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In Honor of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.
Priest, Scholar, and Living Memory
ROMANUS C ESSARIO, O.P.
St. John’s Seminary
Brighton, Massachusetts

I F MEMORY serves, I have known personally Cardinal Dulles since the
early 1980s when I invited him to address the Faculty of the Immaculate
Conception in Washington, D.C., I served at the time as academic dean of
what is more commonly known as the Dominican House of Studies. On
the other side of Michigan Avenue, Father Avery held the post of distinguished professor of theology at The Catholic University of America. His
visit to the House of Studies afforded the occasion to speak about what was
then his almost newly published book Models of the Church which first
appeared from Doubleday in 1974.As a general rule, it takes Dominicans at
least a decade to catch up with the work of Jesuits. In any case, it was at this
House of Studies session when Father Dulles explained to some skeptical
Dominican professors that he never had intended to offer a selection of
models for each Catholic to choose according to his or her ecclesiological
preferences. Instead, the still-in-print essay, as most educated Catholics now
understand, was written to explore the dimensions of the Church that find
expression in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Cardinal Dulles
has made it abundantly plain that in his view, to grasp fully the mystery of
the Church requires keeping all of the models together. Otherwise, we wind
up with something like the ecclesiological equivalent of Humpty Dumpty.
Comprehensiveness marks the work of Avery Dulles. His literary output
is massive. I am sure that there one day will be an ouevres complètes.Although
not an expert on the complete works of either Chesterton or Dulles, I
hazard the guess that Avery and Keith will require about the same number
of volumes. Dulles has published more than twenty-five books and more
than eight hundred scholarly articles and reviews.

Romanus Cessario, O.P.

246

In his introduction to the Ignatius Press edition of St.Thomas Aquinas,
Ralph McInerny writes: “Chesterton has a rollicking style.”1 Cardinal
Dulles writes as a pedagogue not as a journalist. He is characteristically
careful, clear, well-ordered, and above all exhibits great discretion when
making judgments or drawing conclusions. No “rollicking” theologian
he. I find this quality of the eminent and dear Cardinal Dulles, who celebrates in 2008 his ninetieth birthday, a most winning one.We should all
strive to imitate this quality of his theological habitus. I have been told by
a member of the Society that St. Ignatius counseled his sons not to let
emotions get the upper hand. It seems to me that Cardinal Dulles has
adapted this advice exquisitely to suit the exercise of his theological vocation. Many Catholics remain the beneficiary of this Jesuit’s commitment
to expounding serenely the many truths of the Catholic faith.
It would embarrass Avery Robert Dulles to hear himself compared to
St.Thomas Aquinas. But I find one quality that the two theologians share
worthy of mention. Aquinas was a pope’s man. The reasons for this
submission run deeper than those of courtesy or even of the religious
submission of mind and heart required of theologians. The reason for
Aquinas’s submission ultimately touches upon Truth itself. The same is
true, I aver, for Cardinal Dulles. He expressed himself on this point in the
1996 edition of his A Testimonial to Grace (which originally had been
composed in the 1940s after his conversion).2 “In a sense I could say, as
did John Henry Newman in his Apologia pro vita sua, that there is no
further history of my religious opinions, since in becoming a Catholic I
arrived at my real home.”3 In other words, he found Truth. Cardinal
N&V
Dulles, ad multos annos.

1 Ralph McInerny, introduction in St.Thomas and St. Francis Assisi (San Francisco:

Ignatius Press, 2002), 11.
2 Avery Dulles, S.J., A Testimonial to Grace (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1946).
3 See Avery Dulles, S.J., Testimonial to Grace and Reflections on a Theological Journey,

fiftieth anniversary ed. (Kansas City, MO: Sheed and Ward, 1996).

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Testimonial to Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.
in Honor of His Ninetieth Birthday
J OSEPH W. KOTERSKI , S.J.
Fordham University
Bronx, New York

S CIO CUI CREDIDI — “I know in whom I have believed” (2 Tim
1:12).The choice of these words by Avery Cardinal Dulles for the motto
on his coat-of-arms at the time of his elevation to the College of Cardinals conveys much about the man and his life’s work. From the time of
his awakening to a recognition of God during his days at Harvard
College and his conversion to Catholicism through his long years as a
Jesuit priest and scholar, the spirit of this phrase from St. Paul has guided
his life. It is a fitting motto for his shield.
The author of 24 books and more than 800 articles, Avery Cardinal
Dulles, S.J., is truly a hero for many of us in the Society of Jesus. He is a
good and faithful priest, a world-class scholar, and a wonderful friend in
the Lord. I count it a great blessing to have known him over the years at
Fordham University, where he has been the Laurence J. McGinley Professor Religion and Society since 1988. The complete set of his semestral
McGinley Lectures were published this year by Fordham University Press.
In addition to many public lectures, he has, in recent years, given an
annual set of conferences to our Jesuit novices on the theme of sentire cum
ecclesia as an important part of a Jesuit vocation.To think with the Church
means, first of all, to embrace what the Church teaches, but it also entails
the vigorous use of the intellect that God has given us in and for the
Church. What is especially valuable for our novices about these conferences is to see before them a man who practices what he preaches.
As recounted in his autobiography, A Testimonial to Grace (1946), it was as
a young man, thinking about the magnificent order found in the natural
world, that he came to theism. He explains that one day, after leaving

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Joseph W. Koterski, S.J.

Harvard’s Widener Library where he had been reading a part of Augustine’s
City of God, he was struck by the discrepancy between the regularity of
order and apparent design in the universe and the materialist explanations
of the universe by chance that were prominent in the education he was
receiving.“Never, since the eventful day . . . have I doubted the existence of
an all-good and omnipotent God.”After two years of further thinking about
the matter, he came to accept the Christian gospels.Where many writers he
read tried to present Jesus “as a mild, tolerant, and ever gentle moralist,” the
gospels seemed to show him as someone “whom one could hate tremendously, as most of his contemporaries did hate Him, for what they took to
be His bad manners and extravagant ideas. . . .The moralists never seemed
to rise above the obvious. Christ never paused to state the obvious. He told
of things no man had seen.”
According to these Gospels, Christ founded a Church. Accordingly,
the young Dulles visited various Protestant churches, out of respect for
the Presbyterian heritage of his family. But the preaching that he heard
there gave the impression of not conveying the fullness of what Christ
taught. The sermons that he heard at the Catholic churches he visited
seemed dry but more solid.The statues that he saw were not quite up to
the level of what he had learned to regard as art at Harvard.The “elaborate symbolism” of the Mass seemed foreign and offputting. But the reading of various Catholic intellectuals helped, including the likes of
Maurice de Wulf, Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Martin D’Arcy, S.J.,
and Fulton J. Sheen, who seemed to him to have “expressed that boldly
Christian view of man and the modern world for which I had sought in
vain in Protestant churches.”Yet further reading brought him to accept
the case that the Catholic Church made to be recognized as the Church
that had been founded by Christ:“The more I examined, the more I was
impressed with the consistency and sublimity of Catholic doctrine.” He
was received into the Church in 1940.
After a year at Harvard Law School, service in the U.S. Navy, and the
years of formation within the Society of Jesus, leading to his ordination
in 1956, Avery Dulles took his doctorate in theology at the Gregorian
University and began a long scholarly career that has centered on ecclesiology and fundamental theology. The titles to be found in his long list
of books (many of them into plural editions and translations beyond the
abridged list given here) show his resolute concentration: Apologetics and
the Biblical Christ (1963), The Dimensions of the Church (1967), Revelation
and the Quest for Unity (1968), Revelation Theology: A History (1969), The
Survival of Dogma (1971), The History of Apologetics (1971; expanded
edition, 2005), Models of the Church (1974; expanded edition with new

Tribute to Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.

249

appendix, 2002), Church Membership as a Catholic and Ecumenical Problem
(1974), The Resilient Church (1977), A Church to Believe In: Discipleship and
the Dynamics of Freedom (1982), Models of Revelation (1983), The Catholicity of the Church (1985), The Reshaping of the Catholicism (1988), The Craft
of Theology: From Symbol to System (1992; expanded edition, 1995), The
Assurance of Things Hoped For:A Theology of Christian Faith (1994), A Testimonial to Grace and Reflections on a Theological Journey (fiftieth anniversary
edition, 1996), The Priestly Office (1997), The Splendor of Faith:The Theological Vision of Pope John Paul II (1999; revised and updated edition, 2003),
The New World of Faith (2000), Newman (2002), and Magisterium: Teacher
and Guardian of the Faith (2007).
Although some individuals with less of an inclination for sentire cum
ecclesia have tried to claim the earlier period of Dulles’s writings for their
ranks, any fair reading of this corpus will actually show a remarkable
consistency and an abiding quest to understand why the Church has
made the claims that she has over the centuries. In the lengthy postscript
added to Testimonial in its fiftieth-anniversary edition (1996), Dulles
begins thus: “In a sense I could say, as did John Henry Newman in his
Apologia pro vita sua that there is no further history of my religious opinions, since in becoming a Catholic I arrived at my real home.” Philosophically, he is ever a careful Thomist.Theologically, he regularly shows
a deep appreciation for the nouvelle théologie championed by the likes of
Yves Congar, Jean Daniélou, S.J., and Henri de Lubac, S.J.
It is perhaps the frequent misinterpretations of his book Models of the
Church that have given some to think that there was a time when he
risked undermining the institutional Church in preference for one of the
other “models” that he describes in this volume. In fact, the book defends
the institutional dimension of the Church even while reflecting on the
fact that the Church is sui generis and irreducible to anything else in
creation. Only by pondering the variety of the images that the Scriptures
use for the Church, he argues, can one possibly appreciate what it is that
Christ established. It is a mystical communion, a sacrament, a servant, a
herald, the bride of Christ, the body of Christ, and much more.
A decade later, in an academic context filled with deconstruction and
dissent, his book A Church to Believe In (1983) makes the argument for
ecclesiastical authority. His measured tones and balanced judgments were
then suspect on the left and on the right; but this was almost inevitable,
given the heat of the clashes in those days. On questions that the Church
had not yet decided, Father Dulles generally tried to keep the possibilities
open, for he took this posture to be a part of thinking for the Church that
sentire cum ecclesia requires. On questions that the Church had determined,

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Joseph W. Koterski, S.J.

there could be no question but to use one’s intellect to understand more
deeply the reasons for the determinations reached by the Church that had
been founded by Christ. Scio cui credidi.
One situation that Dulles faced as president of the Catholic Theological Society of America during the 1970s is particularly telling. Dissatisfied with a report on sexual morality (commissioned by a previous CTSA
president but submitted on Dulles’s watch) that criticized Pope Paul VI’s
affirmation of the Church’s traditional opposition to contraception, Dulles
and other members of the organization’s board decided to “receive” instead
of “accept” or “approve” the document.While some wanted an open repudiation of this report and many others wanted the organization officially
to embrace its clear dissent, this son of a diplomat judged prudence to
require that a clear signal be sent, but in a diplomatic way; a signal that
clearly did not adopt or laud the document but that stopped short of
shaming or embarrassing its authors by an outright repudiation. One
thinks of Aquinas’s courtesy to the radical Aristotelian Siger of Brabant
when he composed his De unitate intellectus contra averroistas and never so
much as named his contemporary adversary, the better to leave him room
for the change of mind that Dante’s placement of Siger in Paradise hints
as having happened.
Dulles’s profound debt to Aquinas is evident even in the style of his
scholarship. After a thorough review of the range of positions taken on a
question, he articulates a calm and balanced argument of his own, replete
with needed distinctions and qualifications. His reflections on the nature
of his discipline in The Craft of Theology and in a number of articles from
recent decades set forth the criteria for serious scholarship as well as for
assessing the catholicity of a theologian. Does the individual hold that
faith and reason are compatible? have a belief in traditional trinitarian
theology? remain in communion with Rome? show fidelity to the
Church’s Magisterium? have a sense of continuity with the past? To operate within these parameters is to respect the liberty appropriate to a
theologian, and to observe the prerogative of the pope and the bishops to
offer authoritative interpretations of the doctrines of the faith. On the
sometimes disputed notion of the sensus fidelium, Cardinal Dulles has
labored to distinguish between the genuine sense of this term in theology and mere public opinion, let alone academic peer pressure.
Among his most recent contributions are books on faith and on the
Magisterium. The New World of Faith shows numerous ways in which the
treasury of the Church’s teachings can illuminate a variety of contemporary problems: “The world disclosed to faith is immense. It opens up
vistas that extend beyond the world of sense and into a realm not reached

Tribute to Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.

251

by telescopes . . . , however powerful. . . . Its population includes the living
and the dead, saints and angels, and even, at its summit, the divine
persons. . . .We cannot even sketch it, still less enter it, unless we receive
and accept God’s loving revelation.”
His latest published volume reviews the nature and history of the
Church’s teaching office and achieves the same dispassionate sophistication that has been the Cardinal’s trademark. He writes with the confidence that is his motto: Scio cui credidi.
N&V

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253

Aquinas on the Divisions of the Ages
Salvation History in the Summa
J. M ARK A RMITAGE
Durham, England

D URING THE COURSE of his important study of Aquinas’s soteriology, Romanus Cessario notes that “The scientific method employed
in the Summa theologiae does not allow Aquinas to consider expressly
what German theologians like to call the ‘Heilsgeschichte,’ namely, salvation history,” but suggests that a salvation-historical reading of the Summa
theologiae can nevertheless be extrapolated from the relevant texts.1 More
recently, Matthew Levering has written that “at the heart of Thomas
Aquinas’s scientific theology of salvation lies the narrative of Scripture—
the fulfillment of Israel’s Torah and Temple through the New Covenant
of Christ Jesus.”2 In this article I intend to develop this idea of a narrative and salvation-historical approach to reading Aquinas, focusing in
particular on the way in which he divides history into a series of ages
through which God guides humanity toward its goal of perfection.
Augustine and his followers were accustomed to classifying human
history according to the various “legal states.” Most especially, Quodvultdeus (d. c. 454), in his Liber promissionum et praedictorum Dei, writes in
terms of history ante legem, sub lege, and post legem (or sub gratia)—a
scheme that also envisages periods corresponding with dimidium temporis
and gloria sanctorum—and a reading of the Summa suggests that Aquinas
viewed history within a similar framework.3 Medieval authors such as
1 Romanus Cessario, O.P., The Godly Image: Christ and Salvation in Catholic Theol-

ogy from Anselm to Aquinas (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s Publications, 1990), 177.
2 Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation According to

Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 3.
3 See the comments by Vittorino Grossi in Patrology, vol. IV,The Golden Age of Latin

Patristic Literature from the Council of Nicea to the Council of Chalcedon, ed. A. Di

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J. Mark Armitage

Aquinas, Robert Kilwardby, and Robert Grossteste wrestled in their
contrasting ways with the implications of the Augustinian theology of the
two covenants;4 and I wish to argue that Aquinas constructs around the
twin pillars of Old and New Covenants a distinctive soteriology according to which God leads humanity from one “age” to the next, and to
outline the principal ways in which this covenantal “structure” underpins
Aquinas’s treatment of incarnation, law, liturgy, and sacraments.
Salvation History
One context in which Aquinas’s teaching on how God directs human
history from epoch to epoch emerges with particular clarity is his discussion on the “timing” of the incarnation. He starts by explaining that “it
was not fitting for God to become incarnate at the beginning of the
human race before sin” as “medicine is given only to the sick.”5 Aquinas
goes on to explain that it was not appropriate for him to become incarnate immediately after sin, either. Adam’s “original sin” was the sin of
pride,6 with the consequence that “humans were to be liberated in such
a manner that they might be humbled, and see how they stood in need
of a deliverer.” Superbia is humanity’s striving to be above (supra) itself,7
and this striving is central not only to individual sinfulness but to that
hubris of the human race as a whole that needs to be dealt with in and
through history. Aquinas writes that “the Lord did not bestow upon the
human race the remedy of the incarnation in the beginning, lest they
should despise it through pride, if they did not already recognize their
disease.”8 If pride is the disease, then the unfolding of the successive stages
Berardino, trans. Placid Solari, O.S.B. (Allen,TX: Christian Classics, 1986), 501–2.
On Quodvultdeus, see Daniel Van Slyke, Quodvultdeus of Carthage:The Apocalyptic
Theology of a Roman African in Exile (Sydney: St. Paul’s Publications, 2003).
4 Richard Schenk, O.P., “Views of the Two Covenants in Medieval Theology,”
Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 891–916.
5 ST III, q. 1, a. 5. I have used, with appropriate adaptations, the translation by the
Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1920–1925). On the Augustinian idea of Christ as a doctor who brings
the medicine that cures the disease of pride, see B. Speekenbrink, “Christ the
‘medicus humilis’ in St. Augustine,” in Augustinus Magister: Congrès international
augustinien, vol. 2 (Paris; September 21–24, 1954), 623–39.
6 ST II–II, q. 163. See Joseph P.Wawrykow, The SCM Press A–Z of Thomas Aquinas
(London: SCM Press, 2005), 103.
7 ST II–II, q. 161, a. 1.
8 ST III, q. 1, a. 5, ad 1. On the idea of sin as a disease, see Rik Van Nieuwenhove,
“ ‘Bearing the Marks of Christ’s Passion’: Aquinas’ Soteriology,” in The Theology
of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 282–84.

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255

of law is an integral part of the healing process, and Aquinas quotes a gloss
on Galatians 3:19 to the effect that:
first of all God left human beings under the Natural Law, with the freedom of their will, in order that they might know their natural strength;
and when they failed in it, they received the law; whereupon, by the
fault, not of the law, but of their nature, the disease gained strength; so
that having recognized their infirmity they might cry out for a physician, and beseech the aid of grace.9

In the eyes of Aquinas it is not sufficient for God to become incarnate
and start pouring out grace on human beings. Humanity’s realization of
the need for grace is the necessary preliminary to the Incarnation and to
the work of atonement; and preparing humanity for grace through the
phases of Natural Law and Old Law, God times the Incarnation in such
a way as to maximize its healing potential.
Aquinas presents redemption as a process of perfection in which God’s
perfective work in the Incarnation and atonement precedes and causes
the perfection of humanity. Human perfection flows out of the Incarnation, which is the principle of that perfection, and which advances
humanity from imperfection toward “ultimate perfection in union with
God.”10 Humanity proceeds from imperfection to perfection and from
earthy to spiritual (1 Cor 15:46–7);11 and without the interval between
imperfection and perfection, between Adam and Christ, humanity would
not have come to a sufficient appreciation of its need for grace, and so
would not have been open to receiving grace—to becoming spiritual and
heavenly and thus to attain “ultimate perfection in union with God.”
The relationship of the successive phases of human imperfection and
perfection is again to the fore when Aquinas comes to discuss whether or
not Christ’s incarnation should have been delayed until the end of the
world. On the one hand,“by the incarnation human nature is raised to its
highest perfection; and in this way it was not becoming that the incarnation should take place at the beginning of the human race,” while, on the
other hand,“the incarnate Word is the efficient cause of the perfection of
human nature,” and “the perfection of glory to which human nature is to
be finally raised by the incarnate Word will be at the end of the world,”
and hence needed to be preceded in time by the Incarnation.12 Aquinas,
accordingly, does not see the Incarnation as the goal of creation—as the
9 ST III, q. 1, a. 5.
10 ST III, q. 1, a. 5, ad 3.
11 ST III, q. 1, a. 5.
12 ST III, q. 1, a. 6.

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great climax toward which all human history is ordered—but as the driving force behind the movement toward the climax.13 That climax itself
will come after the general resurrection at the end of the present age; and
the Incarnation, far from being the culmination of human history, is what
propels human history toward its intended goal. Like the New Testament
authors,Aquinas believes in a general resurrection unto judgment that will
be followed (for the just) by the beatific vision—with the result that beatitudo is an historical “time” (or, more precisely, a posthistorical time) as
well as a state of happiness and contemplation.14
Aquinas concludes that “the work of the incarnation is to be viewed not
as merely the terminus of a movement from imperfection to perfection, but
also as a principle of perfection to human nature.”15 Quoting John 1:16—
“of his fullness we have all received,”16 Aquinas shows how human perfection derives from Christ’s own fullness of grace17—a fullness of grace that
overflows into his mystical body,18 instructs us through every action of his
life and ministry,19 exemplifies the path of perfection,20 and restores the
imago Dei within us by teaching us and empowering us to live the life of
grace inaugurated by the New Law.21 Christ’s “fullness” also anticipates the
time of beatitude—the gloria sanctorum.The eschatological climax of the fullness of grace that is attained in beatitude is anticipated in Christ’s beatific
knowledge, for during his lifetime Christ enjoyed the beatific vision that, as
a direct result of his gift of grace, will be enjoyed by the blessed in heaven.22
13 See Aquinas’s comments in ST III, q. 1, a. 3.
14 SCG IV, 116.1: “There is a twofold retribution for the things that a person has

done in life, one for his soul immediately upon its separation from the body,
another at the resurrection of the body. The first retribution is to individuals
severally, as individuals severally die; the second is to all humans together, as all
humans shall rise together.”
15 ST III, q. 1, a. 6, ad 2.
16 ST III, q. 1, a. 6, c.
17 ST III, q. 7, aa. 9, 10.
18 ST III, q. 8, a. 5.
19 ST III, q. 40, a. 1, ad 3:“Actio Christi fuit nostra instructio.” On the significance
of this expression and its variants for Aquinas, see Richard Schenck, O.P.,“Omnis
Christi actio nostra instructio:The Deeds and Sayings of Jesus as Revelation in the
View of Thomas Aquinas,” in La Doctrine de la révélation divine de saint Thomas
d’Aquin, ed. Leo Elders (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1990), 104–31.
20 On the twin themes of the imitatio Christi and of Christ as the summum exemplar
perfectionis in Aquinas, see Paul Gondreau, “The Humanity of Christ, the Incarnate Word,” in Van Nieuwenhove and Wawrykow, The Theology of Thomas Aquinas,
260–62. As exemplar, Christ teaches us what it is to be perfectly human.
21 See Wawrykow, The SCM Press A–Z of Thomas Aquinas, 100.
22 ST III, q. 9, a. 2; III, q. 10.

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Matthew Levering rightly discusses Christ’s beatific knowledge against the
background of Wisdom Christology,23 but Christ’s scientia beata is eschatological as well as sapiential inasmuch as it represents an anticipation—even
an historical irruption—in the present of the general condition of the
redeemed in the age to come.24
Aquinas is outlining something that approximates an “inaugurated
eschatology” in the sense that Christ’s fullness of grace represents the ultimate perfection of human nature; other human beings will attain perfection only after the general resurrection. This idea is reprised in the
response to the third objection, where Aquinas quotes John Chrysostom’s
comment on John 3:11 (“God sent not his Son into the world to judge
the world”): “[T]here are two comings of Christ: the first, for the remission of sins; the second, to judge the world.”25 The first coming of Christ
is medicinal—to deal with sin and to pour out grace.The second coming
is to judge, and to reward the just with glory.The two comings of Christ
inaugurate two distinct ages—the period sub gratia and the period of the
gloria sanctorum. In Christ himself, the second of these ages is anticipated
from the outset, but for everyone else it remains a future hope.26
Aquinas offers another perspective on this “inaugurated eschatology”
when, commenting on a passage in Augustine’s Retractiones,27 he alludes
to the notion of the “ages” of the human race, and says that “the time of
the incarnation may be compared to the youth of the human race ‘on
account of the strength and fervor of faith which works by charity,’ and
to old age—i.e., the sixth age—on account of the number of centuries,
for Christ came in the sixth age.”28 He continues by observing that
23 Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, 31–33.
24 ST III, q. 10. N.T.Wright argues that the New Testament authors see the resur-

rection as an anticipation in the present in the person of Jesus of the resurrection that will be enjoyed in the future by all members of God’s true covenant
people. See N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK,
2003).Aquinas extends this idea that Christ anticipates the future gloria sanctorum
to encompass his fullness of grace and his beatific knowledge.
25 ST III, q. 1, a. 6, ad 3.
26 Related to this is the idea that Christ has already destroyed death “causally” but
that he is yet to destroy it “actually.” SCG IV, 82.1.
27 Retractiones, 1.
28 ST III, q. 1, a. 6, ad 1.This is the Augustinian idea, developed by Bede in his De
temporibus and De temporum ratione, according to which the whole of history is
divided into six “ages” that correspond both with the six days of creation and with
the six “ages of man,” which is a microcosm of the creation. See Benedicta Ward,
S.L.G., The Venerable Bede (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1990), 114–16. On the
development of this idea in medieval thought, see J. A. Burrow, The Ages of Man:
A Study in Medieval Writing and Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

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“although youth and old age cannot be together in a body, yet they can
be together in a soul, the former on account of quickness, the latter on
account of gravity,” and collates apparently contradictory (or complementary) texts from Augustine to show that, on the one hand,“it was not
becoming that the Master by whose imitation the human race was to be
formed to the highest virtue should come from heaven, save in the time
of youth,” and, on the other hand,“Christ came in the sixth age—i.e., in
the old age—of the human race.”29 By juxtaposing apparently contradictory Augustinian texts concerning the “ages” of the human race, Aquinas
reinforces the point that God became incarnate in the middle of human
history in such a way as to allow for a development in humanity’s awareness of the need for grace.The history of salvation is the history of God
guiding humanity from imperfection to perfection, and from “earthy” to
“spiritual”; and the Incarnation stands at the midpoint of a process that
begins with successive phases of preparation (Natural Law, Old Law) and
culminates (under the New Law) with the perfection of humanity by
grace that will be completed in the final phase of beatitude.
Legal History
At the end of his quaestio on the Old Law, Aquinas asks: “[W]as the Old
Law suitably given at the time of Moses?”30 He begins by observing that
“it was fitting that the Law should be given at such a time as would be
appropriate for the overcoming of humanity’s pride.” Human beings were
proud of two things—namely, knowledge and power. “They were proud
of their knowledge, as though their natural reason could suffice them for
salvation; and accordingly, in order that their pride might be overcome in
this matter, they were left to the guidance of their reason without the
help of a written law.” As a result of this,“people were able to learn from
experience that their reason was deficient, since about the time of Abraham they had fallen headlong into idolatry and the most shameful vices,”
after which “it was necessary for a written law to be given as a remedy
for human ignorance.”31 This being the case, Aquinas explains that

29 Aquinas offers a similar interpretation of this idea in ST II–II, q. 1, a. 7, ad 4.
30 Aquinas’s treatment of the Old Law in the Summa marks a major advance from

the position taken in the Commentary on the Sentences and is inspired by the
Summa Fratris Alexandri of Alexander of Hales. See the comments by Matthew
Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, 6–7. On Aquinas’s teaching on
the Old Law and its fulfillment by Christ, see Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment,
15–30.
31 ST I–II, q. 98, a. 6.

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it was not fitting for the Old Law to be given at once after the sin of
the first human beings . . . because humans were so confident in their
own reason, that they did not acknowledge their need of the Old Law,
since as yet the dictate of the Natural Law was not darkened by habitual sinning.32

The “age” of the Natural Law precedes that of the Old Law, and Aquinas
envisages a clear development from the arrogant postlapsarian humanity
that sees no need of law to the humanity represented by Israel that
perceives the need for sin (and especially pride) to be effectively dealt with.
Aquinas views the Old Law as a necessary bridge between the law of
nature and the law of grace—between humanity as governed by Natural
Law and humanity as governed by the grace of the Spirit.33 Here Aquinas
takes up three themes that we have already discerned in his treatment of
the timing of the Incarnation: the idea of redemption as a historical process
in which human beings first arrive at an awareness of and subsequently find
a cure for the sin of pride; the idea that the remedy for sin is properly
applied in the middle rather than at the beginning of human history; and
the idea of a progression from imperfection to perfection.
Aquinas advances similar arguments when answering the question
“should the New Law have been given from the beginning of the
world.”34 To begin with, “the New Law is highly spiritual; therefore it
was not fitting for it to be given from the beginning of the world.”35
Moreover, it “consists chiefly in the grace of the Holy Spirit, which was
not to be given abundantly until sin, which is an obstacle to grace, had
been cast out of human beings through the accomplishment of their
redemption by Christ.”36 Next he returns to his favorite motif of the
transition from imperfection to perfection, quoting Galatians 3:24–5—
“the Law was our pedagogue in Christ that we might be justified by
faith, but after the faith is come, we are no longer under a pedagogue”—
and presenting the imperfection of the Old Law as preparing us for and
leading us toward the perfection of the New Law. Finally, he explains that
“the New Law is the law of grace, wherefore it is fitting for human
beings first of all to be left to themselves under the state of the Old Law,
so that through falling into sin, they might realize their weakness, and
32 ST I–II, q. 98, a. 6, ad 1.
33 ST I–II, q. 98, a. 6.
34 On the New Law, see Servais Pinckaers, O.P., “La loi de l’Évangile ou loi

nouvelle selon S. Thomas,” in Loi et évangile, ed. Jean-Marie Aubert and Servais
Pinckaers (Geneva: Labor et Fidés, 1981), 57–79.
35 ST I–II, q. 106, a. 3, s.c.
36 ST I–II, q. 106, a. 3.

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acknowledge their need of grace.” This idea that salvation history is a
process in which humanity is schooled to arrive at an appreciation of its
need for grace and so open itself up to healing is one with which we are
by now very familiar, and it is one that is structured around the succession of legal “states.”
Aquinas is at pains to emphasize that the New Law will last until the
end of the world, and that humanity awaits no further legal “state.” He
explains that “the state of the New Law succeeded the state of the Old
Law, as a more perfect law a less perfect one,” but “no state of the present
life can be more perfect that the state of the New Law, since nothing can
approach nearer to the last end than that which is the immediate cause of
our being brought to the last end.”37 Following Pseudo-Dionysius, he
notes that “there is a threefold state of mankind; the first was under the
Old Law; the second is that of the New Law; the third will take place not
in this life, but in heaven.”38 He explains that “as the first state is figurative and imperfect in comparison with the state of the Gospel; so is the
present state figurative and imperfect in comparison with the heavenly
state, with the advent of which the present state will be done away.”39
Finally, Aquinas firmly rejects the idea that the Trinitarian structure of
salvation history implies that an “age of the Spirit” is yet to come.40 He
explains that
the Old Law corresponded not only to the Father, but also to the Son,
because Christ was foreshadowed in the Old Law. Hence our Lord said
( John 5:46) “If you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me
also; for he wrote of me.” In like manner the New Law corresponds not
only to Christ, but also to the Holy Spirit, according to Romans 8:2:
“The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” etc. Hence we are not
to look forward to another law corresponding to the Holy Spirit.41

In this account Christ is not identified exclusively with the New Law
(which is also the Law of the Spirit), but also with the Old Law. In a
37 ST I–II, q. 106 a. 4.
38 ST I–II, q. 106, a. 4, ad 1. Aquinas is drawing on Chapter Five of the Ecclesiasti-

cal Hierarchy.
39 Aquinas quotes 1 Corinthians 13:12—“we see now through a glass in a dark

manner; but then face to face.”
40 Aquinas is attacking the view proposed by Joachim of Fiore (d. 1201/1202), who

developed a philosophy of history that envisages three ages of increasing holiness
and spirituality corresponding with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. On Joachim,
see Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in
Joachimism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969).
41 ST I–II, q. 106, a. 4, ad 3.

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sense, what is new about the New Law is not first and foremost the
coming of Christ, who for Aquinas is very much present (by prefiguration) throughout the Old Testament, but the fact that through his passion
he releases the Spirit and pours the grace of the Spirit into the members
of his mystical body.42 Neither the Father nor the Spirit can be experienced or encountered in isolation from Christ, and this insight is
reflected in Aquinas’s understanding of the structure of salvation history.
Aquinas discusses the question of the transition from the Old Law to
the New during the course of an articulus titled “Whether There Is One
Divine Law, or Several.” He begins by quoting Hebrews 7:12—“the
priesthood being translated, it is necessary that a translation also be made
of the law”—concerning which he comments that “the priesthood is
twofold, as stated in the same passage, viz. the levitical priesthood, and the
priesthood of Christ.Therefore the divine law is twofold, namely the Old
Law and the New Law,”43 yet remains a single law with a single end.44
The New Law, accordingly, is not something radically new or different as
compared with the Old Law: Aquinas quotes Romans 3:30 to the effect
that there is one Law that justifies by faith.45 However, it does denote a
new way of being subjected to God,46 and thus ushers in a whole new
epoch in humanity’s subjection. Justification (and hence subjection to
God) have always been by faith, but the advent of the New Law means a
change in the circumstances in which justification is applied and in
which faith is expressed.
42 Aquinas may be seen as anticipating the insight of modern historical Jesus schol-

ars such as N. T. Wright that the passion of Christ effectively propels human
history into “the age to come.” See N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God
(London: SPCK, 1996); Mark Armitage, “Broken on the Wheel of History: A
Pentecostal Perspective on Summa Theologiae 3a, q48,” New Blackfriars 82 (2001):
561–70.
43 ST I–II, q. 91, a. 5, s.c. According to Aquinas, “the priesthood of the Old Law
was a figure of the priesthood of Christ” (ST III, q. 22, a. 1, ad 2). Matthew
Levering argues convincingly that as prophet, priest, and king Christ fulfills the
moral, ceremonial, and judicial precepts of the Old Law (Christ’s Fulfillment of
Torah and Temple, 51–79). In each of these areas by fulfilling the Old Law, Christ
ushers in the new era of the grace of the Spirit.
44 ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1.
45 On justification, see the excellent discussion in Daniel A. Keating, “Justification,
Sanctification and Divinization in Thomas Aquinas,” in Aquinas on Doctrine: A
Critical Introduction, ed. Thomas Weinandy, Daniel Keating, and John Yocum
(London:T&T Clark, 2004), 139–58.
46 ST I–II, q. 113, a. 1. Aquinas defines justification as “a certain rectitude of order
in the interior disposition, in so far as what is highest in humans is subject to God,
and the inferior powers of the soul are subject to the superior, i.e., to the reason.”

