 This reply is quite in the line of our previous discussion. Just as the thing that is the object of the exterior act falls under the agent’s intention as object of the act, so it is as object of the act that it can be assigned moral quality.We might draw a homely analogy: Salt is a good thing, and in itself it is quite digestible, but it makes coffee vomit-inducing. It is a vomitous ingredient of coffee. An innocent human being is a good “thing,” very good; but (for this very reason), he is a bad object of killing, a very bad thing to kill. He is a morally bad thing to kill. A res aliena is a good thing, in itself; but it is a bad thing to take. In one place Thomas even presents moral virtue as something able to be the object of a bad human act: “[S]omeone can use virtue badly as an object, for instance, when he thinks badly of virtue, when he hates it, or takes pride in it; though not as a principle of use, in such a way, that is, that an act of virtue might be bad.”69 Virtue is a bad thing to hate. We must not be misled by this way of speaking.The moral quality being attributed to the thing is not something “in” the thing.The attribution is not false, but it is only “extrinsic” attribution. The murder victim has a certain relation to the murder and to the evil in it. To be sure,Thomas is also saying that the victim is a certain cause of the murder’s being a murder, and of its being morally evil—a “formal principle” thereof. But this is not a problem. Thomas’s philosophy has ample room for causes that do not have in themselves that of which they are the cause. His typical example is a medicine.This does not have the quality of 66 Cf. Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 467. 67 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, obj. 1. 68 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 1. 69 ST I–II, q. 55, a. 4, ad 5. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 31 health in it, yet it can cause health in an animal. It is truly denominated “healthy,” according to its causal relation to health in animals.70 I would say that the relation between a good thing and the bad action that bears upon it, the relation according to which the thing itself is said in a way to be bad, is not even a “real” relation. That is, the thing does not even have in itself something by which it is ordered to the bad action, something such as medicine does have, by which it is ordered toward health. Health is what the medicine is essentially for—it is in the very definition of medicine—whereas the bad action is not what the good thing is essentially for.What orders the thing to the bad action is only the agent who conceives of using it in that way and chooses to do so. The order is only in his intention.Yet not even this prevents the thing from being a cause of the action and of its badness. Not all causes have a “real” relation to what they cause. A good example of this is the way in which “things” are causes of both truth and falsity. Just as things do not properly have moral goodness or badness in them, neither do they properly have truth or falsity. Moreover, their relation to the truth or falsity in our minds is not even a real relation.71 Our thoughts about them are not included in their definitions, as health is included in the definition of medicine. It is the mind itself, by its work of abstraction, composition, and division, that brings things into the domain of the true and the false.Yet things are causes of our thoughts about them, and of the truth or falsity of the thoughts.The components of the thoughts are gathered from the things, and the thoughts are either true, because the things are as they present them to be, or false, because the things are otherwise.The things are formal principles of the truth and falsity of the thoughts. It is legitimate to denominate the things by their relations to the thoughts. “A true tragedian is a false Hector.”72 As for the materia circa quam of an action,73 this is a principle of the action’s moral goodness or badness insofar as it has or lacks “due proportion” to the action. Of course it must have some proportion to the action; otherwise the action could not bear upon it at all. But its either having or lacking “due” proportion is its either bringing the action into harmony with the order of reason, or making it jar. 70 See ST I, q. 16, a. 1, ad 3. Thomas uses the medicine example to illustrate how the interior and exterior acts are denominated good or bad by their relations to each other: ST I–II, q. 20, a. 3, ad 3. 71 ST I, q. 16, a. 1. 72 ST I, q. 17, a. 1, ad 1. 73 In the very next objection and reply Thomas reminds us that the object is the materia circa quam. ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, obj. 2 and ad 2. Stephen L. Brock 32 The Materia Circa Quam as a Moral Object The proper measure of moral goodness and badness is reason’s order toward man’s last end. Measuring morality belongs to reason because reason is the first principle, in the human agent, of human acts themselves. Generally the goodness or badness of acts is judged by their relation to the principle from which they proceed, as to whether or not they are in accordance with the principle’s order. Unlike natural forms, whose effects are always according to their order unless something else interferes, reason can be the origin of operations that depart from its own order.74 It can conceive acts that deviate from its own rule directing toward the last end, and it can even see something good about these acts.That is enough for the rational appetite to be inclined to the acts and to carry them out. However, Thomas has a passage in which reason’s role as first principle of human acts may seem at odds with the thesis that the morality of a commanded or exterior human action is a function of its materia circa quam, or that the materia circa quam is a genuinely moral object. It can sound as though the materia circa quam is indeed only “matter,” and that the act’s moral “form” and species comes entirely from somewhere else— from reason itself. The passage is the first article in the quaestio on the morality of the exterior act.75 The issue in the article is this: Given that moral goodness and badness belong to both the interior and the exterior act, to which does it first belong? Thomas’s answer is complex. It draws on his earlier account of the sources of moral goodness or badness in a human act: the object determining its kind or “genus,” its circumstances, and the end moving its agent to it.76 Since the end is properly the object of the will’s interior act, the goodness or badness that the end gives clearly belongs first to the interior act and derives from it to the exterior act.As for the goodness or badness that an exterior act has according to its genus and circumstances, absolutely speaking this too belongs first to the interior act—to the very act of willing the exterior act—since this is the principle moving the exterior act’s execution. But in a certain respect, this goodness or badness—that of the act’s genus and circumstances—does belong first to the exterior act: not insofar as it is actually executed, but insofar as it is ordained and apprehended by reason and is thereby an object moving the will. In this respect 74 On the “order of a form,” see ST I–II, q. 18, a. 5; on the comparison of nature and reason, I–II, q. 21, aa. 1–2. 75 ST I–II, q. 20, a. 1. Cf. Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 468–73. 76 ST I–II, q. 18, aa. 2–4. On the use of “genus” for kind or species, see a. 2. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 33 it is the exterior act that makes the interior act good or bad.Willing the exterior act is either according or contrary to reason insofar as the exterior act is so “in itself,” secundum se. For instance, if one gives alms intending the end of vainglory, his act of giving alms is itself thereby vitiated. It is not only a giving of alms, but also part of a pursuit of vainglory. However, it is still a giving of alms. Suppose it is to the right sort of person, in the right time and place, and so on.“In itself ” it is a good act, charitable. (This is the very reason why it can serve vainglory.) The bad end prevents the act’s performance from being a true exercise of charity. But the end is incidental to the act in itself.77 Evidently the act even confers some (qualified) goodness on the will, insofar as it is apprehended by reason and moves the will as its object. But what is it that makes an exterior act good or bad “in itself,” secundum se? This is the problematic point. Thomas says: “The goodness or badness that an exterior act has in itself, on account of its due matter and due circumstances, does not derive from the will, but rather from reason.”78 Similarly, in the reply to the first objection, he says that “the exterior act is an object of the will, insofar as it is proposed to the will by reason as a certain good apprehended and ordered by reason; and in this respect it is prior to the good act of the will.” What does this mean? In saying that the exterior act’s intrinsic morality, the morality that it has in itself, derives “from reason,” is Thomas opposing this to “from its materia circa quam”? If we still want to say that the exterior act has its intrinsic goodness or badness from its “object” (a term Thomas does not use here), should we understand its “object” to be something other than its materia circa quam; say, some further “significance” conferred upon it by reason, this being what gives it its true moral “form”? I do not think so. Indeed I think the text is quite clear about this:The goodness or badness that an exterior act has from reason is “the goodness or badness that an exterior act has in itself, on account of (propter) its due matter and due circumstances.”79 Still, the issue is worth dwelling on 77 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 6, obj. 2 and ad 2. Pertinent here is ST I–II, q. 18, a. 4, where an act’s “absolute” being and goodness are distinguished from that which is in function of the end. 78 ST I–II, q. 20, a. 1. 79 Similarly, in a. 2: “secundum materiam . . .”, “ex materia . . .”; in a. 3: “secundum se, scilicet secundum materiam . . .”; in a. 4 “secundum materiam. . . .” Note also in a. 4: “bonitas materiae et circumstantiarum redundat in actum voluntatis.” It is true that throughout this discussion Thomas uses materia rather than obiectum. (Cf. Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 470.) If there is a reason for this, perhaps it to avoid confusion with the obiectum of the interior act, which 34 Stephen L. Brock because it brings out something important about reason’s role in the constitution of human acts. Now of course, what the moral goodness or badness of the exterior act consists in is its following or deviating from the rule of reason. In this sense, the goodness or badness of the act depends on the rule of reason. If we do say that the goodness or badness of an act, in itself, depends on its materia circa quam, we certainly do not mean that it consists in the act’s following or deviating from its materia circa quam. That is hardly even intelligible. But the question here is,What is the act’s following or deviating from reason’s rule a function of? If we are speaking of the goodness or badness that it has in itself, the answer is not the agent’s will. That is the explicit opposition: The act’s goodness or badness, in itself,“does not derive from the will, but rather from reason.” It cannot derive from the will, because the act in itself is in a way prior to the will, insofar as it is an object that moves the will. It is made so by reason’s apprehending it and judging it to be a means ordered to the end motivating the will to choose and execute it.80 The goodness or badness that the act has in itself is already present in reason’s conception of it, even prior to its engagement of the will. But is this to say that its goodness or badness in itself is not determined by its materia circa quam? I think it helps here to go back for a moment to the previous quaestio, on the morality of the will’s interior act. Interestingly, although we might simply take it for granted, what Thomas asks in the first article is whether the interior act’s moral goodness or badness depends on its object; we might say, whether its object is a truly “moral” object.81 He poses an includes the exterior act itself. In any case, the mention of an act’s goodness “secundum genus suum” in a. 1 is a clear allusion to q. 18, a. 2, where the genus is said to a be a function of the object. 80 I think this is what Thomas means by reason’s “ordination” in ST I–II, q. 20, a. 1. He is not talking about reason’s bringing the act into conformity with the “order of reason”; a bad act does not have that conformity, and from the first objection it is clear that he is speaking about both good and bad acts (almsgiving and theft) as objects of the will that are “ordered by reason.” He is seeing the exterior act as something that reason hits upon in deliberating about attaining a presupposed end (in our example, vainglory); thus see ST I–II, q. 20, a. 2, where he speaks of “ordinem ad finem.” It is through deliberating reason’s referring the act to the end that the act takes on the aspect of choiceworthiness and moves the will. In a parallel passage, the setting is explicitly that of deliberation: In II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 2 (“Utrum actio sit simpliciter judicanda bona vel mala ex voluntate”). 81 ST I–II, q. 19, a. 1.We might wonder why Thomas has no corresponding question as to whether the goodness or badness of the exterior act depends on its object. (Cf. Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 468.) I think the reason is that he has already, in effect, addressed this question, in ST I–II, q. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 35 objection similar to the one about “things” giving moral goodness or badness.“As each is, so does it make another. But the object of the will is good with the goodness of nature. So it cannot confer moral goodness on the will. Hence the goodness of the will does not depend on its object.” The reply: “[T]he good is represented to the will as its object through reason, and insofar as it falls under the order of reason, it pertains to the genus of morals and causes moral goodness in the act of the will. For reason is principle of human and moral acts.”82 Although earlier I argued that the materia circa quam of an exterior act is to be regarded as an object of the will’s interior act too, I do not mean to simply identify the “object” spoken of here with the materia circa quam of an exterior act. For instance, the exterior act itself, which is not its own materia circa quam, is an object of the will.83 But what I find interesting about this text is spelled out in the next article (ST I–II, q. 19, a. 2), which examines whether the will’s goodness depends on reason.Thomas says it does; and his reason is the very fact that it belongs to reason to present the will with its object. “The goodness of the will depends on reason in the way in which it depends on its object” (emphasis added). Is there any reason why we cannot say the same about the goodness of the exterior act? When Thomas says that the goodness of the interior 18, a. 2.This article argues that human acts in general (that is, both interior and exterior acts) have goodness or badness from their objects. But note that here the object is said to give the act its first goodness or badness. This is because there may be further goodness or badness, from circumstances and from the end (aa. 3 and 4). Now, in ST I–II, q. 19, a. 2,Thomas tells us that the goodness or badness of the interior act is solely from its object. This is because the object of the interior act includes circumstances and end. So an act whose circumstances and end add to the object must be an exterior act. 82 ST I–II, q. 19, a. 1, obj. 3 and ad 3. 83 Nor, I think, should we identify the objection’s “goodness of nature” with the goodness that “things” have in themselves, the goodness mentioned in ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 1.Very often in these questions on moral goodness and badness (ST I–II, qq. 18–20),Thomas says only “goodness” when he is actually speaking about “goodness or badness” (or even “goodness or badness or indifference”). Here I think the objector is saying that the goodness or badness that may belong to the object of the will is only “natural” goodness or badness.There is such a thing as “natural badness,” belonging to human actions and to objects of the will.Thus, a little earlier, in an article on morally indifferent acts, Thomas had said that “every object or end has some goodness or badness, at least natural; yet it does not always bring moral goodness or badness, which is considered by comparison with reason”: ST I–II, q. 18, a. 8, ad 2.The passage from ST I–II, q. 19, a. 1, obj. 3 somewhat echoes this. An action that Thomas seems to regard as having a “natural” badness, but no moral badness, would be “walking on one’s hands”; see Summa contra Gentiles III, ch. 122, §9, “Nec tamen oportet. . . .” 36 Stephen L. Brock act depends on reason, he is not at all denying that it depends on the interior act’s object. He is saying that it depends on reason because it depends on the object. It is the same dependence. Does this not also hold true of the goodness of the exterior act? Thomas repeatedly affirms that the goodness of the exterior act, in itself, depends on its object; and he repeatedly identifies its object with its materia circa quam. So when he says here that the goodness or badness of the exterior act, in itself, depends on reason, why should we not understand this to mean “in the way in which it depends on its object,” and indeed, in the way in which it depends on its materia circa quam? The doctrine that reason presents the object of the will’s act is a familiar one. But perhaps we tend to think only of the interior act. Surely this is a mistake. Exterior acts too are acts “of will,” albeit by way of other powers.They too get their objects from reason.That is, they get their materia circa quam from reason. I think this point is very much worth stressing.84 Let us look for a moment at Thomas’s general account of the way in which the will is moved by reason.85 He explains that the will itself is the soul’s chief moving power with respect to the “exercise” or “use” of the soul’s acts.This is because the common ratio of its object is universal good. It acts in function of the good as a whole. The ends and perfections of the other powers are only partial goods. These are for the sake of man’s overall good, and they fall under the will’s object. So the will controls the exercise of those powers. “We use the other powers when we want.” In another respect, however, the will is itself moved: as to its act’s “determination” or “specification.” In this respect the mover is the act’s object. It is in just this respect that the will is moved by intellect. Intellect is what relates the will to the objects of its various acts. That the will’s act bears on this or that depends on intellect’s first grasping this or that under the ratio of good. Intellect can do this, because the common ratio of its own object is the most common formal principle of all, universal being and true. Even the common object of the will, the good, falls under this, as a particular being and true. 84 I say this not only in view of the present issue, but also with an eye to the anthro- pology underlying Thomas’s action theory.When he says that reason’s command and the commanded act relate as formal to material, he likens this to the relation between man’s soul and body: ST I–II, q. 17, a. 4. I cannot pursue this here, but note that the rational soul is the formal principle not only of what is distinctively “human” about the body, but also of the physical dispositions by which it is proportioned to the soul, and even of its very corporeity. See ST I, q. 76, a. 4, ad 1; a. 5; a. 6, c. and ad 1; a. 8. Pertinent is ST I, q. 110, a. 2, ad 1. Cf. Veritatis Splendor §48. 85 ST I–II, q. 9, a. 1. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 37 What I wish to underscore is that it is in just this way that intellect “moves” the will’s acts: as that which presents their objects.Thomas says that not only the interior act, but also exterior acts, are voluntary, “insofar as they proceed from will and reason.”86 In what sense would they proceed from reason, if it is not that reason determines their objects? The will is the one power that always gets its objects from reason; but the other powers can do so, just insofar as they can be used by the will. In fact Thomas is explicit:“Reason . . . has direction about all the objects of the lower powers that can be directed by reason.”87 There is nothing mysterious about this.“We use the other powers when we want.”This of course is a reference to the exercise of exterior acts. I take it that Thomas does not mean that what depends on the will is only “whether” a given power acts or not. If we use our eyesight, or look, when we want, surely we also look at this or at that when we want to look at this or at that.We apply the power to this or that matter when we want to. But we do not want to unless our reason has conceived the power’s being applied to the matter, and judged it good.That reason can do this is obvious: If even the will’s object, despite its great breadth, is comprehended by reason’s, then a fortiori so are the objects of the other powers. The exterior act, with its materia circa quam, exists first in reason’s conception. In this way it moves the will as the will’s object.The will thus moved moves the power to execute the act.The matter upon which the will trains the power by which it executes an exterior act is the very matter that the power is trained upon in reason’s preconception of the act. The act is already good or bad in kind, in virtue of its materia circa quam, even as it exists in reason’s preconception. Exterior acts are truly moral acts, not just objects and consequences of them; and their objects, which are their materiae circa quam, are moral objects.88 86 ST I–II, q. 20, a. 2, ad 3. He concludes: “and so the difference of good and bad can regard both types of act.” 87 ST I–II, q. 74, a. 6, ad 2. See also ST I, q. 81, a. 3; I–II, q. 17, a. 7, ad 3; q. 24, aa. 1, 3, and 4. 88 As we saw, the goodness of the exterior act as executed depends on the goodness of the interior act. But now, even this ultimately depends on reason, because that of the interior act itself does.The goodness of the interior act depends in part on the goodness of the exterior act as apprehended by reason. Should we say then that the goodness of the exterior act as executed depends on the goodness of the exterior act as apprehended ? And if so, could we say that the exterior act as apprehended is the object on which depends the goodness of the exterior act as executed? Would there thus be a sense in which the exterior act is its own object? (Cf. Rhonheimer,“The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 483.) I think not. For although the exterior act as apprehended does, in a way, move the exterior act as executed, it does not do so in the way an object does.What it moves in the way 38 Stephen L. Brock Two objections to this occur to me. One arises from the fact that, as I discussed earlier, something functions as the materia circa quam of an exterior act just insofar as it falls under the tendency of the interior act of the agent’s will. How can this be, if the act already has its materia circa quam in reason’s conception of it, prior to its engagement by the will? I think the answer is this: In reason’s preconception of the exterior act, there is included not only the operation of the power by which the act is executed, but also the operation of the will itself moving the power. The thief ’s preconception of his theft is not just an idea of what (say) his hand is to do. It is also an idea of what he is to do, with his hand . . . and with his will. He preconceives himself using his hand in a certain way, moving it voluntarily (“talem actum voluntarium exercere in tali materia”). Thus he preconceives himself tending to move his hand in a certain way, and to steal.89 In choosing to steal, he adopts the tendency to steal that he has preconceived. Exterior acts are not the only acts that are apprehended by reason before they are actually exercised. All voluntary acts, including interior acts, must be.All of them are caused by practical reason, and this requires that they first be apprehended by practical reason, before they are exercised.90 So the tendency by which an exterior act is trained upon its specifying materia circa quam is already found in reason’s preconception of the act. The other objection arises from the claim that the typical materia circa quam of an exterior act is a “thing,” and indeed a pre-existing thing, such as the res aliena that the thief takes. It is something already “out there” in the real world.91 It does not depend on reason (that is, on the operation an object does is the will.The will, moved by it, moves the exterior act’s execution—not in the way an object does, but in the way an agent does. Still, this consideration reminds us that an act executed by a power other than the will is a moral act, with moral goodness, only insofar as it is voluntary. It is an “exterior human act” only if the will, moved by reason’s conception of it, is what moves its execution.The moral goodness of the act, as executed, is still a function of the materia circa quam that is the act’s object; but the act’s being “moral” at all depends on its first existing, with this very materia circa quam, in reason’s apprehension and in the will’s intention. 89 In the act of use, “voluntas tendit in id quod est in aliud relatum per rationem”: ST I–II, q. 16, a. 1, ad 1 (cf. q. 12, a. 1, ad 3); use is the act by which the will tends to “really attain” that which is chosen (ST I–II, q. 16, a. 4). 90 I discuss this point at greater length in my “Natural Inclination and the Intelligibility of the Good in Thomistic Natural Law,”Vera Lex 6 (2005): 57–78, esp. 68–70. 91 Of course the agent might be mistaken about it. Perhaps the thing that the thief thinks he is taking is not truly “out there.”This however does not show that the objects of intended actions are not “things out there.” When we say that the object of the will is “the good,” this covers both what is truly good and what is only apparently so (see ST I–II, q. 8, a. 1); and likewise, when we say that the On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 39 of reason that initiates the act in question). How then can Thomas be referring to this sort of item when he says that the goodness or badness of an exterior act, according to its kind, depends on reason? A little earlier, in fact, he said quite clearly that “the species of moral acts are constituted from forms as they are conceived by reason.”92 I will discuss this passage at some length below. But I think the reply to the present objection is this:Although the res aliena’s being out there— the res “in itself ”—does not depend on the thief ’s reason, its being the object of his act does. When Thomas says that the species of moral acts are “constituted from forms as conceived by reason,” I do not think he means that they are always constituted from forms “created” or invented by reason, certainly not in the very deliberations leading to the acts. In fact, one of the examples that he gives of such a “form” is precisely that of aliena: “to take what is another’s has its species from the ratio of ‘another’s,’ for from this it is constituted in the species of theft.”93 This ratio or form,“another’s,” is not something invented, or even conferred on the thing, by the thief ’s reason. Its being a “condition” (Thomas’s term) of the thing is quite independent of the thief ’s thought about it. But his reason understands and conceives it, and it is included in the practical conception that moves his will and guides his movements. It is what makes the action that he conceives, chooses, and executes to be a theft, and to be wrong. This is what depends on the thief ’s reason: that the res aliena be the object of his act. It is in just this way that his act’s morality, according to its kind, depends on his reason. It is not that the thing’s being aliena depends on his reason. Nor is it that his reason has to add some further condition, not already found in the thing, in order for there to be an object that “constitutes an act in the species of theft,” a moral object. To be sure, that the thing is apprehended by reason and conceived as the object of a certain act does in a sense confer on it a new “significance.” It makes it a moral object.We already considered that the thing that is the object of an intended action is a “thing out there,” this covers both what is truly a thing out there and what is only apparently so.The object is always presented by reason, and reason can err, both as to the object’s goodness and even as to its existence. It is similar with the exterior action itself:The fact that sometimes it is not truly possible, in the real world, for the agent to do what he intends to do, does not show that the object of intention is not a possible event in the real world. It shows that the object may be either truly possible or only apparently so (see ST I–II, q. 13, a. 5, ad 2). On some conundrums in this area, see my Action and Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action (Edinburgh:T&T Clark, 1998), 232–42. 92 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 10. 93 Ibid. 40 Stephen L. Brock materia circa quam of an exterior act does not have moral goodness or badness just in or by itself, but only insofar as it is the materia circa quam, the object of the act. Nor does the object have one moral quality, and the act another; just as they are “one end,” so they are assigned one and the same moral quality.94 What first relates the thing to the act, as the act’s materia circa quam or object, is the agent’s reason. Immediately upon taking on this relation, it becomes apt for judgment in comparison with reason’s rule. It is no longer a “premoral” entity. Things pertain to the genus of “true and false” only by falling under the consideration of reason generally; and things pertain to the genus of morals only by falling under the consideration of practical reason, and in connection with action. But what fall under this consideration are not just features conferred on a thing by practical reason.“Given” features of it do too. Practical reason may invent all sorts of uses for the thing, and only in relation to this or that use does it fall within the moral domain. But the ratio or condition of the thing that determines the use’s place within the domain (its moral classification) is presupposed to the ratio of the use, and it need not be conferred on the thing by the user. It only needs to be conceived by his reason. However, none of what has been said so far bears directly on the question of how the purely “natural” or physical features of an act or its object may relate to its moral kind and quality. Being a res aliena, after all, is not a physical feature. Even if it is not an invention of the thief ’s reason, it is definitely the invention of someone’s, or some community’s. So now, finally, let us turn to the question of the physical features of moral acts and objects. Physical Objects of Moral Acts No one can deny that many of our human actions involve our bodies.We use our bodies in performing many actions, deliberately chosen actions. The teaching of Veritatis Splendor §78 is that any deliberately chosen action, any “freely chosen kind of behavior,” is a moral object. It is an object of the will, and of the will’s preeminent moral act, choice; and it is fit to be judged according to the rule of reason ordering to the last end. I argued that when the encyclical insists that the object of the moral act can never be “merely physical,” this is only another way of saying that it can never be merely premoral or non-moral. It does not mean that moral objects can never be physical or bodily entities at all. But neither, of course, does it mean that they can. Nor does it tell us that if they can, how this is to be understood. Of those actions that involve the use of our 94 See ST I–II, q. 20, a. 3, ad 3, together with the discussion above at note 70. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 41 bodies, how does the bodily dimension relate to the “kind of behavior” constituting the moral object of choice? Is it indeed a “merely physical,” premoral feature, perhaps one without which the chosen kind of behavior would not be possible, but involved in it only in a “material” way, as a sort of presupposition? Must other, non-bodily factors always enter in, before we have something that can even be understood as a kind of behavior that a person might deliberately choose? And, can the behavior’s moral goodness or badness ever be a direct function of its bodily dimension, or must the morally decisive factor always be something else? We can put the questions in another way. Earlier I suggested that the object of choice is typically what Thomas calls an exterior or commanded act, one that the will executes by means of some other power. I also argued that the commanded act has its own object, its materia circa quam, upon which depends its being the “kind of behavior” that it is. The commanded act is itself a moral act, with its own moral quality, according to its kind; and its object too is a moral object. It falls under the intention of the agent’s deliberate will, and it falls under the judgment of the rule of reason, insofar as it is the object determining the act’s kind, and insofar as reason itself is the principle through which it is made to be the act’s object. Practical reason directs not only the will’s interior act, but also the exterior act, to its object. Now, if the exterior act is executed by a physical or bodily power, then its object will certainly have a bodily condition. Otherwise the bodily power could not bear upon it at all. But we can still ask, How does the physical or bodily condition of the act’s object figure into reason’s direction? Can it be the very feature of the object that makes the action seem good and choiceworthy? Or can it at most be some sort of material condition, a mere presupposition or inseparable companion of the feature that really clinches reason’s approval? And can it be the very condition that determines the action’s moral goodness or badness? In short, can it ever be a truly moral condition, or is it always “merely physical”? A Form Conceived by Reason Can Be a Natural Form To begin, let us go back to the article in which Thomas says that the species of moral acts are “constituted from forms as they are conceived by reason”: ST I–II, q. 18, a. 10.The issue raised here is whether a “circumstance” can ever constitute a morally good or bad kind of act, a moral species.The answer is a somewhat qualified yes.A species of act is constituted by the act’s object. More precisely, it is constituted according to some “condition” of the object, as the species of theft is constituted by the object’s ratio—its intelligible form—of aliena. But the object almost 42 Stephen L. Brock always has other conditions too, conditions that are merely accidental to the act’s kind. These are circumstances of the act. However, sometimes another condition or ratio of the same object has a special relation of its own to the order of reason; and though only circumstantial relative to the species first considered, it constitutes a distinct moral species of its own, relative to which it is not merely circumstantial.Thomas’s example is “in a sacred place.” If the object stolen is in a sacred place, this condition gives the act the species of “sacrilege.” So a circumstance can constitute a moral species, though only insofar as it is not merely a circumstance, but also a “principal condition of the object.” In principle, Thomas says, there is no limit to the number of further conditions that an act’s object might have, possessing a special relation to the order of reason and constituting another species. This is because the process of reason is not “determined to some one thing.” Beyond any given condition of the object, reason can always “proceed further.” It can look for other conditions pertaining to its rule and affecting the act’s specification. In this, Thomas observes, moral acts differ from natural things. The principle by which any natural thing is produced is indeed “determined to one.” Natural agencies are fixed in the kinds of things they can produce. A natural agency is always ordered to some ultimate form, one beyond which its action cannot extend. This form will give the final specific difference and constitute the final natural species of the thing produced. If the thing does have still other forms, these will only be accidental,“circumstantial,” not constituting any further natural species of it. In short, although both the species of natural things and the species of moral acts are “constituted according to forms,” the forms constituting the species of natural things do so insofar as they are generated by natural principles; and these have a preset, finite range. But the forms that constitute the species of moral acts do so insofar as they are conceived by reason, whose range is potentially infinite.And so a moral act of any given kind, specified by a given form, is open to further differentiation and further specification, by a further form. Thomas is here presenting both a broad similarity and a profound contrast between moral kinds and natural kinds. The similarity is that both are constituted from forms.The contrast derives from the difference between the principles from which the forms proceed. A natural principle is determined, bound, to one specific form. Reason is, at least potentially, infinite. It seems to me that there is a clear echo here of the Aristotelian doctrine that the intellectual soul is potentially “all things,” all forms. Thomas fully embraces that doctrine. As we saw, the intellect’s object is On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 43 the most universal of all formal principles, “universal being and true.” I think it is important to remember this here, because otherwise we might misconstrue the contrast that he is drawing between nature and reason. The contrast is not directly between the forms themselves, natural forms and forms conceived by reason.We should not take Thomas to be giving us a negative answer to the question,“Can the ratio of a natural form ever coincide with the ratio of a form conceived by reason?” In the present article he is not addressing this question at all. Nor is he presenting the rationes of natural forms and the rationes of forms conceived by reason as mutually exclusive sets.The reason why a circumstance of a moral act can constitute a moral species, whereas an accident of a natural thing cannot constitute a natural species, is not that the form constituting a species of a moral act never has a corresponding natural form.95 The reason is that the way in which the form constituting the species of a moral act is related to the act’s principle, reason, differs from the way in which the form constituting the species of a natural thing is related to the thing’s principle, a nature.The contrast is not between the forms themselves, but between their ways of proceeding from their respective principles: between “forms as [prout] they are conceived by reason” and forms as generated by nature.As conceived by reason, they always allow for further forms and further specification; as generated by nature, they do not. Nothing at all is being said about whether a form constituting the species of a moral act can or cannot be the same in ratio as a form constituting the species of a natural thing. That they have diverse relations to their principles does not, of itself, entail that they differ in their proper rationes. Obviously many of the forms constituting species of moral acts have no corresponding forms in nature.There is no such thing as a res aliena in the natural world, and no such thing as theft.96 But should we say that a form constituting the species of a natural thing can never have a truly corresponding form—that is, one that is the same in ratio—constituting the species of a moral act? We would surely need an argument.And the argument cannot be simply that the species of moral acts are constituted from forms as they are conceived by reason. Reason can very well conceive the forms of natural things. In some way it can conceive all forms. It is especially apt to conceive natural forms. The proper object of the human intellect, according to Thomas, is the quiddity of a natural thing.97 95 Cf. Martin Rhonheimer,“Intrinsically Evil Acts and the Moral Viewpoint: Clar- ifying a Central Teaching of Veritatis Splendor,” The Thomist 58 (1994): 30. Also idem, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 476–81, 487, 491. 96 See ST II–II, q. 57, a. 3. 97 ST I, q. 84, aa. 7–8; q. 85, aa. 6 and 8; etc. 44 Stephen L. Brock One might respond that the forms of natural things are conceived by speculative reason, whereas those constituting moral acts are conceived by practical reason. But again, we would need an argument to show that these are mutually exclusive sets of forms. In an earlier article, Thomas asks whether the process of deliberation—practical reasoning—is infinite.98 While acknowledging that, as the article on circumstances confirms, a deliberation can in certain ways be potentially infinite, Thomas argues that it is actually finite. It is so both on the side of its end-term, which is something immediately in one’s power to do, and on the side of its starting points. Among its starting points, he distinguishes between the properly practical one, which is the end that initiates deliberation, and others that may be taken over, without any process of inquiry, from another genus. These may be universal moral propositions, or universal speculative propositions, or particular propositions assumed on the evidence of the senses. His examples of the last are “that this is bread” or “that this is iron.” Although it may not belong to practical reason to arrive at the conceptions of the forms of natural things, it definitely uses such conceptions to form its actions. Thomas shows no hesitation in using the names of physical operations, with physical objects, to denominate human acts. One of his typical examples of a commanded human act is “walking.”99 Obviously not every act of walking is a human act. But in order for it to be a human act,Thomas sees no need to add anything to its specification. It only has to be put in the genus of the voluntary,“proceeding from a deliberate will.” Again, he treats such banal kinds of act as “picking up a piece of straw” and “going into the field” as possible kinds of human action.100 They are not excluded from the genus of moral acts. Insofar as they are performed voluntarily, they are morally indifferent kinds of moral acts. To say that the form that specifies a physical operation can also be a form that specifies a human act is not to confuse nature and reason, or even to put them on the same level. On the contrary, diverse powers that are on the same level, powers in the same proximate genus, cannot perform operations specified by the same form.Acts of the various external senses, for example, cannot have the same proper objects. An act of hearing cannot be specified by the color green. But powers of different genera can very well perform operations that are specified by the same form. Recall the example of heat, which can be an object of physical change, and of feeling by the sense of touch, and of perception by the 98 ST I–II, q. 14, a. 6. 99 ST I–II, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2. Also I–II, q. 6, a. 4; q. 8, a. 1, obj. 3; etc. 100 ST I–II, q. 18, q. 8. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 45 common sense, and of desire, and of understanding. These are generically different operations. Heat falls under them by virtue of containing the rationes of their diverse common objects. But it is one and the same form that contains all of these rationes. Indeed it is one and the same individual form that contains them all.The heat in the fire, the heat I feel, the heat I enjoy, are all the very same heat. I would say that it is because reason and will can perform operations whose specifying objects are the same as the objects of lower, bodily powers, that the latter can be instruments of reason and will—which of course also means that reason and will are of a different and higher order than those powers. A commanded or exterior act is the act of a power used by the will. If the will did not have control over the power’s application to the object of the power’s act, it could not use the power. And it would not have that control, if reason were not able to direct the power toward the object of its act. But the result is that the act that is attributed to the power is also attributed to reason and will, even though not everything then attributed to reason and will is attributed to the power. Thomas says: [T]he proper action of the mover is not attributed to the instrument or the thing moved, but rather conversely, the action of the instrument is attributed to the principal mover; for it cannot be said that the saw disposes the artifact, but it can be said that the artisan saws, which is the work of the saw.101 Surely this is all the more true when the instrument is naturally joined to the principal agency in a single substance. Insofar as reason directs other human powers to their objects, the acts of the other powers are also attributed to it. Speaking of the sin of delectatio morosa, Thomas says that even when the delight’s object is a sensible good, the sin can be attributed not only to the sense-appetite but also to reason, insofar as reason directs the sense-appetite to its object.102 (What is not attributed to the sense-appetite is the consent to the delectatio.) The thief ’s hand grabs the bag of jewels, and the thief grabs the bag of jewels with his hand. But only the thief steals it. The sorts of objects to which the physical power can relate are a restricted set. It makes no difference to the hand whether the bag of jewels is aliena or not; this is incidental to its operation. What would not be incidental to it are such 101 De unitate intellectus, ch. 3, §72 (Keeler). Similarly, “eadem autem actio est eius quod agitur et movetur, et eius quod agit et movet, sicut motus sagittae est etiam quaedam operatio sagittantis”: ST II–II, q. 90, a. 3. 102 ST I–II, q. 74, a. 6. Stephen L. Brock 46 features as slipperiness or roughness, heaviness or lightness—features that affect how the bag can be handled. But the thief ’s reason is not restricted, and it extends also to what his hand can bear upon. That is why he can deliberate between using his hand to take the bag and using some other means, perhaps because he is unsure whether his hand is strong enough to hold it. But can something like this, just “grabbing the bag of jewels”—a merely physical kind of act—be a kind of human act? Let us consider two problems. One regards the relation of such acts to the agent’s will. The other, their relation to reason’s rule. Physical Acts as Objects of Will If a physical kind of operation, with a physical object, can be apprehended and conceived by reason, can it be an object of the will? Certainly it cannot move the will if it is not apprehended by reason. Physical things cannot act immediately upon the will. No object moves the will except through reason. But of course this does not show that physical entities cannot be objects of the will, any more than the fact that the color green moves eyesight only through the electromagnetic medium shows that green cannot be an object of eyesight. Still, in order for something to move the will, its being apprehended by reason is not enough either. It must also be apprehended as somehow desirable and suitable for the agent to perform—as a practical good. If a physical kind of operation cannot be apprehended as a practical good, then it cannot properly denominate a human act or constitute a “chosen kind of behavior.” It cannot provide a proper answer to the question, What are you doing? At best it will only be a sort of accompaniment to what you are doing. It will not specify your behavior, because it will not be something that your will directly intends. It will be praeter intentionem. Now, I think it is clear that there are many physical kinds of operation that it would be difficult or even impossible to understand someone’s wanting just for their own sake.103 At best, they can only be wanted as a means to something else. I raise my arm.104 Maybe I am greeting someone, or changing a light bulb, or testing my strength, or just satisfying an urge I feel to raise it. In none of these cases am I raising my arm just for the raising’s own sake. But this does not show that raising my arm cannot be something I directly choose. Every object of choice, as such, is wanted for the sake of 103 See the examples in Anscombe, Intention, §37. 104 Cf. Rhonheimer, “Intrinsically Evil Acts,” 29–33; idem, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 491. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 47 something else. It is a means to some end.Yet that for the sake of which it is chosen is not the choice’s very object, not the choice’s proximate end. The proximate end too is an object of intention.105 Can raising my arm, as such, be understood as a means that I choose to some end that I want? I think it can. Where this may be hardest to see is in cases in which the end is simultaneous with the act in question. I raise my arm, and in so doing I greet a friend.The greeting does not start when the raising stops. In a way they are a single act, though one that is of two kinds. In itself this is not a problem; as we considered, an agent can perform many kinds of act at the same time. But it may be hard to see the raising as a proper terminus and object of my will and intention, one distinct from the greeting. Is it a distinct act of mine, or is it only “material” for the greeting? Clearly the greeting is the only act here that is self-explanatory, including in its own name a reference to a good that can be understood as a motive of my performing it. If you ask me what I am doing, and I say I am greeting a friend, you will not have to ask,“What’s the good in that?” Whereas if I say, “I am raising my arm,” you may well ask, “What for?” The end is not intrinsic to it. But many kinds of acts that are unquestionably human actions are of this sort. No one commits a murder just for the sake of what is intrinsic to it qua a murder. There has to be a further motive.Yet a murder can be a (seeming) practical good. If the fact that my action is a raising of my arm does not display what makes the action seem good and desirable to me, I do not think that this is because raising my arm cannot, as such, be a practical good. I think it is because, as such, it is usually only a means to something extrinsic to it, and because what it can be a means to is any of a great multitude of ends. Its own name is indeterminate with respect to these. But this does not mean that “I am raising my arm” cannot be an appropriate answer to the question, “What are you doing?” Anscombe observes that when someone does one thing intentionally with the further intention of something else, the object of the further intention can often be expressed by a wider description of what he is doing. For example, someone comes into a room, sees me lying on a bed and asks, “What are you doing?” The answer “lying on a bed” would be received with just irritation; an answer 105 Even things done solely for the sake of something else can be called ends and objects of intention: ST I–II, q. 12, aa. 2–3; In V Meta., lect. 2, §771; In II Phys., lect. 5, §181. Stephen L. Brock 48 like “Resting” or “Doing yoga,” which would be a description of what I am doing in lying on my bed, would be an expression of intention.106 Is she saying that “lying on a bed” is not a proper answer to the question, “What are you doing?”107 Clearly not. She is only saying that “resting” or “doing yoga” would be a wider description of what she is doing.This means that “lying on a bed” is a narrower one. It is just like the man who poisons the house’s inhabitants, replenishes the water supply, operates the pump, and moves his arm up and down.Anscombe takes all of these, even the last, to be voluntary and intentional actions. If the answer “lying on a bed” would be received with just irritation, surely this is merely because, in the scenario described, the questioner already both knows it and knows that she knows that he knows it. Suppose instead that her dean phones her and asks what she is doing. If her answer is “lying on a bed,” we can again imagine its being received with irritation, but not because it is improper or does not report a “human act”; rather because, for example, she is scheduled to be giving a class at that time. The dean’s next words need not be, “Well, but what are you doing in lying on the bed?” Depending on his mood, he might say, “Lying on a bed? Get up! You’re late for class!” Indeed, if we follow her analysis of intentional actions, to deny that lying on a bed can provide a proper answer to “what are you doing?” would be to say that the question “why?” in the sense of “what for?” cannot even be applicable to it. If only “greeting my friend,” and not “raising my arm,” were something that I can have chosen, how shall we account for the fact that I might also have greeted him by shouting, but instead chose to do so by raising my arm? If the only choosable “action” in either case is “greeting my friend,” then my choice would have to be between “greeting my friend” and “greeting my friend.” And if we say, no, the actions between which I choose are “greeting my friend by shouting” and “greeting my friend by raising my arm,” then the physical acts are still what differentiate them and give me real alternatives. What differentiates also specifies. So the physical act will specify my choice after all. Why can we not simply say that I chose to raise my arm, as a means of greeting my friend? When I execute the choice, I may simultaneously achieve my end, and so I will be performing two kinds of action at the same time, one of which is a means to the other. Granted, they form one, composite action; but this is only to say that one action can have components that are also actions. It is not to say that one of them is not an action.These two kinds 106 Anscombe, Intention, §22. 107 Cf. Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 485 (note 65), 505. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 49 of action differ by their objects.The object, the materia circa quam, of my raising my arm is my arm. I am using my motor power to make it rise. By doing this, I signify to my friend my recognition of his presence.The object of this signifying is twofold: the recognition and the friend. Can swallowing a morphine capsule, as such, be a practical good?108 Again, perhaps it cannot be deemed good just for what is intrinsic to it. But swallowing a morphine capsule, as such, can be a means of getting morphine into one’s system, and this, as such, can be a means of either getting high or relieving pain. As with raising one’s arm, there is a variety of ways in which swallowing a morphine capsule, as such, can be a practical good. None is determinately included in the meaning of its name. But this is not to say that the meaning of its name positively removes it from the sphere of practical goods. No doubt the difference between swallowing a morphine capsule to get high and swallowing a morphine capsule to relieve pain is considerably more significant morally than, say, the difference between swallowing a morphine capsule to get high and injecting a dose of liquid morphine to get high.Yet the latter too can have practical significance.The morphine user might deliberate between swallowing the capsule and injecting the liquid, considering perhaps that while the one carries less risk of infection, the other takes effect more quickly. Moreover, whatever his purpose in swallowing the capsule, the steps that he takes in order to swallow it could be just the same. The intention that explains his taking these steps is just the intention of swallowing the capsule, as such. So I would say that swallowing a morphine capsule, as such, can very well be a practical good, an object of choice, and an object of intention.109 108 Cf. ibid., 489. 109 Rhonheimer often simply asserts, as though it were immediately evident, that a certain physically described kind of act, such as swallowing a morphine capsule, cannot be intended or chosen “as such.” I think there is a good deal of ambiguity in the expression “as such.” In some senses of it, what he says is true; but it is equally true of many acts which he says can be intended or chosen. In the sense in which he must mean it, I do not think it is true.Two of its true senses would be these. (1) One cannot choose to swallow a morphine capsule “as such,” but only “as good.”The same can be said about anything. It would be a sort of moral Parmenidianism to say that there is only one thing that can be willed,“the good.” (2) One cannot choose to swallow a morphine capsule “as such,” but only “as a means to something extrinsic to it.” Many indisputably human acts are of this sort: murder, suicide, jettisoning cargo, etc.What Rhonheimer must mean is that to swallow a morphine capsule cannot be directly chosen; it would only accompany something directly chosen, for instance by being embedded in it. It would be “chosen” only in the way in which a sailor is “moved” when his ship moves. According to Thomas, it is in this indirect way that the disorder of a sin is chosen 50 Stephen L. Brock Thomas does teach that when one act is instrumental to another, they relate as “material” to “formal.” Since specification is by a “formal principle,” it may sound as though only the latter specifies. But what he means is that one species of operation, which is specified by its own object and formal principle, is related to another species, which has another object and formal principle, as material to formal. They constitute one composite action, and the formal component is dominant. But it is not the only one that is directly attributed to the agent or answers the question, “What is he doing?” Thomas’s example is someone who steals to commit adultery.The theft is only instrumental, and the fellow is “more” an adulterer than a thief. But he is also a thief, and the theft is certainly not praeter intentionem.110 In this example, the fellow’s primary end, adultery, is an exterior act that is at some distance from theft. Theft and adultery are two exterior acts, one performed for the sake of the other. Presumably the actual adultery occurs later in time than the theft. And the objects or materiae circa quam that specify them are quite distinct “things.” More interesting for our purposes are cases in which, within a single event, we can distinguish different kinds of acts, and in which each kind is determined by the same “thing.”This can happen when the event proceeds from more than one active power: for instance, both from the will and from a power used by the will. In such a case, how do the various kinds of act relate to the will? When Macbeth murdered Duncan, he performed a single act that was both a stabbing and a murder.The objects of the stabbing and the murder were the same “thing”: Duncan. The stabbing was instrumental to the murder, and the two are related as material to formal. I think Thomas would also say that as proceeding from the powers used to execute it—the by the sinner (ST I–II, q. 72, a. 1; see I, q. 48, a. 1, ad 2). The sinner does not chose the disorder as such. He does not think that the disorder, by itself, is preferable to the opposing order, by itself. At most he can only choose a composite object in which the disorder is embedded; for example, “this pleasant act containing this disorder,” which he does think preferable to “this order without this pleasant act” (see ST I–II, q. 78, a. 1, ad 2). But this is because the disorder of the sinner’s act is not what makes it favorable to his end.The disorder favors his end only indirectly, by way of what it accompanies. Surely, however, in many cases what makes one’s chosen act favorable to one’s end is a physical feature of the act.To swallow a morphine capsule is,“as such,” conducive to many possible ends.To choose to swallow a morphine capsule in order to get high is to choose directly to swallow a morphine capsule, to choose it “as such.” 110 What is “material” is not always praeter intentionem or accidental. See De Malo, q. 2, a. 2, ad 5, on the fact that the exterior act is related to the interior act materially, but not accidentally. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 51 dagger, Macbeth’s hand, his motor powers, and so on—the act may properly be called a stabbing, but not a murder. In relation to the dagger and the hand, it was incidental that the one stabbed was thereby murdered.This is because it was incidental that the one stabbed was murderable in the first place. The dagger’s action could be the same even if it were trained on Duncan’s corpse, in which case there would be no murder.The murderable falls outside the range of the dagger’s ratio communis obiecti; it cannot properly differentiate or specify the dagger’s action.What it specifies is the action of Macbeth’s will.This does not mean that it only specifies his will’s interior act; his exterior act, too, is an act of his will.111 But it is precisely as proceeding from his will, not from his dagger alone, that it is properly specified as a murder. Should we say, though, that the stabbing can be ascribed to the dagger, and perhaps to his hand and motor powers, but not to his will? Is it no answer to the question of “what he was doing”? Was Macbeth’s action a stabbing only incidentally, praeter intentionem? In the next section I shall entertain a reason why we might be tempted to say that it was.That objection arises from the consideration of its properly moral evaluation, in relation to the rule of reason. But here I am only concerned with how the stabbing relates to Macbeth’s will.Thomas said that although the saw is not properly said to dispose the artifact, the artisan is properly said to saw. I think we can likewise say that although the dagger is not properly said to have murdered Duncan, Macbeth is properly said to have stabbed him.The stabbing is a physical act, but not merely physical. It is also human. Murdering Duncan was not the only thing that Macbeth chose. He also chose to stab Duncan, as a means of murdering him. He could have chosen some other means instead. It was no mere side effect of his murdering Duncan that in the process a dagger penetrated Duncan’s body. What I think is decisive here, in Thomas’s action theory, is that not only human actions, but in fact all actions and all motions, are specified by ends. Earlier I cited a text in which he says that the materia circa quam of an exterior act specifies the act because it relates to the will as an end. The text in full is this. Objects, according as they are compared to exterior acts, have the ratio of materia circa quam. But according as they are compared to the interior act of the will, they have the ratio of ends; and it is from this that they give a species to the act. Still, even insofar as they are materia circa quam, they have the ratio of termini, by which motions are specified, as it says in Book 5 of the Physics and Book 10 of the Ethics. But nevertheless even 111 See De Malo, q. 2, a. 2, ad 6. Stephen L. Brock 52 the termini of motion give the species to motions insofar as they have the ratio of ends.112 Even physical operations and motions are specified by ends. A physical species is not just any “physical description” that happens to apply to what is going on. In the physical order too there is a distinction between what is “intended” (tended toward) and what is praeter intentionem.113 If the dagger’s movement is properly specified as a stabbing, this means not only that it had the sort of terminus that stabbings have—say, a place inside the body stabbed—but also that the dagger tended toward this terminus. But we can ask,Whence this tendency in the dagger? Did it just gravitate on its own toward that place in Duncan’s body? Obviously not. The only place toward which daggers gravitate on their own is the center of the earth. The dagger got its tendency to penetrate Duncan’s body from Macbeth, from his will.114 Obviously the dagger did have certain features not dependent on Macbeth’s will—for instance, its being a dagger—enabling it to penetrate 112 ST I–II, q. 72, a. 3, ad 2. 113 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 484: “It is a characteristic property of an act not only that it proceeds from a principle, but also ‘ut sit ad aliquid,’ it ‘tends toward something.’ It is therefore not possible to dissolve an exterior act into a collection of material elements, devoid of order or finality, without dissolving it, ultimately, as an action.The exterior act, as the intelligible content of a concrete action, as the object of the will and a practical good, is precisely a coherent and unified proposal that confers significance on a particular aggregation of bodily movements; it is, therefore, precisely that which explains why one does what one does. An exterior act, the object of a choice, can be described as such an object only by including an intentional element in the description. It is, in fact, reason’s proper task to order something to an end.” Thomas is saying is that it is impossible even to dissolve a bodily movement into elements devoid of finality without dissolving it as a movement. What I am suggesting is that when a person uses his body in the performance of a human act, the bodily movement itself is what it is in virtue of reason’s direction. It is not just a presupposition or material element, to which reason only adds direction at a “non-physical” level, though of course reason may also (and often does) do that. 114 Martin Rhonheimer, “Intentional Actions and the Meaning of Object: A Reply to Richard McCormick,” The Thomist 59 (1995): 295:“Stabbing Duncan ‘as such’ is not a sufficient description of a chosen kind of behavior or of an action. . . . It would not make any sense to say: Macbeth chose stabbing Duncan with the further intention of causing his death, of killing him.You cannot describe ‘stabbing Duncan’ as reasonable, freely chosen action without indicating an intention.” I am arguing that “stabbing Duncan” does indicate an intention, the intention that the dagger penetrate Duncan’s body. On “as such,” see above, note 109. Surely we can say that Macbeth chose to stab Duncan “in order to kill him” and “with the intention of killing him.” On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 53 soft bodies such as human flesh, making it apt for stabbing. If it lacked these features, then not even stabbing, let alone murder, could be attributed to it. But the determination toward this particular “stabbable,” and even toward actually stabbing at all, did not come from it or belong to it on its own. The determination came from its user.115 In general, if an instrument’s acts were already fully determined by the instrument’s own nature and properties, then it could not be an instrument. Its acts could not be under another agent’s control. Its pliancy to a user requires some degree of flexibility or indeterminacy with respect to particular acts falling under its general capacity or aptitude. A physical entity can be a tool of our will because the order to its acts and to the objects of its acts, even as to what is bodily about these, can be conceived by reason, and because the will can incline it according to this order.The inclination is first in the will, and it is thence communicated to the physical entity. It is communicated to the entity when the will uses it. The dagger tended to penetrate Duncan’s body because Macbeth intended it to do so and applied it to doing so. Its act of stabbing was also his act, an (exterior) act of his will. This account might seem to be in conflict with the following passage, which draws on the distinction between what is material and what is formal in an act.The passage will serve as a preparation for the following section. There is a twofold difference in sins: one material, and the other formal. The material is taken according to the natural species of the acts of the sin; the formal, according to the order to one proper end, which is the proper object. Whence some acts are found to be different materially, which nevertheless are formally in the same species of sin, because they are ordered to the same [end]; as strangling, stoning and stabbing pertain to the same species of murder [homicidii], even though the acts are different in species according to the species of nature.116 The general point is clear. One and the same kind of sin can be committed by the use of very different physical means. Had Macbeth strangled Duncan instead of stabbing him, he would have been guilty of the same kind of sin, murder. It sounds, however, as though we should say that Macbeth had only “one proper end,” the proper object of the murder. The end that defines the kind of act called “stabbing,” the “physical” end, seems to be incidental after all. But this is not what Thomas is saying. It is not that the end that defines the kind of action called “stabbing” is incidental to Macbeth’s action. 115 ST I, q. 103, a. 8: “The arrow’s inclination to the target is nothing other than a certain impression from the archer.” 116 ST I–II, q. 72, a. 6. 54 Stephen L. Brock Rather, it is incidental to the kind of action called “murder.” Even if some murders are stabbings, an act’s being a murder does not entail its being a stabbing or its being ordered to the end that is the proper object of stabbing. It only entails its being ordered to the end that is the proper object of murder. Thomas says that a sin’s formal difference is taken according to the order to one proper end,“which is the proper object.”The proper object of what? Surely, of that kind of sin, the sin with that formal difference, the difference dividing it from other acts in the genus “sin” and making it that kind of sin.The one proper end that is the sin’s proper object is the formal principle of that kind of sin.The sin’s being ordered to that end, as its proper object, is its being that kind of sin; and the order that it embodies is the agent’s intention of that end. But Thomas is not saying that this is the agent’s “proper object,” as though it were the only end that the agent intends; or the species that it gives, the only species that his action has.That would hardly make sense in the case of murder. If no one chooses “to stab,” just as such—just for what is intrinsic to stabbing—no one chooses “to murder,” just as such, either.The murder of Duncan was certainly not something that Macbeth found desirable just in itself. Indeed the horror of it eventually drove him mad. It was only a means to something else, his becoming king. In murdering Duncan he was reaching for the crown. If we should call anything Macbeth’s “proper object,” it would be the crown. So he was more a coveter of power than a murderer, just as one who steals to commit adultery is more adulterer than thief. But he definitely murdered.And he definitely stabbed.Thomas is saying that when someone murders by stabbing, the very same act has both the moral species “murder” and the natural species “stabbing.” It could not have the species of stabbing unless it were ordered to the end that is the proper object defining stabbing. Its order to this end is its agent’s intention of this end.The end defining stabbing and the end defining murder are accidental to each other, but neither is accidental to the action of one who murders by stabbing. It is as with a statue: Its marble and its shape may be accidental to each other, but neither is accidental to it. The difference between “stabbing in order to murder” and “stealing in order to commit adultery” is not that the stabbing is not intentional, whereas the stealing is, but that the stabbing adds no moral species to the murder, as the stealing does to the adultery. Even here, though, we should be careful. For on the one hand, although the stealing does add a moral species to the adultery, it does not differentiate the adultery itself; there is no subspecies of adultery called “adultery by stealing.” The stealing is On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 55 merely material relative to the adultery, and what we have are simply two disparate kinds of moral evil in one individual act.117 On the other hand, if we know that Macbeth’s stabbing of Duncan was intentional—if we know that he intended the end that defines “stabbing Duncan”—then even if we do not know whether his end in stabbing Duncan was Duncan’s death, we do already know that he committed a moral evil: He stabbed the good king! Only, since the king’s death resulted, and since Macbeth intended this too, the evil of the stabbing was buried, so to speak, in the evil of the murder. It would make no more sense to accuse Macbeth of both murdering and stabbing the king than it would to accuse a thief of stealing both a car and the car’s motor. Now, I am not saying that the end that constitutes the proper object of the physical kind of act called “stabbing” is, by itself, sufficient to make Macbeth guilty of moral evil. Not all stabbings are morally evil. But the insufficiency does not arise from his not intending “to stab.” Not even all intentional stabbings are morally evil.The insufficiency arises from the fact that we need to know more about what he intended to stab—the materia circa quam—than the fact that it was a “stabbable.” He intended to stab an innocent human being, and a king. (Duncan’s being king does add a further evil, and one that specifies the murder itself: It was the kind of murder called regicide.) Still, it is true that these conditions are accidental to the physical kind of act called stabbing and to the act proper to the dagger. King-stabbing is not a subspecies of stabbing. But can we attribute just “stabbing” to Macbeth? If so, then it must be a kind of moral act. How can this be, if we cannot say determinately what its own moral quality is? It seems to be only “premoral”; and hence, not a true object of choice or intention. Should we say that Macbeth did not, after all, properly intend “to stab,” as such, but only “to stab the king”? The dagger would be the only “agent” that “intends” the proper end defining the kind called “stabbing.” This would be a merely “physical” kind. We need to look more closely at the relation between physical kinds of acts and moral specification. Physical Conditions as Principles of Moral Species I have been arguing that when a bodily power is used by the will, the action that is thereby elicited from the power is an object of the will. In fact it is also an action of the will, a commanded action. Both the direction of the will to the action and the direction of the action itself to its own object—even with respect to the bodily features by which the object engages the bodily power and specifies its action—are works of 117 See ST I–II, q. 18, a. 7. 56 Stephen L. Brock practical reason. This in turn means that both the bodily action and its object, as such, must be fit to be compared with the rule measuring reason’s practical work.They must be moral objects. Is this Thomas’s view? It may seem not. As we have already seen,Thomas distinguishes quite clearly between an action’s natural and moral kinds or species. I do not wish to obliterate the distinction. I am not saying that an act’s natural kind ever is its moral kind, or even that its natural kind is one of its moral kinds. (Once again, the same individual act may be of several kinds; otherwise it could not have both a natural and a moral kind. And it may have more than one moral kind.) Nevertheless I wish to suggest that an act’s moral kind can be a function of its natural kind; and so much so, that in some cases the very condition of the object that determines the act’s natural kind is also the condition that determines its moral kind. First we must be sure to be clear about the meanings of “natural kind” and “moral kind” in Thomas. In the context of this distinction,“natural” is not quite synonymous with “physical.” It will be equivalent to “physical” only in the case of actions that are elicited from physical powers. Speaking generally, an act’s natural kind is the kind that it has in comparison with the power from which it is elicited or from which it immediately proceeds. This may or may not be a physical power. In fact Thomas even distinguishes between the natural and moral species of the will’s own elicited acts.118 Even though all acts of will have moral quality, we can consider them in abstraction from their moral quality and attend only to the will’s intrinsic mode of operation. It is by this sort of consideration that Thomas divides elicited acts of will in Summa theologiae I–II, qq. 8–16. Willing, intending, choosing, using, and so on are different “natural kinds” of elicited acts of will. In the case of commanded acts of will, the act’s natural kind is taken in relation to the power from which the act is elicited, the power used by the will to execute the act. It may be a spiritual power, such as reason, or a physical power, such as the motor power in one’s arm. As for “moral kind,” this is something belonging to all acts of will, elicited and commanded. It is taken by comparison with reason, considered in its capacity as a principle of voluntary action and according to the order to the primary end to which its practical capacity is proportioned.119 Our question then is how a commanded act’s natural kind, especially when it is a physical kind, relates to its moral kind.Thomas addresses this 118 See In I Sent., d. 48, q. 1, a. 2. See also ST I–II, q. 20, a. 3, ad 1. 119 The difference between an act elicited from the will and an act elicited from another power is that the former is per se comparable to the rule of reason, whereas the latter is so only insofar as the power is being used by the will. See In III Sent., d. 23, q. 1, a. 4, qc. 2, co. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 57 question very early in the moral part of the Summa theologiae. His treatment may seem unfavorable to the view that I am promoting. He is in the course of arguing that human acts—moral acts—are specified by ends. An objection says they are not, because a single, individual act can be ordered to diverse ends, and yet one single thing cannot be in many species.Thomas begins his response by saying that a single act can be ordered to only one proximate end, which is what gives it its species; though it can be ordered to several further ends, one being the end of another.Then he says: Nevertheless it is possible that one act, according to a natural species, be ordered to diverse ends of the will; as that which is killing a man [occidere hominem], which is the same in natural species, can be ordered, as to an end, to the conservation of justice, and to the satisfaction of anger. And hence it will be diverse acts according to moral species, because in one way it will be an act of virtue, in the other, an act of vice. For a motion does not get its species from that which is its terminus per accidens, but from that which is its terminus per se. But moral ends are accidental to a natural thing; and conversely, the ratio of a natural end is accidental to a moral.And so nothing prevents acts which are one according to natural species from being diverse according to moral species, and vice versa.120 Thomas is talking about individual acts having various species. His example is an act of killing a man (occidere hominem). This is not murder (homicidium), which is a moral kind, but simply the physical act of taking a person’s life. Someone taking another’s life starts off having as his will’s motive and end the conservation of justice. But as he proceeds, his motive changes; he is overcome by anger, and he carries on with the killing only to satisfy that. He no longer cares about justice. Here we have two moral ends, neither of which is ordered to the other.They exclude one another, as virtuous and vicious.That which is one individual physical act, and of one physical kind, is two individual moral acts of two moral kinds.121 What makes this possible, Thomas says, is that physical ends (by which physical kinds are determined) and moral ends (determining moral kinds) are accidental to each other. Now,Thomas can hardly be saying that in this case, the end that defines the physical act of killing a man is outside the intention of the agent’s 120 ST I–II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3. 121 There is a similar discussion in ST I–II, q. 20, a. 6. Someone might perform a continuous (physically unified) act of walking, in the course of which his will and the purpose for which he is walking changes; it is one physical act but two moral acts. See also I–II, q. 88, a. 4; In II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 4; De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, ad 7. 58 Stephen L. Brock will.122 The agent first wanted to conserve justice by killing the man; then he wanted to satisfy his anger by killing the man.The killing was, in both cases, a means to his end; and he intended that the man die. Indeed,Thomas says that the one act—one according to its natural species—is ordered to diverse ends of the will. It is chosen for their sake and is therefore intentional.Thomas’s point is simply that the agent must have made two individual, successive choices of it: one moved by justice, the other by anger. Moreover, it is not just any act of killing a man that can fit this scenario. If the killing can be ordered to the conservation of justice at all, the victim must be one whom it is just for the agent to kill. He must be an enemy in a just war, or a criminal guilty of a capital crime, or something of the sort. It will be in consideration of this condition about him that the killer, seeking to conserve justice, initially judges him “good to kill.”When the killer’s motive changes, this condition becomes incidental; what then makes the victim seem “good to kill” will be whatever it is about him that arouses the killer’s anger. But notice that even then, although the killing’s motive is no longer the virtue of justice but a vicious passion, the killing is still the sort of act that could be moved by justice. A mere change in the killer’s motive does not change the victim from one whom it is just to kill to one whom it is unjust to kill. If we consider the killing, not according to the end moving the killer, but only according to its own object—the victim—it is still something just.The exterior act of killing the person is just in its own kind, according to its object, even if it is not performed justly, for the end of justice; as giving alms is a charitable act in kind, even though, when moved by vainglory, it is not performed charitably. The vicious end is accidental to the act’s proper kind. A comparable passage from the nearly contemporaneous De Malo is rather clear on this. If in some continuous act, the intention is first directed toward the [morally] good, and then toward the bad, it follows that it is numerically one act according to its nature; but yet it is differentiated in species according as it is in the genus of morals; though it can also be said that that act always retains the goodness or badness that it has from its species, even if about the same act, the acts of intention can vary with respect to diverse ends.123 122 Cf. Rhonheimer’s remarks on this text in his “On the Use of Condoms to Prevent Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 5 (2005): 43. 123 De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, ad 7, emphasis added.The example given in the objection is that of a man who starts off toward church with a bad intention, and then while he is on his way his intention changes to something good.Thomas is saying that in any case going to church is a good kind of thing to do. On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 59 The act is “continuous”; it is physically one. But it is two acts of will, according to the agent’s diverse and opposed intentions.This means that it is also two exterior acts, at least in number, since the agent, motivated by a new end, had to make a new choice of what was for the end and a new application to it, a new usus. But the action that he newly chose and applied himself to happened to be the same in kind as before, picking up where the previous choice and application left off.The exterior acts are two in number, but they are one in their proximate end, according to their proper objects, and one in their proper moral kind. So when Thomas says that physical ends and moral ends are accidental to each other, it seems to me that either he is taking “moral end” in the sense of an end that a moral agent intends for what is intrinsic to it, one that is not merely instrumental to some extrinsic end; or, as I think more likely, he does not mean to make this thesis absolutely universal. It is not that any physical end and any moral end are accidental to each other. In order to make his point, it suffices that in some cases one and the same physical end can be ordered to many diverse and opposed moral ends, and that one and the same moral end can be pursued by means of many diverse and opposed physical ends. (For instance, a single pursuit of the end of temperance might consist in first eating and then abstaining.) In a way it is true that moral ends are always accidental to physical ends, since any given physical end might by sought by an agent acting non-voluntarily; it is accidental to that end that the agent is acting humanly at all.124 But surely some physical ends are essential to some ends that define moral acts, some moral objects. For instance, although the end defining “stabbing” is accidental to the end defining murder, the end defining “killing a man” is essential to the end defining murder. Similarly, the end defining physical “copulation” is essential to the end defining fornication. Recall Thomas’s account of how a “thing” can give moral goodness or badness to an act: It does so not by simply being the thing that it is, but by having or lacking due proportion to “such an act.”That the object of one’s action is an innocent person does not make the action bad, unless it is the type of action that an innocent person is not suited to be the object of. The condition making a killing morally evil presupposes the condition making it a killing. This however is not to turn the act’s natural kind into a moral kind. Even if an individual act of killing a man cannot change from being a just killing to being an unjust killing, merely by a change in the killer’s intention (it might do so if some condition in the victim changed), its being 124 See In II Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4. 60 Stephen L. Brock of the natural or physical kind “killing a man” does not tell us whether it is just or unjust at all, according to its own object.The justice or injustice of it depends on non-physical conditions, conditions outside the scope of the physical power used to execute it: the victim’s being, for instance, an enemy soldier, or a law-abiding civilian.These fall outside the act’s natural kind, but not outside its moral kind. However, what we are interested in is whether and how that which determines the natural kind may fall within the moral kind. The problem is this:Whereas “killing in order to satisfy anger” does at least have a moral species and moral quality, which we can ascribe to it even if we do not know whether the killing in itself is just or not, it does not seem that we can assign any definite moral quality to the simple kind of act called “killing a man.” It is like Macbeth’s “stabbing,” or even “stabbing a man.”We need more information before we can assign any moral quality to it at all. Another example would be “heterosexual copulation.” Is this morally good or bad? It is good (in kind) if it is between spouses; bad if it is not. If we cannot assign a moral quality to this kind of act, how can we say that it can be a kind of human or moral action?125 We might be tempted to say that what the physical kind gives us is a morally indifferent kind of human action. I would not say this.126 To call it morally indifferent would be to say that any moral goodness or badness belonging to an individual action instantiating it must derive from something other than the thing that is the action’s object. This is why an act of “picking up a piece of straw” is morally indifferent in kind: There is nothing about the piece of straw that gives the act goodness or badness. It is not just that no goodness or badness belongs to the act on account of the piece of straw’s being “a piece of straw”; it is that none belongs to it on account of any condition belonging to the piece of straw.127 By contrast, an individual act of “killing a man” will be morally good or bad on account of something about the man himself, even if it is something more than his simply being “a man.” It will never be an act that is indifferent in its moral kind, even if “killing a man” does not tell us what moral kind it is.The same is true for “stabbing a man,”“taking valuables,”“heterosexual copulation,” and so on. 125 Pertinent here is Rodríguez Luño, “Veritatis splendor un anno dopo,” 59–60. 126 Nor, I take it, would Rhonheimer: See his example of taking a watch in Rhon- heimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 490. 127 Thomas is surely talking about “ordinary” straw in ST I–II, q. 18, a. 8. If we had a “special” piece of straw, for instance, one that had been in the manger in Bethlehem and was now an object of veneration, an act of handling that might not be indifferent in kind, “according to its object.” On (Not Merely) Physical Objects of Moral Acts 61 Does “killing a man,” then, give us only a kind of physical act, and not a kind of human act too? Is its moral indeterminacy, which is not moral indifference, owing to its not really being fit to be compared with the rule of reason at all? This seems odd, at least if we grant that the form or ratio constituting this kind is one that can be “conceived by reason,” and that the execution of an action of this kind can, as such, be a means to some end. I think the article on circumstances (ST I–II, q. 18, a. 10) holds the key. This kind of act can indeed be compared with reason’s rule.The comparison’s result is: the very demand for further differentiation. As conceived by reason, the condition or ratio of the object, by which this kind is constituted, cannot be the final condition. In this case, reason not only can but must “proceed further.” Its own rule requires it. “Voluntarily killing a man” is something to which moral reasoning does apply. The judgment is that more information is needed.And reason knows what sort of information to look for (“Is the man innocent?” etc.). This kind of act is morally indeterminate, not because the ratio of its proper object,“a man,” prevents it from being a kind of moral act at all, but because that ratio prevents it from being an ultimate kind. The ratio is such that what it belongs to must have some further ratio pertaining to the order of reason; and it is such that only the further ratio makes the act determinately suited or repugnant to that order. “Killing a man” is what we might call an “inchoate” moral kind.128 My final thesis is that in some cases the condition of the object that constitutes an act’s natural or physical kind constitutes a determinate moral kind as well. Sometimes it is indeed sufficient to know that someone performed a certain physical kind of act voluntarily, in order to ascribe to him an action of definite moral quality. A clear example, in Thomas, is that of sexual acts other than heterosexual copulation, the acts “contra naturam.”The relation of such acts to the sexual power differs from that of heterosexual copulation.They differ in physical kind.129 What gives them 128 Thomas has a notion of “indeterminate” kinds emerging in the course of animal generation: ST I, q. 119, a. 2. 129 Thomas observes that although the marital act and adultery differ in moral species, as compared with reason, they have the same physical species, as compared with the sexual power; and this is why they can have effects that are the same in physical species (human offspring): ST I–II, q. 18, a. 5, obj. 3 and ad 3. Both effect procreation, and they do so “according to their species,” which is to say, in function of their objects.This implies that acts contra naturam, which by reason of their objects are not proportioned to procreation, are a different physical species of sexual act.The sexual power’s nature is constituted in relation to procreation, and so an exercise of it that does not have a procreative “shape” cannot be the same in kind as one that does. Stephen L. Brock 62 this difference also gives them a different relation to reason. According to reason, the good kind of sexual act is the marital act.There are also bad kinds of heterosexual copulation—for instance, simple fornication— which is bad just because the object is not the agent’s spouse. This of course is not a physical condition. But reason distinguishes simple fornication from the acts contra naturam, judging the latter even worse.130 Here the object’s differentiating condition is physical. Let me stress once more that I have said nothing about the constitution of moral norms. I have stated as a mere fact that, according to St. Thomas, voluntary sexual acts contra naturam are morally bad in kind and morally worse than the bad heterosexual kinds. I have not given his grounds for this view. I think these involve more than the consideration of the disorder that such acts have in relation to the sexual power, their “natural” badness.131 The sexual power’s own relation to reason, reason ordering to the last end, must also be determined. But we can certainly say, with Veritatis Splendor, that it has such a relation, a determinate one. For it has its own nature, and it is part of human nature. It cannot but N&V have a moral meaning.132 130 ST II–II, q. 154, aa. 1, 11, 12. 131 See above, note 83, and the chapter of Summa contra Gentiles indicated there. 132 I am grateful to Kevin Flannery, S.J., for very helpful comments on a draft of this essay. Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 6, No. 1 (2008): 63–112 63 St. Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Object of the Human Act L AWRENCE D EWAN, O.P. Collège Dominicain Ottawa, Canada A RISTOTLE tells us that Socrates was the first to focus on definition. We read: “Socrates, however, was busying himself about ethical matters and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal in these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions.”1 We might ask ourselves why it was in the realm of morals that interest in definition first arose among the ancient Greek philosophers. Perhaps the answer has to do with Plato’s point, in the Republic,2 that interest in ousia, that is, in questions about the being of things, arises from situations in which something appears both as one and as two.We typically find, in morals, that actions that are one, according to natural being, are more than one in the order of morals, and vice versa: Capital punishment and murder may be physically identical in species; and the diverse physical realities of strangling someone and merely failing to help, that is, “doing nothing,” can both be murder.3 Having taken an interest in the development of the notion and vocabulary of the object,4 and in particular as used by St.Thomas in the discussion of morals, I was not surprised to see the importance of the object of the moral act stressed in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter Veritatis 1 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1.6 (987b1–4), Oxford trans. Sir David Ross, emphasis added. 2 Republic, VII (523a–525a). 3 This paragraph is an adaptation of the opening of my “St. Thomas and Moral Taxonomy,” Maritain Studies/Études Maritainnienes 15 (1999): 134–56. 4 Cf. my “OBIECTUM: Notes on the Invention of a Word,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 48 (1981): 37–96. 64 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. Splendor.5 More recently a reading of the essay by Martin Rhonheimer on this subject (in these pages)6 has shown me the extent to which this is a subject concerning which disciples of St. Thomas Aquinas, recommended in that same encyclical as regards the doctrine of the moral object,7 do not always agree. Rhonheimer’s study is most thoughtful and well-informed, and so it has seemed to me worth reflecting on, so as to try to situate myself in the discussion. The Perspective of the Acting Person A primary point of reference is the insistence on placing oneself in “the perspective of the acting person.”This is an instruction coming directly from Veritatis Splendor.8 What precisely is meant by “the perspective of the acting person”? Is it a new approach in moral philosophy and the moral part of theology? It seems to mean exactly what St.Thomas does in the first question of the Summa theologiae I–II, and even in its first three articles. Let us recall the prologue Thomas provides for his Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, in which the subject of the science of moral philosophy is said to be “human operation as ordered to an end, or the human being inasmuch as he is voluntarily acting for an end.”9 So also, then, in beginning the moral part10 of sacra doctrina, Thomas provides a prologue presenting the human being as made in the image of God, inasmuch as, like God, he is principle of his own operations, by virtue of free judgment.11 Indeed, to some extent the expression “the acting person” is 5 Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor (1993): cf. especially §§78–80. I have used the versions published on the Vatican website, www.vatican.va/holy_father/ john_paul_ii/encyclicals/index.htm. No Latin presentation is given there. I have also used the edition published in 1993 by Éditions Paulines, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada. 6 Martin Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person and the Nature of Practical Reason:The ‘Object of the Human Act’ in Thomistic Anthropology of Action,” Nova et Vetera 2 (2004): 461–516. 7 Veritatis Splendor, §78, note 126. 8 Ibid., §78. 9 St.Thomas, In decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum expositio, ed. A. M. Pirotta (Turin: Marietti, 1934), 1.3:“Sicut igitur subiectum philosophiae naturalis est motus, vel res mobilis, ita etiam subiectum moralis philosophiae est operatio humana ordinata in finem, vel etiam homo prout est voluntarie agens propter finem.” 10 For the characterization of the entire second part of the Summa theologiae as “moralis consideratio,” cf. ST I–II, q. 6, prol.; and I, q. 84, prol. In what follows, in reference to the ST, I will sometimes indicate the pagination of the Piana edition, viz., published by the Collège Dominicain d’Ottawa, 1941. 11 ST I–II, prol. St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 65 redundant, for, as Thomas teaches in expressing his approval of Boethius’s definition of the person, namely an individual substance of a rational nature, a special word, namely “person,” has appropriately been invented to signify the individual substance as found in rational natures because individuals constitute the theatre of action, and action is most of all to be attributed to rational substances: “which have mastery of their own acts, and are not merely receptive of action like other things, but act by virtue of themselves.”12 The person just is what is primary in the order of individuality, the domain of action. The same insistence on what is proper to the rational creature is seen in I–II, q. 1, a. 1.We read: Among the actions which are performed by a human being, those alone are properly called “human” which are proper to man as man. Now, man differs from the other animals, which lack reason, in precisely this respect, that he is master of his own actions. Hence, those actions alone are properly called “human” of which man is master. Now, man is master of his own acts through reason and will: hence, free judgment is said to be “the ability of will and reason.” Hence, those actions are properly called “human” which proceed from deliberate will. If other actions belong to a man, they can be called “actions of the human being,” but not properly “human,” because they do not belong to the man precisely as a human being. Now, it is evident that all actions that proceed from some particular power are caused by it in function of the intelligible note of its [the power’s] object [secundum rationem sui obiecti].And the object of the will is the end and the good. Hence, it is necessary that all human actions be for the sake of an end. We see here how crucial the notion of object is for the understanding of the doctrine.Without the approach to the will as a power with a natural object, the universal good, we will not be properly situated in the domain of morals.13 The second article distinguishes between the human being’s “acting for the sake of an end” and the “acting for an end,” which is common to 12 ST I, q. 29, a. 1: “Sed adhuc quodam specialiori et perfectiori modo invenitur particulare et individuum in substantiis rationalibus, quae habent dominium sui actus, et non solum aguntur, sicut alia, sed per se agunt, actiones autem in singularibus sunt. Et ideo etiam inter ceteras substantias quoddam speciale nomen habent singularia rationalis naturae. Et hoc nomen est persona.” 13 We recall the many key texts on will in ST I, viz., I, q. 19, a. 1; I, q. 59, a. 1 (and the whole of q. 60); I, qq. 80, 82–3; and the general doctrine of the object, at I, q. 77, a. 3. 66 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. the whole of nature. We might note the distinction briefly put in its ad 3:“the object of the will is the end and the good in its universality. Hence, there cannot be will in those things which lack reason and intellect, since they cannot apprehend the universal. Rather, there is in them natural or sensitive appetite, ordered to some particular good.”14 In line with this, I was happy to see, in reading Rhonheimer’s reflections, his insistence on the primacy of reason in the situation. In this respect I think of the teaching of the Summa theologiae I on the proper object of the will and its distinction from the objects of the sense appetites. Consider I, q. 80, a. 2, ad 1.The objector is contending that being apprehended by sense or being apprehended by intellect are mere accidental differences touching the object of appetite, and hence do not indicate a specific diversity of appetitive powers.Thomas replies: [I]t does not merely happen to the object of appetite that it be apprehended by sense or intellect; rather, it pertains to it essentially: for the object of appetite does not move the appetite save inasmuch as it is apprehended; hence, differences pertaining to the item apprehended are essential differences for the object of appetite. Hence, the appetitive powers are distinguished in function of the difference in the apprehended items, as in function of proper objects.15 The third article of I–II, question 1, is surely also rich in points pertaining to our interest. Human acts receive their species from the end. We might almost hope to find here everything we need consider.The approach of St.Thomas in the article reminds us of his teaching (and practice) that everything we understand in our present state we understand through comparison with natural, sensible things.16 Notice how we begin: Each thing obtains its species in function of an actuality, and not in function of a potentiality: hence, those things which are composed out 14 ST I–II, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3, emphasis added: “obiectum voluntatis est finis et bonum in universali. Unde non potest esse voluntas in his quae carent ratione et intellectu, cum non possint apprehendere universale, sed est in eis appetitus naturalis vel sensitivus, determinatus ad aliquod bonum particulare.” 15 ST I, q. 80, a. 2, ad 1:“Ad primum ergo dicendum quod appetibili non accidit esse apprehensum per sensum vel intellectum, sed per se ei convenit, nam appetibile non movet appetitum nisi inquantum est apprehensum. Unde differentiae apprehensi sunt per se differentiae appetibilis. Unde potentiae appetitivae distinguuntur secundum differentiam apprehensorum, sicut secundum propria obiecta.” Notice that this is rather different from the approach of De veritate, q. 22, a. 4, ad 1. 16 Cf., e.g., ST I, q. 84, a. 8 (ed. Ottawa 523a2–5):“Omnia autem quae in praesenti statu intelligimus, cognoscuntur a nobis per comparationem ad res sensibiles naturales.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 67 of matter and form are established in their species by virtue of their own forms. And this is also to be seen in the changes proper [to things]: for since change is somehow divided into action and passion, each of these obtains its species from an actuality: action from the actuality which is the principle of acting, passion from the actuality which is the terminus of the change: hence, heating (the action) is nothing else but the changing [motio] proceeding from heat, while heating (the passion) is nothing else but the change [motus] towards heat: now, the definition presents the specific intelligibility.17 Next,Thomas make the application of all this to the case of the human act, that act introduced to us in article 1 (that act that can be called the very subject-matter of moral philosophy). In a first step he tells us:“And in both of these ways human acts, whether considered as actions or as passions, obtain their species from the end: for human acts can be considered in both these ways, in that a man moves himself and is moved by himself.”18 The application proceeds further by recalling that, as we saw, acts are called “human” inasmuch as they proceed from deliberate will.We read: Now, it was said above that acts are called “human” inasmuch as they proceed from deliberate will; and the object of the will is the good and the end. And therefore it is evident that the principle of human acts, inasmuch as they are human, is the end. And similarly it is the terminus of those same acts: for that at which the human act is terminated is that which the will intends as an end: just as in natural agents the form of the generated thing is in conformity with the form of the generating thing.19 17 ST I–II, q. 1, a. 3 (713a10–26): “unumquodque sortitur speciem secundum actum, et non secundum potentiam, unde ea quae sunt composita ex materia et forma, constituuntur in suis speciebus per proprias formas. Et hoc etiam considerandum est in motibus propriis. Cum enim motus quodammodo distinguatur per actionem et passionem, utrumque horum ab actu speciem sortitur, actio quidem ab actu qui est principium agendi; passio vero ab actu qui est terminus motus. Unde calefactio actio nihil aliud est quam motio quaedam a calore procedens, calefactio vero passio nihil aliud est quam motus ad calorem: definitio autem manifestat rationem speciei.” 18 Ibid. (713a26–32): “Et utroque modo actus humani, sive considerentur per modum actionum, sive per modum passionum, a fine speciem sortiuntur. Utroque enim modo possunt considerari actus humani, eo quod homo movet seipsum, et movetur a seipso.” 19 Ibid. (713a32–43): “Dictum est autem supra quod actus dicuntur humani, inquantum procedunt a voluntate deliberata. Obiectum autem voluntatis est bonum et finis. Et ideo manifestum est quod principium humanorum actuum, inquantum sunt humani, est finis. Et similiter est terminus eorundem, nam id ad quod terminatur actus humanus, est id quod voluntas intendit tanquam finem; sicut in agentibus naturalibus forma generati est conformis formae generantis.” 68 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. Thomas has now made his point, having conducted us through natural things and their species, to proper changes or movements and their species, and ultimately to the actuality that gives the species to the human acts or self-motions: the end sought by the deliberate will. The importance of the point that the end is the object of the will is seen when one looks back at I, q. 77, a. 3: The object specifies the act of the power. Thomas concludes the body of the article with a reference to a text of St. Ambrose: “And because, as Ambrose says . . . : ‘ “morals,” properly speaking, relate to the human,’ moral acts obtain their species from the end, for ‘moral acts’ and ‘human acts’ are identical.”20 Here we are, then, with the very species of the moral act, a species obtained from the end of the act, the end being the object of the deliberate will that is the source of the act, as a power of the man.The end is the object of the moral act, giving that act its species. Whatever else we wish to say about the object of the moral act must be governed by what we have here in question 1, article 3. This article is also very helpful in its replies to objections, as regards placing oneself in “the perspective of the acting person.” I will limit myself to the third, the most involved and fruitful. The objector argues: The same act can be ordered to diverse ends, and an item can have no more than one species; thus, the end cannot determine the species of the act. In reply, Thomas begins with the point that if we consider numerically one act as it is performed by the agent, it can have but one proximate end, from which it gets its species; still it is indeed true that it can be ordered to several remote ends, one the end of the other.21 This is already very important. The individually performed act has its species from its proximate end, which is, of course, the object of this moral act. However,Thomas does not stop there.There is another way in which “the same act” can have many species.We read: Nevertheless, it is possible that an act which is one as to natural species be ordered towards diverse ends of the will: i.e., the precise item “to kill a human being,” which is identical as to natural species, can be ordered, as to an end, towards the preservation of justice, and towards the satisfaction of anger. As a result there will be diverse acts as regards the moral species, since taken one way it will be an act of virtue, and taken 20 Ibid. (713a43–47), emphasis added: “Et quia, ut Ambrosius dicit, super Lucam, mores proprie dicuntur humani, actus morales proprie speciem sortiuntur ex fine, nam idem sunt actus morales et actus humani.” 21 Ibid., ad 3 (713b5–10):“idem actus numero, secundum quod semel egreditur ab agente, non ordinatur nisi ad unum finem proximum, a quo habet speciem, sed potest ordinari ad plures fines remotos, quorum unus est finis alterius.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 69 in the other way an act of vice: for a movement does not obtain its species from what is a merely attached terminus, but solely from what is the intrinsic terminus: now, moral ends merely attach to the natural thing, and, conversely, the character of the natural end merely attaches to the moral.Therefore, nothing prevents acts which are identical as to natural species to be diverse as to moral species, and vice versa.22 This is obviously of great importance for the discussions about the relation between an action considered as to natural principles alone and the same action as taken in “the perspective of the acting person.”The natural species, as such, is in a per accidens relation to the moral species, and vice versa. Much of Rhonheimer’s concerns about a possible “physicalism” in Thomistic morals relates to this point. There can be no doubt that the object of the moral act is a deliberately willed end. Rhonheimer and the Object of the Human Act Rhonheimer is speaking of the focus on the object of the moral act one finds in Veritatis Splendor. He says: By the term “object,” the encyclical does not designate “a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world.” According to Veritatis Splendor, “objects” of human acts are not mere “givens,” i.e. “things,” realities, or physical, biological, technical, or juridical structures; nor are they bodily movements and the effects caused by such movements; nor is the object of a human act a simple “physical good” or “non-moral good,” as is, for example, a human life or a possession. Rather, the “object” of a human act is always the object of an act of the will and, as such, the encyclical affirms, a “freely chosen behavior”: it is a type of action, as, for example,“to kill an innocent person” or “to steal.”23 In order to understand this, I think of Thomas’s example of “killing a 22 Ibid. (713b10–28): “Possibile tamen est quod unus actus secundum speciem naturae, ordinetur ad diversos fines voluntatis, sicut hoc ipsum quod est occidere hominem, quod est idem secundum speciem naturae, potest ordinari sicut in finem ad conservationem iustitiae, et ad satisfaciendum irae. Et ex hoc erunt diversi actus secundum speciem moris, quia uno modo erit actus virtutis, alio modo erit actus vitii. Non enim motus recipit speciem ab eo quod est terminus per accidens, sed solum ab eo quod est terminus per se. Fines autem morales accidunt rei naturali; et e converso ratio naturalis finis accidit morali. Et ideo nihil prohibet actus qui sunt iidem secundum speciem naturae, esse diversos secundum speciem moris, et e converso.” 23 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 461–2. 70 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. human being.” It can be “capital punishment,” a virtuous act in the domain of justice, and it can be “murder,” an act of injustice perpetrated to satisfy anger or greed, and so on. To take it in the “merely physical order” is to abstract from its being the act of a human agent acting for an end. The physical description of the act is identical in the two cases. Or again, one could say that physically there is no difference between the landing of a stone on someone’s head as a result of a natural rockslide and the landing of a stone on someone’s head in the course of a stoning to death such as the martyrdom of St. Stephen. Inversely, a variety of physical events— throatcutting, stabbing, and stoning—can all pertain to the same moral species, murder.24 Clearly, the human agent must be taken as an essential part of the picture in order to make the distinction between the physical act and the moral act. I was, nevertheless, rather taken aback to see “a human life” and “a possession” presented as “non-moral” goods.The same words are used to signify the thing as a physical object and as a moral object. Still, if I were asked to give an example of a moral good, a properly human good, I might very well think first of all of “the life of the human being.” Thus, for example, speaking of human goods,Thomas says: Now, since the good of man is threefold, viz. the good of the soul and the good of the body and the good of external things, the good of the soul, which is maximal [among them], cannot be taken from someone by another, save as providing the occasion, for example, by evil persuasion which does not impose necessity; however, the other two goods, i.e. of the body and of external things, can be violently taken by another. But because the good of the body has preeminence over the good of external things, those sins are graver which impose harm on the body than those which impose harm on external things. Hence, among the various sins which are against the neighbor, homicide, through which the life of the actually existing neighbor is taken, is more grave.25 Thomas in the above is presenting these goods as the principles that reason 24 Cf. ST I–II, q. 72, a. 6. In fact, so can doing nothing when something is called for. 25 ST II–II, q. 73, a. 3: “Cum autem sit triplex bonum hominis, scilicet bonum animae et bonum corporis et bonum exteriorum rerum, bonum animae, quod est maximum, non potest alicui ab alio tolli nisi occasionaliter, puta per malam persuasionem, quae necessitatem non infert, sed alia duo bona, scilicet corporis et exteriorum rerum, possunt ab alio violenter auferri. Sed quia bonum corporis praeeminet bono exteriorum rerum, graviora sunt peccata quibus infertur nocumentum corpori quam ea quibus infertur nocumentum exterioribus rebus. Unde inter cetera peccata quae sunt in proximum, homicidium gravius est, per quod tollitur vita proximi iam actu existens etc.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 71 uses to order actions; they are the ends, and so the objects, of the will.26 In the same way I was surprised by the example “a possession,” as naming a “non-moral” good.The very word takes us into the perspective of the acting person.We see this in such a teaching as the II–II, q. 57 presentation of “ius,” the object of justice. The third article asks about “ius gentium”: Is it the same as the naturally just? This article 3 offers some fine examples of the natural moral situations and the objects involved.We read, in the body of the article: I answer that it must be said, as has been said, that the naturally right or just [ius aut iustum] is that which by its own nature is adequate or commensurate for the other person. Now, this can obtain in two ways. In one way, as regards the absolute consideration of it: as the male by its nature [ratione] has commensurateness relative to the female, that from it [the female] it [the male] generate [something], and [similarly] the parent [is so related] to the child, that it nourish it. In another way, something in naturally commensurate to the other person not as regards its absolute nature [rationem], but in accordance with something which follows from it: for example, the ownership of possessions [proprietas possessionum]: for, if this field is considered absolutely, it has nothing whereby it should belong more to this person than to that one; but if it is considered as regards the convenience for cultivating and as regards the peaceful exploitation of the field, so taken it has some rightness towards belonging to this one person and not to this other: as is clear from Aristotle, in Politics 2 [ch. 5, 1263a21]. Now, to apprehend something absolutely belongs not merely to man, but 26 Thomas, adhering to his own teaching that everything we understand in this life we know through comparison with natural, sensible things (ST I, q. 84, a. 8 [523a2–5]), first considers how the gravity of physical illnesses is judged in function of the disorders relating to a more primary principle of life, such as the heart. In accordance with this, he explains the judgment as to the gravity of sins, pertaining to the rule and ordering by reason. He says (ST I–II, q. 73, a. 3 [1107b28–39], emphasis added):“Hence, also, it is necessary that a sin be graver just to the extent that the disorder occurs relative to some principle which is prior in the order of reason. Now, reason orders all matters of action in function of the end. And, therefore, to the extent that a sin occurs in human actions in function of a higher end, to that extent it is graver. Now, it is their ends that are the objects of the actions, as is clear from things said earlier. And therefore it is according to the diversity of objects that the diversity of gravity among sins is discerned.” (“Unde oportet etiam quod peccatum sit tanto gravius, quanto deordinatio contingit circa aliquod principium quod est prius in ordine rationis. Ratio autem ordinat omnia in agibilibus ex fine. Et ideo quanto peccatum contingit in actibus humanis ex altiori fine, tanto peccatum est gravius. Obiecta autem actuum sunt fines eorum, ut ex supradictis patet. Et ideo secundum diversitatem obiectorum attenditur diversitas gravitatis in peccatis.”) 72 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. also to the other animals, and therefore the “right” which is called “natural” in the first way is common to us and to the other animals. But from the “naturally right,” so said, “that which is right among the peoples” is separated, as the Jurisconsul says, because the former is common to all animals, while the latter is common solely to human beings among themselves. [This is because] to consider something by comparing it to what follows from it is proper to reason, and therefore this is natural for the human being, in accordance with natural reason which decrees it. Thus, Gaius, the jurisconsul, says that what natural reason establishes among all human beings, this all peoples obey, and it is called “what is right among the peoples.”27 We thus see that Thomas makes personal ownership of property something pertaining to the object of natural law.28 Thus, it seems to me that the very word “a possession” appeals to the situation we are calling “the perspective of the acting person.” It is a good that engages the will of the human being in a natural way. As a child, if I took a sip from my brother’s glass of chocolate milk (most certainly against his will), he would protest: “That’s mine!”The word could name a “non-moral” good only per accidens, I would say; for example, “among his possessions were dogs.” Even the expression “mere givens” bothers me as possibly deceptive. It 27 ST II–II, q. 57, a. 3:“Respondeo dicendum quod, sicut dictum est, ius sive iustum naturale est quod ex sui natura est adaequatum vel commensuratum alteri. Hoc autem potest contingere dupliciter. Uno modo, secundum absolutam sui considerationem, sicut masculus ex sui ratione habet commensurationem ad feminam ut ex ea generet, et parens ad filium ut eum nutriat. Alio modo aliquid est naturaliter alteri commensuratum non secundum absolutam sui rationem, sed secundum aliquid quod ex ipso consequitur, puta proprietas possessionum. Si enim consideretur iste ager absolute, non habet unde magis sit huius quam illius, sed si consideretur quantum ad opportunitatem colendi et ad pacificum usum agri, secundum hoc habet quandam commensurationem ad hoc quod sit unius et non alterius, ut patet per Philosophum, in II Polit.Absolute autem apprehendere aliquid non solum convenit homini, sed etiam aliis animalibus. Et ideo ius quod dicitur naturale secundum primum modum, commune est nobis et aliis animalibus. A iure autem naturali sic dicto recedit ius gentium, ut Iurisconsultus dicit, quia illud omnibus animalibus, hoc solum hominibus inter se commune est. Considerare autem aliquid comparando ad id quod ex ipso sequitur, est proprium rationis. Et ideo hoc quidem est naturale homini secundum rationem naturalem, quae hoc dictat. Et ideo dicit Gaius iurisconsultus, quod naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit, id apud omnes gentes custoditur, vocaturque ‘ius gentium.’ ” Cf. II–II, q. 85, a. 1, for the vocabulary of natural reason “dictat.” Offering sacrifices is part of “natural law [lex]” and “natural right [ius].” 28 Cf. also ST II–II, q. 66, a. 2: ownership as necessary for human life. St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 73 is meant to isolate for consideration the thing taken physically. Nevertheless, when I read in St.Thomas such a sentence as the following:“Fines autem recti humanae vitae sunt determinati.”29 I am inclined to translate: “Now, the correct ends of human life are given.” Such ends surely include such objects of the human act as human life itself.30 The Object as a Thing Of course, the main point Rhonheimer is making in the above paragraph is that the object of the human act is not a “thing,” rather, it is “a type of action.”The example he gives of the object of a human act is “to kill an innocent person.”We see the primacy of this focus by Rhonheimer when he goes on to point to a diversity of interpretation among Thomists concerning the moral object, and himself raises the issue explicitly: “the [moral] object, a thing or an action?”31 This, again, I find surprising. When one thinks of the approach of St. Thomas in many key texts, the idea of a moral object as a thing is difficult to avoid. Let us take I–II, question 72, on the distinction of sins one from another.We are taught in the first article that in distinguishing the species of sin our focus must be on the voluntary act rather than on its disorder, and thus on the object of that act, since voluntary acts are distinguished specifically by their distinct objects. Especially of interest as regards the 29 ST II–II, q. 47, a. 15 (1677a11–12), emphasis added. This is the discussion of whether prudence is naturally present within us. In the course of the article it is said:“Now, the correct ends of human life are given. And therefore there can be a natural inclination with respect to these ends: as it was said above that some people have, on the basis of their natural disposition, some virtues by which they are inclined to the correct ends, and consequently also have naturally right judgment concerning such ends.” (“Fines autem recti humanae vitae sunt determinati. Et ideo potest esse naturalis inclinatio respectu horum finium, sicut supra dictum est quod quidam habent ex naturali dispositione quasdam virtutes quibus inclinantur ad rectos fines, et per consequens etiam habent naturaliter rectum iudicium de huiusmodi finibus.”) 30 ST I–II, q. 10, a. 1: “naturaliter homo vult non solum obiectum voluntatis, sed etiam alia quae conveniunt aliis potentiis, ut cognitionem veri, quae convenit intellectui; et esse et vivere et alia huiusmodi, quae respiciunt consistentiam naturalem; quae omnia comprehenduntur sub obiecto voluntatis, sicut quadam particularia bona.” (“[T]he human being naturally wills not only the object of the will but also other items which pertain to other powers, such as knowledge of the true, which pertains to intellect; and being and living and other such items which pertain to natural maintenance; all of which are embraced by the object of the will, as so many particular goods.”). 31 This is the heading for section 2 of Rhonheimer’s “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 464. 74 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. “thing vs act” issue is the reply to the third objection here. The objector argues that if the objects make the difference, one will not be able to find the same sinful act relative to different objects; yet we do find this: Thus, pride is found relative to both spiritual things and corporeal things, and avarice is found relative to a variety of things.The objector is clearly treating “the object” as “the thing.” In reply,Thomas says: [N]othing prevents finding in things differing [from one another] as to species or even as to genus one formal intelligible aspect constituting the object, from which [aspect] the sin receives its species. It is in this way that pride seeks excellence regarding diverse things, and avarice [seeks] abundance of those things which are suited to human use.32 Thus, we have a doctrine that the object is the thing as having a certain proportion to human life (the “perspective of the acting person”). Of course, as we read elsewhere, every such thing is used in function of some operation; the end is twofold, as, for example, money and the possession of money, but the possession is good because the money is good: For since the end is sometimes said to be the thing, and sometimes the attainment or possession of it, as, for example, for the miser the end is either the money or the possession of money, it is evident that, speaking unqualifiedly, the ultimate end is the very thing [ipsa res]: for the possession of money is not good save because of the good of money.33 Continuing to look at I–II, question 72, the second article inquires concerning the distinction made between carnal sins and spiritual sins. We read: [A]s was said, sins receive their species from their objects. Now, every sin consists in the appetite for some changeable good which is inordinately sought, and consequently once it is had someone takes inordinate 32 ST I–II, q. 72, a. 1, ad 3: “Ad tertium dicendum quod nihil prohibet in diversis rebus specie vel genere differentibus, invenire unam formalem rationem obiecti, a qua peccatum speciem recipit. Et hoc modo superbia circa diversas res excellentiam quaerit, avaritia vero abundantiam eorum quae usui humano accommodantur.” 33 ST I–II, q. 16, a. 3, emphasis added:“Cum enim finis, ut supra dictum est, dicatur quandoque quidem res, quandoque autem adeptio rei vel possessio eius, sicut avaro finis est vel pecunia vel possessio pecuniae; manifestum est quod, simpliciter loquendo, ultimus finis est ipsa res, non enim possessio pecuniae est bona, nisi propter bonum pecuniae.” The passage continues with the point that the ultimate end, for this person, is the possession of the money: for the miser would not seek the money save to have it. St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 75 delight in it. Now, as is clear from things seen earlier, delight is twofold: one is mental, which is accomplished in the mere apprehension of some thing possessed at will; and this can also be called “spiritual delight”: as for example when someone delights in human praise, or in something like that. But the other delight is corporeal or natural, which is brought to perfection in mere corporeal contact; and it can also be called “carnal delight.” Thus, therefore, those sins which are brought to perfection in spiritual delight are called “spiritual sins” whereas those which are brought to perfection in carnal delight are called “carnal sins”: for example, gluttony, which finds perfection in the enjoyment of food, and lust, which finds perfection in the enjoyment of sexual pleasures. Hence [Paul] the Apostle says, in 2 Corinthians 7:1: “Let us cleanse ourselves of every defilement of body and spirit.”34 Here, the object is such a thing as “human praise” or “food” or “the pleasantly contacted body.” These are what diversify these types of delight. These are the changeable goods inordinately sought. When the thing is had, one has the delight.35 Looking further at I–II, question 72, the third article asks whether the 34 ST I–II, q. 72, a. 2, emphasis added. 35 One might do well to consider, in this regard, the well-ordered or virtuous situa- tion; cf. ST I–II, q. 2, a. 6, where St.Thomas is showing that the beatitude of man cannot consist in “pleasure [voluptas],” whether this word is being used in an extended sense to mean delight in intelligible goods or in its primary (bodily) sense. The very first objection is as follows: “It seems that the beatitude of man might consist in pleasure: for beatitude, since it is the ultimate goal, is not sought after because of something else, but other things because of it. This, however, belongs most of all to delight:‘for it is ridiculous to ask someone because of what he wanted to be delighted,’ as is said in Ethics, Book X. Thus, beatitude consists, most of all, in pleasure and delight.”To this St.Thomas replies: “it belongs to the same intelligibility that the good be sought after and that delight be sought after, [delight] being nothing else than the appetite’s repose in the good: just as it is from the same natural power that the heavy thing is borne towards the lower place, and that it remains at rest there.Thus, just as the good is sought after by virtue of itself, so also delight is sought after because of itself, and not because of something else, if the ‘because of ’ expresses the final cause. But if it expresses the formal cause, or, better, the moving cause, in that way delight is an object of appetite [appetibile] ‘because of ’ something else, i.e., because of the good, which is the object of delight, and consequently is its origin and gives it form: for it is by virtue of this that delight has [the role of] being sought after, viz., that it is rest in the desired good.” The point here is that the good, and delight in the good, are diverse intelligible features of one intelligible goal.There is only one act of seeking by which they are sought. Hence, the delight is not sought “for the sake of something else,” as though it were a step on the way to a further goal. It is sought “for its own sake,” inasmuch as it is an aspect of the goal that, necessarily, is sought for its own sake. Since, however, the goal is not simple but composite, including as it does the good and delight in the 76 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. causes diversify the moral act as to species. Here, one sees Thomas’s constant approach associating the treatment of operations with that of movements. Among the causes, the matter and the form pertain to the substances of things and their diversity. Movements and operations relate to motive and final causes. However, because with the rational agent the one same motive cause can result in a variety of acts, the rational operations must get their species from the final cause.We read: [T]he active principles in voluntary acts, which sort [of act] are the acts of sins, are not necessarily related to one [outcome], and so from the one active or motive principle diverse species of act can proceed: for example, from badly humiliating fear there can proceed that a man steal, and that he kill, and that he abandon the flock committed to his care; and all these same [sins] can proceed from love. Hence, it is evident that sins do not differ specifically in function of diverse active or motive causes, but solely in function of diversity of the final cause. Now, the end is the object of the will, for it has been shown above that human acts have their species from the end.36 Here we should note especially the second objection and reply. The objection runs: [A]mong other causes, the material cause appears to pertain least to the species. Now, the object in the domain of sin is akin to the material cause. Since, therefore, sins are distinguished as to species in function of the objects, all the more does it seem that they are distinguished specifically in function of the other causes.37 That is, the objector is using the minimally influential role of matter as good, it is the good that gives to the delight the quality of “belonging to the goal” and so the quality of being “something sought after for its own sake.” 36 ST I–II, q. 72, a. 3, emphasis added:“principia activa in actibus voluntariis, cuiusmodi sunt actus peccatorum, non se habent ex necessitate ad unum, et ideo ex uno principio activo vel motivo possunt diversae species peccatorum procedere; sicut ex timore male humiliante potest procedere quod homo furetur, et quod occidat, et quod deserat gregem sibi commissum; et haec eadem possunt procedere ex amore. Unde manifestum est quod peccata non differant specie secundum diversas causas activas vel motivas; sed solum secundum diversitatem causae finalis. Finis autem est obiectum voluntatis, ostensum est enim supra quod actus humani habent speciem ex fine.” 37 Ibid., obj. 2, emphasis added:“Praeterea, inter alias causas minus videtur pertinere ad speciem causa materialis. Sed obiectum in peccato est sicut causa materialis. Cum ergo secundum obiecta peccata specie distinguantur, videtur quod peccata multo magis secundum alias causas distinguantur specie.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 77 to specification, together with the assimilation of the object of the moral act to the matter, to argue for the relevance of all the kinds of cause for specification of sins.Thomas answers: [O]bjects, inasmuch as they are compared to the exterior acts, have the note of “matter concerning which,” but inasmuch as they are compared to the interior act of the will they have the note of end; and it is on this basis that they give the act its species. Still, even inasmuch as they are the “matter concerning which,” they have the role of termini, from which movements are specified. . . . However, even the termini of movement give the species to the acts inasmuch as they have the role of end.38 This seems to be a move to distinguish between the merely physical act and the external act as willed.The role of “matter about which” is a more physical conception. Nevertheless, even in the physical order there is the terminus as end. In any case, we see primarily the extent to which our doctrine of moral object is a doctrine of final cause and human good. In I–II, question 72, article 4, the discussion is about the diversity of sins against God, against the neighbor, and against oneself. An objector to this sort of distinction says “those items which are extrinsic do not confer the species. But God and the neighbor are outside us.Therefore, through them sins are not distinguished as to species.Therefore, sin is unsuitably divided in function of these three items.” The reply is: “God and the neighbor, though they are external with respect to the sinner himself, nevertheless are not extraneous with respect to the act of sin, but rather are compared to it as its proper objects.”39 So also, in the body of the article, we read: Now, those [acts] are diverse by which a man is ordered to God, and to the neighbor, and to himself. Hence, this distinction of sins is in function of objects, in function of which the species of sin are diversified.Therefore, this distinction of sins is properly according to diverse species of sin: for, 38 Ibid., ad 2, emphasis added: “Ad secundum dicendum quod obiecta, secundum quod comparantur ad actus exteriores, habent rationem materiae circa quam, sed secundum quod comparantur ad actum interiorem voluntatis, habent rationem finium; et ex hoc habent quod dent speciem actui. Quamvis etiam secundum quod sunt materia circa quam, habeant rationem terminorum; a quibus motus specificantur, ut dicitur in V Physic. et in X Ethic. Sed tamen etiam termini motus dant speciem motibus, inquantum habent rationem finis.” 39 The objection, ST I–II, q. 72, a. 4, obj. 3, emphasis added:“Praeterea, ea quae sunt extrinsecus, non conferunt speciem. Sed deus et proximus sunt extra nos. Ergo per haec non distinguuntur peccata secundum speciem. Inconvenienter igitur secundum haec tria peccatum dividitur.” And the reply, ad 3, emphasis added: “deus et proximus, quamvis sint exteriora respectu ipsius peccantis, non tamen sunt extranea respectu actus peccati; sed comparantur ad ipsum sicut propria obiecta ipsius.” 78 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. also, the virtues to which the sins are opposed are distinguished specifically in accord with this difference: for it is evident from things already said that by the theological virtues man is ordered to God, by temperance and courage to himself, and by justice to his neighbor.40 Of course, these are generic distinctions, in that groups of types of sin are meant (thus, sins regarding oneself will include gluttony and lust and prodigality; sins regarding God will include heresy, sacrilege, and blasphemy; sins regarding the neighbor will include theft and murder); still the distinction regards specific differences from one group to another. It is clear that by the “object” of these moral acts is meant the thing that is the principle of the various natural orders. God, the agent himself, and the neighbor are presented as the proper objects of these sins and the mentioned virtuous acts. Obviously, the very word “neighbor” indicates the thing spoken of as pertaining to “the perspective of the acting person,” that is, to human life. Thus, in the same article 4, in the lead-up to the just quoted conclusion, it was explained: [A] sin is an act lacking order. In the human being there ought to be threefold order: one in function of relation to the rule of reason, inasmuch as all our actions and passions ought to be commensurate with the rule of reason; but another is through comparison to the rule of divine law, through which man ought to be directed in all matters.And if man were naturally a solitary animal, this twofold order would suffice. However, because man is naturally a political and social animal, as is proved in [Aristotle’s] Politics, book 1, therefore it is necessary that there be a third order, by which man is ordered to other men with whom he ought to live.41 40 ST I–II, q. 72, a. 4 (ed. Ottawa, 1099a3–16), emphasis added:“Sunt autem diversa quibus homo ordinatur ad deum, et ad proximum, et ad seipsum. Unde haec distinctio peccatorum est secundum obiecta, secundum quae diversificantur species peccatorum. Unde haec distinctio peccatorum proprie est secundum diversas peccatorum species. Nam et virtutes, quibus peccata opponuntur, secundum hanc differentiam specie distinguuntur, manifestum est enim ex dictis quod virtutibus theologicis homo ordinatur ad deum, temperantia vero et fortitudine ad seipsum, iustitia autem ad proximum.” 41 ST I–II, q. 72, a. 4, emphasis added:“peccatum est actus inordinatus.Triplex autem ordo in homine debet esse. Unus quidem secundum comparationem ad regulam rationis, prout scilicet omnes actiones et passiones nostrae debent secundum regulam rationis commensurari. Alius autem ordo est per comparationem ad regulam divinae legis, per quam homo in omnibus dirigi debet. Et si quidem homo naturaliter esset animal solitarium, hic duplex ordo sufficeret, sed quia homo est naturaliter animal politicum et sociale, ut probatur in I Polit., ideo necesse est quod sit tertius ordo, quo homo ordinetur ad alios homines, quibus convivere debet.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 79 Object and Action Still, there is no doubt that Thomas provides grounds for describing the object of the moral action as “a freely chosen behavior” (Veritatis Splendor §78). For example, concerning the virtue of justice Thomas says: “[T]he matter of justice is the exterior operation inasmuch as it, or the thing of which it is the use, has the due proportion to another person. And therefore the mean of justice consists in some equality of proportion of the exterior thing to the exterior person.”42 The “matter” here is surely the “matter about which,” elsewhere identified with the object.43 However, if we look in more detail at the presentation of the object of the virtue of justice, we cannot but be struck by the focus on the thing as object. Beginning with the specific question on “ius,” the object of justice, we have this: [I]t is proper to justice, among the other virtues, that it order the human being as regards those matters which are relative to another: for it involves a certain equality, as the very word reveals: for commonly those things which are equalized are said to be “ad-justed.” Now, equality is relative to another. However, the other virtues perfect the human being solely in those matters which belong to him just in himself.Thus, that which is right [rectum] in the operations of the other virtues, towards which the intention of the virtue tends, as towards its proper object, is taken solely in comparison to the agent. However, that which is right in the work of justice, even leaving aside comparison to the agent, is constituted through comparison to the other: for that in our work [opere] is said to be just which corresponds in function of some equality with the other person, for example, the paying of the due reward for service rendered. Thus, therefore, something is called “just,” as having the rightness of justice, as that at which the action of justice is terminated, even aside from consideration of the mode of the agent in performing it.And for that reason for justice especially, as contrasted with the other virtues, there is determined an absolute object [secundum se obiectum], which is called “the just.”And this is “ius.”44 Nevertheless, in the very same context we have this: “[T]he just is some work rendered adequate for another in keeping with some measure of 42 ST II–II, q. 58, a. 10 (ed. Ottawa, 1727a35–38), emphasis added: “materia iusti- tiae est exterior operatio secundum quod ipsa, vel res cuius est usus, debitam proportionem habet ad aliam personam. Et ideo medium iustitiae consistit in quadam proportionis aequalitate rei exterioris ad personam exteriorem.” 43 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 2. However, cf. the previously quoted ST I–II, q. 72, a. 3, ad 2. 44 ST II–II, q. 57, a. 1, emphasis added. So also, the ad 1 speaks of the primary meaning of “ius” as signifying “the just thing itself [ipsam rem iustam],” and subsequently being used to name the art by which what is just is known, etc. 80 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. equality.”45 This certainly suggests that the “opus” could be an “operatio,” like “paying the fair wage.” An objection and reply in II–II, question 58, article 3, on justice being a virtue, is relevant to our inquiry. The objection locates “moral virtue” as having to do with “objects of action [agibilia].” It argues that the things that are brought about outside us are not agibilia, but rather “objects of production [factibilia].” Since it pertains to justice to produce externally some intrinsically just work (exterius facere aliquod opus secundum se iustum), it does not seem to be a moral virtue. Thomas replies that “justice does not have to do with external things as regards making [them], which pertains to art, but as regards the use of them relative to the other person.”46 This does focus on the act of use, but always considering how the things used stand relative to that other person. Reading II–II, question 58, article 8, on whether particular justice has a special matter, we certainly find both the action and the thing mentioned. Notice the body of the article: [A]ll those things whatsoever which can be rectified by reason are matter for moral virtue, which is defined by right reason, as is clear from the Philosopher in Ethics 2. Now, interior passions of the soul and external actions and external things which are subject to human use can be rectified by reason; however, the ordering of one human being to another is seen as through external actions and external things by which human beings can communicate with each other; whereas in function of the interior passions one considers the rectifying of the human being within himself. And therefore, since justice is ordered to the other [person], it is not about the entire matter of moral virtue, but only about external actions and things, in function of a special objectal intelligibility, viz. inasmuch as in function of them one human is coordinated with another.47 45 ST II–II, q. 57, a. 2, emphasis added: “ius, sive iustum, est aliquod opus adaequa- tum alteri secundum aliquem aequalitatis modum.” 46 ST II–II, q. 58, a. 3, ad 3, emphasis added: “Ad tertium dicendum quod iustitia non consistit circa exteriores res quantum ad facere, quod pertinet ad artem, sed quantum ad hoc quod utitur eis ad alterum.” 47 ST II–II, q. 58, a. 8, emphasis added: “omnia quaecumque rectificari possunt per rationem sunt materia virtutis moralis, quae definitur per rationem rectam, ut patet per Philosophum, in II Ethic. Possunt autem per rationem rectificari et interiores animae passiones, et exteriores actiones, et res exteriores quae in usum hominis veniunt, sed tamen per exteriores actiones et per exteriores res, quibus sibi invicem homines communicare possunt, attenditur ordinatio unius hominis ad alium; secundum autem interiores passiones consideratur rectificatio hominis in seipso. Et ideo, cum iustitia ordinetur ad alterum, non est circa totam materiam virtutis moralis, sed solum circa exteriores actiones et res secundum quandam rationem obiecti specialem, prout scilicet secundum eas unus homo alteri coordinatur.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 81 Here the matter of particular justice includes the actions and the things, taken according to the intelligible note: in function of them one human is ordered towards another.Thus, the ratio obiecti includes both the actions and the things used, as so orderable. Continuing in this same context, we find a very pertinent text at II–II, question 58, article 9, ad 2: “But because the exterior operations do not have their species from the interior passions, but rather from the exterior things, as from objects, therefore, speaking precisely, the exterior operations are more the matter of justice than of the other moral virtues.”48 The operations have their species from the things as objects, and this is what makes the exterior operations the matter of the virtue of justice. Then we come to II–II, question 58, article 10, on the “mean” pertaining to the virtue of justice, as the mean of the thing. Here we are dealing with the idea that the rightness of virtuous activity is in a mean between excess and defect. By the virtue of mildness or gentleness, for example, reason orders anger, so that one is appropriately angry, and neither too little nor too much.49 What about in the acts of justice? Here in particular one sees the importance of the thing as object in matters of justice. But it is also explained that it is reason that determines this measure of things that pertains to justice.Thus, the first objection in article 10 is concerned lest justice be excluded from the group of the moral virtues. We read: [I]t would seem that the mean proper to justice is not the mean of the thing: because the intelligible note of the genus remains present in all the species. Now, moral virtue is defined . . . as being an elective disposition found in a mean determined by reason relative to ourselves. Therefore, it is also the case with justice that the mean pertains to reason and [is] not the mean of the thing itself.50 And Thomas explains in reply:“To the first it is to be said that this mean of the thing is also the mean of reason, and thus in justice the intelligible 48 ST II–II, q. 58, a. 9, ad 2, emphasis added: “Sed quia operationes exteriores non habent speciem ab interioribus passionibus, sed magis a rebus exterioribus, sicut ex obiectis; ideo, per se loquendo, operationes exteriores magis sunt materia iustitiae quam aliarum virtutum moralium.” 49 Cf. ST II–II, q. 157, a. 2, ad 2, on the virtue of gentleness or mildness (mansuetudo). 50 ST II–II, q. 58, a. 10, obj. 1:“videtur quod medium iustitiae non sit medium rei. Ratio enim generis salvatur in omnibus speciebus. Sed virtus moralis in II Ethic. definitur esse habitus electivus in medietate existens determinata ratione quoad nos. Ergo et in iustitia est medium rationis, et non rei” (emphasis added). 