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Next, he returns to the theme of the development from imperfection
to perfection, remarking that two things may be distinguished from each
other “as perfect and imperfect in the same species, e.g., a boy and a
man.”47 He then refers to one of his favorite texts, Galatians 3:24–25,
which, he says,“compares the state of man under the Old Law to that of
a child ‘under a pedagogue,’ but the state under the New Law to that of
a full grown man who is ‘no longer under a pedagogue.’ ” He makes a
similar point during his discussion on the comparison between the Old
Law and New Law, where he writes that
the New Law is distinct from the Old Law, because the Old Law is like
a pedagogue of children, as the Apostle says (Gal 3:24), whereas the
New Law is the law of perfection, since it is the law of charity, of which
the Apostle says (Col 3:14) that it is “the bond of perfection.”48

In all this Aquinas’s view of the Old Law is entirely positive.49 The function of the Old Law is to provide a bridge between the chaotic state of
fallen humanity under Natural Law and the justified state of redeemed
humanity under the New Law—that is, under the grace of the Spirit—
and the only problem with the Old Law is that it belongs to a former era
of “legal history,” and hence is something that in the present day one
cannot meaningfully live under.50
In Summa theologiae I–II, question 91, article 5, Aquinas outlines the
advance from imperfection to perfection in terms of a transition from a
law ordered toward sensible and earthly good to one ordered toward
intelligible and heavenly good, from a law that directs external acts to one
that directs internal acts, and from a law that works by inducing fear to a
law that works by inducing charity. Salvation for Aquinas encompasses
not just Christ’s saving work on Calvary but the whole process of maturation, education, and perfection in virtue of which the human race
arrives at an appreciation of its true condition and is duly prepared for

47 ST I–II, q. 91, a. 5.
48 ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1.
49 The Old Law was good but imperfect, because it does not confer the Holy Spirit

by whom that charity that fulfills the Law is spread abroad in hearts (ST I–II, q.
98, a. 1).
50 Does Aquinas advocate supersessionism—the idea that in the light of the New
Law the Old Law has been completely superseded (for Christians and Jews alike)?
See the nuanced discussion by Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and
Temple, 88. For an excellent account of this debate in the light of Nostra Aetate, see
Francis Martin,“Election, Covenant, Law,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 857–90.

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the outpouring of divine grace.51 Echoing the theme of Galatians
3:24–25, he explains that “the one king, God, in his one kingdom, gave
one law to human beings, while they were yet imperfect, and another
more perfect law, when, by the preceding law, they had been led to a
greater capacity for divine things.”52 Once again, the underlying motif is
that of the distinction between two types of kingdom—earthly and heavenly, sensible and intelligible—and the transition from Old Law to New
Law is the story of the transition by way of education, and in God’s one
kingdom, from one way of living in the kingdom to another.53 Indeed,
in an important sense the transition in question is not first and foremost
a transition from Old Law to New Law but a transition of fallen humanity under Natural Law to justified humanity under the grace of the Spirit
(the New Law) by way of the Old Law that acts as a bridge or conduit—
in the language of Aquinas’s favorite text from Galatians, as a pedagogue—connecting two very different states.
Liturgical History
In guiding humanity through successive legal states—corresponding to
the Natural Law, the Old Law, and the New Law—God also leads us
through a series of four liturgical states “corresponding to four different
stages of divine revelation and union with God.”54 Aquinas explains that
the ceremonial precepts directed human beings to God, just as the judicial precepts directed them to their neighbor, and that they accomplish
this by prescribing the worship due to him.55 The worship due to God
has two aspects—internal and external, for “since humans are composed
of soul and body, each of these should be applied to the worship of
God—the soul by an interior worship; the body by an outward worship”
51 ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1, ad 2. John P.Yocum, “Sacraments in Aquinas,” in Weinandy,

Keating, and Yocum, Aquinas on Doctrine, 164: “The way of salvation is prepared
by the education of a people, from whom Christ is to come.” See ST I–II, q. 104,
a. 2, ad 2.
52 ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1, ad 1.
53 On the idea of the kingdom of God in Aquinas, see Benedict T.Viviano, O.P.,
“The Kingdom of God in Albert the Great and Aquinas,” The Thomist 44 (1980):
502–22.Viviano makes the point that Aquinas’s teaching on the kingdom represents a rebuttal of Joachim.
54 Yocum, “Sacraments in Aquinas,” 164. The idea of the “four liturgies” was first
raised by Colman O’Neill, O.P.,“St Thomas on the Membership of the Church,”
The Thomist 27 (1963): 88–140. See also Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of
Torah and Temple, 54–58; Liam Walsh, O.P., “Liturgy in the Theology of St.
Thomas,” The Thomist 38 (1974): 557–83.
55 ST I–II, q. 101, a. 1.

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(Aquinas quotes Psalm 83:3:“my heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the
living God”).56 Just as “the body is ordained to God through the soul, so
the outward worship is ordained to the internal worship,” which consists
in “the soul being united to God by the intellect and affections.” In the
state of beatitude (Aquinas is following Pseudo-Dionysius here), “the
human intellect will gaze on the divine truth in itself, wherefore the
external worship will not consist in anything figurative, but solely in the
praise of God, proceeding from the inward knowledge and affection.”57
However, in our “present state of life, we are unable to gaze on the divine
truth in itself, and we need the ray of divine light to shine upon us under
the form of certain sensible figures.”58
This happens in various ways “according to the various states of human
knowledge” (secundum diversum statum cognitionis humanae).59 Accordingly,
under the Old Law, neither was the divine truth manifest in itself, nor
was the way leading to that manifestation as yet opened out . . . hence
the external worship of the Old Law needed to be figurative not only
of the future truth to be manifested in our heavenly country, but also
of Christ, who is the way leading to that heavenly manifestation. But
under the New Law, this way is already revealed, and therefore it needs
no longer to be foreshadowed as something future, but to be brought
to our minds as something past or present, and the truth of the glory
to come, which is not yet revealed, alone needs to be foreshadowed.60

Aquinas proceeds to quote Hebrews 11:1 (“the Law has a shadow of the
good things to come, not the very image of the things”), and comments
that “a shadow is less than an image, so that the image belongs to the
New Law, but the shadow to the Old.”61 Imago in this context refers
principally to the way in which the grace of the New Law reflects and
anticipates future beatitude, but it also recalls what Aquinas says in the
prima pars about the creation of human beings in the imago Dei:
56 ST I–II, q. 101, a. 2.
57 Ibid. Matthew Levering speaks of “the liturgical consummation of history”

(Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, 129).
58 ST I–II, q. 101, a. 2.Aquinas is drawing on Chapter One of Denys’s Celestial Hier-

archy. On the relationship of the thought of Aquinas to that of Denys, see Fran
O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2005).
59 ST I–II, q. 101, a. 2. The various states of human knowledge correspond to
distinct periods of salvation history.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.

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the image of God is in humans in three ways. First, inasmuch as humans
possess a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God, and this
aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which is common to
all. Secondly, inasmuch as they actually and habitually know and love
God, though imperfectly; and this image consists in the conformity of
grace.Thirdly, inasmuch as they know and love God perfectly; and this
image consists in the likeness of glory.62

Aquinas goes on to speak of a threefold image of “creation,”“re-creation,”
and “likeness”; the first of which is found in all people, the second only in
the just, the third only in the blessed.This threefold image corresponds to
the states of Natural Law, the New Law, and beatitude—with the Old Law
acting as a bridge between creation and re-creation, and between the
conformity of nature and the conformity of grace. Accordingly, law,
liturgy, and the imago Dei in humans can be viewed as “historical” inasmuch as all are divisible into states or epochs each of which reflects a
different phase in humanity’s progression toward beatific knowledge.
Addressing the question of whether or not the ceremonial observances
of the Old Law ceased at the coming of Christ, Aquinas explains that
“external worship should be in proportion to the internal worship, which
consists in faith, hope, and charity,” which in turn means that “exterior
worship had to be subject to variations according to the variations in the
internal worship, in which a threefold state may be distinguished.”63
Aquinas identifies a “threefold state” in internal worship:
one state [status] was in respect of faith and hope, both in heavenly
goods, and in the means of obtaining them—in both of these considered as things to come. Such was the state of faith and hope in the Old
Law. Another state of interior worship is that in which we have faith
and hope in heavenly goods as things to come; but we have in the
means of obtaining heavenly goods, as in things present or past. Such is
the state of the New Law. The third state is that in which both are
possessed as present; wherein nothing is believed in as lacking, nothing
hoped for as being yet to come. Such is the state of the blessed.64
62 ST I, q. 93, a. 4. On the image of God according to Aquinas, see Michael

Dauphinais. “Loving the Lord Your God: The imago Dei in Saint Thomas
Aquinas,” The Thomist 63 (1999): 241–67; D. Juvenal Merriell, C.O., To the Image
of the Trinity: A Study of the Development of Aquinas’ Teaching (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990). Aquinas sees atonement above all in terms
of restoration of the imago Dei. See Romanus Cessario, O.P.,“Aquinas on Christian Salvation,” in Weinandy, Keating, and Yocum, Aquinas on Doctrine, 117–37.
63 ST I–II, q. 103, a. 3.
64 Ibid. Once again, status in this context denotes a period of salvation history as
well as a human condition.

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In the state of the Old Law, all external worship was figurative, whereas in
beatitude “nothing in regard to worship of God will be figurative.”65
Aquinas observes that “the mystery of the redemption of the human race
was fulfilled in Christ’s Passion,”66 and, drawing on John 19:30 (“it is
consummated”) and Matthew 27:51 (“the veil of the temple was rent”),
presents this redemption in terms of the fulfillment and final cessation of
the ceremonial precepts of Law:“[T]he prescriptions of the Law must have
ceased then altogether through their reality being fulfilled.”67 Accordingly,
“before Christ’s Passion, while Christ was preaching and working miracles,
the Law and the Gospel were concurrent, since the mystery of Christ had
already begun, but was not as yet consummated.”68 Although, in one sense,
the incarnation inaugurates a new era or “state,” in another sense the
former state and the newer state run alongside each other until the passion,
when a new historical and liturgical era is inaugurated.
Sacramental History
The fact that liturgy encompasses the sacraments means that we are also
living in a new sacramental era. The sacramental dispensation inhabits a
dynamic—a narrative—similar to that of the soteriological, legal, and
liturgical dispensations; and Aquinas accordingly situates his discussion of
the sacraments within “a historical framework that takes account of how
they might operate in the successive phases of an economy of grace that
reaches its fullness in the coming of Christ.”69 God’s pedagogical government of human beings consists in his leading them from sin to beatitude
by way of Old Law and New Law; and “The sacramental system is wholly
adapted to the need of human beings in this age, according to the
progressive states of knowledge possible through divine revelation.”70
Aquinas begins by asking why sacraments are necessary for salvation,
and suggests three reasons. First, human nature “is such that it has to be
led by things corporeal and sensible to things spiritual and intelligible,”
and “divine wisdom . . . fittingly provides humans with means of salvation,
in the shape of corporeal and sensible signs that are called sacraments.”71
65 Ibid. Matthew Levering writes that “the beatific vision fulfills in the most imme-

diate and intimate way possible the history of Israel’s Torah and Temple,” Christ’s
Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, 129.
66 ST I–II, q. 103, a. 3.
67 ST I–II, q. 103, a. 3, ad 2.
68 Ibid.
69 Liam G. Walsh, O.P., “Sacraments,” in Van Nieuwenhove and Wawrykow, The
Theology of Thomas Aquinas, 343.
70 Yocum, “Sacraments in Aquinas,” 164.
71 ST III, q. 61, a. 1.

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Second, in sinning, human beings subjected themselves by their affections
to corporeal things; and Aquinas sees sacraments as drawing them away
from a disordered attachment to materiality. However, in good Dominican fashion, he regards the materiality of the sacraments themselves as
entirely positive, and views it as a corrective to pride:
through the institution of the sacraments, humans, consistently with
their nature, are instructed through sensible things; they are humbled,
through confessing that they are subject to corporeal things, seeing that
they receive assistance through them; and they are even preserved from
bodily hurt, by the healthy exercise of the sacraments.72

The purpose of sacraments, then, is to “instruct” and to “humble”—to
deal with the sin of superbia by teaching us about God and by humbling
us in his presence. During the periods sub lege and sub gratia, the divine
wisdom makes use of sacraments to enlighten us about intelligible truths,
and to remind us of the proper attitude of humanity before God.
Sacraments were not necessary in humanity’s condition of innocence,
as the rectitudo of that state meant that “just as the mind was subject to
God, so were the lower powers of the soul subject to the mind, and the
body to the soul.”73 Humanity stood in need of grace in the state of innocence, but obtained grace in a spiritual and invisible manner rather than
by sensible signs.74 The sin of Adam brought about a change of state, one
consequence of which is that grace now needs to be mediated by way of
sensible objects. History has advanced from one liturgical age to another,
and from a presacramental phase to a sacramental phase. As we might
expect, Aquinas’s treatment of the sacraments of the Old Law takes
account of the Torah’s educative function. Aquinas describes the way in
which, as sin gained more of a hold on humans and clouded their reason,
fixed laws and sacraments of faith became a necessity.75 Drawing on a
statement of Gregory the Great to the effect that “since the advance of
time there was an advance in the knowledge of divine things,”76 Aquinas
observes that “it was necessary, as time went on, that the knowledge of
72 Ibid.
73 ST III, q. 61, a. 2. On original justice (ST I, q. 95, a. 1), see Rudi A. te Velde,“Evil,

Sin, and Death: Thomas Aquinas on Original Sin,” in Van Nieuwenhove and
Wawrykow, The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, 157–59.
74 ST III, q. 61, a. 2, ad 1.
75 ST III, q. 61, a. 3, ad 2.
76 Aquinas quotes Gregory elsewhere (Homilies on Ezekiel 17) to the effect that “the
knowledge of the holy fathers increased as time went on . . . and, the nearer they
were to Our Savior’s coming, the more fully did they received the mysteries of
salvation” (ST II–II, q. 1, a. 7, s.c.).

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faith should be more and more unfolded”; and this unfolding of knowledge was provided for by “certain fixed sacraments significative of humanity’s faith in the future coming of Christ.”77
Aquinas’s answer to the question “Was there need for any sacraments
after Christ came?” enables him to stand back and contemplate the entire
sweep of salvation history (and, we might say, liturgical history). The
difference between “then” and “now” is that “as the ancient fathers were
saved through faith in Christ’s future coming, so are we saved through
faith in Christ’s past birth and passion” (emphasis added); and Aquinas
reminds us that “the sacraments are signs in protestation of the faith
whereby humans are justified, and signs should vary according as they
signify the future, the past, or the present.”78 Following Pseudo-Dionysius, he further explains that
the state [status] of the New Law is between the state of the Old Law,
whose figures are fulfilled in the New, and the state of glory, in which
all truth will be openly and perfectly revealed. Wherefore then there
will be no sacraments. But now, so long as we know “through a glass in
a dark manner” (1 Cor 13:12), we need sensible signs in order to reach
spiritual things, and this is the province of the sacraments.79

Aquinas accordingly envisages four sacramental “states”—the presacramental state that preceded the Old Law, the sacraments of the Old Law,
the sacraments of the New Law, and the postsacramental state of beatitude. These sacramental “states” correspond with distinct phases in the
history of salvation, and, more especially, of human knowledge and
humility before God. Human history is nothing other than the story of
God guiding the human race through successive stages—characterized by
the Augustinian scheme ante legem, sub lege, and post legem (sub gratia) —
away from pride and toward the possibility of beatific knowledge, and
this process is mirrored in the four sacramental “states” that Aquinas
derives from Denys.
Finally, one further difference between the sacraments of the Old Law
and those of the New is that the latter are causes of grace as well as signs
pointing toward the grace-causing passion.80 Aquinas quotes Galatians
77 ST III, q. 61, a. 3, ad 2.
78 ST III, q. 61 a. 4.
79 ST III, q. 61, a. 4, ad 1, drawing on Chapter Five of Pseudo-Dionysius, Ecclesias-

tical Hierarchy.
80 For a defense of Aquinas’s teaching on sacramental causality against modern objec-

tions, see Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P., “The Instrumental Causality of the Sacraments:Thomas Aquinas and Louis-Marie Chauvet,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 255–94.

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4:9, which describes the sacraments of the Old Law as “weak and needy
elements” on the grounds that “they neither contained nor caused grace”
and those who used them were “under the elements of this world” with
the results that the sacraments themselves were “elements of this
world.”81 Grace derives exclusively from Christ’s passion.82 We have seen
that Christ’s passion is the final cause of the Old Law sacraments inasmuch as these are protestations of faith in the passion, but Aquinas
explains that, while effects can precede their final cause temporally, they
cannot precede their efficient cause, with the result that, unlike the New
Law sacraments, they cannot be said to contain grace,83 or to possess the
power to cause grace.84 The fact that the sacraments of the New Law
contain and cause grace whereas those of the Old Law merely signify
grace is a further indicator that they belong to a different era of salvation
history. History has moved on from an era in which sacraments are
protestations of a future redemption to one in which they signify past
events (most especially Christ’s passion) as well as future ones (beatitude),
and in which, as well as signifying grace, they are instrumental causes of
grace. Christ has delivered us from the “weak and needy elements,” and
inaugurated a new age characterized by the freedom of the Spirit, with
the result that the period sub gratia is a period in which humanity enjoys
access to the grace of Christ in virtue of the causality of the sacraments.
Conclusion
Following in the tradition of Augustine, Aquinas divides salvation history
into three main periods—ante legem, sub lege, and sub gratia (or post legem)—
which lead to a fourth “age” characterized by beatitudo. This Augustinian
reading of history is integrated with a Dionysian reading, which relates the
legal divisions of history to different stages in the development of human
understanding and worship. God exercises his government of history by
guiding humanity through this succession of ages, dealing with the consequences of original sin (conceived primarily as pride) by means of a divine
pedagogy built into the structure of the divisions of time, each of which
prepares for the one that follows. In slightly differing ways, incarnation, law,
liturgy, and the sacraments (here the Dionysian viewpoint is in evidence)
81 ST III, q. 61, a. 4, ad 2.
82 ST III, q. 62, a. 6.
83 ST III, q. 62, a. 3.
84 ST III, q. 62, a. 4. Liam G.Walsh writes that “sacraments give grace because they

are acts of worship that join those who make them to the passion of Christ”
(“Sacraments,” 348). The Old Law sacraments are acts of worship, but as such
they are figurative of Christ’s passion rather than derived from it.

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all reflect the fourfold pattern of salvation history, which moves from
Natural Law through the Old Law to the New Law (that is, the grace of
the Spirit), and finally to the state of beatitude—the gloria sanctorum.While
it remains true that “[t]he scientific method employed in the Summa theologiae does not allow Aquinas to consider expressly what German theologians
like to call the ‘Heilsgeschichte,’ ” nevertheless Heilsgeschichte is everywhere
presupposed in the Summa, and, in the Augustinian-Dionysian form which
N&V
we have described, provides its “narrative substructure.”85

85 For a demonstration of the way in which, in the New Testament, theological

statements presuppose what he terms a “narrative substructure,” see Richard B.
Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1–4:11,
2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002).

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271

God’s Point of View:
Apostolicity and the Magisterium
A Lecture Delivered to the St. Anselm Institute
at the University of Virginia
F RANCIS C ARDINAL G EORGE , O.M.I.
Archbishop of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

I AM VERY GRATEFUL to Professor Wilken for the invitation to
be with you at this gathering sponsored by the St. Anselm Institute here
at the University of Virginia. The importance of these institutes lies in
their being on secular campuses. The saeculum, in the Augustinian sense,
the area where the distinction between the profane and the sacred is
played out, is the theater for two very important conversations.The first
conversation, between faith and culture, is important because both faith
and culture are ethically normative systems and, if the norms of the faith
are too divergent from the norms of the culture, then believers live in
great tension and the culture is less open than it should be to realities
beyond itself.The second very important conversation that takes place in
the saeculum is that between faith and reason, because faith gives us
revealed truths and reason also tells us what is true and helps us to
discover further truths.
If there is tension between the truths of faith and the truths that are in
the canon of reason at any particular cultural moment, then, again,
believers live in great tension and they and others are tempted to a kind
of skepticism that closes in on itself and is unworthy of human reason.
Institutes that foster conversation between faith and culture and between
faith and reason are extraordinarily important for culture, for faith, and
for the people shaped by both. I am grateful for the St.Anselm Institute’s
being the locus for these conversations at the University of Virginia.

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The title of this presentation has undergone several changes.When I was
first invited, I understood I was to give a theological discourse on apostolicity and the Magisterium.The relationship between apostolicity, which
is one of the four classical marks of the Church, and the teaching Magisterium of the bishops begins with the recognition that both are carriers of
the tradition that links us to Christ. But then the title was changed to
“Tradition in a Non-Traditional Society,” placing both apostolicity and
teaching Magisterium in relation to a society that doesn’t regard the past as
normative. Then this relation was further specified in the suggestion that
the talk discuss “Being Catholic in a Post-Protestant Culture.”
Being Catholic means accepting Tradition as a source of religious truth;
post-Protestant means coming out of a religious stance that does not
accept communal tradition as a normative source of knowledge about
God. Protestantism is the determinate form of religiosity in this country.
It has helped to create a general culture that rejects “tradition” as normative even for personal actions or for institutions.“We’ve always done it this
way” is not a convincing or a determining argument in our form of
culture. It is just an invitation:“Well, if you’ve never done it, let’s try it and
see if it works.” The rejection of tradition in favor of personal judgment
does not necessarily entail ethical or epistemological individualism.There
is another popular argument,“Everybody’s doing it,” which remains often
convincing. A culture can be non-traditional and yet also tribal.
During these days in the fourth week of the season of Lent, the
Church is reading from the Gospel according to St. John.We watch and
hear Jesus moving from his preaching and his performing of miracles,
healing the sick, walking on water, changing water into wine, to a more
explicit claim to an identity with God, whom he calls his Father: The
Father and I are one; God and I act together. This Father is the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the one who, when Moses asked him in the
Book of Exodus before a burning bush, “Tell me who you are so that I
can tell Egyptians and my own people who sent me,” replied,“I AM who
am.”There are many explanations of that enigmatic phrase. Some say he
was telling Moses to mind his own business.You can’t know my name
because then you could call me or control me. Others have, with St.
Thomas, gone into a philosophical exposition of Ipsum esse subsistens, God
is pure existence.Whatever the many layers of explanation of the phrase,
Jesus’ use of “I AM” language in the Gospel according to St. John is a
clear claim to divinity and even understood as such: “before Abraham
came to be, I AM.” The God of Abraham, whom we worship as the
Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, is someone for whom everything is
contemporary. Everything is always present to God. There is in God’s

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inner life no present, past, or future. He is eternal.We, by contrast, live in
time, because we are finite and limited.We are also, we believe, made in
God’s image and likeness, so there is a yearning for something beyond
our own limitations, a desire for the eternal in the midst of time, for the
divine perspective on things that pass. How can we now make the past
present and normative for the future, so that past, present, and future
come together in a way analogous to the way that God is eternal?
In a traditional society, the past is still vital; it shapes thought and behavior in the present. But what is past can shape lives now only if it transcends
its own time. We distinguish a “classic” work from a period piece when
we speak about the canon in literature and in other fields. This is a
contested notion, but it recognizes that there are works of art and literature and great scientific experiments that are of permanent importance
because they say something that is true beyond the experience in which
they were born and formed. In a popularly non-traditionalist society,
however, where “history is bunk,” people often feel it is not important to
know history in order to understand the present or to prepare for the
future. In a non-traditional society, the past is to be left behind.
In a society that lives by the myth of progress, it is not the past that
determines meanings and norms in the present; it is the future. Planning
is a crucially important enterprise in a non-traditionalist society. Planning
is a way of bringing the future into the present so that it can shape us and
change us now. We plan not according to the norms of the past but,
rather, from what we believe the future is calling us toward or what it
should be. Planning can also be a “traditional” enterprise if it attempts to
control the future so that it simply reflects the present; but planning
usually means preparing us now to meet new demands in the future.
The challenge of planning is to think outside the box of the present
so that the future might be open to us and help us to progress. If the
future loses its importance and one rejects the past, only the present can
be normative and it exhausts human possibilities. Normative directives
then come from emotivism or pleasure. When I first taught in a secular
university in the midst of the Vietnam war, I asked the college juniors,
“How is it that you decide what is right and what is wrong?” They all
said, “If it feels good.” There is a field of philosophy that justifies that
response, but my class was designed to bring them into other fields of
ethical and normative discourse.
Individualism in American ethics is not unrelated to the Protestant
rejection of tradition as normative. Catholicism claims that faith brings us
into God’s perspective, God’s vision of things, which is always sub specie
eternitatis. St. Paul claimed to have “the mind of Christ” long after Christ

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Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.

was crucified. The claim that we have the mind of Christ just as Christ
himself had it is possible only if Jesus of Nazareth was not captured by his
own time and his own influence didn’t cease with his death. What does
that mean? For people of faith it means that Christ has risen from the
dead and therefore escapes his own time and space. It means that Jesus is
Lord, which is the first of the Church’s professions of faith. Faith is given
as a gift in baptism, where there is an encounter with the Risen Christ
who then gives us his life, which we call grace.
Christianity is, first of all a way of life, an encounter not with an idea
but with a person, with the person who made the claim,“I AM”—“I am
the Way, the Truth and the Life.”After the sacramental encounter with the
Risen Christ in baptism and the reception of his life through grace, it is
necessary to have access to the truths of God’s self-revelation in the living
Jesus. How can we have access to the events in which God has revealed
himself so that they are present to us and remain normative for the
future? The apostolicity of the Church, the community founded upon
faith in Christ’s Resurrection, assures us of this access.
Theology of Apostolicity and the Church
St. Irenaeus, a second-century bishop of Lyons in what is now France,
explained to both Catholics and heretics of his day what apostolicity
means in terms that are classic. He says, “Anyone who wishes to discern
the truth may see in every church in the whole world the apostolic tradition clear and manifest. This apostolic tradition has been brought down
to us by a succession of bishops in the greatest, most ancient, well known
Church, founded by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul at
Rome. . . . For with this Church, because of its more effective leadership,
all Churches must agree, that is to say, the faithful of all places, because in
it, the apostolic tradition has always been preserved.”1
“Always” wasn’t a particularly long time in the second century.
Irenaeus was two generations removed from the apostles. He was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John, at least that is what popular
tradition tells us. He was born between a.d. 140 and 160, and was a
witness to the martyrdom of his friend and mentor, Polycarp of Smyrna.
Jesus Christ as the Word of Life was not an abstraction for St. Irenaeus,
nor can he be for those who know him in the faith-filled worship of the
Church and in the communion of her life.
I want now to make four points about the theology of apostolicity.The
first is that the apostle is a disciple.The very office of an apostle is defined
1 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses III, 3, 1 and 3.

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by the initial call, “Follow me,” that Jesus addressed to those who first
were curious about him.This initial “Follow me” applies as well to all the
successors of the apostles, since the same Lord promised, “and behold, I
will be with you always until the end of the world.”2
Professor Joseph Ratzinger expressed this interpersonal character of
apostolic succession and tradition well: “ ‘Tradition’ is never a simple,
anonymous passing on of doctrine but is personal, is the living word,
concretely realized in the faith. And ‘succession’ is not a taking over of
official powers, which then are at the disposal of their possessor, but is
rather a dedication to the Word, an office of bearing witness to the treasure with which one has been entrusted. The office is superior to its
holder, so that he is entirely overshadowed by that which he has received;
he is, as it were—to adopt the image of Isaiah and John the Baptist—only
a voice that renders the Word articulate in the world.”3 So an apostle is a
disciple first of all. It means he is self-involved with someone who calls
him and whom he comes to recognize as Lord.
The second point about apostolicity is that the apostle therefore has an
office of bearing witness to the treasure of the truth with which he has
been entrusted.This form of witness is different from the witness of all the
baptized, who can speak authentically from their own personal experience
of grace about who Christ is for them. The importance of the apostolic
office, however, is that successors of the apostles must speak about who
Christ is for everyone, who Christ is beyond the personal experience of
the disciple who is called to be an apostle. The apostle bears witness to
who Christ is for the whole Church.The office of receiving through an
encounter with the living Word of God Incarnate, now risen from the
dead, and through the witness borne to the truths that are revealed in the
passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is superior always to its holder.
Speaking to the type of witnessing that transcends a sharing of
personal experience, Joseph Ratzinger wrote: “[I]f true apostolic succession is bound up with the Word, it cannot be bound up merely with a
book, but must, as the succession of the Word, be a succession of preachers, which in turn cannot exist without a ‘mission,’ i.e. a personal continuity reaching back to the apostles. . . . Apostolic succession [in the
Church] is the living presence of the Word in the person of witnesses.

2 Mt 4:19, 9:9, 28:20; cf. Mk 1:17. 2:14; Lk 5:27, 24:48; Jn 1:43, 17:18–21.
3 Joseph

Ratzinger, “Primacy, Episcopate and Apostolic Succession” in Karl
Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger, The Episcopate and the Primacy (New York: Herder
& Herder, 1962), 37–63; the quotation is from 46–47.

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The unbroken continuity of witnesses follows from the nature of the
Word as auctoritas and viva vox.”4
But this living Word both in the hearer and in the proclaimer requires
faith to be recognized and to be received or to be spoken. A theology of
apostolicity and its relationship to the Magisterium is possible only if
faith enlightens reason. If the light of faith is dimmed or extinguished or
systematically excluded, then all that is left are texts, classic texts perhaps,
normative in some sense for some peculiar reason, but so many dead
letters whose real truth is never grasped.
Appeals to the texts that we recognize as sacred because they are texts
written in faith by faithful people for the faith community fail if the texts
themselves are severed from this living apostolic tradition of the Church’s
faith and worship of her Risen Lord.This severing results often from exclusive reliance on a form of historical scholarship that has its origins in Benedict de Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise.This is the third point I would
like to make about understanding the apostolic office. Since an apostle
must witness not just to his own experience but to the fullness of truth that
has been revealed in the Resurrection of Christ, any textual scholarship
that is divorced from the faith community that gives us the text’s full meaning necessarily breaks historical continuity and severs the traditional
sources of understanding God’s perspective from their own identity.
Spinoza, in his classical treatise, identifies the voluntarist power of God
with the power of nature. God and nature are the same, and Spinoza
asserts that the proper method for interpreting holy Scripture is the same
as the method used to interpret nature.5 As with natural studies, the first
methodic step is to reject any notion of the Bible or any book thereof as
a whole; rather, the Bible is to be analyzed by breaking it up into discrete
parts and verses where the meaning of one verse can only be determined
by another verse, much as a laboratory breaks up nature into distinct
elemental parts. Only those meanings are to be accepted that anyone,
including an unbeliever, could accept on purely empirical grounds.
The second methodic step is to reject the “truth question.”The verses
of the Bible are not to be accepted as true when they refer to realities not
perceptible to common human sense experience or to rational deduction.
Just as Newton’s mechanics sought only three-dimensional perceptible
motions, so Spinoza’s canons of interpretation recognize only those textual
4 Ibid., 53–54.
5 Benedict de Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise (Mineola,

NY: Dover Publications, 2004), 45 and 99. On the importance of Spinoza for the
Enlightenment, cf. Jonathan Israel, The Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the
Making of Modernity (1650–1750) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

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meanings found in the Scriptures as a perceptible book. Faith is not a light
enlightening the mind; it became for Spinoza a blind act of piety and
obedience.Any theology founded on a blind obedience to a revelation has
no power ever to oppose reason. Naturalist and secularist reason definitely
dethrones fideist theology in Spinoza’s Enlightenment, and his disciples
clearly moved from empirical scholarship to the ideology of power:True
religion is natural and rational, “revealed religion is merely a fraud and a
political tool in the hands of Jewish, Catholic or Protestant authorities.”6
Today, there is a great responsibility on Catholic higher education to
recover and cultivate the wisdom traditions of philosophy and theology
that are fundamental to Catholic intellectual life. Recent popes have
emphasized that this cultivation is for the sake of both the Church and
the global cultures in need of moral and religious direction.The question
of truth in matters moral and religious has to be raised within the context
of the quest for wisdom, goodness, holiness.Truth cannot be consigned,
as it has been from the European Enlightenment onward, as if it were an
instrument of social or state dominative power. Both nature and history
are ordered to ends inscribed in their very existence by their Creator and
Redeemer. Both metaphysics and theology have suffered from the eclipse
of wisdom in modern and postmodern cultures.
Imagine a historian who would attempt to write a history of mathematics without acquiring a knowledge of the foundations and sciences
operative in mathematics. Such a historian might well be able to do a
passable job at comparing various mathematical texts, at dating and placing them more or less precisely, at working out certain social and/or
cultural processes that were going on at the time the mathematical texts
were being produced. He could deduce who used which text to get what
advantage in this or that situation, how such a text was used in the
production of weapons, what the weapons did, and the like. Undoubtedly, such a history would be very readable for those who are not interested in knowing the history of mathematics so much as in knowing
what else was going on when such and such a mathematical process was
being worked out. But no one would claim that such a history would
merit the name of a genuinely critical history of mathematics.
Scholars whose studies are influenced by the Reformation break with
Catholic continuity have, moreover, not come to any empirically verifiable consensus. As B. H. Streeter remarked:
However great their reverence for scientific truth and historic fact, they
have at least hoped that the result of their investigations would be to
6 Cf. Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 654.