82 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. note of the moral virtue is preserved.”51 That is, the “subjective” here must be quite “objective.” It is rational to base oneself on the thing in matters of justice. And Thomas explains in the body of the article: But the matter of justice is the exterior operation inasmuch as it, or the thing of which it is the use, has the due proportion to another person. And therefore the mean of justice consists in some equality of proportion of the exterior thing to the exterior person. Now, the equal is really the mean between the more and the less, as is said in Metaphysics 10. Hence, justice has [as its mean] the mean of the thing.52 We see the importance of the thing in the conception of the object of the virtue of justice.The operation has its species as the use of such a thing. Still reading II–II, question 58, with article 11 we come to a most important text for our purposes, dealing as it does with “giving to a person what is his.”Thomas teaches: [T]he matter of justice is the exterior operation according as it, or the thing which we use by means of it, is proportioned to the other person towards whom we are ordered in virtue of justice. Now, that is said to be each person’s “own” which is owed to him in function of equality of proportion. And therefore the proper act of justice is nothing other than rendering to someone what is his own.53 In this article, also, we have a very relevant objection. It notes precisely that justice has to do not only with exchange of goods but also with actions. We read: [T]o justice pertains not only dispensing things in the due measure, but also hindering injurious actions, such as homicides, adulteries, and other 51 Ibid., ad 1:“Ad primum ergo dicendum quod hoc medium rei est etiam medium rationis. Et ideo in iustitia salvatur ratio virtutis moralis” (emphasis added). 52 ST II–II, q. 58, a. 10, emphasis added:“Sed materia iustitiae est exterior operatio secundum quod ipsa, vel res cuius est usus, debitam proportionem habet ad aliam personam. Et ideo medium iustitiae consistit in quadam proportionis aequalitate rei exterioris ad personam exteriorem. Aequale autem est realiter medium inter maius et minus, ut dicitur in X Metaphys. Unde iustitia habet medium rei.” 53 ST II–II, q. 58, a. 11, emphasis added:“Respondeo dicendum quod, sicut dictum est, materia iustitiae est operatio exterior secundum quod ipsa, vel res qua per eam utimur, proportionatur alteri personae, ad quam per iustitiam ordinamur. Hoc autem dicitur esse suum uniuscuiusque personae quod ei secundum proportionis aequalitatem debetur. Et ideo proprius actus iustitiae nihil est aliud quam reddere unicuique quod suum est.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 83 like [actions]. However, to render what is a person’s own seems merely to pertain to the dispensing of things. Therefore, one does not sufficiently make known the act of justice by saying that its act is to render to each what is his own.54 And the answer: [A]s the Philosopher says in Ethics 5, all that is excess in those matters which pertain to justice is called “gain,” by an stretching of the word, just as all that is less [than it ought to be] is called “loss.”The reason for this is that justice is practiced by priority and more commonly practiced in the voluntary exchanges of things, e.g. in buying and selling, in which matter these words are properly said; and from there these words are derived to all those matters about which there can be justice. And the reason is the same for [the saying]:“to render to each what is his own.”55 Notice that this suggests a primacy of focus on the things that are exchanged, because of the human mode of living with sensible things.The operations themselves, such as homicide and adultery, are more involved intellectually. Still, we speak of homicide as “taking a human life” and of adultery as “taking someone else’s spouse.” It seems to me that everything turns on the consideration that the object of the human act is the end (which, of course, relative to the ultimate end of the agent is “towards the end;” only as such can it be an object of choice).56 Now, the end, Thomas constantly teaches, is twofold, the thing and the possession or attainment of the thing.The regular example is the miser, whose end is money and the possession of money.57 Of this situation, as already mentioned, Thomas teaches that the possession is good because the money is good.That is, the operation of possession gets its species as a good operation from the goodness of the thing that is its 54 Ibid., obj. 3, emphasis added: “Praeterea, ad iustitiam pertinet non solum res dispensare debito modo, sed etiam iniuriosas actiones cohibere, puta homicidia, adulteria et alia huiusmodi. Sed reddere quod suum est videtur solum ad dispensationem rerum pertinere. Ergo non sufficienter per hoc notificatur actus iustitiae quod dicitur actus eius esse reddere unicuique quod suum est.” 55 Ibid., ad 3:“sicut Philosophus dicit, in V Ethic., omne superfluum in his quae ad iustitiam pertinent lucrum, extenso nomine, vocatur, sicut et omne quod minus est vocatur damnum. Et hoc ideo, quia iustitia prius est exercita, et communius exercetur in voluntariis commutationibus rerum, puta emptione et venditione, in quibus proprie haec nomina dicuntur; et exinde derivantur haec nomina ad omnia circa quae potest esse iustitia. Et eadem ratio est de hoc quod est reddere unicuique quod suum est” (emphasis added). 56 ST I–II, q. 13, a. 3. 57 ST I–II, q. 2, a. 7; q. 3, a. 1; q. 34, a. 3. Lawrence Dewan, O.P. 84 object.58 This situation also obtains as regards choice, which is toward that which is for the sake of the end.59 On the other hand, to make the object of the moral action or operation an operation takes us out of the intelligible situation to which the conception of object properly pertains. It is precisely because movement, process, and operation feed on things as such for their intelligibility that Thomas introduces us to the conception of the object.60 Rhonheimer’s Criticism of Summa theologiae I–II, Question 18, Article 2 Rhonheimer in his section on “thing or action” sees Thomas as failing to “clarify” in Summa theologiae I–II, question 18, article 2. He quotes as follows: “[T]he primary evil in moral actions is that which is from the object, for instance, to take what belongs to another.”61 Though he presents this as a “typical phrase,” he should, I would say, have indicated that it is part of a longer sentence. In fact, if one looks at the article as a whole, the alleged lack of clarity proves to be non-existent. Rhonheimer’s complaint is as follows: “We find no effort here by St. Thomas to clarify whether the object, or the referred to inappropriate matter, is the ‘res aliena,’ or rather the action itself, accipere/subtrahere rem alienam.” 62 If we wish to read I–II, question 18, article 2, in context, that is, in the perspective of the acting person, we should begin with article 1: Can the bad be found in human action? There we note the technique of presenting action on the model of the substantial thing. As Thomas instructs us: “[C]oncerning the good and the bad in actions, one must speak as in speaking about the good and the bad in things, because each thing produces a quality of action in keeping with the way it itself is.”63 It is because of composition of being that a thing can have being yet not the fullness of being that is appropriate to it. Notice this note of the “debitum,” the “owing,” in the account of the thing:“Hence, in some things it does occur that as regards something they have being, and nevertheless there is something lacking to them pertaining to the fullness of being 58 ST I–II, q. 16, a. 3. 59 ST I–II, q. 13, a. 4. 60 ST I, q. 77, a. 3; I–II, q. 1, a. 3, c. and ad 3; and I–II, q. 9, a. 1. 61 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 464. 62 Ibid., original emphasis. The word “subtrahere” is introduced because Rhon- heimer had also quoted a “phrase” from the De Malo, q. 2, a. 4, ad 5. 63 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 1 (810b33–37): “de bono et malo in actionibus oportet loqui sicut de bono et malo in rebus, eo quod unaquaeque res talem actionem producit, qualis est ipsa.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 85 owed to them.”64 We see this elsewhere presented in terms of the appreciation of the complete natural wherewithal of the thing: “It is owed [debitum] also to some created thing that it have that which is ordered to it, for example, to man, that he have hands, and that the other animals serve him.And thus also God does justice, when he gives to each what is owing by reason of its nature and condition.”65 In I–II, question 18, article 1, in line with the goodness and badness of created things, outlined in full, we have the very brief application to the creature’s, and particularly to the human, action: Thus, therefore, every action, to the extent that it has something of being, to that extent it has goodness; but inasmuch as there is absent from it something of the fullness of being that befits human action, to that extent it falls short of goodness, and thus is called “bad”: for example, if there is absent from it, say, a determinate quantity in keeping with reason, or a due place, or something of that sort.66 Coming now to article 2:Whether the action of the human being has it that it be good or bad from its object, we note the objections.The first is based on the idea of the object.The object is a thing, and, as Augustine says, the bad is not in things but in the use made of things by sinners. Another objector presents the object as the “matter” of the action, whereas goodness surely comes to an action from its form. A third objector notes that the object of an active power is the effect of its action, and surely it is the bad action that makes for the bad result and not the converse. What scriptural authority does Thomas use in the sed contra argument? He cites a passage from the prophet Hosea, 9:10: “They . . . became detestable like the things they loved” (emphasis added). The argument is that one becomes detestable by the badness of one’s action. Thus, the badness of the operation is in function of the bad object that the human 64 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 1 (810b44–47), emphasis added: “Unde in aliquibus contingit quod quantum ad aliquid habent esse, et tamen eis aliquid deficit ad plenitudinem essendi eis debitam.” 65 ST I, q. 21, a. 1, ad 3: “Debitum etiam est alicui rei creatae, quod habeat id quod ad ipsam ordinatur, sicut homini, quod habeat manus, et quod ei alia animalia serviant. Et sic etiam Deus operatur iustitiam, quando dat unicuique quod ei debetur secundum rationem suae naturae et conditionis” (emphasis added). 66 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 1 (811a18–26): “Sic igitur dicendum est quod omnis actio, inquantum habet aliquid de esse, intantum habet de bonitate, inquantum vero deficit ei aliquid de plenitudine essendi quae debetur actioni humanae, intantum deficit a bonitate, et sic dicitur mala, puta si deficiat ei vel determinata quantitas secundum rationem, vel debitus locus, vel aliquid huiusmodi.” 86 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. being loves.67 This argument too would appear to understand the object to be a thing.68 Reading the body of the article what do we find? We proceed in terms of what we saw in article 1, in terms of things and their fullness of being. What pertains first of all to the fullness of being of a natural thing is what confers on the thing its species. This is its form. Analogous to this for an action is the object, which is to be compared to the terminus of a movement. This of course is the doctrine one finds in Summa theologiae I concerning the object and the specification of acts and powers.69 We recall once more Thomas’s teaching: “All that we understand in the present life are known by us through comparison with natural, sensible things.”70 Thus, we read: And therefore just as the first goodness of the natural thing is discerned from its form, which gives to it its species, so also the first goodness of the moral act is discerned from the suitable object: hence, by some people it is called “good in kind [ex genere]:” for example, to make use of what is one’s own. And just as in natural things the first badness is if the generated thing does not attain the specific form, e.g. if a human being were not generated, but something else in place of a human being, so also the first badness in moral actions is that which is from the object, for example, to take someone else’s.And this is called “bad in kind [ex genere],” using the word “genus” for “species,” in that way of speaking by which we refer to the entire human species as “genus homo.”71 67 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, s.c.:“Sed contra est quod dicitur Osee 9:10,‘facti sunt abom- inabiles, sicut ea quae dilexerunt.’ Fit autem homo deo abominabilis propter malitiam suae operationis. Ergo malitia operationis est secundum obiecta mala quae homo diligit. Et eadem ratio est de bonitate actionis.” 68 I have used the translation of the Revised Standard Version, which uses the word “thing,” but I introduced a plural to conform with Thomas’s text; the Vulgate quoted by Thomas uses the somewhat less determinate “ea,” “those;” the reference is to the Baals worshiped by the Israelites: cf. Num 25:1. The Bible de Jérusalem translates the Hosea passage as: “devinrent des horreurs, comme l’objet de leur amour.” 69 Cf. ST I, q. 77, a. 3. 70 ST I, q. 84, a. 8 (523a2–5): “Omnia autem quae in praesenti statu intelligimus, cognoscuntur a nobis per comparationem ad res sensibiles naturales.” 71 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2 (811b42–812a8), emphasis added:“Et ideo sicut prima bonitas rei naturalis attenditur ex sua forma, quae dat speciem ei, ita et prima bonitas actus moralis attenditur ex obiecto convenienti; unde et a quibusdam vocatur bonum ex genere; puta, uti re sua. Et sicut in rebus naturalibus primum malum est, si res generata non consequitur formam specificam, puta si non generetur homo, sed aliquid loco hominis; ita primum malum in actionibus moralibus est quod est ex obiecto, sicut accipere aliena. Et dicitur malum ex genere, genere pro specie accepto, eo modo loquendi quo dicimus humanum genus totam humanam speciem.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 87 It would be hard to find a more carefully designed presentation.The natural thing is distinct from its form as from its primary part, perfecting the composite whole. In a similar way, the moral action is distinct from its object, the object having a formal role and making the action the kind of action it is. It is significant that in this introduction of the doctrine of the object as giving the moral action its goodness or badness, the example is one of elementary justice.This accords with Thomas’s teaching that moral obligation,“debitum,” is better known to us humans in the domain of justice than elsewhere.72 The contents of the Ten Commandments may thus be expected to be front and center in the introduction to moral science. Thomas tells us: “There are some [acts] which the natural reason of any human being at once judges are to be done or not to be done, such as: ‘honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘you shall not kill,’‘you shall not practice theft.’ ”73 Indeed, in the Summa theologiae II–II,Thomas seems to become, if anything, more insistent on this: [T]he precepts of the Decalogue are the first precepts74 of the law, and to which at once natural reason assents as to what are most evident.This is because the intelligible note “ought” [debitum], which is required for a precept, is apparent in [in the area of] justice, which is ordered towards another person; for in those matters which bear upon one’s own self, it seems upon first consideration that the human being is his own master, and that it is permissible for him to do anything whatsoever; whereas in those matters which are relative to the other person it appears evidently that a man is obligated towards the other, that he render to him what is owing.And so the precepts of the Decalogue had to pertain to justice.75 72 ST I–II, q. 100, a. 3, ad 3:“ratio debiti in aliis virtutibus est magis latens quam in iustitia. Et ideo praecepta de actibus aliarum virtutum non sunt ita nota populo sicut praecepta de actibus iustitiae. Et propter hoc actus iustitiae specialiter cadunt sub praeceptis Decalogi, quae sunt prima legis elementa.” (“[T]he intelligible aspect of the ‘owing’ [or ‘ought’] is more hidden in the other virtues than in justice.And therefore the precepts concerning acts of the other virtues are not known to the people in the way that the precepts of the acts of justice are. And for that reason it is especially the acts of justice that fall under the Ten Commandments, which are the first elements of the law.”) 73 ST I–II, q. 100, a. 1 (1259b13–18):“Quaedam enim sunt quae statim per se ratio naturalis cuiuslibet hominis diiudicat esse facienda vel non facienda, sicut honora patrem tuum et matrem tuam, et, non occides, non furtum facies.” 74 The Ottawa (Piana) edition has here “principia” where the Leonine has “praecepta.” 75 ST II–II, q. 122, a. 1: “praecepta Decalogi sunt prima praecepta legis, et quibus statim ratio naturalis assentit sicut manifestissimis. Manifestissime autem ratio debiti, quae requiritur ad praeceptum, apparet in iustitia, quae est ad alterum, quia in his quae spectant ad seipsum, videtur primo aspectui quod homo sit sui Lawrence Dewan, O.P. 88 Yet Rhonheimer says: The lack of explicitness and clarity on St.Thomas’s part regarding what is the object of an act can be illustrated by such typical phrases as “the primary evil in moral actions is that which is from the object, for instance, to take what belongs to another,” or “the evil act ex genere is that which falls upon inappropriate matter, like to take that which belongs to another.” We find no effort here by St. Thomas to clarify whether the object, or the referred-to inappropriate matter, is the “res aliena,” or rather the action itself, “accipere/subtrahere rem alienam.”76 Such an objection is difficult to accept when one considers the method of St.Thomas in the article as a whole. Notice how methodically Thomas is conceiving the domain of moral action on the basis of comparison with natural things. Here in moral actions the comparison is most closely with movement and its terminus. The action is “to make use of what is one’s own.”The “what is one’s own” is seen as a terminus of the movement, what one “lays one’s hands on,” so to speak. In contrast, the bad action is “taking what belongs to another.” It seems to me that we have an opposition expressed here, in terms of the perfect and the imperfect, such that the theft can only be understood in the light of the good action, the use of what is one’s own. We see the violation of the right of possession of the other person.“To each his own” would be a primary principle.77 I think back again to taking a sip from my brother’s glass of chocolate milk:“That’s mine!” he rightly cried. And the explanation presents first the good act: “uti re sua,” “to make use of what is one’s own,” and then the bad act:“accipere aliena,”“to take what belongs to another.”The bad is only intelligible as such in comparison to the good.78 Anyone who follows the argument of the article dominus, et quod liceat ei facere quodlibet; sed in his quae sunt ad alterum, manifeste apparet quod homo est alteri obligatus ad reddendum ei quod debet. Et ideo praecepta Decalogi oportuit ad iustitiam pertinere.” 76 Again, Rhonheimer is speaking about both ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2; and De Malo q. 2, a. 4, ad 5, together. 77 Cf. Cicero, The Nature of the Gods (De natura deorum), bk. 3, sect. 38: “iustitia est unicuique suum tribuendi,” obtained from Internet site:“Todd’s Quotation Reference Archive,” contribution by R. Wagner, concerning the expression: “to each his own,” lalaland.msu.edu/~vanhoose/quotes/0000.html. Thomas, at ST II–II, q. 58, a. 11, s.c., asking whether the act of justice is to render to each what is his own, quotes Ambrose, De Officiis Ministrorum Libri tres 1 (PL 16, 62): “iustitia est quae unicuique quod suum est tribuit, alienum non vindicat, utilitatem propriam negligit ut communem aequitatem custodiat.” 78 Cf. ST I, q. 48, a. 1, c. and ad 2. St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 89 should realize that the acts are being named precisely as displaying their difference, as to the good and the bad, by virtue of the terminus of the act expressed by the verb, for example, “one’s own” and “someone else’s.” How does St.Thomas reply to the objections? What about things being “good in themselves?”To the first he says: “[T]hough exterior things are good in themselves, nevertheless they do not always have the due proportion to this or that action. And therefore, inasmuch as they are considered as the objects of such actions they do not have the intelligible note: the good.”79 It is the thing as object that is seen as not having the “rationem boni.” Obviously it is the thing as falling into the domain of human use that has the ratio obiecti, the intelligible role of an object of action. It seems to me that what one needs here for fullest appreciation is a reading of the articles on the naturalness of ownership of property, II–II, question 66, and on ius gentium and ius naturale, II–II, question 57. In view of the above, I reject Rhonheimer’s contention that there is “no effort here by St.Thomas to clarify whether the object . . . is the ‘res aliena’ or rather the action itself.” However, in the same context he presents some difficulties that he sees respecting the way Thomas speaks in I–II, question 18, article 2. Can we take them seriously? First he asks, as regards the “act,” “action,” and “to act”: “Are we considering the human act as chosen, willed, and voluntarily carried out? Or those elements of the act which are external and observable behavior?”80 I find this complaint odd, since St. Thomas very expressly makes his point about “prima bonitas actus moralis [the first goodness of the moral act].” It is true that the titles of articles 2 and 3 have “actio hominis,” which expression Thomas used in I–II, question 1, article 1, to distinguish such things as automatically scratching one’s beard from genuinely human, because voluntary, actions. However, such titles are questionable, and in I–II, question 18, article 2, the first and third objections use “actio humana” in their conclusions; furthermore, in the body of the article, it is abundantly clear that we are speaking of “malum in actionibus moralibus.” Let us move to his second objection, which is more discussable. He speaks as follows: A second difficulty is that a res aliena simply cannot, as such, morally qualify a human act. This would be the case, however, if the res aliena 79 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 1: “Ad primum ergo dicendum quod, licet res exteriores sint in seipsis bonae, tamen non semper habent debitam proportionem ad hanc vel illam actionem. Et ideo inquantum considerantur ut obiecta talium actionum, non habent rationem boni.” Cf. also ST II–II, q. 141, a. 3 (2112a29–41), below at note 88. 80 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 464. 90 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. itself were that which we call “the object of a human act.”The confiscation of a stolen item by the police, for example, so as to restore it to its owner, has the same res aliena as its “matter” as did the original theft, and yet we are dealing with two acts that are different precisely because of their object. The difference seems to derive, therefore, not from the “thing” taken, nor from the fact that it “belongs to another,” but from the difference in the act of “taking” of this “thing”: from the diversity of will and intentionality, respectively, implicit in the act.81 What does Rhonheimer mean by the “res aliena . . . as such” and “the res aliena itself?” We know, in accordance with the reply to the first objection, that we are not speaking about the thing considered absolutely, as a thing. Suppose the thing is a dog. We are not speaking of the dog merely as a dog. Indeed, the expression “res aliena” is only intelligible in the light of the “re sua” in Thomas’s expression:“uti re sua.”We are in the perspective of the human being as an agent, an acting person. The dog enters the picture as “this person’s dog.” Thus, the expression “res aliena” envisages “the dog in its proportion to someone other than the owner.” Its “belonging to another” is essential to the discussion. Rhonheimer is quite right in speaking about “will and intentionality” being essential to the picture.The object of the will is the end. The end is twofold—the possession of the money and the money; but it is the good of the money that makes the possession of it good.The thief desires “the other person’s wealth.”82 What would be the suitable description of “confiscation of a stolen item by the police, so as to restore it to its owner?”When the police officer takes back the dog, is he “taking what belongs to someone else?” No, save per accidens.83 Particularly if we are allowed to envisage him in the very act of restoration, he is simply “giving someone what is his own.” Even if we focus on the very act of confiscation, the police officer, as the agent of and so representative of the common good, is restoring good order, and in that way, taking what is the community’s own. Continuing to argue his case, Rhonheimer says: Analogously,“to observe an eagle” and “to kill an eagle” are two different acts because of their objects; this would be inexplicable, however, if the object of the two acts were the eagle itself. In a certain sense it is true that both the res aliena and the eagle are “objects,” but not of a 81 Ibid., 464–5, original emphasis. 82 Cf. ST I–II, q. 16, a. 3 (800b30–44), emphasis added. 83 The species of the physical act is per accidens relative to the species of the moral act, and vice versa. Cf. ST I–II, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3.Thus, speaking of the physical act involved in the confiscation, but using terms proper to moral acts, one can say, per accidens, that the thing taken “belongs to someone else.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 91 human act; they are rather the object of bodily movements or the acts of specific organs.84 Thomas, in I, question 77, article 3, ad 3, dealt with this sort of objection: One subject can have more than one ratio obiecti; the same thing can be the object of both an appetitive and a cognitive power. St. Thomas in speaking of the object in I–II, question 18, article 2, has focused on the domain of justice, and on a primary difference in that domain.This is the “perspective of the acting person.” We might note, as well, that neither example, “killing an eagle” nor “observing an eagle” need be the name of a specifically good or bad human act. As human acts, they seem rather indifferent.85 But consider further what Rhonheimer says. He takes “res aliena” as an object, not of a human act, but of “bodily movements” or “of acts of specific organs.” I am not sure how he sees this relative to bodily movements and acts of specific organs. Of course, we might imagine a pick-pocket, a mode of thievery that requires some rather fine-tuned physical moves. Consider how the issue of commission and omission of moral acts is handled. Does the difference between commission and omission result in diverse species of sin? To explain the situation Thomas begins by distinguishing between material difference in sins and formal difference. The material difference is seen in the natural species of the act of sin, whereas the formal difference is seen as regards the order to the one proper end, which is the proper object.Thus one finds many acts that are materially specifically different, but belonging to the one species of sin. Thomas’s examples are the acts of cutting the throat, stabbing, and stoning, which belong to the one species of sin, homicide, but to different natural species. Thus, if we speak of sins of omission and commission materially, they are diverse natural species, taking “species” broadly as including even negations and privations; but if we mean the species of sin formally, they do not differ specifically, since they are ordered to the same end and have the same motive.The greedy person, in order to amass wealth, both steals and does not give what he ought to. Obviously the person who refrains from calling out to a person he sees has dropped his wallet, and so refrains in order subsequently to find and possess the wallet, is committing the sin Thomas calls “accipere aliena” in the very remaining silent. My point is that Thomas, in I–II, question 18, article 2, does not mean by “res aliena” a thing as happening to be in another person’s locality. He 84 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 465. 85 On the indifferent human act, cf. ST I–II, q. 18, a. 8. 92 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. is speaking of “the thing owned by another.”The expression is only intelligible in the light of the “res sua” of the other example. It is a grasp of things as pertaining to the human theatre of operation, things as sized up by us spontaneously (so that they pertain to ius gentium), so spontaneously sized up that “you shall not steal” is immediately grasped by all humans.86 It thus seems to me that the answer to Rhonheimer here is to be found in the ad 1 of Thomas’s article. Let us recall the objection: “The object of the action is the thing. But in things, there is no bad, but only in the use [to which they are put] by sinners. . . .Therefore, human action does not have goodness or badness from the object.”This seems to me to sum up well enough Rhonheimer’s position here as regards “res aliena.” One might say that he seems to put all the emphasis on “res” and to ignore “aliena.” How did Thomas himself, in the very article under consideration, answer Rhonheimer’s type of objection? We recall: “[T]hough admittedly external things are in themselves good, nevertheless they do not always have the due proportion to this or that action. And so, inasmuch as they are considered as the objects of such actions, they do not have the intelligible aspect of the good [rationem boni].”87 So also, a drink of whiskey is not a bad thing, but after having a few, there is such a thing as “one too many,” an expression designating its lack of due proportion to my act of drinking (considered as the act of a reasonable being) and formally specifying my act of drinking as one of intemperance.88 Notice, furthermore, that Rhonheimer has begun his teaching by rejecting the teaching of I–II, question 18, article 2. It really is presented by him as too ambiguous (at best) to be of service.This is a notable move in the approach to a discussion of Thomas’s doctrine of the object of the moral act since this is a key article. Rhonheimer on the Lie Rhonheimer’s subtitle number 6 speaks of the “intentional constitution of the object,” for which “lying” furnishes an “example.”89 He begins by 86 I do not wish to ignore, nevertheless, ST I–II, q. 94, a. 4 (1228a24–32), on the possibility of someone having reason that is depraved by passion or custom or bad natural constitution, so as not to think robbery unjust; and cf. ST I–II, q. 94, a. 6 (1230a15–20). 87 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 1, emphasis added. 88 Cf. ST II–II, q. 141, a. 3 (2112a29–41).This has to do with the nature of temperance, and why it bears upon our sense inclination toward the good.Thomas says: “sensible and bodily goods, considered according to their own species, are not repugnant to reason, but rather serve it, as instruments which reason uses to attain its own proper end. But they are repugnant to it especially inasmuch as the sense appetite tends towards them [in a degree] not according to the measure of reason.” 89 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 493. St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 93 speaking of the Catechism of the Catholic Church90 and its statement concerning the sources of the morality of the human act. It is their contrast between the “object” and the “intention” that he objects to. The object is said by the Catechism to be “a good towards which the will deliberately directs itself ” (§1751), whereas (the Catechism says): “In contrast to the object, the intention resides in the acting subject” (§1752). This, Rhonheimer says, could be a source of confusion, since “residing in the acting subject” is “generally valid for human action at all levels.” The basic complaint of Rhonheimer is that one cannot say that the object of the act is “something that does not proceed from the acting person.”91 Rhonheimer’s point seems to be partly similar to a reply Thomas makes to an objector who worries about the object being “outside” the act.Thomas explains:“God and the neighbor, though they are external with respect to the sinner himself, nevertheless are not extraneous with respect to the act of sin, but rather are compared to it as its proper objects.”92 Does this mean that the object “proceeds from the acting person?” Obviously, inasmuch as the act is voluntary and proceeds from the person, the person is making the end his own. Still, the end is given prior to the act, given, that is, as having a certain proportion to the human being:“They became detestable, like the thing they loved” (Hosea).93 In keeping with his objection to what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, Rhonheimer argues that the Catechism itself, in discussing intrinsically evil acts, actually follows the pathway Rhonheimer himself favors and sees in Veritatis Splendor. To categorize some types of acts as intrinsically morally evil, the Catechism itself is forced to introduce an intentional element “constitutive” of the object of the act. Rhonheimer speaks of the definitions of contraception and masturbation, but also of the description of lying. I will limit myself to that last point. Rhonheimer introduces this point by speaking of lying as “also traditionally considered to be an intrinsically evil act.” I trust that he is in agreement with this judgment of the tradition, though I would comment that “evil” is a somewhat deceptive word in this case, since the lie, as such, is not necessarily a mortal sin, and so is not “evil” in the properly moral sense, although it is “morally bad.” I might add that I discourage the use of the word “evil” as a universal translation of the Latin “malum,” especially since one wishes to preserve 90 I am using the English translation available in the Vatican website, www.vatican.va/ archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM. 91 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 494, original emphasis. 92 ST I–II, q. 74, a. 4, emphasis added. 93 The authority, as we noted earlier, cited by Thomas in ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, s.c. 94 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. the distinction between mortal and venial sin (not to mention the bad, in all its universality). Indeed, in English, “evil” is so strong as to suggest an element of malice; thus, it might be considered too strong a word even for many mortal sins.94 We must keep in mind that “the bad” is said analogously of mortal and venial sin; indeed, “sin” is so said of them.There is an infinite difference between the two versions of “bad” so said.95 It should be noted that the context of the Catechism’s discussion of lying is a presentation of the Decalogue, and in particular of the eighth commandment: thus, the Catechism’s primary setting pertains to justice.96 Rhonheimer notes that the Catechism uses a quotation from St. Augustine for “the description of the act of lying.” One could be even more positive here, and say the Catechism presents it as the definition of the lie. The statement is: “A lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving” (§2482). Indeed, in the Catechism statement, this is immediately linked to what is said in John 8:44, that the lie is “the work of the devil.” Rhonheimer also notes that the Catechism adds the statement, on its own authority: “To lie is to speak or act against the truth in 94 Cf. ST I–II, q. 77, a. 8: One can sin mortally because of a passion. I am reminded, concerning the vocabulary of the bad, of a humorous statement in James Thurber’s “fairy tale for adults” titled The Thirteen Clocks (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950). As with many good fairy tales, it includes a “wicked uncle.” Thurber at one point has the uncle say: “We all have our faults—and mine is being wicked!” (I quote from memory.) The humor, of course, stems largely from the very depth of evil expressed by the word “wicked” in contrast to the word “fault,” and it is much the same with “evil.” Thurber’s comedy, however, is not altogether as absurd as it is perhaps meant to be, since, as St. Thomas notes, ST I–II, q. 78, a. 3 (1146b27–42), someone may sin out of conscious malice (ex certa malitia), not on the basis of an already acquired habitual vice, but on the basis of a corrupt disposition stemming from an abnormal corporeal constitution. Thus we read: “Such a corrupt disposition either is some habit acquired by custom, which tends to become nature, or else is some diseased condition on the side of the body: as with someone having some natural inclinations towards some sins, because of the corruption of the nature in that person” (emphasis added). (“Talis autem dispositio corrupta vel est aliquis habitus acquisitus ex consuetudine, quae vertitur in naturam, vel est aliqua aegritudinalis habitudo ex parte corporis, sicut aliquis habens quasdam naturales inclinationes ad aliqua peccata, propter corruptionem naturae in ipso.”) 95 ST I–II, q. 88, a. 1, ad 1; and q. 87, a. 5, ad 1. Cf. my paper, “St.Thomas, Lying, and Venial Sin,” The Thomist 61 (1997): 279–99. 96 Cf. ST II–II, q. 110, a. 4, ad 2, which notes the proper focus of the Decalogue as concerned with sins, including lies, against the love of God and neighbor; thus, the Decalogue’s reference to lying is precisely on “bearing false witness against the neighbor.” For the Decalogue’s focus on justice, cf. ST I–II, q. 100, a. 3, obj. 3 and ad 3; and II–II, q. 122, a. 1 (cf. above, notes 72 and 75). St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 95 order to lead someone into error” (§2483; Rhonheimer adds the italics, which pertain to his own contention about the need to include an intentional element in order to name the moral object).97 Rhonheimer says he cannot, in that essay, analyze the objects of these types of behavior, viz. contraception, masturbation, and lying. He does find it “useful” here, nevertheless, “to further specify some aspects of lying, which will also be important for an exegesis of St.Thomas” (emphasis added). Rhonheimer tells us that it is “common opinion” that Thomas differs notably from Augustine, but he himself says that the difference is not as great as is customarily claimed. Rhonheimer is quite correct in noting that for Thomas lying includes not only “saying what is false” but the intention to say what is false. In fact, there can be lying where one says what is true, thinking it is false, because formal lying is the intention to say something that is false. The manifested false is the object of such an intention. Formally, it is the object that is “constitutive,” to use Rhonheimer’s term, of the intention. Rhonheimer confesses that he has trouble seeing how someone can will to lie without also willing to deceive. He thus says he finds Augustine’s “definition” of a lie more satisfactory than Thomas’s (he says it “seems preferable”).This evidently refers to the statement in the Catechism account of the lie: “A lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving.”98 97 Here, I had noted that the Catechism sentence is actually longer, ending: “to lead into error someone who has the right to know the truth” (§2483, emphasis added)! Thus I said to myself that Rhonheimer should not have left this out, since it actually defines the lie in a way that makes it a mortal sin! However, when I consulted the Latin text and the other translations, I found that there is not uniformity in what is given on the Vatican website.We have the following in §2483: Latin: “Mentiri est contra veritatem loqui vel agere ad inducendum in errorem”; English: “To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead into error someone who has the right to know the truth”; German: “Lügen heißt gegen die Wahrheit reden oder handeln, um jemanden zu täuschen, der ein Recht hat, sie zu kennen”; Italian: “Mentire è parlare o agire contro la verità per indurre in errore”; French: “Mentir, c’est parler ou agir contre la vérité pour induire en erreur.” I will not make it my business here to criticize the Catechism on this subject. I do underline that they are in the context of the Ten Commandments, thus on a particular mode of lying. 98 Rhonheimer is right in seeing the Catechism as considering it a definition. I would note, however, that when one looks at the quotation from Augustine in its own 96 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. Of course, the will to lie without deceiving pertains to the jocose lie.99 One is lying to amuse.The obvious fact that one is lying is the very source of the comedy. For example, suppose that it is well known that the speaker finds it unpleasant to socialize with some person, and suppose it becomes necessary for the speaker to work closely with that person; then if a friend (himself lying jocosely) were to say to the speaker:“I’m sure you’re happy about that!” the speaker might reply: “I’m overjoyed!” It is the obviousness of the lies that makes for the comedy. Thus, as Thomas says: [A]n operation can be considered in two ways: in one way, in itself; in the other way, on the side of the one operating.A jocose lie by the very type of act has a nature to deceive, though by the intention of the speaker it is not said in order to deceive, nor does it deceive because of the way of speaking.100 And thus Augustine, in On the Psalms, says: [T]here are two kinds of lie which are no great crime but not exactly free from sin, the lie spoken in jest, and the lie spoken to render some service. The lie spoken in jest does very little harm, since it deceives nobody. The man to whom it is told knows it is only banter. And the second lie is all the less offensive because it means well.101 context, one finds that it is wrongly translated by the Catechism.We find in Oeuvres de saint Augustin, 1re série, Opuscules (Paris: 1948): Desclée de Brouwer, t. 2, Problèmes moraux, trans. Gustave Combès, De mendacio, IV.5, the following: “Nemo autem dubitat mentiri eum qui volens falsum enuntiat causa fallendi; quapropter enuntiationem falsam cum voluntate ad fallendum prolatam, manifestum est esse mendacium. Sed utrum hoc solum sit mendacium, alia quaestio est” (emphasis added). That is, no one doubts that to utter a false statement with the will to deceive is lying, but it is a further question whether that is the only sort of thing that constitutes lying. Augustine in the passage is not defining a lie. He is not saying what a lie is, or what it is to lie. He is saying that what he is describing is certainly a lie, but that there may be other sorts of lie.An accurate translation would be:“A false statement uttered with the will to deceive is obviously a lie.” 99 There are also jocose lies that are meant to deceive, though harmlessly.Thus, as we see below,Thomas classifies a certain sort of boasting as jocose: cf. ST II–II, q. 112, a. 2, ad 3. 100 ST II–II, q. 110, a. 3, ad 6, emphasis added: “operatio aliqua potest considerari dupliciter: uno modo secundum seipsam; alio modo ex parte operantis. Mendacium igitur iocosum ex ipso genere operis habet rationem fallendi, quamvis ex intentione dicentis non dicatur ad fallendum, nec fallat ex modo dicendi.” 101 St.Augustine, On the Psalms, vol. I (Ps 1–29), trans. Dame Scholastica Hebgin and Dame Felicitas Corrigan, Benedictines of Stanbrook (New York: Newman Press, 1960), 54 (on Ps 5), emphasis added. Augustine wrote these commentaries (on Ps 1–32) in 392, the year after his ordination to the priesthood, and three years St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 97 However, Rhonheimer even goes so far as to say, concerning lying without willing to deceive: Perhaps St.Thomas would not claim that this is possible; he says only that formally, i.e., essentially, lying must be defined without this second intention, and that the first suffices. It seems more logical, however, to include the intentio fallendi in the definition of lying or, said otherwise, to consider the will to say what is false and that of deceiving as a single intentio voluntatis, constitutive for an act to be a lie according to its object.102 This is astonishing as an “exegesis,” since there is ample evidence in the text of St. Thomas that he considers the jocose lie in just the way indicated above. He certainly did not think it “more logical” to include the intention to deceive in the definition of the lie.Thus, we may expect that Rhonheimer will not have the same doctrine of the object of the lie that Thomas has. Rhonheimer continues by returning to the Catechism with its statement in §2485 that by its nature the lie is to be condemned. His own point is that this “nature” refers to a basic intentionality, whether the will to deceive (Augustine) or the will to say what is false (Thomas). Again, however, I am astonished by Rhonheimer’s contention in the accompanying note 99, that “the intention to manifest something contrary to what one has in mind” (Thomas) and Augustine’s “intentio fallendi,” that is, the intention to deceive, are so close as to render the differences “practically insignificant!” They were obviously not insignificant for Thomas Aquinas in his analysis of human action. Rhonheimer moves right on to claim that “the most important point” is that “for Thomas” lying is not only “contrary to the nature of linguistic acts and to the truth” but is also “a violation of justice” (original emphasis). Now, this is not true.We must look carefully at his contention. Rhonheimer is certainly speaking in the spirit of the Catechism on lying. There we are told in §2485:“The deliberate intention of leading a neighbor into error by saying things contrary to the truth constitutes a failure in before he became bishop: cf. pp. 5–7 of On the Psalms. He is commenting on v. 7: “Thou wilt destroy all who speak a lie.” It is true that this is earlier than the De mendacio, wherein (II.2) he begins by setting aside jokes, because nobody thinks they are lies. However, even there, he still mentions that it is a real question whether perfect minds ought to speak that way. I notice also that St. Thomas, interpreting the list of lies given by Augustine in the De mendacio, at ST II–II, q. 110, a. 2, obj. 2 and ad 2, understands the fifth sort,“told out of the desire to please,” as “the jesting lie.” 102 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 496. 98 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. justice and charity.”The Catechism says such things even though it also says: “If a lie in itself only constitutes a venial sin, it becomes mortal when it does grave injury to the virtues of justice and charity” (§2484). Its concession of the possibility of “venial sin,” it would seem, must be through some sort of theory of “inchoate” acts (or are there injuries pertaining to the virtues of justice and charity that are not grave?).103 However, let us limit ourselves to Rhonheimer. He tells us that to mislead is unjust, as violating another’s right.We read: Contrary to an exegesis that seems to me to concentrate too unilaterally on article 3 of I–II, 110 [sic: read ST II–II, q. 110, a. 3], I believe that for St. Thomas lying is evil, not because it is contrary to the nature of language, but because it is opposed to the virtue of truthfulness, to communicative justice.104 Can we accept this reading of St.Thomas? It is certainly true that lying is presented as opposed to the virtue of truthfulness or veracity. Summa theologiae II–II, question 110, article 1 takes this as its topic. Three objections to lying’s being so opposed are presented. I note especially the third. The objector quotes Augustine to the effect that “the fault, the culpa, of lying is the desire to deceive,” and on this basis argues that lying is opposed to benevolence or justice, not to veracity. How does Thomas answer? He argues that the desire to deceive pertains rather to the perfection of the lie, rather than to its species, just as an effect does not pertain to the species of its cause.105 What should one gather from this answer of Thomas? He is not denying that deceiving people can be against justice or benevolence. He is denying that his basis for viewing lying as opposed to veracity is based on its deceptiveness; it is rather based on its proper species, willingly saying what is false.We seem already to be in another mental world than that proposed by Rhonheimer. Rhonheimer had told us, speaking “for Thomas” that “lying by its nature is not only contrary to the nature of linguistic acts and to the truth, but it is also a violation of justice.”106 That is, Rhonheimer sees the opposition to veracity in its opposition to justice. 103 Cf. ST II–II, q. 59, a. 4, c. and ad 2: [S]ins against justice are sins against charity and are mortal in kind; however, something, e.g., taken from another may be so insignificant as not to constitute injustice at all. On inchoate mortal sins, which thus are venial, cf., e.g., ST II–II, q. 35, a. 3 (1617a52–b18). 104 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 497, emphasis added. 105 ST II–II, q. 110, a. 1, obj. 3 and ad 3. 106 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 497, original emphasis. St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 99 Of course,Thomas presents veracity as annexed to the virtue of justice. It is like justice in being toward another and as involving an equality (here as between signified thought and its sign). It is unlike justice as regards the nature of the debitum, the owing. Where the virtue of justice gives to another what is owing legally, the virtue of veracity gives to another what is owing “morally,” inasmuch as “ex honestate,” out of goodness, one person owes to another the manifestation of truth.107 To an objector who questions veracity’s note of the debitum, something owed to another person, Thomas speaks of the social nature of the human being, and the need for truthfulness if society is to be preserved. However, we must note his conclusion: The virtue of truthfulness possesses the note of the debitum in some measure, “aliquo modo.”108 Still, it is precisely in the line of the debitum that it is unlike justice, properly so called. It is, of course, a serious question just what difference obtains between the debitum of justice and the debitum of veracity. A sin against justice is a mortal sin in kind.109 This is precisely what Thomas denies concerning the lie. I would say that Rhonheimer should have paid more attention to II–II, question 110, article 4, on whether every lie is a mortal sin.Thomas obviously does not think that all sins against veracity are mortally sinful. It is thus extremely dangerous, misleading, to speak as though sins against veracity are “a violation of justice.”110 107 ST II–II, q. 109, a. 3. 108 Ibid., ad 1.We will see more of this later. 109 ST II–II, q. 59, a. 4. 110 It is relevant to note Thomas’s In decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis, 4.15 (ed. Pirotta, no. 838), emphasis added: “Therefore, he [Aristotle] says firstly that one must speak about the aforementioned habits [boasting, irony, and truthfulness], but by priority concerning the truthful person. Now, we do not now mean to speak about the person who speaks the truth in statements in judicial investigations, for example, when someone questioned by a judge admits what is true, nor also about any matters pertaining to justice and injustice; for these pertain to another virtue, viz., to justice. Rather, we are focusing on that truthful person who speaks the truth by both his life and his word in such matters as make no difference as regards justice and injustice. Rather, he speaks the truth solely because of an habitual disposition: just as, above, there was discussion of the previous virtue, the case [of the person] who joyfully wishes to live together with others, not because of love, but because of the disposition of his own habit, so also this virtue does not speak the truth in order to preserve justice, but because of a suitability which it has towards speaking the truth.” And no. 9, emphasis added:“Then . . . [Aristotle] shows what pertains most of all to the truthful person he has in mind. And he says that such a person is seen to have in his words and deeds a moderation, avoiding both excess and deficiency: for he loves the truth, and speaks the truth even in those matters in which it makes no great difference as regards harm or benefit; and all the more in those things in which to say what is true or false makes some difference as 100 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. Is every lie a mortal sin?111 Definitely not. Reminding us that a mortal sin is an act contrary to the charity by which we love God and our neighbor, Thomas presents a discussion in which we can see the many possibilities involved in lying.We can see mortal sins of lying: (1) considering the lie just in itself, or (2) considering the further intention one has in lying, or (3) considering some incidental feature of the situation. What is relevant to our topic is the presentation of the lie “just in itself.” Thomas presents a hierarchy of types of lie. The word “lie,” from the viewpoint of moral taxonomy, requires the same sort of care as does “soul” in Aristotle’s De anima.That is, “soul” does not name one kind of thing only, but a hierarchy of forms, some more perfect than others.112 So, here, there is a hierarchy of lies. To consider the lie “in itself,” one looks directly at what it talks about:“ex ipsa falsa significatione,” at the false meaning itself.This is the object of the lie as a lie. Suppose one lies about God.That is a mortal sin. Suppose one lies about the nature of things or about moral formation.These are mortal sins, though less grave. Suppose one lies about a contingent truth, such that the person to whom one speaks is not harmed by it.That is a venial sin.113 We see, then, that it would be wrong to say that “lying is only a venial sin.”There are types of lies that are mortal sins, and there is a type of lie that is venial sin. This hierarchy should be related to Thomas’s conception of the truth that is the proper perfection of the human mind.Thomas himself does not make this comparison in the text of the question on lying, but I believe it is the relevant, and indeed crucial, background. It is not knowledge of simply any contingent fact that constitutes what properly perfects the mind.114 Rather, regards harm or help to another.And this is so because he abhors the lie just in itself, as something unseemly, and not merely inasmuch as it constitutes harm for someone else: such a person [Aristotle] says is praiseworthy.” 111 The following five paragraphs are an adaptation of a passage in my abovementioned paper: “Thomas, Lying, and Venial Sin.” 112 Aristotle, De anima, 2.3 (414b20–415a15). 113 ST II–II, q. 110, a. 4 (1997a31–b10). 114 See especially ST I, q. 12, a. 8, ad 4:“[T]he natural desire of the rational creature is to know all those things which pertain to the perfection of the intellect; and these are the species and genera of things, and the natures [rationes] of them, which anyone seeing the divine essence will see. But to know other singulars, and their thoughts and deeds, does not pertain to the perfection of the created intellect; nor does its natural desire tend towards that, nor again to know those things which are not yet, but which can be made by God. If nevertheless God alone were to be seen, who is the fountain and principle of all being and truth [qui est fons et principium totius esse et veritatis], that would satisfy the natural desire to know, which would seek nothing else, and would be happy.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 101 it is the truth (1) about God, the author of reality; (2) truth about the permanent features of reality—the species of things, the objects of science; and (3) truth about morals—the things we naturally desire to know.Thomas presents Adam, prior to the Fall, as perfect in the order of knowledge of science and morals (though not yet at the ultimate goal).Yet Adam was not thought to know “the thoughts of men, future contingents, and some singulars, such as how many pebbles are at the bottom of this or that stream.”115 So also, in teaching about the communication among angels,Thomas distinguishes carefully between the speech that is properly called “illumination” and the speech that is “merely speech.” The former communicates truth concerning God and the nature of things.The latter speaks merely of what depends on the will of this or that creature.116 Thus, lies about things that pertain to the proper perfection of the human mind are against justice and charity, as well as being against veracity.They are mortal sins. On the other hand, a lie that is false concerning contingent truth not pertaining to the person addressed is a venial sin. It is a disorder merely touching on a created good, a thing “for the end” (ad finem) and not the ultimate end. It is the conception of the mind and its proper perfection that allows us to assess the gravity of this sin and find it “venial.” Notice that the familiar division of the lie as jocose, officious, and malicious is not a consideration of the lie in itself, but in function of the further intended end one has in telling the lie.117 It should also be underlined that Thomas is saying that while all lies are against the virtue of veracity, only some modes of such sin are against justice and charity. Rhonheimer, in his argument for the importance of seeing lying as a violation of justice (that is, veracity), introduces various examples. He says: 115 ST I, q. 94, a. 3 (587a1–4). 116 ST I, q. 107, a. 2. Cf. also II–II, q. 60, a. 4, ad 2: [O]n whether, in judging the conduct of persons, what is doubtful ought to be interpreted for the better: it is said that in judging about things (“de rebus”), as distinct from judging persons (“de hominibus”), one ought to take care to judge them precisely as they are. However, in judging of persons, one ought, if possible, to judge the person favorably. Does this not reflect on the one who judges, when mistaken, as being an inept judge? Thomas says:“As for the man who judges, the false judgment by which he judges favorably of someone does not pertain to what makes his intellect bad [ad malum intellectus ipsius], just as it does not pertain essentially [secundum se] to the perfection of [his intellect] to know the truth concerning contingent singulars; rather, it [the favorable judgment] pertains to good inclination.” 117 ST II–II, q. 110, a. 4 (1997b11–26). 102 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. The fact that words, as Thomas affirms, are by nature signs of what one has in mind is not the reason for which lying is evil, but that for which every lie is evil. But it is also clear that for Thomas “to say what is false”— a falsiloquium—can be a lie (in the moral sense) only inasmuch as it is opposed to the virtue of truthfulness. “Formal untruthfulness” or “the will to tell a falsehood,” in which according to Thomas lying consists, is evil precisely because such a will is opposed to the virtue relative to veritas: truthfulness. The finality of the virtue of truthfulness constitutes, therefore, the “ethical context” in relation to which lying acquires its objective identity as a particular type of linguistic behavior and, therefore, also its specification as a morally evil act. One who “lies,” however, in the context of a scientific experiment so as to test a lie detector, or during a party game in which lying figures as part of the game, clearly does not sin, even if he does do something contrary to the nature of language!118 This, again, has some very surprising features. Formal untruthfulness, that is, a true lie, is evil precisely because such an act of the will is opposed to the virtue of truthfulness? Is not the cart being put before the horse here? After all, as Thomas says: [A] habit is said to be good or bad only from the fact that it inclines towards a good act or a bad act. Hence, it is because of the goodness or badness of the act that the habit is said to be good or bad. And thus it is that the act is stronger in goodness or badness than the habit: because that because of which something is such is all the more such.119 Rhonheimer is making our judgments concerning lying depend on the view of the virtue or habit involved. I would argue that we should conceive of the virtue and of the opposed vices in the light of the acts concerned. In the same discussion by Thomas as just quoted, an objector is presented, contending that the habit really dominates causally, producing a more perfect act.We read: [T]he cause is stronger than the effect. But the habit perfects the act, whether as regards goodness or as regards badness. Hence, the habit is stronger than the act both in goodness and in badness.120 118 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 497–98. 119 ST I–II, q. 71, a. 3: “habitus non dicitur bonus vel malus nisi ex hoc quod incli- nat ad actum bonum vel malum. Unde propter bonitatem vel malitiam actus, dicitur habitus bonus vel malus. Et sic potior est actus in bonitate vel malitia quam habitus, quia propter quod unumquodque tale, et illud magis est.” 120 Ibid., obj. 3:“Praeterea, causa est potior quam effectus. Sed habitus perficit actum tam in bonitate quam in malitia. Ergo habitus est potior actu et in bonitate et in malitia.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 103 And Thomas replies: [T]he habit is cause of the act in the order of the efficient cause, but the act is the cause of the habit in the order of the final cause, in function of which one considers the aspect of the good and the bad. And so the act has preeminence over the habit as to goodness and badness.121 I thus would say that we should form our conception of the virtue of veracity in the light of the sorts of act, as to goodness and badness, which pertain properly to it. It is crucial that one consider the sorts of sin that oppose a virtue, if one is to conceive of the virtue. When we thus consider the virtue of justice (properly so called) and its opposite, injustice, we find Thomas raising the question: Is it a mortal sin to do something unjust? The answer, as we have said, is “yes.”The acts we are speaking of here always do harm to the neighbor.122 Now, a different judgment is made, as we have seen, by Thomas concerning the sins that pertain to vices opposing veracity. Some of the sins are mortal in kind and some of the sins are venial in kind. Accordingly, since the teaching of II–II, question 110, article 1, is that all lies are opposed to the virtue of veracity, we must form our conception of this virtue and its proper mode of debitum in the light of these data.123 This makes II–II, question 110, article 4, reviewed above, on whether every lie is a mortal sin (with its negative answer), a key consideration for the adequate understanding of the virtue of veracity. We see the doctrine repeated in II–II, question 111, concerning hypocrisy. Article 3 presents hypocrisy as opposed to the virtue of veracity; and article 4 asks whether hypocrisy is always a mortal sin, giving a negative answer. It should be stressed that the reason for its not always being a mortal sin is not some elimination of the nature of hypocrisy. In the case of justice, in II–II, question 59, article 4, allowance was made for the possibility that 121 Ibid., ad 3:“habitus est causa actus in genere causae efficientis, sed actus est causa habitus in genere causae finalis, secundum quam consideratur ratio boni et mali. Et ideo in bonitate et malitia actus praeeminet habitui.” 122 ST II–II, q. 59, a. 4. 123 Careful consideration of the objections and replies in ST II–II, q. 110, a. 1, shows that it is precisely the lie as intentional false signifying that is what opposes it to veracity. In fact, the sed contra could lead one to think that it is rather the will to deceive; I would say that the replies of Thomas in the article, overall, “tone down” the sed contra. Lawrence Dewan, O.P. 104 the matter at issue might be so trivial that the person against whom one acts might not be displeased.124 No, here in the veracity context we read: It is to be said that there are two items to consider in hypocrisy, namely, the lack of holiness and the pretence of holiness. Therefore, if one means by “the hypocrite” a person whose intention bears upon both of these, such that someone does not care to have holiness but only to appear holy, as the word is customarily taken in Holy Scripture, thus it is evident that it is a mortal sin: for no one is totally lacking in holiness save by mortal sin. But if that person is called “a hypocrite” who intends to simulate the holiness he lacks because of mortal sin, then, even though he is in mortal sin, by which he is deprived of sanctity, nevertheless the very simulation is not always a mortal sin; sometimes it is venial. This is to be discerned in function of the end. If the end is repugnant to charity as regards God or neighbor, it will be a mortal sin: for example, when he simulates sanctity in order to disseminate false doctrine, or in order to obtain an ecclesiastical honor of which he is unworthy, or [to have] any other temporal goods in which he locates the end. But if the end intended is not repugnant to charity, it will be a venial sin, as, for example, when someone finds pleasure in the very fiction (about which Aristotle speaks in Ethics 4 [ch. 7 (1127b11)]:“someone more vain than bad.”) And the same line of thinking applies to the lie and mere simulation. It does happen sometimes, nevertheless, that someone simulates a perfection of sanctity that does not pertain to what is necessary for salvation; and such simulation neither is always a mortal sin nor is it always along with mortal sin.125 124 Ibid., ad 2. 125 ST II–II, q. 111, a. 4, emphasis added: “Respondeo dicendum quod in hypocrisi duo sunt, scilicet defectus sanctitatis, et simulatio ipsius. Si ergo hypocrita dicatur ille cuius intentio fertur ad utrumque, ut scilicet aliquis non curet sanctitatem habere, sed solum sanctus apparere, sicut consuevit accipi in sacra Scriptura, sic manifestum est quod est peccatum mortale. Nullus enim privatur totaliter sanctitate nisi per peccatum mortale. Si autem dicatur hypocrita ille qui intendit simulare sanctitatem, a qua deficit per peccatum mortale, tunc, quamvis sit in peccato mortali, ex quo privatur sanctitate; non tamen semper ipsa simulatio est ei in peccatum mortale, sed quandoque veniale. Quod discernendum est ex fine. Qui si repugnat caritati dei vel proximi, erit peccatum mortale, puta cum simulat sanctitatem ut falsam doctrinam disseminet, vel ut adipiscatur ecclesiasticam dignitatem indignus, vel quaecumque alia temporalia bona in quibus finem constituit. Si vero finis intentus non repugnet caritati, erit peccatum veniale, puta cum aliquis in ipsa fictione delectatur, de quo philosophus dicit, in IV Ethic., quod magis videtur vanus quam malus. Eadem enim ratio est de mendacio et simulatione. Contingit tamen quandoque quod aliquis simulat perfectionem sanctitatis, quae non est de necessitate salutis. Et talis simulatio nec semper est peccatum mortale, nec semper est cum peccato mortali.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 105 I return to my quotation from Rhonheimer above: The fact that words, as Thomas affirms, are by nature signs of what one has in mind is not the reason for which lying is evil, but that for which every lie is evil. But it is also clear that for Thomas “to say what is false”—a falsiloquium—can be a lie (in the moral sense) only inasmuch as it is opposed to the virtue of truthfulness. “Formal untruthfulness” or “the will to tell a falsehood,” in which according to Thomas lying consists, is evil precisely because such a will is opposed to the virtue relative to veritas: truthfulness.The finality of the virtue of truthfulness constitutes, therefore, the “ethical context” in relation to which lying acquires its objective identity as a particular type of linguistic behavior and, therefore, also its specification as a morally evil act.126 He distinguishes between “the reason for which lying is evil” and “[the reason] for which every lie is evil.”The difference between these two must lie in the use of the italics. I am afraid I do not see his distinction. He also speaks about “a lie (in the moral sense).” I would have thought that “lie” was the name of a moral act. Here it seems that Rhonheimer is using “falsiloquium” in a broad sense that would include even the merely material lie, for example, the case of the person who intends to speak the truth and happens to say what is false. That is, Rhonheimer’s “to say what is false” includes the word “say” in the way it is per accidens to the moral order. It is of course correct that Thomas means by “a lie,” as a properly human act, intending to say what is false. Moreover, such an authentic lie is a bad act and is against the virtue to which the good act corresponds. As Thomas teaches, veracity, also called simply “truth,” is a virtue because speaking the truth is a good act: [T]hat can be called “truth” by which someone says the true, in function of which [“truth”] someone is called “truthful.” And this truth, or veracity, necessarily is a virtue, because the very [act of] saying what is true is a good act; now, a virtue is what makes the one having it good and renders his deed good.127 If lying is evil, every lie is evil; and if every lie is evil, lying is evil. For Thomas, in II–II, question 110, article 1, every lie is against the virtue of truthfulness. The essence of the lie, as Thomas there maintains, is in the 126 Rhonheimer,“The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 497–98, original emphasis. 127 ST II–II, q. 109, a. 1, emphasis added:“potest dici ‘veritas’ qua aliquis verum dicit, secundum quod per eam aliquis dicitur verax. Et talis veritas, sive veracitas, necesse est quod sit virtus, quia hoc ipsum quod est dicere verum est bonus actus; virtus autem est quae bonum facit habentem, et opus eius bonum reddit.” 106 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. intention to manifest, to enunciate, that is, to assert something other than what one believes to be true.Thomas has already presented the virtue of veracity as consisting in manifestation; and so he can conclude that the lie, “directly and formally,” is opposed to the virtue of veracity. Since every lie is a sin and not every lie is a mortal sin, to act in a manner opposed to the virtue of veracity is not always a mortal sin. Rhonheimer says that it is “the finality of the virtue of truthfulness” that constitutes the “ethical context” in which lying “acquires its objective identity as a particular ‘type of linguistic behavior’ ” and therefore “its specification as a morally evil act.” Now, without altogether denying this, I would again note that this “finality” derives from the act, and not the finality of the act from the virtue. As said above, the goodness or badness of the act is the cause of the goodness or badness of the virtue or vice, and this is to say that the finality of the act causes the finality of the virtue and of its opposite. The reason lying is intrinsically bad, bad as such, is that given in II–II, question 110, article 3. Spoken words are naturally signs of what one has in mind; it is therefore unnatural and undue, indebitum, for someone to express vocally what he does not have in mind.128 What does Rhonheimer do with his observations about veracity as the “ethical context?” He says: “One who ‘lies,’ however, in the context of a scientific experiment so as to test a lie detector, or during a party game in which lying figures as part of the game, clearly does not sin, even if he does do something contrary to the nature of language!”129 Now, as regards the party game, this is a jocose lying, and so, according to St.Thomas, and the St.Augustine of On the Psalms, it is a lie and a sin, a venial sin (and even for the St. Augustine of On Lying, it is something one ought not to do). Of course, it is not surprising that Rhonheimer speaks of it as he does, since he admitted that he could not accept Thomas’s doctrine of the jocose lie, the lie which is meant not to deceive and which in fact deceives no one.130 128 ST II–II, q. 110, a. 3 (1995a39–50):“Mendacium autem est malum ex genere. Est enim actus cadens super indebitam materiam, cum enim voces sint signa naturaliter intellectuum, innaturale est et indebitum quod aliquis voce significet id quod non habet in mente. Unde Philosophus dicit, in IV Ethic., quod mendacium est per se pravum et fugiendum, verum autem et bonum et laudabile. Unde omne mendacium est peccatum, sicut etiam Augustinus asserit, in libro Contra mendacium.” Notice that it is Aristotle, with his conception of the virtue of veracity, so definitely distinguished from justice, who is supplying the reason. 129 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 498. 130 In fact, in some party games it might even be the role of the lie to deceive, at least for a time. Even the deception, in a matter of no seriousness to those involved, would be a source of pleasure and a venial sin. St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 107 I will leave aside for the moment the case of testing lie detectors and go directly to the Gestapo case. Rhonheimer says: Precisely for this reason the following two cases are completely different: (1) those who told representatives of the Gestapo, searching for Jews so as to deport them, that there were no Jews in the house, and (2) the case of a person, e.g. a functionary, a minister, a professor, or a father, who considers that in a particular situation their questioner does not have the right to know what he asks (or, which would be equivalent, that they themselves do not have the right to reveal that which the questioner wants to know) and who therefore thinks that he can licitly mislead his questioner with false answers or by responding “I don’t know.” In this second case, i.e. in the context of normal life, a “communicative community” exists between the people involved in which language fulfills its communicative function, and in which, given a “normal” situation or context, there exists a right that words spoken by one’s neighbor be expressions of truth, with a corresponding duty on the part of the neighbor.This is valid also for the case in which someone could, by lying, gain a great advantage or avoid a great disadvantage: a lie remains a lie, even if put forth with good intention. In the first case, on the other hand, a situation of war and aggression exists in which the social significance of linguistic acts is altered; to say what is false becomes an act of self-defense—and of the defense of others—not because “in this case” it is so, but because objectively there no longer exists between these persons a communicative community which could be damaged. For this same reason, neither can communicative justice be damaged in such a case. And this latter is the reason why saying what is false, abusing language, is morally evil and is called “lying.”131 Now, this is certainly not in agreement with St. Thomas. I say this because I take the “Gestapo” case, inevitable in ethics discussions on lying, as parallel to the case of the Egyptian midwives (Ex 1:19) discussed by Thomas. They lie to the pharaoh in order to save the Israelite male babies.Thomas considers this a venial sin,132 and I believe he is right. So also, I would say that the second case presented by Rhonheimer, that is, the parent, and so on, considering, let us say with good reason, that the questioner does not have the right to the information, also commits a venial sin in replying “I do not know” when he does know.133 Rhonheimer sees the difference in the two cases as depending on whether or not “a communicative community” exists between the speaker 131 Rhonheimer, “The Perspective of the Acting Person,” 498–99. 132 Cf. ST II–II, q. 110, a. 4, ad 4; and cf. my paper mentioned earlier, on lying and venial sin. 133 Cf. ST II–II, q. 110, a. 4 (1997b3–10 and 20–26). 108 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. and the questioner, and whether the situation is “normal” (meaning there is no war “in which the social significance of linguistic acts is altered”). Again, consider how different his judgment is from that of St.Thomas. First, take the virtue of veracity. At II–II, question 80, in explaining the debitum involved in this virtue,Thomas says: The morally [as distinct from “legally”] owing is that which someone owes out of the goodness of virtue. And because “the owing” includes the note of necessity, therefore such “owing” has two levels. [First] something is necessary in such a way that without it the morally good cannot be preserved; and this has more of the note of the “owing.” And this [sort of] “owing” is found on the side of the one who owes: and it is in this way that “the owing” pertains to the case of a man exhibiting himself to another [person] in word and in deed such as he is. And it is thus that veracity is annexed to justice, veracity through which, as Tully says, are said without change those things which are, have been, or will be.134 As already said, in the ex professo treatment of the virtue of veracity Thomas simply presents it as a virtue because saying what is true is a good act.135 In presenting it as a distinctive virtue, one different from the others, Thomas sees a special virtue wherever the good is found in a special way. He takes Augustine’s account of the good as locating it in “order” and thus sees a special good in a determinate order. He says: “Now, there is a special order inasmuch as our external words or deeds are ordered to something as a sign to something signified.”136 And so veracity is a special virtue. It is in II–II, question 109, article 3, that we have the treatment of the relation of this virtue to justice. It is like justice in pertaining to our relation to others and in having to do with an equalization, that is, of our 134 ST II–II, q. 80 (1828a4–17), emphasis added: “Debitum autem morale est quod aliquis debet ex honestate virtutis. Et quia debitum necessitatem importat, ideo tale debitum habet duplicem gradum. Quoddam enim est sic necessarium ut sine eo honestas morum conservari non possit, et hoc habet plus de ratione debiti. Et potest hoc debitum attendi ex parte ipsius debentis. Et sic ad hoc debitum pertinet quod homo talem se exhibeat alteri in verbis et factis qualis Est. Et ita adiungitur iustitiae veritas, per quam, ut Tullius dicit:‘immutata ea quae sunt aut fuerunt aut futura sunt, dicuntur.’ ” I might note here that the “owing” found on the side of the one to whom the item is owed includes such virtues as gratitude and vindication. These too are virtues that are necessary in the way that without them the goodness of morals cannot be preserved. 135 ST II–II, q. 109, a. 1, quoted earlier. 136 ST II–II, q. 109, a. 2 (1989a35–38):“Est autem specialis quidam ordo secundum quod exteriora nostra vel verba vel facta debite ordinantur ad aliquid sicut signum ad signatum.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 109 words with our thought. It falls short [deficit] of justice as to the sort of “owingness” (debitum) involved: “This virtue does not look to the legally owing, which justice looks to, but rather to the morally owing, inasmuch as out of goodness one man owes to another the manifestation of truth.”137 The first objection focuses on justice as rendering something due, owing, to another. It contends that in speaking what is true the speaker is not rendering a debitum, something owing, to another.Thomas, in reply, says: [I]t is to be said that because the human being is a social animal, one man naturally owes to another that without which human society cannot be preserved. Now, human beings cannot live with each other unless they believe each other, as manifesting the truth to each other. And therefore the virtue of veracity looks to the note of “the owing” in a certain measure.138 We do not have the “debitum” unqualifiedly, but “aliquo modo.” One cannot simply equate justice and veracity. What is to be noted especially that we are speaking of a goodness “owed” on the side of the speaker, as a person whose way of being favors communitybuilding.139 The point that the debitum of veracity as annexed to justice is very much “on the side of the one owing” is that it is a matter of being “a good social animal,” that is, a truth-telling being. It is a sort of “in itself foranother.” If one transforms it into the other person having a right or the community having a right, this is justice properly so called.Veracity simply identifies the goodness of the properly social animal.140 137 ST II–II, q. 109, a. 3 (1990a39–43): “Non enim haec virtus attendit debitum legale, quod attendit iustitia, sed potius debitum morale, inquantum scilicet ex honestate unus homo alteri debet veritatis manifestationem.” 138 Ibid., ad 1, emphasis added:“dicendum quod quia homo est animal sociale, naturaliter unus homo debet alteri id sine quo societas humana conservari non posset. Non autem possent homines ad invicem convivere nisi sibi invicem crederent, tanquam sibi invicem veritatem manifestantibus. Et ideo virtus veritatis aliquo modo attendit rationem debiti.” 139 Cf. above, concerning ST II–II, q. 80. 140 Cf. also Thomas, In Perih., 1.2.2, emphasis added: “Et si quidem homo esset naturaliter animal solitarium, sufficerent sibi animae passiones, quibus ipsis rebus conformaretur, ut earum notitiam in se haberet; sed quia homo est animal naturaliter politicum et sociale, necesse fuit quod conceptiones unius hominis innotescerent aliis, quod fit per vocem; et ideo necesse fuit esse voces significativas, ad hoc quod homines ad invicem conviverent. Unde illi, qui sunt diversarum linguarum, non possunt bene convivere ad invicem.” (“And if man were by nature a solitary animal, the ‘passions of the soul’ would suffice, by which he is conformed by things themselves so that he have within himself knowledge of them; but because man is an animal naturally political and social, it was necessary that the conceptions of one man be made known to 110 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. Now, Rhonheimer contends that if social bonds have already ceased to exist, one has no obligation to act according to this virtue. Is that Thomas’s idea? What does Thomas say about lying in war? Clearly, he holds that no one should lie to the enemy.This is never right. Concealment is right and even obligatory. To say what is false is never licit.141 Consider also Thomas’s view of the situation where one gives false testimony to save an accused from unjust judgment. Is such behavior a mortal sin? An objector argues as follows: A lie that helps someone and harms no one is a kind one [officiosum], which is not a mortal sin. But sometimes in false testimony there is such a lie, for instance, when someone presents testimony in order to free someone from death or from an unjust sentence which is intended by some false witnesses or by the perversity of the judge. Therefore, such false testimony is not a mortal sin.142 Thomas in reply acknowledges (by implication) that such testimony is merely a venial sin, precisely insofar as it is against an unjust judgment, which is no judgment at all; however, the testimony is still a mortal sin, because it was given under oath.143 My point is simply that I believe Thomas would call a venial sin what Rhonheimer is saying is no sin at all, that is, the lying to the Gestapo. He would judge a venial sin a lie told to thwart injustice even in a community that has broken down (the perverse judge and the false witnesses). others, which is brought about by the spoken word, and so it was necessary that there be significative spoken words, in order that men live with each other.”). 141 Cf. ST II–II, q. 40, a. 3, emphasis added: “aliquis potest falli ex facto vel dicto alterius . . . ex eo quod ei dicitur falsum, vel non servatur promissum. Et istud semper est illicitum. Et hoc modo nullus debet hostes fallere, sunt enim quaedam iura bellorum et foedera etiam inter ipsos hostes servanda, ut Ambrosius dicit, in libro De officiis.” (“[S]omeone can be deceived by a deed or by something said by another . . . by the fact that something false is said to him, or by not keeping a promise. And this is always illicit. And in this way no one ought to deceive the enemy: for there are certain rights of war and pacts even among enemies, [rights and pacts] which must be preserved, as Ambrose says.”) 142 ST II–II, q. 70, a. 4, obj. 2: “mendacium quod alicui prodest et nulli nocet, est officiosum, quod non est peccatum mortale. Sed quandoque in falso testimonio est tale mendacium, puta cum aliquis falsum testimonium perhibet ut aliquem a morte liberet, vel ab iniusta sententia quae intentatur per alios falsos testes vel per iudicis perversitatem. Ergo tale falsum testimonium non est peccatum mortale.” 143 Ibid., ad 2:“Ad secundum dicendum quod iniustum iudicium iudicium non est. Et ideo ex vi iudicii falsum testimonium in iniusto iudicio prolatum ad iniustitiam impediendam, non habet rationem peccati mortalis, sed solum ex iuramento violato.” St.Thomas, Rhonheimer, and the Moral Object 111 St. Thomas includes all lies, including those that are venial in kind— indeed, including those that cannot deceive—in his point that they are against the virtue of veracity. I would say that veracity involves a “community building” attitude on the part of speakers, rather than one of merely conforming so long as the community bond is acceptable.The “debitum” involved is seen on the side of the speaker, not the person spoken to. It is a matter of being the sort of person it is desirable to live with. We see this in II–II, question 80, concerning the levels or grades of the “owing” (debitum). Of course, what most evidently harms the social bond is the lie that is a mortal sin. What can one say about the lie told to test a lie-detector machine? Does this really happen? My first thought is that I would want to test my lie detector against someone actually intending, and for serious reason, to deceive another person. I would test my machine “in the field,” so to speak, making my judgment as to the quality of the machine on the basis of available independent means of judging that the tested person was lying. Thus, I would ask a police department or a social agency to use the machine, and I would make studies as to “how it did.” If a person is asked to lie in a test so as to assess the machine, the person is being asked to lie; the lie is a venial sin. I see no significant difference there than in the case of a game that involves attempting to deceive other players temporarily.There the deception itself would be the source of the pleasure of the game. It is a “jocose lie.” It is a venial sin according to St. Thomas. In testing the machine, however, the machine that is, of course, the instrument of the person administering the test, one is lying for a serious purpose; thus, it would be an “officious” lie, and a venial sin. What does this all come to? I do agree that the lie is essentially the intention to manifest as true what one does not believe is true. It is a moral act because it is a voluntary act. Its proper object, its proximate end, is the manifested untrue. The willful manifestation is the act. It is against the virtue of veracity but not necessarily of justice. I cannot agree with what Rhonheimer called his “exegesis” of St.Thomas. Conclusion The question raised by Martin Rhonheimer, whether the moral object is a thing or an action, has been the occasion for exploring many texts of St. Thomas, and paying close attention to methodical issues. The reader will have seen that I come down hard on the side of “the thing,” but the thing inasmuch as it has a proportion to human action,144 the thing “in 144 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 2, ad 1. 112 Lawrence Dewan, O.P. the perspective of the acting person.”Where Rhonheimer has insisted on the constitutive role of intention, I would place the constitutive role in the end as the object of the will, the intellectually apprehended object. And I would insist that “the correct ends of human life are given.”145 Rhonheimer has also provided reason to reread St. Thomas on lying. Here again, I could not agree with him, but his approach obliged us to look much more closely at the virtue of truthfulness and at the subtleties N&V of treatment in its regard provided by Thomas. 145 ST II–II, q. 47, a. 15 (1677a11–12), emphasis added. Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 6, No. 1 (2008): 113–138 113 Aristotle and Human Movements K EVIN L. F LANNERY, S.J. Pontifical Gregorian University Rome, Italy A RISTOTLE thought and wrote a great deal about the structure of the human act. Many people with an interest in his philosophy do not realize this, however, since most of the pertinent remarks are contained not in his ethical works but in the Physics. He understands the human act to be bound up with movement, so most of what he says about the structure of movements applies also to human acts. Indeed, in discussing movement in Physics he is as likely as not to employ examples taken from the realm of human practice. He speaks, for instance, of an object’s rolling (201a18) or of fire’s being carried up (192b36), but it seems to come much more naturally to him to use examples such as a person’s becoming musical (188b1–2) or a doctor’s healing a patient (195b18–19).These latter, of course, are human acts. Aristotle’s remarks on the structure of the human act are especially useful for those trying to understand Thomas Aquinas’s theory of human action since there are so many rival interpretations of this theory on offer today. Since in setting out this theory Aquinas often cites Aristotle (and, of course, cites none of the later interpreters),Aristotle serves as a control factor: If an interpretation conflicts with his theory, it less likely to be a correct interpretation of Thomas. I did most of the work on this essay while serving as the Mary Ann Remick Senior Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. I am thankful for Mrs. Remick’s and the Center’s support. The essay is part of a larger work in progress on Aristotle’s philosophical psychology. I have left out a number of technical discussions concerning the Greek text; they will be included, God willing, in the completed work. 114 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. Action and Movement in Metaphysics ix, 6 Before offering an analysis of human actions as movements, we must first establish that it is permissible to speak of human actions—that is to say, all human actions—as movements. Once past that hurdle, we can enter into the details of Aristotle’s analysis of actions as movements. The first passage that interests us is found in the last third of Metaphysics ix, 6, where Aristotle appears to make a sharp distinction between action (pqaΔniy) properly speaking and movement (jímgriy): Since of the actions which have a limit none is an end but all are relative to the end (e.g. of “to thin [it],” “making thin”),1 and the things, when one is thinning in such a way that they are in movement, are not that at which the movement aims, these are not the action [pqaΔniy] or at least not the complete one (for there is no end). But in that exists the end, i.e., in the action. E.g., at the same time one sees and has seen, one understands and has understood, thinks and has thought: but it is not true that at the same time one learns and has learnt, or is being cured and has been cured. And at the same time one lives well and has lived well, and thrives and has thrived. If not, the process would have had at some time to break off, as when someone thins; but, as it is, there is no such thing: one lives and has lived. Of these actions, then, we must call the one set movements [jimǵreiy], and the other actualities [e’meqceíay]. For every movement is incomplete: making thin, learning, walking, building.These, therefore, are movements, and they are incomplete. For one journeys and has journeyed not at the same time; nor does one build and has built, nor does something come to be and has come to be, nor is moved and has moved at the same time—but each is different, i.e., “moves” and “has moved.” But it is the same thing and at the same time that one has seen and sees, or thinks and has thought.The latter such action, then, I call an actualization [e’méqceiam], the former a movement [jímgrim]. (1048b18–35) Part of what Aristotle is saying here is certainly linguistic. Consider the process of thinning something, that is, making something thin, such as a human body.2 The thinning of that particular body is only accomplished 1 ’Epeì dè sxΔ m pqánexm x ‘ Δ m ’e´rsi péqay ot’delía sékoy a’ kká sxΔ m peqì sò sékoy, oi‘ Δom sotΔ ’irvmaimem g‘ ’irvmaría [at’só]. . . . This reading differs somewhat from the two standard critical editions: i.e., Ross (Wilfred D. Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics: A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1953]) and Jaeger (Werner Jaeger, ed., Aristotelis Metaphysica [Oxford: Clarendon, 1957]). It is closer, however, to the original manuscripts. 2 In a somewhat parallel passage in Physics ii, 3, in which Aristotle is discussing causality and, in particular, final causality, he speaks of curing or making healthy (’i´ma t‘ciaímg∫ —194b34) and of thinning (g‘ ’irvmaría—194b36). Both concepts Aristotle and Human Movements 115 once it is thinned to the desired dimensions. So, while engaged in the process one can say that one is thinning (the body) but not that the thinning has been accomplished. Moreover, once the body is thinned, it is no longer true that one is thinning it. On the other hand, with respect to activities such as understanding or thinking, one can look back on earlier stages in the process in which one is currently engaged and say truthfully that also during those stages one was doing what one is doing now; for instance, one is thinking now and has been thinking for ten minutes. But also before now (e.g., in the ten minutes between starting to think and now), thinking was entirely (completely) there.The reason for this, as Aristotle explains, is that understanding and thinking are wholly present whenever and for as long as one engages in them since the end of either activity need not be awaited but is present in every moment of the activity. One is reminded of the distinction made in Nicomachean Ethics i, 6, (1096b13–14) between things good in themselves and things good for the sake of other things:Thinking and understanding are good in themselves; thinning is for the sake of something else, health, for instance. But, as John Ackrill famously pointed out some forty years ago, Aristotle’s argument in Metaphysics ix, 6, is not without its problems.3 Most people would say that listening to a piece of music is an action (a pqaΔniy) and not a movement (a jímgriy), since presumably one enjoys the piece throughout its playing. One’s satisfaction—and therefore one’s end—is present in every moment and does not arrive only when the piece is finished. And yet the piece of music does have an end: A moment when it concludes, a point at which it hopes to arrive. Strictly speaking, one cannot claim truthfully to have heard Bach’s first Brandenburg Concerto until the concerto is finished; thus, listing to a concerto is not unlike thinning something and yet it is a practice.4 appear in Metaphysics ix, 6, 1048b18–35 (although the latter employs the verb t‘ciáfeim instead of t‘ciaímeim). It would seem, therefore, that in Metaphysics ix, 6,Aristotle has in mind regimes of weight loss, engaged in ultimately for the sake of health. 3 J. L. Ackrill,“Aristotle’s Distinction between Energeia and Kine–sis,” in New Essays on Plato and Aristotle, ed. R. Bambrough (New York: Humanities Press, 1965), 121–41. 4 The literature on the issues raised by Ackrill is huge. See, for instance, Terry Penner,“Verbs and the Identity of Actions: A Philosophical Exercise in the Interpretation of Aristotle,” in Ryle: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. O.Wood and G. Pitcher (New York: Anchor Books, 1970), 393–460; Daniel W. Graham, “States and Performances:Aristotle’s Test,” Philosophical Quarterly 30 (1980): 117–30; Kathleen Gill,“On the Metaphysical Distinction between Processes and Events,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (1993): 365–84; Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, “Aristotle’s Kine–sis/Energeia Distinction:A Marginal Note on Kathleen Gill’s Paper,” 116 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. Although there is no denying that Aristotle employs the present/imperfect tense distinction repeatedly in Metaphysics ix, 6, 1048b18–35 in order to establish his general point, there is more going on in the passage than that—and ultimately his point is not linguistic but metaphysical. This is especially apparent in the first sentence of the passage, which speaks of “the things,” referred back to in the subsequent line as “these” (satΔsa). These things are apparently stages in the (so to speak) “life” of a movement or of a moved thing qua moved.5 These stages, Aristotle says, occur before the end (e.g., the thinned body) is actually present; they are present, that is, while the thing is still “in movement.”They are to be distinguished from the action properly speaking, referred to in the first sentence of the passage as “to thin [sotΔ ’irvmaímeim],” which is itself distinct from “the making thin [g’ ’irvmaría].” The idea is that with some actions we can consider their various stages— that is, “the things [at’sà]” in the various states in which they find themselves along the way—and see that they are distinct from the “essence” of the action itself, which does not contain in itself stages along the way but is simply doing that thing.These stages (considered as parts of an action) are not yet the action properly speaking, which gets its intelligibility from the completed action. In other words, our idea of “to thin something” comes from our knowledge of things that have been thinned; and this idea is transferred also to the process of making thin, g’ ’irvmaría—even though, if we look at any stage in the process of making thin, we will not see the thinned thing. No stage in the process of getting to the end can, therefore, be called the action—nor can the whole process itself, qua process—since, while the action is being executed, the end is not yet present.The action itself, that is, “to thin” (sotΔ ’irvmaíeim), is doing that thing—properly speaking, because it does have the end right in itself. Strangely, although we do do things like thinning bodies to a certain dimension, that action as such never appears among the phenomena presented to us since all we ever actually see are parts of the process.And yet, once the process is finished, we can and do call it “thinning (something).” That Metaphysics ix, 6, 1048b18–35 is making such points is confirmed by looking a couple of chapters ahead to Metaphysics ix, 8, the main theme of which is that actualization (e’méqceia) (mentioned also at MetaCanadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (1993): 385–88. In my own interpretation of Metaphysics ix, 6, 1048b18–35, I am much indebted to chapters 2 to 7 of Carlo Natali, L’action efficace: Études sur la philosophie de l’action d’Aristote (Leuven: Peeters, 2004). 5 In this passage, Aristotle permits himself to move seamlessly from talk of movements to talk of things qua moved. Aristotle and Human Movements 117 physics ix, 6, 1048b34) is prior to potentiality (dt́maliy), which Aristotle closely associates with movement (see 1050a14; also Metaphysics v, 12, 1019a15–20). Actualization is prior, he says, “in substance” (ot’ría∫ — 1050a4), “because everything that comes to be moves towards a principle, that is, an end” (Metaphysics ix, 8, 1050a7–8). He goes on to use some of the very examples he uses in Metaphysics ix, 6 (1048b18–35): And while in some cases the exercise is the ultimate thing (e.g., in sight the ultimate thing is seeing, and no other product besides this results from sight), but from some things a product follows (e.g., from the art of building there results a house, along with of the act of building [paqà sg̀m oi’ jodólgrim]), yet none the less the actualization is in the former case the end and in the latter more the end than the potentiality is. For the act of building [oi’ jodólgriy] is in the thing built, and it comes to be—and is—at the same time as the house. (1050a23–1050a29) Ironically, the act of building, which is in some sense the action (or pqaΔniy), arrives only when the process of building is past. This approach helps us past some difficulties in Aristotle’s (in any case) belabored present/imperfect distinction: “at the same time one sees and has seen, one understands and has understood, thinks and has thought; but it is not true that at the same time one learns and has learnt, or is being cured and has been cured.”The examples in which both the present and imperfect tenses are possible are plausible enough: Looking back at the moment when a man saw (“has seen”), we recognize that at that moment he sees; looking back at the moment when he understood, we see that he understands (at that moment). But is it really true that, looking back at the moment when a man learned (the moment referred to when we say, he “has learnt”), he was not learning? Commentators have struggled to come up with meanings of the imperfect that make sense of this—that is, so that a man’s learning implies that he has not learnt.These meanings, however, although possible, are obviously imposed upon the imperfects as they appear in the passage—and those can be interpreted in various ways. Surely Aristotle’s Greek readers would have experienced the same troubles we do in assigning a meaning of the imperfect that makes sense of what he says—supposing that they thought Aristotle was making a linguistic point. But if the linguistic distinction (such as it is) is imprecise, the metaphysical point is clear and cogent; so we should prefer that as Aristotle’s point in Metaphysics ix, 6, 1048b18–35.What is that point? It is twofold: (1) if the end is not present in the stages that lead up to an action, neither is that action’s full intelligibility—that is, its essence (or “substance”); and 118 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. (2) if, on the other hand, in some cases there are no “stages leading up to x” (i.e., in cases in which the end is never absent), all that there is to the action is present when it is engaged in: to use Aristotle’s examples, whenever one sees or understands or thinks, all there is to seeing and understanding and thinking is present at that moment. Or, as Aristotle puts it, using yet another example, at the moment when a man “has lived well,” it was (is?) true to say that he lives well. Were this not the case, “the process would have had at some time to break off, as when someone thins”—that is to say, there would have had to be a metaphysical break such as there is between thinning and its full intelligibility, which arrives only with the end; “but, as it is,” says Aristotle, “there is no such thing: one lives and has lived.” When, therefore, Ackrill notes that we can posit an end in the various moments of listening (for instance) to a concerto, he misses the point. What he says is true, but still “listening to concertos” derives its intelligibility as a concept from concertos; and concertos are not finished until they are finished. Ackrill is confusing the end made present by the pleasure we take in listening with the completion (the end) of the concerto. It is interesting that Aristotle addressed this precise issue in the last book of the Nicomachean Ethics: We have discussed movement with precision in another work [i.e., the Physics], but it seems that it is not complete at any and every time, but that the many movements are incomplete and different in kind, since the whence and whither give them their form. But of pleasure the form is complete at any and every time. Plainly, then, pleasure and movement must be different from each other, and pleasure must be one of the things that are whole and complete.This would seem to be the case, too, from the fact that it is not possible to move otherwise than in time, but it is possible to be pleased; for that which takes place in a moment is a whole. (Nicomachean Ethics x, 4, 1174b2–9) The point connected with the “whence and whither” is that the completed form arrives only at the point whither (poiΔ) the movement is headed; but all this is quite independent of one’s enjoying the movement while it is yet incomplete. To return, though, to our main argument, a person might object that the use of the Physics, dedicated as it is to the analysis of movements, is largely irrelevant to the analysis of human action since Aristotle in Metaphysics ix, 6 sharply distinguishes movements from actions—regarding them, at best, as incomplete actions. But we can now see that Aristotle has no intention in Metaphysics ix, 6 of completely separating the analy- Aristotle and Human Movements 119 sis of movements from the analysis of actions. Quite the contrary: He holds that a movement is only really intelligible in terms of the end to which it leads, which Aristotle associates with the action itself (or its intelligibility). If in some sense we want to distinguish certain human acts from movements strictly speaking, we must still say that they are dependent on movements—the process of going from one point to another,“the whence and whither” (Nicomachean Ethics x, 4, 1174b5; also Physics vi, 1, 231b29)—for their very essence or form.This is tied up with our natures as material substances. That Aristotle does not intend with Metaphysics ix, 6, 1048b18–35 to keep actions out of physics (as he understood that science) is indicated by his calling movements actions throughout that passage. It is true, he does suggest at one point that there is something lacking in them qua actions, but in the rest of the passage they are described as actions without qualification: from the opening phrase (“Since of the actions [pqánexm] which have a limit none is an end but all are relative to the end . . .”) to the concluding one (“The latter action [sg̀m soiat́sgm], then, I call an actualization, the former [e’ jeímgm] a movement”). (The feminine forms here show that Aristotle still understands that he is speaking about types of action.) If a movement is an “imperfect action” in any way, that is only because that which it makes possible has not arrived at its completion. Nor does Aristotle ever deny in Metaphysics ix, 6, 1048b18–35 that actions such as seeing, understanding, and thinking have the sort of structure that would allow them to be analyzed alongside movements, properly speaking.That is, they still have objects or ends, even though these are in some sense within the actions themselves. Consider once again the first phrase of the passage:“Since of the actions which have a limit none is an end but all are relative to the end. . . .” Aristotle is implicitly acknowledging here that an action could serve as an end, although these actions—since they have ends—are not ends.There is no reason to believe that Aristotle thinks that the actions that do serve as ends must be just that, that is, that they are only understandable as the indivisible endpoints of movements, with no internal structure of their own. After all, in this very passage he speaks of one’s thriving [et’ dailomei :Δ 1048b26] as an end, and he insists that thriving [et’dailomía] is an activity; and seeing and understanding and thinking, even if they are, in a sense, ends in themselves, still have objects: One sees, understands, and thinks something.6 This desire to analyze all actions as one does movements is much in evidence in Physics v, 2, where Aristotle sets out what he means by the 6 See, for instance, De anima ii, 11 (424a10–12); iii, 10 (433a15–17); and Physics v, 1 (225a1). 120 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. various terms he will be employing in that book. He divides change (lesabokǵ) into three: generation (cémeriy), corruption (uhoqá), and movement (jímgriy). Movement itself is split into four: alteration (a’kkoíxriy), increase (at’´ngriy), decrease (uhíriy), and locomotion (uoqá).7 As Sarah Waterlow (Broadie) has pointed out, calling some alterations movements is a bit of a stretch.8 When thought of a friend comes into my mind, does anything go from here to there; is there really here a whence and a whither? But whatever its linguistic plausibility, it is clear that Aristotle holds that even such alterations are to be analyzed as events that aim at some object, which gives them their sense. So, Aristotle is not separating movements and actions but just saying that nothing in a movement corresponds to the essence of the action. This entails the at-first-glance odd conclusion that much of the analysis in Physics is about things that are not wholly intelligible in themselves. But this sounds more likely and Aristotelian once one sees that it corresponds to the progress of the general argument in both Physics and Metaphysics: from phenomena and entities that demand an explanation in terms of act, to entities that are pure act. Aristotle says in chapter 8 of Metaphysics ix, that is, not long after his discussion of thinning and seeing, and so on, that obviously “actualization is prior in substance to potentiality; and as we have said, one actualization always precedes another in time right back to the actualization of the eternal prime mover” (Metaphysics ix, 8, 1050b3–6). The lower things, that is, the things bound up with the elements, “imitate [lileisΔ ai]” the imperishable things, says Aristotle (“For these also are ever active; for they have their movement of themselves and in themselves”; Metaphysics, ix, 8, 1050b29–30). Before long, that is, in book xii, one finds Aristotle’s treatise on unmoved movers (especially the first unmoved mover), a treatise inserted either by Aristotle or by an early editor who realized that the trajectory of the argument demands it. In Physics the movement of the argument is similar: from a consideration of general principles (books i and ii), to the analysis of movement and its various accompaniments (books iii to vi, and parts of 7 Aristotle offers a somewhat different division in Physics iii, 1.There jímgriy and lesabokǵ; are equivalent concepts, and jímgriy is divided into cémeriy, ’ kkoíxriy, at ’´ngriy, uhíriy, uoqá. I take Aristotle’s shunting cémeriy uhoqá, a and uhoqá off to one side in Physics v, 2, to be connected with the coming discussion of the first unmoved mover in books vii and viii (however they ended up at the end of Physics). Implicit here would be the idea that the realm of generation and corruption belongs properly to the first unmoved mover (and perhaps certain other subsidiary unmoved movers). 8 Sarah Waterlow, Nature, Change and Agency in Aristotle’s Physics: A Philosophical Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 199–203. Aristotle and Human Movements 121 vii), finally (in books vii and viii) to the consideration of unmoved movers.9 Human Acts and single movements: Physics iii, 3 It is time now to move into Physics and, in particular, into Aristotle’s analysis of particular actions.The most salient characteristic of this analysis is the way Aristotle identifies in any act levels or lines of intelligibility. First of all, there is intelligibility in a movement itself—and independently of whether it has any connection with a human act. There is an intelligible structure to a stone’s rolling down a hill, even if no one notices its rolling: It is a rolling, with points on top moving below, then to the top, then below, and so on. This is a different species of physical movement from sliding (for example), where points down below stay below. Part of the intelligibility of a rolling is also the fact that it has a beginning and an end, both in time and in space. It may not reach that end, but, as we shall see more clearly below, the end that it would have reached, were it not impeded, fixes its species. Such basic, physical intelligibility is present in human acts. A useful example is one Aristotle discusses in some detail in Physics iii, 3: that of teaching (sò didárjeim) and learning (sò lam h ámeim).10 He insists that an instance of teaching and the corresponding learning pertain to the same movement (202b19–21).The “account” (202a20) of each is different—that is,“the account which states their essence [sòm kócom . . . sí g’m ei’mai kécomsa: 202b12]”11 (the essence of teaching and the essence of learning)—but below this level, and presupposed by the two accounts, is the movement described truly and in such a way that it belongs both to the teacher’s teaching and the learner’s learning. Aristotle compares this latter movement to the road between Thebes and Athens.12 When Cebes considers traveling from Thebes to Athens and 9 Strikingly similarly to Metaphysics xii, Physics viii, is not fully integrated into the work as a whole. For evidence of this, see, e.g., Physics viii, 1 (251a8–9 and 257a34–b1). There are problems also with the integration of book vii into the whole: See Wilfred D. Ross, Aristotle’s Physics: A Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1936), 11–19. 10 The example is discussed also in Physics viii, 5; obviously, it refers to human acts. Learning is mentioned also in Metaphysics ix, 6, i.e., at 1048b24–25, as an example of a complete practice. 11 The word “account” translates kócoy, a notoriously difficult word to translate. In Latin—and in a context such as this—it comes out ratio; in English we could use the translation “intelligibility.” 12 The example occurs at 202b13–14 and (partially) at Physics vi, 1 (231b30–232a1); at Physics iii, 3 (202a19–20), he speaks of the ascent being identical to the descent, which is essentially the same example. 122 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. Socrates considers traveling from Athens to Thebes, they think about same thing: that is, the same road.The parallel with the teaching-learning example is not exact: Cebes’s going to Athens is quite a different action from Socrates’s going to Thebes. But the point is clear enough: Even though teaching and learning are in essence quite different, they refer to a common event or movement. This movement (qua movement) does not necessarily enter into either the teacher’s or the student’s thinking.When a teacher says to himself in the morning, “I must teach today between 9 and 10,” and his student says to himself the same morning, “I am sure to learn something today between 9 and 10,” the one thinks of teaching, the other of learning: But both make reference to—or, perhaps better, their thoughts presuppose—the same movement (or series of movements). Aristotle alludes to such levels of intelligibility also a chapter earlier, in Physics ii, 2, where he discusses the knowledge of “matter” (t‘´kg) required by an artist or technician. A doctor, he says, needs to know about health but also something about bile and phlegm, in which health is realized; a builder knows not only the form of houses but also something about “bricks and beams” (Physics ii, 2, 23–6).The matter in this second example is clearly already “building material” and not just trees or unhewn wood; similarly, bile and phlegm are already bodily matter, not matter that might be found (as its proper matter) in something else, such as a house. A bit later,Aristotle says that a doctor must know sinews and a blacksmith bronze “up to a point” (194b9–13): that is, up to the point at which such knowledge no longer serves their purposes. Beyond that point is found the matter that might be involved in a mere movement, qua mere movement. Aristotle also speaks in Physics ii, 2, about two types of art (or craft): the “using art” (g‘ vqxlémg) and the “making art” (g‘ poigsijǵ) (194a36–7).13 An example of the former would be helmsmanship; of the latter, the art of making helms.“For the helmsman knows and prescribes Ô what sort of form [ei’ doy] a helm should have, the other from what wood it should be made and by means of what operations [jimǵrexm]” (194b5–7). But both the helmsman and the helmsmaker must simply have wood, otherwise their craftsmanship will never get going. Similarly, the teacher and the student (in most circumstances) need not know anything at all about how the sound of the teacher’s voice affects the student’s auditory nerve, but such material factors—which belong to the movement common to the teaching and the learning—must be in order, otherwise the teaching/learning will not occur. 13 In Thomas Aquinas these become the ars usualis and the ars factiva. Aristotle and Human Movements 123 The reason that Aristotle insists upon this point—that is, that teaching and learning share a lower intelligible order (or level)—is that the intelligibility of either teaching or learning depends on it: that is, not just the existence of the events but their very intelligibility and general structure. He explains why this is so in a fairly complicated passage in Physics iii, 3, in which, as he tells us, he is confronting a dialectical—or logical—difficulty. It runs as follows: This view has a dialectical difficulty. Perhaps (I) it is necessary that there should be an actualization [e’méqceiam] of the agent and [an actualization] of the patient.The one is agency and the other “patiency”; and the outcome and end of the one is an action, that of the other a passion. Since then they are both movements, if they are different movements, in what are they? Either (A) both are in what is acted on and moved, or (B)1 the agency is in the agent and (B)2 the patiency in the patient. (If we have to call also the latter an “agency,” the word would be used in two senses.) Now, in the latter case (B), the movement will be in the mover, for the same account will hold of mover and moved. Hence either every mover will be moved, or, having movement, it will not be moved. If, on the other hand (A), both are in what is moved and acted on— i.e., both the agency and the patiency (both teaching and learning, being two, are in the learner)—, then, first, the actualization of each will not be present in each and, second, there is the absurdity of two movements’ being moved together. For what will these two alterations [a’kkoix́reiy] Ô of one thing towards one form [ei’ doy] be? But this is impossible. But (II) will there be one actualization? But it is contrary to reason to suppose that of two [movements] different in kind [ei’´dei] there should be one and the same actualization—and this will be the case if teaching and learning are the same, and agency and patiency, i.e., if to teach is the same as to learn and to act is the same as to be acted upon—so that the teacher will necessarily be learning everything that he teaches, and the agent will be acted upon. (Physics iii, 3, 202a21–b5) A lot of the initial obscurity of this passage is cleared up once one understands that Aristotle has tacitly eliminated two of the four possibilities presented to him by the dialectical question posed. That question is (initially) whether one might not be able to say that in an action such as teaching/learning there are two movements (and not—as Aristotle holds— one), corresponding to two actualizations, the two being distributed between the agent and the patient in various ways.The first possibility (A) would have agency (poígriy) and patiency (páhgriy) both in the patient;14 14 I use here “patient” in the philosophical sense of one who undergoes a change; of course, it has nothing directly to do with doctors or medicine. 124 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. the second (B) would have agency in the agent and patiency in the patient. The two possibilities tacitly eliminated are (C) agency and patiency both in the agent, and (D) agency in the patient and patiency in the agent. Aristotle sees some plausibility in possibility (A), probably for reasons connected with the theory we have seen set out in Metaphysics ix, 6: The essence of a movement is in the thing worked upon. He accepts the plausibility of (B) without difficulty. Aristotle apparently regards possibility (C) as obviously implausible. This will seem strange to many modern philosophers, used to locating human acts within the agent himself; but, again, it is connected with Aristotle’s understanding of potency and act, which he regarded as more plausible than do many philosophers after Descartes. Possibility (D) so reverses one’s intuitions that Aristotle quite reasonably decides not to mention it. It is worth noting too that, although Aristotle denies that teaching and its corresponding learning involve two movements, he does hold that each is a movement. At 202a25 he asks,“Since then they are both movements, if they are different movement, in what are they?” Clearly, the claim that each is a movement is different from the claim that they are different movements.The implication, of course, is that he believes that they are the same movement.We shall see below that this idea is important for establishing the objectivity of the structure of the human act for Aristotle. So then, in Physics iii, 3, 202a21–b5, Aristotle takes up possibility (B) before taking up possibility (A). He suggests at first (B)1 that the movement corresponding to the agency might be in the agent and (B)2 that the movement corresponding to the patiency might be in the patient. Or, actually, he considers only (B)1. The reason for this has, in effect, been given just earlier, in the parenthesis at 202a27–28:“If we have to call also the latter [i.e. patiency] an ‘agency,’ the word would be used in two senses.” If patiency, qua patiency, corresponds to a movement (and the movement to the patiency), then patiency must be (anomalously) agency, that is, an act in itself. So, Aristotle need only consider (B1 ), that a whole movement is in the agent; to consider (B2 ) would be to consider the same thing.And his argument is that if a whole movement is in the agent, “either every mover will be moved, or, having movement, it will not be moved” (202a30–31). Why do these two latter alternatives present themselves? Aristotle anticipates the explanation in the first paragraph of Physics iii, 3, that is, just before our passage. “Movement,” he says, “is in the movable” (202a13–14). (Here again we see the Metaphysics ix, 6 idea that a movement’s essence is found rather at its end than at its beginning or in the process of getting to the end.) Aristotle and Human Movements 125 It [movement] is the fulfillment of this potentiality by the action of that which has the power of causing movement; and the actualization of that which has the power of causing movement is not other than the actualization of the movable; for it must be the fulfillment of both. A thing is capable of causing movement because it can do this, it is a mover because it actually does it. But it is on the movable that it is capable of acting. (Physics iii, 3, 202a14–17) The emphases in this passage—especially those in the second last sentence: the potential mover is thus since “it can do this,” the mover is a mover because “it actually does it”—are taken over from the Revised Oxford Translation and bring out Aristotle’s meaning effectively.15 A movable thing is always waiting for the action of its mover; a mover is always leaning toward its movable: that leaning forward is in its very definition. So, when Aristotle says at 202a30–31 that, if all of a movement is in the mover, “either every mover will be moved, or, having movement, it will not be moved,” he is alluding to what he has already explained. If any movement is just in the mover, it either possesses all its intelligibility necessarily and cannot not succeed as a mover or, not needing to get anywhere, it never (so to speak) leaves the station. Or, to put things somewhat differently, any movement has to have a receptacle: It has to work upon a (true) patient. If one says that the whole of a movement is in the agent, one says in effect either that the agent is the patient (i.e.,“every mover will be moved” [202a30]) or that the movement is not a movement (“having movement, it will not be moved” [202a30–31])—both of which are impossible:Agency is not patiency, and having movement (at least, of this type) implies being moved.16 Since actions such as teaching and learning are movements, they must share the same general structure. If all of teaching was in the teacher, it would either be impossible for an attempt to teach to fail or (alternatively) such an attempt could never take off, since there could be no “leaning forward” to teaching’s own fulfillment (someone taught): Teaching (or whatever this would be) would be sufficient unto itself. Moreover, if every teacher 15 Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Complete Works of Aristotle:The Revised Oxford Transla- tion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 344. 16 When Aristotle suggests at 202a30 that it is clearly incorrect to say that “every mover will be moved,” it seems unlikely that he has in mind his position that in tracing back a line of movers we must eventually get to one that is unmoved (Physics vii, 1, 242b71–72). That position requires considerable argumentation (such as he performs over the course of Physics vii, 1); here in Physics iii, 3, he seems to be referring to something obviously false. The only candidate would seem to be the idea that any mover is (qua mover) moved. I discuss below the sense in which it is contradictory to say that a mover is moved. 126 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. is necessarily the person taught (since teaching is necessarily in the teacher) and that is what teaching is, we can no longer make sense of the difference between teaching and being taught. Indeed, there will be no such thing as being taught since that implies passivity and teaching has no connection with that. Moving on (or back) to alternative (A), if we says that both agency and patiency are in the patient, “then, first, the actualization of each will not be present in each and, second, there is the absurdity of two movements’ being moved together” (202a34–35). This initial expression of the difficulties connected with alternative (A) is likely to strike one as questionbegging and unconvincing. Of course the actualization will not be present in each:That is what makes (A) the alternative that it is; and what is wrong with saying that two movements occur together? But the two points are interrelated and why together they constitute a problem is explained— very cryptically—in the subsequent sentence: “For [càq] what will these two alterations of one thing towards one form be?” (Aristotle is using the Ô here in its non-Platonic sense, according to which term “form” [ei’ doy] any power or potency impresses a form upon that which it affects.) The problem inherent in proposal (A) is that, given that both actualities are placed in the patient (not one actualization in each: agent and patient), the whole usually complementary relation “teaching-learning” occurs in the one thing (the patient), which has a single structure: that of receiving a form. But that structure must now accommodate two forms: that which teaching impresses (which pertains no longer to an agent but—absurdly—to a patient) and that which learning impresses.And both these forms finish at the same logical spot: that is, with the patient being impressed with those two forms.17 But two forms cannot get into the same spot like this. It only adds to the absurdity that the two forms are complementary (and therefore contraries): teaching and learning. Why can two forms not get into the same logical spot? Let us say we have a lamp and a punch-press: the first impressing light upon a metal object, the second literally impressing an image upon the same object.The lamp does what it does (sheds light), thereby impressing its proper form (the object was dark, now it is bright); the punch-press does what it does (punches), thereby impressing its form (the object has now a different shape). But it is nonsense to suppose that the lamp and the punch-press could enact their respective alterations and finish up with the same form. 17 I use the peculiar expression “logical spot” here instead of “logical space” since the word “spot” seems to suggest (more than does the word “place”) the idea that the logical area referred to belongs just to the object: It fills it up and there is nothing there other than the object (so conceived). Aristotle and Human Movements 127 What would this one form be? (Recall that Aristotle asks about teaching and learning:“[W]hat will these two alterations of one thing towards one form be?” [202a35–36].) They will be, presumably, some combination of visual appearance and shape. But that is absurd:Those two things cannot fit in there, that is, into the one form. Aristotle waves the notion away saying, “But this is impossible” (202a36). That brings us finally to section (II) of the above quotation (which can be dealt with very briefly). Here Aristotle changes the assumptions of the “dialectical difficulty,” continuing to presuppose that there are two movements (which is the heart of the problem), but saying now that there is just one actualization (e’méqceia).18 But saying that there is just one actualization is ridiculous, says Aristotle: Teaching and learning, agency and patiency end up being the same thing. And if this is so, “the teacher will necessarily be learning everything that he teaches, and the agent will be acted upon” (202b4–5). As we shall see shortly, this is something that Aristotle very much wants to avoid: that is, that (for example) “the teacher will necessarily be learning everything that he teaches.” What, then, is the upshot of this refutation of the dialectical proposal that in cases of complementary action such as teaching and learning there are two movements involved? We can identify at least two consequences. First, Aristotle has demonstrated that the idea that (e.g.) teaching and learning do not share a common movement but are two movements is to be utterly rejected: It leads to absurdities in each of its possibilities. So, we have no choice except to return to his thesis that (e.g.) teaching and learning are one movement.19 But this means that the structure of such actions is objective, in the sense that it does not belong just to the teacher or just to the learner. Of course, teaching and learning are “subjective” in another sense: One cannot do either without intending to do so; nonetheless, the action that a teacher intends to perform when intending to teach has a structure that depends not just on that intention. Second, this objective structure has an object: that is, something standing over and against the agent. As one sees in analyzing the argument of Physics iii, 3, 202a21–b5, if one posits two movements, one in effect takes away the object.We saw this under possibility (B). If the agency is in the agent and the patiency in the patient, in fact the patient becomes agent. 18 This possibility represents perhaps an objector’s feeble attempt to solve the prob- lem of getting two forms into one logical spot, or perhaps Aristotle considers it simply in order to set aside another set of possibilities. 19 Aristotle would consider the proposal that there are more than two movements involved as patently absurd; and he presumes that any action—or, at least, any human action—is a movement. 128 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. Since the object of agency is in a patient, under this supposition there is lacking an object. Indeed, as we have seen, there is lacking the very sense of agency, that sense including the idea of leaning forward toward something different from the agent: that is, toward an object. And, under (A), if both agency and patiency are in the patient, the object becomes obscure and (finally) incoherent: One cannot get two forms into the same logical spot. So, positing two movements results in impossibilities all around. According to the rules of reductio ad absurdum, we must therefore conclude that there is just one movement and that it has an object. As Aristotle says at the beginning of Physics iii, 3, “movement is in the movable” (g‘ jímgriy e’m sx∫ Δ jimgsx∫ Δ : 202a13–14). Another Example in Physics viii, 5 We find a similar conclusion in the very rich chapter Physics viii, 5, at 256b27–254a24.This is a useful passage to consider—and to understand— since it helps us to see how Aristotle’s analysis of human action is of a piece with his understanding of the structure of the universe more generally. Although often and correctly considered part of Aristotle’s proof of the existence of a first unmoved mover (God), the chapter is, in fact, replete with examples of human acts (agents wielding sticks, teachers teaching, etc.). Playing a key part in this account is an idea we have just seen: the— in fact, absurd—idea of a movement in which agency and patiency are the same thing, that is, a movement without a whence and a whither. The position that Aristotle sets out to refute maintains that everything that is moved is moved by something that is moved. For Aristotle, on the contrary, although he acknowledges that some things are both moved and mover (but not in the same sense), eventually we must arrive at something that is just mover, without being moved. Such a thing stops the regress: If an unmoved mover is in the particular system under consideration, an infinite regress cannot be generated. So, if someone wants to argue for an infinite regress (i.e., that there is lack of intelligibility built right into the system), he has two options: Either he can say that all movement is accidental and lacking in intelligibility, that is, things do move “but not because of the being moved itself ” (i.e., not because they are on the passive end of movements intelligible as movements of that particular type) (Physics viii, 5, 256b5–7); or he can say that there are things that are both moving and moved because of the being moved itself: that is, because moving is being moved (Physics viii, 5, 256b7). In either situation there would be no ultimate thing that was just mover; an infinite regress would be possible. Aristotle and Human Movements 129 Aristotle’s refutation of the first horn of the dilemma does not interest us a great deal. It will surprise no one to learn that he denies that the movements we encounter in the world are ultimately haphazard and without intelligibility. But his refutation of the second horn contains a proof that any full explanation of a movement must come down eventually to a movement-type structure. He argues as follows: Now, if the mover is not accidentally but necessarily moved and, if it were not moved, it would not move, then the mover in so far as it is moved must necessarily be moved either (a) with the same kind of motion, or (b) with a different kind. I mean [regarding (a)], the heating thing would itself be heated and the thing making healthy made healthy and the transporting thing transported. (Physics viii, 5, 256b27–34) In this first possibility (a) within the second horn, Aristotle is supposing that, whatever (for example) heating is, its analysis never goes beyond concepts that somehow involve heat: that is to say, the concepts “heating thing” and “heated thing” (although in the end this possibility also undermines any actual attempt to distinguish “heating thing” and “heated thing”). So, according to this conception, “the heating thing would itself be heated”; but, says Aristotle, “it is obvious that this is impossible”: For one must break things down to the smallest components: for instance, if something teaches some geometry, this must be taught the same thing; and, if one throws, one must be thrown in the same way as the throwing. (Physics viii, 5, 256b34–257a3) In other words, it is somewhat plausible to say that the heating thing is the heated thing since we can in effect posit some aspect of the thing (some “smallest component”) by which it heats, another in which it is heated. But then the question becomes whether such components— literally, “atoms”—can themselves be split into aspects in order to make sense of heating.Aristotle’s implicit answer is that no:They are atoms and therefore unsplittable.20 So, the two consequences in the above passage are obviously absurd: that is, for that which teaches x, it itself to be learning precisely x; or for someone who throws to be thrown in that very act of throwing. So, even if in some sense we can say (for example) that the teacher learns while 20 In the passage,Aristotle speaks of something teaching since he has in mind a teacher who does in some sense teach himself. Rejecting the notion that a teacher qua teacher might learn, he holds that such talk makes sense only if we posit some part—or aspect—of the teacher that teaches, another in which he learns. 130 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. he teaches, if we are looking to analyze that act of teaching—if we are pressing on to the basic “atoms” of intelligibility—we are going to have to identify someone or something taught: a patient. In this case, the patient would be another aspect of the teacher’s own soul, the point being that, if we are not to violate the principle of non-contradiction and forfeit all intelligibility, we cannot include this being taught (this patiency) in the teaching (the agency) itself. The other possibility (b) within the second horn—that is, the other way of saying that we do not ever have to arrive at an unmoved mover standing opposite its object (and that causality is not haphazard)—is to say, not that the lines of intelligibility are compressed in the way we have just seen (i.e., so compressed that there is no difference between agent and patient), but that they are more extended: They go on and on, one line of intelligibility actually being part of another, that one (of which the first is part) part of another, and so on. In introducing his refutation,Aristotle first restates the position he opposes: Or [regarding (b)] if things are not thus [as in (a)], one kind [of change] comes from another distinct kind: e.g. the transporting thing is augmented, the thing augmenting this is altered by something else, the thing altering this is moved with respect to some other movement.21 According to this scenario, the process of augmenting something’s size results not in a bigger thing (which would be for the augmentation to have a true—and its proper—patient) but in something that (actively) transports: sò uéqom; also, according to this scenario, that from which the augmenting thing issues, itself has no conceptual connection with augmentation. It is important to note that in the passage just given there appears no passive participle: In the translation, the transporting thing is said to be “augmented.” There is no other way to render the idea into understandable English. But the word “augmented” corresponds to the Greek passive infinitive at’námerhai. So, Aristotle never speaks even remotely of an augmented thing. His imaginary interlocutor (under this possibility) is allergic to passive objects of agency: For him, there are just agents and verbs.22 21 Physics viii, 5 (257a3-6). Just previously (256b33–34) he has represented the posi- tion more succinctly: “or (b) the healing thing is transported, the transporting thing augmented.” 22 Toward the end of this more general passage (Physics viii, 5, 256b27–257a14), Aristotle does speak of a jimot́lemom (257a11), but there he is speaking in his own voice, saying that in a rightly conceived theory the moving thing comes before the thing moved. Aristotle and Human Movements 131 Aristotle’s stated objection to all this is not what someone might at first think: that is, it is not to the permutation and fusion of types of change (which is certainly objectionable in its own right and which Aristotle certainly does not accept),23 but to the fact that even such an analysis generates eventually two agents—sans patients—of the same type. The reason these must be generated, says Aristotle, is that the types of change are limited in number (257a7).To use his own example, in working back from “transporting thing” to augmentation (which involves an “augmenting thing”), to alteration (and an “altering thing”), and so on, since there are a limited number of types of change, eventually the analysis must arrive at another “transporting thing.”And to have such a pair in the system, says Aristotle, is no better than to say that the teacher learns qua teaching (257a12–14). The problem conclusion is generated, of course, by excluding from the outset true patients; and the reason for doing that was to avoid ever saying that there is something that is just mover and not moved. So, we see, Aristotle’s doctrine of an unmoved mover is not unconnected with his doctrine that any action has an object distinct from the action itself. Not only must an unmoved mover have an object, but its unidirectional character (always toward something else) allows there to be an end to a regress. Were this unidirectional character not found in every change, that is, were everything in the universe just agents and act (there being no distinction between agency and patiency), an unmoved mover would be impossible. Aristotle’s argument in Physics viii, 5 also gives us an anticipatory glimpse into the philosophical satisfactoriness to be expected from his analysis of movements (and therefore of human acts). Since each bipolar unit of intelligibility is self-contained and can be understood fully as what it is (this action going toward that object), once one understands that unit, one can rest assured that at least some genuine knowledge has been gained. One can then ratchet up to yet more extensive knowledge. One need not worry that, for instance, since the intelligibility of transportation itself is embedded in the intelligibility augmentation, the latter in the intelligibility of alteration (and so on), that one can never really understand any change. Even if it is true that we can frequently add to what we know of a particular change, either by investigating a level of a particular change not yet considered or by fitting a change more adequately into the larger picture, we are adding to what we already really know. What knowledge we have, therefore, can be solid—and incrementally increased. 23 This fusion (and confusion) of types of change would fall under the haphazard or accidental change excluded at Physics viii, 5 (256b7–27). 132 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. Non-Contradictory Action As mentioned above, Sarah Waterlow calls attention to the fact that Aristotle utilizes his analysis of movement—as always involving going to an object that completes it as movement—much more widely than would seem to be warranted. Even a thought, which does not have an endpoint in the way thinning does, still has for Aristotle something toward which it goes. Waterlow is not worried about this, maintaining that Aristotle simply extends the analysis to changes in which there are not literally present agent and patient—and we need not be worried either. But it will be useful to consider how this analysis (as applied more widely) fits into his philosophy as a whole—for, indeed, it is not an isolated doctrine but one demanded by what Aristotle calls “the most certain principle of all” (Metaphysics iv, 3, 10005b17–18): the principle of non-contradiction. The fourth book of the Metaphysics is largely devoted to the investigation of this principle. Its earliest formulation there is found toward the end of the third chapter: “the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject in the same respect.” He immediately adds a word of explanation of the qualifying phrase “in the same respect”:“and let us presuppose, in the face of dialectical objections, any further qualifications that might be added” (Metaphysics iv, 3, 1005b19–22). If an Aristotelian says, for instance, that it is impossible for a person to be knowledgeable and not knowledgeable at the same time and another objects that Theaetetus knows what a polyhedron is but does not know how to fight, the Aristotelian can reply that the principle of non-contradiction allows one to add whatever qualification (or specification) needed in order to deal with such an objection. Thus, he can always say something like, “To be more precise, it is impossible for a person to be knowledgeable regarding polyhedrons and, at the same time, to be not knowledgeable regarding polyhedrons.” If the objector is persistent and says,“Well, he can be knowledgeable regarding some polyhedrons and not knowledgeable regarding the others,” the Aristotelian can reply: “It all depends on what I meant: I meant that Theaetetus is knowledgeable regarding all; therefore, I cannot claim—without violating the principle of non-contradiction—that he is not knowledgeable regarding all.” There are a number of possible objections that might be addressed in order to bring out what Aristotle understands by the principle of noncontradiction, but we are interested here not in defending the principle but in understanding how it bears upon human acts.And, in this connection, of primary importance is the fact that the principle of non-contradiction, as Aristotle understands it, is not primarily about propositions. Later in book Aristotle and Human Movements 133 iv, he does say that “the most indisputable of all beliefs is that contradictory statements are not at the same time true” (Metaphysics iv, 6, 1011b13–14), but that comes quite a bit later (ch. 6) and is best understood as a consequence of the principle of non-contradiction as enunciated earlier. So Aristotle’s most basic principle is not the modern ¬(p & ¬p) but has to do rather with what attributes can be found simultaneously in the same thing. This wider conception of the principle of non-contradiction is ideally suited to the sort of analysis we have already encountered, for it allows us to understand as falling under the principle the fact that a particular individual cannot at the same time both want and not want x in the same respect. At one place in Metaphysics iv, Aristotle actually applies the principle of non-contradiction within the field of human acts, using an example of a type frequently found in the Physics.As he does throughout Metaphysics iv, Aristotle is arguing here against the notion that something and its contradictory might be simultaneously true.