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Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.
vindicate apostolic authority for the type of Church Order to which
they themselves were attached. The Episcopalian has sought to find
episcopacy, the Presbyterian presbyterianism, and the Independent a
system of independency, to be the form of Church Order in New
Testament times.7

The fourth point in elaborating this theology of apostolicity is the
connection between the apostolic office, the mission that Christ gave the
apostles, and the celebration of the Eucharist in the Church. Drawing
especially on St.Augustine, St.Thomas Aquinas situates apostolicity in the
carrying forward in history of the visible and invisible missions of the
Word Incarnate and the Holy Spirit. In question 43 of the first part of
the Summa theologiae, on the divine missions, Aquinas remarks on the
mission of the Holy Spirit for the founding of the Church. He writes,
“In a special sense, a mission of the Holy Spirit was directed to Christ, to
the apostles, and to some of the early saints on whom the Church was in
a way founded. . . .To the apostles the mission was directed in the form
of breathing to show forth the power of their ministry in the dispensation of the sacraments; and hence it was said, ‘Whose sins you shall
forgive, they are forgiven’ ( John 20:23); and again under the sign of fiery
tongues to show forth the office of teaching; whence it is said that,‘they
began to speak with divers tongues’ ” (Acts 2:4).8
Later, especially in his lectures on the Gospel according to St. John,
Aquinas comments on the appearance of the Risen Christ to the apostles. Jesus showed them the marks of his Passion because the body that
was crucified is truly risen but in a transformed state.Then he charges or
lays upon them their office.This office or ministry is not something the
apostles choose; it is laid upon them (“iniungit officium”). It is from God,
not from their own will or choosing. “As the Father sent me, even so I
send you,” Jesus says. This is an office and mission laid upon them by
Christ sending them into the world to continue his own mission from
his heavenly Father.
St.Thomas comments:
This shows that Christ is the mediator between God and man: “There
is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Tim
2:5).This was to console the disciples; acknowledging the authority of
Christ, they knew he was sending them by divine authority.They were
7 Burnett Hillman Streeter, The Primitive Church (London: Macmillan, 1929), viii.

See Carlos A. Steger, Apostolic Succession In the Writings of Yves Congar and Oscar
Cullmann (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1995), 42–57.
8 Summa theologiae I, q. 43, a. 7, ad 6.

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consoled that they own dignity, namely that they had the proper office
(officium) of apostles, for an apostle is one who has been sent.9

Being sent as an apostle is hardly a dominative power position. It reflects
the wisdom and power of the cross. Aquinas envisages the Lord saying,
As the Father loving me sent me into the world to suffer for the salvation of the faithful—“For God sent his Son into the world, not to
condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him.”
(3:17)—so I, loving you, send you to undergo suffering in my name—
“I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.” (Mt 10:16).10

This apostolic participation in the salvific suffering of the Son is given
when our Lord breathes upon the apostles as a visible sign of his sending
the Holy Spirit.To be configured to the crucified Christ, the apostles must
be born again in the Holy Spirit. Aquinas talks about similarity between
the handing on of the Spirit of the apostles at the beginning of the
Church and the breathing of life into man’s nostrils in the Book of Genesis.“Jesus makes them fit for the [apostolic] office by giving them the Holy
Spirit, God enables us to be ministers of the New Testament [given] not
in letters but in the Spirit’ (2 Cor 3:6). In this giving of the Spirit, he first
gives them a sign of this gift, that is,‘he breathed on them.’There is something similar in Genesis (2:7) when God ‘breathed into man’s nostrils the
breath of life,’ when the first man corrupted his natural life, but Christ has
repaired this by giving the Holy Spirit.”11 The Lord’s breathing is a visible sign of the invisible sending of the Holy Spirit.The Risen Lord signifies by this breathing the extending of the Holy Spirit to the apostles for
the sacramental mission of forgiveness and sanctification. Later, at Pentecost, the tongues of fire signify the Holy Spirit’s mission for teaching and
preaching. Bishops and priests are only instruments of Christ who gives
eternal life and who teaches eternal truth.12
Our Lord founded the Church on the twelve apostles, who are the foundation stones of the New Israel, by sending them and by continuing to send
their successors until he returns.13 So St. Thomas says, “The apostles and
their successors are God’s vicars in governing the Church that is built on
faith and the sacraments of faith.Wherefore, just as they may not institute
9 Lectura super Evangelium S. Ioannis (Rome: Marietti, 1952), XX, iv, §2537.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., §2538.
12 Ibid., §2543, also §§2538–2544.
13 On the succession of the apostles and the Petrine ministry, see Hans Urs von

Balthasar, Explorations in Theology, vol. IV; The Glory of the Lord, vol.VII; Paul Wrestles

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Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.

another Church, so neither may they deliver another faith, nor institute
other sacraments: on the contrary, the Church is said to be built up with
the sacraments ‘which flowed from the side of Christ while hanging on
the Cross.’ ”14
For Aquinas, neither the apostolic succession nor the sacraments can
be understood apart from the mission received by the apostles from the
Risen Lord. It is wrong to imagine that Aquinas’s confidence in the
ongoing apostolic tradition in the Church results from a lack of historical-critical scholarship.While this scholarship may give us a more detailed
knowledge of manuscript and other textual details, the truth of the reality referenced by the texts can only be properly understood and known
by the signs of faith.15 The Church as a living presence of the Divine
Word mediated by apostolic succession and carried forward in history
again depends upon the missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit and is
sacramentally embodied in the Eucharist. The Church confects the
Eucharist and the Eucharist creates the Church, and in the Eucharistic
action the apostolic nature of the Church is truly made visible.
Sometimes people ask me,“Where do you most feel a bishop?” I think
all bishops would say that we come to understand who we are in the
apostolic tradition of the Church, and what is the nature of our office,
when we celebrate in our cathedral surrounded by the priests of our
diocese, with the religious men and women who are witness to radical
discipleship through their consecration, and with the lay men and
women for whom the Church exists in order to make them holy so they
can make the world holy in their time. Particularly in preaching within
the context of Eucharistic celebration, the bishop comes to understand
what apostolic office is all about. Only within this sacramental worship
and the unity of the whole body—members and head present through
the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Orders—can apostolicity be understood as fulfilling the Word Incarnate’s promise to be with the Church
until the end of time. Holy Scripture is read in the liturgy because the
Church is a community of faith. The Church at worship is the context
for interpreting the text of Scripture. It is the living community of faith
that gives the texts their proper understanding by relating them to the
realities of faith through the tradition that binds us to Christ.This tradiwith His Community. Cf. Joseph Ratzinger, “Primacy, Episcopate and Apostolic
Succession,” 37–63.
14 ST III, q. 64, a. 2, ad 3.
15 Avery Dulles, S.J., The Catholicity of the Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1985), 68–146; also Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Moment of Christian Witness (San
Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1969).

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tion is made visible in the governance of bishops in union with the
Bishop of Rome, having power from Christ to sanctify and teach the
truth of Christ’s Gospel.The act of faith doesn’t end in the statements of
the creed and Church dogmas; it attains the sacred realities themselves.16
We don’t worship and pray to concepts, symbols, and propositions; we
worship and pray and believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A
genuine theology of the Church’s Magisterium therefore places it in the
service of the truths revealed by the triune God, who created the entire
universe and has redeemed mankind through the mission of the Word
Incarnate and the Holy Spirit.
Theology of Magisterium in the Church
Apostolicity means that the Church conserves and transmits, through the
office of bishop, the truths of divine revelation, the content of our faith.
The Magisterium, as it relates to that conservation, is the guarantor. If one
makes truth claims, why and how can one give a guarantee for those
truth claims? Cardinal Newman, writing in his essay on the development
of doctrine, puts it this way:
Surely, either an objective revelation has not been given, or it has been
provided with means for impressing its objectiveness on the world. If
Christianity be a social religion, as it certainly is, and if it be based on
certain ideas acknowledged as divine, or a creed (which shall here be
assumed) and if these ideas have various aspects, and make distinct impressions on different minds, and issue in consequence in a multiplicity of
developments, true, false or mixed, as it has been shown, what power will
suffice to meet and to do justice to these conflicting conditions but a
supreme authority ruling and reconciling individual judgments by a
divine right and a recognized wisdom? There can be no combination (of
various dogmas) on the basis of truth without an organ of truth.17

If apostolicity is the conserver of truth, there must be some organ that
guarantees that the apostolic office teaches the truth in every age.
Newman goes on to speak of the way in which doctrinal accountability guarantees the truth that comes to us in apostolic tradition. In a less
ecumenically sensitive age, he wrote:“By the Church of England a hollow
uniformity is preferred to an infallible chair; and by the sects of England
16 Cf. ST II–II, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2: “Actus autem credentis non terminatur ad enuntia-

bil, sed ad rem; non enim formamus enuntiabilia nisi per ea de rebus cognitionem habeamus, sicut in sciential, ita et in fide.” Also ST I, q. 14, a. 14, c.
17 John Henry Cardinal Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine
(1845), in Conscience, Consensus and the Development of Doctrine, ed. James Gaffney
(New York: Doubleday, 1992), 111–12.

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an interminable division. Germany and Geneva began with persecution
and have ended in skepticism.The doctrine of infallibility is a less violent
hypothesis than this sacrifice either of faith or charity. It secures the object
while it gives definiteness and force to the matter of Revelation.”18 So the
Magisterium, the organ of the bishops’ teaching office, is at the service of
the truth that is transmitted and preserved by apostolicity.
I would like to make ten short points about the Magisterium to create
the basis for understanding it theologically. The theological basis can be
found in two exchanges in holy Scripture.The first Gospel passage that one
should reflect on when one hears the word Magisterium is the dialogue
between Jesus and the apostles at Caesarea Philippi. In that dialogue, Jesus
was teaching, preaching, and working miracles, and people were saying
many things about him. Jesus turned to the twelve and said, “Who do
people say that I am?”They responded with the terms that their culture
gave them.“You are John the Baptist.”They knew John the Baptist.“You
are Elijah.” They knew Elijah. They were within the box of their own
culture and their own experience.Then Jesus said,“Who do you say that
I am?” Peter spoke up and said,“You are the Christ, the Son of the Living
God.”Then Jesus responded,“You’re right, but you didn’t know this from
your own experience. You know because the Father has revealed it to
you, and so now I’ll tell you, Simon, who you are.You are Peter.” That
exchange, along with the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St.
John when, after the miracle of the loaves and fishes and the Lord’s
proclaiming that he is the Bread of Life, and when so many of the disciples turned away, gives the basis for understanding the Magisterium. Jesus
asked the twelve,“Will you also go away?”They said,“To whom shall we
go? You have the words of Eternal Life.”These two discourses of Jesus at
Caesarea Philippi and on the shore of the lake of Capharnum are the
theological texts that help us best understand the service of the Magisterium to the apostolicity of the Church.
The first point I would like to make in reflecting on these conversations is that the Lord begins the conversation. He is the one who puts the
questions, “Who do you say that I am?” “Will you also leave me?” The
authority of the apostles is not self-started. It doesn’t take the initiative; it
is always elicited by Jesus raising the question. It is the Lord who first
questions his Church, sometimes indirectly through the arrangements of
his providence, and all deliverances or statements of the Magisterium
answer to this prior and foundational elicitation of witness that Christ
himself calls for.
18 Ibid.

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In both Gospel texts, the authority of the teaching office is granted in
the address of Jesus himself.Whenever any one of us questions an interlocutor in a genuine dialogue, we empower him to answer. In our questioning, we help to make him capable of speaking an answering word.
The question that Jesus posed to the apostles presupposes they can
answer, although in this case the basis of that testimony to the truth about
who Jesus is, is not something purely and entirely human.
But we have to go farther, and that is the second point.The Lord starts
the dialogue, and the Lord gives the power to respond, to teach the truth
about who he is, to say to the world who he is. Because of who Jesus is,
the apostles must answer. The Lord’s question is not an invitation to
answer but rather a demand to tell him who they think he is and then to
tell the world.The Lord’s question in Matthew 16 lays on the apostles the
requirement to proclaim the Christological faith that Peter articulates.
Similarly, in the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, when
Jesus asks, “Will you also leave me?” he is asking, “Will you, who are
keeping my company, also keep faith as I deliver myself in the Eucharist
to the Church, by which acts I include in my identity as the Christ, all
Christians, making them members of my Body by giving them my flesh
and blood?” In both cases, there is anticipated the urgency of St. Paul’s
saying, “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.”The sixth chapter of
St. John is the completion of the passage in Matthew. Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God, who is also truly present in the Eucharist
under the species of bread and wine; we become Christ’s body not just
in our profession of faith but in our reception of the sacraments.
The third point to be clarified in the theology of Magisterium is that
the Gospel demands a magisterial witness that is Christological in the
fullest sense. Christ is the anointed, and in his office and included in his
person are all who are baptized in water and the Spirit. The Eucharistic
confession in John 6 is not an addition to the confession of Matthew 16.
“You are the Son of God” is fulfilled in the Eucharistic celebration of
Christ’s disciples.There is a co-inherence of Christological and Eucharistic doctrine.
Just as the identity of Jesus was made known to the disciples on the
road to Emmaus after his Resurrection in the breaking of the bread, so
St. Irenaeus would argue to the Catholic doctrine of Incarnation on the
basis of the Eucharistic practice of the Catholic Church. St. Irenaeus
writes, “When, therefore, the mingled cup and the bread made by hands
receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the Blood and the Body
of Christ is made, from which the substance of our flesh is increased and
supported, how can anyone affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving

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the gift of God, which is life eternal . . . even as St. Paul declares in his
Epistle to the Ephesians (5:30), that ‘we are members of His body, of His
flesh, and of His bones.’ ”19
This reflection from St. Irenaeus indicates at the same time both the
scope and the limits of magisterial teaching. When it is a question of
Christ and his identity, then the Magisterium is engaged.When it is not,
the Magisterium is silent.There is a limit to the magisterial office in the
Church. Pope John Paul II took great care to display the Christological
foundation of Catholic moral teaching—a foundation that has become
obscure for many contemporary Christians, as if the profession of faith
about who Jesus is is entirely separate from our understanding of the
demands of Christian discipleship in the Church’s moral teaching. The
precepts of the natural law, which is a distinct form of using non-biblical
language to explain moral imperatives, in recent years have been recaptured in the contemplation of Christ in his virtues. This is a pastoral
dimension of natural law teaching presupposing a rational, philosophical
argument but transforming it in the light of faith.
The fourth element that I would like to bring to the fore in talking
about the Magisterium concerns the scriptural character of the magisterial teaching. It is always Christological and it is always scriptural. Peter
answers, “You are the Christ,” in the words and categories of Scripture.
The recognition of Jesus as the Bread of Life depends on the teaching in
Exodus 16 and in the Book of Proverbs.
This tethering of the Magisterium to sacred Scripture is expressed
more completely by the Lord himself when, in Luke 24, he explains to
his disciples on the road to Emmaus and to the apostles waiting in
Jerusalem everything that concerns him in the law and the prophets and
the psalms.“It was ordained that the Christ should suffer,” and it took the
very Word of God Incarnate to break open for them this written witnessing from the Scriptures they thought they understood.
Fifthly, magisterial teaching shares the sacramental structure of the
apostolic office as a whole. In other words, the Magisterium makes present something that is much more than the teaching or the words in
which the teaching is given. In giving to the apostles the authority to
teach, Jesus gives them a share in his own self-dispossession. Jesus doesn’t
speak in his own name.“The teaching is not my own—it is from the one
who sent me.” He tells the apostles, “I cannot do anything on my own”
( John 5:19). He is a sacrament of God and of God’s will for the salvation
of the world. Everything he has to say is from the Father, so Christ in his
19 Adversus Haereses V, 2.

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own self-dispossession is transparent in such a way that through him the
Father himself is present. In that selflessness, Christ’s supreme authority is
seen.The apostles, in turn, have only what is given them; like Jesus, they
have nothing of their own.
Jesus gives the apostles a participation in his power and the authority
to speak in his name (Mt 9:8, 10:1; Mt 16:19; Mk 6:7; Lk 9:1, 10:19,
22:19; John 20:23). He confers on them an office that parallels the shape
of his own mission.This is the sixth point.There is a parallelism between
the mission of Christ and the mission of the apostles.“Whoever receives
you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent
me,” (Mt 10:40; John 13:20). In all this, it is clear that the words of human
beings are capax verbum domini, the words of human beings are capable of
expressing the Word of the Lord. I say that because, if we don’t believe
that the Word of the Lord really can get into our words and be repeated
back in praise of and confession to the Lord in his Church, then what we
are saying is that neither the Church, nor holy Scripture, nor the apostolic office itself can be an adequate vehicle of divine truth. In the light
of faith, there is no separation of an unfulfilled and unfulfillable dogmatic
intention from an always inadequate and culturally contingent conceptual expression, as if an apostle can only aim at the reality he speaks of
but cannot declare the truth of it. To say that dogmatic formulae
“adequately express” the divine reality they bear, one does not mean that
everything that can be said is in them. It does mean, however, that what
has been said is truly said and really tells us about divine reality and not
just our relationship to it.20 Truly, the full and public confession of Jesus
as the Christ of God awaits what modification this title undergoes at the
passion and death of Jesus; it awaits being conjoined with the notion of
the Servant. So also we will not know what the Bread of Life is until the
full display of the Paschal mystery. Even so, once the Lord himself has
taken up the prior words spoken by Moses and the prophets, and once
he has reshaped them on the anvil of his passion and death, they really
are adequate vehicles of his truth.
The seventh point I want to make goes back to the apostles’ participation in the Lord’s own life, in his passion, death, and resurrection.The
Lord said that if you are going to tell the world who I am, you must share
in my passion.That is the promise. Magisterial teaching is always Paschal.
Matthew 16 and 18 are fulfilled in John 20: “Receive the Holy Spirit;
whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.” John shows this commissioning of Peter and the apostles occurs only once the Spirit is given, the
20 See on this point the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mysterium eccle-

siae (24 June 1973), and Paul VI, Mysterium fidei (3 Sept. 1965), §§24 and 25.

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Spirit who will recall for them all the things Jesus has said (c.14) and who
will guide them into all truth (c. 16).
The eighth point is that the apostles’ ability to confess Jesus as Lord is
strictly a function of their own redemption by the grace of Christ and
their sharing in the Spirit with which he is anointed.That the Spirit is an
interior condition of the possibility of magisterial authority is indicated
already at both Caesarea Philippi and Capharnum. For it is not flesh and
blood that has revealed to the apostles that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
the living God, but the Father. And no one believes in Christ, according
to the same sixth chapter of John, unless the Father draws him (6:46 and
6:65). It is because the apostles are so illumined and so drawn interiorly
by the Holy Spirit that they know who Jesus is and do not depart, knowing also that Jesus alone has the words of everlasting life.
The ninth point reminds us that, at Caesarea Philippi and Capharnum,
it is Peter who gives voice to the apostolic group. Peter’s role as
spokesman is enabled by the requirement that he give blood witness to
Christ’s own shedding of his blood.This is signified at Caesarea Philippi
by the transformation of his name; it is indicated by contrast to his denial
that he ever knew Jesus; and it is promised in John at his commissioning
to feed the sheep when, at the same time, the Lord indicates “by what
death he was about to die.”
The interpersonal character of magisterial authority is evident in
Peter’s relation to Christ and to all the apostles together. This is something of a disputed point in the theology of the Magisterium, where one
meets two subjects of magisterial authority inadequately distinguished:
Peter in his personal charism and Peter and the other apostles together.
What is always true is that Peter cannot be understood apart from his
being in the center of his fellow apostles; but neither do the apostles form
the group they do without Peter. He can speak for them and they can
speak through him.This is clearest in Ecumenical Councils, but the collegial relationships are found also in synods and episcopal conferences.
The last point returns to the connection between the Magisterium
and eschatology. Magisterial witness in both places—Caesarea Philippi
and Capharnum—is projected eschatologically. The apostles do not
depart from their Lord at Capharnum in the sixth chapter of the Gospel
according to John because, as Peter said, his words are the words of everlasting eschatological life. For his part, at Caesarea Philippi the Lord says
that what Peter binds on earth is bound eschatologically in heaven.This
means that the magisterial office and its acts have the enormous responsibility of guiding the growth of the pilgrim Church here through all the
ages to her eternal destiny. In that sense, the apostolic office participates

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in the contemporaneity of God’s own perspective. Magisterial teaching
and apostolic witness give us all hope that we will see the Lord face to
face. In patria, we shall need no apostolic words because we will be in the
presence of the Word made flesh. We shall need no sacraments because
we will be seated at the wedding feast of the Lamb.
Let me conclude this reflection on the theology of the Magisterium
by quoting once again from St. Irenaeus:
The path of those belonging to the Church circumscribes the whole
world, as possessing the sure Tradition from the apostles, and gives unto
us to see that the faith of all is one and the same, since all receive one
and the same God the Father, and believe in the same dispensation
regarding the Incarnation of the Son of God, and are cognizant of the
same gift of the Spirit, and are conversant with the same commandments, and preserve the same form of ecclesiastical constitution, and
expect the same advent of the Lord, and await the same salvation of the
complete man, that is, of the soul and body. And undoubtedly the
preaching of the Church is true and steadfast, in which one and the
same way of salvation is shown throughout the whole world, for to her
is entrusted the light of God. (Adversus Haereses V, 20)

We have reviewed very quickly some distinguishing characteristics of
the magisterial office that is entirely at the service of the apostolic tradition that unites us to Christ and guarantees the Church’s mark of apostolicity. Let me talk more quickly to cultural problems we often have in
receiving these gifts of apostolicity and its guarantor in the Magisterium
of the Church.
First of all, right now at least, any truth claims in any religion are
considered an invitation to violence and a threat to peace. After September 11, 2001, when our country was attacked in the name of the God of
Abraham in an immoral, violent, and terrifying way, the op-ed pieces of
the major carriers of our culture warned that our society cannot afford
doctrinal religion. It does not matter what doctrine you’re talking about.
It is the certitude that one speaks truths that are more than human
truths—that are divine truths—that leads to societal violence.There may
still be a place for religion in our society, but it will be at best private
comfort and public charity, not permitted to make public truth claims.
Religion can and has been a source of violence in the history of the
world. The late Pope John Paul II responded to this history when he
called the leaders of the world’s faiths, of all faith communities, not to
worship together, for that would be a violation of our respective
consciences, but to pray in one another’s presence so that religion could

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be transformed into an instrument of peace and never again be used as
an excuse for violence. Religion and the wars of religion in European
history and elsewhere were responsible for great violence. But the wars
that have inflicted violence on every generation of Americans have not
been wars of religion.They have been wars of conquest on this continent
and, elsewhere, wars fought to defend democracy or freedom.These are
all good things, but none of them is explicitly religious, and in all of these
more blood was spilled in the last two centuries than was ever shed previously in the name of Christ or Mohammed, Moses, or Buddha.
We live now with the societal conviction that truth claims in religion
are inherently dangerous. We live also in fear that, if there is a Lord, we
are in danger of losing our own autonomy. Personal autonomy is the
primary characteristic and value of the human person in our individualistic culture. Religion is feared because it demands conversion, a change,
the loss of our self-sufficiency to a relationship that is not of our making
and whose terms we don’t set. There are many attempts to deny that
Christ is Lord, to whittle him down to size. He must have been married;
that is the human condition if you are a man. He must have had children.
He cannot have risen from the dead because, if he can call us to his own
new life, we’re no longer safe in the prisons of our own making. If there
is no Lord, then the Church cannot be permitted to bear witness to him
and cannot be permitted to tell people who Christ is and make claims in
his name.
That is another fear also embodied in our culture today: the fear of the
Church’s claims about herself as well as her claims about the Lord, for her
claims about Jesus and herself are universal. She claims that the mission
the Spirit gives the Church when Christ calls her into the apostles’ own
mission comes from God’s will that the whole world come to know who
Jesus Christ is and come to love him and worship him in his body the
Church.This claim disclaims religious pluralism as an ideal, and religious
pluralism is necessary, we believe, for the protection of freedom and
democracy. A claim that religious pluralism is not an ideal threatens our
understanding of what is necessary to be free, and freedom is what we are
most about. It is the purpose of our lives.There are powerful societal attitudes to explain why this theology of truth claims made by an apostolic
Church and guaranteed by the Magisterium is not persuasive or even
acceptable today.
What I have tried to explain is that the Magisterium is always at the
service of apostolicity, and apostolicity is at the service of the truths given
us by God in divine revelation, claims that make demands upon us.The
importance of this statement in our culture comes with the recognition

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that, far from objective truth being the enemy of human freedom, we
can’t be free if independent from the truth of things. “The truth shall
make you free.” It is beneath human dignity to live in falsehood, and it is
dangerous to live in religious falsehood; therefore, those who want to be
truly free go to the Church.That, of course, is perhaps the most culturally outrageous statement that can be made at this time; but it is true.The
N&V
Church is where you go when you want to be free.

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Prayer, the Bible, and Hearing God
G UY M ANSINI , O. S. B.
Saint Meinrad School of Theology
St. Meinrad, Indiana

I N THE SECOND half of the third century, in Upper Egypt, there
was a young man of Christian family and comfortable means; he had just
inherited his father’s estate, and was relatively unencumbered. He
wondered what to do with his life. He found himself thinking of the
apostles and how they left everything to follow Christ, and of the wholeheartedness in poverty of the first Christians as described in the Acts of
the Apostles. One day he went to church and there heard from the gospel
of Matthew:“If you would be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to
the poor, and come, follow me.”Then, St.Athanasius says, the young man,
“as though God had put him in mind of the Saints, and the passage had
been read on his account, went out immediately from the church, and
gave the possessions of his forefathers to the villagers.”1
Consider the elements of the story. First, the young man, alone in the
world but for a sister, wonders what to do with himself. But he is a
Christian, and so he wonders what to do with himself before God,
thinking of the saints, of their renunciation and reward.That is, he prays
about what to do. However, his prayerful reflection on life and the holy
life, on his life and the holy life, is informed by Scripture as his thinking
of the apostles and the Church in Jerusalem shows. Evidently, the young
man has treasured up much of the Bible in his heart, so that it comes
easily to mind.

1 St. Athanasius, Life of Antony, §2, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. II, vol. IV,

Select Writings and Letters of Athanasius, trans. H. Ellershaw (1891; Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 1982), 196.

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Second, when he hears Matthew 19:21, he understands it as addressed
to him personally.2 They are words of Sacred Scripture written long ago;
they are words spoken long ago by Christ. But the young man takes them
as spoken in his time, his hour, to himself. So hearing, he decides; he acts;
and the young man puts himself on the road to the apostolic life in the
form of the ascetic life of the desert.
Third, thinking back over his immediate past, Anthony understands
that his very thinking of the apostles and the Jerusalem Church were
things that God put into his mind to think ofabout. That is, he understands these thoughts as what later theologians call “actual grace.” More
largely, he understands that his recent life—his state in life, his relative
freedom from family responsibilities, his thoughts, his coming to church
when he does and hearing what he hears—as something arranged by the
providence of God, all conspiring to answer the implied request: O God,
what shall I do with my life?3
Now, what is extraordinary in this story is Anthony and the ardor with
which he answers the call of God, of Christ, of the Gospel. But what is not
extraordinary is that God providentially arranged his life, since he does that
for all; or that he put thoughts into Anthony’s head, since we are assured
that he gives grace abundantly; or that the thoughts are biblical thoughts,
because the Bible exists for this very thing, for us to have the right thoughts
on hand for the Lord God to arrange them in our hearts easily and without fuss; or finally, that the Lord answered his prayer, in a comprehensible,
straightforward manner, and did so in words of the Bible that Anthony,
with absolute correctness and truth, understood to be addressed personally
to him when he heard the minister read the Gospel of Matthew.4
It is a commonplace to say that Christian prayer is scriptural, that it is
based on the Bible or that it is informed by Scripture, or some such
phrase. I wish in this essay to defend this commonplace, but in a quite
precise form: Christian prayer is scriptural, where Scripture is understood
and appreciated dogmatically, that is, according to the Church’s understanding of the nature, authorship, and unity of the Bible.
2 As also just later he understands Mt 19:21, “do not be anxious for tomorrow,”

addressed to him, in Athanasius, Life of Antony, §3.
3 See the translation of the above passage in the opening paragraph in Athanasius:

The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus, trans. Robert C. Gregg (New York:
Paulist Press, 1980), 31: “It was as if by God’s design he held the saints in his
recollection, and as if the passage were read on his account.”
4 Nicholas Wolterstorff begins his speech-act analysis of divine speech with a
consideration of the conversion of St. Augustine and the call of St. Anthony;
Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim That God Speaks (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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This thesis is important for two reasons. In the first place, and by way of
contrast, what is Christian prayer where it purports to be scriptural, but
Scripture is not appreciated dogmatically? If I read the Bible historicallycritically, attentive to re-constructing the historical circumstances and original communicative intention of the text, but bracketing the relation of the
text to God, to the living Christ, to the Holy Spirit dwelling within, it
becomes one more historical object, telling me of men and the doings of
men, but no longer speaking of God and the doings of his Christ.
Evidently, the whole genius of the historical-critical attitude is to erase the
“sacred” from “sacred Scripture,” to rub off the “holy” from “the Holy
Bible.” So handled, the book is redeemed from the precincts of the sacred
and the believing heart and rendered secularly and perhaps also apologetically fungible.At the same time, it is de-activated as an ingredient of prayer.
It is most definitely to be feared that many Christians, taking up their Bible,
wishing at the same time to be modern and so “critical,” end up sidetracked into questions about what Paul meant or could have meant instead
of questions about what the Lord means now, speaking through St. Paul.
In the second place, prayer is often and rightly characterized as
“conversation.” Conversation, be it noted, is mutual speaking, mutual
hearing. But unless the Bible is understood dogmatically, it becomes difficult to sustain the idea that prayer is conversation, not only our speech to
God, but God’s speech to us. How does God speak to us in prayer? The
answer, which it is the burden of this essay to develop, is “through Sacred
Scripture.”Absent this answer, it will surely be denied that God speaks to
us in any straightforward sense. Especially commonly, hearing God speaking to us in prayer may come to be identified as the process of locating
some refined, occult, interior experience of the self and the thoughts and
emotions of the self.We will think to hear the voice of God in the inclinations of our own heart, now feeling good, now feeling sad, now feeling peace—especially with “oneself ”—and now not. But none of that is
prayer or has anything to do with prayer. Emotion doubtless there is in
prayer: joy, grief, astonishment, confidence, courage, the peace that
surpasses understanding. But it all takes place because of hearing, because
of remembering words once heard or read, the words—the literal, real,
quite humanly apprehensible and recognizably determinate words of
God speaking, God speaking to us through Scripture.5
In what follows, I first provide a simple statement of how prayer
works, and how it works as conversation in which God speaks and we
5 In case there should be some misunderstanding, let me say that Ignatian discern-

ment of spirits presupposes just that cultivation of Scripture which it is the point
of this essay to recommend.

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hear him, provided we understand Scripture dogmatically—provided also
we use it dogmatically. Second, I take up the question of which of the
“senses” of Scripture is engaged here. Third, there is a brief reminder of
this way of taking Scripture from the monastic tradition. Next the
Fathers and of course Scripture itself are enlisted in its witness. Last, there
is a word about the God of the Scriptures understood dogmatically, and
how only such a God could hear and speak to us in prayer.
How It Works
The idea is very simple, and has been the possession of the Church from
the beginning, for it is in large part contained in the confession of God
as the author of the Bible.This authorship means that his communicative
intentions are to be construed according to the grammar, syntax, and
circumstance of the books and texts of which the Bible is composed, but
understood within the overarching frame of his authorial motive, which
is, ultimately, the salvation of human beings in Christ, and, mediately, the
guidance of Christian lives now so that this ultimate end may be
achieved.6 God’s ability to raise up human agents as instruments of his
communicative intention (prophecy, inspiration), and his eternity in
virtue of which he can arrange for his speech, first heard at one time, to
transcend the limits of time, mean that God can make past inspired
composition speak today. But it is God’s authorial motive, a function of
the divine intention to save all men (1 Tim 2:4), in virtue of which the
Bible is in fact addressed to us now, today, for the guidance of our lives.
The idea, then, is that God is the author of Sacred Scripture; he speaks
to us through its words, all of which speak of the Word made flesh. One
can say, equivalently, that the Father speaks to us through Christ or through
Scripture. Further, this speaking is not simply speculative but practical.
Not everything, however, comes to full expression in the idea of the
authorship of God.We need also to invoke a robust idea of providence.We
need the idea of providence contained in the Sermon on the Mount: Nnot
a sparrow falls to the ground without our heavenly Father knowing it, and
the very hairs of our heads are numbered (Mt 10:29–31). God’s providence
extends to each and every detail of the trajectories through time of each and
6 For the distinction between communicative intention and authorial motive, see

Stephen E. Fowl,“The Role of Authorial Intention in the Theological Interpretation of Scripture,” in Between Two Horizons: Spanning New Testament Studies &
Systematic Theology, eds. Joel B. Green and Max Turner (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 71–87, at 74. My deployment of the distinction is not Fowl’s; originally, the distinction was made by Quentin Skinner. Fowl, “The Role of
Authorial Intention,” 74, note 6.

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every human being, providing them what most aids them in their journey
to him through Christ.7 This means a coordination of the words of the Bible
and their reverberations in our hearts in order to meet our questions for a
wisdom both contemplative and practical, both speculative and prudential.
It is the conjunction of God’s authorship of the Bible with a strong
doctrine of providence that makes it possible to understand how God can
speak to us not simply speculatively, as it were speaking the same word to
all, but practically, speaking one thing to the individual. The guidance
provided in the Bible is indeed and in the first place, we may say, the plan
of salvation. But it is also and in the second place necessarily practical.
Moreover, it is not just generally practical, in the way, say, that the Ten
Commandments are equivalent to secondary principles of the natural
law.8 This is practical guidance, and guidance relevant to every human
moral agent. But the Bible also gives more concretely practical guidance
to the prayerful Christian. It is, after all, a concrete agent who reads the
Book, seeking guidance about particular decisions that result in action,
and action is similarly concrete. Prudence bears on the particular actions
to be done or avoided. If, when we consult our friends on matters moral,
we consult them for concrete guidance, then we consult the Lord for the
same concrete advice. Moreover, if the advice and guidance are not
particular, concrete, and prudential, then it is not really the case that the
Lord can be the “way,” a lamp for our steps and a light for our path. He
may be Truth and Life—but not the Way, unless in him, and in him as
mediated to us by Sacred Scripture, we behold a concrete pattern for
moral action, find particular answers to particular questions, and even,
particular words for particular circumstances.
To a man or woman thoughtfully and prayerfully immersed in the songs
and stories, commands and meditations, parables and letters of the Bible,
the Lord will bring forth that word or that command or that story needed
for guidance. And that is how he speaks to us. If the Bible is “in” us, then
when we pray and ask and knock, the vocabulary of God’s response is
ready—all he need do is by his grace bring to our mind, already reverently
attuned and listening, the word we need, a word he speaks and we hear.9
Prayer and the Senses of Scripture
How should we characterize this sense of Scripture, the practical directives
that Anthony and Augustine hear in the passages they take to be directed
7 See Summa theologiae I, q. 22, aa. 1–2; q. 23, a. 1.
8 ST I–II, q. 100, aa. 1 and 3.
9 I speak of “immersion”; presumably, the practice of Bible dipping or “cutting the

Bible” as it is also called tempts providence.

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to them? It is difficult to answer this question. It is tempting to take refuge
in the notion of “application” or “accommodation.” A preacher, for
instance, is said to apply a text to his congregation and the situation of his
hearers. He reads, for instance, the Lord’s injunction that we must not judge
our brother, and must take the beam out of our eye before we worry about
the speck in our brother’s (Mt 7:1–5); and he proceeds to tell his people
that they should forebear gossip and detraction.That is “application.” It is
by the authority of the Lord that we are all forbidden to gossip and slander one another. But it is by the authority of preacher that we are informed
that the passage particularly concerns us, here and now.That does not seem
to report the experience of Anthony and Augustine.They take themselves
to be addressed by the Lord, and not by some preacher, and not in virtue
of their own act of application. Similarly, in accommodating a text, adapting it to some situation not the one it was immediately addressed to, the
one who accommodates is neither the human nor divine author of the
text, and this is so even where there is some theological ground for it. It
may be within the providence of God for this to happen, and, where there
is some theological ground for it, there may be reason to classify this as part
of the “fuller sense” of the text.10 But again, this does not seem adequate
to the immediacy with which Anthony and Augustine felt themselves
addressed. Nor does it seem natural to say they accommodated the text to
themselves; it seems more natural to say that they heard the Lord addressing them in the words of the texts.
Are we to say then that what Anthony and Augustine hear is the literal
sense of the texts? If by the literal sense we mean what the human author,
evangelist, or prophet, intended and understood, the answer must be no.
If by the literal sense we mean the sense that is the foundation and point
of departure of theology,11 then once again that answer is no, strictly
speaking. However, here in this essay, I take as part of my data the fact
that Anthony and Augustine understood that the texts in question meant
something determinate and practical for them at the time they heard
them, and understood that that meaning was addressed to them by the
Lord. So, while I do not argue directly from the practical truth,“Anthony,
to be perfect, was obliged by the Lord to dispossess himself of everything
he owned,” I do argue from the fact that he understood himself to be
10 So for Pierre Grelot, The Bible Word of God, trans. Peter Nickels (New York:

Desclée, 1968), 333, accommodation with a theological basis is an application of
the fuller sense. He gives as an example of such accommodation the allegory of
Sarah and Hagar worked out in Galatians 4. See also ibid.,“The Fuller Sense and
the Apostolate,” 388–90.
11 ST I, q. 1, a. 10.

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addressed by the Lord in the words of the scriptural text to do just that.
So, traditionally, the Lord’s prescription to go and sell what we have if we
would be perfect enters as a counsel of perfection into the moral and
ascetical theology of the Church. And the fact that Anthony heard
himself addressed in the way he did enters into the theological consideration of the relation of Scripture and prayer.
If by the literal sense, however, we mean what the divine author
intends, then what Anthony and Augustine heard was the literal sense—
or rather, a literal sense.12 The point of this essay is that, because of the
completeness and comprehensiveness of providence, God can speak to
those who pray to him through the Scriptures. Or, if we want, we could
say that the texts were applied to Anthony and Augustine, but if we do,
then it is God in his providence who is doing the applying.
Monastic Life
Christian monasticism is unthinkable without Scripture understood as
being able to render the will of God directly to the hearer. The call of
Anthony is a sort of emblem of this fact, but it is evident also from the
first pages of the Rule of Benedict. We could of course say that the call
to become a monk contained in the prologue is “scriptural,” or expressed
in the words of Scripture, as with the citation of Romans 13:11, “It is
high time for us to arise from sleep,” or Psalm 94:8,“If you hear his voice
today, do not harden your hearts,” and so on through the rest of the nineteen quotations of the prologue. But that would not fully reflect the
Rule’s own understanding of things.As Anscar Kristensen says,“the Rule
is intended simply as an aid for monks to live by the Scriptures.”13 In
other words, the Rule understands itself to be doing nothing except
retailing Scripture and the authority of Scripture, the always contemporary authority of the word of God speaking now to whoever reads the
Rule. So in Chapter 7, key to the Rule’s understanding of the monastic
life, Scripture “speaks to us,” “cries to us,” “commands us,” “exhorts us,”
“warns us.”14 As Kristensen writes: “In the Rule, Scripture is often
considered to be speaking directly to the reader or hearer. It is not merely
a source of information about the past or even of revelation about the
past, but a guide to life here and now.”15 In this way and so to speak, the
12 On this view there would be multiple literal senses of a text.
13 Anscar Kristensen, “The Role and Interpretation of Scripture in the Rule of

Benedict,” in RB 1980:The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with Notes, ed.
Timothy Fry, O.S.B. (Collegeville, MN:The Liturgical Press, 1981), 470.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid., 469.

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Rule stands to Scripture for the practical understanding of the ascetic life
as the Rule of Faith does for the speculative understanding of the Triune
God, the Incarnation, and the work of our redemption.16 Just as the
framework of the Rule of Faith guides our reading of Scripture so that
we do not fall out of the truth of God, so the framework of the Rule
guides our reading of the Bible for practical purposes. The fundamental
thing St. Benedict says to us, therefore, is this: Rread the Bible within the
framework and according to the practice contained in the Rule, and you
will not be led astray in your life as a Christian ascetic.17
Of course, the Rule does not merely exemplify the above use of Scripture, but it positively enjoins it in the practice of lectio. And according to
a modern authority on things monastic, “Lectio is meant to be a conversation with God about one’s life.”18 That is, in reading the Scriptures, the
reader hears God, hears him address the reader, and hears him speak
about the reader’s own life. It is just as St. Jerome says to Eustochium,“let
the secrets of your cell always keep you. . . .You pray? You speak to the
bridegroom.You read? He speaks to you.”19 As a Rule for reading Scripture, the Rule can be taken to enjoin just that engagement of Scripture
that lives in the expectation of conversation with God.
Other Expressions of This in Tradition
The sense of Scripture as speaking to us, and speaking to us practically,
and so, in prayer, is well developed in the fathers.
A first witness is St. Athanasius, the Letter to Marcellinus, in which he
sets out the role of the Psalms in the moral regeneration of a Christian’s
life.20 The Psalms, the letter explains, contain in a way the whole of
Scripture—history, law, prophecy—for it is the same Spirit who is the
author of each part of the Bible.21 But the peculiar and special grace of
16 This analogy is suggested, not stated, by Kristensen; ibid., 468.
17 The other great rules and charters of religious life can function in the same way.
18 Columba Stewart, O.S.B., Prayer and Community:The Benedictine Tradition (London:

Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1998), 41.
19 St. Jerome, “Letter 22,” §25, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. II, vol.VI, The

Principal Works of St. Jerome, trans. W. H. Freemantle (1892; Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1983), 32. For a discussion of lectio divina and its theological presuppositions, see Michael Casey, Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina
(Ligouri, MO:Triumph Books, 1996), chs. 2 and 3.
20 For a discussion of the letter, see Brian E. Daley, S.J., “Is Patristic Exegesis Still
Usable?” in The Art of Reading Scripture, eds. Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 82ff.
21 Athanasius,“Letter to Marcellinus,” in Athanasius:The Life of Antony and the Letter
to Marcellinus, §9.

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the Psalms is “that it contains even the emotions of each soul, and it has
the changes and rectifications of these delineated and regulated in
itself.”22 The Psalms heal us, strengthen us, and direct us in that they give
us the very words with which to heal passion, acknowledge fault, and
restrain wickedness.23 When we read the other books of the Bible, we
read words not our own; but “he who recites the psalms is uttering the
rest as his own words, and each sings them as if they were written
concerning him.”24 The Psalms “become like a mirror to the person
singing them, so that he might perceive himself and emotions of his
soul.”25 As we might expect, this ability of the Psalms to reveal us to
ourselves is strictly allied with or even a function of the divine authority
with which they were composed.
Each psalm is both spoken and composed by the Spirit so that in these
same words . . . the stirrings of our souls might be grasped, and all of
them be said as concerning us, and the same issue from us as our own
words, for a remembrance of the emotions in us, and a chastening of
our life.26

The words are spoken to us, so that speaking them as our own, we may
be healed, and as the Letter to Marcellinus makes clear, conformed to
Christ: “[J]ust as he provides the model of the earthly and heavenly man
in his own person, so also from the Psalms he who wants to do so can
learn the emotions and dispositions of the souls, finding in them also the
therapy and correction suited for each emotion.”27 The therapy of the
Psalms conforms us to Christ.
Second, there is St. Augustine in the Confessions, who provides as it
were an example of what Athanasius is talking about.28 In the ninth book
of the Confessions, Augustine recalls the extraordinary days immediately
after his conversion. “My God, how I cried to you when I read the
Psalms of David, songs of faith, utterances of devotion which allow no
22 Ibid., §10.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid., §11.
25 Ibid., §12.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., §13.
28 For a comprehensive introduction to St. Augustine’s reading and use of the

Psalms, see Michael Fiedrowicz, general introduction, in Expositions of the Psalms
1–32, trans. Maria Boulding, The Works of Saint Augustine:A Translation for the 21st
Century, Part III, vol. 15, ed. John Rotelle (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press,
1990), 13–66, especially, on the therapeutic use of the Psalms, 37–43.

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pride of spirit to enter in!”29 He illustrates by showing how Psalm 4
supplied him with the words to understand himself, and to declare
himself so understood to God. It is a sort of illustration of the doctrine
of the Letter to Marcellinus.30 He finds in the Psalms both the mirror and
the medicine of his soul (speculum et medicamentum).31
I trembled with fear and at the same time burned with hope and exultation at your mercy, Father (Ps 30:7–8). All these emotions exuded
from my eyes and my voice when “your good Spirit” (Ps 142:10)
turned towards us to say: “sons of men, how long will you be dull at
heart? And why do you love vanity and seek after a lie?” (Ps 4:3). For I
had loved vanity and sought after a lie.32

And so on through the psalm. “And I cried out loud when I acknowledged inwardly what I read in external words.”33 All this is of course for
Augustine included within the providence of God guiding him to his true
home, the vivid sense of which animates the whole of the Confessions.
Third, Gregory the Great explains the sense of Job 33:14 as providing
warrant for taking the whole of the Scriptures in the sense in which we
have seen Athanasius and Augustine take the Psalms. Elihu says:“God will
speak once, and will not repeat the same thing a second time.”34 Gregory
explains that this is said in view of God’s composition of Scripture.“As if
he were to say, God does not reply in private speaking to the hearts of
men one by one; but fashions His word in such a manner, as to satisfy the
inquiries of all men. For if we look for our own cases one by one, we are sure
to find them in the teaching of His Scriptures.”35 So, for instance, what St. Paul
heard and recorded, “my grace is sufficient for you, for power is made
perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9), suffices also for us when we want to
know the reasons of our sufferings. And again: “He has provided for our
29 Saint Augustine: Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1991), bk. IX, ch. 4, §8, 160.
30 As Daley points out, however, Augustine’s understanding of who speaks and to

whom in the psalms is more articulated than that of Athanasius;“Patristic Exegesis,” 84.
31 Fiedrowicz, General Introduction, 38.
32 Confessions, bk. IX, ch. 4, §9, 160–161.
33 Confessions, bk. IX, ch. 4, §10, 162.
34 This is the translation of Gregory’s Latin Bible text by John H. Parker in A
Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, vol. 36, Morals on the Book of Job by
S. Gregory the Great (Oxford: J. G. & F. Rivington, 1847), bk. 23, §33, 29; the
NRSV (from the Greek) has something quite different.
35 Ibid., §34, emphasis added.

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instruction, by what He stated to our fathers in holy Scripture.”36 And,
“He includes in holy Scripture whatever can possibly befall each one of
us, and has provided therein for regulating the conduct of those who
come after, by the examples of those who have gone before.”37 Note here
then (1) the authorship of God; (2) God’s providence extending the
meaning of Scripture to all men, even to us; and (3) the practical tenor
of this providence, of what is said to us in the Bible.
As we should expect, the presuppositions of taking Scripture for prayer
include those necessary for pre-modern exegesis in general. These are
expressed very concisely by Luke Timothy Johnson.38 First, the Old and
New Testaments “form a unity that is grounded in the singleness of
divine authorship.” Second, “Scripture speaks harmoniously.” Third, “the
Bible, as the Word of God, is authoritative.” Fourth, “Scripture speaks in
many ways and at many levels.” Fifth, interpretation is to be guided by “a
hermeneutics of generosity or charity.” The first seems to imply the
second, third, and fifth presuppositions, and to make possible, if not
strictly entail, the fourth. For if God is the author, then, as coming from
a single mind and an infinite wisdom, the Scriptures speak harmoniously
(the second presupposition), and as proceeding from a wisdom that is a
providence whose end is the union of human persons with the Trinity,
interpretation must, as St.Augustine taught, serve the charity which is the
interior principle of our progress to God (the fifth).39 Further, if God is
the author, then evidently the Scriptures are authoritative (the third
presupposition). It is necessary to add only that this authority extends not
only to how we are to see the world and ourselves in our relation to God,
but also to how we are to act.That is, the authority of God is both “speculative” and “practical.” Further, it is necessary to specify as well that the
providence of God which that orders all things to himself as the final end
of the universe is particular—it embraces each individual man and
woman as an individual, each of whose hairs are counted.
36 Ibid., 30.
37 Ibid.
38 Luke Timothy Johnson, “Rejoining the Long Conversation,” in Luke Timothy

Johnson and William S. Kurz, S.J., The Future of Catholic Biblical Scholarship: A
Constructive Conversation (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 47, 52, 55, 57, 59.
For an equivalent presentation, see also Daley, “Patristic Exegesis,” 74–78; and
The Princeton Scripture Project, “Nine Theses on the Interpretation of Scripture,” in Davis and Hays, Art of Reading, 1–5.
39 St.Augustine, Teaching Christianity: De Doctrina Christiana, intro., trans., and notes,
Edmund Hill, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, Part
I, vol. 11, ed. John Rotelle (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1996), Book I, ch.
35, §39 through ch. 36, §§40–41, 123–124.

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A Teaching of Sacred Scripture Itself
The use of Scripture recommended in Christian tradition and practice is
scripturally warranted.This warrant is to be found not just in a few verses
where the New Testament speaks of “Scripture,” meaning the Old Testament, although these statements are not unimportant. So in Matthew 4,
the Lord twice takes up the words of Scripture (at vv. 4 and 10) to make
sense of and defeat the devil’s temptations. The first of these is particularly striking for our purposes:“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by
every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” This word of
Deuteronomy 8:3 states a general rule, but it is taken by Jesus as now
coming from the mouth of God his Father, and he “lives by it.”This is to
say that it is on its authority he prefers rather to trust in God than to turn
the stones into bread. The truth of the verse is instanced in its being
enacted before us as an example.
There are also such verses as 1 Corinthians 10:11.The punishments of
Israel in the desert were a warning for the people, “but they were written down for our instruction upon whom the end of the ages has come.”
Now, the end of the ages comes upon us in Christ, and so there is the
implication that it is the Christological sense of “what was written
down” that is for our instruction. For indeed, as Paul explains in this same
chapter, the Rock which that followed the people of Israel in the desert
and from which they drank was Christ (v. 5). Note, however, that the
instruction in question is practical and moral.40 Again, 2 Timothy
3:16–17 famously tells us that Scripture is useful “for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”41
Beyond such explicit passages, there is a more fundamental argument
whose point of departure Robert Jenson provides in noting that Scripture does not speak about any other people (saving also the Jews) than
us, Christians, abiding in the bosom of the Church.
Not only is Scripture within the church, but we, the church, are within
Scripture—that is, our common life is located inside the story Scripture tells.The Bible is not about some other folk, and not even the very
beginning steps of biblical exegesis may suppose that it is. Send not to
40 It seems that we could say that Paul so renders the Old Testament texts in ques-

tion that they (or the realities they speak of) are found to be both Christological (so, an “allegorical” sense) and exemplary (“tropological”), and he applies the
exemplary force to his readers. His application might be thought to have more
authority than that of an ordinary preacher. Or should we say that he merely
recognizes the application of providence?
41 See also 1 Corinthians 9:10, Romans 15:4, and 1 Peter 1:10–2.

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know for whom the shofar sounds, or who will experience what the
prophet foretells: tua res agitur—it is your thing that is at issue.42

Jenson establishes this by calling attention to the open-ended character of
the book of Acts. Also, he appeals to the fact of canonization, the meaning of which is that the Church directs the address of these writings to her
own future self.This in turn suggests the following connection: Scripture
speaks to us because it speaks about us. An Augustinian kind of argument
can be deployed at this juncture, an argument that hinges on the Pauline
theology of the body of Christ. It can be developed in two steps.
1. In the first place, the New Testament teaches us that the Old is to be
read Christologically. More exactly, according to Luke, it is Christ
who teaches us that the Old Testament is to be read Christologically.
In Luke 24, the risen Lord shows the disciples, first those on the road
to Emmaus and second those gathered in Jerusalem, all those things
in the Law and prophets and psalms that speak of him.This teaching
has already been at work within the preaching of Jesus, as in Luke 4,
where the Lord says that the words he reads from the scroll of Isaiah
are about him, Jesus, standing in the synagogue at Nazareth. And it is
enacted, or acted on, in the time of the Church, as in Acts 8, where
Philip delivers to the Ethiopian eunuch the very same Christological reading of Isaiah that Christ himself delivered to the Church in
Acts 24.43
This is not a uniquely Lucan theme. All the major voices of the
New Testament take it up. In the Fourth Gospel, for instance, Jesus
tells the leaders of the people that Moses wrote of him ( Jn 5:46).
Again, in chapter two, we find that the words of the psalmist are
imputed to Jesus. “Believing the scripture,” in verse 22, is believing
that Psalm 69:9 (“zeal for your house has consumed me”) was written of Jesus, which is to say that they are his words and that it is his
voice which are to be found in the psalm.44 In the same way, Psalm
21 is figured as expressing the voice of Jesus in the synoptic gospels
42 Robert Jenson, “Scripture’s Authority in the Church,” in Davis and Hays, Art of

Reading, 30.
43 I have treated this theme in Luke-Acts more fully in “ ‘Today This Scripture Has

Been Fulfilled in Your Hearing’: Scripture,Tradition, and Church in Luke-Acts,”
in Sapere teologico e unità della fede: Studi in onore del Prof. Jared Wicks, eds. C.Aparicio Valls, D. Dotolo, and G. Pasquale (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University,
2004), 149–71.
44 See, for this handling of John 2, Richard B. Hays, “Reading Scripture in the
Light of the Resurrection,” in Davis and Hays, Art of Reading, 221–24.

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(“my God, my God”) and the same psalm as speaking of him in John
(“they parted my garments among them”).45 So also in Mark 12,
when the Sadducees are accused by Jesus of knowing neither the
power of God nor the Scriptures, it is in both cases Jesus of whom
they are ignorant.They do not know the power of God that will raise
him, and us in him, the power of God at whose right hand the Son
of Man will be seated (Mk 14:62 and Dan 7:13–14); they do not
know the Scriptures which that present God as so the God of the
living that, as he can make descendents for Abraham in his old age, as
he can overcome the age of Sarah and the barrenness of Rachel, so he
can overcome the last enemy, death.46 Finally, Paul too knows the
Christological sense of Scripture, most famously and to recall just one
place, in 2 Corinthians, where the Scriptures render up their meaning
when, in Christ, the veil is taken away from the face of Moses, and we
behold the glory of God shining in the face of Christ (2 Cor 3:15–6).
But Moses is in this passage also the text of Moses, the Law.Through
Christ, knowing Christ, we behold his glory also in the Law, knowing its true meaning, Christ.47
2. The Christological reading of Sacred Scripture means that it is also
about those who are in Christ, who are one person with Christ,
members of his body. If the Church is one person with Christ, such
that the Lord says to Paul from heaven,“Why do you persecute me?”
(Acts 9:4), then in speaking about Christ, Scripture speaks of us, who
are included in the whole Christ, head and members.Therefore, if we
have questions about ourselves, and we understand that the Scripture
speaks about us, and about us as moral agents, to recall Athanasius,
therapeutically, then we may take it also as addressing us, as speaking to
us.We can take up the first rule of Tyconius,“about the Lord and his
body,” included by Augustine in the De doctrina christiana and deployed
in force in his expositions of the Psalms. Augustine explains:
We know that we are sometimes being given hints that head and
body, that is Christ and Church, constitute one person—after all, it
was not without reason that the faithful were told “then you are the
seed of Abraham” (Gal 3:29), although there is only one seed of
45 See, on Psalm 21, Gregory Vall, “A New Method of Exegesis,” The Thomist 66

(2002): 175–200.
46 For this reading, see Hays, “Reading Scripture,” 224–29.
47 For this handling of 2 Corinthians 3, see John Behr, The Formation of Christian

Theology, vol. 1,The Way to Nicea (Crestwood, NY: St.Vladimir’s Seminary Press,
2001), 26–27.

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Abraham, which is Christ. So according to this first rule we should
not let it baffle us when a text passes from head to body and from
body to head and yet still refers to one and the same person.48

Where we find a text as spoken by us, the body, then we discover something about us. And where we discover something about us, we who
have questions about ourselves before God, then the text speaks to us.
Again, we could say that, for those who are created in and for
Christ (cf. Col 1:16), where the Scripture speaks of Christ, it also
speaks of us.
There is considerable confusion over the conditions of prayer today,
and sometimes it is asked whether we can any longer pray to the distant
and immutable and transcendent God of “the Western theological tradition.” The unraveling of such a question would take another essay.
Perhaps there can be no satisfactory answer at the abstract level to such a
question. Perhaps the only real answer to it lies in the cultivation of the
ancient discipline of reading and prayer. Given that experience, one asks
about suppositions; and then, since we are inquiring about a lived practice, the suppositions will have a weight to them that, in its absence, no
theoretical account can. Only that circle of theory and practice provide
the full context for an answer. Even so, it may not be entirely useless to
list some of the elements of the theoretical part of a response.
First, the transcendent God of creation is by that fact “closer” to what
he makes, sustains, and loves by his power and action, and at every
moment than any created thing. If he is distant, he is so as other than us
and every worldly thing, as not-us. If he is distant as unavailable to us, that
is so because of sin.
Second, the immutable and transcendent and eternal God is not so
much a manufacture of “theological tradition” as it is a deliverance of the
first article of the creed and the entire patristic tradition, a deliverance
shared by both fathers and heretics.
Third, it must be urged, and with the greatest moral and religious
conviction, that this God is the only God there is; and therefore, if we
cannot pray to him, we will end up praying to a false god, which, in this
present age, usually turns out to be oneself (no distant god that!).
Fourth, as it is the transcendence of God that ensures his presence, so
it is his eternity that is the guarantee of his speaking at all times through
Scripture, and it is his changelessness in wisdom and love that renders
him master of our every change, whether of growth or decay, increase or
48 Augustine, Teaching Christianity, Book III, ch. 31, §44, 189.

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decrease, and so able to bring to us just that word of the Bible we need
to hear now.
How can I pray to an immutable, eternal, transcendent God? But he
is the only one that can be prayed to as necessarily hearing us, certainly
present to us. Moreover, he is the only one who can be prayed to, if we
hope to be answered, and in words suited to and able to be heard by us.
Fifth, however, and in the end, a Trinitarian answer must be given.The
ultimate ground of the possibility of our hearing God is that he is interiorly already expressible and expressed. Only so is there the created
expression of him that there is. And the proximate ground of our hearing him is that his eternal expression, his eternal Word, has become flesh,
and that this flesh, in the breadth of its temporal career, expresses the
person of the Word, a record of whose humanity and its history is found
in Scripture. Only just such a God, whose Son-Word has become incarnate and whose human life in turn has also found expression in Sacred
Scripture—only this God can continue to speak to us, when the Holy
Spirit cries out to him with sighs too deep for words (Rom 8:26). N&V

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Hursthouse’s Virtue Ethics:
Neo-Aristotelian or Post-Cartesian?
K EVIN E. O’R EILLY
Milltown Institute
Dublin, Ireland

I N HIS magisterial study, After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre shows how it
was the rejection of Aristotelianism in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries that provided the background to the Nietzschean morality of
the will to power and ultimately to the emotivist attitude that characterizes the contemporary moral landscape.With the fragmentation of what
up to then had been a unified moral tradition the role that virtue played
in theorizing was to all intents and purposes vitiated. Recent decades
have however witnessed an attempt to restore virtue ethics to its rightful
place in moral theorizing and debate. Those philosophers who have
contributed to this attempt—Anscombe, Foot, Murdoch, MacIntyre,
McDowell, Nussbaum, Slote, to name a few—have all absorbed Plato and
Aristotle. Some, but by no means all, have displayed a certain familiarity
with the thought of Aquinas.
Among the names just cited, that of Rosalind Hursthouse ought to be
included. Her book, On Virtue Ethics,1 has been well received and rightly
so; it has indeed much to recommend it. As well as engaging in a lively
conversation with Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, Hursthouse effects a
certain rapprochement between an Aristotelian-inspired virtue ethics and
Kantian deontology. In addition she offers stimulating discussions of various issues such as moral dilemmas, virtue and the emotions, and moral
motivation. In this essay, however, I wish to focus my attention on some
of Hursthouse’s reflections concerning various issues in practical ethics,
particularly that of homosexuality. These reflections occur during her
1 Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

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consideration of the important contribution that neo-Aristotelian virtue
ethics has to make to the issue of the objectivity of morality. The views
that she advances with regard to various practical ethical issues are
arguably inconsistent with the logical demands inherent in Aristotle’s
own philosophical thought.The reason for her mistaken reasoning in this
regard is grounded in her conception of human nature, a conception that
is demonstrably not Aristotelian. While Hursthouse does not explicitly
delineate the kind of philosophical anthropology that in fact undergirds
her ethical theorizing, it is not difficult to deduce it from her comments.
In this article we first turn our attention to the notion of ethical naturalism as expounded by Hursthouse, for it is in relation to this idea as
applied to human beings that she makes comments about various practical issues. In order to critique her arguments, we will then have to examine briefly Aristotle’s understanding of the relationship between body and
soul and its unfulfilled implications in his ethical theory. Subsequent
developments in the Aristotelian tradition, particularly as it arguably
reached its culmination in St.Thomas, saw this lacuna in Aristotle’s ethical thought filled in, as a short treatment of Thomas’s natural law theory
will seek to demonstrate. Examination of Hursthouse’s contribution to
the literature on virtue ethics in the light of our engagement with the
thought of Aristotle, Thomas, and more recent exponents of this tradition—particularly John Paul II—will lead us to question whether her
thought is really neo-Aristotelian, as she claims it is, or whether it is in
reality some form of post-Cartesianism.
Hursthouse on Aristotelian Naturalism
Implicit in the ethical naturalism developed by Hursthouse is the claim
that we can know reality as it is and that reality is imbued with a structure that, when perceived, translates in some way into ethical demands.
Ethical evaluations, in this way of thinking, are analogous to evaluations
of tigers (or wolves or bees) as good, healthy specimens of their kind.This
view is in fact taken from Philippa Foot who argues that “a moral evaluation does not stand over against the statement of a matter of fact, but
rather has to do with facts about a particular subject matter.”2 Why, asks
Foot, should evaluations of the human will not be determined by human
nature? In other words, the contention seems to be that the rightness and
wrongness of human actions is in some way determined by the concrete
datum of human nature, a nature that possesses a discernible structure of
universal extension.
2 Philippa Foot, “Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake?” Oxford Journal of

Legal Studies 15 (1995): 14.

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Hursthouse adopts the same approach to ethical naturalism as Foot,
beginning with plant life, passing on to a consideration of animals and
completing her considerations with an examination of human beings.
Time and space do not permit a summary of Hursthouse’s lengthy treatment of naturalism. For the purposes of this essay, it suffices to highlight
an important dis-analogy that she notes as obtaining between animals and
human beings. Human beings do not possess characteristic modes of
behavior in the same way that animals do. The characteristic human
mode is rational: Our actions are dictated by the reasons that we have for
acting. Continuing her line of thought, Hursthouse argues that ethical
evaluations cannot therefore be “a branch of biology or ethology because
neither we nor our concepts of ‘a good human being’ and ‘living well as
a human being’ are completely constrained by nature.”3 Further, she
states that “it is an open question whether any human being is good, or
living well, given what we could be, not something that has already been
determined by nature.”4
Hursthouse does not flesh out the foregoing claim in terms of
concrete illustrations, but what she does say reveals the influence of
contemporary politically correct agendas on her moral theorizing. In a
brief consideration of feminist concerns, she denies any validity to the
notion of “essentialism.” In other words, she does not believe that it is in
the nature or essence of female human beings that they are bound to do
whatever women have always done. “We can do otherwise.”5 What
exactly she means by her rejection of essentialism is not totally clear as
she does not state her position in unequivocal terms. The analogy that
Hursthouse draws between women and female cheetahs—or, more
precisely, pregnant female cheetahs—affords some space for interpretation. Female cheetahs have “a rotten life” in comparison with their male
counterparts. Hursthouse illustrates this point in a footnote with a factual
account of the hardships experienced by female cheetahs when searching
for prey during pregnancy. These cheetahs can of course do nothing to
change their conditions; their lot is determined by nature.When Hursthouse posits that female human beings are not constrained in the same
way as cheetahs, it is difficult not to detect an implicit reference to
control of their reproductive powers. She is after all rejecting essentialism,
and essentialism has nothing to do with any accidental aids that may be
provided to a woman to render her pregnancy more comfortable. This
interpretation seems to be borne out by her assertion that “[o]ur concepts
3 Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 228.
4 Ibid., 228–29.
5 Ibid., 221.

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of ‘a good human being’ and ‘living well, as a human being’ are far from
being completely constrained by what members and biologically specialized members of our species actually, or, at the moment, typically, do.”6
Earlier on Hursthouse raises the issue of homosexual practice and
maintains that any arguments condemning it as ethically bad or defective
are not based on premises that derive straightforwardly from ethical naturalism.And, indeed, the arguments that she puts forward on behalf of those
who do regard homosexual activity as ethically problematic certainly do
not issue directly from considerations of ethical naturalism.To ask whether
or not “practicing homosexuals were all wildly, willfully promiscuous
(and thereby licentious and thereby lacking in temperance)” and whether
or not “anyone who went in for sexual activity with their own sex was
thereby lacking in temperance or thereby licentious (albeit not in the usual
way)”7 is really beside the point and does not address the serious arguments that have been adduced by those who espouse one form of ethical naturalism or other.
In order to assess the merits of the foregoing claims on the part of
Hursthouse, I propose first of all to look at Aristotle’s understanding of
the relationship between body and soul. As already stated, Aristotle did
not draw out the implications of this aspect of his thought for his ethical
theory; later contributors to the tradition, however, most notably St.
Thomas Aquinas, made good what was lacking in this respect, as we shall
see. At the term of our examination of Aristotle and Thomas, we will
return to Hursthouse in order to appraise her virtue theory with due
reference to the issue of homosexual activity.
Aristotle on the Relationship Between Soul and Body
Aristotle’s account of the relationship between the soul and body is both
cryptic and subtle and has been the subject of various interpretations on
the part of commentators.8 On the one hand he claims that the soul is
an immaterial substance, thereby rejecting the notion that soul and body
are identical and the contention that the body constitutes the soul. On
the other hand, he regards souls as ontologically dependent on bodies,
and so he cannot be regarded as some sort of Cartesian dualist.We must
therefore agree with Christopher Shields that although “Aristotle regards
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid., 215, original emphasis.
8 See, for example, Christopher Shields, “Soul and Body in Aristotle,” in Aristotle:

Critical Assessments, vol. 3, Psychology and Ethics, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson (London:
Routledge, 1999), 1–31; also, Jaegwon Kim, “Psychophysical Supervenience,”
Philosophical Studies 41 (1982): 51–70.

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soul and body as one in some important and intimate way,” there is
“reason to suppose that they are one in some way short of identity.”9
The important point remains, however, that for Aristotle an intimate
union does indeed obtain between body and soul. His insistence that
mental states are conditioned in a fundamental way by physiological states
is an affirmation of this contention. In this regard he is surely correct, for
if Cartesian dualism were true we would have to expect, as Paul M.
Churchland rightly points out, that reason, emotion, and consciousness
would be “relatively invulnerable to direct control or pathology by manipulation or damage to the brain.”10 The influence between body and soul
however is not simply a unilateral one, having the body as its source and
the soul as its terminus. A dynamic of reciprocity obtains between them.
One need only note the physiological impact of various psychological
states on the human body in support of this claim.
In spite of Aristotle’s philosophical commitment to the ontological
oneness of the human person, his ethics can nevertheless be characterized
as “an ethics of the mind,” that is to say,“a rational ethics.”11 For although
our moral life includes an activity of desire perfected by virtue, this activity itself is nonetheless executed under the guidance of reason. In spite of
this emphasis on the primacy of reason in the moral life and on the fundamentally rational character of the moral life,Aristotle nowhere tells us why
such conduct is rational.As R.-A. Gauthier states,“Aristotle establishes his
ethics on the rule which reason enunciates”; he nevertheless “refuses to go
beyond that and establish this rule itself.”12 Aristotle’s ethics in effect stops
short and fails to implement the implications of his psychology and metaphysics. On the one hand, in reaction against the pessimism of Plato’s first
teaching, he aims to do justice to the body and its relationship to the
mind. Since the body is necessary to the mind, which it serves as its instrument, so also are the external goods that are necessary to the well-being
of the body. On the other hand,Aristotle ends up by making the body not
merely the instrument of the mind but falls foul of a latent Platonism
according to which man is his mind. Consequently, in the final analysis, the
only fully human value for Aristotle is necessarily, as Gauthier puts it,“that
which alone is the value of pure mind, contemplation.” An unavoidable
9 Shields, “Soul and Body in Aristotle,” 21.
10 Paul M. Churchland, Matter and Consciousness (Cambridge, MA:The MIT Press,

1984), 20, quoted in Shields, “Soul and Body in Aristotle,” 23.
11 R.-A. Gauthier, “On the Nature of Aristotle’s Ethics,” in Aristotle’s Ethics: Issues

and Interpretations, ed. James J. Walsh and Henry L. Shapiro (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, 1967), 28.
12 Ibid.