“Why,” he asks,“does a man, who thinks he ought to, walk to Megara and not remain inactive?” (Metaphysics iv, 4, 1008b14–15). That this man intends to head toward Megara excludes his intending to remain where he is.We saw similarly in Physics iii, 3 that Aristotle rejects the notion that a mover qua mover might be a patient or that something having movement might not be moved (202a30–31). The attributes under consideration here are again agency and “patiency,” being in motion and not being in motion; and as always, there is something that is one or the other. This brings us into a position to answer the main question in this section: How can Aristotle attribute movement-like structure to nonmovements? What authorizes him to attribute to any action an internal structure in which something goes toward an object that completes that action? The answer is that the structure of movement can be reduced to the principle of non-contradiction—which in turn becomes the definitive factor.That a movement has the structure it has is part and parcel of its being impossible for an agent’s heading toward one object to be reconciled with his not doing that—for a man’s heading to Megara (for example) to be reconciled with his remaining where he is. What is important is not so much there being literal distance between the terminus ab quo and the terminus ad quem as the fact that going to Megara and not cannot get into the same logical spot together, that is, at the same time and in the same respect—which latter (i.e., the “respect in which”) can be specified as much as needed. The soundness of this claim depends on showing that even nonmovements have something that completes them; but all that this requires is showing that any such activity involves a state different from—but 134 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. related to—that which comes from it.We find such relationships throughout Aristotle’s philosophy, in particular when he talks about things (physical objects, events, concepts, etc.) qua this or that, for he typically uses this locution to set up a unity of intelligibility together with a difference (a distinct something). An animal, Aristotle acknowledges, is in a sense generated from an animal; but it comes, he says, from an animal “not qua animal, for that is already there” (Physics i, 8, 191b22).What then does it come from? From its progenitor: not qua animal, however, but qua progenitor. And a progenitor is distinct—even conceptually—from its offspring. Similarly, a patient is cured by a doctor not qua healthy but qua sick. Not only does a person have no need of curing qua healthy but even to speak of curing someone qua healthy makes no sense. The situation is the same with actions properly speaking (i.e., nonmovements). Even if, as Aristotle says in Metaphysics ix, 6, the end of thinking is always present while one is thinking, still the object of thinking is different from that which thinks (the intellect).A thinking thing is different from a thought thing, even if a thinking thing—but not qua thinking—can become an object of thought. Aristotle discusses these matters in a passage in De anima iii, 4. In the passage he asks two questions: First (A), how can intellect think, given that thinking is to suffer something (429b25) but intellect is simple and impassible, having nothing in common with anything else. (To do and to suffer [429b25–26], he interjects, appear to be possible only insofar as there is something common to both, that is, linking the doing and the suffering.) Second, (B) is intellect itself knowable? The difficulty connected with (B), Aristotle explains, is that, if intellect is knowable, it would seem to entail that: either (B.1) intellect will hold of the other things (if it is not knowable as other and the object of knowledge is something one in species) or (B.2) it will be possessed of some mixture, which makes it knowable like the others. (De anima iii, 4, 429b27–29) In other words, if intellect itself is knowable, it must either (B.1) “hold”— be predicable of—all other things, so that they would be intellect too, or (B.2) intellect itself must possess some mixture of that which it is not (i.e., other) and in this way become knowable like other things. Both of these apparent consequences (B.1 and B.2) Aristotle regards as false, but B.2 he regards as obviously so: Intellect cannot be an amalgam of activity and passivity, for the very notion is without intelligibility. He will not come back to B.2. Aristotle and Human Movements 135 One notes that both of the questions—(A) and (B)—assume that what intellect knows is other.This is precisely the issue we have been addressing: that is, whether even non-movements can be understood as “heading toward” something, that is, as internally articulated. Aristotle assumes—at least with respect to thinking—not only that they can be so regarded, but that they must be. Understanding how they head toward something is to solve the problems that provoke the questions. He takes up question (A) first: How can the impassible suffer? His response is that we must simply recognize that there are two ways of suffering (being passive): one in which the suffering thing changes character (and this would not be acceptable for intellect, which is always the same); another in which both things—the agent and the patient—remain throughout, without changing character (see De anima ii, 5, 417b2–7). Intellect is a patient in this second sense. Intellect is all things, says Aristotle (De anima iii, 4, 429a18; iii, 8, 431b21; also iii, 5, 430a14–16); that is to say, all things enter into the intellect without their matter (if they have any). But they do so only potentially and not before they are thought of.Thus, intellect’s having an object (i.e., a passive aspect) is a function of its being what it is: that which can think. It can sometimes think this, sometimes think that. So, intellect goes toward something even though it is never (literally and per se) in movement. Regarding question (B), whether intellect is itself knowable, Aristotle replies that it is known as are any knowables (430a1).The knowables are divided into two classes: those, in knowing which, the intellect must leave behind their matter; those which the intellect need only think of and thus know. But in both cases a potency gets put into act in a specific way. In order to know things connected with matter, this is fairly obvious:A rock or a flower are only potentially known (430a6–7). When there is no matter involved, things are not quite as obvious. That which thinks and the known thing, says Aristotle, are the same.This is not to say that intellect is identical with absolutely everything (that, of course, is the position he is refuting) but that that which knows is limited by that which it knows. Intellect will not (as in B.1) be predicated of all things so that they all become intellect; on the contrary, it is limited by what particular thing it knows at whatever particular moment.As Aristotle says here at 429b30, intellect is nothing actually until it knows, that is, knows something; knowing of whatever type is, therefore, a matter of being brought into act “in the direction of ” something else. We might add (as a corollary to Aristotle’s argument here in De anima iii, 4) that the knowable is also distinct from the thinking (i.e., not just from the intellect), even if it is always present with it. If it were not, any 136 Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. thinking would be either thinking of everything (since there would be nothing to delimit what the thinking was about) or thinking of nothing (which is similarly without specification of what is thought). One recalls Aristotle’s statement at Physics iii, 3, 202a30 that, if all that there is to movement is in the agent, then “either every mover will be moved or, having movement, it will not be moved.” The thing toward which any activity moves must not only be distinct from it but also something intelligible: a logical spot and not, for instance, some merely physical object. As we have seen, the coherence of even movement (the most intuitively accessible type of action) depends on the idea that diverse forms cannot fit into the same logical spot. But it is very clear that the present analysis of action reveals an intelligible object since the object is just the other end of an intelligible construct.The concept “thought” has no sense independently of the concept “thinking”: There is a path of intelligibility, from one to the other, that holds these two together; and, without this intelligibility, they would not be.24 In this sense, then, even a complete action in the sense discussed in Metaphysics ix, 6, is like a movement:25 Even if its end is always present along with it, it does have to have an end. At the other end of the stick, so to speak, there is a logical spot; and there is room at that spot for nothing except that which corresponds to the action per se. The present argument has to do, however, not simply with logic but with the logical structure of reality. If something (for instance, doing something) is something (i.e., doing that), it is not not that something (i.e., it is not not doing that). As Aristotle remarks in Metaphysics iv, “not to have one meaning is to have no meaning at all . . . , for it is impossible to think of anything if we do not think of one thing” (Metaphysics iv, 4, 1006b7–10). If per impossibile we could get doing something and not into the same logical spot, it would have no shape, no form.This applies not only to movements, such as going to Megara, but also to things like seeing and thinking. If someone sees Socrates coming toward him, he does not not see him—unless senses in which he both sees and does not see are specified. (“I see the front of Socrates but not his back.”) Thus even actions that are not movements in the sense identified in Metaphysics ix, 6—that is to say, complete actions—have objects. Conclusion We now have a fairly comprehensive understanding of how Aristotle views the structure of the human act.The modern temptation is to view 24 See again De anima iii, 4 (429b25–26). 25 That is, at Metaphysics ix, 6 (1048b21–22, 29–30). Aristotle and Human Movements 137 the human act as without structure—or, at least, not to attend too closely to what structure might have to be acknowledged. Is the doctor to be blamed for killing the fetus when he removes the cancerous uterus containing it; is that death to be attributed to his will? We cannot give a precise answer to such questions (it is argued or tacitly assumed) since choices, wants, and so on, are sloppy things: A person sort of wants this, even while he sort of wants that; what matters, though, is where the person’s heart is, not any objective—or quasi-physical—analysis of what he does. Or someone might argue in a more sophisticated manner that all that matters morally is the state of the agent’s soul (or mind):An analysis of the external act contributes nothing to our understanding of the human act’s moral character. Such approaches or attitudes are hard to argue against. If an interlocutor is disinclined to regard even acknowledged structure in what someone does as relevant ethically, the best we can do is simply to depict the structure in as perspicuous a manner as possible and hope that this will lead him to acknowledge that that does correspond to what the agent does.Aristotle was faced with similar interlocutors in his own day: those who expended every effort to discover infinity—the unknowable—in movement (see, for instance, Physics vi, 7). His response was always patiently to break into intelligible bits and to order that which they claimed was not orderable. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 6, No. 1 (2008): 139–156 139 Veritatis Splendor §78 and the Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act S TEVEN A. L ONG Ave Maria University Naples, Florida Introduction H AVING just written a book on the subject of this symposium—The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act 1—the thought of now endeavoring to cover similar ground with greater concision, and amidst rich and detailed work contributed by minds of the stature of Fathers Dewan, Flannery, and Brock, is understandably daunting. Nonetheless, what is perhaps not quite so daunting—especially given the profundity of the contributors to this present symposium—is briefly to identify the critical philosophic elements whose exclusion by both analytic and continental authors has tended to obscure the teaching of Aquinas with respect to the object of the moral act. The result of such exclusion—an account of the object either as transcendentally constituted by the subject (with a natural residue, to be sure, but without adequate acknowledgement that the integral nature of the act performed is always included in the object) or as a simple logical entity, a naturally disembodied “proposal”—is manifestly what accounts for the volatility of moral theology today in relation to the moral teaching of the Church. It is one of the principal effects of the etiolation of metaphysics and of natural philosophy, whether this derive from transcendental subjectivity and a priorism, from logicism, or from the simple prestige of scientistic preoccupations to the derogation of philosophic truth. Indeed, over the past several years the proliferation of different theories of human action, and of the placing of actions according to object 1 Steven A. Long, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2007). 140 Steven A. Long and species, has become a growth industry. Many of these accounts make some more or less thorough and serious claim to represent the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. In the Catholic world, such a reference is virtually a de iure requirement.Yet the understanding of moral action has become absorbed in an increasingly complicated and undecipherable congeries of schemas for double effect. It is also clear that persons who share similar accounts of the nature of the moral object yet nonetheless seem to differ on crucial cases. On matters ranging from craniotomy to the use of condoms by married persons with AIDS, these authors differ among themselves in ways that seem to have more to do with what one might call Catholic intuitions than with the analysis of the object proper. In a remarkable analysis, doctors Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle have argued that when the doctor crushes the skull of an unborn child in the operation known as craniotomy, this action is medical because what the doctor proposes is not harming the child, but merely redesigning the circumference of the skull.2 Dr. William May has expressed some measure of dissent from this view, and perhaps it is not incorrect to say that Fr. Martin Rhonheimer also does not concur with this analysis.Yet none of these figures seems to affirm the normative role of unified natural teleology in the determination of the object and species of the moral act. Of course, it is also true that the immediate invitation to reconsideration of the nature of the object of the moral act derives from the controversies engendered by diverse readings of Veritatis Splendor §78: By the object of a given moral act, then, one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world. Rather, that object is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person.3 Understanding these words is an important task. Nonetheless, the recent discussions of this part of the encyclical seem to function as a proxy for 2 Cf. John Finnis, Germain Grisez, and Joseph Boyle, “ ‘Direct’ and ‘Indirect’: A Reply to Critics of Our Action Theory,” The Thomist 65 (2001), in the main text after note 55: “the baby’s death is a side effect of changing the dimensions of its skull” (32), and, within note 38, the following responding to Fr. Stephen Brock’s criticisms:“But Brock fails to show the object of the surgeon’s chosen act is better described as ‘producing the crushed skull of an innocent person’ than as ‘craniumnarrowing for the purposes of removal from the birth-canal’ ” (26, note 38). 3 “Ergo nefas est accipere, velut obiectum definiti actus moralis, processum vel eventum ordinis tantum physici, qui aestimandus sit prout gignat certum rerum statum in mundo exteriore. Obiectum est finis proximus deliberatae delectionis, quae voluntatis personae agentis est causa.” Veritatis Splendor §78 and the Moral Act 141 an account of the object of the moral act that treats normative unified natural teleology as somehow merely physicalistic, or extrinsic to the object of choice (as though an agent did not precisely choose acts with natures ordered toward ends in function of which such acts may serve whatever further purposes bestir the agent to action). Likewise, the controversy about §78 of Veritatis Splendor has been even further specified within the controversy over the nature of condom usage by married couples suffering with AIDS for the sake of avoiding disease transmission. But how we view this discussion will be greatly affected by our understanding of the nature of moral action in general. Without arguing about the formulations of others, I should like simply to put forward three propositions in my own voice, both as true, and as essential to the teaching of St.Thomas Aquinas with respect to the nature of human action.The order of these propositions is presented not apologetically, in relation to the particular matter at hand, but systematically, according to the order in which the evidence is best approached. The analysis articulated in these propositions affirms the principled necessity for natural teleology both for the knowledge of moral norms and for the intelligibility of genuinely human action. In a fourth consideration I will then apply the prior analysis in arguing against the controversial suggestion that condom use by a married couple suffering with AIDS might be licit, adverting alike to the famously difficult historical case of the Holy Office’s direction to the sisters in the Belgian Congo. It is my hope that this analysis may point the way to renewed systematic consideration of the crucial role of natural teleology within Catholic moral teaching. Perhaps it may also encourage some to turn to the more extensive treatment of these questions in my book, which is more broadly and extensively ordered to the same end. First Proposition: Unified Natural Teleology The first proposition is that understanding the nature of moral action requires prior understanding of normative unified natural teleology. By teleology I do not mean, of course, the teaching that Veritatis Splendor identifies under the names of consequentialism, proportionalism, and teleologism.4 4 One notes Veritatis Splendor §79, original emphasis: “One must therefore reject the thesis, characteristic of teleological and proportionalist theories, which holds that it is impossible to qualify as morally evil according to its species—its ‘object’—the deliberate choice of certain kinds of behavior or specific acts, apart from a consideration of the intention for which the choice is made or the totality of the foreseeable consequences of that act for all persons concerned.” This is of course to note that some acts are such as to render them evil irrespective the further designs of agents—their proximate teleology is warped 142 Steven A. Long Proportionalism does not properly identify and affirm the moral normativity of unified teleology—of the hierarchy of ends prior to choice. Nor does it properly distinguish between mere consequences and natural ends. But St.Thomas’s doctrine, like that of Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, is from first to last a doctrine of unified teleology. While there are still some who insist that normative teleology is a conceptually confused idea, because it is both factual and normative, in fact any causal analysis that includes efficient causality implies final causality. It is impossible for agency either to be, or to be understood, apart from an end. Even an action as prosaic as snow shoveling is impossible to define without mentioning that it is the moving of snow with a functionally shovel-like implement. As St.Thomas notes (SCG III, ch. 2.) if there were no final cause, no telos or natural end, then either efficient causing would be uninitiable or unceasing. Either efficient causing could never begin, because there would be no reason for it; or else it would be naturally unending because lacking any point of natural termination. Yet both of these are contrary to fact. Actions are ordered toward ends that define these actions, and without which action would be impossible. Insofar as it is true that even the definition of efficient cause requires reference to teleology, it is likewise true that the affirmation of efficient causality implies the affirmation of teleology. But virtually everyone admits that efficient causes are operative in the world. Further, virtually everyone admits the reality of moral agency or efficiency. Logically speaking, the same persons ought to admit that natural teleology is likewise operative in the moral world. As efficient causes interlock, so do the ends to which they are ordered, and these causes constitute a unified order: a cosmos rather than a multiverse. Just so, the good life for the human person is naturally defined by the unitary order of ends, all the way to the finis ultimus. This is without prejudice to the ordering of nature in and by grace, for the natural order is not vitiated but elevated by grace. Thus understood, the order of ends that defines the good life is the measure for human conduct. Further, because all activity is teleological, even vicious actions will be such as to exhibit order, so that we will see that certain actions are such as to be insusceptible of contributing to the fabric of a good life.That is, just as one cannot melt water by freezing it, or tell the truth by lying, so one cannot achieve the end of the good life beyond the capacity of any further per accidens ordering in the mind of an agent toward other ends—even if these latter ends be good—to salvage from their primal deficiency. Veritatis Splendor §78 and the Moral Act 143 through an action whose nature is such as to be vicious. The nature of the action is not exclusively a matter merely of what the agent seeks by or finds choiceworthy in the action, for an agent can seek something by an action to which that action is not naturally or per se ordered. Thus, action is teleological in a twofold sense, first in that there is a normative ordering of ends that is the principled foundation for counsel, prudence, and choice in relation to circumstance (this pertains, indeed, to the knowledge of moral norms); and second, the proximate teleology of actions enables us to determine whether they are essentially or accidentally ordered to the purposes sought by the agents who perform them. There is thus a double primacy of natural teleology: both in defining the normative order of ends, which determines rectitude, and also as constituting the intelligibility of moral action whereby we determine the moral type or species of actions following upon the particular ends sought by agents (howsoever deficient these purposes may be in terms of the normative order of ends). In the second sense acts that are evil may tend essentially to the (deficient) purposes sought by those who perform them just as much as acts that are good may tend essentially to the purposes sought by those who perform them (for example, some actions are ordered essentially to the injury of children, and some actions are ordered essentially to the care of children). Likewise evil or good acts may be only per accidens ordered to the purposes sought by those who perform them. Since this knowledge of how actions are related to the purposes of those who perform them is essential in judging them and their moral species, the import of natural teleology for the theory of action is clear and pronounced.This requires one to move to the second proposition. Second Proposition: Object and Species Are Constituted in Relation to Natural Teleology The second proposition is that object and species of the moral act are constituted in relation to natural teleology. Of course, for an act to be a human act, and for it to be properly voluntary, the human agent must act with knowledge. But what the agent chooses to do is not exhausted in its intelligible structure merely by what makes the act choiceworthy to the agent, for acts have an integral nature and a proximate teleology. It is precisely on the basis of this integral nature and proximate teleology that one may judge whether that act performed by the agent either is, or is not, essentially ordered to the end sought by the agent. St. Thomas famously stresses that the intention in the mind of the agent—the end of the agent or the finis operantis—is formal with respect to the object of the external act or finis operis, which is material. Clearly 144 Steven A. Long the end sought by the agent is that on the basis of which the agent will find actions choiceworthy, and it is formal and defining with respect to the act performed. As St. Thomas expressly argues, one may intend the end prior to any choice of means whatsoever (ST I–II, q. 12, a. 4, ad 3), and so the intention of the end is the motor driving the entire process of deliberation, counsel, and choice. Further, there is of course an analogous sense in which one may say that because the tendency to the end is the cause of the tendency to the object, that this latter is alike “intended”— but this is analogous and not univocal, because, simply and absolutely speaking, one may intend the end prior to the means and indeed without intention of the end no means will ever be selected. So: the object is formal in relation to the act, and that aspect of the object which is the “choiceworthiness” of the object in relation to the end is the relatively “most formal part” of the object of the act. But the object of the moral act is nonetheless a hylemorphic structure for St.Thomas. Thus the datum that what renders the act choiceworthy in relation to the intention of the end by the agent is most formal in understanding his act does not mean that the material element of the act is wholly irrelevant to the act, any more than the material element in the hylemorphic constitution of the human person is irrelevant. Just as we cannot say that man is only a soul, so we cannot say that the object of the act is reducible solely to the most formal constituent of the object of the act. The object of the moral act is what the act is about relative to reason, and what the act is about relative to reason always necessarily includes the act itself and its integral nature.5 The object of the moral act is formal in relation to the act, but it is not merely the form of the part but the form of the whole, inclusive of the matter of the act. For example, someone may very well 5 ST I–II, 18 a. 2, resp.:“The object is not the matter ‘of which’ (a thing is made), but the matter ‘about which’ (something is done); and stands in relation to the act as its form, as it were, through giving it its species.” See ST I–II, q. 18, a. 5, resp.: “Now in human actions, good and evil are predicated in reference to the reason; because as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv), ‘the good of man is to be in accordance with reason,’ and evil is ‘to be against reason.’ For that is good for a thing which suits it in regard to its form; and evil, that which is against the order of its form. It is therefore evident that the difference of good and evil considered in reference to the object is an essential difference in relation to reason.” See also q. 18, a. 2, resp.: “And just as a natural thing has its species from its form, so an action has its species from its object, as movement from its term. And therefore just as the primary goodness of a natural thing is derived from its form, which gives it its species, so the primary goodness of a moral action is derived from its suitable object.” See also ST I–II, q. 18, a. 10, resp.: “the species of moral actions are constituted by forms as conceived by the reason.” Veritatis Splendor §78 and the Moral Act 145 wish chiefly to end the pain of a dying patient, but when the person chooses to do so through active euthanasia, the fact that the agent proposes to himself merely to remove pain cannot alter the datum that the act is also such by its nature as to remove life. Since active euthanasia is neither an act of war by a publicly constituted authority, nor a judicial execution, nor even an act of self-defense, it is clear then that this is a wrongful homicide even though perhaps motivated chiefly by the further intention of ending someone’s suffering. Thus the nature of the moral object may be represented by a fraction, with the most formal part of the object (the relation to reason, that about the act which accounts for its choiceworthiness to the agent) atop, and the act itself and its integral nature and proximate teleology below. Something like this: relation to reason: what constitutes the choiceworthiness of the act to the agent integral nature of the act and its proximate teleology The object of the external act by reason of itself bears a relation to the object of the internal act of the will, which is the end sought by the agent (ST I–II, q. 18, a. 4, ad 2: “A relation and proportion to the end is included in the object of the external act”), and is either such as to be ordered to this end per se or per accidens. Hence the object of the moral act simpliciter is constituted by two elements: (1) the relation of the act to the end sought by the agent and owing to which relation the agent finds the act to be choiceworthy; and, (2) the act itself and its integral nature and teleology.The second element is required because it is only by knowing the teleology of the external act that one can answer the question whether it is ordered essentially and naturally to the end sought by the agent, or rather only ordered per accidens. For example, a thief may in a given case find it convenient to simulate intimacy and commit adultery for the sake of gaining access to a “mark’s” valuables. But there is nothing about adultery per se that is naturally ordered to theft, and nothing about theft per se that requires adultery. For this very reason St. Thomas teaches that in such a case there are two distinct moral actions with two distinct species, one of which is per accidens ordered to the other. Of course, his example gives the opposite order— that of someone who steals in order to obtain money to fornicate—but the point is clear. If and only if we know the teleological ordering of the object of the external act to the end sought by the agent will we be in position to determine whether we have one moral act or two, and also whether we have one or more moral species. 146 Steven A. Long It follows that a speculative insight into natural teleology is essential if: (1) we are to understand the distinction between simple and complex acts; (2) we are to understand whether there is one or more than one moral species; and, (3) we are to know what the species of an act is. In short, far from constituting an embarrassing “physicalist” distraction, insight into natural teleology is simply required if one is to make sense of human action at all. St.Thomas articulates this critical teaching in I–II, question 18, article 7, in teaching that when the object is essentially ordered to the end, that the most formal, containing, defining species is derived from the end. Either the object is per se ordered to the end sought by the agent, or it is not. Of course, by per se order here we do not mean that the end is necessarily good, but again only that the object is essentially ordered toward the end that the agent intends. For example, gaining access to property to steal is essential to theft, whereas adultery is not essential to theft as such. Likewise, we formally presuppose knowledge, since in the absence of knowledge we are not dealing with a genuinely voluntary act. To use once more St.Thomas’s example of the one who steals in order to get money to procure a prostitute, the man in question is more adulterer than thief, but there are two acts and two moral species—because there is nothing about theft as such that makes it to be of its nature ordered to adultery. An act that of its nature tends toward an end is per se ordered toward it. But one may steal the live-long day and never commit adultery, because these two are only accidentally related. It is thus apparent that we cannot even so much as distinguish a simple act from a complex act unless we first can answer the question, Is this act essentially ordered to the end sought by the agent, or not? If not, then we have two acts, and two moral species, and of course one is through the choice of the agent accidentally further ordered to the other, as the thief may order his stealing to the remote end of adultery. In teaching that where the object is essentially ordered to the end that the most defining and per se species is derived from the end, St.Thomas makes it clear that without natural teleology we cannot determine the species of actions nor distinguish simple from complex acts. It is thus apparent that for him there is a primary and per se instance of the human act: that instance, namely, in which the act of the agent is per se ordered to the end sought by the agent, and therefore in which the most defining and containing species is derived from the end.The complex case is the case where the object is not per se ordered to the end, and so there are two or more acts and moral species. It follows that the determination of the presence or absence of per se order between object and end will be decisive: If the object is not per se ordered toward the end intended Veritatis Splendor §78 and the Moral Act 147 by the agent, then we have not merely an object but a distinct act with a distinct species. Compare the case of adultery and stealing with the case of the surgeon, who opens the chest cavity in order to gain access to the heart and repair it. There is not first an act of torture, followed by a medical act, but one act, because the opening of the chest cavity is naturally ordered toward repair of the heart insofar as there is no other way by nature to gain access to the heart. When either an act tends of itself toward an end, or alternately where an end is such that by its nature only one sort of act can achieve it, we see per se order of act to end. It is this per se order that makes it possible for us to say that certain actions are unable to contribute to the structure of a good life. Of course, the further intention of the agent in a complex act may either increase or diminish culpability for an evil act. But nothing about the further intentions of the agent can rectify an act if the act is such by its per se ordering as to be evil. Of course, some actions are such that they may be ordered to diverse ends. The distinction made by St. Thomas in I–II, question 1, article 3, ad 3, between natural and moral species is pertinent here.The same physical act that may be an act of wrongful homicide could alternately be an act of judicial justice or of reasonable defense. Yet while the physical species is not the same as the moral species, it is surely one of the essential causal factors in the determination of the moral species—it is not irrelevant to the moral character of the act performed. But more is needed than a merely physical consideration insofar as we consider a human action, which involves knowledge, will, and intention of an end. Of course, even an act that is as such by its proximate ordering as to be a malum in se may either be made worse, or perhaps in some slight manner mitigated by, the further intention of the agent (the one who murders in “mercy killing” is, if seeking the cessation of pain, not free of the guilt of murder—but such a person might be less culpable by way of emotional paralysis caused by the pain of a loved one and owing to the confused and erroneous effort to relieve it). St. Thomas identifies the importance of the integral nature and proximate teleology of action in the article in which he addresses self-defense by private parties, in question 64, article 7, of the Summa theologiae, where he considers the objection that if one may kill in defense, why then cannot one fornicate? I think of this as the “adolescent objection.” In any case, his answer is conspicuous: He answers: “The act of fornication or adultery is not necessarily directed to the preservation of one’s own life, as is the act from which sometimes homicide follows.”6 6 ST II–II, q. 64, a. 7, ad 4. 148 Steven A. Long Third Proposition: Veritatis Splendor §78 Presupposes the Constitutive Normative Importance of Natural Teleology Of course, the natural sequitur to the propositions already considered would be a brief tour of the principal conundrums of action theory, especially as these surface in the work of St.Thomas Aquinas. It is especially important to see that even the famed criteria for the application of the principle of double effect are nothing other than the result of applying St. Thomas’s account of the teleological grammar of the moral act to a restricted set of cases—a consideration undertaken in detail in my book. While these wider propositions do importantly bear upon our understanding of Veritatis Splendor §78, the analysis already given above provides what is strictly necessary for correct understanding of Veritatis Splendor §78. Hence, my third proposition here is limited to directly addressing the sense to be given to the teaching of Veritatis Splendor below: By the object of a given moral act, then, one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical order, to be assessed on the basis of its ability to bring about a given state of affairs in the outside world. Rather, that object is the proximate end of a deliberate decision which determines the act of willing on the part of the acting person.7 By “event of the merely physical order,” Veritatis Splendor refers to purely physical accident outside of choice as such (for example, accidental physical infecundity does not make an act contraceptive). It does not refer either to deliberately chosen means or to the normative natural teleological grammar of the moral act itself as “an event of the merely physical order.” Any other construction of this passage would be gravely inconsistent with the Catholic moral tradition. The word “voluntary” refers to the inward direction of the agent in choosing an action with a nature and proximate teleology thus orderable and actually ordered in a certain manner—per se or per accidens— toward whatever further purpose the agent seeks. It does not mean that in choosing an act that only what is choice-worthy about the act to the agent enters into the object of the act: This would be pure angelism, a complete loss of the very basis upon which one may determine the nature of the object and species of the moral act. This is the difference 7 In the text above I use the standard translation. “Ergo nefas est accipere, velut obiectum definiti actus moralis, processum vel eventum ordinis tantum physici, qui aestimandus sit prout gignat certum rerum statum in mundo exteriore. Obiectum est finis proximus deliberatae delectionis, quae voluntatis personae agentis est causa.” Veritatis Splendor §78 and the Moral Act 149 between the good of conjugal union enjoyed by a couple accidentally infertile, and the evil of a couple deliberately choosing with respect to a given venereal act to render it infertile through contraceptive means or through surgery. Note the reference to the particular venereal act, for if the sterilization is accidental, as for instance it is accidental when it is merely a foreseeable effect of other important surgery, then it is this other surgery that is judged reasonable or not (of course, taking into consideration the accidental evils attendant). Likewise, one may reasonably accept to lose certain natural goods in a life-saving surgery that one could not reasonably choose simply to “remove,” apart from the need for such surgery, without incurring the sin of bodily mutilation.The difference is in the very nature of the action and that toward which it tends: Bodily harm simpliciter is not the same as a positive good to which some accidental harm attends. The above-quoted words of Veritatis Splendor §78 must also be understood in the context that is further articulated in the same paragraph, namely: Consequently, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches,“there are certain specific kinds of behavior that are always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.” And Saint Thomas observes that “it often happens that man acts with a good intention, but without spiritual gain, because he lacks a good will. Let us say that someone robs in order to feed the poor: in this case, even though the intention is good, the uprightness of the will is lacking. Consequently, no evil done with a good intention can be excused.‘There are those who say:And why not do evil that good may come? Their condemnation is just’ (Rom 3:8).”8 This is just to say that there is something other than will and reason that actually “norm” the will and reason, which determine whether the reason is recta ratio and the will ordinate or inordinate.The order of reason is defined in relation to norms that are not simply projected by reason 8 “Hoc sensu, sicut Catholicae Ecclesiae Catechismus docet,‘sunt rationes agendi, quas eligere est plenum erroris, quia earum electio admittit inordinatum voluntatis, id est malum morale’ (Catechismus Catholicae Ecclesiae, §1761). ‘Frequenter enim— ut apud Aquinatem legimus—aliquis bona intentione operatur, sed inutiliter, cum bona voluntas desit; ut si quis furetur ut pascat pauperem, est quidem recta intentio, sed deest rectitudo debitae voluntatis, unde nullum malum bona voluntate factum excusatur.“Sicut qui dicunt: faciamus mala ut veniant bona: quorum damnatio iusta est” (Rom. 3, 8)’ (S.THOMAE In duo praecepta caritatis et in decem legis praecepta. De dilectione Dei: Opuscola theologica, II, n. 1168, Ed.Taurinen. [1954] 250).” 150 Steven A. Long but discovered by it, and which are teleologically derived from the ordering instilled by God into human nature. Thus when the encyclical affirms that the object of the moral act is not “a process or an event of the merely physical order” it clearly means that the moral assessment of an action must consider what is chosen by the agent and what is intended in the way of an end by the agent. For the object is what the act is about relative to reason and so cannot exclude the relation to reason. A sufficient moral assessment clearly cannot focus merely upon the physical characteristics of an action without any consideration of whether the act was voluntary or not, performed with or without knowledge, and without consideration of the purpose guiding the act even if that purpose is insufficient to ameliorate the deficiency of the act chosen (and of course the further purpose may greatly increase the degree of evil in the action as well as the culpability of the agent). Yet, no more can the object—what the act is about relative to reason—exclude the act itself and its integral nature and proximate teleology.The act itself and its integral nature and proximate teleology may be enough to judge the action in question to be an evil one (presuming here as always a genuinely human act). Hence nothing in the insistence of Veritatis Splendor that by the object of the moral act “one cannot mean a process or an event of the merely physical order” vitiates its citation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that “certain specific kinds of behavior” are “always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.” Indeed (again, presuming a genuinely human voluntary act) “no evil done with a good intention can be excused.”The integral natures and proximate teleologies of such actions are such that they may never be chosen without wrongdoing, and so these are contrary to reason. Presuming in such cases a genuinely human act, performed voluntarily and so subject to moral judgment, the choice of such morally deficient actions always involves a disorder of the will (because one is willing that which is objectively disordered). Neither the relation to reason nor the act itself and its integral nature and teleology are rightly excluded from the object of the moral act. The AIDS Case and the Sisters of the Belgian Congo This matter of the relation of the physical to the moral becomes particularly clear in relation to the famed and difficult example of the sisters in the Belgian Congo. In the consideration of the issue of the married couple suffering with AIDS and contemplating the use of contraceptive means for the sake of avoiding infection, some authors have gone so far as to advert to this case, wherein sisters in the old Belgian Congo, in danger of murder and rape, were permitted by the Holy See to wear diaphragm devices.This Veritatis Splendor §78 and the Moral Act 151 matter has recently been brought forward by Redemptorist Fr. Brian Johnstone, who said in an April 25, 2006, interview with the National Catholic Reporter that this example highlights the truth that it is not the “physical character” of the act, but the “intention behind” the act, that is pertinent. In the case of a married couple with AIDS the intention is said to be the prevention of the spread of disease, and the morally significant character of the act is said to be not contraceptive but health-affirming, such that the contraceptive effect is a mere unwanted side-effect. Hence, by the principle of double effect, such an act is alleged to be morally licit. However, to the contrary, two important points invalidate this line of analysis and make clear the genuinely crucial role of natural teleology in judging the object and species of moral actions. I wish to apply these reflections by drawing out the importance of these two points for the historical case of the sisters in the Belgian Congo, showing their significance alike for the AIDS example and, as illustrating the importance of a correct understanding of the constitutive role of natural teleology, with respect to understanding human action. The two points that invalidate Fr. Johnstone’s analysis are: 1. the historical example of the Holy Office’s permission to the sisters in the Belgian Congo was given on the basis of a principle diametrically opposed to the principle alleged to be the reason for the decision and to justify condom usage by married couples for the sake of avoiding disease transmission; 2. the standard principle of double effect—as acknowledged by, for example, Fr. Johnstone and others holding like views—can be shown not to apply to the case of a married couple with AIDS. Those arguing as does Johnstone seem implicitly to suppose that the integral nature of a voluntarily chosen act is not materially included within the moral object of the act, but the case of the sisters in the Belgian Congo actually contradicts this judgment.Why? In order for an act to fall under the moral species of contraceptive sin, one must first either choose or intend a venereal act. That is, contraception is a species of venereal sin, and so in order to commit a contraceptive sin one must first choose or intend a venereal act.9 9 One is of course aware of the famed thought-experiment example of the one secreting a contraceptive in the oatmeal of a young married couple.This surely would be a malum, but not specifically a contraceptive one since the couple may or may not join in the conjugal embrace. The evil is one of harming the married couple by wrongfully wounding their capacity for conjugal fruitfulness. Even if the couple does not come together in the conjugal embrace, the one secreting 152 Steven A. Long Since the sisters did not choose to perform nor did they intend any venereal act whatsoever, and in fact since they indeed intended to resist the forcing of such an act upon their persons, it was accordingly impossible for them to be guilty of any contraceptive sin whatsoever on the classical analysis. But note carefully that the very reason of this impossibility was the datum that under no conditions did they either choose, or intend to perform, any venereal act whatsoever.Accordingly one might question the prudential reasonability of the permission ceded them to use contraceptives on other grounds (perhaps of proportionality, for example, inasmuch as the contraceptive permitted was abortifacient and could be thought unduly to increase the moral culpability of the assailant), but one could not properly say that the sisters were guilty of contraceptive sin. In short, it is because the sisters neither chose nor intended to perform any venereal act whatsoever that the sisters could not have been guilty of specifically contraceptive sin. It is like accusing someone of lying who neither intends nor chooses to speak—it is simply impossible that someone who neither intends nor chooses to communicate be guilty of lying. Even if the person memorizes thousands of pages of false narratives word for word, if the person neither intends nor chooses to speak, the person cannot be guilty of lying.An interrogator who, using chemicals to coerce speech, accordingly harvested from such a person only thousands of pages of false narratives, would have no plausible claim that the interrogated victim “lied”—for the person in question neither chose nor intended to communicate, and lying is a sin in the genus of speech acts (whether spoken or written or even, for the mute, signed). Here we see that far from the putatively “merely physical” character of action being excluded from the object of the moral act, the fact that the the contraceptive poison has done evil in seeking to harm the couple’s married life over which he has no just authority. Thus this is not a sin in the genus of venereal acts because the malefactor neither chooses nor intends any venereal act, but does choose to harm the couple by coercively interfering in their marriage in a manner ordered if only for a time to suppress the fruitfulness of their union, which is a wrongful act. Further, did God permit, even demons could place contraceptives in the oatmeal of the couple—but surely metaphysical realists should be loathe to admit that angels can commit venereal sins, which last is an idea perhaps more fitted to lurid horror movies than to moral perspicacity? Likewise, operating on a couple so that, unbeknownst to them, conjugal union would cause death, would not be a venereal sin, but a sin manifesting the malice of wrongful homicide. Or, suppose the couple is operated on so that conjugal union will cause the crippling of the spouses: This is not a venereal sin, but one of inflicting bodily harm. What makes the example interesting is that the harm in the original example is venereal: but the sin whereby this is inflicted is not itself a venereal sin. Veritatis Splendor §78 and the Moral Act 153 sisters neither chose nor intended any venereal act is the decisive point that made it impossible for them to be guilty of any sin in the genus of venereal acts. This is crucial:The sisters neither intended nor chose any venereal act, and hence could commit no venereal sin while holding firm in that intention.10 By contrast, in the case of the married couple suffering with AIDS and proposing to use a condom in order to prevent the spread of disease, the couple proposes to use the contraceptive precisely in relation to a venereal act that they choose to perform. They do so knowing that it will by its nature have the evil effect of blocking conception in the particular act in which they choose to use the contraceptive. But is not the bad effect of contraception one for which they are not responsible, since they intend only to prevent the spread of disease? No, because one is responsible not alone for the intention of the end, but for the choice of morally choice-worthy means. In one’s voluntarily chosen act, the integral nature of the act is always materially included in the moral object—one cannot knowingly choose to burn a man to death and then justify it because one intends only light and warmth, but not the man’s death.When the married couple chooses to use a condom in relation to a given, intended conjugal act, they choose to act in a contraceptive way, admittedly for other purposes than contraception, but still choosing to act in this way. The same might be said for those who pursue mercy killing because they seek to end the pain of a sufferer—the end sought (pain relief) is not evil, but the act performed is evil.This leads to the second point. Second Point According to Fr. Brian Johnstone himself, as likewise according to all who know the classical conditions for the application of the principle of double effect, these are the requisite conditions: 10 With respect to (1) above:The lines of St.Thomas from Summa theologiae I–II, q. 18, a. 6, are often cited by proponents of the permissibility of condom use by a married couple suffering with AIDS for the sake of preventing the spread of infection. St. Thomas there writes of external acts, “nor have external acts any measure of morality, save insofar as they are voluntary.” It is thought that this shows that the mere physical character of contraception is insufficient to place an act within the species of contraceptive sin. This is true; but it is not true that the physical character of the act performed is not materially included within the moral object of a voluntarily chosen act.The reason is simple: An act of contraception may occur because a venereal act is forced upon someone who wholly refuses it, and in that case the whole moral culpability for the contraception and any consequent evil falls upon the person forcing the act. But, if one voluntarily chooses to perform an act, then the integral nature of the act voluntarily chosen is always materially included in the moral object of the act. 154 Steven A. Long • The act is not intrinsically evil • One intends the good effect, not the evil effect • The good effect does not occur by means of the evil effect, since one may not do evil to obtain good • There is “proportionate reason,” meaning, roughly, that the good outweighs the evil In the case of the married couple who propose to use a condom to prevent the spread of AIDS, neither the first, nor the third, nor the fourth of these conditions obtains. First Condition of Double Effect The first condition does not obtain, because as Humanae Vitae argues in articulating the morality of the conjugal act and condemning contraception, “This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.” 11 Further, Humanae Vitae §17 clearly affirms that: Consequently, unless we are willing that the responsibility of procreating life should be left to the arbitrary decision of men, we must accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go, to the power of man over his own body and its natural functions—limits, let it be said, which no one, whether as a private individual or as a public authority, can lawfully exceed. These limits are expressly imposed because of the reverence due to the whole human organism and its natural functions, in the light of the principles We stated earlier, and in accordance with a correct understanding of the “principle of totality” enunciated by Our predecessor Pope Pius XII.12 In short, it is wrong to suppose that for any purpose whatsoever, including the purpose of preventing the transmission of disease, one can rightly choose to use 11 Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae §12, emphasis added. 12 Emphasis added. “Quare, nisi velimus ut procreandae vitae officium hominum arbitratui concedatur, necessario aliquos fines, quos ultra progredi non liceat, agnoscamus oportet illi potestati, quam homo in proprium corpus in eiusque naturalia munera habere potest; fines, dicimus, quas nemini, sive privato sive publica auctoritate praedito, violare licet. Qui limites non aliam ob causam statuuntur, quam ob reverentiam, quae toti humano corpori eiusque naturalibus muneribus debetur, secundum principia, quae supra memoravimus, et rectam intellegentiam principii totalitatis, ut aiunt, quod Decessor Noster v. m. Pius XII illustravit.” Veritatis Splendor §78 and the Moral Act 155 a contraceptive with respect to any conjugal act. Veritatis Splendor affirms in §78 that: Consequently, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches,“there are certain specific kinds of behavior that are always wrong to choose, because choosing them involves a disorder of the will, that is, a moral evil.” And Saint Thomas observes that “it often happens that man acts with a good intention, but without spiritual gain, because he lacks a good will. Let us say that someone robs in order to feed the poor: in this case, even though the intention is good, the uprightness of the will is lacking. Consequently, no evil done with a good intention can be excused.‘There are those who say:And why not do evil that good may come? Their condemnation is just’ (Rom 3:8).”13 Third Condition of Double Effect Nor is the third condition of double effect applicable to the case at issue. That condition states that the good effect may not be achieved by means of the evil effect. But the evil effect of condom use is the prevention of the transmission of sperm in the conjugal act, and it is this prevention of the transmission of sperm in the conjugal act that prevents the passing on of infection insofar as the sperm is infected. Hence, the good effect of preventing the transmission of disease is achieved through the evil effect of preventing the transmission of sperm in the conjugal act. Fourth Condition of Double Effect The evil effect countenanced is disproportionate to the good sought, because the good sought is physical but the evil effect countenanced is moral, that is, the inversion of the marital act. It follows that neither the first, nor the third, nor the fourth conditions essential for the applicability of the principle of double effect actually apply to the case in question. Indeed, even with respect to the second condition there is a consideration: If by “intention” we mean intention of the end, then it is true that the couple would not “intend” contraception but only avoidance of AIDS transmission. But if we include the analogous use of “intend” whereby one “intends” the means whereby one “tends” toward the end, then of course the couple does intend the evil. But even apart from the issue of the semantics of “intention,” we can clearly say that in the case in question the couple does choose to perform a wrongful act. After all, the principal intention of the end may indeed be a health concern, but this does not justify choosing to do wrong: One may not do 13 For the Latin, see note 7 above. 156 Steven A. Long evil that good may come. These points are sufficient to demonstrate by Catholic moral principles that the proposed act is morally evil. Conclusion The indispensable condition for fathoming the consistency and integrity of Catholic moral teaching on these points is a profound appreciation for unified natural teleology both with respect to the definition of moral rectitude and with respect to the intelligibility of human action. With respect to the latter, it is this teleological grammar that determines the object and species of the moral act. Likewise one must bear in mind that the object of the moral act comprises both the relation of the act to reason and the act itself with its integral nature and proximate teleology. There is much talk today of the error of “physicalism”—and of course, the exclusion from the object of the moral act’s relation to reason would be an error. Nonetheless, the far more preponderant error today is that of “angelism” or the reduction of the object of the act merely to the relation to reason or to that which makes the act attractive to the agent (whether this occur by way of transcendental subjectivity or by way of logicism is a secondary issue).The teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and of Veritatis Splendor, together with that of St.Thomas Aquinas, which these Church documents cite, is incompatible with these errors, and is properly understood solely within the context of the tradition’s N&V overarching context of normative unified teleology. Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 6, No. 1 (2008): 157–204 157 Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy: From Self-Alienation to Gift of Self P ETER A. K WASNIEWSKI Wyoming Catholic College Lander,Wyoming O God . . . hear me as I tremble in this darkness and reach out your right hand to me. Hold your light before me and call me back from my wandering, so that, with you guiding me, I may return again to myself and to you. —St. Augustine 1 A FTER A PERIOD of relative neglect, our day is witnessing a revival of scholarly interest in St. Thomas’s theology of the sacraments, particularly of the Eucharist, and his views on the liturgy of the Mass and its The present article was researched and written in connection with the commissioning of a paper titled “St Thomas on Eucharistic Ecstasy,” which will appear in The Liturgical Subject: Subject, Subjectivity, and the Human Person in Contemporary Liturgical Discussion and Critique, ed. Dom James Leachman, O.S.B. (London: SCM-Canterbury Press, 2008). I am grateful to SCM-Canterbury Press and to Dom Leachman for permission to include herein the content of that paper, which constitutes the substance of part III. I would also like to thank Mario Coccia, Edward Hadas, Jeremy Holmes, Timothy Kelly, Matthew Levering, and Gintautas Vaitoska for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. Unless otherwise noted, translations from St. Thomas or other authors are my own, and quotations of Scripture are drawn from the RSV. If no further indication is given, citations of articles in the Summa theologiae or the Commentary on the Sentences (Sent.) refer to the body or main response. Section numbers refer to the Marietti edition of the work in question. 1 Soliloquiorum, bk. II, ch. 6, §9: “Deus . . . exaudi me palpitantem in his tenebris, et mihi dexteram porrige. Praetende mihi lumen tuum, revoca me ab erroribus; te duce in me redeam et in te” (PL 32:889). 158 Peter A. Kwasniewski ceremonies and symbols.2 Instead of duplicating work already done, this essay will turn to related but less explored themes in Aquinas’s theology, themes that have tremendous implications for a liturgiology wishing to take full account of the real situation of the human subject in his or her problematic subjectivity. It is my conviction that Thomas’s robustly scriptural and patristic theology of the sacraments, anchored in the depths of the mystery of Christ, offers precious insight into what both Romano Guardini and Joseph Ratzinger name “the spirit of the liturgy,” as well as into the ambiguous and indigent subjectivity or selfhood with which the liturgy has to reckon as it makes haste slowly to feed fallen men with the bread of angels.We will ponder the dissolution and re-creation of the “I” as this process is shown forth in sacramental signs through which the Eternal High Priest touches bodies and souls with his power, effecting in the well-disposed recipient a direct share in the mysteries of his life, death, and resurrection. It is in this way that the Mass typifies and prepares for a mystical incarnation of the Word of God in the womb of the Christian whose ego is humbled like the Virgin’s. Attention will be paid to some of the ways in which Thomas’s sacramental theology does justice to the complexity of our actual human experience, and advocates as the cure an unreservedly zealous Eucharistic worship, rooted in humble faith and tending, of itself, toward the ecstasy of love. But we shall return to these matters in due course. We must follow a different path first, if we wish to derive full benefit from Aquinas’s insights. 2 Notable postconciliar studies include Liam G.Walsh, O.P.,“Liturgy in the Theol- ogy of St.Thomas,” The Thomist 38 (1974): 557–83; idem, “The Divine and the Human in St.Thomas’s Theology of Sacraments,” in Ordo Sapientiae et Amoris, ed. Carlos-Josaphat Pinto de Oliveira, O.P. (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1993), 321–52; idem, “Sacraments,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 326–64; James T. O’Connor, The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988); David Berger, Thomas Aquinas and the Liturgy, trans. Christopher Grosz (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2004); John P.Yocum, “Sacraments in Aquinas,” in Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction, ed.Thomas G.Weinandy, O.F.M.Cap., Daniel A. Keating, and John P. Yocum (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 159–81; Matthew Levering, Sacrifice and Community: Jewish Offering and Christian Eucharist (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005). Outstanding recent work in this area has been done by French Dominican theologians, such as Gilles Emery, Martin Morard,Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht, and Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole. Among preconciliar works, special mention must be made of A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist (1924) by Dom Anscar Vonier, O.S.B., which has been reprinted many times. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 159 Self-Alienation Nathan Rotenstreich traces out the evolution in the meaning of the term alienatio (1) from its origin in courts of law, where it describes the formal act of transference by which something is removed from one man’s ownership and given into the hands of another; (2) to its Platonic,Augustinian, and medieval meaning of what happens in excessus mentis or extasis when God seizes possession of one’s soul and becomes principal actor in her; (3) to its function in Hegel’s dialectical system, where union of subject and object is achieved through mutual diremption; (4) to the psychological critique given by Feuerbach and Karl Marx, for whom alienatio takes on the derogatory meaning of man’s abandonment of his rightful liberty and autonomy in favor of subjection to an illusory Other, be it human or divine; and thus Marx, in a distorted return to the term’s origins, speaks of man’s being converted into property alienated from its rightful owner, the self.3 In this way, what was for the medievals the active summit of theosis becomes for Marx the primary objection against theism.4 3 Nathan Rotenstreich,“On the Ecstatic Sources of the Concept of ‘Alienation,’ ” The Review of Metaphysics 16 (1961): 550–55; the same author later published a full-length study, Alienation: The Concept and Its Reception (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989). In these pages I will be speaking, as does the older tradition, of alienation from something (from oneself, even as one’s property can be legally “alienated” from one), and not, as popular psychology tends to do, of an alienation by something. People commonly speak of being “alienated by others”: A person considers himself a good that has been rejected by others, marginalized, isolated, left out.The others do not think of me or consider my needs, my feelings; they do not consider me a friend, “another self,” but simply other. In this perspective the notion of being victimized plays a large role; the emphasis is put on who a person is in other people’s minds, on whether they like/love me or not. In this way of speaking, I am alienated by others, I am the object of alienation. In the traditional way of speaking, something is alienated from me, or I am alienated from God, my neighbor, myself; I am the subject of the alienation. John Paul II defines alienation, in a negative sense, as inhibition of human transcendence, obstruction of the gift of self, and argues that finally speaking it is only to God, on account of his very transcendence, that man can fully give himself (Centesimus Annus, §41). See the chapter “Religious Alienation,” in Louis Dupré, The Other Dimension:A Search for the Meaning of Religious Attitudes (New York: Doubleday, 1972), 419–55. 4 Thus, what was blessing in the medieval period turns to curse in the modern period. As Rotenstreich writes (“Ecstatic Sources,” 555):“This concept [alienatio] connoted in the first place an act of elevation, when an elevated realm has been taken as metaphysically or theologically existent. With the abandonment of the transcendent realm the concept of alienation came to connote either an improper transcendence (Hegel) or a fictitious one (Feuerbach) or else a terrifying one (Marx).”Against the modern caricature of the “God of the attributes” as an “egoagent” who is “alien and alienating” for finite men, see Janet Martin Soskice,“The Gift of the Name: Moses and the Burning Bush,” in Silence and the Word: Negative 160 Peter A. Kwasniewski Speaking of alienatio mentis in Augustine and Richard of St. Victor, Rotenstreich says: Being an act of elevation it reaches the divine realm, and ceases to be a negative act of estrangement, thus becoming a positive act leading to the achievement of union with God. . . .The alienation is due not only to the transfiguration of the mind as transcending its own boundaries, but also to the fact that this transfiguration cannot be brought about by human effort, but only by divine grace. It is, to put it freely, that the contemplated object engenders the act of contemplation on behalf of the contemplating subject. In the ecstatic rendering of the term alienatio, we find clearly that alienation in terms of the human mind amounts to its elevation, and thus, also, to the state of being at home in the divine realm.Yet this being at home is achieved precisely by going outside the position of the mind as an independent subject.5 Behind this description of alienatio, we can hear echoes of an equally ancient notion, prominent already for Plato and destined to pass into the Christian tradition: ekstasis, standing outside oneself—by implication, standing in or toward another.6 Against the sophists of his day, Plato taught that human perfection demands self-surrender in the face of divine reality, self-transcendence in the presence of the gods who are the source of all good things, love (eros) being the greatest of their gifts.7 Man cannot find completion or rest in himself, but only in one who is other than himself. His entire life, from infancy to adulthood to old age, is marked Theology and Incarnation, ed. Oliver Davies and Denys Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 61–75. Robert Barron shows how Aquinas’s principles render impossible the conceptual conflict that shapes much of modern thought: the contrary tyrannies of a “supreme being” (God over against me, limiting my freedom) and of a “supreme ego” (I over against all, limited by nothing). See his “Thomas Aquinas: Postmodern,” in Sacramental Presence in a Postmodern Context, ed. Lieven Boeve and Lambert Leijssen (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 265–78. 5 Rotenstreich, “Ecstatic Sources,” 552. 6 See Kevin Corrigan, “Ecstasy and Ectasy in Some Early Pagan and Christian Mystical Writings,” in Greek and Medieval Studies in Honor of Leo Sweeney, S.J., ed. William J. Carroll and John J. Furlong (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), 27–38; on Plato and parallels with Aquinas, see ibid., 27. 7 Josef Pieper develops this thesis in his two commentaries on the Phaedrus. See Divine Madness: Plato’s Case Against Secular Humanism, trans. Lothar Krauth (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995); idem, Enthusiasm and Divine Madness: On the Platonic Dialogue “Phaedrus,” trans. Richard Winston and Clara Winston (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2000). One might consider the following representative texts: Phaedo 80c–82c; Symposium 210a–212a; Phaedrus 246a–250c; Republic 500c–d, 508d–509b, 517b–d, 611b–612a. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 161 with need of others, and within this exigency there abides a desire for the Other who will complete him and bring him rest. He is capable of discovering through reflection that in this world he is always in some way estranged not only from this other, whoever it be, but even from himself; what is more, he can see that the former is the cause of the latter: I am not myself because I am not yet perfectly united to the other.8 “A full personality only when united in love to God, man’s being—because it is open—is structurally relational,” maintains Frederick Wilhelmsen.“Since every relation involves both that which is related and that to which it is related, the personality of man in its total existentiality is not an ‘I’: it is a ‘we.’ ”9 From their long experience of conversion and love, the saints know this truth better than anyone else; they know the definitive, selfgiving Thou. That is how William of St. Thierry prays to the Lord: “As long as I am with you, I am also with myself, but I am not with myself as long as I am not with you.”10 His friend St. Bernard agrees: “He who 8 The theme of the self or “I” as constituted through relationship with the “other” (or “thou”) is, needless to say, a major theme in contemporary psychology, philosophy, and theology; it is not part of my intention to enter directly into this larger discussion. Here it will suffice to note some of the more perceptive studies on the question of who or what the self is, and how it is constituted through relation to others, above all to God: Gabriel Marcel, “The Ego and Its Relation to Others,” in Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, trans. Emma Craufurd (Chicago: Regnery, 1951), 13–28; Robert O. Johann, S.J., The Meaning of Love: An Essay Towards the Metaphysics of Intersubjectivity (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1959); Martin C. D’Arcy, S.J., No Absent God: The Relations Between God and the Self (London: The Catholic Book Club, 1962); Frederick Wilhelmsen, Metaphysics of Love (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1962); Anthony Kenny, The Self (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1988); Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989); David F. Ford, Self and Salvation: Being Transformed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Ricoeur speaks of “oneself as another” in order to mediate between “a centered, self-positing subject, and a decentered, shattered subject,” or what Ford later styles “monotheistic and polytheistic idolatries of self ” (Self and Salvation, 8; 86). At root, this pair of descriptions correspond to the contrary tendencies of Cartesian idealism wherein the conscious “I” takes on a larger-than-life reality, and Humean empiricism, according to which a self does not really exist at all. See Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being, vol. I, Reflection and Mystery, trans. G. S. Fraser (Chicago: Regnery, 1960), 59–61. 9 Wilhelmsen, Metaphysics of Love, 49. 10 William of St. Thierry, Meditativae orationes, II.208: “Quamdiu sum tecum, sum etiam mecum; non sum autem mecum, quamdiu non sum tecum,” cited in Pierre Rousselot, S.J., The Problem of Love in the Middle Ages, trans.Alan Vincelette (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2002), 133. 162 Peter A. Kwasniewski gave me himself, gave me back to myself.”11 They are good disciples of St. Augustine, who said: “Unless my being remains in him, it cannot remain in me.”12 Many modern thinkers are fascinated, one might say haunted, with questions of alienation, alterity, ecstasy. Does the self transcend itself in a true encounter with the other? How can it? Why must it?—granting that we already somehow understand the meaning of the questions and the urgency of answering them.“Is not man truly the being who is capable of ex-isting, in the sense that he can surpass or transcend himself?” asks Henri Gratton, continuing: “And is this not already a certain kind of ek-stasis, a going out from oneself?”13 Emmanuel Levinas speaks of a “metaphysical desire” for otherness, a desire to reach out “toward an alien outside-ofoneself, toward a yonder.”14 Hans-Georg Gadamer analyses the player who yields himself to the game, or even the spectator who can “give himself in self-forgetfulness to what he is watching,” for in either case one is bent on “being wholly with something else”—an Ekstatik des Aussersichsseins.15 Merold Westphal notes the presence of the theme of ekstasis in So/ren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Gabriel Marcel, Paul Ricoeur. Looking back over all these thinkers, he concludes: “Perhaps the current preoccupation with alterity among some philosophers is more the expression of hunger than of curiosity.”16 Westphal’s tentative conclusion is given wings by a remark of Henri-Louis Bergson’s:“Nothing prevents the philosopher from pushing to its limit the idea, suggested to him by mysticism, of a universe which would be nothing but the visible and tangible aspect of love and of the need for loving.”17 Nothing prevents the hypo11 St. Bernard, De diligendo Deo, 5: “Ubi se dedit, me mihi reddidit,” in Bernardi opera, vol. III, ed. J. Leclercq, C. H.Talbot, and H. M. Rochais (Turnhout: Brepols, 1958), 132. 12 Augustine, Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin (New York: Penguin, 1961), bk. 7, ch. 10, p. 147. The Middle Ages inherited from Augustine a highly nuanced concept of alienatio. See R. A. Markus,“Alienatio: Philosophy and Eschatology in the Development of an Augustinian Idea,” Studia Patristica 9 (Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1966); John P. Anton, “Plotinus and Augustine on Cosmic Alienation: Proodos and Epistrophe,” The Journal of Neoplatonic Studies 4.2 (1996): 3–28. 13 Henri Gratton, s.v. ‘extase,’ Dictionnaire de spiritualité (Paris: Beauchesne, 1932–95), vol. IV, 2171. 14 Cited in Merold Westphal, “Religious Experience as Self-Transcendence and Self-Deception,” Faith and Philosophy 9 (1992): 176. 15 Ibid. 16 Westphal, “Religious Experience,” 188. 17 Quoted in Gérard Gilleman, S.J., The Primacy of Charity in Moral Theology, trans. William F. Ryan, S.J., and André Vachon, S.J. (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1961), 139. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 163 thetical “pure philosopher,” and in fact nothing prevented the friar Thomas or the monk Dionysius. As Fran O’Rourke says: Under the inspiration of Dionysius,Aquinas presents within his philosophy a parallel to the sublime revelation Deus caritas est. According to both Dionysius and Aquinas, the ultimate key to the wonder of the world is the very mystery of the abounding love of God. The most fundamental and universal love of all is that with which God loves his own goodness. Of necessity God loves his goodness but communicates it freely to beings through creation. Divine love is the principle of the universe in its origin, its internal order and immanent dynamism, and its ultimate finality. In God alone is there fully perfect love; given, as it were, on loan by God and reflected throughout creation in the love which beings have for each other, it is returned through the native desire which all things have for total fulfillment.18 Has liturgy anything to do with this cosmic metaphysical vision? And has it anything to do with the experience of alienation? Implicit in the theology of Aquinas is an affirmative answer to both questions, and for similar reasons. Liturgy, or more accurately the Christian sacramental life as solemnly enacted in liturgical ceremonies and their devotional echoes, is the school of a welcome alienation that opens one’s eyes more and more to the presence and absence of God—to his majesty and beauty, and to all the misery and darkness of fallen man.19 The public, cultic worship of God aids in divesting man of himself (the old self, his own property) and clothing him with Christ, or better, changing him into Christ from deep within, thus realizing the soul’s innate potential to be what God has created it to be, imago Dei, in truth and to the full.20 The Eucharistic liturgy is the defining act of the new man, the paradigm of what it is to be divinely human.This metamorphosis does not destroy the person but re-creates him as a distinctly radiant reflection of the Father’s unique Image, whose plenitude allows for inexhaustibly differentiated imitation.21 18 Fran O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), 225. 