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consequence of this primacy of reason is that “the properly moral values
connected with the body must necessarily be relegated to the instrumental level.”13 If Aristotle had developed and carried through the implications of his hylomorphic psychology, his ethical theory would perhaps
have been spared many of its inconsistencies.
Aristotle is aware of the fact that his pioneering work in ethics has its
shortcomings.What he offers is a rough sketch whose details can be filled
in later. Nevertheless, he is at the same time conscious of the value of this
summary account. Hinting very strongly at the genius of his contribution
he states: “[I]t would seem that any one is capable of carrying on and
articulating what has once been well outlined, and that time is a good
discoverer or partner in such a work; to which facts the advances of the
arts are due; for anyone can add what is lacking.”14 In the course of time
the Stoics, with their discovery and elaboration of the concept of natural
law, go beyond Aristotle. They discern laws in the very structure of
human being, expressing themselves in the very tendencies of our nature;
and they see these laws as the expression of reason itself, that is to say,
God’s reason. Thus, for the Stoics, the natural law governing human
behavior is grounded in the eternal divine law. The contribution of the
Stoics is transmitted down through a line of theologians, including St.
Augustine, to St. Thomas Aquinas. It is to the thought of Thomas, in
which the Aristotelian tradition of ethical theory arguably reached its
climax, that we now turn.
St. Thomas on Reality as the Foundation of Ethics15
As we have already indicated, Aristotle’s ethical theory fails to take
cognizance of the implications of his epistemology and metaphysics. In
contrast,Thomas’s moral theory is radically informed by epistemological
and metaphysical considerations, as we will presently demonstrate. Our
discussion will also highlight the intrinsic interrelatedness of mind and reality as well as the ontological unity of theoretical and practical reason which
for Thomas ground all moral imperatives. As will become evident, reality
has a structure that speculative reason perceives and that practical reason
translates into action.The moral value of such action is therefore measured
by reality itself.Thus, for Thomas, reality is the foundation of ethics.
13 Ibid., 29.
14 Nicomachean Ethics, I, 7, 1098a21–26.
15 The observations in this section are based to a large extent on Josef Pieper, Living

the Truth, trans. Lothar Krauth and Stella Lange (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
1989), a magisterial study of both speculative and practical truth in the thought
of Thomas Aquinas.

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That reality is the foundation of ethics depends on two conditions:
first, that the intellect can know things as they are, that is to say, that it
can attain to the truth of things; second, that human willing and action
are determined by knowledge. In relation to the first condition,Thomas
states: “The intellect penetrates to the essence of the thing.”16 As regards
the second, he posits: “The will does not have the character of the first
rule; it is rather a rule which has a rule, for it is guided by the reason and
the intellect.This is true not only in us but also in God.”17
In relation to the first condition, it is important to appreciate that
Thomas’s philosophical realism, which he inherited from Aristotle, is radically different to modern conceptions of the relationship between mind
and reality. In his theory of intentionality, Thomas maintains an identity
between the actualization of the capacity for thinking and the actualization of the object of thought. This identity arises from the fact that the
intellect has no inherent structure or matter of its own, while the object
of intellectual thought possesses no existence apart from thought itself. It
is precisely in this assimilation (adequatio) of reality and mind that truth
consists. And as Josef Pieper rightly points out, it is this assimilation and
consequent identity that establishes reality as the measure of the intellect.18 Reality as the measure of the intellect furnishes the first condition
of reality’s also being the foundation of ethics. To understand why this is
so, we must pass on to a consideration of the second condition.
The passage from the identity between mind and reality, occasioned by
the act of intellection, to moral imperatives is explained by Thomas’s
profoundly unitary conception of human reason. We can discern two
modes of operation of one and the same intellect. First, there is the speculative reason, whereby we contemplate the structure of being. Second, there
is practical reason that governs human action. It is important, however, to
emphasize that for Thomas these two modes of operation are grounded
in one and the same intellect. For Thomas practical reason is in fact an
16 ST I–II, q. 31, a. 5, my translation: “Intellectus vero penetrat usque ad rei essen-

tiam.” See also ST I, q. 84, a. 7: “The proper object of the human intellect, . . .
since it is joined to a body, is a nature or ‘whatness’ found in corporeal matter”
(Intellectus . . . humani, qui est conjunctus corpori, proprium objectum est quidditas sive natura in materia corporali existens.). The following translations of
Aquinas’s works are employed in this article, unless otherwise noted: Summa
Theologiae, ed. Blackfriars (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1964–1981); and
Truth, trans. Robert W. Schmidt, S.J., 4 vols. (Cambridge: Hackett, 1994).
17 De veritate, 23, 6: “Voluntas autem non habet rationem primae regulae, sed est
regula recta; dirigitur enim per rationem et intellectum, non solum in nobis sed
et in Deo.”
18 Pieper, Living the Truth, 134.

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extension of the theoretical.19 The practical reason presupposes the theoretical and is rooted in it. In effect, therefore, the reality that is perceived by
speculative reason is translated into action by practical reason. At the same
time therefore this reality constitutes the measure of human action. For
reality is the measure of reason in its speculative mode of activity, while
practical reason is grounded in and is an extension of speculative reason.
It becomes clear that Thomas’s unitary understanding of the human
intellect is crucial for his ethical realism. For the practical reason is the
measure of right action precisely because it has received this measure
from objective reality by way of the speculative intellect of which it is an
extension. For Thomas ethical imperatives are founded upon ontological
indicatives, that is to say, upon the way things are. Because of the ontological unity of the intellect, there can be no disjunction between “is” and
“ought.” The practical reason simply translates the knowledge of being
gained by the theoretical reason into the realm of action. The penetrating insight of Goethe thus becomes more intelligible to us, namely that
“[I]n our doing and acting everything depends on this, that we comprehend objects clearly and treat them according to their nature.”20
It becomes clear that reality grounds any action that can be called truly
virtuous.Virtuous action is in effect faithful to the nature of things.This
contention is implicit in Aristotle’s virtue ethics, but as we have seen, it
is not developed. Aristotle in fact recognizes that passions such as spite,
shamelessness, and envy as well as actions such as adultery, theft, and
murder are always bad:“It is not possible, then, ever to be right with regard
to them; one must always be wrong.”21 Why such passions and actions are
always wrong is grounded in the fact that they are out of sync with the
nature of reality; in other words, as can be well appreciated from our
delineation of Thomas’s thought, they mistranslate the demands that issue
from the very structure of all reality, in particular the reality of the human
person. All things possess a structure that determines how they can fulfill
their potential.
Human beings of course are not determined ad unum; nevertheless,
the structure of human being, constituted as it is by an intimate connec19 ST I, q. 79, a. 11, s.c.
20 Quoted in Pieper, Living the Truth, 108. Pieper offers an analysis of the structure

of the extension of reason from the sight of the good to the command that is
directed toward action (Living the Truth, 145–51). He does not however deal with
the problem of bad choice or with the aporia of the apparent good. It is not
possible in a study of this scope to deal with this issue. For a very fine treatment
of the same, see Rafael-Tomás Caldera, Le jugement par inclination chez saint
Thomas d’Aquin (Paris:Vrin, 1980).
21 Nicomachean Ethics, II, 6.

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tion between mind and body, certainly determines that while some
courses of action contribute to its flourishing, others impede the fulfillment of its potential.This conclusion follows from an Aristotelian understanding of human nature in which the human substance is viewed as a
unitary composite being in its ontological constitution. If the rational
soul were to act contrary to the demands of corporeal matter, it would
in a real sense be violating the very structure of its own being. Thus,
although reason does transcend the physical limitations of bodily being,
the good of bodily being is nonetheless integral to its (reason’s) own wellbeing.This conclusion is based on the intimate connection between body
and soul. Virtue demands that human physicality serve reason, but also
that reason in turn respect and serve the physical structure of our being.
The Natural Law and Eternal Law
In the foregoing section we have provided a brief account of the metaphysical and epistemological background to natural law theory in the
thought of St.Thomas, for as he himself states,“the natural law is constituted by reason.”22 In this present section our task is to clarify Thomas’s
notion of natural law further by showing how it is intimately connected
with the eternal law, since for Thomas “the light of natural reason
whereby we discern good and evil is simply the imprint of God’s light in
us.”23 Indeed, one could ask how binding the natural law could be if it
were not grounded in the eternal law.
According to Thomas the intrinsic forms24 of created artifacts are
patterned after the preceding original forms that reside in creatively
knowing minds. The paradigmatic form in the mind of an artist can
rightly be considered to be the “measure” of the created reality: The
created object is measured by the extent to which it lives up to the
demands of the paradigmatic form. At the same time we can say that the
mind of the artist is present in the objective, material work. In other
words, the work itself in some way reflects the mind of the artist. In a
similar way all created things reflect something of the divine essence,
according to Thomas, although “different things imitate the divine
essence in different ways, each according to its own proper manner.”25
Indeed,Thomas states that the forms of things are “nothing else but the
22 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 1.
23 ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2.
24 By form we mean the intrinsic principle that specifies a particular being, that is

to say, that intrinsic principle that makes a particular being what it is.
25 De veritate, q. 3, a. 2.

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imprint of divine knowledge in things,”26 for the primordial forms of
things reside in God’s mind.
We have already highlighted the identity between mind and reality
occasioned by the act of intellection. What the intellect knows are the
forms of things, the very forms that are reflections of the eternal divine
ideas. On account of its form, therefore, a thing itself is proportioned to
the divine intellect as a product of art is to art. Because of the same form,
moreover, the thing is able to conform our own intellect to it, insofar as
its likeness, being received into the soul, causes the thing itself to be
known.27 On the basis of the foregoing assertion, Pieper concludes that
“the truth inherent in all things in view of God’s mind is the foundation
and root of their truth in view of the knowing human mind.”28
In the light of the foregoing we can perhaps see the significance of
Thomas’s assertion that the natural law is a “participation in the eternal
law by the rational creature.”29 Of course no one except the blessed, who
see God in his essence, can know the eternal law as it is in itself. However,
just as we can know the sun by the effects of its rays even though we are
not looking at it, so too we can know some of the radiating effects of the
eternal law. Our brief comments concerning the divine ideas as the eternal, preconceived forms of all created things and human intellection as
being constituted in an identity between mind and reality ought to be
sufficient to indicate how “every truth is a radiation and participation of
the eternal law.”30 The law that governs human nature “exists only in the
mind of God, and not in created nature,” as Martin Rhonheimer rightly
points out. Rhonheimer explains further:“This order [the natural law] . . .
is not at all a ‘natural order,’ but rather an ‘order of the reason’ (ordo rationis) that exists from eternity in God, and which is then constituted, by
the mediation of human reason, in acts of the will and in particular
actions.”31 William Desmond expresses this same idea in completely
26 De veritate, q. 2, a. 1, ad 6. My translation.
27 See De veritate, q. 1, a. 5, ad 2.
28 Pieper, Living the Truth, 52.
29 ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2.
30 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 2.
31 Martin Rhonheimer, Natural Law and Practical Reason: A Thomist View of Moral

Autonomy, trans. Gerald Malsbary (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000),
66. (In quoting Rhonheimer in this respect I do not wish to give the impression
that I endorse his overall interpretation of St. Thomas on the natural law.) It
should be noted that the precepts of natural law are based on the first principle
of practical reason, namely that “we should do and seek the good, and shun evil”
(ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2).This principle is in turn founded on the nature of the good,
for the good is “what all things seek” (ibid.). A more exhaustive treatment of the

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different terms when he asserts that natural law concerns a “grounding
good as other to the human, not as a dualistic opposite but as the giver
of the good within which we participate, and of which we are never
masters.”32 This participation is of course by way of human reason.
At this point in our discussion we have shown, albeit in somewhat
succinct manner, how Aquinas draws out the logical implications of Aristotle’s understanding of human nature for an understanding of virtue.We have
also briefly indicated how the structures that human reason perceives in
reality reflect something of God’s design for his creation. Human reason, by
engaging with the forms of things, whose ideas have existed from all eternity in the divine mind, constitutes the natural law. It is now time to turn
to a consideration of homosexual activity in the light of what we have said.
The Structure of the Homosexual Act
and Its Ethical Implications
In the reflections that follow I agree with the assertion that a person’s
sexual orientation—whether heterosexual or homosexual or otherwise—
“is a complex human and psychological reality which admits of no easy
explanation.”33 This fact does not preclude us, however, from engaging in
a moral appraisal of acts that follow from this orientation any more than
an individual’s kleptomaniac or pyromaniac orientation disallows any
evaluation of actions that issue from such inclinations.34
I make no apologies for concentrating on the physical aspect of homosexual acts for, as we shall see, those who prefer to concentrate uniquely
on the more “spiritual” dynamics of homosexual physical relationships
ignore an important fact, namely that relationality cannot prescind from
the corporeal conditions of our being. We simply do not relate to one
another as disembodied spirits, but rather as body-soul unities. Indeed, it
is to our bodies that others first relate as they come to know us as the
physical-psychical beings we are.35 As John Paul II puts it,“the body reveals
issue would demonstrate how what is truly good for human beings is proportioned to human nature and therefore facilitates the fulfillment of its potential.
32 William Desmond, Ethics and the Between (Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press, 2001), 193.
33 Vincent J. Genovesi, S.J., In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality
(Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1987), 255.
34 Homosexual orientation ought of course to be carefully distinguished from
homosexual acts. Homosexual orientation in itself is not immoral, although it is
objectively disordered on account of its intrinsic ordination to expression in acts
that are themselves immoral.
35 “Psychical” is here employed in accordance with its derivation from the Greek
term, psyche, meaning “soul.”

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man,”36 thereby underlining the ontologically unitary nature of the
human person and the fact that we come to know a person by means of
his body that is partly constitutive of him as a person.37 The incoherence
of the position of those who maintain that if the body is meant to express
the person then the individual should be able to choose the manner in
which this expression is articulated ought to be apparent from my insistence on this point. How can we be slaves to the biological functions of
our bodies if these bodies are partly constitutive of whom we are?
Indeed, it is precisely because they are partly constitutive of human
beings as psychosomatic unities that biological functions acquire a meaning that they do not possess in the case of the other animals. As Janet E.
Smith tells us,
it is because of the nature of Man, not because of the nature of the
biological processes per se, that Man must not interfere with these
processes. It is because the generative biological processes of Man mean
something much greater for Man than they do for animals that these
biological processes are evaluated differently.38
36 John Paul II, The Theology of the Body: Human Love in the Divine Plan (Boston:

Pauline Books and Media, 1997), 47.
37 In his earlier work, John Paul II offers a prolonged exposition concerning the

nature of the complex relationship that obtains between body and soul, emphasizing once again the idea that the body is the means of expression of the person:“It
is generally recognized that the human body is in its visible dynamism the territory where, or in a way even the medium whereby, the person expresses himself.
Strictly speaking, the personal structure of self-governance and self-possession may
be thought of as ‘traversing’ the body and being expressed by the body.” (The Acting
Person, trans. by Andrzej Potocki [London: D. Reidel, 1979], 204). While highlighting the personal unity of human beings, John Paul II draws our attention to
the fact that there is “intrinsically built into the personal structure of man’s unity,
a structure that exists and is dynamized according to nature—in a different way
than the way of the person” (ibid., 211).The author is however at pains to point
out that “the human body does not constitute a separate subject standing apart
from the subject that is the man-person. The unity of the body with the ontic
subjectivity of man—with the human factor—cannot be doubted” (ibid.).
38 Janet E. Smith, Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later (Washington, DC: Catholic
University of America Press, 1991), 177.While the focus of Smith’s discussion in
this book is contraception, what she says can be applied mutatis mutandis to
homosexual acts. In both cases, however, accusations of physicalism—the idea
that the biological structure of the sexual organs are of themselves morally
normative—are completely out of place and betray a lack of appreciation of the
anthropology that I have outlined. The following words penned by Elizabeth
Anscombe in 1975 highlight the connection between contraception and homosexuality (as well as other forms of sexual activity) as being rooted in a view that
ignores the procreative meaning of the sexual act: “If contraceptive intercourse

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Thus, although knowledge of the ordination of the sexual organs is not
sufficient for the moral evaluation of homosexual acts, they are nonetheless an essential component. It is necessary to be clear on this point:What
I am presenting here is not an argument based simply on the natural ordination of organs. On account of the psychosomatic unity of human
beings, the natural ordination of the sexual organs acquires a meaning
that, although firmly rooted in their physical structure, nevertheless transcends it. As Veritatis Splendor states:
Only in reference to the human person in his “unified totality,” that is, as
“a soul which expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an
immortal spirit,” can the specifically human meaning of the body be
grasped. Indeed, natural inclinations take on moral relevance only insofar
as they refer to the human person and his authentic fulfillment, a fulfillment which for that matter can take place always and only in human nature.39

If moreover, as Thomas Aquinas tells us, the forms of things are “nothing else but the imprint of divine knowledge in things,”40 an important
consequence ensues: Human beings are not the arbiters of their own
nature and therefore ought not to act as if they were. This nature issues
from the creative act of God and bears the impress of his reason, an
impress that the human mind is capable of discerning when it genuinely
is permissible, then what objection could there be after all to mutual masturbation, or copulation in vase indebito, sodomy, buggery, when normal copulation is
impossible or inadvisable (or in any case, according to taste)? It can’t be the mere
pattern of bodily behavior in which the stimulation is procured that makes all
the difference! But if such things are all right, it becomes perfectly impossible to
see anything wrong with homosexual intercourse, for example. I am not saying:
if you think contraception all right you will do these other things; not at all. But
I am saying: you will have no solid reason against these things.You will have no
answer to someone who proclaims as many do that they are good too” (G. E. M.
Anscombe, Contraception and Chastity [London: Catholic Truth Society, 1975],
18). Interestingly, this point is corroborated by Charles Curran, arguing from a
diametrically opposed perspective: “Catholic theologians frequently deny the
existing teaching of the hierarchical Magisterium on such issues as contraception, sterilization, artificial insemination, masturbation, the generic gravity of
sexual sins. Newer approaches have recently been taken to the question of
homosexuality. . . . All these questions in the area of medical and sexual morality
are being questioned today because some theologians believe that the absolute
prohibitions define the forbidden action in terms of the physical structure of the
act seen in itself apart from the context, the existing relationships, or the consequences.” New Perspectives in Moral Theology (Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1976), 20, quoted in Smith, Humanae Vitae, 383, note 19.
39 John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §50, emphasis added.
40 De veritate, q. 2, a. 1, ad 6, my translation.

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seeks the truth of human being. It is helpful here, I think, to invoke John
Paul II’s distinction between the order of nature/existence and the biological order. He tells us that “The order of existence is the Divine Order,
although existence is not in itself something supernatural. But then the
Divine Order includes not only the supernatural order but the order of
nature too, which also stands in a permanent relationship to God and the
Creator.” In contrast, the biological order means “the same as the order of
nature but only insofar as this is accessible to the methods of empirical and
descriptive natural science, and not as a specific order of existence with an
obvious relationship to the First Cause, to God the Creator.”41 The human
person stands in relationship to God the Creator as a psychosomatic unity,
being neither soul alone nor body alone.We do not therefore possess our
bodies absolutely since they belong to the order of nature, not only to the
biological order.This conclusion has important practical implications:We
cannot use the human body, that divine gift that partly constitutes us in
our personhood, in ways that contradict the demands of its design.To do
so would constitute an attack on one’s own person, thereby undermining
one’s personal dignity. The medium of expression of one’s person, the
body, is endowed with a design that indicates how human flourishing—
that is to say, the flourishing of the body-soul composite, that of the
human person in his unitary entirety—can be realized.42
It does seem reasonable to think that divine Wisdom has ordained that
the authentic and complete fulfillment of human freedom is predicated
upon the kind of beings we are, namely beings that are at once physical and
spiritual. Veritatis Splendor draws attention to this point when it states that
“[t]he natural law . . . does not allow for any division between freedom and
nature. Indeed, these two realities are harmoniously bound together, and
each is intimately linked to the other.”43 Manipulations of corporeity in the
41 Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, trans. H.T Willetts (London: Collins, 1981),

56–57.
42 John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §48, expresses this point as follows: “The person,

by the light of reason and the support of virtue, discovers in the body anticipatory signs, the expression and the promise of the gift of self, in conformity with
the wise plan of the Creator. It is in light of the dignity of the human person—
a dignity which must be affirmed for its own sake—that reason grasps the
specific moral value of certain goods towards which the person is naturally
inclined. And since the human person cannot be reduced to a freedom which is
self-designing, but entails a particular spiritual and bodily structure, the primordial moral requirement of loving and respecting the person as an end and never
as a mere means also implies, by its very nature, respect for certain fundamental
goods, without which one would fall into relativism and arbitrariness.”
43 John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §50.

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form of homosexual acts therefore negate the eudaemonistic design of God
for human nature while concomitantly undermining true human freedom.
In the realm of interpersonal relationships, this design bespeaks the
complete self-donation of husband and wife to each other as being the
only context in which sexual relations have a legitimate place.The body
is the visible expression of the person and its actions therefore have a
sacramental significance, that is to say, bodily gestures and actions that are
knowingly and willingly executed are external concrete manifestations of
a person’s internal dispositions. In the absence of the reciprocal self-donation that can alone be offered and secured by the exchange of public
marriage vows, the physical union effected in conjugal relations speaks
the language of deception.The language of the body in this case affirms
the existence of a total self-surrender of man and woman to each other,
a reality that in fact does not obtain at all. Private promises are not sufficient to ensure the surrender of self to another that is proper to marriage
and that receives its concrete sacramental expression in the act of sexual
intercourse.44 This conclusion is demanded by the logic of human
personhood in which the body expresses that reality of which it is itself
partly constitutive.
The embodied nature of the human condition necessarily endows it
with a spousal significance.A complementarity obtains between the sexes,
one in which male and female are exclusively ordered to one another. As
44 As Richard M. Hogan and John M. LeVoir explain by way of comparison,“Even

in the lesser self-gift which constitutes employment agreements, most would not
trust a private, and therefore, non-binding agreement. How much more, then,
when it is one’s total self which is being surrendered, is it necessary to know with
certainty that the other is truly giving himself/herself?” Public exchange of
marriage vows serves to impress upon each of the partners the seriousness of the
commitment being undertaken. “With that knowledge, each may be reasonably
certain of the intention of the other. Each will have given his/her decision more
careful consideration than they would a non-binding private act.” (“The Family
and Sexuality,” in John Paul II and Moral Theology, ed. Charles E. Curran and
Richard A. McCormick, S.J. [New York: Paulist Press, 1988], 170–71.) These
comments of course relate to marriage in general and not specifically to the
sacramental union of baptized Christians. In sacramental marriage the two
spouses are united not only in a communion of persons between themselves;
they are also united in Christ, who elevates this communion to a union in the
Trinity. So, conclude Hogan and LeVoir,“If the communion of persons of the nonbaptized requires a public act, how much more should the sacrament of Matrimony, an act of the Church, require a public act before a priest or, by a special
dispensation, before another official. Obviously, Christians cannot express this
union before it is present. Pre-marital sex is thus gravely wrong because it is a
violation of the sacramental union as well as of the call given by God in His
creative act to form a familial communion of persons” (ibid., 171).

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Hogan and LeVoir put it, “The bodily differences between a man and a
woman are the physical means by which the unselfish donation of love is
made.”45 The sexual act therefore ought to be “the total physical surrender of each spouse to the other in all of his or her potentialities,” thereby
reflecting that total personal surrender of persons effected through the
marriage vows. Sexual complementarity alone, moreover, can lead to the
transmission of life.Thus, conjugal relations place a couple firmly within
the succession of generations as well as grafting them into their community. By its very nature, in contrast, the sterility of the homosexual act is
devoid of both historical and social meaning. In the words of Fabian
Bruskewitz, “It remains locked in an unreal moment outside time and
social responsibility.”46 It might perhaps be argued that it is in fact by
virtue of their own ontological constitution that homosexual acts leave
those who perform them with a sense of historical and social exclusion.
Just as homosexual partners must struggle against the physical endowments of nature, so too are they confronted with the wider conditions of
human being—conditions that are predicated upon the fact that the
language of the body is that of sexual complementarity—that also prove
to be insuperable for them.
According to the logic of human embodiment the language of the
homosexual act can never express a communion of persons, given that
the very structure of this act precludes sexual complementarity. The
inability of this act to attain the end inscribed in human nature as constituted in the complementarity of male and female means that the
attempted simulation of sexual union is destined to failure and frustration. This failure is arguably not without its psychological ramifications.
The metaphysical constitution of the human person provides a rationale
for this assertion. In homosexual activity reason does not respect the
physical structure of human being. Recognizing instead that it does in
some way transcend the limitations of its material embodiment, reason
attempts to subject the physical aspect of human being to its control and
to manipulate it, regardless of the moral imperatives that issue from the
very structure of human being in its totality. Given the intimate relation
that obtains between body and soul, a relationship in which the good of
each redounds to that of the other, it seems plausible to suggest that the
kind of subjection and manipulation of corporeal being that is characteristic of homosexual activity can yield only negative results for the soul
that animates it. Put differently, anthropological considerations lead us to
45 Ibid., 176.
46 Fabian Bruskewitz, “Homosexuality and Catholic Doctrine,” Position Papers 371

(2004): 301–2.

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understand how the frustration of the design inscribed within the being
of the male and female bodies might have a negative impact on the
mental state of the human subjects involved in homosexual activity.47
This point is of course a speculative one and stands in need of verification—or falsification—by the findings of psychological research.
Contemporary psychology and psychiatry, however, corroborate the view
that objectivity is one the most important factors in maintaining—or
reacquiring—psychic health.48 And objectivity implies the dependence
of moral conduct upon reason and the dependence of reason upon reality, and therefore the dependence of moral action on reality.
Hursthouse’s Position: An Appraisal
We have already indicated that for Aristotle certain classes of action are
always wrong.They do not admit of a mean because they “imply by their
names that they themselves are bad, and not the excesses or deficiencies
of them.”49 It is his failure to draw out the implications of his hylomorphic theory that explains why he cannot account for this badness. Instead,
as we have seen, he ultimately gives reign in his ethical theory to the
Platonic view according to which man is his mind. Nevertheless, the
primacy that Aristotle accords to human reason does not justify the claim
that he relegates to the instrumental level the properly moral values
connected with the body.50 His claim is simply that the exercise of reason
47 This frustration, and concomitant unhappiness, is further exacerbated by the

impossibility of enjoying the fruit of the sexual design inscribed in the condition
of human embodiment. Gareth Moore, O.P., in attempting to critique what he
deems to be defective arguments concerning the morality of homosexuality,
accepts this point. “Children are a great good in human life which homosexual
men and women normally cannot share in, and that inability is regretted by
many of them” (The Body in Context: Sex and Catholicism [London: SCM, 1992],
207).The fact that some homosexual couples may seek to adopt children cannot
take away from the fact that their own sexual activity, by its intrinsic ordination,
can never produce offspring. While Moore offers spirited arguments, they ultimately fail because they remain at the level of phenomena and fail to address the
anthropological foundations of sexuality.
48 Thus, for example,Albert Ellis maintains that “REBT [Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy] holds that most neurotic problems involve magical, empirically
unvalidatable thinking and that if disturbance-creating ideas are vigorously
disputed by logico-empirical thinking they can be recognized as false and minimized.” (“Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy,” Current Psychotherapies, ed.
Raymond J. Corsini and Danny Wedding [Itasca, IL: Peacock, 1995], 162.) See
also Tom Gibert, “Some Reflections on Critical Thinking and Mental Health,”
Teaching Philosophy 26 (2003): 333–49; and Pieper, Living the Truth, 173–74.
49 Nicomachean Ethics, II, 6.
50 Gauthier, “On the Nature of Aristotle’s Ethics,” 29.

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is the noblest of all human pursuits. Consequently, he who cultivates
reason, namely the philosopher, will be the happiest of all men.51 Granted,
Aristotle recognizes that those who devote themselves to contemplation
require certain physical necessities to be taken care of. Here, however, we
witness more a tacit recognition on his part of the composite nature of
human being than of an instrumentalist attitude toward the body. Indeed,
he comments that “the moral virtues must belong to our composite
nature.”52 Nowhere does he justify actions that fail to respect the demands
that issue from the physical aspect of this nature, supporting his position
on the grounds that reason transcends the conditions of corporeality.53
It is precisely in the foregoing respect that Hursthouse parts company
with Aristotle in her exaltation of transcendent reason.The argument of
the preceding paragraph rules out any claim to the effect that she is
simply taking her cue from the equivocations that are present in Aristotle’s own ethical thought. It seems that in spite of her best efforts, she has
fallen foul of the philosophical attitudes of modernity and postmodernity. Such attitudes are described by William Desmond as “themselves the
echo of philosophical, religious, and cultural formations shaping us
behind our backs.”54 In particular, I argue that she has succumbed to a
Cartesian understanding of the relationship between body and soul along
with its attendant consequences. Rhonheimer describes this understanding quite succinctly: “The Cartesian and post-Cartesian model of much
modern thought assumes that the spiritual powers of the human supposi51 Nicomachean Ethics, X, 8.
52 Ibid., emphasis added.
53 The following words of Alasdair MacIntyre are very instructive in relation to the

point just made: “But some commentators . . . have failed to ask the relevant
questions about the relationship between our rationality and our animality.They
have underestimated the importance of the fact that our bodies are animal bodies
with the identity and continuities of animal bodies, and they have failed to
recognize adequately that in this present life it is true of us that we do not merely
have, but are our bodies. Other commentators have understood this. And it was
his reading not only of Aristotle, but also of Ibn Rushd’s commentary that led
Aquinas to assert: ‘Since the soul is part of the body of a human being, the soul
is not the whole human being and my soul is not I’ (Commentary on Paul’s First
Letter to the Corinthians XV, 1, 11; note also that Aquinas, unlike most moderns,
often refers to nonhuman animals as ‘other animals’). This is a lesson that those
of us who identify ourselves as contemporary Aristotelians may have to relearn,
perhaps from those phenomenological investigations that enabled MerleauPonty also to conclude that I am my body.” Dependent Rational Animals: Why
Human Beings Need the Virtues (London: Duckworth, 1999), 6.
54 Desmond, Ethics and the Between, 18.

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tum make use of the body ‘for their purposes.’ ”55 The kind of dualistic
anthropology that Descartes bequeathed to Western civilization
inevitably leads to an ethics that regards the natural as utterly disposable.56
There has been a loss of a sense that there is a structure inscribed within
the very being of things, a structure that can be discerned by human
reason and that indicates the parameters within which good moral action
necessarily unfolds. The human body is no exception to the metaphysical blindness that has so afflicted both modernity and postmodernity.
Hursthouse’s comments concerning homosexuality are a case in point.
Against Hursthouse I argue that while an Aristotelian must readily
grant that the concepts of “good human beings” and “living well as a
human being” are not completely constrained by physical nature, reason
cannot so transcend and dominate the physical aspect of human nature
in such a way as to force it to act contrary to its intrinsic inclinations; or,
more precisely, a person cannot employ reason in this way and still remain
virtuous. Being virtuous is acting in accordance with our highest principle, namely reason; and, as I hope to have shown, reality, reason, and action
are intimately connected. As Pieper expresses it, “he who attempts to
survey at one glance this circuit—reality, understanding, action—and to
express it in one word, will find that evil ultimately proves to be an ‘ontic’
contradiction, a contradiction of being, something that opposes reality,
that does not correspond to ‘the thing.’ ”57 The notion of morality as being
concerned with the flourishing of the human person cannot therefore be
divorced from considerations of the objective structure of human being.
This is one way in which Thomas Aquinas developed the metaphysical
implications inherent in Aristotle’s ethical theory.
Conclusion
Although Hursthouse begins by taking some steps in the direction of
acknowledging the necessity of metaphysical foundations if one is to
defend the notion of objectivity in morals—evidenced by her treatment
of ethical naturalism—she eventually succumbs to a Cartesian attitude
when dealing with specific practical issues. Indeed, the subjective turn in
her ethics reflects more Kant’s Copernican revolution than Aristotle’s
attention to the nature of things. Blind to the exigencies of human being,
constituted as it is as a composite of body and soul, her virtue ethics ends
up in an attempt on the part of reason to master and to subvert the
55 Rhonheimer, Natural Law and Practical Reason, 124.
56 Ibid., 64.
57 Pieper, Living the Truth, 113.

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corporeal conditions of personal being.These particular shortcomings of
Hursthouse’s attempt to construct a virtue ethics for our own times also
arise from her failure to appreciate the implications of Aristotelian epistemology for ethical theory, in particular those of the identity of mind
and reality in the act of cognition. Indeed, she never even refers to this
aspect of Aristotle’s thought.This failure is of course bound up with her
lack of appreciation of the ethical implications of Aristotelian hylomorphism, that is to say, the theory of form and matter as it applies to the
human person. It is precisely in engaging with reality that man’s highest
principle, namely reason, is actualized and realizes its potential. Given the
identity of mind and reality in the act of cognition, eudaimonism cannot
be dissociated from objective considerations, that is to say, reference to the
structure of reality itself. Because of its intimate connection to the body,
the flourishing of human reason depends on the extent to which it
respects the ethical demands that issue from the body, in virtue of the
tendencies inscribed within its physical structure.
Hursthouse in her ethical reflections ignores the deeper connections
between being, the good, and the true. Indeed, in contrast to the Aristotelian tradition as it developed, there is no hint of belief that the ground
of value is God.As for Kant external authority, even divine, can provide no
criterion for morality. The precepts of morality, insofar as they pertain to
the human body, are constituted by human reason; happiness, which is
intrinsic to the proper functioning of man’s highest principle, is invested
with its contemporary, superficial meaning of subjective pleasure devoid of
any objective reference. That attainment of a good proportioned to our
human nature as a necessary condition for true happiness has been lost
sight of.58 The idea that God as the supreme Good is the final end of
human activity to which all other human ends ought to be ordered is also
absent. If time and space permitted, one could show how it is the failure of
reason to operate within the existential tension of reality as posited in the
created ontological space between the divine being as both first and final
cause of all finite being that leads to the darkening of reason and a disordering of desire so characteristic of much contemporary moral debate.59 In
this regard, it is striking that the few concrete illustrations that Hursthouse
offers in order to explicate how her version of virtue ethics deals with the
human body all reveal the politically correct agendas of contemporary
58 See ST I–II, q. 2, a. 6.
59 For some extended discussions of the notion of life in the divine tension as a

prerequisite for the proper functioning of reason, see Eric Voegelin, Anamnesis,
trans. Gerhart Niemeyer (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1978).

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Western civilization, a civilization that has to a large degree withdrawn
from life in that existential tension we have just mentioned. Her virtue
theory, insofar as it deals with practical ethical issues, thus reveals itself to be
subjectivist, immanentist, and socially conditioned.
N&V

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Causality and the Analogia entis:
Karl Barth’s Rejection of Analogy
of Being Reconsidered
A RCHIE J. S PENCER
Trinity Western University
Langley, British Columbia

R ECENT ATTEMPTS at rehabilitating the so-called “Catholic
doctrine of the analogia entis” by some scholars in the Radical Orthodox
group and in the Catholic/Orthodox traditions illustrate both the
complexity of the concept of analogy and the propensity for historical
misunderstanding regarding the various proponents and critics of the
analogia entis.1
1 The roots of the discussion surely go back to a misunderstanding on many levels

that began with a dialogue between Karl Barth and Eric Przywara. But recent
attempts at establishing Przywara’s position against Barth’s have issued in even
deeper misunderstandings. The locus classicus is, of course, Hans Urs von
Balthaasar’s well-known book, The Theology of Karl Barth; Exposition and Interpretation, trans. Edward T. Oakes (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992).The research
carried on since would fill many pages. Our immediate concern is with recent
attempts to rehabilitate the somewhat discredited view of von Balthaasar and
Przywara, seen especially in David Hart’s book, The Beauty of the Infinite: The
Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), wherein he
states, “Most of the details of such an ontology (analogy of being) have already, in
much of the preceding, been described, and so I shall add only a few elaborations (and it has all been said incomparably better by that most biblical of theologians, Dionysius, in The Divine Names ); and I should note that, in choosing the
term analogia entis, I am using it in the very particular sense it was given in the
last century by the remarkable Eric Przywara. It is, one must acknowledge, a
controversial turn of phrase among some Christian thinkers: Karl Barth’s notorious, fairly barbarous, rejection of the analogia entis as the ‘invention of
antichrist,’ and the principle reason for not becoming Roman Catholic was
directed at Przywara’s book—a verdict that, frankly, speaks only of Barth’s failure

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Archie J. Spencer

The purpose of this essay is to reconsider the question of Karl Barth’s
rejection of the analogia entis, with special reference to the concept of
causality. The thesis presented herein is simple, but it has profound implications for further understanding of analogy in the Catholic and Protestant traditions in their dialogue with one another. I shall argue that Barth’s
rejection of the analogia entis can be better understood in the light of his
rejection of the Catholic understanding of causality that lies at the heart
of the Thomistic doctrine of analogy. Only when we account for this
aspect of Barth’s argument can we truly understand the most important
reason why he rejects the analogia entis. Despite opting for a form of
analogical method and his apparent “misunderstanding” of Eric Przywara’s
doctrine of analogy, Barth remains consistent in this rejection of the
Thomistic conception.To demonstrate Barth’s concern with the principle
of causality in Aquinas and his heirs, Scholasticism and ReformedScholasticism, we need to trace the appeal to causality in the rereading of
Aristotle in the cosmology and theology of Pseudo-Dionysius (following
Proclus) as it is mediated through the philosophy and theology of
Aquinas.2 Here we shall engage the one theologian who seems to have
to understand Przywara. Whether one takes Barth’s pronouncement, as Jüngel
and others have done, as a reaction against the remoteness of God that so ‘empty
a concept as “being” actually suggests’ or, rather more correctly in all likelihood,
as a rejection of what Barth took to be a form of natural theology, it is ultimately
nothing but an example of inane (and cruel) invective” (241). Betz says something similar, and somewhat in support of Hart in his “Beyond the Sublime:The
Aesthetics of the Analogy of Being (Part One),” Modern Theology 21 (2005):
367–408. Betz accuses Barth of paying “little attention to detail” in his critique
of Przywara and yet completely overlooks the detailed arguments Barth offers
himself against what he considers to be the analogia entis. So at least the misunderstanding is mutual at the end of the day. He continues his polemic against
Barth in “Part Two.” See Modern Theology 22 (2006): 1–50.
2 The literature on Aquinas’s connection with Platonism has grown considerably
since the publication of Etienne Gilson’s Being and Some Philosophers (Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1952), a work that has provided no small
impetus in recent Thomistic scholarship along the lines of a neo-Platonic connection. Hart seems to think that his force is spent within Thomistic scholarship but
this is a much mistaken assumption. Says Hart, “So, now that Gilson and others
who so enormously exaggerated Thomas’s originality no longer dominate
Thomistic scholarship, we may certainly, if we wish, retreat from Thomas’s exquisitely refined terminology to earlier moments in the continuous tradition of
Christian ontology that he was interpreting—to the Cappadocians, or Augustine,
or Maximus, above all to Dionysius the Areopagite—and choose some other
words,‘energeia,’‘plenitude,’‘light,’‘the Good,’ etc.” Beauty of the Infinite, 223. Many
examples of recent scholarship can be adduced to put this misunderstanding to
rest but none is more pertinent to our present discussion than the excellent work

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been most attentive to these problems, namely Eberhard Jüngel. This
Dionysian/Proclan reading of causality, briefly stated as “effects resemble
their cause,” is employed throughout the Middle Ages as a fundamental
epistemic axiom for the knowledge of God and nature. Furthermore, it
functions as a veritable metaphysics, a totalizing principle, a genus under
which all else has its being, and by which we may know being.3
It can be further demonstrated that Aquinas, and medieval theology
after him, appear to have derived an ontology of being from this Aristotelian–neo-Platonic conception of causality when we further consider
of Wayne Hankey, especially his God in Himself:Aquinas’ Doctrine of God as Expounded
in the Summa Theologica (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
3 The development of the concept of causality from Plato through to Aristotle and
on to its neo-Platonic reinterpretation in Plotinus, Porphry, Iamblicus, and specifically Proclus, are of special significance for our study here. In his ground-breaking study, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics: A Study in the Greek
Background of Mediaeval Thought (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
1951), Joseph Owens states with regard to the treatment of cause in the Aristotelian
Metaphysics, bk. IV, that; “In this discussion Aristotle has linked ‘universal’ knowledge with knowledge ‘through cause.’The implication is that a cognition based just
on experience of singular instances, no matter how numerous, cannot be extended
to all instances. So it never rises to the order of art or wisdom. If you know the
cause of a thing however, you do know what is going to happen or be present in
every possible case, regardless of your experience or lack of experience of particular instances.” He goes on to conclude,“this doctrine does seem to involve a notion
of cause based ultimately upon the eídoy or ‘form.’ . . . It implies some kind of
identification of ‘cause’ and ‘universal.’ Whatever its explanation may be, such an
identification can hardly help having important consequences in the Aristotelian
philosophy.” Furthermore, says Owens; “If Entity, as already seen, is the cause of
Being, the Aristotelian notion of cause may play a decisive role in the investigation
of this subject. Aristotle has commenced by locating the universal in relation to a
special type of human cognition, namely, art or science. He has reduced the explanation of the universal to form, and then to cause. . . .The conclusion drawn is that
wisdom is the knowledge of certain principles and causes.This conclusion has been
reached from an empirical consideration of the various cognitive activities observable in men” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, IV, 6b, 81–82ff.). Later on in this crucial study
Owens establishes the basic epistemological orientation of the Aristotelian replacement of the Platonic form with cause. He writes,“The efficient cause of a thing is
therefore identical in form with the formal cause of that same thing, but different
in matter. Since the matter is unknowable, the efficient cause must, for purposes of
scientific knowledge, be reduced to the form. All that is scientifically knowable in
the efficient cause is the form. The two causes are formally identical, materially
different. . . .All that has to be accounted for is the same form in a different matter.
The one preoccupation seems to be the establishing of a basis for universal predication.” Thus, it is entirely plausible that the term “cause” has an epistemic value
in Aristotle that will be transferred to Thomas, via Dionysius and the neo-Platonic
commentaries on Aristotle.

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Immanuel Kant’s demolition and reconfiguration of the argument from
causality.This can be seen in his Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Judgment, and in his subsequent description of divine providence in his
Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion. In this last work he attempts
to secure the principle of the freedom of the human will over against the
Scholastic and Reformed-Scholastic restriction of it by God’s “omnicausality.” In Reformed theology, up to and including Kant’s time, providence included the doctrine of concursus, which attempted to demonstrate
at one and the same time the freedom of both the divine and human
agents without the assimilation of one by the other. It is in light of this
doctrine that Kant demolishes the “cause-effect relation” as a secure
source of the knowledge of God. He does so purely on the basis of the
empirical observation of natural causation. It also seems that it was Scholasticism, as it followed Aquinas, that set the stage for this.
In his treatment of “the divine accompanying” in the Church Dogmatics, III/3, under the doctrine of providence, Barth is concerned to distinguish his position from any understanding of an analogia causalitatis,
precisely by reformulating the Reformed doctrine of concursus over against
the ontological approach to causality in Thomas Aquinas, the Jesuits (Przywara and Molina), the Reformed-Scholastic approach where it follows
Aquinas or Molina, and Immanuel Kant. Partly this is because of the Kantian critique but more importantly it is because he considered the Catholic
form of the doctrine of “omnicausality” to be contrary to the doctrine of
creatio ex nihilo, though he does hold to a form of causal argumentation
that is Christologically determined. A close reading of this section of
Barth’s Church Dogmatics, prefaced by a brief comment on his treatment of
omnicausality and Molinism in II/1, will amply demonstrate that Barth is
rejecting the ontology ingredient in “the analogia entis” more than he is
rejecting a form of analogy. This is so precisely because such an analogia
entis, expressed also as an analogia causalitatis, is, as far as Barth is concerned,
not to be found in the Bible; and to the degree that it aids in establishing
a knowledge of God apart from God’s self-revelation as the Father of Jesus
Christ, it represents a standpoint over against Christ, who is the sole analogia fidei to which theology can appeal.Where Barth misunderstood Przywara he needs to be corrected.This has already been most admirably done
in Jüngel’s and Gottlieb Söhngen’s separate treatments of analogy, both of
whom won the appreciation of Barth on this issue.4 However, this does
not mean that Barth’s misunderstanding of Przywara is to be equated with
4 Jüngel and Söngen both operate with the same understanding of causality. See

Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, trans. D. Guder (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 241ff.

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a misunderstanding of the Catholic doctrine of the analogia entis as Barth
understood it generally.5 Since the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar on
this issue there has been a tendency to interpret Przywara’s view of the
analogia entis as “the true intent of the Catholic doctrine of the analogy of
being.”6 Yet, as Thomas O’Meara has recently noted in his major study of
Przywara, “his theory of analogy is somewhat idiosyncratic” in that it is
based in the concept of relationality, Christologically centered, as is
Barth’s, whereas for Aquinas,“the ground of analogy is causality” conceived
on another basis than Christology (namely the Aristotelian-neo-Platonic
conception of causality mediated through Proclan-Dionysianism).7 As
such his understanding of analogy, together with Barth, von Balthasar,
Jüngel, and Söhngen, cannot be described as the standard form of analogy
against which Barth was reacting throughout his Church Dogmatics. If the
primary markers in the history of the Roman Catholic doctrine of analogy are Augustine, Anselm, Dionysius, Aquinas, Cajetan, and Suarez, then
at least it must be admitted that the reactions against Barth are based on
an equal misunderstanding of what was standard practice in the application of analogy, not what was “intended.”8 A host of bad theology may
5 Ibid., 262f; G. Sönghen, Analogie und Metaphor: Kleine Philosophie und Theologie der

Sprache (Freiburg/München: K.Alber, 1962); E. Przywara, Analogia entis, Schriften
1932 (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1962), III, 113ff.
6 For instance, Betz writes, “And it is here perhaps more than anywhere else that
one can see precisely what it is that he (Barth) rejects in rejecting the analogia
entis, namely, any openness whatsoever of the creature to God, and thus any natural desire (desiderium naturale) for God.” “Part Two,” 7. See also D. B. Hart, who
makes the same assumption: Beauty of the Infinite, 241.
7 Thomas O’Meara, Eric Przywara, S.J.: His Theology and His World (Notre Dame,
IN: Notre Dame Press, 2002), 74ff.
8 While this list is not exhaustive, I would select the following as being the best representative treatments of analogy in the Catholic and Protestant traditions.Thomas de
Vio, Cardinal Cajetan, The Analogy of Names and The Concept of Being (1511) (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1953); Francisco Suarez, Disputationes metaphysicae, in Opera omnia, 28 vols. (Paris:Vives, 1877); George P. Klubertanz, Introduction to
the Philosophy of Being (New York: Meredith Publishing Company, 1963) and his St.
Thomas Aquinas on Analogy:A Textual Analysis and Synthesis (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1960); Hampus Lyttkens, The Analogy between God and the World:An Investigation of Its Background and Interpretation of Its Use by Thomas of Aquino (Uppsala,
Sweden: Almquist and Wiksells, 1952); Battista Mondin, The Principle of Analogy in
Protestant and Catholic Theology (The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963);
Gerald B. Phelan, Saint Thomas and Analogy (Milwaukee,WI: Marquette University
Press, 1941); David Burrell, Analogy and Philosophical Language (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1973); Ralph McInerny, Rhyme and Reason: St.
Thomas and Modes of Discourse (Milwaukee,WI: Marquette University Press, 1981);
idem, “The Logic of Analogy,” New Scholasticism 31 (1957): 149–71; Norris W

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proceed from good intentions.This certainly seems to be the case with the
recent reinvention of the concept of the analogia entis, as we shall see.
“Cause” in Early Theological Formulation
The Aristotelian–Neo-Platonic Concept of Analogy
No account of the analogy of being can bypass the significant impact that
the Greek conception of analogy has had on the development and the
theological employment of analogy. Precisely here is where both agreement and differences of opinion are most crucial. Eberhard Jüngel
attempts to clarify this point and argue for a link between Kant and
Aquinas by describing the development of analogy in a way that connects
Aristotle and Pseudo-Dionysius on the basis of causality.9 For Jüngel the
neo-Platonic reading of Aristotelian causality is shared ground between
Kant and Aquinas in their understanding of the analogia entis and he
thinks this is a key reason for Barth’s rejection of it.10 This is also the
conclusion that Colin Gunton came to in his treatment of causality in his
last book, Act and Being, where he writes;
The way of causality is essentially a way of discovering the attributes of
God by a process of analogy. In this case, analogy is not in the first place
Clarke, The Philosophical Approach to God: A Contemporary Neo-Thomist Perspective
(Winston-Salem, NC: Wake Forest University Press, 1979). Karl Barth, Church
Dogmatics, vols. I–IV, ed. and trans. T. F. Torrance and G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1959–1975); Hans Urs von Balthasar,The Theology of Karl Barth. See also
the important works on Cajetan’s view of analogy in Etienne Gilson, “Cajetan et
l’existence,” Tijdschrift voor philosophie 15 (1953): 267–86;A. Goergen, Kardinal Cajetans Lehre von der Analogie; ihr Verhältnis zu Thomas von Aquin (Speyer: Pilger-Verlag,
1938); and Eric Przywara, “Die Reichweite der Analogie als katholischer Grundform,” Scholastik 15 (1940): 339–63, 508–32.
9 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 269.
10 Ibid., 255–61. Jüngel prefaces his whole discussion of the Kant-AristotleThomas continuum with an exposition of the rise of the problem in PseudoDionysius’s On the Divine Names, I, q. 79, a. 6, vol. I, 755. Jüngel writes,“As early
as Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite we read: ‘Divine things are revealed unto
each created spirit in proportion (kata ton analogion) to its powers’ ” (God as the
Mystery of the World, 254, note 21, quoting Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names,
I, 1). But he does not just focus on the Divine Names, wherein the apophatic
approach is raised but not employed at length. Rather, he points to Dionysius’s
treatment of the Celestial Hierarchy as the one place to confirm the thoroughgoing apophaticism of Dionysius and his heirs.This is certainly demonstrable in the
commentary on The Celestial Hierarchy completed by John Scotus Erugena. See
Erugena’s Commentary on the Dionysian Celestial Hierarchy, ed. and trans Paul
Rorem (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2005).

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a method of predication—of showing how language works—but an
ontological process which consists in moving from the lower levels of
reality to the higher, until the whole hierarchy is argued to require as
its cause—its efficient, material, formal, and final cause—a being who
is totally other than it. Aquinas’s doctrine of analogical predication is
thus grounded in what Robert Jenson has called the ontological analysis contained in the Five Ways. From this analysis, which depends upon
a hierarchical structuring of reality, flow many things, noteworthy
among them the doctrine of the divine attributes which succeeds them
rapidly in Aquinas’s account. That doctrine accordingly depends, in
essence, on a Christianized form of Neoplatonism, whose movement
from the utterly and formlessly material to the ineffably intellectual
(Plotinus) is, so to speak, mirrored in the essentially similar structure of
natural theology. A certain account of analogical predication is bound
up with this ontology, inextricable from it. It holds that the same predicates apply to beings which exist on different levels of the hierarchy of
being, but that they apply analogically, proportionally, so that they are
more really true of the higher levels than the lower.11
11 Colin Gunton, Act and Being (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 12–18. See

also his Intellect and Action: Elucidations on Christian Theology and the Life of Faith
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 107ff. In his Becoming and Being:The Doctrine of
God in Charles Hartshorne and Karl Barth (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1978), he writes; “The classical conception of God depends upon a hierarchical
ordering of reality. Entities are higher or lower in a scale of beings, the lower
depending to a greater or lesser degree on the higher.The hierarchy is to some
extent perspicuous to reason, and so lower reality—the only reality we directly
experience—is believed to point beyond itself, to mirror a highest being which
is both the tip of the pyramid and radically different from it, in being of another
order entirely. Aquinas’s Five Ways illustrate all these points.They also determine
once and for all the shape of his concept of God” (3). See also, Robert W. Jenson,
The Knowledge of Things Hoped For:The Sense of Theological Discourse (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1969), ch. 3; and Anthony Kenny, The Five Ways
(London: Routledge, 1969), 41–45. If we doubt this about Thomas’s and Dionysius’s doctrine of God and resulting anthropology we need only to turn to their
treatment of celestial beings to confirm it. See Barth’s excellent treatment of this
in Church Dogmatics, vol. III/3, 369–401. After an exhaustive treatment of the
connection between Aquinas and Pseudo-Dionysius, Barth concluded, “Angels
as understood in scholasticism are those essentiae spiritualis, those substantiae separatae ; and the objectivity of the heavenly cosmos in the scholastic sense is only
that of an artificially and arbitrarily separated, i.e., abstracted and hypostatized,
intellectual being as opposed to a material and to our own intellect conjoined
with matter, which Thomas like Plato and Aristotle, regarded as relatively less
perfect and essentially earthly.Armed with this criterion,Thomas could certainly
disclose the ice-cold summits of objectivity. But this objectivity of the spiritual
or intellectual is much too equivocal for us to want it to shine again in our
Church,” 401.

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Analogy, therefore, according to Gunton, is a theory of predication that
depends upon a neo-Platonic theory of degrees of being, a theory most
evident in Aquinas’s Fourth Way, which assumes an equation of being
with goodness, both of them hierarchically construed.12 Recent scholarship on the development of the Summa theologiae, undertaken by Wayne
Hankey, bears this out across Thomas’s theology as a whole.13 This being
the case, the “concealed aporia” regarding the unspeakability of God in this
model of analogy applies across the board, as Jüngel suggests, to Kant,
Aquinas, and the Aristotelian-Dionysian concept of causality. Given this
scholarly opinion, there is still a call for a renewed understanding of and
approach to the use of analogical method.14
12 Gunton, Act and Being, 13. Aquinas’s arguments for the existence of God really

amounts to a knowledge of God on the basis of causality.This is a key reason for
Aquinas’s employment of the arguments for the existence of God in his Summa.
The fourths way reads as follows;“The fourth way is taken from the gradation to
be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true,
noble, and the like. But ‘more’ and ‘less’ are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as
a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is
hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something
noblest, and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things
that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaphysics II.‘Now
the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus’; as fire, which is the
maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things.Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other
perfection; and this we call God” (ST I, q. 2. a. 3, ad. 2).The Latin reads; “Quarta
via sumitur ex gradibus qui in rebus inveniuntur. Invenitur enim in rebus aliquid
magis et minus bonum, et verum, et nobile; et sic de aliis huiusmodi. Sed magis et
minus dicuntur de diversis secundum quod appropinquant diversimode ad aliquid
quod maxime est: sicut magis calidum est, quod magis appropinquat maxime
calido. Est igitur aliquid quod est verissimum, et optimum, et nobilissimum, et per
consequens maxime ens: nam quae sunt maxime vera, sunt maxime entia, ut dicitur II Metapys. ‘Quod autem dicitur maxime tale in aliquo genere, est causa
omnium quae sunt illius generis’: sicut ignis, qui est maxime calidus, est causa
omnium calidorum, ut in eodem libro dicitur. Ergo est aliquid quod omnibus
entibus est causa esse, et bonitatis, et cuiuslibet perfectionis: et hoc dicimus Deum.”
13 Hankey, God in Himself, 51. Hankey writes,“One of the characteristics of the later
Neo-Platonism identified by modern scholarship is its greater acceptance of Aristotle.This also characterizes Christian thinkers.Whereas Augustine has little use
for Aristotle, Boethius thinks that he and Plato have the same teaching, and
Boethius is responsible for the first of the three Aristotelian waves to wash the
West.Thomas says early in his career that Dionysius follows Aristotle; and, while
he later comes to understand the Platonic character of Dionysius’s thought, he
continues to see what is usually regarded as the Aristotelian ascent to God
through knowledge of the sensible world in Dionysian terms,” 51.
14 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 267.

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To properly understand this shared ground, Jüngel offers an analysis of
the development of Aristotelian-Dionysian analogical method in two
forms. Aristotle gave precision to the Platonic tradition of analogy
initially through his analysis of metaphor. Analogy is seen by Aristotle as
“a special case of metaphor.”15 Metaphor is a product of transference in
language, usually of a designation to a “bearer” that is to a large degree
alien to the metaphorical designation itself.Aristotle applies such a transference of naming in four ways, “namely, either from the genus to the
kind, or from the kind to the genus, or from one kind to another, or
‘according to analogy’ [kata ton analogion].”16 The transference is one of
relations between two quite dissimilar entities, “or, to put it in Kantian
terms,” says Jüngel,“to the perfect similarity of two relationships between
quite dissimilar things.” To support his point Jüngel supplies the following quotation from Aristotle’s Poetics.
Analogy is possible whenever there are four terms so related that the
second (B) is to the first (A) as the fourth (D) is to the third (C); for
one may then metaphorically put D in lieu of B, and B in lieu of D.
Now and then, too, they qualify the metaphor by adding on to it that
to which the word it supplants is relative.17

The resulting model of analogy is one of mathematical proportionality
expressed as a:b::c:d.This makes possible the comparison of quite dissimilar
entities in regard to their essential existence. It is their relation to one another
that makes them comparable. For instance, in the analogy “day is to evening
as life is to old age” the relationship expressed is the comparison between
evening and the close of life. The analogy presupposes knowledge of the
concepts being compared and that these concepts can be “commonly
expressed in language.”18 This is an important point for Jüngel because “if
one wants to say something in this sense about God ‘by analogy,’ then God’s
relation to himself and to other existing beings (or to every existent which
is to be distinguished from him) must be correspondingly known.”19 As we shall
see shortly, it is this understanding of analogy that Kant assumes in regard to
15 Ibid. See Aristotle, Poetics, trans. I. Bywate, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed.

Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), 1476–77 (1457b5f.).Aristotle states:“Metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to species, or from species to
genus, or from species to species, or on grounds of analogy.”
16 Aristotle, Poetics, 1457b15–20.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 267.

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his presupposition that the world’s dependence on God, must be understood
along the lines of sole-causality and/or omnicausality. It is a commonly held
axiom, the knowledge of which makes analogical talk of God possible,
strictly in terms of symbolic anthropomorphisms.
According to the Aristotelian model the second form of the analogy
of naming related to speech about God is also relationally driven, yet
along different lines than the polarity of similarity/dissimilarity.Thus it is
not properly metaphor. This second form of analogy is marked by the
ambiguity of multiple referents to one word. Some words can be “univocal” in
meaning: For instance, the word “human” applies to all humans alike and
is exclusive of the animal world.The phrase “living being,” however, may
designate either a human or a chicken. “It is a word used in a simple,
identical sense, a monarchos legomenon.”20 In a second sense, however, a
word can designate a different meaning for each existing entity. The
German word Bänke can mean “bench” or a place where a person carries
on financial business.“The one usage cannot keep the promises made by
the other: the essential concept is different in each instance.”21 The word
Bänke is thus “equivocal” in its use, having a different meaning for each
use. Between equivocity and univocity, Aristotle places “analogous
speech,” in which the same word is used of different things without being totally
identical or totally different in meaning,“but rather expressing some things as
the same, and others different.”22 There is similarity in the sense that the
same word is used of the various entities that it names “on the basis of
something mutual to which they are related, each in a different way.”23 The
multiple meanings are all related to this “one thing,” which is “the
hermeneutical first thing,” and on the basis of which, as well as in relation to
which, other things can also be named.24
In sum, the point of agreement between the two Aristotelian analogical models is the fact that each model names on the basis of relations:
The first model of analogy understands analogy to be a proportion
which, on the basis of similar (identical) relations between dissimilar
things, allows comparison with each other within the relation of relations.Thus one speaks of an analogy of proportionality, an analogia propor20 Ibid., 269.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid. see, Aristotle, Metaphysics, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, 783 (1028a, 10), for

his classic definition of substantial being stated as follows:“Therefore that which
is, primarily, i.e., not in a qualified sense but without qualification, must be
substance.”
23 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 269.
24 Ibid., 270.

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tionalitatis. The second model of analogy understands analogy, on the
basis of the non-comparable relations of different things to the one
thing they have in common, as a simple analogy of relation (analogia
proportionis) or also the analogy of [intrinsic] attribution.25

Thus in an analogy of proportionality we write a:b::c:d; whereas in the
analogy of intrinsic attribution b, c, and d all relate to a from which they
receive their common name, that is, a:(a) b:: (a) c:(a)d, so that, intrinsically,
b, c, and d are of the same genus as a.That is, we know a from the intrinsic-ness of a in b, c, and d. This we know on the basis of the Thomistic
principle of cause-effect relation.
At this point, we need to turn to an analysis of the analogy of attribution
with a view of pointing out a peculiarity in its structure.Whereas the analogy of proportionality implies merely the correspondence between
compared entities, the analogy of attribution implies the dependence of
“many things” on the “one common thing.” The “many things” are ordered
by and dependent on the “one common thing,” which is the “hermeneutical
first principle.” This is precisely what Aquinas calls the “analogy of order”
whereby the term “order” primarily means that this analogy is constituted
by an analogans (one who makes the analogy) on which the thing named
after it depends as the analogatum (that which is analogized).26
The Neo-Platonic Connection
An important development of this analogy of order took place in the
scholastic appropriation of Aristotle’s models of analogy.27 Jüngel’s conclusion here bears repeating:
25 Ibid., 271. See also Aristotle,“Nicomachean Ethics,” in Basic Works, 939 (1096b25f.).
26 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 271. Jüngel refers to ST I, q. 13, a. 5.
27 See also Wayne Hankey, God in Himself, 10–11, where he writes,“Aquinas exposes

with great acuity the principles organizing Dionysius’s treatise. He perceives that
Dionysius begins with ‘good’ as a name and employs an exitus-reditus structure in
drawing the exposition back to its source by means of the names ‘perfect’ and ‘one.’
Thomas knows the Proclan conception by which these names,‘good’ and ‘one’ are
identified. He notes that the author moves from the more to the less generic in
relating the names. He calls these Platonic principles, and in fact they are generally used also by Proclus. . . . As if leaping over the intermediary (Dionysius),
Thomas begins like Proclus—as opposed to Dionysius—by establishing the existence of his divine subject; and in fact, for both, the first argument is from
motion.” Hankey goes on to work this out in detail in Aquinas’s arguments for the
existence of God, which, following the Proclan pattern, precedes the treatment of
the “divine names.” This would make the argument from motion a fundamental
epistemology, i.e., an order of knowing in which the analogans is the source of
knowledge for the analogatum.

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Under the influence of Neoplatonic commentaries on Aristotle, the
aspect of dependence (on an ontic first thing) was translated from the
logical and hermeneutical context to the ontological during the period
of scholasticism, so that the hermeneutical dependence of any analogatum
on the analogans flowed over into the ontological dimension of dependence of being. The hermeneutical first thing appears as the ontological
origin which under certain circumstances can also be thought of as the
ontic [first] cause.28

Thus, through the influence of theologians such as Dionysius and John
Damascene, the analogans comes to possess the most original meaning of
the word, than those entities named by the same word, and is designated
as the cause in a “causal nexus.”29 “Analogy, thus understood, gained special
significance in Thomas Aquinas for human talk about God and still determines Kant’s use of analogy in the context of the formation of concepts
which are appropriate for God.”30 While both models of analogy play a
significant role in scholastic theology and the Western metaphysical tradition, it is important to recognize with Jüngel, Gunton, Hankey, and
28 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 272. See also R.T.Wallis, “Divine Omni-

science in Plotinus, Proclus and Aquinas,” in Neo-Platonism and Early Christian
Thought, ed. H. J. Blumenthal and R. A. Markus (London:Variorum Publications,
1981).Wallis writes,“The question is raised at Summa theologiae, I, q. 14 a. 5, where,
in answer to a number of mainly Aristotelian-inspired arguments to show that
God knows only himself, Aquinas replies that for God to understand his essence
perfectly he must also understand his power. But this is impossible unless he
understands everything to which his power extends; and, since God is cause of all,
he must understand everything that exists.We may note that Proclus’s Parmenides
commentary employs similar arguments to show that Aristotle’s view logically
entails that of Neo-Platonism. . . .The influence of later Neo-Platonism on Aquinas,
however, is especially clear when he discusses the mode of divine knowledge of
individuals. Following Proclus he insists that God’s knowledge, unlike our own,
constitutes an indivisible unity, which does not need separate faculties to apprehend individuals and universals. A similar view had earlier been ascribed by
Clement of Alexandria to his teacher Pantaenus, but is not found elsewhere, to
my knowledge, before later Neo-Platonism. Aquinas’s claim that, since divine power
extends to individuals as well as universals, divine knowledge must also embrace
them both, is likewise an echo of Proclus, whose views are no less influential on
Aquinas’s discussion whether God knows what is infinite” (227–29).
29 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 272. On John Damascene’s neo-Platonic
tendencies, see Andrew Louth’s excellent monograph, St John Damascene:Tradition
and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 67,
92, 94. On neo-Platonic principles, “John argues that if there is any good at all,
then there must be an original single principle, the source of this goodness, evil
being a declension from original goodness.” Louth, St John Damascene, 67.
30 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 272.

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others that both these traditions represent a conflation of analogical
methods along neo-Platonic lines; and as such it contributed profoundly
to the Kantian aporia concerning God’s speakability. We must bring the
full weight of this critique to bear on Thomas Aquinas’s analogical
method, and especially in the light of recent scholarship on Thomas’s
indebtedness to Proclan-Dionysian neo-Platonism, this critique still hits
home. In fact, neo-Platonic scholarship contributes to this argument on
a regular basis. In the long run even the work of David Burrell, who has
no use for neo-Platonism, must support this result of analogical method,
at least partially.31
Aquinas’s Concept of Analogy
Turning to Aquinas we must now demonstrate from his mature work that
indeed he employed a method of analogy of attribution with the purpose
of solving the problem of how common affirmative predicates, taken
from created order, can speak of God. Furthermore, it must be shown that
he did this in a way similar to Aristotle, who is later followed by Kant
with his purely empiricist point of view.32
In Aquinas, we find two forms of analogy (intrinsic attribution and
proportionality), used with a particular emphasis on the analogy of
intrinsic attribution, though conflation of the two models is also present.
We may also affirm with Philip A. Rolnick, on the basis of the works of
Gerhard Scheltens and George Peter Klubertanz, that Aquinas discontinued the strict usage of the analogy of proportionality that was stressed in
31 Hankey, God in Himself, 12, states,“This is the strongly negative sense of naming,

though for Thomas, naming God from effects is necessary because we do not see
his essence directly in this life.” David Burrell, Analogy and Philosophical Language,
132–33, writes,“Aquinas’s move has serious implications, for every subsequent use
of language to ‘describe’ God will be justified by reference to causality. Once we
are satisfied that ‘good,’‘just,’ and ‘merciful’ can be used of God—even though we
recognize that they will be realized in him in a fashion quite beyond our conceiving—we may nonetheless be assured that these terms do refer to something in
God, because we mean by God, principle of all. In other words, the justification
for analogous usage and the line of argument distinguishing it from the ‘merely
symbolic’ theories (of a Maimonides or a Tillich) itself depends on an analogous
use of ‘cause.’ On the credit side, this shows Aquinas’s consistency in declaring analogous
usage irreducible to a univocal foundation. On the debit side, Aquinas’s views seem to
threaten any move to God, for he is apparently acknowledging that any justification for
using analogical predicates will be circular, since the meaning of these predicates is secured
only through an analogical use of cause.” However, for an incisive critique of all of
these approaches, see P. Rolnick, Analogical Possibilities: How Words Refer to God
(Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993), 204ff. See also, Gunton, Act and Being, 18.
32 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 272.