19 See Peter A. Kwasniewski, “Solitude, Communion, and Ecstasy,” Communio 26 (1999): 371–92, at 388–92. 20 See Alexander Schmemann’s eloquent essay on the Eucharist in For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: St.Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995), 23–46, esp. 34–36. For a similar perspective from the Western tradition, see The Sacred Liturgy, by an anonymous Benedictine monk (London: Saint Austin Press, 1999); and Four Benefits of the Liturgy, by an anonymous Benedictine monk (London: Saint Austin Press, 1999). 21 On the Son of God as imago Patris, see ST I, q. 35; on Christ as natural son in contrast to adopted sons, see ST III, q. 23.As St.Thomas establishes in ST I, q. 93, 164 Peter A. Kwasniewski As Jean Borella remarks:“Far from effacing the creature, deification alone makes it possible for it to exist in its integral truth.”22 In the limpid words of Étienne Gilson: Grant that a being is an image, and then the more it resembles its Original the more faithful it is to itself. But what is God? He is Love. . . . [T]o love God as He loves Himself, that truly is to be one with Him in will, to reproduce the divine life in the human soul, to live like God, to become like God, in a word, to be deified.The marvel is that in thus becoming God man also becomes or re-becomes himself, he realizes his very essence as man in realizing its end, plucks up by the roots the miserable dissimilitude that divided the soul from its own true nature. Losing that whereby it is but partially itself, it finds once more the fullness of its own being, as it was when it came from the hands of God.23 The connatural Thomist G. K. Chesterton makes the same point in his own delightful way: the goal of the production of man by God is the imago Dei written into human nature. This is what man most fundamentally is, namely factum ad imaginem Dei, and his perfection is measured by the degree to which the potency contained in this image is brought into act, not merely by his having a mind (aa. 1–6), but by his active use of it (a. 7), and not by any use but by the highest: attaining union with God in loving contemplation (a. 8), of which the ecstatic union of creature and creator in the beatific vision is the pinnacle—a mystical union already ontologically realized and exemplified in the Word made flesh. For commentary, see Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. II, Spiritual Master, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 125–52; see also J.Augustine DiNoia, O.P.,“Imago Dei–Imago Christi:The Theological Foundations of Christian Humanism,” Nova et Vetera 2 (2004): 267–78, with its ample bibliography on p. 275, to which the following item should be added:Wieslaw Dabrowski,“La dottrina de la imago Dei nei commenti di san Tommaso d’Aquino alle lettere di san Paolo,” Angelicum 80 (2003): 779–828. 22 Jean Borella, The Sense of the Supernatural, trans. G. John Champoux (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 140. On the mystery of deification, see Charles Journet, Theology of the Church, trans.Victor Szczurek, O. Praem. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 84–89; John Saward, Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 265–81; and the florilegium of Thomistic texts collected and commented on by Luc-Thomas Somme, O.P., La Divinisation dans le Christ (Genève: Editions Ad Solem, 1998). 23 Étienne Gilson, The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, trans. A. H. C. Downes (New York: Scribners, 1936), 297–99. On 299–300, Gilson specifies the exact meaning of “annihilation” as advocated by the Cistercian mystics.What is “annihilated in God” is “the separative will that made the man at once different from God and from himself.”What is recovered, then, is both God and oneself:“Charity begins the work of restoration; ecstasy realizes it as far as it can be realized in this life; it is consummated in the beatific vision.” Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 165 To the question, “What are you?” I could only answer, “God knows.” And to the question,“What is meant by the Fall?” I could answer with complete sincerity, “That whatever I am, I am not myself.” This is the prime paradox of our religion; something that we have never in any full sense known, is not only better than ourselves, but even more natural to us than ourselves.24 Awakening to the human self in the divine Other where it most perfectly exists, where it wells up from all eternity and where, in the end, it must come to rest if happiness is to be gained, requires treading the rugged, at times agonizing path of alienation.25 I will indeed “find myself ” in the end, but only by being purified from “miserable dissimilitude,” only after yielding to the dominion of another, the beloved, who reshapes my life according to his will.“It is not the perfecting of one’s own self that makes one holy,” writes Cardinal Ratzinger, “but the purification of the self through its fusion into the all-embracing love of Christ: it is the holiness of the triune God himself.”26 It is a process of action and reaction, power and passion, more violent and revolutionary than Hegelian dialectics, yet unlike the latter’s Marxist mutation, it is community-building, consoling, and peaceful.27 In its symbols the liturgy proclaims the new heavens and the new earth, and in the nascent holiness of Christians fed at the altar, begins already to anticipate the kingdom of God—a kingdom fully established only after the fiery destruction of the old heavens and the old earth.The Lord’s “risen body is the nucleus of the new world”;28 and as the Head had to drain the cup of suffering before entering into his glory, so too must his members. There is thus an intrinsic relationship between Eucharistic worship and self-alienation. In modern times it is Hegel, above all, who perceives this 24 G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, in The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, vol. I, ed. David Dooley (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 363. 25 For a clear account of this Thomistic teaching as developed by Meister Eckhart, see Richard Woods, O.P., Eckhart’s Way (London: Darton, Longman and Todd), 87–148. 26 Joseph Ratzinger, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 95. See, too, Ratzinger’s comments in the same book (142, 153) on man’s constant need for ablatio, the “negative theology” of being divested of unlikeness to God. 27 As regards the effect of the Eucharist,Thomas writes:“Its principal figure was the manna, which had in itself every sweetness of flavor, as is said in Wisdom 16:20, as also the grace of this sacrament refreshes the mind in all respects” (ST III, q. 73, a. 6). Cf. ST III, q. 79, a. 1, ad 2. 28 Pierre Benoit, O.P., Jesus and the Gospel, vol. 1, trans. Benet Weatherhead (New York: Herder & Herder, 1973), 107. 166 Peter A. Kwasniewski link, albeit in a distorted manner. For this Lutheran idealist aspiring to absolute and universal spirit, the Catholic veneration of a particular host as the particular flesh and blood of Christ is an abasement of mind before matter, and the ultimate vehicle of self-alienation.29 Hegel is right to think that a human life totally focused on the Eucharist, wholly surrendered to it, causes alienation. He is wrong to think it a bad alienation, when—“if you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me [yourself as] a drink’ ” ( Jn 4:10), for “I am thirsty” ( Jn 19:28)— it is the separation from sinfulness, profanity, and finitude that accompanies conversion into Christ, the unblemished Lamb, the Holy One of Israel. It represents the gradual triumph of incarnation over illusion, of fleshly substance over empty conceptuality. Mirroring the Lord’s total gift of himself, it demands an exodus from oneself, excessus a seipso, which here and now takes the form of passion and death, before it can acquire the form of life and glory. Only one of the evangelists, Luke, tells us that it was this very mystery of humiliation and glorification that occupied Jesus, Moses, and Elijah on the mountain of the transfiguration.The lawgiver and the prophet were speaking to Jesus “of his departure [exodos], which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Lk 9:31). In the Vulgate, exodos is rendered excessum. Throughout his life but especially in his passion and death, Christ models the excessus,30 the exodus, that each Christian must reproduce in his own life by achieving ever-deeper union with Christ.31 On more than one occasion, Ratzinger has stressed that “exodus . . . with its death and regrowth” is a “basic pattern in Christianity.”32 He has spoken also of the ongoing temptation for carnal man to “reverse the exodus,” to go back to “Egypt” and all that it symbolizes.33 Christ rejected this temptation in the garden of Gethsemane when he prayed: “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Lk 22:42); he rejected at its root Luciferian selfassertion, the exercise of autonomous will. He made himself, as it were, 29 See, for example, G.W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (New York: Dover, 1965), 377–78, 389–90, 393, 408, 440; idem, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, vol. 3, trans. E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 53–55, 149–50. In the latter work Hegel describes the medieval Church as “the Holy of Holies degraded into finitude” (103). 30 See St.Thomas’s comments on Psalms 30:23 [31:22], §§1 and 19. 31 See Joseph Ratzinger, The Meaning of Christian Brotherhood (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 55. 32 Joseph Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), 87. 33 Ibid., 212–17. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 167 bread and wine to be shared out endlessly, so that all who come to him can receive all from him, soberly drunk with his love. The Self, Possessed and Dispossessed Is not “self-image” something we hear about all the time? Is it not what modern man or woman seems to want most—a new self-image, a better one, handsomer, richer, or whatever quality is most prized? But can there really be a self-image? Of course, one can form an “image of oneself,” in the sense of a conception of who or what one sees oneself to be, or of what one wishes to become.The rational creature cannot have itself as an exemplar, but it can represent itself to itself—if not fully adequately, then at least in reference to aspects that catch the attention.What deserves to be denied is that there is, at rock bottom, a “self-image” in the sense of a complete idea of oneself within oneself that suffices as the map of one’s journey, the pattern of one’s destiny.The better acquainted a man is with himself, the more he stands humbly before an unknown abyss, looking up toward God who alone defines me.34 He says, with Socrates,“I know that I do not know”; he says, with St. Paul,“I judged not myself to know anything among you, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2),“I am not conscious to myself of anything” (1 Cor 4:4).To try to make or remake oneself according to an image projected by oneself is to enter a house of distorting mirrors with no hope of finding an exit. In reality, man is made to the image of God. I exist as the image of another, who is therefore more myself than I am. If I wish to be myself I must become increasingly like him; the image is only as real as its active imaging. Consider a further passage from Gilson, where he wrestles with the logic of imagehood: If man is an image of God, the more like God he makes himself the more he fulfils his own essence. Now God is the perfection of being, Who knows Himself integrally, and loves Himself totally. If man is fully to realize his virtualities and become integrally himself he must become this perfect image of God: a love of God for God’s sake. . . .Whatever of amour propre he retains, makes him so far forth different from that love of God which is God; and all love of self for the sake of self that he abandons, makes him, on the contrary, like to God. But thereby also it makes himself like himself. As image, the less he resembles the less he is himself; the more he resembles the more he is himself; wherefore to be is, for him, to distinguish himself as little as possible, to love himself is to forget himself as much as possible. And he attains his last perfection when, 34 See John Saward, “Towards an Apophatic Anthropology,” Irish Theological Quar- terly 41 (1974): 222–34. 168 Peter A. Kwasniewski remaining substantially distinct from his original, he has become no more than a subject carrying God’s image.35 Because this is the case, growth in spiritual being (esse spiritualis, as Aquinas calls it) presupposes and entails alienation from or disintegration of the “self ” we, or our world, have created. This, in simplified terms, is the thesis advanced by Denys Turner in his highly suggestive study of the role of negativity in Christian mysticism.36 Great masters of the spiritual life—Turner focuses his attention on Dionysius the Areopagite, Augustine, Bonaventure, Meister Eckhart, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Denys the Carthusian, and John of the Cross—understand the total transcendence and intimate immanence of God to entail a surprising result in one’s own identity: the more God is allowed to take over, the more one starts to lose (track of, hold of) oneself. The old self disintegrates and a new self is forged in a crucible of mental emptiness and suffering, in which one can only mutter: “Who am I? What am I?” As Augustine cries out, “O Lord, I am working hard in this field, and the field of my labors is my own self. I have become a problem to myself, like land which a farmer works only with difficulty and at the cost of much sweat.”37 The eventual result, if 35 Gilson, Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, 288. It needs to be said that people today are often taken aback by talk of man as “created in the image and likeness of God.” What can this mean, if God is held to be immaterial and invisible, allperfect and all-good, infinite and ubiquitous, unchanging, eternal, omnipotent, and so forth—in a word, everything we are simply not and, it seems, could never be? The difficulty indicates a serious misunderstanding of the claim; the lucid treatment at ST I, q. 93, has never been more timely (see note 21 above). 36 Denys Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).Turner explores similar themes in Faith Seeking (London: SCM Press, 2002); see especially 3–47 and 93–115. It is not difficult to see how the great themes Turner finds in the doctrine of the “mystics” are to be found in Aquinas’s own work. Of the literature on this topic, suffice it to mention four studies that complement one another: Torrell’s Spiritual Master (see note 21); Walter H. Principe, C.S.B., Thomas Aquinas’ Spirituality (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984); Joseph Wawrykow, “Luther and the Spirituality of Thomas Aquinas,” Consensus: A Canadian Lutheran Journal of Theology 19.1 (1993): 77–107; Heather McAdam Erb, “ ‘Pati Divina’: Mystical Union in Aquinas,” in Faith, Scholarship, and Culture in the Twenty-first Century, ed. Alice Ramos and Marie I. George (Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 2002), 73–96. 37 Augustine, Confessions, bk. 10, ch. 16 (trans. Pine-Coffin, 222). Here the doctor of grace is addressing the problem of memory. Since for him memory is the root faculty out of which a self is “constructed” in its relations with itself and the world around, this passage is an outcry of confusion about self-identity. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 169 one does not reject God’s grace, is the beginning of permanent self-transcendence, the foretaste of unconditional ecstasy. God wants the self as we understand it to disintegrate; this is why he allows us trials and sufferings, constant opportunities to lose our grip on “reality” in order to gain a deeper grip on the one reality that decisively matters. We have to be decentered in order to be recentered on Jesus; and this Jesus, whom St. Catherine of Siena did not hesitate to call drunk and mad,38 is altogether “eccentric”: as God, he receives all that he is from the Father; as man, he looks only to the Father’s will.39 He is never folded back upon himself, to unearth his identity from within his own essence; he is constituted as person by relation-to-another, he is anointed savior by his submission and triumphs through self-surrender.The Christian’s progressive decentering is inescapably painful; many who start on the path give up before they attain the hidden center40 where joy and peace are to be found, or settle for a self-induced “peace of mind” that is not the gift Jesus came to give us.41 Moreover, it is never as if the disciple definitively attains this new center—not in this life, for the disciple is not yet grown to his Master’s full stature ( Jn 13:16; Eph 4:13). Rather, we are forever centering and decentering, drawn downward (or outward, as Augustine would say)42 with the gravity of fallen nature, drawn upward (and inward) by the levity of divine grace.This very disorientation, this unpredictable and, at some level, unavoidable swirl of setback and progress, is part of the process of disintegration, blessed loss and gain. I say blessed loss and gain because it must not be thought that either the proper starting point or the desired goal of this process is an attitude of self-contempt. Self-contempt already involves having constructed an ego that is then pitilessly battered, a kind of scapegoat. It is well known that 38 See, for example, St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue, trans. Suzanne Noffke, O.P. (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1980), ch. 30, p. 72; ch. 153, p. 325. Catherine generally applies words of that sort to God the Father, but in the latter text she begins with the Father and comes around, almost imperceptibly, to the Son. 39 See Joseph Ratzinger, Behold the Pierced One: An Approach to a Spiritual Christology, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 13–46. 40 I borrow the phrase from Zachary Hayes, O.F.M., The Hidden Center: Spirituality and Speculative Christology in St. Bonaventure (New York: Paulist Press, 1981). 41 See Thomas Dubay, S.M., Fire Within: St.Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Gospel—On Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 114–15, 230–31; Turner, Faith Seeking, 97. 42 A representative remark along these lines, from Confessions, bk. 10, ch. 27 (trans. Pine-Coffin, 231–32): “You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself. I searched for you outside myself; and, disfigured as I was, I fell upon the lovely things of your creation.You were with me, but I was not with you.” 170 Peter A. Kwasniewski self-contempt is frequently allied with pride, for both are heightened forms of self-indulgence, a wallowing in one’s accumulated wealth of accomplishments or failures. Christian repentance (which is never unaccompanied by its ally, Christian confidence, parrhesia) is much different: It is the awareness that I—in my fragmentary, imperfect, struggling self—am not fully what God in his love has called me to be, and therefore that the appropriate act before him is humility, contrition, sorrow for sins. In order to understand the nature of contrition, St.Thomas goes to the etymology of contritio cordis, a breaking of the heart in sorrow for sin.The heart’s hardness or capacity for resistance meets with a contrary resistance that wears it down, just as pulverizing a hard stone turns it eventually into a soft powder.43 Sin is associated with inflation of self-will, but contrition with the contrary movement: “annihilation, shattering, detestation” of selfwill.44 Self-humiliation is the path to regaining oneself in Christ:“He who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 10:39); “whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Mt 23:12);“I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself ” ( Jn 12:32). Augustine learns in his pilgrimage that throwing oneself down exhausted before the cross of Christ is not a reckless last resort when safer options fail. It is the way, because we do suffer from a mortal disease (in Gabriel Marcel’s words,“the wound I bear within me, which is my ego”).45 There is only one cure: From the clay of which we are made he [the Son of God] built for himself a lowly house in this world below, so that by this means he might cause those who were to be made subject to him to abandon themselves and come over to his side. He would cure them of the pride that swelled up in their hearts and would nurture love in its place, so that they should no longer stride ahead confident in themselves, but might realize their own weakness when at their feet they saw God 43 In IV Sent., d. 17, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 2, ad 3. 44 In IV Sent., d. 17, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 2. The clarification in note 23 above also holds good for St. Thomas: the annihilation spoken of is not absolute but relative; its purpose is plenitude and fruition. 45 Marcel,“The Ego and Its Relation to Others,” 16. Marcel continues:“What then is this anguish, this wound? The answer is that it is above all the experience of being torn by a contradiction between the all which I aspire to possess, to annex, or, still more absurd, to monopolize, and the obscure consciousness that after all I am nothing but an empty void; for, still, I can affirm nothing about myself which would be really myself; nothing, either, which would be permanent; nothing which would be secure against criticism and the passage of time. Hence the craving to be confirmed from outside, by another; this paradox, by virtue of which even the most self-centered among us looks to others and only to others for his final investiture.” Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 171 himself, enfeebled by sharing this garment of our mortality.And at last, from weariness, they would cast themselves down upon his humanity, and when it rose they too would rise.46 The moment of breakdown is the moment of breakthrough.47 All of us, therefore, must have an identity crisis before we can attain the stability of clinging to another—not just any other, but the One who alone can give us what we truly are, can give us the power and humility to begin to be a self instead of a scattered and confused mass of phenomena. Most people who have reached a certain age and have lived through pain, disappointment, loneliness, ennui, know what it is like to feel oneself somehow “missing.” I do not know who I am, and I do not expect to find an easy answer. In fact, I have to renounce the futile quest for “inner certainty” and begin doing, or loving, something else in earnest, since there is a cavernous gap in the place where I once thought I found myself the bedrock or benchmark of reality. To the psyche-in-process can be applied Hegel’s description of the “faculties, inclinations, and passions” catalogued by “observational psychology,” which finds itself “astonished that such a contingent medley of heterogeneous beings can be together in the mind like things in a bag, more especially since they show themselves to be not dead, inert things but restless movements.”48 Expanding on a point in Hegel, Jean Hyppolite writes:“Self-consciousness is subjectivity constituted as truth, and this subjectivity must discover its own inadequacy and experience the pain of the self that fails to reach unity with itself.”49 But is it really this failure that causes the human subject pain? One should rather say: the failure to reach unity with God, who is Truth and Love—this is my inadequacy and my anguish, the wounded condition of my being.50 Man’s distinctive trait is his openness to, and 46 Augustine, Confessions, bk. 7, ch. 18 (trans. Pine-Coffin, 152). 47 See Paul Murray, O.P., A Journey with Jonah: The Spirituality of Bewilderment (Dublin: Columba Press, 2002), 43 et passim. 48 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), §303, p. 182. For Hegel, “consciousness . . . has really become a riddle to itself ” (§365, p. 220) just for a time, at a certain stage in the dialectical ascent.There is greater humility in saying that this is true not just for a time, but simply speaking.We are riddled with contradictions that will only be overcome in the vision of God, the supreme gift of his eternal life. 49 Jean Hyppolite, Genesis and Structure of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. Samuel Cherniak and John Heckman (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974), 190. 50 It must be clarified that we are dealing here not with a psychological problem per se but with an essentially spiritual problem.The vanquished and vanishing “I” of the Christian making progress into Christ is far different from the crippled, 172 Peter A. Kwasniewski hunger for, the infinite;51 if the infinite does not invade and pervade him, he cannot attain self-unity.“My thoughts, the intimate life of my soul, are torn this way and that in the havoc of change,” prays Augustine, “and so it will be until I am purified and melted by the fire of your love and fused into one with you.”52 The Confessions as a whole show how Augustine comes to be a coherent person, intelligible to himself, beatifiable by God, to the extent that the fragments of selfhood by which he tried unsuccessfully to define himself now coalesce in prayer around the singular reality of the ever-present God.53 If he does not give myself to me (that is to say, if I am not looking to him for identity), I do not exist. A basic law of life is shadowed forth: Identity comes to me in proportion to my surrender to something outside myself.And I learn, sooner or later, if I am fortunate, that the crisis is not resolved but exasperated by turning to find in a creature the answer to the question my very self is posing to me, even should I turn to another man or woman deeply (perhaps desperately) loved, who is similarly ill-equipped to be a center of gravity around which the crumbling elements of my mind can gather and solidify. For sure, one must have acquired a certain degree of selfknowledge to realize that clinging to a creature, however exciting or enriching in finite terms—be it a lover, riches and an elegant life, a healthy body, fine art, natural beauty, or something more subtle like dedication to scholarship, social work, or political affairs—is not going to make one happy, and cannot do so. One has to make an effort to close one’s eyes to the parti-colored world without, in order to become aware dysfunctional “I” of chronic depression or mental insanity.The former, unlike the latter, is quite compatible with external stability, cheerfulness, and sense of purpose: see Dubay’s discussion of how dark nights differ from depression (Fire Within, 163–64; 295). Helpful on these matters are Thomas V. Moore, Heroic Sanctity and Insanity (New York: Grune & Stratton, 1959); Raphael Simon, O.C.S.O., Hammer and Fire:Way to Contemplative Happiness, Fruitful Ministry and Mental Health in Accordance With the Judeo-Christian Tradition (Colorado Springs: Zaccheus Press, 2006); Richard F. Berg and Christine McCartney, Depression and the Integrated Life: A Christian Understanding of Sadness and Inner Suffering (New York: Alba House, 1981). 51 See Aristotle, De anima, bk. 3, ch. 8 (431b20–21). 52 Augustine, Confessions, bk. 11, ch. 29 (trans. Pine-Coffin, 279). 53 See Turner, Darkness of God, 50–73.As Murray Littlejohn observes, the Confessions traces out a path that originates in “the restless heart’s longing for beatitude,” moves through disorientation (i.e.,“the human bondage to sin”), into orientation or “awakening to the love of wisdom,” and finally the reorientation that consists of “conversion to Christ,” the very embodiment of divine wisdom—at once true God and the way to God.“Augustinian Wisdom and the Law of the Heart,” Études maritainiennes/Maritain Studies (1996): 77–97. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 173 of a darksome world within, much vaster, and thirsty for light. Dom Pius de Hemptienne brings this out:“The more determinedly I close my eyes to the thousand nothings that surround me, the more I feel that Jesus Christ, the divine Light, supersedes the light-in-darkness of mere creatures, which no longer can illuminate the depths of my interior.”54 Inevitably, the question will arise: is the introspection that gives rise to such a judgment healthy or morbid? There is a kind of inward sensitivity that is as necessary for the possibility of a fully human life as food is for the possibility of ongoing animal life. If a person never becomes sharply aware of a longing for totality, of a profound need for love on the basis of truth, and of a frustration with fragmentation and finitude, he is blind to what is most basic in the human condition. It is true that one who does become aware of these things might, at that point, opt for a nihilistic exit, a skeptical shrug of the shoulders, or a psychologistic salve, but he would at least have attained the beginnings of self-knowledge, and thus the raw materials of prayer and unselfish love. Lack of such primal insight into oneself would be no less morbid—on the contrary, probably more so—than excessive preoccupation with the same self; the one would be a defect, the other an excess. No, in spite of moments of rallying, the sickness I discover in (and as ) myself only gets worse, unless I am able to turn to one whose presence restrains death’s hand, rescues me from its grip. Geoffrey Preston says of this malaise and its cure: The gospel offers a diagnosis of the human condition in terms of a universal and pervasive sickness unto death, one man alienated from another and each man a stranger to himself. . . . Probably no one has ever described this phenomenon better than Paul himself [in Rom 7:18–23]. He defines for us the distance between a man’s true self, what he would want to be, what is called here “the law of his mind,” and the man’s embodiment.This distance or rivalry, as Paul calls it, is one of the ways in which we experience the fundamental sickness that afflicts us in being human: split personality, sick personality, man at war with himself. Healing must involve integration, the abolition of the distance between a man’s best self, the law of his mind, and the embodiment of himself, the contrary law in his members. Holiness entails wholeness, which in turn implies healing.This is a healing prior to the individual sin. It is a restoration of the image of God in man in accordance with the Genesis myth of man as he was meant to be, at peace with himself, with the animals, and with God. Healing has to do with the restoration 54 Dom Pius de Hemptienne, O.S.B., A Disciple of Dom Marmion, Dom Pius de Hemptinne: Letters and Spiritual Writings, trans. Benedictines of Teignmouth (London: Sands, 1935), 215. 174 Peter A. Kwasniewski of Adam, the taking up of the first Adam into the second Adam, Christ, who is God’s way of being Adam, that is, Man.55 It would be little consolation if the presence to whom I turn were altogether unlike me; but it would be no consolation at all if he were altogether like me as I now am (or am not).What I search for, explicitly if I know myself to be a nothing that could be everything, and implicitly if I think myself to be someone whom I am not, is one who is like me in all ways of being alive and energetic, unlike me in all ways of being diseased or dead. It is a God whom I seek, but not simply a God, for deity is a “boundless ocean of substance,”56 serenity, and freedom, while I am a slave at war. I seek a man who is divine, a creature who is infinitely more than created, a master who lets himself be shattered, torn apart, dissolved like me, not as punishment, not from weakness, but solely to meet me where I am, and take me where I could not go—into an indestructible life, communion with all, substantiality of self, surrender to One. Robert Barron draws out the implications: Nothing less than everything, than Being itself, than the divine energy will fill up the emptiness of the human heart. Nothing other than a concrete and complete imitation of Christ, the ecstatic lover of God, will bring us to life. . . . Enfleshed, built for ecstasy, destined for a deifying beatific vision, we are all [called to be] in the image of Jesus Christ. Thomas’s “theological anthropology” can be summed up in Paul’s phrase, “to live in Christ Jesus.” To live in the self-forgetting and selftranscending love of God, to allow the divine and human to meet and mingle in one’s very flesh, to open the eyes of the soul to the vision of God is to live in Christo.57 The Eucharistic Gift of Self What has all this to do with St. Thomas’s theology of the sacraments or his understanding of liturgy? We do not find in Thomas a formal discussion of the “ego” as found in Cartesian or post-Cartesian sources, nor the sharp edge of doubt; yet there is a highly developed analysis of interior55 Geoffrey Preston, O.P., God’s Way to Be Man: Meditations on Following Christ through Scripture and Sacrament (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1978), 57. 56 A phrase of Damascene’s cited several times by Aquinas: In I Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4; De potentia, q. 7, a. 5; De potentia, q. 10, a. 1, ad 9; ST I, q. 13, a. 11. 57 Robert Barron, Thomas Aquinas, Spiritual Master (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 172; 175. See also two remarkable sermons preached by Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Flesh Becomes Word” and “By Water, Blood and Spirit,” in You Crown the Year with Your Goodness, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989), 146–55. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 175 ity, of self-knowledge and self-love, of the different aspects or elements of oneself (usually in reference to the soul’s powers), deriving from rich resources—among them,Aristotle’s penetrating study of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics, Augustine’s pilgrimage inward and upward in the Confessions, and, most of all, the Johannine and Pauline writings.58 We can therefore expect to find, and upon looking do find, his liturgical, sacramental, and Eucharistic doctrine shot through with motifs of self and other, of transformation, indwelling, and ecstasy (extasis). The teaching on extasis is particularly important for our purposes. Thomas understands extasis as a standing-outside-oneself, a going beyond oneself or exitus a se that involves alienatio from what one has been in order to become different, literally “altered.”59 Extasis can be debasing or perfective—debasing when a man is driven downward by worldly passion, perfective when he is taken out of himself and caught up in the virtuous love of a friend.60 For Aquinas, a friend is “another oneself,” alter ipse, not in the 58 A good example of an analysis of “self ” is found in ST II–II, q. 25, a. 7, where Thomas explains the difference between good self-love and bad self-love on the basis of how one construes what is “most oneself ”: the rational nature or “inward man,” or the sensitive, bodily nature or “outward man.”This can be put as a question: “Who, or what, am I most of all?” Some indication of the subtlety of the Thomistic analysis of self can be gleaned from two articles by Klaus Hedwig: “Alter ipse. Über die Rezeption eines Aristotelischen Begriffes bei Thomas von Aquin,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 72 (1990): 253–74; idem,“Solitudo circa subiectum. Über den Begriff der Einsamkeit bei Thomas von Aquin,” in Indubitanter ad veritatem: Studies Offered to Leo J. Elders, S.V.D., ed. Jörgen Vijgen (Budel: Damon, 2003), 219–34. 59 Thomas defines or comments on the term extasis in a variety of ways. There is not space to go into all of them here, but one could cite the following as examples. ST I–II, q. 28, a. 3:“Someone is said to suffer extasis when he is placed outside himself,” extra se ponitur; later in the same response he speaks of exiens quodammodo extra seipsum and exit extra se. In the commentary on the De divinis nominibus he uses not only the phrases ponit extra se/seipsum (ch. 4, lec. 10, §§430 and 433), but also the phrase a se alienatum (ch. 7, lec. 5, §739): estranged from himself, dispossessed of himself.This language of alienatio is present in the first objection of ST I–II, q. 28, a. 3, where it means losing one’s mind. At In III Sent., d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 ad 4, he explains extasis as a placement outside oneself, extra se positio, and links it to fervor, “since that which burns rises beyond itself and vanishes into smoke.” In other texts, he takes excessus or excessus mentis as synonymous with extasis (e.g., ST II–II, q. 175, a. 2, obj. 3; Super Ps. 30, no. 1). Perhaps the most helpful definition is found at ST II–II, q. 175, a. 2, ad 1:“Extasis importat simpliciter excessum a seipso, secundum quem scilicet aliquis extra suam ordinationem ponitur.” 60 On the place of “ecstasy” in Aquinas’s teaching on amor/caritas, see Peter A. Kwasniewski, “St. Thomas, Extasis, and Union with the Beloved,” The Thomist 61 (1997): 587–603; idem, “The Ecstasy of Love in Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences,” Angelicum 83 (2006): 51–93; David M. Gallagher,“Desire for Beatitude 176 Peter A. Kwasniewski sense of a duplication of an already-existent ego as if the “I” were mirrored, but an expansion and extension of the “I” in reference to a fundamentally different existence that causes my own to be redefined, at times from the roots up.61 Once again, it is God’s friendship, freely offered in Christ, that most radically redefines the “I” by transplanting the lover’s ground from himself to the Lord in whom he abides and who abides in him, whose face he seeks, whose footsteps he follows. Christian alienatio a se is the negative supposition, one could say, of positive transformation in Christ, of which the motto is the Apostle’s cry of scorching intensity: “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:19–20).62 Paul asserts that he is living Christ’s own life, no longer a merely natural life he can call his own; he abandons himself in faith to the One who loves him to the utmost, who therefore attracts and unifies his whole love.And so the world is crucified to him and he to the world (Gal 6:14).63 As we will see, Aquinas finds these verses emblematic of the Christian life in its Eucharistic font. For Aquinas the most basic function of the sacraments is to place man in vital contact with the crucified and risen Lord;64 they are, in the words of Romanus Cessario,“graced instruments for restoring the image of God”65 through assimilation to God’s Son, who is the Father’s perfect image and man’s formative exemplar. By virtue of the God-man’s sacrifice, each sacraand Love of Friendship in Thomas Aquinas,” Mediaeval Studies 58 (1996): 20–27; Juan Cruz Cruz, El éxtasis de la intimidad: Ontologia del amor humano en Tomás de Aquino (Navarre: Ediciones Rialp, 1999). 61 For lucid accounts of this doctrine, see David M. Gallagher,“Thomas Aquinas on Self-Love as the Basis for Love of Others,” Acta Philosophica 8 (1999): 23–44; idem, “Desire for Beatitude,” 20–39; James McEvoy, “The Other as Oneself: Friendship and Love in the Thought of St.Thomas Aquinas,” in Thomas Aquinas: Approaches to Truth, ed. J. McEvoy and M. Dunne (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002), 16–37. 62 Adapted from the text of the KJV. 63 Other Pauline texts emphasize the remainder: that with Christ, the Christian has risen to new life, and will rise at the end of time (cf. Rom 6:1–11). On the theology expressed in Galatians 2:20, see François Amiot, The Key Concepts of St. Paul, trans. John Dingle (New York: Herder & Herder, 1962), 142–49, cf. 133–41, 195–202; Paul Nadim Tarazi, Galatians: A Commentary (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1994), 88–89. 64 See Joseph J. Sikora, S.J.,“Sacraments and Encounter,” in Theological Reflections of a Christian Philosopher (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), 213–33. 65 From his essay “Aquinas on Christian Salvation,” in Weinandy, Keating, and Yocum, Aquinas on Doctrine, 129. See also the same author’s “The Sacramental Mediation of Divine Friendship and Communion,” Faith & Reason 27 (2002): 7–41. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 177 ment has power to originate, deepen, or repair a direct relationship between man and God, a communion of like-minded friends having a shared beatitude for its goal.The mediation of the Son as head of mankind and head of the Church prepares for and establishes in souls an immediacy of divine indwelling for all who belong to him as his members.What is more, each of the sacraments configures one to Christ in a specific way by communicating the grace associated with the saving deeds and sufferings of the Lord. For each sacrament Aquinas identifies (1) the past reality it stems from and evokes; (2) the present sacramental encounter in its threefold aspect—mere sign, a reality that is also sign, and a pure reality; and (3) the future reality this encounter promises and accomplishes.The first of these, the past reality of the sacraments, is most worthy of attention here.The Eucharist brings us into contact with “Christ in the state of bloody immolation,” though the mode is unbloody;66 baptism unites us with “Christ dying and rising”; confirmation, with “Christ as descended upon by the Holy Spirit.” Holy Orders fuses the candidate with “Christ offering sacrifice”; marriage conjoins spouses to Christ in the act of “uniting to himself mankind and the Church.”When the sick are anointed, it is “Christ strengthening those who are struggling”; he is the angel who visits them in their Gethsemane. The penitent sinner is made one with “Christ efficaciously making satisfaction for us”—the sinner is nailed to an invisible cross where the Savior meets him, and breathes out peace upon him.67 In every case, it is Christ himself, in his sacred humanity, in his eternal divinity, who acts directly upon the recipient; it is he who bestows the healing and elevating effects of grace through the sacramental signs administered by others.68 “The man who baptizes provides only exterior ministry,” writes Thomas, “but it is Christ who baptizes interiorly, who is able to use all men for whatever he wills.”69 In another text the point is made quite forcefully: 66 Cf. Berger, Aquinas and the Liturgy, 27–41. It must be emphasized, and we shall have occasion to point this out, that for St. Thomas the Eucharist occupies so unique a place and enjoys such a primacy among the seven sacraments of the New Law that even the term “sacrament” has to be regarded as analogous, with the Eucharist being the very locus of divinization and communion with the Savior, and the other sacraments streaming out from it and leading back to it. 67 The phrases quoted are taken from the faithfully Thomistic commentary of André-Charles Gigon, O.P., De Sacramentis in communi (Fribourg: Typographia Canisiana, 1945). 68 On Aquinas’s general sacramental theology, see Yocum,“Sacraments in Aquinas,” in Weinandy, Keating, and Yocum, Aquinas on Doctrine, 159–81; Liam G. Walsh O.P.,“Sacraments,” in Nieuwenhove and Wawrykow, Theology of Aquinas, 326–64; Journet, Theology of the Church, 175–84. 69 ST III, q. 67, a. 5, ad 1. 178 Peter A. Kwasniewski It is evident that Christ himself accomplishes all the Church’s sacraments: he it is who baptizes; he it is who forgives sins; he is the true priest, who offered himself on the altar of the cross, and by whose power his own body is consecrated daily on the altar. And yet, because he was not to remain bodily present to all the faithful, he chose ministers, that through them he might give that same body to the faithful.70 Thus, in and through the seven sacraments, Christians re-live mystically the life Christ lived when he dwelt among us full of grace and truth, and the risen life he is now living forever: we enter into his earthly ministry, his passion and death, his resurrection and ascension.71 One can see these connections by attending to the relevant prologues in the Summa theologiae. Before Summa theologiae I, question 2, Thomas says he will expound the science of sacred doctrine by treating of God, of the rational creature’s advance toward God, and finally of Christ, who as man is our way to God. Having arrived at III, question 1, he then says it remains to consider the Savior Jesus Christ who showed in his very person the way of truth whereby we may attain to eternal bliss by rising again, a consideration to be unfolded in three stages: the Savior himself; the sacraments whereby we attain our salvation; the goal of immortal life. At the start of the second stage (q. 60), he announces that the sacraments follow next in order because they derive their efficacy from the very Word made flesh. This truth is the key principle for the remaining questions (qq. 60–90) that Thomas completed before the mystical breakdown of December 1273.72 Each sacrament has its power and operation immediately from Jesus Christ, whose glorified humanity is the inseparable instrument, the predestined channel, through which the divine Word pours out grace into souls.When a human being, properly disposed, receives one of the seven sacraments, he is at that moment in mystical contact with the person of the Savior, who pours out as much grace as the soul is ready to receive.73 This mystical contact attains 70 SCG IV, ch. 76. Super ad Eph. 4, lec. 2, §200:“No matter who performs the rites they possess an unvaried power because he who baptizes interiorly is one, namely, Christ” (then follows the proof text Jn 1:33). 71 A superb exposition of this ancient Christian teaching and its development by Aquinas is given in Saward, Cradle of Redeeming Love, 47–120. See also Torrell, Spiritual Master, 125–52. 72 On the significance of the saint’s breakdown (and breakthrough) occurring in connection with celebrating the holy sacrifice of the Mass, see Peter A. Kwasniewski,“Golden Straw: St.Thomas and the Ecstatic Practice of Theology,” Nova et Vetera 2 (2004): 61–89. 73 Thus, in regard to baptism, Aquinas teaches not only that we receive certain benefits from Christ’s passion, but that it is Christ who baptizes us (cf. ST III, q. 66, a. 5, obj. 1 and ad 1), and Christ into whom we are baptized. Moreover, all Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 179 an incomparable fullness and immediacy in the Eucharist, which both symbolizes and accomplishes the intimate communion of the Savior with the members of his body.74 Here the sacramental encounter is no mere contact, but the context for an unreserved, mutual gift of self that can attain a unity and fecundity only distantly hinted at in human marriage.75 Thomas’s uncompromising sacramental realism is in many ways astonishing. Without denying that they are social, symbolic celebrations for calling to mind important truths,Aquinas holds the sacraments to be, first and foremost, a real participation in Christ’s own actions, sufferings, and glory, for the sake of receiving into one’s being the effect of those actions, the fruit of those sufferings, the vision of that glory. As Gilles Emery phrases it:“They bear the historical event of the passion of Jesus, whence they procure the fruit of grace in the present moment, while announcing the fulfillment whose seed they possess.”76 For example, when asking whether a man is freed from all guilt through baptism, Aquinas responds: Through baptism one is incorporated into Christ’s passion and death, according to Romans 6:8, “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live together with Christ.” From which it is clear that Christ’s passion is communicated to every baptized person as a remedy, as though the world’s water acquires baptismal potency subsequent to the descent of the holy body of Jesus into the Jordan River (cf. ST III, q. 39, a. 1; q. 66, a. 3, ad 4). 74 Cf. ST III, q. 73, a. 1, ad 3; a. 5, ad 2. At ST III, q. 66, a. 9, ad 5, Aquinas makes a very important comparison between baptism and Eucharist:“Both sacraments . . . are representative of the Lord’s death and passion, but not in the same way. For in baptism Christ’s death is commemorated insofar as man dies with Christ, that he may be born again into a new life. But in the sacrament of the Eucharist, Christ’s death is commemorated insofar as the suffering Christ himself is offered to us as the paschal banquet, according to 1 Corinthians 5:7–8,‘Christ our pasch is sacrificed; therefore let us feast.’ And since man is only born once, whereas he eats many times, so is baptism given only once, but the Eucharist many times” (emphasis added). 75 For a synthetic presentation of all these points, see two works in particular: Matthias J. Scheeben, The Mysteries of Christianity, trans. Cyril Vollert, S.J. (St. Louis: Herder, 1946), 469–610; Emile Mersch, S.J., The Theology of the Mystical Body, trans. Cyril Vollert, S.J. (St. Louis: Herder, 1951), 546–93. 76 Gilles Emery, O.P.,“The Ecclesial Fruit of the Eucharist,” Nova et Vetera 2 (2004): 43–60. See Berger, Aquinas and the Liturgy, 61–87, for discussion of the sacramental realism according to which sacraments are not merely symbolic occasions of grace but physical causes emanating from the risen Christ and bringing men into contact with his personal saving work.This theme is central to two valuable studies by Colman E. O’Neill, O.P., who bases himself on the teaching of Aquinas: Meeting Christ in the Sacraments (1964; New York: Alba House, 1991); idem, Sacramental Realism: A General Theory of the Sacraments (1983; Chicago: Midwest Theological Forum, 1998). 180 Peter A. Kwasniewski he himself had suffered and had died. Now Christ’s passion . . . is sufficient satisfaction for all the sins of all men. And so the one who is baptized is freed from the debt of all the punishment due to him for sins, as though he himself had sufficiently satisfied for his own sins.77 In baptism the death and resurrection of Christ becomes ours; they become our paschal mystery, the origin of a new life with him. Thomas approvingly cites Origen:“As we died with the dying Christ and rose up again with the rising Christ, so through Christ we are circumcised with a spiritual circumcision; and so we do not stand in need of a carnal one.”78 The effect is the same as if we, having become unblemished victims, had hung on the cross; as if we had suffered and died, guiltless of all crime; as if we had risen again, forever beyond the reach of death and decay.79 The Apostle never tires of declaring this gospel: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:3–4).80 “You have 77 ST III, q. 69, a. 2. Cf. the same article, ad 1:“The punishment of Christ’s passion is communicated to the one baptized, inasmuch as he becomes a member of Christ, as though he himself had endured that punishment,” and ST III, q. 68, a. 5: “Through baptism a man is incorporated into the very death of Christ.” 78 ST III, q. 37, a. 1, ad 2. 79 So much is this the case, believes Thomas, that it even dissolves the obligation of rendering the marriage debt in a certain case: “Now he who goes over to the religious life dies only a spiritual death, not a bodily death; and so, if the marriage be consummated, the husband cannot go over to religious life without his wife’s consent (whereas he can do so prior to there being a carnal joining, when there is only a spiritual joining). But the one who undergoes baptism is even corporeally buried with Christ in death; and therefore he is freed from paying the marriage debt even after the marriage has been consummated” (In IV Sent. d. 39, q. 1, a. 4, ad 2, reproduced at Supplement, q. 59, a. 4, ad 2).This “as if ” is not the als ob of Kantian philosophy—we must behave as if there is a God; we must view nature as if there is teleology; we must approach the beautiful as if beauty is an objective trait. It is the mystical “as if ” that means we have really done and suffered these things because we have been spiritually joined, even identified, with the one who really did and suffered them. Being true man, Christ could act and undergo as a creature acts and undergoes; being true God, he can, in the power of the Spirit, make his accomplishments ours.The “as if ” merely preserves the reverent distance of participant to source. 80 Romans 6:3 is a text Thomas routinely cites (Galatians 3:27 is another) when he wishes to underline the quasi-organic bond between Savior and sacrament, between the work Christ accomplishes on the cross and the gift of our justification. Cf. ST III, q. 61, a. 1, ad 3, emphasis added: “Christ’s passion is, so to say, applied to man through the sacraments.” Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 181 died, and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col 3:3).“He died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor 5:15). “None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom 14:7–9).As Cardinal Ratzinger explains: What Paul is describing is an event of birth and death. I am wrested from my isolation and incorporated into the communion of a new subject; my “I” is inserted into the “I” of Christ and consequently joined to the “I” of all my brothers. Only from such deep renewal of the individual does Church come into being as a communion that binds us together and sustains us in life and death.81 This “incorporation,” begun at baptism, is perfected by a man’s being united in the power of the Spirit to the body of Christ—engrafted into his mystical body by way of his glorified body shared in the Eucharist, that we may no longer live for ourselves, but for him.82 The Eucharist is thus “the consummation of spiritual life, and the goal of all the sacraments.”83 It contains substantially the common spiritual good of the whole Church.84 It is “the sacrament of Christ’s passion in so far as a man is perfected in union with the Christ who suffered.”85 It is called synaxis or communio “because we 81 Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 153. Cf. the forceful words of H. Ball: “It is characteristic of Gnosticism . . . that at the heart of the redemptive process lies, not the suffering and death of Christ, not the crucifixion, but the ‘message concerning the holy path,’ the teaching. Illumination comes, not through pain, but through the communication of knowledge. . . . [In Paul’s writings] the wise and wonder-working, highly communicative Jesus of the Gnostics disappeared behind the obedient, the tormented Christ, the Christ who was done to death and had therefore risen again. Baptism is no longer a conjuring-up of fire and light. It is being immersed in the death of Christ” (cited in Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 89, note 3). 82 For Aquinas’s teaching on our sacramental incorporation into Christ, see Emery, “Ecclesial Fruit.” At a broader level, the studies of Emile Mersch remain classics: The Theology of the Mystical Body, already mentioned; and The Whole Christ: The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Mystical Body in Scripture and Tradition, trans. John R. Kelly, S.J. (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1938). Cf. ST III, q. 68, aa. 1–2; q. 73, a. 3. 83 ST III, q. 73, a. 3.The next sentence:“And so the reception of baptism is necessary for beginning spiritual life, while the reception of the Eucharist is necessary for consummating it.” At q. 63, a. 6, Thomas cites Dionysius, who calls the Eucharist “the end and consummation of all the sacraments.” 84 ST III, q. 65, a. 3, ad 1. 85 ST III, q. 73, a. 3, ad 3: “Eucharistia est sacramentum passionis Christi prout homo perficitur in unione ad Christum passum.” But it is the risen Lord, too. At 182 Peter A. Kwasniewski communicate with Christ himself through it—both because we partake of his flesh and Godhead, and because we communicate with and are united to one another through it.”86 Feeding on this spiritual food, man is changed into Christ,87 and so the Greeks also call it metalepsis or assumption, because in this sacrament “we assume the deity of the Son.”88 The sacraments, in fact, simply Christianize us. The soul is not, of its nature, naturally or anonymously Christ.89 We must be transformed in consciousness and conscience; we need to be given the gift of connaturality with Christ. This means, of necessity, being alienated from our “own” life—the propria vita we regard as ours and not another’s—in order to live in and for Christ, or rather, to become, more and more, Christ himself.According to Thomas, that is exactly what love does, and why the Eucharist is “the sacrament expressive of Christ’s charity, and productive of the same in us.”90 Love conforms the lover to the beloved, shifting his center from self to other: “Charity makes a man give up his very self in a way and adhere to the beloved, since, as Dionysius says, ‘love places a man outside himself and places him in the one loved.’ ”91Charity brings about “a spiritual union whereby the will is, in a way, transformed into that [divine] end.”92 When the affection or appetite is wholly imbued by the form of a good that is an object for it, it finds the good suitable and adheres to it as q. 80, a. 10, ad 1, Thomas recalls Augustine (though it is really Ambrose) saying to the daily recipient of communion: “Daily Christ rises for you.” 86 ST III, q. 73, a. 4, citing Damascene. 87 ST III, q. 73, a. 3, ad 2. 88 ST III, q. 73, a. 4, citing Damascene. 89 As Berger says: “The supernatural mystery is not an explication of man’s innerness, as the old and new Modernism wish to have us believe. It rather approaches man from outside; man may receive it as a gift from a higher darkness. . . . Once man has recognized this, he will come to appreciate the extent of the chasm that separates creator and creature. He will react to this recognition with the act of submissive worship so profoundly characteristic of the liturgy” (Berger, Aquinas and the Liturgy, 49). See, along the same lines, Ratzinger’s remarks on the “breaking in from the outside” character of Christianity (and of its Jewish root) that distinguishes it entirely from immanentistic religion or the “mysticism” of illumination: Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 32–44, 85–89, et passim.This is a familiar theme in many of Ratzinger’s works: Christianity is an event, not an idea; it confronts us first of all with a person, not a theory or an ethic. 90 In IV Sent., d. 8, q. 2, a. 2, qa. 3, ad 5: “Eucharistia dicitur sacramentum caritatis Christi expressivum, et nostrae factivum”; cf. ST III, q. 73, a. 3, ad 3. 91 In III Sent., d. 29, a. 5, obj. 1, citing Dionysius, On the Divine Names IV, §13 (PG 3:711). 92 ST I–II, q. 62, a. 3. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 183 though fixed upon it; and then it is said to love it.Whence love is nothing other than a certain transformation of affection into the thing loved. And since anything that is made the form of something is made one with it, through love the lover becomes one with what is loved, which becomes the lover’s form. And therefore the Philosopher says in Ethics 9 that “a friend is another self ”; and we read in 1 Corinthians 6:17: “Whoever adheres to God is one spirit [with him].”93 The sacraments find us more or less pagan, more or less self-centered, and they evangelize and convert us to be centered on Christ, to have our center in him—entailing the dissolution of self earlier spoken of, and leading the trustful disciple into a gradual rediscovery of his own paths and purposes in relation to the beloved.This means that a sacramental life, so far as the recipient’s experience is concerned, will not consist of satisfying (one might say, flattering) encounters between a well-defined self or subject and a securely apprehended object.94 It will be a mirror, at times bright, at times blurry, in which I can glimpse the meaning of my life and the face of the one who seeks me out in love. “Sacraments are proportionate to faith, through which the truth is seen in a mirror and in an enigma.”95 For Thomas, one may thus say about the sacraments what Ratzinger says about the Christian faith as such: It never comes out of what we have ourselves. It breaks in from outside. That is still always the way. Nobody is born a Christian, not even in a Christian world and of Christian parents. Being Christian can only ever happen as a new birth. Being a Christian begins with baptism, which is death and resurrection (Rom 6), not with biological birth.96 The Catholic custom of baptizing infants is seen to be all the more fitting in that there is not even the possibility of a conscious interpersonal relationship; the infant, a silent preacher of the doctrine of St. Paul, cannot even appear to be performing a work of righteousness, it only “suffers the 93 In III Sent., d. 27, q. 1, a. 1. On the doctrine of love contained in this and related texts from the Scriptum, see Kwasniewski,“Ecstasy in Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences.” 94 The experience, as such, may be empty and dry, or overfull and beyond words— like bodily intimacy, like evanescent recollection. But this is not the crux of the matter.The desire to equate faith or love with a subjective “experience” of God, and the consequent tendency to spurn a God who eludes experience, is one of the chief temptations a Christian has to overcome if he is to get beyond “selfcultivationism” into the maturity of spiritual marriage. On this point, see Turner’s Darkness of God. 95 ST III, q. 80, a. 2, ad 2. 96 Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 87. 184 Peter A. Kwasniewski divine love.”The child of nature’s womb has first of all to be re-formed in the Church’s womb, elevated to the point of being able to have a relationship of love with Christ and through him with the whole human family. This is a dramatically anti-Pelagian gesture in which individual helplessness is met and mended in solidarity with others.97 It is almost invariably Galatians 2:20 that Thomas quotes when he wants to illustrate scripturally the reality of extasis, the paradox of the “I” whose life, without ceasing to be a life that is his (for the person is not annihilated), has been handed over and transformed by love into another’s life, so much so that he lives out of himself, in another.“Divine love makes a man, so far as possible, live not his own life, but God’s life.”98 “Some are alive, but have not life in themselves, such as Paul. . . . He was living, yet not in himself but in another by whom he was living, even as a body is alive, yet has not life in itself but rather has life in the soul by which it lives.”99 To find out how Aquinas envisions the communion effected by charity, we would do well to look at his commentary on Galatians 2, verses 19–20: The Apostle therefore says With Christ I am nailed to the cross, that is, concupiscence or the kindling of sin, and everything of the sort, has been put to death in me through the cross of Christ: “Our old man is crucified with him so that the sinful body might be destroyed” (Rom 6:6). Also from the fact that I am nailed to the cross with Christ and have died to sin, and because Christ rose again, I, too, have risen with him rising, “who was delivered up for our sins, and rose again for our justification” (Rom 4:25). Thus, therefore, does Christ renew in us a new life, the oldness of sin being destroyed. Hence he says And I live, that is, because I am nailed to the cross of Christ, I have the strength to 97 Cf. ST III, q. 68, a. 9; q. 73, a. 3:“By baptism a man is ordered to the Eucharist, and therefore from the fact of children being baptized, they are destined by the Church to the Eucharist; and just as they believe through the Church’s faith, so they desire the Eucharist through the Church’s intention, and, as a result, receive its reality.” In fact, a good case can be made that infant baptism is the litmus test, so to speak, for whether or not a Christian confession takes seriously the objective efficacy of the sacraments. For further discussion, see Peter A. Kwasniewski,“King Herod and the Martyr-Children,” in Abortion and Martyrdom:The Papers of the Solesmes Consultation and an Appeal to the Catholic Church, ed. Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Herefordshire, England: Gracewing, 2002), 32–50. 98 In III Sent. d. 29, a. 3, ad 1. 99 Super Ioannem 5, lec. 5. In both this passage and the former,Thomas cites Galatians 2:20 to support his point. Passages in which Galatians 2:20 plays a significant role include In IV Sent. d. 12, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 1 (quoted below); ST II–II, q. 175, a. 2, ad 2; De perfectione spiritualis uitae, 11; In librum Beati Dionysii De divinis nominibus, 4, lec. 10; Super Ps. 21, §26; and Ps. 30, §1; Super Ioan. 1, lec. 12; Super II ad Cor. 5, lec. 3; Super ad Gal. 2, lec. 6 (quoted below); and Super ad Gal. 6, lec. 4. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 185 act well, now not I according to the flesh, because I no longer have the oldness which I once had, but Christ liveth in me, that is, the newness which has been given us through Christ. Or, in another way: a man is said to live according to that in which he chiefly establishes his affection, and in which he most of all takes delight. Hence men who take their greatest delight in study or in hunting say that this is their life. Now, each and every man has his own private affection by which he seeks that which is his own.When therefore someone lives seeking only what is his own, he lives only unto himself; but when he seeks the good of others, he is said to live for them. Accordingly, because the Apostle had set aside his self-directed affection through the cross of Christ, he said that he was dead so far as self-directed affection was concerned, saying that “with Christ I am nailed to the cross” (2:19), that is, through the cross of Christ my own self-directed or private affection has been removed from me. Hence he says below (6:14): “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ [by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world]”; and 2 Corinthians 5:14: “If one died for all, then all were dead. And Christ died for all, that they also who live may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them.” And I live, now not I, as if having in my affection my own good, but Christ liveth in me, that is, I have Christ alone in my affection, and Christ himself is my life.“For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). Then when he says, and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, he answers a twofold difficulty. . . . First of all, the first one, namely: how he lives and yet it is not he who lives. He answers this when he says: And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God. Here it should be noted that, strictly speaking, those things are said to live which are moved by an inner principle. Now the soul of Paul was set between his body and God; the body, indeed, was made to be alive and was moved by the soul of Paul, but his soul by Christ. . . . Therefore he says, I live by faith in the Son of God through which he dwells in me and moves me: “But the just shall live in his faith” (Hab 2:4). And note that he says in the flesh, not “by the flesh,” because [to live like] this is evil. Second, he shows that he is nailed to the cross, saying: [I live by faith in the Son of God] because the love of Christ, which he showed to me in dying on the cross for me, brings it about that I am always nailed with him.And this is what he says, who loved me: “he first loved us” (1 Jn 4:10). And he loved me to the extent of giving himself and not some other sacrifice for me:“he loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev 1:5);“As Christ loved the Church and delivered himself up for it, that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life” (Eph 5:25).100 100 Super ad Gal. 2, lec. 6, §§106 and 107. The translation is adapted from that of F. R. Larcher, O.P., Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians by St.Thomas Aquinas (Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1966), 62–63. 186 Peter A. Kwasniewski This passage from the Galatians commentary is directly relevant to our theme, for it is an important aspect of Thomas’s Eucharistic theology that the Lord of glory present under the consecrated species is the Christwho-suffered, Christus passus. In the Commentary on John, he writes: Since this sacrament is of the Lord’s passion, it contains within itself Christ who suffered. Hence whatever is an effect of the Lord’s passion is wholly contained in this sacrament, for it is nothing else than the application of the Lord’s passion to us. . . . Hence it is clear that the destruction of death, which Christ accomplished by his death, and the restoration of life, which he accomplished by his resurrection, are effects of this sacrament.101 This is significant for many reasons. One reason that might be overlooked is psychological. In being made to confront symbols of the death we inflicted on Christ—the crucifix, the host, the chalice—we are brought face to face with the reality of our own malice or even simply our moral weariness, and our failure to “solve” the problems of human existence. Christianity does not automatically rid people of all sin and every stain of sin; sincere Christians are not necessarily better behaved than their unbelieving neighbors, and they can at times be worse.102 But they are nevertheless aware of two things, if they are truly practicing their faith: how bad they are in turning away from the Lord, “every one to his own way” (Is 53:6); how good they are in being his creatures, sprinkled in the Lamb’s 101 Super Ioan. 6, lec. 6, §964. See, e.g., In IV Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 2, qa. 2; ST III, q. 66, a. 9, ad 5; and q. 73, a. 5, ad 2. 102 Edward Schillebeeckx discusses this issue in Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), 217–21; cf. Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 61–65, 148–56.Taking up a theme of many ascetical-mystical treatises, Preston speaks of the providential persistence of defects: God’s Way to Be Man, 53–60.All the same, the truth and effectiveness of the Christian faith must, in fairness, be judged not by its lukewarm half-practitioners or its apostates (should one blame a medicine that was never taken for a sickness that was not thereby ameliorated?), but by its vast company of saints who have washed their robes white in the Blood of the Lamb. Moreover, it is all too easy to take for granted how Christianized our assumptions, mores, and institutions have become due to centuries of ecclesial presence. What is routinely attributed to secular reason, to an ethic of fairness or a noble humanism, is often enough the last sputter of gospel influence. The popes of modern times, from Leo XIII onward, have warned that if the gospel is not welcomed as the animating principle of individuals and societies, the West will degenerate ever more rapidly into a kind of high-tech barbarism at the service of pride, greed, and lust, contemptuous of human dignity and rights.The papal prognosis has been correct, above all for the Western Europe of today—spiritually bankrupt, culturally exhausted, demographically dried up. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 187 blood.They seek forgiveness and healing, ultimately resurrection, from the very one they have killed, who has already died for them and only awaits their turning around to him (one might say, they need to “turn themselves in”). It is this prevenient offering of the sinless for the sinner and its counterpart, the surrendering of assailant to victim, that the cross symbolizes and the Mass makes present in a mirror and in an enigma.103 We can understand these connections better by turning for a moment to Dom Sebastian Moore’s probing of the “psychology of the cross.” For Moore, the mystery of evil can be described as the “will not to be,” the effort to deny that “man is called to an ever-greater intensity of selfhood”: “The most passionately protected thing in us is our mediocrity, our fundamental indecision in respect of life. Its protection will require, and will not stop at, murder.”104 We experience the love that overpowers evil, and the acceptance of ourselves as failures, only when we first realize that we have crucified Jesus; in the crucifixion, all man’s frustration with and flight from himself are focused vindictively on one innocent victim. Here, with open eyes, we see explicitly what we really want—but we also see that God knows this and is ready to forgive us, that he wants to heal and convert our desire.Writes Moore:“It is only by a total surrender that we come into our identity, a surrender whose dimensions embrace the deep mystery of our refusal and has required, for its being made, the full experience of that refusal.”105 Thus in Pilate’s cry “Ecce homo” is the unintended confession that here, and here alone, is Man encountered, and our latent humanity awoken:“I come before the crucified as a non-person, seeking to be awoken to the person I am.”106 And why? “ ‘I am’ equals ‘I love.’‘I love’ is the only way to say ‘I am.’ ”107 For that very reason, taking up again St. Thomas’s language, the sacrament of love must be the sacrament of the cross, commemorating the Lord’s sacrificial death.108 103 Cf. ST III, q. 83, a. 1:The celebration of the Eucharist is called the “immolation” of Christ because, first, it is “a certain image representative of Christ’s passion,” and second, “through this sacrament we are made partakers of the fruit of the Lord’s passion.” 104 Sebastian Moore, O.S.B., The Crucified Jesus Is No Stranger (New York: Seabury, 1981), 13. It should not be necessary to add that I differ with Moore as I do with Schillebeeckx concerning matters on which they dissent from the Magisterium. Each has valuable insights that deserve to be retained, like gold extracted from ore. 105 Ibid., 14. 106 Ibid., 78. 107 Ibid., 96. See also Sebastian Moore, O.S.B., “Our Love Is Crucified,” Downside Review 116 (1998): 27–44; cf. Frederick C. Bauerschmidt, “The Wounds of Christ,” Journal of Literature & Theology 5 (1991): 83–100. 