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his De veritate (1256–57).33 But what is important to note is that Aquinas
would eventually connect these two methods in such a fashion that analogy of attribution would come to represent both a hermeneutic and an ontic
priority that resembled the analogy of proportionality. Aquinas’s reworking
of analogy called for the rejection of “names (nomina), which univocally
may be ascribed both to God and the creatures because then God would
not be adequately distinguished as the highest cause, from everything which
had been caused.”34 Aquinas writes, “Univocal predication is impossible
between God and creatures.The reason for this is that every effect which is
not a proportional result of the power of the efficient cause receives the
similitude of the agent not in its full degree, but in a measure that falls
short.”35 Conversely we do know God from his creatures, a fact that prohibits
the equivocal naming of God and creatures. Thus, predication about God
and creatures can only be expressed analogically: “that is, according to an
order or relation to some one thing.”36
33 Ibid., 271. See also Rolnick, Analogical Possibilities, 204. Aquinas writes in, Ques-

tiones disputatae de veritate, II, 3, ad 4; “Dicendum quod aliquid dicitur proportionatum alicui dupliciter. “dicendum, quod aliquid dicitur proportionatum
alteri dupliciter. Uno modo quia inter ea attenditur proportio; sicut dicimus
quatuor proportionari duobus, quia se habet in dupla proportione ad duo. Alio
modo per modum proportionalitatis; ut si dicamus sex et octo esse proportionata, quia sicut sex est duplum ad tria, ita octo ad quatuor: est enim proportionalitas similitudo proportionum. Et quia in omni proportione attenditur habitudo
ad invicem eorum quae proportionata dicuntur secundum aliquem determinatum excessum unius super alterum, ideo impossibile est infinitum aliquod
proportionari finito per modum proportionis. Sed in his quae proportionata
dicuntur per modum proportionalitatis, non attenditur habitudo eorum ad
invicem, sed similis habitudo aliquorum duorum ad alia duo; et sic nihil prohibet esse proportionatum infinitum finito: quia sicut quoddam finitum est aequale
cuidam finito, ita infinitum est aequale alteri infinito. Et secundum hunc modum
oportet esse proportionatum medium ei quod per ipsum cognoscitur; ut, scilicet,
sicut se habet medium ad aliquid demonstrandum, ita se habeat quod per ipsum
cognoscitur ad hoc quod demonstretur; et sic nihil prohibet essentiam divinam
esse medium quo creatura cognoscatur.”
34 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 272.
35 ST I, q. 13, a. 5: “Dicendum quod impossibile est aliquid praedicari de Deo et
creaturis univoce. Quia omnis effectus non adaequans virtutem causae agentis,
recipit similitudinem agentis non secundum eandem rationem, sed deficienter.”
36 ST I, q. 13, a. 4:“For the idea signified by the name is the conception in the intellect of the thing signified by the name. But our intellect, since it knows God from
creatures, in order to understand God, forms conceptions proportional to the
perfections flowing from God to creatures, which perfections pre-exist in God
unitedly and simply, whereas in creatures they are received and divided and multiplied.As therefore, to the different perfections of creatures, there corresponds one
simple principle represented by different perfections of creatures in a various and

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Thomas also distinguishes two subtypes of the analogy of attribution
(intrinsic and extrinsic) based on the analogy of many things to the one
identical thing. Jüngel writes:
There is either a dominant relation of the many to the one or there is
one sole and dominant relation of the many to the others. Since it is
always presupposed that at least two different things have two different
relations to the one common thing, in the second instance the one
thing (unum) might relate to itself as that one common thing to which
the other one relates itself in another fashion.37

To illustrate this shift in Aquinas, we may recall the famous health
example to which Aquinas (following Aristotle) refers. Herein we clearly
see a distinction between the hermeneutic and ontic “first thing.”The Aristotelian example shows that the human body, medicine, and urine can all
be called “healthy.” “The one thing to which all three things are related
is, for Thomas, health per se, but it is thought of as subsisting in a definite

manifold manner, so also to the various and multiplied conceptions of our intellect, there corresponds one altogether simple principle, according to these
conceptions, imperfectly understood. Therefore although the names applied to
God signify one thing, still because they signify that under many and different
aspects, they are not synonymous.” In Latin,“Ratio enim quam significat nomen,
est conceptio intellectus de re significata per nomen. Intellectus autem noster,
cum cognoscat Deum ex creaturis, format ad intelligendum Deum conceptiones
proportionatas perfectionibus procedentibus a Deo in creaturas. Quae quidem
perfectiones in Deo praeexistunt unite et simpliciter: in creaturis vero recipiuntur
divise et multipliciter. Sicut igitur diversis perfectionibus creaturarum respondet
unum simplex principium, repraesentatum per diversas perfectiones creaturarum
varie et multipliciter; ita variis et multiplicibus conceptibus intellectus nostri
respondet unum omnino simplex, secundum huiusmodi conceptiones imperfecte
intellectum. Et ideo nomina Deo attributa, licet significent unam rem, tamen, quia
significant eam sub rationibus multis et diversis, non sunt synonyma.”
37 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 273. ST I, q. 13, a. 5: “Therefore it must
be said that these names are said of God and creatures in an analogous sense, i.e.,
according to proportion. Now names are thus used in two ways: either according as many things are proportionate to one, thus for example ‘healthy’ predicated of medicine and urine in relation and in proportion to health of a body, of
which the former is the sign and the latter the cause: or according as one thing
is proportionate to another” (Dicendum est igitur quod huiusmodi nomina
dicuntur de Deo et creaturis secundum analogiam, idest proportionem. Quod
quidem dupliciter contingit in nominibus: vel quia multa habent proportionem
ad unum, sicut sanum dicitur de medicina et urina, inquantum utrumque habet
ordinem et proportionem ad sanitatem animalis, cuius hoc quidem signum est,
illud vero causa; vel ex eo quod unum habet proportionem ad alterum).

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existing thing.”38 In other words, the unum exists in a concrete being
because health is predicated about medicine and urine “in relation and in
proportion to health of the body, of which the former is a cause and the
latter a sign.”39 This prior thing in relation to which the other things are
ordered is a prior thing in a hermeneutic, not an ontic sense. It is, for
Aquinas, an order of knowing. Significantly, here we must remember
Aquinas’s epistemological principle of the priority of knowing over
language. Epistemologically, that is, the health of the body comes before
the analogy of things as an ontic first thing. Ontological primacy must be
given to medicine as the hermeneutical first thing because “it is to be
regarded as the cause of the health of the body.”The result is that the ontic
priority of the “one thing,” on the basis of which the other things are
named, does not play any role in the modus significandi.
It is in this sense that an analogia entis is presupposed as the basis of the
spoken analogy within the order of participation and causality.The analogatum receives no independent emphasis.This is a fact that constitutes one
of Barth’s major concerns with Catholic doctrine in general and the analogia entis in particular. This epistemic understanding brings out the
Thomistic view that talk about God must not employ the analogy of
extrinsic attribution whereby the “many things” are related to the one
“because this would either place God in the same series as the other analogata, or would relate God to a third and higher principle.”40 Thus, the first
form of the analogy of attribution must be rejected (that is, a dominant
relation of the many to the one, or extrinsic analogy of attribution).
Therefore, the only analogical method of predication about God that
Thomas permits is that method whereby the “one thing” that is the
common element in the many things has hermeneutical primacy in the
analogy of naming if it “first subsists in God himself and therefore [original emphasis] in the creatures caused [emphasis added] by God.”41 With
the concept of “goodness,” for example, God would possess goodness by
virtue of the possession of his own being. Correspondingly, God distributes this goodness to creatures of his agency through the cause-effect
relation.42 To comprehend this goodness, the analogy requires a “conceptual reversal”: “For the goodness which God possesses first by his being,
is first known and named by its possession in the creature.”43 That is, “they
38 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 273.
39 ST I, q. 13, a. 5, emphasis added. See above note 37.
40 Rolnick, Analogical Possibilities, 205.
41 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 275.
42 Ibid.
43 Rolnick, Analogical Possibilities, 205.

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have it in their particular way of being as those who have been caused
[emphasis added], and thus based on that, we can know and name what
has its original being in God himself.”44
In sum, Thomas Aquinas’s method of analogy has combined the analogy of intrinsic attribution, analogous naming “according to which the
one thing is proportioned to another,” with the first model of analogy
along the lines of the Aristotelian category of metaphor, based on a causeeffect relation as read through the neo-Platonic commentaries of PseudoDionysius and finally Proclus; that is, the analogy of proportionality.
For within the proportion of the “one to the other,” which is seen in
the second instance of the second model of the analogy of naming as a
casual nexus, the one thing spoken of as the cause relates itself to the
common element which is the hermeneutical basis for analogical
naming in that it has this common element in the most original way, that
is, on the basis of this originality it possesses this element in such a way
that it is identical with it.45

Thus, being is derived from the fact that this unum possesses the common
element in such a way that it is identical with it. Therefore the other
things relate themselves to the common element by possessing the
44 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 275.
45 Ibid., 276, emphasis added. Jüngel is followed here by Battista Mondin who,

though he will not define intrinsic attribution as a form of the analogy of
proportionality, nevertheless sees this as Aquinas’s primary mode of employing
analogy. The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Catholic Theology, 100ff. He adds,
“Many Thomists are suspicious of the theological possibilities of intrinsic attribution because they believe that intrinsic attribution is exposed to univocity,
anthropomorphism, and idolatry” (101). He tries to defend Thomas against this
by denying it leads to this, but clearly assumes it as Thomas’s primary position.
Then he adds a telling footnote on that same page (101, note 1): “One of the
difficulties that seems to preclude analogy of proper proportionality from theology is that when we try to set up a proportionality between God and creatures,
e.g., human existence is to human essence as divine existence is to divine
essence, there seems to be no similarity between the two proportions; because
the relation between the elements of the divine proportion is only logical (since
there is no distinction between essence and existence in God), while the relation
between the elements of the human proportion is real (since there is a real
distinction between essence and existence in man).” He points to two other
Thomist scholars who recognize the same potential difficulty, namely, James F.
Anderson, The Bond of Being: An Essay on Analogy and Existence (St. Louis: B.
Herder Book Co., 1949), 304ff.; and George P. Klubertanz, S.J., St. Thomas
Aquinas on Analogy: A Textual Analysis and Systematic Synthesis (Chicago: Loyola
University Press, 1960), 99. See also G. Klubertanz, Introduction to the Philosophy
of Being (New York: Meredith Publishing Company, 1963), 95ff.

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common element, albeit in a derivative and hierarchical fashion. In this
way, for Aquinas, “the so-called ‘analogy of [intrinsic] attribution’ has
drawn into itself the so-called ‘analogy of proportionality’ when the issue
is analogous talk about God.”46
The preceding analysis now places us is in a position to draw the lines
of continuity between Kant and Aquinas in their use of analogical
method. Jüngel, Gunton, and Jenson (among others) claim, correctly I
think, that this connection is valid because Kant employs a conceptual
reversal of the analogy of intrinsic attribution that places emphasis on the
analogy of proportionality (which Kant takes to be the scholastic understanding) as the “causal nexus” of the analogy of intrinsic attribution.47
Expressed in terms of intrinsic analogy of attribution, it means God has
perfection of God’s being in the same way as the creature has perfections
of the creature’s being.48 This essentially expresses an analogy of proportionality, a:b::c:b in almost the same sense suggested by Cajetan, Suarez,
Mondin, and Klubertanz.49 Though these differ among themselves, their
approach to analogy yields the same results. Jüngel’s conclusion states the
point succinctly:
46 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 276.
47 See also Immanuel Kant,“Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion,”

in idem, Religion and Rational Theology, trans. Allen W. Wood and George di
Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 385.
48 Rolnick, Analogical Possibilities, 206.
49 Cajetan puts it thus,“This analogy excels above the others mentioned above both
by dignity and name. By dignity, because it arises from the genus of inherent
formal causality for it predicates perfections that are inherent in each analogate,
whereas the other analogy arises from extrinsic denomination. It excels above the
others by name, because only terms which are analogous by this type of analogy
are called analogous by the Greeks, from whom we have borrowed the term.This,
too, can be gathered from Aristotle, who in the Metaphysics refers to those names
which we call analogous by attribution as from one to one or in one as is clear
from Books IV and VII. And when he defines unity by analogy in V Metaphysics,
he synonymously uses ‘unity by analogy and unity by proportions’ and defines as
one in this way ‘whatever things are related to one another as one thing to
another. . . . By means of analogy of proportionality we know indeed the intrinsic entity, goodness, truth, etc. of things, which are not known from the preceding analogy’ ” (The Analogy of Names and The Concept of Being, 26–27). About this
Klubertanz significantly concludes: “Cajetan’s followers have been numerous,
beginning with the seventeenth-century Thomist, John of St.Thomas, they are all
concerned to defend the main positions of Cajetan against opposing schools of
interpretation. Most are conscious of certain tensions within their doctrine of
analogy: (1) They insist that, although the analogous perfection is found properly
in only one of the analogates in the analogy of attribution, this does not mean that
the secondary analogate possesses no relevant intrinsic perfection at all. (2) They

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Whereas in the “mode of signification” the language of the world functions as the hermeneutical analogans, and talk about God as the
hermeneutical analogatum, the content expressed by this analogous talk
about God is expressed in the hermeneutical analogatum as ontic analogans
(causa), the world on the other hand as ontic analogatum (causatum).50

The Thomistic-Kantian Aporia
On the basis of this brief analysis of the rise of analogical method in
speech about God, we can now demonstrate the aporia regarding the
unspeakability of God that Gunton, following Jensen and Jüngel, considers to be concealed in this method (as a direct result of the neglect of a
biblical-Christological orientation). On the basis of this analysis we can at
least conclude that both Kant and Aquinas are dependent on the same
analogical method that is traceable to the neo-Platonic reading of Aristotle’s conception of causality. This means that, in terms of the theological
tradition, the critique of Kant’s use of analogy, understood as causal nexus,
applies equally to Thomas Aquinas.That is, this method of analogy allows
for predication about God only as an unknown entity since causality must
be understood exclusively within the realm of experience.Thus the logic
of the analogia causalitatis keeps God out of the world and emphasizes the
infinite qualitative distinction between God and the world to the point of his
unthinkability, unspeakability, and unknowability.This is especially intensified when combined with a failure to ground analogy Christologically.
Both the Kantian and Thomistic model of analogical predication was
designed to protect God’s aseity from “dogmatic anthropomorphism.”
This leaves us with the all-important question of the viability and validity
of the knowledge of God in terms of any Thomistic conception of analogy. “The
question to be decided is whether God is speakable only as the one who
describe the analogous concept involved in the analogy of proportionality now as
a similar relation, now as a similar perfection which is the basis of a similar relationship. (3) They point out many ‘mixed’ analogies, in which the same ontological situation gives rise to two different types of analogous predication. (4) They
maintain that the analogates in the analogy of proportionality are mutually independent, not all depend upon a primary analogate as in the analogy of attribution, at least as far as the meaning of the analogous concept is concerned.
Textually, Cajetan’s followers have added very little to his work, although a
number of special studies have been undertaken to prove that Cajetan’s interpretation is faithful to the text of St. Thomas” (Klubertanz, St. Thomas Aquinas on
Analogy, 9–10). Here we are merely establishing the fact that for a very long time
there was much agreement within the Catholic Church, that Cajetan’s interpretation
of Aquinas was accepted, and defended. So any twentieth-century retractions are
somewhat late, and still not agreed upon.
50 Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World, 277.

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actually is unspeakable, and can be made known only as the one who is
actually unknown.”51 On the basis of this understanding of analogy the
problem becomes one of speaking about God without “humanizing” his
divine essence “since language in all its forms of expression is bound to
the form of being of speaking man.”52 Thus:
By using the pure analogy of relation (understood as an analogy of
proportionality) which preserves the absolute different-ness of the
things being related to each other, it appeared that a possibility which
maintained the difference between God and man was given for appropriate talk about God.53

This Thomistic desire to protect the aseity of God is a shallow victory
because, in doing so,Thomas follows the apophatic tradition to the degree
that he has made God unknowable and unspeakable. If God is speakable
only by Kantian “symbolic anthropomorphism,” and not as God in se,
then God cannot in essence be known.The final result is that “the analogy of [intrinsic] attribution defines so precisely the unknowness of God
that it vastly increases that unknowness into God’s total inaccessibility.”54 In
its attempt to solve the problem of God’s speakability it has created the
larger problem of God’s speakability per se.While Kant tries to avoid this
extreme position, he nevertheless falls into it on the basis of his shared
conviction with Pseudo Dionysius and Thomas that God and man
remain “infinitely distinct” from one another, which, outside of a Christological orientation that Kant denies, leaves theological language
vapid.55 We are now in a position to draw the lines between Kant and
Aquinas much more assertively.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.
54 Ibid., 278, emphasis added.
55 Ibid., 280. I am aware of the Radical Orthodox and von Balthasarian critique of

Kant, as well as those in the articles by John Betz, and David Bentley Hart’s Beauty
of the Infinite. Betz states;“For be sure, following John Milbank, one may identify a
common discourse of the sublime, running from Burke and Kant through to the
various postmodern philosophies of today—a ‘master’ discourse in which the analogy of being figures, if at all, either as a Promethean attempt to lay hold of God in
terms of this overarching discourse.”This is a discourse “that is itself susceptible to
deconstruction, as we shall see, given that what it denominates as sublime is, in its
philosophical variants, ultimately nothing of the kind.” See his “Beyond the
Sublime” (Part One), 370. I will not respond myself but merely invoke one of the
most incisive critiques of this so-called “discourse of the sublime” as written by the
Kant scholar Paul Janz, who writes; “The centerpiece of Milbank’s ideological
historiography in its negative aspect is an interpretation of Kant that will be found

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Kant, Causality, and the Knowledge of God
Kant’s Copernican revolution is in essence his establishment of the principle of causality as a valid, a priori judgment that enables us to make sense
of our experience of objects in space and time.56 This discovery came to
him from his analysis of the physical sciences and mathematics, which
were understood by Kant not merely to be about the apprehension of
objects by means of sensible experience, but as implying that the mind
gives something to the determination of the object in space and time.
The question that emerges for Kant is, whether or not on this basis, “we
might be able to construct a real metaphysics as science.”57 The problem
at the heart of this metaphysics is to rationally explain how we can admit
to an a priori judgment that does not turn out a fiction but expresses the
real state of affairs. For Kant, the metaphysics of the scholastics (as
embodied in Thomism) tended to ignore this a priori element within the
mind in its determination of the knowledge of objects, which it assumed
to be almost entirely unsustainable when measured against Kant’s own writings.”
See his “Radical Orthodoxy and the New Culture of Obscurantism,” Modern
Theology 20 (2004): 363–405, at 372. See also his God, the Mind’s Desire: Reference,
Reason and Christian Thinking (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). He
accuses Milbank et al. of a conceptual reversal of Kant interpretation that is neither
faithful to Kant nor to the history of the enlightenment. In a similar vein,Wayne
Hankey’s comments, which he builds on Janz’s, are telling indeed. Hankey writes:
“Radical Orthodoxy’s falsification of the past is compulsive, because the antimodern character of its Postmodernity requires it. In fact, there is little genuinely
postmodern about Radical Orthodoxy, if we mean by this a stance beyond the
modern wars within and between philosophy, and theology, religion, and secularity. Mostly we witness another version of reactionary Christian hatred and fear of
Enlightenment reason and secularity.The truth about our past cannot be told from
within this polemic.” See his “Radical Orthodoxy’s Poiesis: Ideological Historiography and Anti-Modern Polemic,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 80
(2006): 1–21, at 20.Therefore I shall leave a full response to this kind of Kantian
critique to those more capable of fully deciphering the massive Kantian corpus.
My goal in using Kant here is to merely substantiate a common scholarly opinion
about Kant still held by many today, despite the revisionist historiography of
Milbank, Betz, and Hart, who follow this line of Kant critique.
56 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. M. J. D. Meiklejohn (London: J. M. Dent and
Sons, 1950), Preface 4a.
57 Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (New York: Bobs Merrill, 1950). Kant
writes:“My purpose is to persuade all those who think metaphysics worth studying that it is absolutely necessary to pause a moment and, regarding all that has
been done as though undone, to propose first the preliminary question,
“Whether such a thing as metaphysics be even possible at all? If it be science,
how is it that it cannot, like other sciences, obtain universal and lasting recognition? If not, how can it maintain its pretensions and keep the human mind in
suspense with hopes never ceasing, yet never fulfilled?” (3).

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was knowable without in any sense being determined a priori by the
mind. Since, in Kant’s view, scholastic metaphysics failed to arrive at a
true knowledge of the objects in themselves, he asks, following the establishment of a priori knowledge of mathematics, whether or not the
nature of the object does not in some way depend upon the subjectivity
of the knower.58 Herein lies the secret to his Copernican revolution, and
it has had no small consequences for Christian theology, with its claims
to both the natural and revealed knowledge of God.59
Kant goes on to point out that space and time are, according to this
theory, bound up with the actual existence of our perceptive faculty. So
also are the a priori, synthetic judgments that enable us to state the nature
of the objective world as universal and necessary.60 So, while our senses
receive and interpret the universe as object, our actual understanding of
58 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N. Kemp Smith (Hampshire, UK: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2005). “For the chief question is always simply this: what and how
much can the understanding and reason know apart from all experience? Not:
how is the faculty of thought itself possible? The latter is, as it were, the search for
the cause of a given effect, and to that extent is somewhat hypothetical in character (though, as I shall show elsewhere, it is not really so); and I would appear to
be taking the liberty simply of expressing an opinion, in which case the reader
would be free to express a different opinion. For this reason I must forestall the
reader’s criticism by pointing out that the objective deduction with which I am
here chiefly concerned retains its full force even if my subjective deduction should
fail to produce that complete conviction for which I hope” (12).
59 Karl Barth, Protestant Thought in the 19th Century: Its Background and History
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002). Barth puts Kant’s work and time in a much
better perspective than Hart does in his Beauty of the Infinite. “In Kant’s sense
‘criticism’ does not mean a kind of knowledge fundamentally consisting in the
total or partial negation of another merely alleged or at any rate disputable piece
of knowledge. Criticism in Kant’s sense does not consist in casting doubt upon
or denying certain propositions, or alternatively certain things contained in these
propositions, which are declared to be objects of knowledge. He could not, it is
true, embark upon or set forth his own criticism which is essentially quite different from it: it is criticism of knowledge itself and of knowledge as such” (255).
60 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Kant writes:“Since I cannot rest in these intuitions
if they are to become known, but must relate them as representations to something as their object, and determine this latter through them, either I must
assume that the concepts, by means of which I obtain this determination, conform
to the object, or else I assume that the objects, or what is the same thing, that the
experience in which alone, as given objects, they can be known, conform to the
concepts. In the former case, I am again in the same perplexity as to how I can
know anything a priori in regard to the objects. In the latter case the outlook is
more hopeful. For experience is itself a species of knowledge which involves
understanding; and understanding has rules which I must presuppose as being in
me prior to objects being given to me, and therefore as being a priori” (23).

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it is made up of the knowledge of the a priori principles with which the
objective universe is formed into objects of the mind and placed into a
“system of connections,” which Kant later calls a “causal nexus.” Thus,
just as sensory perception and understanding as an operation of the mind
are to be separated, so also is our understanding of experience as it relates
to each.“Perception tells us of an individual thing or object occupying a
certain space at a given time. Understanding is our knowledge of the
object as such, as it is connected to a system according to the a priori
ordering of the mind and not just according to sense perception.”61 Here
the human capacity for thought and understanding are crucial questions
in establishing the new metaphysics, as the interpretation of experience.
Kant answers this question from the point of view of a “causal nexus,”
which functions in Kant’s philosophy in a way similar to Aquinas, as an
ontology, a way of explaining how things in the universe have their
being. Kant affirms that in the same way that individual objects can be
determined by the constitution of the mind through the faculty of
sensory perception, so, in like manner, we can also say that objects
(“things in themselves”), within a causal nexus of experience, can be
known only on the basis of an a priori, that is, that the mind has a certain
unalterable makeup that enables it to categorize our experience of
objects according to a causal nexus, which, says Kant, “is a fixed system
of how things actually are.”62 Kant further elaborates that the scholastics
failed to explain this in their attempt to explain objects within a system
of cause-effect relation.63
The primary mode for expressing this in scholastic metaphysics is,
according to Kant and Hume, through the concept of causality.64 Herein
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid., 27.
63 Kant, “Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion,” 421.
64 Barth writes, “This does not mean that it is a complete or partial denial of the

possibility, validity, and worth of the human method of forming knowledge. Even
if it was David Hume, the ‘skeptic,’ who by Kant’s own admission first roused him
from his ‘dogmatic slumbers,’ i.e., first shook him in his untested assumption that
human knowledge was possible and valid, this does not mean that Kant intended
to pursue the same road as Hume, i.e., that he intended to make the challenging
of this assumption his actual goal. Those have truly been guilty of misunderstanding him who have taken him to be a kind of super-skeptic, who have
looked upon him as the ‘all-annihilating one,’ as far as the reality of knowledge,
the reality of science and morality, art and religion are concerned: and have
regarded him as the man who contemplates civilization from outside, and challenges its values, so to speak, in order to provide it, on his own initiative, with a
new basis, or in order to refrain resignedly from the possibility of giving it a
basis.” Protestant Theology, 255ff.

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lies one of the chief reasons for Kant’s attempt to revise metaphysics in the
face of this scholastic understanding. The impetus for this came from
David Hume’s critique of the medieval metaphysics of causality. According to Hume, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Dialogues
on Natural Religion, if the mind has to conform to the object in coming to
a knowledge of it, then the supposed principle of causality is merely an
observation about how repeated events and encounters of objects have
occurred in our experience.65 The mind cannot demonstrate the manner
in which causes, and their effects, are connected. For Kant therefore, if
causality is an a priori principle of the mind, we must assume that it
belongs to the mind as an a priori and not to the object itself nor its cause.
In other words, the principle of causality, as we must hold it to be, is
the necessary model in which our understanding introduces order and
system into the world of our particular experiences; and this order and
system it is able to introduce, just because causality is bound up with
the very character of our thinking faculty.66

The Kantian hypothesis that objects must conform to knowledge
functions for Kant as a way of explaining how knowledge itself is possible. It consists in the judgment that we can have a priori knowledge of
the objects of experience and that this is a necessary judgment in that the
determination of objects in space and time “is a determination belonging to the very nature of the faculty of perception.”67 This is also the case
because there are certain basic modes of knowing and connecting,
according to the categories of the mind, which we describe as understanding. But this leads Kant back to the fundamental problem of metaphysics, both old and new. It is a problem that seems to him, on one level,
to be insoluble, namely, the knowledge of the supersensible.
Thus, the goal of Kant’s new metaphysics of causality, as stated everywhere in his Critiques, is not, in the first instance, the establishment of
knowledge as understanding in relation to the objects of experience, but
rather to answer the question how such an understanding can also, or not,
secure our knowledge of the supersensible. Given Kant’s answer to the
question, “How are a priori judgments of experience possible?” what
issues from it, in respect to metaphysics as science, is a severe limitation
of metaphysical knowledge to experience.While sensible objects can be
known as given to the mind, which orders them according to a system
65 See David Hume, “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” in idem, Writings

on Religion (Chicago: Open Court, 1993), 59ff.
66 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Preface, 5.
67 Ibid.

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of connections, this leads to considerable problems when the same metaphysics attempts to determine the nature of the supersensible. The type
of knowledge we have in the physical sciences is a knowledge specific to
objects of the senses and could not exist without the object itself.68 But,
by definition,“the supersensible excludes everything that is sensible.”The
difficulty is that knowledge is impossible without the sensible object.
Thus, there can be no knowledge of the supersensible because “it has
nothing of the sensible in it.”69 As such, metaphysics seems to be at an
end; and no real metaphysics of the supersensible, as conceived in scholastic causal and therefore analogical terms, is possible.
But Kant sees this apparent defeat for the scholastic metaphysics of the
supersensible as metaphysics’s greatest possibility.70 If the objects of sensible experience were “ultimate realities” then indeed the supersensible
vanishes, since the supersensible and the sensible would be contradictory
categories. However, if the world of the sensible can be shown not to be
the ultimate reality, but only a reality as it appears when refracted through
the medium of the perception and understanding of the mind, then
nothing in the sensible can be completely known in the ordering of the
supersensible.71 As it happens, according to Kant, the essential limitation
of sensible objects as they are conditioned by the mind can easily be
demonstrated. If that is the case (and Kant gives considerable space to
demonstrating this), then the unconditional is free from the limitations of
the sensible, so that there is nothing to hinder us from maintaining, with
equal validity, that the supersensible is the reality, the foundation, that may
be sought elsewhere than on the basis of a special scientific knowledge.
This other basis is, for Kant, practical reason, or moral consciousness,
which incidentally is precisely the basis upon which Aquinas established
the knowledge of God from an ontology of causality. Kant goes on, in his
Critique of Judgment and the Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion,
to show that the critique of pure reason demonstrates both the a priori
knowledge of sensible objects and at the same time prepares a way for the
defense of the supersensible, albeit, unknowable in its essence.72

68 Ibid.
69 Ibid.
70 Ibid.
71 Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. J. H. Bernard (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books,

2000); idem, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (New York:The
Liberal Arts Press, 1956).
72 Kant, Critique of Judgment, Appendix, §87; “Of the Moral Proof of the Being of
God,” 377ff.; “Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion,” 423–32.

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We can now turn briefly to the latter two works to demonstrate how
it is that Kant works out his metaphysics of the supersensible precisely on
the same basis as Aquinas, that of an ontology of causality. We would do
well to keep in mind, as we mentioned above, that it was this problem, as
raised by Hume, that served as Kant’s primary motivation for finding the
solution to the problem of the knowledge of God, presented in the “old
metaphysics,” that is, that of the medieval scholastics after Aquinas.
Causality in the Critique of Judgment
While the intertwining arguments on beauty and sublimity in the
Critique of Judgment are not unimportant, especially so in the light of
David Hart’s recently published Beauty of the Infinite, the real weight of
what Kant says about causality and its implications for analogy in the
Critique of Pure Reason and the Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion comes to fruition and significant conclusion in his appendix in the
Critique of Judgment. As already noted, in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant
tries to demonstrate that theoretical reason cannot make objective or
synthetic judgments about the supersensible. Given the fact that the
world, self, and God are unconditioned by the sensible, reason cannot pass
from these ideas to the assertion of objects corresponding to them.73 That
is to say, the causal connection, as conceived by the understanding, always
only amounts to a “regressive series of causes and effects,” wherein the
cause precedes the effect as its condition; and insofar as the cause is itself
again an effect, it is preceded by another cause, which is itself an effect,
and so on ad infinitum.74 This kind of regressive connection we call efficient causality.
However, Kant says there is an understanding of causality that does not
imply a regressive series, namely the conception of final cause. Considered from the point of view of “ends,” final causality cannot be strictly
called a series, except from the point of view of our grasp of it. Final
cause can be taken as either regressive or progressive but not ad infinitum;
in other words, the elements causally connected co-exist according to
ends, in a way that is mutually dependent. A cause can, therefore, just as
properly be called the effect, and the effect a cause. This form of causal
connection is what Kant means by final cause (nexus finalis).
Understood in relation to this nexus finalis, things are a natural end
when their parts are possible only in relation to some whole; in other
words, when the combination of the parts “presupposes a conception or
idea which determines the particular form in which the parts are
73 Kant, Critique of Judgment, 334.
74 Ibid.

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disposed.”75 This, however, is not enough to express all that is implicit in
a physico-teleology, in that what has been said is equally true of artificially produced products wherein the cause is clearly an intelligent being.
The cause is distinct from the effects, which are combined in a certain
way in order to realize that which the subject has in view. Hence, in the
second place, a natural product must not only presuppose the conception
of an end, but it must be of such a nature as to realize that end “independently of any intelligent cause external to it.”76 In other words, the
telos (end) is not external to but immanent in the object.This can be said
to be true only when the parts of the natural product involve a “reciprocity of cause and effect” as it relates to the form of an entity. (Here we
recall how closely related are the Platonic concept of form and the Aristotelian concept of cause.) Under no other condition can the idea of the
whole determine the form and combination of all the parts. Here we
cannot speak of a cause that brings together parts in a certain way; what
we can only say is that in no other manner can we conceive of the particular combination of parts exhibited in the object except under presupposition of an immanent purpose. In that case, there is a combination of
efficient and final causes within a whole in that “the efficient cause is
conceived as the means by which the final cause is realized.”77
Here we see Kant and Aquinas in the closest possible connection,
precisely on Aristotelian and neo-Platonic terms. In a natural product
each part not only exists by means of the other,
but is conceived to exist for the sake of the other and of the whole, so
that each part is an instrument or organ; and not only so, but these
organs reciprocally produce one another—a fact which distinctly marks
off organized beings from artificial products. The only natural end,
then, is found in self-organizing beings.78

That is, organizing beings are the only things in nature that, taken by
themselves, must be conceived as existing only as a relation. In no other
case within nature is purpose attributed to the object. For this reason the
conception of an end of nature, as distinguished from a practical end, that
is, an end secured artificially by an intelligent subject distinct from the
object, first obtains objective reality from the consideration of organizing
beings; and if it had not been found that there are natural objects that can
be explained in no other way, there would have been no justification for
75 Ibid., 335.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid., 338.
78 Ibid.