108 A point emphasized by Wawrykow (“Luther and the Spirituality of Aquinas”), who rightly sees how Thomas, throughout the ST treatise on the Eucharist, is at pains 188 Peter A. Kwasniewski But the process of reform does not stop with acknowledging one’s guilt, or even with detachment from sin; the former is an obstacle to be overcome, the latter a precondition for growth. Christians pursue detachment only for the sake of deeper attachment. Borrowing the Apostle’s words,Thomas describes the highest of the three degrees of charity as a “longing to be dissolved and to be with Christ.”109 What the Lord seeks is the total gift of oneself, the passionate clinging of lover to beloved, of wife to husband, forming one flesh, sharing one breath.110 If nothing less will do for human lovers in their frenzied possessiveness, will Christ settle for a lukewarm exchange of goods and services? “I am come to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!” (Lk 12:49);“I have ardently longed to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk 22:15).111 Unlike earthly spouses, Christ is able to effect a union of pure, total, permanent possession, in no way limited in its fullness, going to the abyss of one’s being, there where “the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:10) are darkly known and sweetly loved, are touched and savored. “I shudder to feel how different I am from it,” says Augustine of God’s Word,“yet in so far as I am like it, I am aglow with its fire.”112 Since the matter of the Eucharist is bread and wine, which are food and drink for man, its proper effect can be discerned from the effects of food and drink in the one who consumes them—namely, the restoration of lost to link it with charity, real presence, and the passion. The cumulative message is this:The love of God is made manifest and communicated in the broken body of Jesus, who gave his life on the cross in order to give it ever anew in the sacrament of his love. For all ages, this sacrament—whether anticipated in pre-Christian cults or realized in the Mass—is the pulsing heart of the world, the center of gravity toward which everybody is attracted. Cf. Journet, Theology of the Church, 181–84. 109 ST II–II, q. 24, a. 9. In context, it is the beginners, says Thomas, who are occupied with getting away from sin and fighting against fleshly desires; their aim is primarily negative, viz., to keep charity from being corrupted.Those advancing, for their part, are concerned with the growth of charity—they want to run ahead, doing good. The perfect, however, aim above all at “union with, and enjoyment of, God.”Then follows the citation of Philippians 1:23. 110 See Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 33–40, esp. 38–39. On the intimate union of persons brought about in Eucharistic communion, see François Charmot, S.J., The Mass, Source of Sanctity, trans. M. Angeline Bouchard (Notre Dame: Fides Publishers, 1964), 167–228; but above all, a poignant little book by MarieVincent Berdanot, O.P., originally published in France early in the twentieth century: From Holy Communion to the Blessed Trinity, trans. Francis Izard, O.S.B. (1925; London: Sands, 1951). 111 Following the NJB. The opening phrase is particularly strong in the original, where the language doubles itself, mirrored in the Vulgate’s desiderio desideravi. 112 Augustine, Confessions, bk. 11, ch. 9 (trans. Pine-Coffin, 260). Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 189 matter and, should there be surplus, an increase of bodily substance.113 But, Thomas goes on to say, there is a crucial difference between bodily food and spiritual food. Bodily food has its effect, to restore lost flesh and increase its quantity, by being converted into the one fed. Spiritual food, on the contrary, is not converted into the one eating; the one eating is rather converted into it, for it acts upon him, so as to turn him into itself.114 The notion of being changed into the food one eats might seem odd, since that would be the contrary of what happens with all other food and drink. Were the food in question mere food, it would be impossible to speak this way, as Jesus recognizes when he says:“the flesh profits nothing” ( Jn 6:64), that is, as the Church Fathers interpret the saying, mere flesh is lifeless, it cannot bring life to the spirit.115 But if the food is the life-giving flesh of the living Son of God, a believer’s contact with it leads to life, renewal, deification—a truth central to the theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria,116 who is the first patristic auctoritas Thomas cites in the important question on the effects of the Eucharist: The life-giving Word of God, uniting himself to his own flesh, made it life-giving. It was becoming, therefore, that he be in a certain way united to our bodies through his sacred flesh and precious blood, which we receive in a life-giving blessing in bread and wine.117 As Mersch explains: Union with food is effected in a mysterious exchange of life, in an assimilation by which one becomes the other. But in the Eucharist, the more vital of the two is the bread we receive, the “bread of life.” This bread consumes and changes into itself the one who eats it.118 113 In IV Sent. d. 12, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 1.To these physical effects,Thomas likens the sacra- mental effects of an increase in “spiritual quantity” (where “quantity” means the extent of active power) by the strengthening of the virtues, and a restoration of wholeness through the forgiveness of venial sin or the repairing of any sort of defect. 114 Aquinas says this many times; in the Sentences commentary alone, at In IV Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 3, qa. 1; In IV Sent., d. 9, a. 2, qa. 4; In IV Sent., d. 12, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 1. Cf. Emery, “Ecclesial Fruit,” 47–48. 115 Typical of the patristic exegesis of John 6:64 is the interpretation of Augustine’s that Thomas quotes in ST III, q. 75, a. 1, ad 1. 116 See Mersch, The Whole Christ, 337–58. 117 ST III, q. 79, a. 1; Cyril is commenting on Luke 22:19. 118 Mersch, Theology of the Mystical Body, 590–91. 190 Peter A. Kwasniewski This it can do because it is none other than the Lord in person, under the appearances of bread and wine.119 United to Jesus through faith and love, the communicant “is transformed into him and becomes his member,” says Aquinas, “for this food is not changed into the one who eats it, but turns into itself the one who takes it. . . .This is a food capable of making man divine and inebriating him with divinity.”120 In the Sentences,Thomas simply states that “the proper effect of this sacrament is the conversion of man into Christ, that it might be said with the Apostle, ‘I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me.’ ”121 He later adds: It belongs to charity to transform the lover into the beloved, because charity is such that it brings about ecstasy, as Dionysius says. And since the increase of virtues caused by this sacrament comes about through the changing of the one eating into the spiritual food eaten, therefore to this sacrament is specially attributed the increase of charity rather than an increase of other virtues.122 L. Gregory Jones summarizes it thus: “For Thomas, to feed on Christ is gradually to lose the old, sinful self in order to be changed into a new self, a Christlike friend of God.”123 Such a change has communal, cosmic implications, as Ratzinger brings out: 119 The end (finis) of the eating is well stated by Cardinal Ratzinger: “Communion means the fusion of existences; just as in the taking of nourishment the body assimilates foreign matter to itself, and is thereby enabled to live, in the same way my ‘I’ is ‘assimilated’ to that of Jesus, it is made similar to him in an exchange that increasingly breaks through the lines of division.This same event takes place in the case of all who communicate; they are all assimilated to this ‘bread’ and thus are made one among themselves—one body.” Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 37. 120 Super Ioan. 6, lec. 7, §969; cf. ST III, q. 73, a. 3, ad 2. In these places Thomas goes on to cite a passage from the Confessions in which Augustine describes how he heard Christ saying to him: “You will not be changing me into you, as food becomes your flesh; it is rather you who will be changed into me” (Confessions, bk. 7, ch. 10; cf. trans. Pine-Coffin, 147). Commenting on Psalm 22:5, Aquinas writes: “This [goodly] cup is the gift of divine love which inebriates, since one who is drunk is not in himself . . . for he is made to be in ecstasy”;“the cup means the blood of Christ, which ought to make us drunk.” Super Ps. 22, no. 2. 121 In IV Sent., d. 12, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 1. 122 In IV Sent., d. 12, q. 2, a. 1, qa. 1, ad 3. In the same question, cf. a. 2, qa. 1: “by the power of this sacrament there is a certain transformation of man into Christ through love . . . , and this is its proper effect.” 123 L. Gregory Jones,“The Theological Transformation of Aristotelian Friendship in the Thought of St.Thomas Aquinas,” New Scholasticism 61 (1987): 373–99, at 389. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 191 Normal food is less strong than man, it serves him, is taken into man’s body to be assimilated and to build it up. But this special food, the Eucharist, is above man and stronger than man. Consequently the whole process involved is reversed: the man who eats this bread is assimilated by it, taken into it; he is fused into this bread and becomes bread, like Christ himself. “Though many, we are one body, for we are one bread.” The result of this insight is quite clear: Eucharist is never merely an event à deux, a dialogue between Christ and me.The goal of Eucharistic communion is a total recasting of a person’s life, breaking up a man’s whole “I” and creating a new “We.” Communion with Christ is of necessity a communication with all those who are his: it means that I myself become part of this new “bread” which he creates by transubstantiating all earthly reality.124 That the Eucharist effects a transformation of the eater into the eaten, an ongoing conversion into Christ that parallels the increase of charity, is a view fairly common among scholastic authors.What is striking is how Thomas links up this idea with extasis, a link reminiscent of the Eucharistic doctrine of an author whom Thomas never explicitly cites on the matter, St. Gregory of Nyssa. Gregory teaches that the progress of the soul into God and at the same time into its own true nature is “a transmutation toward the divine (ektasis pros to theioteron) accomplished by the Holy Eucharist,” and that “through the divine food and drink, change and ecstasy from worse things to better things enter together into the soul (metaboles kai ekstaseos . . . suneisiouses).”125 I have not been successful in finding a source in which Thomas might have encountered Gregory’s views—but there does not need to be a source.We are likely dealing with a coincidence proceeding from a heart similarly moved, a mind similarly disposed. This suggests that we are getting near the center of Thomas’s own heart and mind. Faithful reception of the Eucharist pushes forward an ecstatic self-transformation into the soul’s beloved, Jesus Christ. It causes accelerating alienation from a pseudo-self, to bring the healing of reintegration and divinization in the Lord. Among the patristic quotations in the Summa’s treatise on the Eucharist, we find the following, from St. John Damascene: “The fire of that desire which is in us, taking ignition from the burning coal (that is, from this sacrament), will burn up our sins and illuminate our hearts, so that by partaking of the divine fire we may be set on fire and deified.”126 Thomas himself had noted earlier that Christ superabundantly fulfilled on the cross what was prefigured by the 124 Ratzinger, Behold the Pierced One, 89, original emphasis. 125 Cited in Corrigan, “Ecstasy and Ectasy,” 33. 126 ST III, q. 79, a. 8, s.c. Peter A. Kwasniewski 192 burning up of animals: “In Christ’s holocaust, instead of material fire [being present], there was the spiritual fire of charity.”127 When we receive the Eucharist in a state of grace, we are feasting upon this fire of love, letting it permeate and burn into all the powers and passivities of soul and body. Hence, too, so far as ritual is concerned, “the exterior sacrifice that is offered is a sign of the interior sacrifice by which one offers himself to God, as Augustine says in On the City of God.”128 Here Thomas is utterly at one with the monastic tradition, with Bernard’s homilies on the Song of Songs, with the Victorines who speak of extasis in prayer. Here we catch a glimpse of that stout and often silent Dominican friar whose contemporaries testified far more often about his tears at Mass, his vigilant prayer and virginal purity, than about his disputations and publications.129 As one of his early biographers,William of Tocco, writes: He was especially devoted to the most holy Sacrament of the Altar; since it had been granted him to write so profoundly of this, he was likewise given grace to celebrate it all the more devoutly. . . . During Mass he often would be seized by such strong feelings of devotion that he dissolved in tears, because he was absorbed in the holy mysteries of the great sacrament and invigorated by its offerings.130 Aquinas gave himself body and soul to the holy mysteries because in them he found his beloved Lord, and through them feasted upon his love. He was convinced that of all the good things Jesus wants for us, foremost is an intimate friendship between him and each person who believes in him (cf. Jn 15:13–5). Giving reasons in support of the real presence of the Lord in the Sacrament, Aquinas says: Such a thing befits Christ’s love, out of which he took up a true body of our nature, for the sake of our salvation. And since “to live together 127 ST III, q. 46, a. 4, ad 1. 128 ST III, q. 82, a. 4, referring to bk. 10, ch. 5. For a luminous exposition of this Augustinian (and Thomistic) understanding of sacrifice, see Joseph Ratzinger, “The Theology of the Liturgy,” in Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy with Cardinal Ratzinger, ed. Alcuin Reid, O.S.B. (Farnborough: Saint Michael’s Abbey Press, 2003), 18–31, esp. 25–29. 129 All this can be easily found in the medieval biographical accounts: see Thomae Aquinatis vitae fontes praecipue, ed. Angelico Ferrua, O.P. (Alba: Edizioni Domenicane, 1968); for a partial translation, Kenelm Foster, O.P., The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Biographical Documents (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1959). See also JeanPierre Torrell’s “portrait” of Friar Thomas in Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. I, The Person and His Work, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), esp. 278–89; and Kwasniewski,“Golden Straw,” 79–85. 130 Ferrua, Fontes praecipue, §30, p. 73. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 193 is most of all proper to friends,” as the Philosopher says, he promises his own bodily presence to us as a reward. . . .Yet meanwhile, his bodily presence has not abandoned us in this sojourning; rather, he joins us to himself in this sacrament through the truth of his body and blood. Hence he himself says in John 6:57: “he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” Hence this sacrament is a sign of the greatest love, and the support of our hope, from so close a joining [ex familiari coniunctione] of Christ to us.131 Asking whether Jesus fittingly instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, Thomas lingers over the same theme. It was fitting, yes, because the things said last, and most of all by departing friends, are more committed to memory—especially because one’s affection is then more inflamed toward the friends, while those things toward which we have more affection are imprinted more deeply on the soul.132 Charity, as Thomas teaches, is divinely given friendship with God.133 The Eucharist is the divinely given sign and agent of charity.134 Therefore this sacrament is the sacrament of friendship par excellence, the supreme embodiment of God’s love for each soul. Since ecstasy, too, is one of the chief effects of love,135 and above all, of friendship-love (amor amicitiae) for another person, we can see once again why the Eucharist brings to the soul that which it commemorates and signifies: the Lord’s gift of himself on the cross, where he sealed an eternal covenant with his bride, the Church. All of this takes place in the dark, the darkness of faith; it is with good reason that Aquinas insists on the cloudy, enigmatic nature of the sacramental event.136 God gives himself in limitless intimacy, but we comprehend 131 ST III, q. 75, a. 1.Thomas had similarly argued in q. 46, a. 3, that the first of five reasons why Christ willed to suffer the passion on our behalf is that “now man realizes how much God loves man, and so is roused to love him in return, in which loving the perfection of human salvation consists.” 132 ST III, q. 73, a. 5. 133 ST I–II, q. 65, a. 5; II–II, q. 23, a. 1. 134 ST III, q. 78, a. 3, ad 6: “sacramentum caritatis quasi figurativum et effectivum.” 135 Cf. ST I–II, q. 28, a. 3; this and related texts are gathered in Kwasniewski, “St. Thomas, Extasis, and Union with the Beloved.” 136 As Charles De Koninck writes: “It is, then, by a truly unparalleled mercy that God has deigned to meet us in perfect night and that, in order to elevate us to his own heights, he has satisfied for all our insufficiencies, and has asked of us, in our act of faith, an abnegation analogous to that of his Son. This is a hard saying; who can listen to it? . . . Simon Peter answered him: Master, to whom shall we go? Is it not a mercy admirable above all that, abandoned by all, we can go nowhere else except to him, in surrender to this mystery of Faith where hides, in a 194 Peter A. Kwasniewski neither him nor his gifts, for we can hardly come to grips with a love so unlike ours in its generosity and humility, yet so longed-for by us in our solitude and poverty. Can it be true? The mind baulks; the response is often bewilderment. It is not possible that God should be “mine” as if he ceased to be immense and purely unreachable, unfathomable.Yet he is indeed mine, for, as creator and sustainer, he enters into my being far more profoundly than I can enter into my own thoughts or volitions; he is more within, and more “mine,” than my own thinking and willing, my own actions and sufferings.137 And that is not all. He delivers himself to death for me, hands over his very life to me, plants within me the seed of everlasting life: his true flesh, his inebriating blood, his glorious humanity, “the divine, holy, most pure, immortal, heavenly, life-creating, and awesome mysteries of Christ,” as the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom chants. No wonder we are bewildered.We are torn apart by a love that defies our logic, that multiplies our longings and frustrates our desires, which are always too few and too small. God would have it this way, for unless he rends us and remakes us, we cannot enter into his rest, be one with him, be the temple of his glory, bear him in our bodies, become his sons in our souls. This is the merciful cruelty of God, the blessed wounding spoken of by the mystics, and like its exemplar, the wise folly of the cross, it belongs to the heart of the Christian experience. In essence, to be a mystic is to believe in the mystery Paul announces in Galatians 2:20, and to strive to live it day after day with the help of God’s grace—that and nothing else.138 This is why Aquinas wept so often when celebrating Mass, and why he is a master and model for all of us.139 “Behold, the Dwelling of God Is with Men” (Revelation 21:3) My principal goal has been to sketch a Thomistic understanding of sacramental self-transformation in Christ. But connected to this goal is a subordinate one. If ecstasy is the hallmark of Eucharistic communion, the perfectly adapted silence, the one whose name is Word?” De Koninck,“This Is a Hard Saying,” The Aquinas Review 1 (1994): 111. 137 See ST I, q. 8, esp. a. 1 and a. 2, ad 3. 138 As Louis Bouyer unfolds in his beautiful work The Christian Mystery: From Pagan Myth to Christian Mysticism, trans. Illtyd Trethowan, O.S.B. (Edinburgh:T&T Clark, 1990). Over the last century many authors have emphasized the sacramentalecclesial-devotional “mysticism” that Thomas understands as intrinsic to the Catholic faith and accessible to all believers; a valuable summary is furnished by Erb in “ ‘Pati Divina’ ” (see note 36 above). 139 Cf. Martin Grabmann, The Interior Life of Thomas Aquinas, trans. Nicholas Ashenbrener, O.P. (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1951). Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 195 Eucharist in turn must be housed in a “tabernacle” suited to its inherent dynamism. This tabernacle is the sacred liturgy, which is worthily celebrated when celebrated in a manner that accords with the great mystery it contains and diffuses.140 Among the seven sacraments the Eucharist holds pride of place.To it all the others are ordered; in it, or in him whom it mystically signifies and really contains, are the source and summit of the Christian life, the soil and fruit of the Church’s life. “Because the whole mystery of our salvation is contained in this sacrament,” remarks St.Thomas,“it is performed with a greater solemnity than the other sacraments.”141 In the magnificent question 83 of the third part of the Summa, St. Thomas presents a detailed exegesis of the Mass in all its aspects: word, song, and silence, rubric and ritual, exterior architecture, interior mysticism.142 What is it 140 An argument central to most high-level critiques of the postconciliar liturgical reform is that its outcome failed to accord with the meaning and spirit of cultic worship as understood by our forebears from antiquity to the eve of the Council. See, among others (I list the following in chronological order): Klaus Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background, trans. Klaus D. Grimm (San Juan Capistrano, CA: Una Voce Press, 1993); Aidan Nichols, O.P., Looking at the Liturgy: A Critical View of Its Contemporary Form (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996); Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R., and James Monti, In the Presence of Our Lord:The History,Theology, and Psychology of Eucharistic Devotion (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1997), 59–102; Borella, Sense of the Supernatural, 59–65; Catherine Pickstock, After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998); Stratford Caldecott, ed., Beyond the Prosaic: Renewing the Liturgical Movement (Edinburgh:T&T Clark, 1998); Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000); idem, God Is Near Us:The Eucharist,The Heart of Life, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2001); Klaus Gamber, The Modern Rite: Collected Essays on the Reform of the Liturgy, trans. Henry Taylor (Farnborough: Saint Michael’s Abbey Press, 2002); Reid, Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy;Alcuin Reid, O.S.B., The Organic Development of the Liturgy (Farnborough: Saint Michael’s Abbey Press, 2004); U. M. Lang, Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004); Jonathan Robinson, The Mass and Modernity: Walking to Heaven Backwards (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005); Martin Mosebach, The Heresy of Formlessness:The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).We can be sure there will be many more such books in years to come. It scarcely needs mentioning that the tradition and Magisterium of the Roman Church have always favored solemnity, dignity, contemplativity, and symbolic richness in liturgical praxis. In some ages and places this ensemble of qualities has translated into the idiom of courtly pomp and lavish display, but it has not always done so, nor need it do so. 141 ST III, q. 83, a. 4. 142 A number of recent authors have drawn attention to the riches of this liturgical exegesis and its continuing relevance: Berger, Aquinas and the Liturgy, 27–41; 196 Peter A. Kwasniewski that underlies the pronounced attitude of reverence, the humble welcoming of tradition, the evident love of cultic form, so characteristic of Aquinas’s approach? A passage in Borella seems to offer an appropriate answer. Having spoken of a true liturgical rite as an ensemble of sensible symbols that are, in combination, fixed, timeless, visibly extraordinary, unusual for the profane world, hieratic, mysterious, bearers of a secret order, and signposts to the transcendent, Borella then places an imaginary speech on the lips of “every true rite”: Ever in me is your present; in me your ephemeral life can rediscover its surest meaning, because ever in me is the fidelity and the patience of Divine Love and its promise. You who are worn out by the whirl of time and things, you who have been torn to pieces, divided further and lost; come and see, I will gather you together again, unify you, calm you, for I am always the same; I am the language with which your fathers and mothers prayed. . . . I am the long and still fresh memory of people when they remember God.143 The solemnity draws attention to, and keeps attention on, the symbolic representation of our being loved as no one else loves us, our being taken hold of and carried into something totally beyond our ken, yet offered to us through ordinary things which in turn provoke us to reconsider how we relate to the world itself. Preston and McCabe emphasize how the mysteries enacted with bread and wine at Mass, far from being anomalous rituals disconnected from daily life, ought to be opening our eyes to the potential sacredness of every table and every meal.144 At the same time, however, the avoidance of merely “common” modes of speaking and acting in the liturgy is by design, to help us break free from a profane mindset, to awaken us to the Presence that surrounds and penetrates the entire world. Hence, making the liturgy more common, more everyday, casual, horizontal, is self-defeating; it obliterates the liturgical as such, Levering, Sacrifice and Community, ch. 5; John Saward, “The Cosmic Liturgy and the Way of the Lamb,” Antiphon 7 (2002): 18–28; Peter M. Candler Jr., “Liturgically Trained Memory: A Reading of Summa Theologiae III.83,” Modern Theology 20 (2004): 423–45. 143 Borella, Sense of the Sacred, 62. 144 See Preston, God’s Way to Be Man, 89; Herbert McCabe, O.P., The New Creation: Studies on Living in the Church (London: Sheed & Ward, 1964), 72–78; Albert Bagood, O.P.,“Intersubjectivity—Friendship, Diner and Holy Eucharistic Meal,” Angelicum 82 (2005): 755–81;Thomas Merton too has enlightening things to say along these lines in The Living Bread (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1956), 125–32. All four authors, of course, also speak of the differences between this meal and every other. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 197 exactly where it cultivates the holy, the divine, the Other who is more myself than I. Ironically, too, a liturgy stripped of its mysterious alteritas would be reduced to the place of last among worldly equals, for it cannot compete against the secular on the latter’s terms. And so, it would be effectively sterilized in its power to fecundate outlying culture, prevented from casting an otherworldly light on the potential sacredness of the ordinary elements of this-worldly life. As Ratzinger writes: Worship, that is, the right kind of cult, of relationship with God, is essential for the right kind of human existence in the world. It is so precisely because it reaches beyond everyday life. Worship gives us a share in heaven’s mode of existence, in the world of God, and allows light to fall from that divine world into ours. . . . It lays hold in advance of a more perfect life and, in so doing, gives our present life its proper measure.A life without such anticipation, a life no longer opened up to heaven, would be empty, a leaden life.145 Liturgical worship offers us an opening or clearing in which to practice, and thus to make our own, a sacred mode of thinking, feeling, acting, receiving—a mode that challenges our profane assumptions, the worldliness in which we tend to lose ourselves if we are not careful to cling to Christ. We are called upon to receive into the darkness of our lives an Other who will dispossess us of the fictitious identity we hide behind, and substitute for it a share in his all-embracing light. If we understand what we are doing, insists Preston, we will realize that approaching the altar means asking for both strength and the testing of strength, finding uncertainty no less than consolation: What we are saying “Amen” to is bread that has been broken (even if we sometimes disguise this by having individual hosts). The mystery of the Church is the mystery of Christ’s brokenness, his broken body and outpoured blood, his brokenness and his sacrifice. In saying “Amen” to that we are saying “Yes” to the call to become ourselves his broken body. We are committing ourselves to being prepared to be held in the hands of Jesus and to be broken by him, snapped out of what we think we are.146 145 Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, 21. Again: “If worship, rightly understood, is the soul of the covenant, then it not only saves mankind but is also meant to draw the whole of reality into communion with God” (ibid., 27).The assertion that a life not straining toward heaven, filled by anticipation with its fragrance, is a life doomed to pointlessness, boredom, and disarray, is the main thesis of A. J. Conyers’s Eclipse of Heaven:The Loss of Transcendence and Its Effect on Modern Life (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999). 146 Preston, God’s Way to Be Man, 85–86. 198 Peter A. Kwasniewski Later in the same discourse, Preston adds: “The time and place set apart for the holy as we have them now are there lest we fail to be unsettled and settle for the present order of things.The Eucharist is meant to unsettle us, and that in our whole lives.”147 The same is true of all the “foreign” ritual and exalted artistry that belong to the liturgy as religious cult.148 If the liturgy ever became fully domesticated, if it ever struck us as perfectly clear and distinct, it would ipso facto cease to be a provocation to the shattered, alienated mentality of fallen “enlightened” man that pretends to be sweet reasonableness.149 Yet what we do and undergo at Mass is not a breaking only, as it is for the species of bread divided into many hosts, masticated in many mouths. For those who enter into the mystery of unity that the one bread symbolizes, the event promises a remaking of ourselves in the image of Christ, perfect Image of the Father. We are broken in order to be reshaped, recreated, not according to our own conceptions of appropriate form and suitable matter, but according to the Lord’s, which we cannot fathom and in relation to which we are as clay to the potter. In its alpha of adoration and omega of communion, Eucharistic worship is nothing less than a total, radical surrender of one’s being into the hands of Christ, the Word made flesh who inscribes his Word into our flesh. Making this surrender depends upon a humble faith that is able to bend the knee before material manifestations, sanctified sensibles.150 Man’s highest dignity consists in worship, the giving of thanks and praise; his most dynamic activity consists in receiving divine gifts—or, as Dionysius and Aquinas say, suffering them.151 It is thus of paramount importance to Aquinas that baptism brings with it the mystery of a sacramental character by which the soul is imprinted or inscribed with an ineradicable conformity to Christ the High Priest.152 147 Ibid., 89. 148 See Aquinas’s intriguing remarks along these lines at ST I–II, q. 102, a. 4. 149 For a defense of ritual formalism against the Enlightenment rationalism wide- spread in contemporary liturgiology, see Nichols’s Looking at the Liturgy and other works mentioned in note 140 above. See also the wide-ranging presentation “Towards a New Liturgical Movement” by Dom Charbel Pazat de Lys, O.S.B., in Reid, Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy, 98–114, esp. 105–11, on the “irruption of transcendence.” 150 See ST III, qq. 60–1; Sikora, “Liturgy and the Spirit of Man,” Theological Reflections, 208–12; Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, 197–216 et passim. 151 ST II–II, q. 45, a. 2; In librum Beati Dionysii De divinis nominibus 2, lec. 4, §191. 152 Cf. ST III, q. 63. For discussion, see Conrad Pepler, O.P., Sacramental Prayer (London: Bloomsbury, 1959), 61–75; Charles Journet, The Church of the Word Incarnate, trans. A. H. C. Downes (London: Sheed & Ward, 1954), 68–77. On pages 50–67, Journet explains why the Christian religion is, in essence, the divine cultus emanating from and returning to Christ. See also Gilles Emery, O.P., “Le Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 199 Concretely, this does not mean the Christian is empowered to offer the atoning sacrifice of Calvary (a conformity produced specifically by the sacrament of Order), but more simply and more fundamentally, that he is enabled to receive divine gifts and use them fruitfully. This is the first, greatest, and eternal identity of the Christian: the one who receives divine gifts poured out from the Heart of Christ, and so bears lasting fruit. For this reason worship’s highest dignity consists in its being at once a transparent communicator of divine initiative and a delicate modeling of human receptivity. “Classical liturgy,” writes David Berger, “calls for and shapes such a person, devoted to contemplation, capable of receiving, humble, not Pelagian, who can above all look wholly away from himself and open himself to one who is greater and other.”153 It belongs to the inherent nature and purpose of sacred liturgy to represent in word, sign, and silence the mystery of Jesus Christ, true God and true man; to lead us contemplatively into that mystery; to nurture a more perfect union between us and the victim on the cross, risen in glory to confirm our hope of eternal life; to cleanse our psychic powers, especially the memory, from profane contamination, and to consecrate them in the truth, preconsciously as well as consciously; and in all these ways, to bring the Word of the Father to birth in virginal souls. All this requires something totally different from experimental or domesticated liturgy.The true “unsettling” of which Preston speaks is accomplished primarily by a confrontation with the purest ritual manifestation of both the divine otherness and the divine condescension, a paradox that is vividly communicated in traditional liturgical rites—in their prayers, gestures, trappings, and overall complexion.154 sacerdoce spirituel des fidèles chez saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Thomiste 99 (1999): 211–43. 153 Berger, Thomas Aquinas and the Liturgy, 13. See Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, Liturgy and Contemplation, trans. Joseph W. Evans (New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1960); Peter A. Kwasniewski,“Traditional Liturgy as a Liberation from Egoism,” Homiletic & Pastoral Review 99.4 ( January 1999): 19–28; idem, “The Symbolism of Silence and Emptiness,” The Latin Mass 15.5 (Advent/Christmas 2006): 6–11; Nicholas Postgate, “A Rite Histrionic and Disoriented,” The Latin Mass 16.1 (Winter 2007): 34–39. 154 I recognize that good liturgy does not, in and of itself, set people in the right direction. My argument is not about a magical recipe for success, but rather about an instrument (viz., traditional liturgy) that we neglect at our peril, at the risk of deadening our sensitivity to the sacred and the transcendent. It is more a matter of assuring a congenial context for representing and assimilating the richness of the Christian mystery than a guarantee of internalizing that richness. Nothing advocated here would necessitate a complex liturgy, but only one whose ministers grasp the sublimity and awesomeness, the fearful wonder, of what they 200 Peter A. Kwasniewski The paradox is clear: Borella is right, and Preston is right, and Aquinas would agree with both.The liturgy does gather us together again, we who are worn out, torn to pieces, and lost.The fidelity and patience of God’s love are truly in it, unifying and calming us. But because God’s holiness is a consuming fire and his love seeks everything, a liturgical life lived to the full breaks apart the complacent ego fed on a diet of flattery and platitudes.We are not allowed to remain asleep, but, in different ways, are made awake to the reality of God, which is at once overwhelming and freeing. We are broken in order to be healed; we are evicted, stripped, unsettled, that we may be housed, clothed, and resettled on the land of promise, “transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1:13).The Mass is where our belonging to another and not to ourselves is ritually acted out and really enacted in this land of exile.155 “You are not your own; you were bought with a price” (1 Cor 6:19).The Eucharist is the sacrament of friendship, in which I gain myself only in communion with Jesus and, for his sake, with all the others who are, or are called to be, his brethren. Walter Hoeres laments that many liturgists today understand the Mass not so much as cult, as sacrifice, but much more as God’s deed for man; just as if, contrary to all great theologians and all councils, we were concerned not so much with worshipping and glorifying the Almighty and accordingly with an atoning sacrifice, but above all with human well-being.156 are about, and then act accordingly—which is quite compatible with simplicity and poverty. In a sense, the key criterion for good liturgy is a seriousness of purpose manifested in a spirit of adoration, earnest pleading, and signs of sacred dignity. See John F. Baldovin, S.J.,“ ‘Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice’: On the Seriousness of Christian Liturgy,” Antiphon 7 (2002): 10–17. 155 This acting and enacting permeate all forms of prayer inasmuch as they are rooted in communion with Christ and seek to further it.Thus,Thomas maintains that the Mass—as he knew it in the Roman rite, though his analysis is sufficiently general to apply to any Eucharistic rite, Western or Eastern—exemplifies all aspects of prayer in their most perfect balance (see In IV Sent., d. 15, q. 4, a. 3; ST II–II, q. 83, a. 17).At the same time,Aquinas knew that liturgical worship and the sacramental system, through which we touch God in the darkness and see him through a veil, are a temporal dispensation destined to be superseded in the kingdom of heaven (see, e.g., ST I–II, q. 103, a. 3; ST III, q. 61, a. 4, ad 1 and q. 63, a. 5, obj. 3).Another Thomas forcefully teaches the same:Thomas à Kempis, Imitatio Christi, IV.11. 156 Cited in Berger, Aquinas and the Liturgy, 50. An admirable summary of the tradition in this regard is Nicholas Gihr’s 1902 classic The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass Dogmatically, Liturgically, and Ascetically Explained, trans. anon. (St. Louis: Herder, 1949), which first treats the virtue of religion and its principal act, sacrifice (3–29) and proceeds to speak at length and in detail of the sacrificial death of Jesus and its mystical perpetuation through the Mass (30–194). Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 201 This essay has spoken much of the healing of the self, but in a way that rather supports than deflects from Hoeres’s judgment. It has been the core of my argument that the only way for man to be healed, elevated, saved, is through the selfless worship and glorification of the Almighty; that the only path to wholeness, to the acquisition of a self worthy of the name, is the atoning sacrifice that makes of a sinner someone capable of being united to God in friendship.Writes David Ford: “The ‘I’ has God intrinsic to its identity through worship: the one before whom it worships is the main clue to its selfhood.This God is a refuge, righteous, a guide, faithful, steadfastly loving, gracious, good, blessed, and active in multifarious ways.”157 We are called to become like him in all those ways, to be re-created in him, “to the praise of his glorious grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” (Eph 1:6).Without a mystagogical focus, liturgy will do little more than validate a community’s collective conceit, when it does not drive away the congregation from sheer boredom.158 Provided we give him the chance to speak aloud his prayer-born thoughts, St.Thomas in this area as in many others proves himself to be an inspiring teacher, a deft critic, and, perhaps unexpectedly, a mystic of Christ Crucified.159 On Easter morning Mary Magdalene stooped to peer into the tomb. Aquinas sees a good reason for her behavior: she give[s] us the example to look continually on the death of Christ with the eyes of our mind, for one glance is not enough for the one who loves, in whom the force of love multiplies the desire for seeking: “Looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb 12:2).160 In his person no less than in his pages, the Angelic Doctor brings into sharp relief the primacy of contemplation, receptivity, timeless truth, over activism, performance, timely relevance. He demonstrates that no activity 157 Ford, Self and Salvation, 128. 158 What I mean by mystagogical focus is best illustrated by the awe-inspiring litur- gical theology of the Eastern Christian tradition—one thinks of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Dionysius, Nicholas Cabasilas.The Western tradition has its counterparts: St.Ambrose, St.Augustine, St. Bonaventure, and indeed, as we have seen, St.Thomas, whose gracefully articulated account of sacramental life in Christ is shot through with flashes of fire. All this certainly deserves much more attention than it currently receives. 159 For further reflections along these lines, see Kwasniewski, “Golden Straw,” 76–89; idem,“ ‘Divine Drunkenness’:The Secret Life of Thomistic Reason,” The Modern Schoolman 82 (2004): 1–31, at 18–19. 160 Super Ioan. 20, lec. 2, §2494. 202 Peter A. Kwasniewski is more perfect than waiting on God, listening to him, seeking his face; that no doing of mine is better than dying to my will, clinging to the cross; that nothing can be more pertinent to man here and now, nothing more liberating for the world, than yielding in silent faith to the hidden God, the righteous God.To the cynical children of Adam, all this is completely counterintuitive and totally unappealing, if not downright absurd.161 And yet, for all that, it is right; it has to look that way to fallen man (cf. 1 Cor 1:18–31), for his eye is bleary, his ear blocked, his desire narrow.“He who would search into the mysteries of Christ must go out, in a way, from himself and from fleshly ways,” states Thomas soberly.162 Jesus knew what was in the heart of man, and he came not only preaching, but healing infirmities; not only healing bodies, but divinizing souls. It was to make us his intimates that he instituted the sacraments of the new law, chief among them the sacrament of his own flesh-and-blood love, the feast of the New Covenant, which is simply, and incomprehensibly, the gift of himself. The only response worthy of him is the total gift of myself, remade in the beauty of his grace. If I do this, I will no longer suffer estrangement from myself or from anything real, because I shall be one with him who is supremely real, the source of all identity and difference. I can only fall on my knees and say: Domine, non sum dignus . . . sed tantum dic verbo, et sanabitur anima mea. In one of his writings, Meister Eckhart, urging frequent communion, imagines a Christian raising a heartfelt objection, and then gives a response that transmits with perfect fidelity Aquinas’s mystical doctrine: Now you might say: sir, I find that I am so empty and cold and worn out that I dare not go to our Lord. And I shall say: then all the greater is your need to go to your God, for it is in him that you will be warmed and kindled, and in him you will be made holy, to him alone will you be joined and with him alone made one, for you will find that the sacrament possesses, as does nothing else, the grace by which your bodily strength will be united and 161 Recall Rotenstreich’s summary (in “On the Ecstatic Sources”) of the opposition to Christian theism and theosis evident in Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx—a list to which many modern philosophers could be added.This cannot be surprising if we take at face value the Apostle’s declaration in the First Letter to the Corinthians that “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing” (1:18), folly to the Gentiles and a stumbling block to the Jews (1:23), those who in their search for wisdom trust in reason alone and those who so cling to the letter that they grieve the spirit, demanding always more signs.This antagonism is permanently inscribed in the wood of the cross as the inherent presupposition of the peace Christ came to bring, a peace purchased at the cost of blood. 162 Super Ioan. 20, lec. 1, §2477. Cf. 1 Cor 2:14. Aquinas on Eucharistic Ecstasy 203 collected through the wonderful power of our Lord’s bodily presence, so that all man’s distracted thoughts and intentions are here united and gathered together, and what was dispersed and debased is here raised up again and its due order restored as it is offered to God. . . . For we shall be transformed into him and wholly united with him so that what is his becomes ours, and all that is ours becomes his—our heart and his, one heart; our body and his, one Body.163 N&V 163 From Meister Eckhart, Rede der underscheidunge, ch. 20; translation adapted from that of Edmund Colledge, O.S.A., and Bernard McGinn, in Meister Eckhart:The Essential Sermons (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1981), 271; and that of Oliver Davies, in Meister Eckhart: Selected Writings (New York: Penguin, 1994), 34. Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 6, No. 1 (2008): 205–218 205 Two Case Studies in Schelerian Moral Theology: The Vatican’s 2005 “Instruction” and Gay Marriage G. J. M C A LEER Loyola College in Maryland Baltimore, Maryland I T IS LIKELY that Max Scheler (1874–1928) was the principal intellectual source of modern Christian personalism. Probably the major intellectual movement within Christian thinking in the twentieth century, Christian personalism has many noteworthy advocates. By far the most famous of these is Karol Wojtyla/John Paul the Great, but others include Marcel, Ricoeur, Przywara, von Balthasar, von Hildebrand, and Aurel Kolnai.Today, however, Scheler figures only indirectly in Catholic thought. Relatively few books appear in any given year about him, and some of his important works are not even in print.1 Three possible reasons come to mind to explain why Scheler no longer figures prominently in Catholic thought: In developing his Thomism, John Paul II expressed reservations about Scheler;2 the enormous revival of Aquinas’s ethical theory in Catholic quarters after a fraternization with alternatives, one of which was Scheler’s value theory;3 and a very influential group of contemporary Thomist moral theologians deny one of Scheler’s signature theses—the hierarchy of value.4 Nonetheless, I think Thomism can still 1 Transaction Press is soon to reissue Max Scheler’s 1913 classic, The Nature of Sympathy. 2 Note the shift from the markedly Schelerian Laborem Exercens to a modern Thomist classic like Veritatis Splendor. See Michael Waldstein’s interesting discussion in the new edition of John Paul II’s theology of the body, Man and Woman He Created Them:A Theology of the Body (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2006), 63–77. 3 S. Pinckaers, O.P., The Sources of Christian Ethics (Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 7. 4 J. Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), 92. 206 G. J. McAleer make use of Scheler; and I think his phenomenological ethics, and those he inspired, can serve moral theology well. Eros and Virtue: A Reflection on the Vatican’s 2005 “Instruction” Who can doubt that the relationship between sex and liberty is basic to today’s politics? For some, traditional sexual morality is a benighted leftover from an illiberal past long since swept away in the social revolution of the 1960s. For others, the evidence is clear that ignoring the demands of traditional sexual ethics hurts marriages, families, entire communities, and is nothing less than total indifference to the plight of the vulnerable. Who can doubt also that the confusion about sexuality within Western civilization is also a stimulant to the growing tensions between our civilization and Islamic communities in the West and across the world? Little surprise then that the Vatican’s 2005 Instruction on the question of whether men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” can be candidates for the priesthood was met with all the signs of confusion typical of our age. Welcomed by some, met with indifference by others, some were hostile and dismayed,5 others were left more confused than ever.6 Published early in the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, the document had been in preparation for a long time. The document,7 as many have noted, is terse, running to only three pages, and its essential claims are trenchantly stated. Nonetheless, the basic logic of the argument is clear, especially to those familiar with Aquinas’s moral theology. Moreover, the argument is right, I think.After presenting the argument with the support I think it relies upon from Aquinas, I will further elaborate a defense of the Instruction through the reflections of Aurel Kolnai (1900–73). In 1930, Kolnai, a phenomenologist powerfully influenced by Scheler, published a remarkable book on sexual ethics.8 Since the Instruction is so terse, rather than reading it for the argument one has to construct the argument from various indicators.The text suggests 5 On the silence of most bishops and the dismay of many Jesuits, see Richard John Neuhaus, “While We’re At It,” First Things 167 (November 2006): 79. 6 For the befuddlement of a supposedly “leading Catholic writer,” see Peter Stan- ford’s “Once Again, I’m Ashamed to Be a Catholic,” The Daily Telegraph, October 3, 2006, 19. 7 Congregation for Catholic Education,“Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in View of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders,” www.vatican.va/ roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20 051104_istruzione_en.html. 8 A. Kolnai, Sexual Ethics (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005). The Vatican’s “Instruction” and Gay Marriage 207 at least three arguments. I will state these and describe an obvious rejoinder before mounting a defense.A central claim appears to be that a personality organized around homosexual tendencies is incompatible with the priesthood because such a person, unlike a heterosexual candidate for seminary, has not had to renounce conjugal life.This renunciation is essential:9 For, positively, it is a gift of the entire person—sexuality included—to the life of the Church in imitation of Christ’s self-donation to his spouse, the Church.10 Secondly, a priest must have an intuitive grasp of conjugal life11 as this mystery sits at the heart of the Church.12 A little more darkly, and now following the logic of Aquinas’s moral theology, the text’s development suggests a third argument. The claim provoking most discussion—though it is by no means new— is that “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” are “objectively disordered.”13 This claim is followed two short paragraphs later by another claim: “Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women. One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies”14 This sentence speaks of the consequences of tendencies and clearly evokes the classical moral theological interest in the propensities to morally evil action at the behest of deadly sin.The famous deadly sins are not moral acts but emotion-laden channels of appetite making persons prone to disordered acts.15 Aquinas makes a distinction between evil, sin, and moral wrong. Evil is privation, sin a privation within a personality, and moral wrong is an act done with deliberate will by a person.16 A deadly sin is a privation within a personality, a 9 John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, 441. 10 John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, §§16 and 23. 11 John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, 441. For my defense of John Paul II’s claim that bodily inclination is spousal, see my Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics: A Catholic and Antitotalitarian Theory of the Body (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005). For a fine treatment of contemporary Catholic opinion on natural inclination, see M. Levering, “Natural Law and Natural Inclinations: Rhonheimer, Pinckaers, McAleer,” The Thomist 70 (2006): 155–201. For Max Scheler’s treatment of the topic that no doubt proved an important resource for John Paul the Great, see The Nature of Sympathy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970). 12 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2005), §11; John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, §22. 13 Congregation for Catholic Education, “Instruction Concerning the Criteria,” §2. 14 Ibid. 15 Thomas Aquinas, De Malo, q. 15, a. 1. 16 Ibid., q. 2, a. 2. 208 G. J. McAleer disorder, making the right relationship of will to reason extremely difficult. A moral wrong is an act of deliberate will done without the appropriate virtue. In the Instruction, we read that persons with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies”“find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women.” Translated into Thomas’s language: Persons fail to properly love their neighbors when they fail in the life of virtue; persons are gravely hindered in living according to virtue by one, or some combination, of the seven deadly sins. For Thomas, because he insists that moral precepts follow the virtues,17 the life of virtue is the basis of friendship. It is in these terms that any Christian assessment of the “relating” of Christian men to other men and women must be understood. Of course, the “relating” that is most at stake in the question of which men can be candidates for priesthood is the Christian man’s relationship to Jesus, the God-man.18 Friendship with Christ, like every moral relationship, relies on the choice of a moral object. Each moral object has a matter, that is, it prominently includes one of the four moral virtues.19 Even though the matter of a moral object is some particular virtue (for example, justice) still the choice of the will must, for an act to be moral, be a choice in which all four virtues are affirmed:20 On account of the connectedness of the virtues, a person cannot affirm one virtue rightly unless all of a person’s appetites are correctly ordered by their respective virtues. If moral objects differ materially on account of the prominence of one of the basic virtues, they also differ formally in that the primary virtue composing the matter can be further differentiated as per circumstances in which the agent finds himself.21 If a man with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” is “gravely” hindered in relating to Christ, which virtue is he prone to fail? I believe there is an a priori reason why a priest, or a candidate for priesthood, with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” is prone to fail in virtue and friendship with the God-man. And I suggest there is an a priori reason why that failure is one of justice. A rather predictable rejoinder to the Vatican’s position can be stated as follows:The gay man gives his entire self to the Church; true, he does not renounce nuptial desire but it was never in his gift; chastity is in his gift, and this he freely offers in service of Christ. This challenge elides the exact character of erotic renunciation, I now argue. 17 Ibid., q. 2, a. 6. 18 John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, §82. 19 Aquinas, De Malo, q. 2, a. 6. 20 Thomas Aquinas, ST I–II, q. 65, a. 1. 21 Aquinas, De Malo, q. 2, a. 6. The Vatican’s “Instruction” and Gay Marriage 209 Christ is not merely a common good able to be shared by many, Christ is the universal good, the Alpha and Omega, the slain foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). Only an agapic love for Christ can facilitate for others Christ as a good undividedly shared out:22 Charity is the “source, criterion, measure, and impetus for the priest’s love and service to the Church.”23 A man of deep-seated homosexual tendencies will be prone to fail the People of God in ministry, and this will be a failure of justice, because he cannot relate to Christ as a common good, to a Christ to be shared undividedly amongst many. Phenomenology shows an erotic object is always an exclusive object, an object privileged amongst others as peculiar to me. Eros tends toward a privileged, rather than common, good.24 The erotic object of the same-sex tendency of the seminarian is a deadly sin and an impediment to ordination, because an impediment to virtue.Why? It is a priori that a priest with same-sex desire has not been asked, and cannot be asked, to renounce erotic desire. In Deus Caritas Est, Benedict XVI argues eros and caritas stand in continuity with one another.25 In arguing that caritas disciplines and purifies eros,26 the encyclical touches upon an especially profound question. Its grave moral matter notwithstanding, erotic desire, as Kolnai forcefully points out, privileges a singular relationship, for sexual love “radically exalts” the beloved.27 Erotic desire selects out of the world of possible objects a devotional object,28 a particular person to be the exclusive recipient of personal desire. Benedict is well aware of this.29 The object of erotic desire is an exclusive object, and on the basis of this type of devotion marriage is built. When thinking about the relationship between eros and caritas, it is not enough to note that as sexual love opens out onto love proper an ecstatic movement of sacrifice begins: One starts to serve another.30 For when this is true of erotic desire, as in 22 John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, §23. 23 Ibid., §§23, 27, 48. 24 This is not to say that privilege cannot serve the common good. Marriage—an institution of privilege—serves the common good in myriad ways but does so on account of the exclusive nature of the relationship between the man and woman and, in principle, the unique relationship they have with their children. I make this point in detail at McAleer, Ecstatic Morality, ch. 8. 25 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §4. I discuss this by no means obvious claim at greater length in my essay,“Pleasure:A Reflection on Benedict XVI’s Deus Caritas Est,” Nova et Vetera (English), vol. 5:2 (2007), 315–24. 26 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §4. 27 Kolnai, Sexual Ethics, 131. 28 Ibid., 122. 29 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §§2, 6. 30 Ibid., §7. 210 G. J. McAleer marriage, it is still a sacrifice centered on a privileged, exclusive object:31 One sacrifices for her, one’s wife. The priest does not have as the object of caritas the same kind of object a married man has erotically.32 The latter is a privileged object, the former a universal object, a common good to be shared undividedly. “I cannot possess Christ just for myself,” writes Benedict.33 But he also writes: “Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice-versa. God’s way of loving becomes the measure of human love.”34 What Benedict means here, all he can mean here, is that self-donation marks both married love and the love of God. He cannot mean that as a husband relates to his wife so a priest relates to Christ: Because even a generous erotic love is quite different from caritas; their respective objects are structurally different. I submit that, on the basis of the distinction between the objects of eros and caritas, there is a structural difference between heterosexual and homosexual desire as this is relevant to priestly love of the God-man who is Jesus. The priest’s desire for Christ obviously is of a male-to-male pattern of friendship. In the case of the heterosexual priest, this male-tomale relationship is predicated upon the renunciation of desire with a male-to-female pattern; that is, the renunciation of erotic desire and its object. The renunciation of self in service of another is redoubled in priestly service when a privileged, exclusive object is renounced: For when the object is renounced, that is, the devotion peculiar to erotic love, eros is also renounced. As John Paul II explains, eros is always “desire of possessing” and as such not charity. He fully accepts that this desire can be loving but always, fundamentally, eros is an egocentric desire.35 Kolnai prefers the language of privilege, but his analysis makes John Paul II’s point. Removing the privileged object of erotic desire internally frees a now suspended “erotic” desire to become not a generous erotic love but a love of radical generosity, agape. As John Paul II observed, the biblical and Greek language of sexuality is very different, and so “great caution” 31 Ibid., §11. 32 Hence John Paul II writes: “[M]an (male and female) is able to choose the personal gift of self to another person in the conjugal covenant, in which they become “one flesh,” and he is also able to renounce freely such a gift of self to another person, in order that by choosing continence “for the kingdom of heaven” he may give himself totally to Christ.” Man and Woman He Created Them, 439. 33 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §14. 34 Ibid., §11. 35 John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them, 315, note 56. The Vatican’s “Instruction” and Gay Marriage 211 is necessary when speaking of eros.36 Hence, he comments that “it is indispensable that ethos should become the constitutive form of eros.”37 Priestly ordination is the interior evacuation (not cancellation) of eros and its filling with ethos, the biblical ethics of agape.The “spousal character” of the priest rests upon, as John Paul II put it, “a heart which is new, generous, and pure.”38 To use an image from Benedict, ordination is the culmination of a process wherein eros turns against itself.39 Emptied of a privileged object through ordination, eros is confirmed substantively as ethos, an expressed imitation (through the gifts of the Holy Spirit) of the Love who knits all things (Ps 139:13 and 136:1–9). In the case of a man with deep-seated homosexual tendencies, the male-to-male pattern of friendship with Christ is not predicated upon the renunciation of exclusive erotic desire.That is, the pattern of his erotic desire is not, cannot be, definitively renounced at ordination. Of course, it may well be, as a matter of fact, that such a man happens not to be, erotically, in love with anyone in particular. Indeed, he may not be especially “charged” erotically. But the important point is that priesthood confirms a pattern of desire that is, for the homosexual, an erotic pattern of desire; and this is not the case for the heterosexual. In the case of a man with such tendencies having an intense friendship with the God-man, Jesus, there is no structural reason to believe that that male-to-male relationship could be severed from exclusive erotic desire. Since there is no structural renunciation possible, and given the intensity of the male-tomale friendship demanded by the priesthood, we must expect a man with such tendencies to relate to the God-man erotically, and thus exclusively. Such desire cannot sufficiently share Christ. John Paul II argues that the priest’s amoris officium establishes a norm of “undivided love . . . for God and for God’s people.”40 The priest with an erotic attachment to Christ divides his love for Christ against God’s people. The priest with a deep-seated homosexual tendency must a priori have a pattern of erotic desire that looks at Christ not as a common good but as a privileged good.The priest who makes a gift of himself to Christ, and through Christ to the People of God, rejoices that his love object is shareable.This is not true of the privileged love object that is the interior 36 Ibid., 215. 37 Ibid., 319. 38 John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, §22. 39 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §12:“His death on the Cross is the culmination of that turning of God against himself in which he gives himself in order to raise man up and save him.” 40 John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, §29. 212 G. J. McAleer of erotic desire, and so there is no possibility, a priori, of anything but a radically diminished spiritual paternity. It is an act of justice to the People of God that the priest acts as a minister of the universal good of Christ undividedly shared out.The peculiar nature of the erotic object forecloses this generosity, and justice, and yet on this basis does the priest’s special conjugal life flourish and find fulfillment in paternity: “to give birth to Christ . . . in others.”41 Ressentiment and Gay Marriage An idea famously associated with Nietzsche, a man made into a powerful ally of secularists in the West’s culture wars, ressentiment does have some pedigree in Catholic thought. Scheler wrote a book on the topic where he both defended Christianity from the charge of ressentiment and used the concept very effectively to criticize the ethics of humanitarianism.42 Karol Wojtyla made use of the concept in his 1960 Love and Responsibility. Nietzsche observed that whenever something traditionally identified as good is labeled by critics as a disease you can be sure that ressentiment is afoot aiming to eradicate a moral value.Wojtyla argues in Love and Responsibility that the violence of the attack upon chastity as a sickness can have no other origin than ressentiment. Interestingly, the later cultural analyses of John Paul II do not make similar use of the concept. Even in 1960, Wojtyla did not point out the darkest origins of ressentiment, a sense of impotence transformed into hate. There probably are very fine pastoral reasons, or simply rhetorical ones, for not suggesting that one’s intellectual and moral opponents are motivated by hatred, but nonetheless, the remarkable analytic power of ressentiment ought not to be set to one side. Everyone remembers the response to the 2004 presidential election: “The Bush victory was powered by homophobia.” Was it not a constant refrain? A slogan that aimed to devalue the “moral vote” of 2004? No sooner had I opened my office door the day after the elections than an academic colleague of mine shot through it and said just this. My colleague is a scholar of nineteenth-century German philosophy. I asked her: Would Nietzsche not be certain that denunciations of a long-standing 41 St. Charles Borromeo, Acta ecclesiae mediolanensis (1599), 1178, quoted in John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, §72. 42 M. Scheler, Ressentiment (1912; Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2003). First published in 1912, a larger edition of the work appeared in 1915 and this after a reassessment of humanitarianism in 1913. In his 1913 The Nature of Sympathy, Scheler reaffirmed the usefulness of Nietzsche’s moral-cultural analysis properly modified but argued that humanitarianism had a positive role to play in ethics. This reassessment in no way alters my sense of how his ideas can usefully be applied to the issue of gay marriage. The Vatican’s “Instruction” and Gay Marriage 213 moral judgment as a disease were animated by ressentiment ? This question met complete silence and thereafter:“I’ve never thought about it like that.” Yet it seems at least plausible that the rapid change in our culture from certainty that homosexual sex is morally wrong to sponsorship of homosexual marriage as a positive good in television, film, and education might have as much to do with ressentiment as with any other cause. If contemporary academia sees the sinister work of ressentiment everywhere amongst rightists, and in Christian communities especially, it seems perfectly reasonable to ask academic progressives to consider whether it plays a role in their campaign for gay marriage. It certainly is uncanny how closely the desire for gay marriage fits the analysis of ressentiment found in the works of Nietzsche and Scheler. Ressentiment flourishes, argues Scheler, where there is a “discrepancy between the political, constitutional, or traditional status of a group and its factual power.”43 It is commonly heard that gay marriage is the great civil rights issue of the age.Whilst many of us might think this title goes to the need for legal protection of the unborn, the analogy between Jim Crow and gay marriage rings hollow. Advocacy of gay marriage is an upper-middle class phenomenon where many very successful people in all walks of American life feel acutely a disparity between their very real factual advantages and privilege and the failure of law and the social order to reflect the relationships they have built upon those advantages and privilege.To overcome this discrepancy, equality is sought with those who are favored by the traditional order, but the equality can only be sought by a devaluation of the qualities that have found favor. Gay marriage is not a valorization of marriage as some of its advocates claim; it really can only be a devaluation. The devaluation wrought by ressentiment is necessary because the reason for the discrepancy in the first place is always some matter of impotency.The homosexual cannot overcome this impotency, and so a devaluation of the moral order is necessary: An attempt is made to “blind” people to the moral value of what has traditionally found favor. The apparent affirmation of the value of marriage in the desire for gay marriage is actually underwritten by the devaluation of the value of fecundity, and marriage gutted of its dynamic content. Ressentiment aims to falsify, says Scheler, any values that might “bestow excellence on any possible objects of comparison.” Is not marriage, really, an institutional affirmation of the value of fecundity? An institutional affirmation of privilege, in fact? More forcibly put:The instituting of a moral preference for certain kinds of sex acts and the declaration that these kinds of sex acts 43 Scheler, Ressentiment, 28. 214 G. J. McAleer are of greater moral and social worth than other kinds of sex acts? Scheler would not be surprised in the least about the campaign for gay marriage. Ressentiment seeks to invert the moral hierarchy wherein vital values stand higher than utility values.The mark of an age of ressentiment, he argued, is an age of subjectivism wherein everything that is not earned by individual effort is cast down.Vital values, such as the power of certain sex acts to create new life, are not given to all; and such power and value is never earned.The ruling ethos of an age of subjectivism is the radical rejection of inequality stemming from natural or divine gifts, argued Scheler.44 Inequality is a corollary of privilege. The drive for gay marriage was always inevitable if de Tocqueville’s famous observation holds true:When equality defines a society, more and more hostility toward privilege increases as its effrontery becomes more evident. As Roger Scruton has observed, the institution of marriage does nothing less than sustain and protect “the unfair privilege which every love contains.”45 Catholic social thought, oftentimes cast as “progressivism,” is well aware of the importance of privilege.The 1995 Catechism speaks of the family as “the original cell of social life . . . a privileged community.46 The family is a privileged community, says the Church, for at its heart is marriage, a privilege on account of certain kinds of sex acts.The natural law affirms that those sex acts that permit a bodily giving of self are normative: It is such acts that imitate the bodily gift of Christ. For the Christian it is a complete mistake to think that marriage is an institution first and foremost of fine, loving feelings. Defenders of gay marriage often rely on a Cartesian justification that couples (or multiple persons, in fact) joined “at the heart,” having an emotional commitment, have a right to marry. Such a defense elides the character of sex acts altogether, and marriage is an institution that shows favor to sex acts that are able, in principle, to be hospitable to new life. Modeled on Christ’s bodily gift of self and its issuance of a new creation, Christian embodiment, and Christian concern for the social order, must follow the norm of the body’s gift of life.47 Nor ought Christians be defensive about the illumination brought by faith to this social question. Liberal discussions of this issue are always cast in some variant of Kant’s ethics, oftentimes with a splash of Mill. As Scheler points out, at the heart of Kant’s ethics is the search for the “generally valid law of human volition” (Kant). At its heart, this is a rejection of revelation. Revelation is an insight into values that are particular to some and not had 44 Ibid., 97. 45 Roger Scruton, Sexual Desire (New York: Free Press, 1986), 358. 46 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§2206–7, original emphasis. 47 Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §12. The Vatican’s “Instruction” and Gay Marriage 215 by others. Those without insight or who do not bear the revelation must “believe” what others have held in direct experience.The whole idea of revelation, and the ethics derived from it, is anathema to the equalitarianism of Kant’s “generally valid law.” Rawls’s famous “original position” is a conceit “winnowing away the features which distinguish persons from one another,” generating, as Scruton puts it, the “disprivileged.”48 To Rawls, the leading Kantian of the last century, it is just obvious that politics is about equality, for politics must be shaped by a basic norm, what is “generally valid” for the will. Make no mistake, for the Kantian liberal there can be no possible justification for marriage if it distinguishes between human wills. It is little wonder that political parties pervaded by the spirit of Kant are so hostile to faith and its insight into values. It is a singular service of Scheler’s ethical writings to show that the liberal insistence on a publicly available reason for discussions of politics is premised on the extraordinarily parochial ethical presumption that true ethical values are available to all or not at all. The privilege of marriage is first and foremost a social expression of certain kinds of acts but there is, of course, an intimate relationship between persons and acts, as Karol Wojtyla makes clear in his contribution to phenomenological philosophy, The Acting Person.49 For this reason, the “impulse to detract” evident in resentment of a moral order that supports the privilege of certain kinds of sex acts is further nourished by one of the other “harms” at the root of ressentiment: the “damaged feeling of personal value, [a person’s] injured ‘honor.’ ”50 Homosexuals clearly resent the idea that they are not viewed as equal to heterosexuals, and for this reason the latter have a good that homosexuals envy (this was not always true and nor are all homosexuals like-minded about gay marriage).About this “injured ‘honor,’ ” Scheler comments: If we are merely displeased that another person owns a good, this can be an incentive for acquiring it through work, purchase, violence, or robbery. Envy occurs when we fail in doing so and feel powerless. . . . [Envy] leads to ressentiment when the coveted values are such as cannot be acquired and lie in the sphere in which we compare ourselves to others. The most powerless envy is also the most terrible. Therefore existential envy, which is directed against the other person’s very nature, is the strongest sort of ressentiment.51 48 For further discussion of Scruton’s argument, see McAleer, Ecstatic Morality, ch. 8. 49 Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, trans. Andrzej Potocki (1969; Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1979). 50 Scheler, Ressentiment, 27. 51 Ibid., 30. G. J. McAleer 216 Ressentiment, observed Nietzsche,“is in its very essence a negation of everything ‘outside’ and ‘different,’ of whatever is ‘not oneself ’: and this negation is its creative deed.”52 The desire for gay marriage is the desire for an identity with heterosexuals. It is the desire for a social “blindness” to an existential difference. But all interested in pluralism must be especially wary of calls for such social “blindness.” A call for gay equality respecting marriage is a call for the diminishment of diversity, in fact.The campaign for gay equality in the United States, including the right of marriage, has for its symbol an “=” sign. An identity sign is not a sign of diversity but points, deep down, to the logic of totalitarianism. Kolnai argues that behind equalitarianism is a horror of division, for “no man must hold more or be more than his fellow man.”53 Marriage is an inevitable target. For marriage, like every privilege, as Kolnai explains, is “the social projection, the institutional recognition, the traditional embodiment of the essentially insurmountable dividedness”54 found throughout reality. Insistence upon a social “blindness” to mask an existential difference is really to set up a dispute with reality itself.To set marriage upon a principle of equality is, as Kolnai puts it, to “speak the idiom of Identity” in which humans assert their sovereignty to posit and generate not only civil society but reality itself. Kolnai explains: The metaphysical core of the concept of social Totality is the concept of Identity; and the postulate of Identity, again, is implicit in man’s pretension to metaphysical sovereignty, his aspiration to be God: for if I admit any entitative “otherness” of mind and will on a footing with myself, if I am aware of any human consciousness and purpose really distinct from my own, if I recognize any valid law and authority over and above my will—and not an efflux and manifestation thereof—I cannot be God.55 Heterosexuals are often asked: “How does gay marriage hurt you?” But anyone wary of human willfulness, and its totalitarian history, can rightly acknowledge a deep concern. Those opposed to gay marriage should make the argument that good social order is acutely threatened whenever pluralism and the dividedness upon which it rests is cast aside in favor of an identity reliant on the idea of the totality of the will, that is, a subjectivism where reality is suspended and restraint on the will thrown aside. 52 Ibid., 24. 53 A. Kolnai, Privilege and Liberty and Other Essays in Political Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1999), 22. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid., 33. The Vatican’s “Instruction” and Gay Marriage 217 John Paul II argued that responding to the eclipse of God is the central task for contemporary Catholicism. Actually, everyone interested in good political order should be interested in overcoming the eclipse of God. For when the human is linked with the divine the human begins “to fill a rightful place, to assume a positional value as it were, in the Universe.”56 This positional value affirms our status as persons57 but also shapes and orders our liberty. If what really animates the campaign for gay marriage is ressentiment and a reaction to existential diversity then the logic of totalitarianism, and its roots in secular monism, is affirmed once more. Cut lose from the order of reality, the willful effacing of a social order rooted in the privilege of natural or divine gift bodes ill. Identity predominates and what is eccentric in human persons is devalued and diminished. Gifts should evoke grateful response for the love they betoken, not the reaction of hostile fiat. In closing, it is worth dwelling on Kolnai’s claim that homosexuality is “world-destructive.”58 As Kolnai points out:“A homosexual couple can together fall in love with a third individual of the same sex.”59 For this reason, jealousy, shame, monogamy, and other indices of love, “do not mean the same for the homosexual as they do for the heterosexual.”60 This is a profound observation, and to the Christian it is decisive. Christianity is the belief that the cardinal point of creation and world history is love, the Love Who is the Alpha and Omega. A radical change in the ordinary meaning of the indices of love that gay marriage would sanction is indeed “world-destructive.” Kolnai, like Scheler, and one can just as well say Augustine and Thomas, believes that Love generates, sustains, and gives the inner meaning of “the categorial structure of the world.”61 The transformation, inversion, and subversion of values that ressentiment fosters is a structural feature of homosexuality. There is an unbroken tradition in Western thought since Plato that argues that love is the key to the metaphysical order. Moral theology belongs to this tradition and so must insist that gay marriage is not some minor blip that we can all learn to tolerate, and perhaps even celebrate, but that it shares with totalN&V itarianism a logic hostile to reality, to love. 56 A. Kolnai, “The Humanitarian versus the Religious Attitude,” The Thomist 7 (1944): 432. 57 For a disturbing article on just how threatened our status is on account of certain tendencies within biotechnology, see Eric Cohen, “The Human Difference,” Commentary (December 2006): 37–42. 58 Kolnai, Sexual Ethics, 192. 59 Ibid., 190. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 6, No. 1 (2008): 219–232 219 Augustine and Aquinas on Foreknowledge Through Causes T HOMAS M. O SBORNE , J R . University of St.Thomas Houston,Texas B OTH THOMAS AQUINAS and Augustine think that future human choices between alternative actions cannot be known with certitude through astrology or the assistance of other creatures, such as demons. Both hold that such free actions cannot be so known because free actions are contingent.1 If we were to have through these means certain knowledge that such an event will take place, then the event would be necessary and consequently not free. Nevertheless,Thomas and Augustine also think that God has foreknowledge of contingent events, and that prophecy concerning future contingents relies on God’s foreknowledge. What makes such foreknowledge possible? Some recent discussions emphasize that for Thomas God’s foreknowledge is compatible with free An earlier version of this article was given at the Aquinas the Augustinian conference at Ave Maria University, Naples, FL, February 3–5, 2005. I would like to thank Barry David for his helpful suggestions. 1 In this paper, I will use “free” as synonymous with “free decision between alternative actions.” I am not discussing such cases as the free love of the blessed for God, nor am I implying that each agent’s freedom is so unlimited that he can perform just any action. Moreover, I am not discussing the important sense in which for Augustine an agent is free only when assisted by grace. For this aspect of freedom especially, see Étienne Gilson, Introduction a l’étude de saint Augustin (Paris:Vrin, 1929), 206–9.Additionally, although I discuss God’s causation of sinful actions, I do not intend to say that God causes the evil in the actions. For an interpretation of God’s permission that is compatible with my account, see J-H. Nicolas,“La permission du péché,” Revue Thomiste 60 (1960): 5–37, 185–206, 509–46. See also Steven A. Long, “Providence, Freedom, and Natural Law,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 557-605. 220 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. acts because God’s knowledge is eternal.2 The free acts are not future to God. This explanation is surely a correct reading of one problem that Thomas addresses. I should like to emphasize another aspect of the Thomistic approach, namely that both Thomas and Augustine not only stress that God is separate from the temporal order, but also from that causal order to which alone the terms “necessity” and “contingency” apply. In his discussion of predestination, Augustine emphasizes that God can reveal truths about what will happen to Abraham’s descendants because God, unlike any other creature, can infallibly move the human will without sacrificing its liberty. Similarly,Thomas emphasizes that God can know future actions because he causes them and that these actions nevertheless retain their freedom. I shall argue that their basic approaches and concerns are similar, although Augustine’s thought develops in the context of reading Scripture and polemics against Stoics and Pelagians, whereas Thomas not only takes into account Augustine’s approach, but also uses Aristotle’s logic and his own metaphysics. I shall establish this claim by looking at three positions that are held by each. First, they both argue that necessity is incompatible with human freedom. Second, they both think that creatures of themselves cannot have certain foreknowledge of human actions because such foreknowledge is incompatible with contingency. Third, they both think that God as the first cause has such knowledge and can impart it to humans and angels. Consequently, for both figures certain foreknowledge of contingents is possible not through a creature’s natural powers but because of God’s ability to cause infallibly a free action without making the action necessary. Scholarly controversy over Augustine’s defense of the compatibility between foreknowledge and freedom often focuses on Books Three and Four of his De libero arbitrio.3 In these books, Augustine emphasizes that 2 Most recently, see Eleanore Stump, Aquinas (London: Routledge, 2003), 131–58. For the distinction between the temporal and causal issues in Thomas, see Harm J. M. J. Goris, Free Creatures of an Eternal God:Thomas Aquinas on God’s Infallibile Foreknowledge and Irresistible Will (Leuven: Peeters, 1996), 53–99. 3 The literature is voluminous. See William Lane Craig,“Augustine on Foreknowledge and Free Will,” Augustinian Studies 15 (1984): 41–63; Barry A. David, “The Meaning and Usage of ‘Divine Foreknowledge’ in Augustine’s De libero arbitrio 3.2.14–4.41,” Augustinian Studies 32 (2001): 117–56; David DeCelles, “Divine Prescience and Human Freedom on Augustine,” Augustinian Studies 8 (1977): 151–60; Jasper Hopkins, “Augustine of Foreknowledge and Free Will,” International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion 8 (1977): 111–26; David P. Hunt,“Augustine on Theological Fatalism:The Argument of De Libero Arbitrio 3.1–4,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 5 (1996): 1–30; idem,“On Augustine’s Way Out,” Faith and Philosophy 16 (1999): 3–26; Christopher Kirwan, Augustine (London: Routledge, Foreknowledge Through Causes 221 God’s foreknowledge of sins does not cause sinful actions. For our purposes, it is only necessary to make the uncontroversial claim that in this text Augustine argues that free choice is incompatible with natural necessity and that God’s foreknowledge does not impose such necessity. Indeed, in this work Augustine argues that neither human nor divine foreknowledge necessitates choice: “So if your foreknowledge is consistent with his freedom in sinning, so that you foreknow what someone else is going to do by his own will, then God forces no one to sin, even though he foresees those who are going to sin by their own will.” 4 In this passage Augustine seems to conflate human and divine foreknowledge, while separating both from God’s causal activity.5 But he does not explicitly do so.6 In this work he does not directly discuss God’s movement of the will and how it differs from the order of secondary causes. Nor does he in this context distinguish between God’s causation of good acts and his permission of sins.Augustine makes the simple point that the mere knowledge of an act does not compel the act.7 A more comprehensive account of his thought is given in his De civitate Dei and antiPelagian writings. In Book V of the De civitate Dei, Augustine attacks astrologers, Stoics, and Cicero.8 Both the astrologers and the Stoics hold that human acts are 1989), 92–103; Theodore J. Kondoleon, “Augustine and the Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and Free Will,” Augustinian Studies 18 (1987): 165–87; Eleanore Stump, “Augustine on Free Will,” in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 124–47. 4 Augustine, De libero arbitrio 3.4(9), ed. W. M. Green, Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina, vol. 29 (hereafter CCSL) (Turnhout: Brepols, 1970), 281; English On the Free Choice of the Will, trans.Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), 78. 5 For problems with this early treatment, see especially Kirwan, Augustine, 95–98. 6 For the position that in the context “foreknowledge” implies causality, see David, “Meaning and Usage,” 142–47. 7 For a similar interpretation, see Kondoleon,“Augustine and the Problem,” 167–71. 8 For a summary, see Barry A. David,“Divine Foreknowledge in De civitate Dei 5.9: The Philosophical Value of Augustine’s Polemic,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 75 (2001): 479–95; José Oroz Reta, “Une polémique Augustinienne contre Cicéron: Du fatalisme à la prescience divine,” Augustinian Studies 12 (1981): 19–41. For Augustine’s knowledge and use of Cicero, see Maurice Testard, Saint Augustin et Cicéron, vol. 1, Cicéron dans la formation et dans l’oeuvre de saint Augustin (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1958). For his usage of Cicero in Book V of the De civitate Dei, see especially vol. 1, 240–2, 280–1; vol. 2, Répertoire des textes, 46–52. Augustine’s references to Cicero are not always clear; see Testard, Répertoire des textes, 48 note 1. 222 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. determined. The astrologers think that the stars determine the acts.9 Augustine thinks that this view is absurd, and he discusses the absurdity in detail. For example, why do twins act differently when both are born under the same stars? The more interesting threat to human freedom is that of the Stoics, who think that every event is part of a fixed order of causes, which is fate.10 Human actions are part of this fixed order and consequently determined.11 Consequently, if the agent’s inner nature and outer conditions were known, the agent’s action could be predicted. Cicero saw that the Stoic view makes human freedom impossible and rejected such a fixed order of causes.Therefore, he concluded that since free actions are not determined by present causes, not even God or gods can know what humans will do in the future.12 Augustine partially accepted Cicero’s criticism of the Stoics. In order to act rightly or wrongly, the action must be in our power. If everything is subject to fate, then we cannot so act because we are not free. The Stoic view is incompatible with the contingency of free actions. Nevertheless, although Cicero was correct to criticize fate, he incorrectly thought it necessary to limit God’s 9 Augustine, De civitate Dei 5.1–7 (CCSL 47, 128–35). For the connection between astrology and the intellectual elite, including Stoics, see Tamsyn Barton, Ancient Astrology (New York: Routledge, 1994), 33–7. 10 For the Stoic background, see Dorothea Frede, “Stoic determinism,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, ed. Brad Inwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 179–205. Katherin A. Rogers argues for the position that Augustine is a compatibilist with respect to both God and other causes. See “Augustine’s Compatibilism,” Religious Studies 40 (2004): 415–35. She neglects Augustine’s explicit statement that freedom is incompatible with Stoic fate because fate implies causal determinism. Much of the textual support for her position rests on Augustine’s discussions of grace and freedom and not on determination by created causes. Moreover, she confuses the position that someone without grace is not free to act well with the position that someone without grace is causally determined to perform a particular sin. Augustine accepts the former and denies the latter. With respect to God’s causal influence, I shall show that Augustine distinguishes between God’s causation and that of creatures in such a way that the word “compatibilism” cannot be properly used in this context. 11 Augustine, De civitate Dei, 5.8–10 (CCSL 47, 135–40). 12 For the connection between Stoic fate and divination, see especially Suzanne Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 87–96. For Cicero’s rejection of fate, see especially David Amand, Fatalisme et liberté dans l’antiquité grecque: Recherches sur la survivance de l’argumentation morale antifataliste de Carnéande chez les philosophes grecs et les théologiens Chrétiens des quatre premiers siècles (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1973), 78–80. For his criticism of divination, see 46–49. Foreknowledge Through Causes 223 foreknowledge. Augustine thinks that denying God’s foreknowledge is equivalent to denying God.13 Augustine’s criticism of Cicero is important because he emphasizes the difference between God’s providence and the order among other causes.14 Unlike Cicero, Augustine does not reject the Stoic belief that the universe is subject to order. Instead, Augustine argues that the problem with Stoic fate is that it does not take into account that it is a separate God who orders everything.15 Similarly,Augustine agrees with Cicero that the Stoic logical determinism whereby truths about the present entail everything that happens in the future is linked to Stoic fate. But Augustine distinguishes between the Stoic logical determinism whereby we might infer truths about the future from God’s knowledge of what is caused by free human action. Consequently, Augustine’s key move is to place God outside the ordinary causal order of necessity and contingency.Augustine writes,“he knows unchangeably everything which will be and which he himself will make.”16 The Stoic belief in fate implies that all future truths are entailed by present truths.These truths are based on such a fixed order of causes. Augustine argues that human events are not subject to such causal control by fate, since there is contingency in the normal causal order. Nevertheless, if God’s activity is considered along with this order, then there is not fate but providence, and everything does happen according to it. Augustine differs from both Cicero and the Stoics in that he thinks that the order of created causes is completely subordinated to a causal activity that orders such causes even though it does not necessitate them. Indeed, all causality is subordinated to efficient voluntary causes, the greatest of which is God.17 Augustine emphasizes that God’s causation can infallibly move an agent without taking away the agent’s own causal 13 Augustin Pic,“Saint Augustin et l’impiété de Cicéron: Étude du De Civitate Dei V, 9,” Studia Patristica 33 (1997): 213–20. 14 Kondoleon, “Augustine and the Problem,” 171–75. 15 Augustine, De civitate Dei, 5.9 (CCSL 47, 138): “Ordinem autem causarum, ubi uoluntas De plurimum potest, neque negamus, neque fati uocabulo nuncupamus, nisi forte ut fatum a fando dictum intellegamus, id est a loquendo.” 16 Ibid.:“nouit incommutabiliter omnia quae futura sunt et quae ipse facturus est.” 17 For the importance of voluntary causes in this discussion, see David, “Divine Foreknowledge,” 486–94; Reta, “Une polémique Augustinienne,” 36–37. These two authors identify efficient with voluntary causation. Kondoleon (“Augustine and the Problem,” 174–75) argues that some efficient causes are not voluntary, although they are all subordinated to voluntary causes. At any rate, it is clear that God’s will is the ultimate efficient cause, as can be seen in De civitate Dei, 5.9 (CCSL 47, 139):“omnia maxime Dei uolunati subdita sunt, cui etiam uoluntates omnes subiciuntur, quia non habent potestatem nisi quam ille concedit.” Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. 224 activity. For example, in Book VII of the same work, he argues that pagans such as Varro did not recognize the difference between the creator and created causes.18 Even though created causes such as the sun, living creatures, and human beings exercise their own causal power, all such power is subordinated to God. Both God and creatures produce the act. From the perspective of created causes, the future contingent acts are not determined and consequently cannot be foreknown. In his dispute with Cicero and the Stoics, Augustine does not bring up the central logical issue of whether statements about future contingents can be true.19 Nevertheless, Augustine in other contexts does emphasize that creatures cannot know future contingents unless they are known in a special way through God. Later in the De civitate Dei and in other works,Augustine emphasizes that not only humans but also angels and demons do not of themselves have certitude about future, free human actions.20 Demons might reveal to us future actions, but that is because of their greater insight into present causes and their ability to know what is happening far away. They know that someone is on their way to visit us well before we do. Moreover, demons can interfere with natural causes so as to bring about what they foretell. Nevertheless, even demons cannot predict free actions with certitude. But good angels can do so.What accounts for the distinction between angels and demons? The difference is that demons infer the future from temporal things, whereas angels can see future contingents as present in God’s word. Consequently, Augustine distinguishes between certain and conjectural knowledge of future contingents by distinguishing between whether the knowledge is based on secondary causes or on God. The only certain knowledge of future contingents is based on a knowledge of what God will do. Although in his criticism of Cicero and the Stoics Augustine is somewhat reticent about the connection between God’s foreknowledge and his causality, he emphasizes this connection in his discussion of how the good angels know future contingents only by knowing 18 De civitate Dei, 7.30 (CCSL 47, 211–22). See Kondoleon, “Augustine and the Problem,” 174–75. 19 For Augustine’s failure to address this issue, see David, “Divine Foreknowledge,” 485–88. For a reading more sympathetic to Augustine, see Reta,“Une polémique Augustinienne,” 134–35. For the connection between Stoic causal determinism and bivalence, see Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom, 59–86. 20 Augustine, De civitate Dei, 9.22 (CCSL 47, 268–69): “Et ideo certius etiam temporalia et mutabilia ista nouerunt, quia eorum principales causas in Verbo Dei conspiciunt, per quod factus est mundus.” The same doctrine can be found in idem, De genesi ad litteram 17, ed. Joseph Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum (hereafter CSEL) 28.1, 17; idem, De divinatione daemonum, ed. Joseph Zycha, CSEL 41, 599–618, passim. Foreknowledge Through Causes 225 God as the cause. But we should expect such a connection from the discussion, since, unlike Cicero, Augustine does not criticize the Stoic view that every event of the universe is ordered, but instead criticizes their consideration of this order apart from God. The connection between God’s causal activity and his foreknowledge is more clearly apparent in his arguments against the Pelagians and those who fall under their influence.21 Augustine expressed this view in his earlier Ad Simplicianum, when he developed his position that the initium fidei comes only from God.22 But Augustine’s view of God’s causal influence does not entail his developed view of the initium fidei. After all, this understanding of God’s causation and human freedom holds as well for God’s influence on the good actions of those who have accepted the faith and even God’s permission of sin. But his view on the priority of God’s causal influence allows him to stress how God can move the will without violating human freedom in a variety of contexts, including that of the initium fidei. For example, in the De gratia et libero arbitrio Augustine says that God has power not only over the free actions of the good but also over those of the wicked.23 In later writings Augustine directly criticizes the view that humans can resist God’s influence on the will. For example, in the De correptione et gratia he emphasizes both that God moves the will and that admonition can play a role in helping someone to make a good choice.24 Nevertheless, no one 21 John M. Rist, “Augustine on Free Will and Predestination,” Journal of Theological Studies 20 (1969): 420–47; James Wetzel, “Predestination, Pelagianism, and Foreknowledge,” in Stump and Kretzmann, The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, 49–58.A still excellent discussion is Gilson, Introduction a l’étude de saint Augustin, 198–210. 22 For this development and an underlying continuity concerning merit, see Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum 4 (8) (PL 44, 965–6); idem, De dono perseverantiae 21 (52–55) (PL 45, 1025–27). See his relatively early (396) discussion of Jacob and Esau in the De diversis quaestiones ad Simplicianum, 1.2, ed. Almut Mutzenbecher (CSEL 44, 24–56). 23 Augustine, De gratia et libero arbitrio 19 (40) (PL 44, 96):“etiam illas quae conservant saeculi creaturam, ita esse in Dei potestate, ut eas quo voluerit, quando voluerit, faciat inclinari, vel ad beneficia quibusdam praestanda, vel ad poenas quibusdam ingerendas, sicut ipse judicat, occultissimo quidem judicio, sed sine ulla dubitatione justissimo.” For the importance of this passage, see Kondoleon, “Augustine and the Problem,” 175–77. In light of recent attempts to avoid this aspect of Augustine’s thought, Kondoleon,“Augustine and the Problem,” 186–77 note 42, discusses Ad Simplicianum, 2.2.2 (CCSL 44, 76). 24 For the context, see Gerald Bonner, Correptione et gratia, De, in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, et al. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 245–46. 226 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. can resist God’s power. He writes, “he has the wills of men in his power more than they do.”25 Some monastic critics suggested that if everyone is subject to God’s will, there is no reason to admonish sinners. Augustine responds to them not by limiting God’s omnipotence, but by noting how God sometimes uses admonishment to assist in someone’s conversion. In short, his critics confuse the secondary causal order, which is contingent and includes admonishment, with God’s power over the human heart. Scholars who focus on the De libero arbitrio often neglect these and similar passages. Has Augustine changed his view on the incompatibility of freedom with necessity, or has he stated that we have freedom even over what is not really in our power? In his Retractiones, Augustine argues that he does not change his position.26 The difference is that these later passages are against Pelagians who deny God’s omnipotence, whereas in the De libero arbitrio he was concerned with Manicheans who denied freedom. Indeed, if we consider his argument against Cicero and the Stoics, we can see how Augustine only denies that human actions are subject to fate, which is a fixed order of causes apart from God. His emphasis on the incompatibility of freedom with necessity occurs in this context. Augustine never explicitly states that human freedom is incompatible with God’s sovereignty over the will. In the De praedestinatione sanctorum, Augustine explicitly connects God’s revelation concerning future human events with his ability to cause human actions. God’s promise to Abraham is discussed in the context of predestination. God promises to Abraham what God himself will bring about, even though it includes free actions. He writes, “God knew by predestination what he was himself to bring about: whence it is said that he does what will be.”27 In this work Augustine emphasizes that God’s foreknowledge cannot be separated from his predestination, namely his causal power to bring about certain kinds of free human actions. Moreover, although God does not cause sin, sin only brings about what God wills.28It is important 25 Augustine, De correptione et gratia, 14 (43), ed. J-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina 44 (herafter PL), 944:“magis habet in potestate voluntates hominum quam ipsi suas.” 26 Augustine, Retractiones, 5.9; in idem, On the Free Choice of the Will, 124–29. 27 Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum, 10 (19) (PL 44, 975): “Predestinatione quippe Deus ea praescivit, quae fuerat ipse facturus: unde dictum est, fecit quae futura sunt.” See also De dono perseverantiae, 7 (15) (PL 45, 1002); 14 (35) (PL 45, 1014); 18 (47) (PL 45, 1022). See Gilson, Introduction a l’étude de saint Augustin, 195–98. 28 Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum, 16 (33) (PL 44, 984):“Est ergo in malorum potestate peccare: ut autem peccando hoc vel hoc illa malitia faciant, non est in eorum potestate, sed Dei dividentis tenebras in ordinantis eas; ut hinc etiam quod faciunt contra voluntatem Dei, non impleatur nisi voluntas Dei.” Foreknowledge Through Causes 227 to recognize that Augustine is not arguing here that future human choices are necessitated by an order of causes or that they can be foreknown apart from God’s foreknowledge. Abraham can know that his seed will spread and please God only because God has told him. It would be impossible to infer the behavior of his descendants from anything else. Augustine’s treatment of predestination and foreknowledge supplements but does not contradict what he says elsewhere about human freedom. In his earlier work he states that human freedom is compatible with God’s foreknowledge but not with ordinary causal necessity. He develops his mature view when writing to Simplicianus on the interpretation of particular texts from Scripture. His approach is further explained and developed in his argument against the Stoics’ logical determinism and belief in fate, which is a necessary order of causes apart from God. In his discussions of divination by demons, he emphasizes that demons do not have certain knowledge of the future because they know it only through created causes and not through God. Anti-Pelagian works only emphasize God’s providence and the priority of grace over human freedom; they never suggest that freedom is compatible with determination by created causes. Just as Augustine did,Thomas argues that human free choice is incompatible with causal necessity.Thomas emphasizes the connection between practical judgment and contingency.29 Since the agent has reason, he can choose between alternative actions. Consequently, free choice requires that these alternatives are not determined. Thomas agrees with Augustine’s claim that Stoic fate is incompatible with free choice. If there is a necessary order of causes, and statements about all future human acts are even now true or false, it follows that humans are not free.Thomas builds on Augustine’s thesis by more explicitly focusing on the logical issues and how they are founded on an understanding of future events as present in their causes. Thomas addresses the logical issues in his commentary on Aristotle’s Perihermenias, in which Aristotle states that it is neither true nor false that “[t]he sea battle will happen tomorrow,” since the sea battle is a contingent event.30 29 A representative passage is Thomas, ST I, q. 83, a. 1. For the Summa theologiae, I use the Leonine edition as reprinted in Summa theologiae, 3 vols (Turin: Marietti, 1952). 30 Aristotle, Perihermenias, 1.9; Thomas, In Libri Peri Hermenias, lib. 1, lec. 13–5, in Opera Omnia, vol. 1 (Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1884– ), 59–74. For the many interpretations of Aristotle’s passage, see Richard Gaskin, The Sea Battle and the Master Argument:Aristotle and Diodorus Cronus on the Metaphysics of the Future (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995). For Thomas, see especially 335–36. I am not sure that Gaskin is correct in his distinction between Thomas’s position and his version of the antirealist position. See also Goris, Free Creatures of an Eternal God, 213–55. Goris argues that for Thomas the principle of bivalence holds because the proposition has a temporally definite truth value. It seems to me that it holds only to the extent 228 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. As we saw, the Stoics later held the opposed position that such statements were true or false. But Aristotle had rejected the position because he thought that if a statement were so determined, then the event would not be contingent and subject to human choice. On his view, future contingents cannot be known from the past. How then can God know future contingents? Although Aristotle was not directly concerned with such an issue, as a Christian who believes in God’s omniscience Thomas was confronted with a difficulty. Nevertheless, Thomas saw, as did many before him, that God’s eternity makes it possible to hold that God knows what is future to us, but that these future contingents are not future to him. Whereas God can know the future events in themselves, we know future events only through their causes. Although Thomas restates this position throughout his writings, scholars usually do not emphasize the connection between this logical approach and his understanding of how necessary and contingent effects are present in their causes. But Thomas consistently connects the logical theory with this emphasis on causation.31 Being and truth are convertible.32 Consequently, truth cannot be known unless there is some sort of present being. Since the future is potential and not yet actual, it can only be known as somehow present in its causes. Strictly necessary events, such as eclipses, and those that occur for the most part, such as the generation of a human by humans, can be known in their presently existing causes. But a contingent event is not determinately present in a cause, since the cause must be open to alternatives. For example, one future contingent act cannot preexist in the faculty that one or other statement will be true. For Thomas’s understanding of free choice, see especially Kevin L. Flannery, Acts Amid Precepts:The Aristotelian Logical Structure of Thomas Aquinas’s Moral Theory (Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 111–43; David M. Gallagher, “Free Choice and Free Judgment in Thomas Aquinas,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 76 (1994): 247–77. For the classical Thomistic account of the relationship between God’s causality and our free choice, see my “Premotion and Contemporary Philosophy of Religion,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 607–32. 31 Thomas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 8, a. 12 ( Leonine, vol. 22, 257–60); ST I, q. 86, a. 4; 1 Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 5, in Scriptum super libros sententiarum, ed. Pierre Mandonnet and M. F. Moos, vol. 1 (Paris: Lethielleux, 1929–1947), 907–15. For this issue, see especially Theodore J. Kondoleon, “The Free Will Defense: New and Old,” The Thomist 47 (1983): 1–42; idem,“God’s Knowledge of Future Contingent Singulars: A Reply,” The Thomist 56 (1992): 117–39. For the view that the connection is not Aristotelian, see Gaskin, The Sea Battle and the Master Argument, 49–53. 32 See especially Thomas, Quaestiones disputatae de malo, q. 16, a. 7, resp. I use the Leonine text as reprinted in The De Malo of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Brian Davies, trans. Richard Regan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 902. Foreknowledge Through Causes 229 of free choice, since free choice must be open to alternatives if the act is to be contingent. Consequently, contingent events can never be known in their proximate causes in the way in which necessary events can. Thomas uses this understanding of the distinction between necessary and contingent events to explain demonic revelations about human events in more theoretical but less graphic detail than Augustine had done.33 Nevertheless, the approach is similar. Demons have a greater understanding of natural causes than we do; consequently, they can more easily know future events. Nevertheless, they do not know future contingent events with certitude, and they cannot predict when God will act outside the ordinary causal order. Thomas explicitly refers to Augustine’s De divinatione daemonum on this point.34 Moreover, good angels can know future events insofar as they know God.Their knowledge of the future is limited in that they each have a more or less limited knowledge of God, who is the cause of the contingent events.35 The pattern here is strikingly similar to that of Augustine, in that both hold that the angels’ superior knowledge of future contingents is based on their knowledge of God as the cause of these future contingents. Unlike Augustine,Thomas believes that astrological predictions are often true.36 He thinks that astrologers can infer terrestrial events from the action of the heavenly bodies because these bodies cause future events. Thus, astrologers are able to predict future events because they know them in their causes.Astrologers can predict events such as eclipses with certitude because the heavenly bodies in their view never fail to act in a determinate way. Similarly,Thomas thinks that they can predict earthly events such as rains or a drought because, for the most part, these follow from the actions of the heavenly bodies. Last, he thinks that they can to some extent predict human events because the heavenly bodies influence the passions, and most humans freely follow their passions. Thomas’s understanding of astrology may be outdated or just plain too credulous, but the important point is his connection of knowledge about the future with the presence of future events in their causes. Strictly speaking, freely chosen acts cannot be predicted, 33 Thomas, ST I, q. 57, a. 3; II–II, q. 95, a. 1; II–II, q. 95, a. 5, ad 2; Summa contra Gentiles 3.154, in Liber de veritate Catholicae fidei contra errores infidelium seu Summa Contra Gentiles, vol. 3 (Turin: Marietti, 1961), 228–33; Expositio super Isaiam, 3, 507–65 (Leonine, vol. 28, 31–32); 2 Sent., d. 7, q. 2, a. 2 (Leonine, vol. 2, 188–92). 34 Thomas, De Malo, q. 16, a. 7, ad 2 (Oxford, 904). 35 Stump, Aquinas, 118–21, denies that God’s knowledge determinately causes human actions. It seems to me that she does not make the important distinction between God’s non-causal and causal knowledge, and confuses causal necessitation, which is in the order of secondary causes, with being a contingent effect of God’s infallible causal activity. 36 Thomas, ST II–II, q. 95, a. 5. 230 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. because they are not determinately present in their cause. Thomas argues that nothing can be predicted from free choice considered in itself. Someone can predict future, free actions only by considering free choice in conjunction with predictable events such as passions, customs, and habits. Moreover, these predictions often fail because humans need not follow their passions, since their free choices are not determined. Consequently, although Thomas disagrees with Augustine over the empirical issue of whether astrologers can accurately predict the future, the conceptual framework is the same. Future contingents cannot be known with certitude because there is no fixed order of causes.We could know all that there is to know about the world at present and yet not be able to predict future contingents. Thomas’s account of prophecy underscores the difference between knowledge about future necessary events and knowledge about future contingents.37 Most strictly speaking, prophecy is God’s revelation to humans of what is far removed from their knowledge.38 How can God reveal future contingents to prophets if future contingents are unknowable? As Augustine had done,Thomas distinguishes between our ordinary knowledge, which comes from created causes, and the knowledge that comes from God. Future contingents do not exist in the present, but rather only in the mind of God. Consequently, knowledge of them is not natural but depends upon a special revelation. Ordinarily, our knowledge of the future comes from the order of secondary causes that is, at least imperfectly, knowable to us. In contrast, knowledge of future contingents through prophecy can only have God as its source. Usually our knowledge about the future depends on the presently existing causes that we know. In contrast, although prophetic knowledge is about what a created cause does, it only signifies the event and does not depend upon it. Nevertheless, even prophetic knowledge concerning the future is knowledge of a cause, but the distinctive mark of prophetic knowledge is that it is based on God’s knowledge, which is causal. God knows future contingents because he causes them to act contingently.39 When discussing 37 For the contrast of the natural and supernatural knowledge of the future, see espe- cially Alexander Altmann, “Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas: Natural or Divine Prophecy,” AJS Review 3 (1978): 1–19. For Thomas’s understanding of prophecy, see Pierre Benoit and Paul Synave, Prophecy and Inspiration: A Commentary on the Summa Theologiae II–II, Questions 171–178 (New York: Desclee, 1961). 38 Thomas, De veritate, q. 12, a. 1 (Leonine, vol. 22, 365–70); ST II–II, q. 171, a. 2. 39 See especially Thomas, De veritate, q. 12, a. 10, resp. (Leonine, vol. 22, 399–400); ST I, q. 14, 8; II–II, q. 174, a. 1. Goris, Free Creatures of an Eternal God, 276–304, mentions the connection between contingency and proximate causes, but it seems to me that he wrongly isolates this discussion from the way in which future events can be known only insofar as they are present in their causes. Foreknowledge Through Causes 231 Augustine’s criticism of Stoic fate,Thomas emphasizes that not only does God’s knowledge not take away from the necessity of future contingents, neither does his will.The reason is that God is outside the order of necessary and contingent causes.Thomas repeats this point in several passages but it is commonly neglected. Nevertheless, one cannot understand Thomas’s view apart from it. He writes that “the necessity and contingency in things is not distinguished through their order to the divine will which is a common cause, but through comparison to created causes.”40 Created effects are necessary or contingent depending upon whether they necessarily follow from their created causes. Future contingents are subject to his providence, but his providence does not take away their contingency because God causes not only the acts but also their necessity and contingency. Consequently, prophetic knowledge about the future cannot err because it is based on the fact that God’s causal activity never fails. In this context,Thomas writes,“every effect in necessity and contingency follows the proximate cause and not the first cause.”41 The truth of prophecy is based on the fact that God can unerringly bring about whatever contingent action he wills without taking away its contingency. God knows what future humans will do and reveals this knowledge to us because he himself causes the free actions as the first cause. Causal necessity and contingency is not applicable to the relation of an effect to the first cause, but rather to the relationship between an effect and its proximate cause. In his discussion of how future contingents are known and revealed, Thomas systematized what Augustine had developed in his disputes with the Stoics and Pelagians.Thomas shows how logical determinism concerning future contingents is avoided by Aristotelian logic, according to which future contingents have no determinate truth. Moreover, he explicitly unravels how our understanding of causal contingency and necessity is applicable only to created causes. Nevertheless, Augustine had explicitly 40 Thomas, De Malo, q. 16, a. 7, ad 15 (Oxford, 910): “necessitas et contingentia in rebus distinguitur non per habitudinem ad uoluntatem diuinam que est causa communis, set per comparationem ad causas creatas.” For Thomas’s different modal notions, see J. J. MacIntosh, “Aquinas on Necessity,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1998): 371–403. For the difference between God and secondary causes, see Guy Mansini,“On the Impossibility of a Demonstration of Theological Determinism,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78 (2004): 573–80. I would further emphasize that such a demonstration is impossible because theological determinism is nonsensical, since in the causal order necessity and contingent are meaningful only with reference to secondary causes. 41 Thomas, De veritate, q. 12, a. 11, resp. (Leonine, vol. 22, 403):“omnis autem effectus in necessitate et contingentia sequitur causam proximam et non causam primam.” 232 Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. done the same when he criticized the Stoics not for their position that every event is ordered, but rather for not recognizing that this order must include God’s causal power. Moreover, Augustine’s discussion of God’s promise to Abraham stresses that only God can move the will without taking away its freedom. The truth of the promise is based on the truth of what God will do. Similarly, Thomas stresses that our present knowledge of future contingents can only be prophetic, since they are present only in God and have determinate truth only on account of his decision to cause them. Augustine did not go into detail concerning how future truths are usually known insofar as they are present in their causes, but Thomas’s position is compatible with that of Augustine and may go some way toward explaining its deeper philosophical implications.42 The similarity of Thomas and Augustine on the problem of prophecy and foreknowledge is an instance of how Thomas often agrees with Augustine on substance, even though he expresses his view in a more systematic and precise fashion. The most relevant texts of Augustine on this issue are polemical. There is even development in Augustine, as he moves from his relatively simple concerns about necessity in the De libero arbitrio to the more sophisticated treatments in the Ad Simplicianum, the De civitate Dei, and the anti-Pelagian writings. Thomas’s texts are scholastic. Consequently, he is able to discuss one topic at length and to use conceptual resources borrowed or developed from Aristotle. Nevertheless, there is no reason to conclude that Thomas’s development of these themes betrays Augustine any more than Augustine’s own development betrays his N&V earlier writings. On this issue Thomas is truly Augustinian. 42 Although Augustine does not use eternal knowledge as explicitly as Thomas does to address the problem of how future contingents can be known, Barry A. David has shown that God’s eternity plays a more important role for Augustine than scholars have generally recognized. See his “Meaning and Usage,” 139–42, 151–52, 156; idem, “Divine Foreknowledge,” 493–94. Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 6, No. 1 (2008): 233–244 233 Book Reviews The Sacred Monster of Thomism.An Introduction to the Life and Legacy of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. by Richard Peddicord, O.P. (South Bend, IN: St.Augustine’s Press, 2005), x + 250 pp. D URING the first half of the twentieth century, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange was perhaps the best-known theologian of the Catholic Church, the defender of orthodoxy, and the founder of a school of spirituality. His influence was pervasive, and he educated several generations of students at the Angelicum in Rome and beyond. His numerous books and articles found a wide public and he directed the dissertation of the future pope John Paul II. However, about the middle of the century, a new generation of theologians came to the fore, such as Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, and Karl Rahner, who rejected scholastic theology as practiced at most Catholic institutions and tried to introduce a new way of theologizing, centered on man and his problems, using the texts of the Church Fathers instead of the scholastic manuals, and moving away from St. Thomas, at first hesitatingly, but after Vatican II in a more outspoken way. It was sometimes said that if St. Thomas were alive today, he would use contemporary philosophies to reflect on the Christian faith, instead of Aristotle. Obviously this new attitude and the greater freedom to criticize faithfulness to Aquinas, which, ever since Leo XIII, the popes had so strongly recommended, led many to disregard or to write off openly the work of Garrigou-Lagrange, who was often depicted as a narrow-minded rigorous author who totally failed to see the importance of history in theological studies, and who professed a Wolffian type of metaphysics. Fr. Peddicord’s book is an attempt at an evaluation, some fifty years after the upheaval in theology of the middle of the twentieth century. He mentions the teachers who shaped Garrigou-Lagrange’s thinking, such as Ambroise Gardeil and V. Bernadot, and discusses his debate with the philosophy of Henri Bergson (now a dead classic but quite prominent in the first decades of the last century).Against Bergson, Garrigou-Lagrange stressed the place of being over becoming, of the intellect over the senses 234 Book Reviews and feelings. During several years Garrigou-Lagrange was associated with the Circle of Friends of St.Thomas in Paris, animated by Jacques Maritain. But their mutual understanding was marred somewhat by the fact that Garrigou-Lagrange strongly approved of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War, and also saw many positive aspects in the government of Pétain after the defeat of France. In the field of theology, a central conviction of Garrigou-Lagrange was that our Lord taught a body of doctrines applicable to all times, and so he elaborated the theology of divine Revelation. In his theological work Garrigou-Lagrange was convinced of the correctness of the basic principles of Aristotle’s philosophy, and of the possibility of the human mind to express the basic facts of reality in concepts of lasting value, concepts that are used in the unchangeable formulas of the doctrine of the faith. Precisely on this point, he strongly criticized the new theology as advocated by some Jesuit theologians, such as Henri Bouillard and Henri de Lubac, who argued that in the dogmas of the faith, not the terms, but the trend of the propositions are important. GarrigouLagrange said that this theology, if thought through, would end in modernism. Later events appear to confirm his view.According to Peddicord, Garrigou-Lagrange’s critical evaluation still holds in our day and is an important corrective. After this rather timid evaluation of the lasting value of Garrigou-Lagrange’s theological writings, the author points out that Vatican II (although perhaps not taking over Garrigou-Lagrange’s view of theology) did incorporate his theology of spirituality, insofar as it proclaimed the universal calling of all Christians to holiness and insisted on the mystery of the indwelling of the divine persons. Garrigou-Lagrange’s The Ages of the Interior Life has remained a classic. This reviewer would have liked to see an in-depth study of GarrigouLagrange’s theology of divine revelation and that of Dei Verbum, and some references to postconciliar documents of the Holy See that seem to recuperate much of the heritage of the great Dominican scholar. But Peddicord deserves praise for his carefully written, well documented, and irenic book, which ends with a quotation of a great theologian of the postconciliar years, Jean-Hervé Nicolas:“Garrigou-Lagrange led a life completely consecrated to research and the teaching of truth, and his work, despite some defects, will certainly be hallowed by history. It will be useful for the defense of the faith in the twenty-first century.” N&V Leo J. Elders, S.V.D. Rolduc Kerkrade,The Netherlands Book Reviews 235 The Comforter by Sergius Bulgakov, translated by Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 398 pp. T HE NAME of Sergius Bulgakov evokes mesmerizing reverberations among those even casually interested in modern Eastern Orthodox theology. To those who do not know his work directly, his name is primarily associated with the mysterious and controversial doctrine of Sophiology and the public criticisms of such esteemed modern Orthodox theologians as Georges Florovsky and Vladimir Lossky.With the recent translations of his work into English by Boris Jakim, English readers can see for themselves why Bulgakov is such an important as well as controversial figure in Orthodox theology, and are likely to conclude that his voice has an enduring place in modern theology in general. The Comforter is the middle volume of Bulgakov’s great dogmatic trilogy, On Divine Humanity.The first volume, The Lamb of God, focuses on Christology; while the third,The Bride of the Lamb, published after his death, treats ecclesiology and eschatology.The Comforter both looks back to central themes in the first volume and gives overtures to the subject matter of the third. More than merely a treatise on the Holy Spirit, it recapitulates the central themes of Bulgakov’s vision, consistently centered on his sophiological Trinitarian doctrine. There are three main tasks attempted and, for the most part, ably accomplished in this work. First, Bulgakov retraces the main lines of Patristic Trinitarian theology, with special attention to the question of the Holy Spirit. Second, he analyzes and evaluates the filioque controversy.Third, he presents his own interpretation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. With regard to the first task, readers will perhaps be surprised at the historical consciousness with which Bulgakov treats Patristic texts. This is not to say that he shows any great command of the precise historical details of the various pertinent controversies. But he is careful not to stretch a given theologian’s thought to artificially accommodate later problematics.This hermeneutical caution serves him particularly well in his avoidance of proof-texts that were anachronistically forced into East-West polemics over the filioque. A central and controversial theme that emerges in this section is Bulgakov’s rejection of the conception of the Trinitarian relations as relations of origination or causation. Bulgakov’s argumentation for this position is testimony to his audacious and independent theological spirit and will give considerable explanation for the irritation and hostility that he drew from some of his peers. His central point is the simple, some would say simplistic, contention that notions of causality and origination are rationally applicable only to created phenomena; it is a contradiction in terms to speak of 236 Book Reviews the origination of the eternal. Bulgakov sidesteps the complex epistemological maneuvers of some of the Fathers, such as Athanasius and the Cappadocians, to render the comprehensibility in faith of conceptions of eternal causality and origination. One can indeed say that this issue was at the heart of the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century. But, for Bulgakov, these notions are simply evidence of the immaturity of theological reflection in the Patristic era. At this point of Bulgakov’s argument, a reader sympathetic to the Patristic tradition might well become irritated by his approach and ready to enlist in the ranks of his critics.The consequent unfolding of Bulgakov’s presentation might not totally eradicate that irritation but it will certainly counterbalance it with much rewarding material. For one thing, Bulgakov does not jettison the notion of ordered relations (taxis) within the Trinity, and he fully endorses the doctrine of the Father’s monarchy. Indeed, his dismissal of the language of originality and causation seems merely petty and presumptuous, until one comes to appreciate both his sense of the dangers of misunderstanding this notion and his recommendation for its replacement.With regard to the first point, while Bulgakov’s dismissal of causality language raises complex questions about the hermeneutics of tradition, it can be readily conceded at least that he problematizes a simplistic understanding of such language. While he himself seems to have fallen prey to this simplistic understanding in rejecting this language, the rejection of such an understanding is not itself misguided. But the more significant issue has to do with the positive motivations behind Bulgakov’s rejection of this language, and these have to do with his own proposal for its replacement.This proposal seeks to replace what he considers to be an impersonalism and empiricism embedded in causality and origination language with a personalistic framework.To this end, Bulgakov borrows strands of Hegelian and idealist vocabulary to depict God as Absolute Spirit, Absolute Subject, and Absolute Self-Revelation. The Trinity is a tri-hypostatic Subjectivity in which the Father, as primordial Subject, reveals himself in Son and Spirit.Thus, the notion of origination is replaced by self-revelation. This self-revelation is eternal, and in that sense, “independent” of creation. It is this self-revelation, the eternal dyadic self-predication of the Father in Son and Spirit, that is named the divine “Sophia” by Bulgakov. The divine Sophia is also the eternal Divine-Humanity, inasmuch as it is the immanent intra-divine ground for God’s revelatory kenosis toward humanity.This kenosis begins with the act of creation itself, in which God ordains into being the creaturely sophia. The latter is the “proto-creation,” creation as ordained to participation in God and deification. The Incarnation draws into the Book Reviews 237 personal unity of the Son the union of the divine Sophia and the creaturely sophia.This union is enabled and accomplished by the Holy Spirit; its “ideal” content is the indwelling of the Logos through the Incarnation, while the dynamics of its reception and actualization, and the energy that binds together “Worded” content and human receptivity is provided through the gift of the Spirit in Pentecost. The preceding is a very terse account of important notions in Bulgakov’s theology, which are scattered throughout the work. But it is helpful to see them in a synoptic view in the context of Bulgakov’s rejection of causality language. Indeed, perhaps one way toward a critical appreciation of Bulgakov’s project is to see it as a rejection of one analogical framework for the sake of another. He rejects the framework of causality, as if it were irreducibly impermeable to an analogical understanding, but he does this in order to clear the way for an analogical framework centered around notions of subjectivity and kenotic self-revelation. But, in the context of reflections on the Holy Spirit, Bulgakov also rejects causality language because he believes that the inescapably temporal and diastemic components of this notion have played a significant role in sterile debates about the procession of the Holy Spirit. According to Bulgakov, stubbornly exclusivistic understandings of the procession of the Spirit as either “from the Father alone” (in the East) or “from the Father and the Son” (in the West) involve unwarranted abstractions from the eternal giveness of the triadic relations in order to break them down into successive quasitemporal moments. He utters a scathing “pox on both your houses” in his account of the filioque controversy, which he considers to be replete with doctrinal obfuscation and lack of charity and, above all, devoid precisely of the loving and unifying breath of the Spirit. More positively, Bulgakov insists that the filioque controversy, while based on misunderstandings and misguided rationalizations (i.e., of intra-divine “causality”) does not constitute a real divergence in the substance of faith, as is evidenced by the equal veneration of the Spirit in East and West. In his own account, there is room for a tolerance that accommodates both formulations.The Spirit proceeds from the Father “alone,” inasmuch as it is the unique property of the Father to be the primordially self-revealing hypostasis; and, in this particular sense, Bulgakov is even willing to speak of the Father as “Cause” (in his own quotation marks, 136): The Father is one who is revealed by the Son and Spirit and not vice-versa. On the other hand, the processions of both Son and Spirit as revelations of the Father are dyadically interrelated. The Son proceeds as the revelation of the Father (thus, a patre); this is the procession of generation, which cannot be abstracted from the Son’s reception of the reposing of the Spirit.The 238 Book Reviews Son thus proceeds from the Father as the one upon whom the Spirit rests and therefore, his generation is a Patre Spiritusque (150). Likewise, the Spirit’s procession of the Father as his self-revelation cannot be abstracted from his reposing upon the Son; the Spirit proceeds as the paternal love that rests upon the Son and binds together Father and Son; thus, filioque. The third task that Bulgakov undertakes in this study, and the one most ably performed in my opinion, is a positive exposition of the role of the Holy Spirit in Christian understanding and life. As can be gleaned from the preceding, Bulgakov imports into his own framework of the Trinitarian life as tri-hypostatic self-revealing subjectivity the Augustinian understanding of the Holy Spirit as hypostatic love and unity. The Triune God, as immanently self-revealing subject, is, to coin a term not literally used by Bulgakov, a communion of kenosis. The Father empties himself in his self-revelation through Son and Spirit; the Son empties himself inasmuch as his identity is taken up by his revelation of the Father through the Spirit, while the Spirit also empties himself by his revelation of the Father through the Son. The procession of the Son represents a moment of kenotic self-depletion, while the procession of the Spirit represents “Life triumphant over the kenotic sacrifice, resurrection from the death of kenosis, the triumph of life-giving Love” (180).The hypostases of Son and Spirit are also differentiated, in analogical terms, as ideal content (i.e.,“Word”) and actualizing energy (“breath,”“life”). On the basis of these insights and images, Bulgakov elaborates an inspiringly poetic account of the kenotic triumph of love being worked in the Church through the Spirit.The most striking insistence in this account is the reiteration of the inseparable mutuality of the presence and work of the Incarnate Word and the Spirit. Christian life has no content other than the Word and no reception or actualization of that content apart from the Spirit, though this content and actualization are not restricted to the visible confines of the historical Christian churches. Indeed, all of created reality and history are inwardly oriented toward the union of divine and creaturely Sophias. The working of Father, Son, and Spirit to bring about the fullness of this union despite the resistance of sin represents a further level of kenosis, the patience of the self-giving God in accommodating and overcoming humanity’s rejection of this gift. There is much more of nuance and poetry in this work than can be readily summarized in this forum. But, hopefully, enough has been said to persuade readers that Bulgakov’s vision has much to contribute to modern conversations on Trinitarian theology. Certain aspects of Bulgakov’s theology might be vulnerable to critique but none of it should be dismissed without at least careful consideration. English speakers should be very grate- Book Reviews 239 ful to Boris Jakim for this clear and elegant translation of an important milestone in modern Orthodox theology. N&V Khaled Anatolios Weston Jesuit School of Theology Cambridge, Massachusetts – Qurrah translated by John C. Lamoreaux (Provo, UT: Theodore Abu Brigham Young University Press, 2005), xxxv + 278 pp. J OHN L AMOREAUX ’ S book is the first volume in the Library of the Christian East series, which will supply introductions and annotated English translations of Eastern Christian literature for students of theology and history. The series focuses on authors who composed their writings in Arabic,Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Georgian, and Syriac, on the basis that these theological writings are neither marginal nor peripheral to Christianity in the ancient or medieval world. Lamoreaux presents the first English translation of the Arabic and Greek works composed by the Melkite – Qurrah (d. ca. 830). Church Father and bishop of Haran,Theodore Abu The introduction provides a concise summary of what we know about Theodore’s biography, theology, corpus of Arabic and Greek manuscripts, and published works. He notes that “Theodorus Abucara” was first introduced to the West by Counter-Reformation Jesuits who published translations of his Greek works in defense of Chalcedonian orthodoxy. – Qurrah was particularly remembered as the Nonetheless, Theodore Abu bishop of Haran (in southeastern Turkey) and as one of the first Christian theologians and dialecticians (mutakallimu– n) to compose in Arabic. He was a defender of Melkite “Arab Orthodoxy,” a spokesman closely connected with the Jerusalem patriarchate and its monasteries, and a remarkable apologist in response to the challenge of Islam. Lamoreaux separates Theodore’s works into four parts according to their main theological concerns. The first section includes his Arabic works that seek to demonstrate that Christianity is the true religion. Lamoreaux has included pieces that attempt to demonstrate the characteristics of the true religion, the fact that Christianity is from God, and the verification of the Gospel.The second part includes Arabic and Greek works in defense of Chalcedonian Christology against Nestorian, Jacobite, Maronite, and Islamic objections.This section includes his composition “On the Councils,” and treatises on the union, Incarnation, death, and salvific work of Jesus Christ.The third part, titled “Topics in Controversial Theology” encompasses a variety of Theodore’s Arabic works on such subjects as epistemology,Trinitarian doctrine, and the defense of the 240 Book Reviews freedom of the will.The fourth section belongs to the Byzantine legacy of debates involving Theodore written by his disciple John the Deacon, and a number of Greek literary fragments, where Theodore argues with Muslims about Christian and Islamic doctrine. – Qurrah’s writings are especially relevant to our time in Theodore Abu that the bishop articulated and protected Chalcedonian theology within an Islamic milieu that forced Christians to reevaluate and reinterpret their political, biblical, and theological reasons for the truth of Christianity. According to Lamoreaux, all of Theodore’s compositions are based on the idea that humans can properly discern the true religion, and secondarily the true Church, in light of human reason and divine revelation (xxv). In Theologus Autodidactus, Theodore imagines himself having grown up alone on a mountain, and then descending to confront the claims of nine religions. Since each one claims the sole truth, and God would have sent only one authentic messenger and scripture,Theodore decides to analyze their claims through anthropological and historical means. Based on human nature,Theodore reasons that humans can gain certain knowledge of God in light of inductive reasoning that moves from particulars to universals. Since God transcends human knowledge of the perceptible environment, he speaks of God cataphatically through the use of analogies that reflect God’s essence and divine attributes, while confirming that the defects in the attributes are contrary to God. For Theodore, “it is in the virtues of his nature that Adam resembles God, and it is from these [virtues] that our minds see God and his attributes” (11). Since Adam’s nature is characterized by headship (over mankind), procession (Eve), and begetting (children), Theodore concludes that God resembles these three characteristics and must be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Secondly, since the virtue of selfless love is the ideal for humans,Theodore infers that “the summit of our nature’s felicity is that we become gods and enjoy God” (17). For Theodore, Christianity is the only religion that is in accordance with human nature and his conclusion about divine love, commandments and prohibitions, and rewards and eternal punishment. Theodore also evaluates the true religion through prophets. Prophets are verified by signs and miracles, but only Christian theological assertions could be true because Christianity was spread despite its demanding claims. While other religions were spread by the “taint of human power or tricks, permissiveness or ambition,” only Jesus Christ’s miracles and his apostles’ signs guarantee that Christianity alone is God’s religion. Theodore even assesses Judaism in terms of the Gospel:“We believe that they are prophets, first, because Christ called them prophets, and secondly, because we see his deeds described in their books” (24). Book Reviews 241 The corollary to Theodore’s argument for the true religion is the second overarching theme in his works: discerning the true Church. Theodore argues that the Melkites adhered to the via media of orthodoxy while the doctrines of the rival Monophysites ( Jacobites) and Nestorians collapse into soteriological and historical problems.Theodore explains to his readers how falsehood surrounds the truth on either side and contradicts the opposite side as well as the truth itself. He employs this paradigm with Nestorius and Jacob. For Theodore, only the Chalcedonian orthodox teaching on the Incarnation satisfies our understanding of Christ’s death on the cross, since it was neither the human nor the divine nature that are said to suffer and die, but only the incarnate hypostasis of the eternal Son, which possessed the fullness of both natures. Moreover, “the eternal Son receives both the name and the definition of ‘God’ and the name and the definition of ‘man,’ but God in no way receives the name or definition of ‘man,’ nor does man receive the name or definition of ‘God’ ” (103–4).According to Theodore, only the death of the hypostasis of the incarnate eternal Son could save humanity and bring about our eternal salvation, since it alone could provide recompense for sin and reconcile mankind to God. Theodore also sought to prove that the true Church was that of Chalcedonian orthodoxy on the basis of the Holy Spirit’s guidance at the ecumenical councils. The Old Testament teaches that the Holy Spirit guided Moses to appoint a council of priestly judges to give rulings on the Law (Ex 18:25–6). Furthermore, in the New Testament the Holy Spirit referred the apostolic Church to a council about the status of the Gentiles (Acts 15), of which St. Peter was the head and leader. Scripture also teaches us, according to Theodore, that Christ appointed St. Peter as the foundation of the Church; and “there is no doubt that he meant by these words nothing other than the holders of the seat of St. Peter” (69). For Theodore, St. Peter and his successors at the see of Rome thus become guarantors of orthodoxy and the presence of the Holy Spirit at a council. In other words, only the bishop of Rome could authorize a council, and heretics who rejected one of the councils did not have any more merit than other heretics who rejected a different council. Therefore,Theodore believed it was possible to assess the authority of a council on the basis of its historical circumstances. Some scholars have argued that Theodore’s endorsement of papal authority was only part of his rhetoric for the discussion. However, we also read a similar commendation of St. Peter at the conclusion of his composition On the Death of Christ:“Whoever sits on that city’s throne is authorized by Christ to have compassion on the people of the church, by 242 Book Reviews summoning the ecumenical council, and to strengthen them” (128). It would be worthwhile for theologians to examine this component of Melkite Chalcedonian theology in the patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem, for Theodore’s expressions amplify our understanding of Christian communion during the early ninth century in the world of Islam. Neither is Theodore alone in his theological view, for his disciple John the Deacon uses similar language in his introduction to the Greek theological debates by “the most blessed and most philosophical bishop” (211–12). Theodore’s interests are not limited to the true religion and the true Church. On the contrary, Lamoreaux’s translations include his writings on theological epistemology, Christology, the question of free will, and many literary dialogues with Muslims. Many of Theodore’s arguments are remarkable because he takes Aristotelian dialectical reasoning and combines its method with biblical citations to debate Muslims, while using their own terminology as a point of departure. Theodore’s “scriptural reasoning” in the world of Islam could be characterized as apologetical and polemical, topical in application, instructive in teaching orthodox Christian doctrine, and innovative in defending Christianity and criticizing Islamic theological claims. The book includes a comprehensive list of abbreviations for the manuscripts and published editions, as well as a helpful index of the published Greek opuscula and Arabic works in order to facilitate a quick check between the original language and his translations. Moreover, Lamoreaux provides copious notation in the footnotes of his English translations, including transliterated characters, clearly explained emendations, and scriptural citations. Following the translations, Lamoreaux has compiled a – Qurrah, an index of specialized bibliography related to Theodore Abu biblical and qur’anic citations, and an index of topics and names. Lamoreaux notes that Theodore’s compositions are difficult to translate, not because of his writing style, but because of the lack of proper critical editions for his works. Nevertheless, Lamoreaux has diligently assembled the available manuscripts for a reliable English translation that maintains a readable style of prose without undermining the technical aspects of Theodore’s language. Lamoreaux classifies Theodore’s writings into four parts to give some theological coherence to a collection of works that were not meant to be systematic but occasional in their composition. However, not all of the works fit into his paradigm (Part III has a hodgepodge of themes); and since the audience for each work shifts from non-Chalcedonian to Jew to Muslim,Theodore’s language and method varies from work to work.This lack of a unified presentation detracts from the book to a certain extent. Book Reviews 243 Overall, the book makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of Melkite Christian theology in the late patristic/early medieval period under the hegemony of Islam. The texts will be beneficial for scholars who study comparative religion, Christian-Muslim relations, patristic theology, and the Eastern churches. Since the treatises in the book are brief and written in an entertaining yet lucid fashion, the translations (especially of the debates) are highly recommended for teachers to include as reading supplements in courses for Church History or Theology. John Lamoreaux's translation has provided the field with a valuable historical and theological resource. N&V David Bertaina University of Illinois Springfield, Illinois