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conceiving nature teleologically, keeping in mind that this is all confined
to experience.
When Kant turns in a more direct way to describe what such a teleologically conceived, and phenomenologically limited, conception of
causality means for theology and revelation, the full weight of his argument demonstrates clearly the implications ingredient in the medieval,
emanationist form of the metaphysics of causality with its concomitant
negative return vis-à-vis the knowledge of God. In the Lectures on the
Philosophical Doctrine of Religion, Kant applies this limited understanding
of final causality to his description of theology with special reference to
primary and secondary causality in the scholastic doctrine of providence
about which he writes:
The system of emanation of the subtler kind, according to which God is
regarded as the cause of substances by the necessity of his nature, has one
ground of reason opposed to it, which at once overthrows it.This ground
is taken from the nature of an absolutely necessary being and consists in
the fact that the actions which an absolutely necessary being undertakes
from the necessity of its nature can never be any but those internal actions
which belong to the absolute necessity of its essence. . . .This ground sets
up a resistance on the part of reason toward the system of emanation,
which regards God as cause of the world by the necessity of his nature,
and discovers the cause of the unwillingness to accept this system, which
everyone feels even if he is not able to develop it distinctly. . . . For here
cause and effect are homogeneous, as for instance in the generation of animals
and plants. But it would be absurd to think of God as homogeneous with
the totality of the world, because this would contradict entirely the
concept of an ens originarium, which, as we have shown above, has to be
isolated from the world. Hence there remains to our reason only the
opposite system of causality, the systema per libertatem.79

This conclusion issues, in the Critique of Judgment, in a completely closed
system of causality in which the knowledge of God is finally all but
denied.80
79 “Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion,” 422 (systema per libertatem:

“system [of causality] through freedom”).
80 Ibid., 432. Kant concludes: “The conception, therefore, of an absolute end, i.e.,

of the possibility of the free realization of absolute moral laws by beings who are
ends in themselves, presupposes the existence of a moral cause or author of the
world; in other words, it presupposes the existence of God.” But, says Kant, “we
cannot assume that in the supreme cause of the world, which we must conceive
of as an intelligence, there is the same contrast between reason as practical and
reason as theoretical, and that a kind causality is required for the ultimate end
which is different from that required for natural ends.”

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It is quite true that we cannot prove the existence of God as the moral
author of the “World” simply from a consideration of nature as implying purpose. But it is the very character of reason that it cannot be satisfied with anything short of an absolute unity of principles, and
therefore the knowledge of physical ends, when it is brought into relation with the knowledge of the moral end, is the means by which we
are enabled to connect the practical reality of the idea of God with its
theoretical reality as already existing for judgment.81

In sum, says Kant, two things must be kept in mind in regard to the
moral proof of the existence of God in light of this closed system of ends.
“In the first place, since we have no positive knowledge of the existence
of a Supreme Being, on account of the necessary limitations of our
knowledge to objects of sensible experience, we can only think or
conceive the attributes of this Being by analogy.”82 It is not possible for
us actually to know God because there is nothing within our experience
that reveals to us the nature of a being who transcends all experience.
Second, it follows from this that “though we are entitled to say that the
Supreme Being must by His nature correspond to what we mean by intelligence and morality, this does not enable us to know Him as He is, nor
can we predicate these attributes positively of Him.”83 Thus, according to
81 Ibid.
82 See Critique of Judgment, 348ff.; and “Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of

Religion,” 422ff.
83 Critique of Judgment, 348ff. It is worth noting here that Jüngel, Hart, and indeed

Barth himself, aim at this correspondence that Kant seems to deny to any analogical method.The difference being that for Barth and Jüngel there is an accounting of this Kantian critique, and thus an attempted location of all correspondence
in a doctrine of revelation that is Christologically and incarnationally oriented.
Hart calls for such a correspondence but does so on the same grounds that Kant
denied to him, the emanationist argument from causality. Hart writes, “Created
difference ‘corresponds’ to God, is analogous to the divine life, precisely in differing from God; this is the Christian thought of divine transcendence, of a God
who is made inconceivably near in—whose glory is ubiquitously proclaimed by—
creation’s infinity of difference from God, its free, departing, serial excess of otherness.
Theology speaks of nothing if it speaks taxonomically of the one and the many,
because difference as revealed in the Trinitarian economy precedes this static and
mutually conditioning opposition; the motion of divine love shows selfcontained singularity to be a fiction of thought, for even in the ‘instant’ of origin
there is the I—otherness of manifestation” (Beauty of the Infinite, 180, emphasis
added). But, we would add, only as we view it from the limited horizon of experience, within multiplicity wherein the vision of pros hen is obscured! How Hart
can deny an “ontology of the one and the Many,” then argue in Kantian terms
for transcendence, and then appeal to the tradition of emanation in support of
statements like this, is a complete contradiction in terms. It raises the question as

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Kant, the only manner in which we can realize for ourselves the nature of
the Supreme Being is through the application of the idea of final cause or
purpose, and that idea, as we have seen, is only a regulative not a constitutive principle. Reason must take the form of the determinant judgment
before we can absolutely determine the nature of God, and this is contrary
to its fundamental character.The final result of Kant’s whole enquiry was
to place the belief in God, freedom, and immortality upon a thoroughly
rational basis, a result that at first sight seemed to be excluded by the
necessary limitation of knowledge to the world of sense. This was his
achievement for metaphysics. It was an achievement that Kant established
precisely because of the failure of scholastic metaphysics to do so. School
metaphysics failed at this because it was centered on the Thomistic/Aristotelian/Platonic epistemology of causality.84
Karl Barth saw the danger in this emanationist argument from causality ingredient in analogical predication about God and its net negative
return, and he warns of this problem throughout the Church Dogmatics.
Indeed, it forms one of the crucial points in understanding his rejection
of the analogia entis as employed in certain forms of Catholic theology,
with the blessing and protection of the Magisterium. Furthermore, were
scholars like Przywara, von Balthasar, Hart, Betz, Milbank, and a host of
others since von Balthasar, fully aware of Barth’s sensitivity to this emanationist understanding of divine predication in much of Catholic thought
and some Reformed Scholasticism, then at least a more careful assessment of his rejection of the analogia entis would be forthcoming from
them.85 My point here is simply to register this and not to render judgment as to the correctness of Barth’s concern or to defend it per se. To
help clarify Barth’s rejection of the analogia entis, and his grounds for
doing so, the remainder of this essay exposits his understanding of causality especially in his treatment of primary and secondary causality under
the doctrine of concursus, in Church Dogmatics, III/3, but with special reference to his rejection of omnicausality and Molinism in his treatment of
omnipotence in Church Dogmatics, II/1.86
to whether he has read Jüngel, Barth, Kant, or indeed even Aquinas closely at all.
Is he operating purely with the Radical Orthodox reading of Kant? He most
certainly has not read the many comprehensive treatments of analogy that would
have made him alert to this potential contradiction in terms; especially the works
of B. Mondin, D. Burrell, G. Klubertanz, or H. Lyttons.
84 “The Philosophical Doctrine of Religion,” 427.
85 Here I refer to John Betz’s characterization of Barth’s rejection of the analogia
entis as an “unfair” and “abrupt” treatment of Przywara, in “Beyond the Sublime”
(Part One), as though two wrongs should bring balance to the discussion.
86 Church Dogmatics, vol. II/1, 529ff.; vol. III/3, 89–154.

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Karl Barth and His Rejection of the Analogia Entis
There is no question that, in respect to his aversion to neo-Platonic emanationism, Barth remains consistent throughout the Church Dogmatics. It is
also clear that this constitutes a major reason, though by no means the only
one, for his rejection of the analogy of being. In respect to the predication
of the perfections of God on the basis of any cause-effect relation, says Barth:
The fact that He (God) is one and the same does not mean that He is
bound to be and to say and to do only one and the same thing, so that
all the distinctions (perfections) of His being, speaking, and acting are
only a semblance, only the various refractions of a beam of light which
are eternally the same. This was and is the way that every form of
Platonism conceives of God. It is impossible to overemphasize the fact
that here, too, God is described as basically without life, word, or act.
Biblical thinking about God would rather submit to the confusion of
the grossest anthropomorphisms than to confusion with this, the
primary denial of God.87

What is notable about this citation is the direct opposition Barth sees
between the biblical descriptions of God’s attributes and those of the
Platonic tradition, which he sees as irreconcilable with the biblical witness.
This is the primary attitude with which Barth begins his doctrine of God;
and it expresses much about his attitude toward those Platonizing principles that merely end in either the reduction of God to non-existence, or
to nothing but pure potential that is absolutely unknowable, unthinkable,
and unspeakable.88 Barth sees the epitome of this reductionist approach to
theology expressed in the doctrine of omnicausality, expressed in terms of
the classical doctrine of omnipotence, which he attributes to the Thomistic
conception of causality. Says Barth:
87 Church Dogmatics, vol. II/1, 496. Gunton puts the importance of Barth’s aversion

to all forms of Platonic thinking, monist, dualist, and emanationist, into perspective: “Thus, according to Barth revelation overthrows axiomatic monism of the
kind that Hartshorne avows. . . . He wishes to preserve an understanding of God
as one who really does things with, to, and for mankind, but who does them not
because of necessitated metaphysical ties but because he freely and graciously
chooses to do them. . . .The triumph of Barth’s theology is a God who doesn’t
need man; therefore He can let man live” (Becoming and Being, 154).
88 Barth comments later in his treatment of the nature and provenance of the world
that some Christian theologies lapse into “a monistic and or dualistic explanation”
that is reductionist either on the side of the divine or the side of the world. See
Church Dogmatics, vol. II/1, 500, where Barth writes that the biblical doctrine of
God “sets two limits.The first is against all speculation of a monistic kind. . . . It
is no less a speculation, however, when the distinction between creature and
creator is drawn in dualistic fashion” (500–501).

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It is important to perceive the thrust of grace and mercy and patience
in which God makes Himself our omnipotent God and applies His
omnipotence beneficially to us as His omnicausality, although He does
not need to do this or lose anything by doing it. If we do not see this,
how can we acknowledge and worship it as divine omnipotence, and
show it the awe and trust it deserves and claims as divine omnipotence.
Absolutely everything depends on whether we know God as the One
who is omnipotent in Himself, and therefore recognize His omnipotence, of course in His omnicausality in creation, reconciliation, and
redemption on the basis of His self-revelation, but really as His
omnipotence. Absolutely everything depends on whether we distinguish His omnipotence from His omnicausality: not to the glory of an
unknown omnipotent being who is beyond and behind His work; but
to the glory of the omnipotent God who is present to us in His work
and is known to us by His self-revelation; to the glory of His divinity,
of the freedom of His love. Without which His love would not be
divine love or recognizable as such.89

For Barth, this complete theological identification of God’s omnipotence with omnicausality leads to the perception that God is no longer the
Subject over his works and is “finally denied as such.”90 In exactly this way
both the Protestant Reformed and the Catholic traditions demonstrate
that they are not concerned with God, who is the Subject of omnipotence
89 Ibid., 528. In regard to the absolute identification of power and causality in God,

as per Aquinas, Barth writes as follows:“If this is all there is to say, is not the conclusion irresistible that no potential can be ascribed to God intra se, as distinct from
His operations ad extra, and therefore that impotentia must be ascribed to Him in
Himself? Does God begin to be omnipotent only with the existence of a reality
distinct from Himself, an extra in which His omnipotence can be omnicausality?
Does it first exist as His relationship to this extra? But how is this in any sense possible if there is no corresponding being in God Himself? And how can God’s relation ad extra, His omnicausality, be distinguished from all this outward activity?”
90 Ibid., 529. This is the problem, according to Barth, with Schleiermacher’s
employment of causality as well. He writes,“The summary at the head of §54 of
Schleiermacher’s Christian Faith declares: ‘In the conception of the divine
omnipotence two ideas are contained: first, that the entire system of nature,
comprehending all times and spaces, is founded upon divine causality, which, as
eternal and omnipresent, is in contrast to all finite causality; and second, that the
divine causality, as affirmed in our feeling of absolute dependence, is completely
presented in the totality of finite being, and hence everything really happens and
occurs for which there is a causality in God.’This summary itself makes clear that
Schleiermacher is not concerned with God as the subject of omnipotence, but
with the concept of divine omnipotence as such, and with this, as the first half
of the statement shows, only as it denotes the causal basis of the natural system,
i.e., the totality of finite causes and effects.” See Friedrich Schleiermacher, The
Christian Faith (1928; Edinburgh:T&T Clark, 1976), §54.

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and possesses it. Rather, they are concerned with the bare concept of
divine omnipotence, “as it denotes the causal basis of the natural system,
i.e. the totality of finite causes and effects.”91 Barth is concerned to point out
that a proper understanding of existence through divine potentia does not
entail a metaphysics of necessity but allows for the freedom of God to
decide what will and will not be. Causality must not be a principle that
binds God to creation through a neo-Platonic doctrine of the “potency of
participation,” as we see in the work of Hart for instance.92
91 Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. II/1, 529, emphasis added.
92 Recently,Wayne Hankey, in his “Radical Orthodoxy’s Poiesis: Ideological Histo-

riography and Anti-Modern Polemic,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly
80 (2006), calls into serious question the Radical Orthodox appeal to participatory poiesis as the essence of Thomistic metaphysics, which places Thomas’s work
squarely in the field of theology and not philosophy. Here Hart follows Milbank’s
approach to the reading of Thomas Aquinas. But appeal to the Thomistic understanding of “participation” does not solve the problem of esse in Aquinas. As
Hankey correctly notes;“Radical Orthodoxy supposes that its theological ontology allows it both to have God as Being and to embrace enthusiastically the
theurgic poiesis that, however, emerged in Neo-Platonism only together with a
strongly negative henological theology. Milbank supposes that his neo-Platonism, refounded in Christian myth, will allow him to have ‘the Platonic Good,
reinterpreted by Christianity as identical with Being’ ” (11). In his major treatment of Thomas’s theological development, God in Himself, in which he says
Thomas developed his synthesis along the lines of The Elements of Theology of the
neo-Platonist Proclus, he more than demonstrates the veracity of this conclusion.
It must at least be taken more seriously than either Milbank or Hart have taken
it thus far. In that work Hankey concludes: “Another doctrine of St. Thomas,
closely related to this and exposing how he (Thomas) has assimilated and united
their divergent traditions, needs to be added to the list. This is the idea that
creation is by participation. Particular beings, because they are not absolutely
primary, have existence divided from essence and hence participate in the first
act of being, God. Creation is this participation: ‘creation is the emanation of all
being from the universal existence’ ” (ST I, q. 45, prol.).Thomas unites Plato and
Aristotle, joining causation and participation in the very first article of the questions considering the procession of creatures. He begins by returning to the
simplicity of God.‘It has been shown above, when treating the divine simplicity,
that God is being itself subsisting. And again it was shown that subsisting being
is not able to be except as one. . . . It follows, therefore, that all other things are
not God’s being but participate the act of being.’ Because all else participates the
first being, it must be caused by it. ‘Hence Plato said that it is necessary to posit
unity before all multiplicity.’ And Aristotle said, in the second book of the Metaphysics that ‘what is most existent and is the cause of all being and of all truth.’
Being itself functions like a Platonic separate form” (God in Himself, 139). “Sed
sicut hic homo participat humanum naturam, ita quodcumque ens creatum
participat, ut ita dixerim, naturam essendi; quia solus Deus est suum esse, ut supra
dictum est” (ST I, q. 45, a. 5, ad 1).

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To drive home this tendency that Barth sees in the Thomistic and
Reformed Scholastic traditions we can also note his treatment of Molinism that occurs in the same discussion of the attributes of God, but now
with respect to omniscience.The basis of the critique that Barth levels at
Molinism is the same as that raised against the absolute identification of
omnipotence and omnicausality.93 Barth recognizes that Thomism rejected
the Molinist position, but ultimately came to an accommodating position
in relation to it (as did the Catholic Church in general).At the heart of this
doctrine there is an inherent penchant for synergism expressed as an analogia entis, conveyed through a metaphysics of causality. Barth writes:
An effective denial of Molinism is possible only when we cease to think
in a God-creature system, in the framework of the analogia entis. It is
possible only when theology dares to be theology and not ontology,
and the question of a freedom of the creature which creates conditions
for God can no longer arise. But this can happen only when theology
is orientated on God’s revelation and therefore [on] Christology.94

Here, in Molinism, Barth also sees the same operative monism in the
treatment of God’s foreknowledge that he saw in the treatment of God’s
omnipotence as omnicausality. Thomism could not ultimately deny
Molinism for the same reasons. Barth writes,
The question remains whether this opposition (of Thomism to Molinism) springs from such an appreciation of the total distinction and relationship between God and the creature that it could really be carried
through successfully, not merely offering an impressive resistance to the
view adopted by the Jesuits, but basically excluding it.The answer is in
the negative.95

Why does Barth think this is so? He answers: because
the Thomist conception of the relation of God and the creature also
offers the picture of a system, of the relationship of two quantities
which in the last resort are comparable and can be grouped together
under one concept (being). God’s infinite superiority and the infinite
93 In this fascinating follow-up discussion to omnicausality, Barth offers a blistering

critique of both Jesuitism and Thomism in the Catholic tradition in its dealing
with the work of the Spanish Jesuit theologian Molina (1535–1600), and his
Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, “which can only be described as an illegitimate interest in an autonomy of the human will in its relation to the divine
knowledge and to God generally” (Church Dogmatics, vol. II/1, 569ff.).
94 Ibid., 580.
95 Ibid.

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subordination of the creature are beautifully set out and secured in this
system. Yet in this remarkable relationship the two quantities are
embraced in the common concept of being.96

So, Barth concludes, “in this fundamental standpoint, which has priority
over all the others,Thomist and Molinist are unfortunately one.”97
Furthermore, it is precisely the causal form of argumentation for this
single concept of being that lies at the root of Barth’s problem with
Molinism.98 So Barth raises a further question within this context that
96 Ibid. It is worth noting at this point that Przywara is very much in the Molinist

camp as a Jesuit himself.This must certainly complicate his view of analogy as a
“Thomistic view.” Barth places Przywara under the same kind of critique as he
places Molina through a reference in this section to his treatment of the doctrine
of Mary. See Church Dogmatics, vol. I/2, 138–46, where, speaking about the
comparison of Mary with Sophia in Ecc. 4 Barth writes, “What is the meaning
of this sophia proceeding from God, like God, yet immanent in the world? E.
Przywara purports to give us final clarity in the matter when he writes that there
are contained ‘in the Catholic doctrine of the analogia entis the possibilities of a
true incarnational cosmos, including body and soul, community and individual,
because in their totality . . . they are “open” to God. From the standpoint of the
Catholic doctrine of the analogia entis creation in its totality is the vision, mounting from likeness to likeness, of the God who is beyond every likeness. It is,
therefore, a receptive readiness for Him. In its final essence it is, as it were, already
Mary’s “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy
word” ’ (144). Says Barth;“All this is what Mariology means. For it is to the creature creatively co-operating in the work of God that there really applies the irresistible ascription to Mary of that dignity. Of those privileges, of those assertions
about her co-operatio in our salvation, which involve a relative rivalry with Christ”
(145). Could this be what Barth saw in Przywara’s doctrine of analogy as an
“invention of the antichrist” (145)? If so, then Barth’s Protestant position makes
sense from the point of view of a Protestant and should be somewhat understood
from a Catholic point of view.
97 Church Dogmatics, vol. II/1, 584. Barth elaborates this point as follows: “But we
must also admit that we do not know how to advise them because we are fully
aware that the only advice that we can give them is not practicable for them as
Romanist, and even, we may say, as Thomistic theologians. For the school of
Thomas has done far more than its opponents [Molinists] to consolidate the basis
it has in common with the Jesuits, the great error of the analogia entis as the basic
pattern of Catholic thinking and teaching” (584).
98 Ibid., 585. Barth’s final word on Molinism clearly puts his problem with the
Thomistic metaphysics of causality into perspective.“The most secure basis for this
pattern is the work of Thomas Aquinas himself, so that every step a Thomist takes,
even if it seems to take him far from the Jesuit counter-thesis, really serves implicitly to justify this counter-theory in advance. Those who practice theology as
ontology have not merely to admit the doctrine of the freedom of the creature.
Willynilly they must themselves espouse it even if it means omitting some of the

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he deals with in a decisive manner elsewhere in the Church Dogmatics,
under the Providence God in respect to the Scholastic doctrine of concursus in III/3.99 The question raised here, in the context of his treatment of
Molinism’s doctrine of divine-human cooperation, is “if God and the
creature are really both within a system of being superior to both,” so that
“the occasional inversion of the concept A–B to B–A” is permissible,
then “can Molinism be rejected absolutely or a limine?” The answer is,
again, negative; and the same is true of the idea that it attempts to establish, “Namely of competition and co-operation on the part of the creature in relation to God.”100 The treatment of the Catholic and
Reformed-Scholastic doctrine of concursus brings this critique of metaphysical causality full circle in Barth’s ongoing rejection of the analogia
entis.We will turn now to this section of the Church Dogmatics to round
out our description of the reason for Barth’s rejection of an analogia entis.
Analogia Causalitatis and the Doctrine of Concursus
At the very beginning of his doctrine of providence Barth is concerned
to distinguish his position from the Catholic and Protestant-ScholasticReformed positions that tended to reduce the preservation evident in the
God-Creature relation to a “logical necessity within which a given B is
maintained by a given A, a given effect by a given cause.”101 The preservation of the creature is a work of divine favor and not expressive of a
cooperative relationship in which God, of necessity, must act in a way
consistent with a perceived form of cause-effect relation.This relation is
not to function, as with the Catholic form of the doctrine of divine
simplicity for instance, as a self-imprisonment of God.We must therefore
avoid the Thomistic/Kantian view of causality. But we can do so only “if
we note the correlation between His [God’s] work here and His work
within the covenant of grace.”102 Only then can we be kept from the
mistake of regarding either “the creature or its nexus as the sustaining
principle of creation.”103 The only way to avoid this confusion of acting
radical conclusions of their protest.They affirm this doctrine when they undertake
to practice theology as ontology. And it is not only Catholic theology in general
which stands or falls with this undertaking, but Thomism in particular.”
99 Ibid., see 89–154.
100 Ibid., 581.
101 Church Dogmatics, vol. III/3, 59.
102 Ibid., 65.
103 Ibid. Barth elaborates as follows: “As we consider His work within the covenant
we shall be constantly aware of the fact that His indirect work here in the nexus
of being is no less His free decision than is His direct work there in that other and
spiritual nexus. And even here in the nexus of being we shall not see anyone else

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subjects is by a proper description of the God-human relationship that
allows for the eternal coexistence of both. This is Barth’s aim in the
redescription of the Thomistic and Reformed-Scholastic doctrine of
concursus, which, in its Reformed expression, is grounded in a distinction
between primary and secondary causality.104 Barth wants to eliminate
this dependence of the Reformed doctrine of concursus on the Thomistic
distinction between primary and secondary causality.
Barth notes that it was in an attempt to “do justice to the problem of a
co-existence and antithesis of the divine and creaturely action which should
correspond with the testimony of Scripture,” that Reformed Scholasticism
developed the doctrine of primary and secondary causality in terms of the
doctrine of the concursus.105 Faced with this problem, Reformed Scholasticism formally borrowed from the philosophy of Aristotle and the theology
of Aquinas.106 This borrowing amounted to an “adoption and introduction
of a specific terminology to describe the two partners whose activities are
at work save God Himself, not to mention the fact that we shall always distinguish
sharply between the nexus of being which is the means and the One who uses this
means” (65–66). Barth sees two problems with this reading of God and creation
from the causal nexus, which he calls the “nexus of being.” 1. “We understand the
nexus of being of all created things (what Thomas described as the order by which
one thing is dependent on another) quite one-sidedly and therefore falsely if we
understand it only from the standpoint of the uniform interconnection of all being
and events, for, as the (in this respect) far wiser older theology almost universally
maintained, it has also the aspect of contingence in which all things must be
considered according to their freedom. 2. Even if we do understand the creaturely
nexus of being more comprehensively, its identification with the divine preservation
involves a blind surrender of the concepts God and creation. For the identification
of the divine preservation with the creaturely nexus means a flat denial of the fact
that this nexus is not grounded upon or maintained by itself, but has over it an
independent Lord and Sustainer” (66). (Again contra Thomas and Kant.)
104 It is hard to tell if Barth thinks concursus is the Reformed-Scholastic doctrine that
attempts to summarize and represent the Thomistic doctrine of primary and
secondary causality or if the whole thing is Thomistic. Either way, whether he
sees it as a Thomistic doctrine or a Reformed Scholastic doctrine, they both end
up in the same place, in a metaphysics of causality that loses both subjects in an
eternal respect. Indeed one does so on the basis of the other, namely on the basis
of Thomist causal argumentation.Where Barth sees this in the Reformed tradition he rejects it, and as such rejects Thomism at this point as constituting an
analogy of being through an analogy of causality. Barth refers often to the “older
dogmatics,” and it is a question in some cases whether he means ReformedScholastic dogmatics or Thomistic dogmatics. Either way both are criticized for
their employment of an Aristotelian causal ontology read through the prism of
a neo-Platonic, Proclan, and ultimately emanationist cosmology.
105 Ibid., 96.
106 Ibid.

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understood and represented in the doctrine of the concursus.”107 This was
described in the quasi-synergistic terms of cooperation in which the
concept adopted and introduced was that of “cause.”108 For Barth, this
Thomistic-Aristotelian and, ultimately Dionysian/Proclan, concept of
cause becomes the controlling principle for the Reformed doctrine of
concursus and its “kindred topics.”109 The term “cause” involves a question
of “the relation between the divine and creaturely activity. But activity
means causare.Activity is movement or action which has as its aim or object,
a specific effect.”110 Barth further defines cause as “something without
which another and second thing either would not be at all, or would not
be at this particular point or in this particular way.”111 He writes:
A causa is something by which another thing is directly posited, or
conditioned, or perhaps only partly conditioned, that is, by which it is
to some extent and in some sense redirected and therefore altered. Now
if we are speaking of the activity, and therefore the causare, of God and
the creature, then wittingly and willingly or not, we are describing and
thinking of both of them in terms of causa. And at once we have to
begin our manipulation of the dialectic of the concept, and it was in
this process that the older dogmaticians found inspiration and guidance
in Aristotle and Thomas. For quite obviously God is a causa in one
sense, and the creature in quite another.112

This means that, for Barth, denoting God as causa “consists primarily and
supremely in the fact that since He is the source of all causae, the basis and
starting point of the whole causal series, there is no causa which is either
before or above him, but He is his own causa: causa sui.”113 Therefore, it
also means that, since everything that exists apart from him was caused
by him, as an effect, all causae that exists outside him, with their own
causare,“are not merely partly but absolutely conditioned by Him indeed
they are not merely conditioned but in the first instance posited by him,
107 Ibid., 98.
108 Ibid.
109 Ibid. Barth adds: “Now we cannot deny that even from the standpoint of the

subject itself the concept causa could and necessarily did both advance and
commend itself. It was indeed the whole problem of causa which had formed
the topic for discussion even in the sixteenth century, and this not only in the
doctrine of providence of Zwingli and Calvin but also in Luther’s De servo arbitrio” (ibid.).
110 Ibid.
111 Ibid. He bases this on the English meaning of the word cause.
112 Ibid.
113 Ibid.

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seeing that they are created.”114 It was in this way that God was known
and described according to the “older theology” as “causa prima, the causa
princeps, the controlling cause which governs all other causae and their
causare.”Thus, Barth concludes:
This was the conceptual basis on which the older Evangelical dogmatics
understood the concursus Dei within the overruling of providence. As causa
prima, or princeps, God co-operates with the operation of causae secundae,
or particulares.The divine causare takes place in and with their causare.115

Barth does not fault the term “cause” directly for the tendency of this kind
of argumentation to lead us astray vis-a-vis the biblical witness. In a very
real sense “every terminology is a possible source of error.”116 There is no
doubt in Barth’s mind, however, that the use of causa did lead to a serious
error in Thomas Aquinas in regard to the biblical understanding of cooperation among the acting subjects, God and the human. Indeed the use to
which it was put obscured the biblical portrait of the God-human relationship and precisely on the basis of an Aristotelian/neo-Platonic
conception of causality that was “completely apart from the message of
the Bible.” Under the pressure of this concept of cause “there emerge[d]
theological conceptions and asseverations which are foreign and even
completely antithetical to that message.”117 Barth thinks that this has
happened in the case of Thomism, and so also in the Reformed tradition
where it has followed Aquinas in this matter.118 Here Barth launches into
a detailed discussion of Protestant Scholasticism, especially in its Lutheran
expression, to demonstrate this fact. He finds that while formally their use
of the concept of cause is quite correct, materially, their doctrine failed to
be sensitive to the biblical witness. This was the case to the degree that
what they hoped to preserve, a biblical account of two acting subjects with
eternal distinction, was lost. In regard to it he concludes:
It missed completely the relationship between creation and the covenant
of grace. In its whole doctrine of providence it spoke abstractly not only
114 Ibid., 99. Furthermore,“all other causae can only affirm and attest Him as the one

causa. All other causare can only affirm and attest His causare causarum” (ibid.).
115 Ibid.
116 Ibid. Here, Barth wants to ensure his own right of access to a form of causal

argumentation later and writes:“The term causa does not derive from the Bible,
but this does not mean that its introduction into the language of theology is a
mistake. The term may well be useful in the developing and applying of the
message of the Bible.”
117 Ibid., 100.
118 Ibid.

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of the general control of God over and with the creature, but of the control
of a general and in some sense neutral and featureless God, an Absolute. . .
. It [also] spoke abstractly of a neutral and featureless creature.119

As a result, when the “older dogmaticians” spoke in terms of the
causare of the causa prima and the causae secundae, “neither in the one case
nor in the other had it any specifically Christian content.”120 To the
degree that it was an essentially unbiblical use of the term “cause,” Barth
says, it lacked any “definite safeguards” against the mischief that was
inevitably the result of an otherworldly reading of causality.
The enemies which it was its business to repel, the enemy of synergism
on the one hand and monism on the other [which for Barth are internal to the Thomistic synthesis], of the Papacy on the one hand and the
Turk on the other, could also make use of exactly the same form.They
could not be repelled merely by the use of that form.When the Evangelicals were seen to be looking to Thomas, it might easily have been a
cause of triumph and a source of hope not only in Rome itself but also
in countless other states which openly or secretly were seeking a
uniform doctrine.121

So much for the broad strokes of his critique of causality. But Barth
only launches this critique of the use of causality in order to exposit the
conditions under which a doctrine of concursus, based on cause, may be
permitted. Here, Barth is more explicit in his rejection of the analogy of
being than anywhere else in the Church Dogmatics, other than the statement so often referred to and so little understood, namely the description of the analogia entis as “an invention of the anti-Christ.” His reasons
for rejecting an analogia causalitatis further confirm our claim that his
rejection has to do with a neo-Platonic henology of the one and the many
that some scholars deny is at the heart of Thomistic synthesis.
While this neo-Platonic henology may be denied, it cannot be done
without taking into consideration Barth’s concerns about its employment
of causality, which he considers a form of metaphysics, and determinative
of Catholic doctrine as a whole since Aquinas. On this basis “we have to
ask, therefore, on what conditions the concept can legitimately be applied
to this Reformed doctrine of concursus.”122 Barth delineates five “preliminary conditions,” the fulfillment of which is “dependent upon the fulfill119 Ibid.
120 Ibid.We need to keep in mind here that Barth is drawing this conclusion on the

basis of a reading that he sees to be endemic to the Thomistic tradition.
121 Ibid.
122 Ibid., 101.

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ment of one decisive condition” with which he deals in his conclusion
to this section.123 The first condition, if the concept of causality is to be
used effectively in theology, is that
the term causa must not be regarded as the equivalent of that of a cause
which is effective automatically. If we had no choice but to think of causa
or cause as the term is applied in modern science, or rather natural
philosophy, with all its talk about causality, causal nexus, causal law, causal
necessity, and the like, then clearly it is a concept which we could not
apply either to God or to the creature of God, but could only reject.124

Here Barth recognizes that theology must use causal argumentation in a
way that does not make it susceptible to the Humian/Kantian critique.
But this is not his main concern in rejecting the Thomistic approach
herein, and so we merely note it here as confirming what we said earlier.
His second condition comes closer to the mark when he writes;
If the term causa is to be applied legitimately, care must be taken lest
the idea should creep in that in God and the creature we have to do
with two “things.” The German word for cause, Ur-sache, might easily
suggest this. A “thing” or “object” (Sache) is something which in part at
least, is perceptible and accessible to man. If we have to do with a
“thing” then this means that even if only effectively we believe that we
are capable of examining, recognizing, analyzing and defining, in short
of “realizing” it, and in some degree we know how to control it. But
neither God nor the creature is a causa in this sense.125

Thus Barth rejects any and all attempts at objectivizing either God or
humanity.
Barth’s third condition on the use of the word cause is one of the most
revealing. He writes:
123 Ibid.
124 Ibid.
125 Ibid. Barth elaborates as follows:“When we turn to Thomas and our own ortho-

dox fathers we have to ask seriously whether on their definition God and the
creature as primary and secondary causa could not easily become something very
like ‘things’ ” (101). He later adds; “Now when the Aristotelian dialectic of the
causal concept was applied to the operations of God and the creature, did it not
to some extent involve thinking and speaking about them in that way? The causal
concept, like the concept of being, is certainly an invitation to error at this point. . . .
Rather remarkably, a true theological realism consists primarily in a constant
awareness of the fact that neither God nor the creature is a ‘thing,’ that on the
contrary, to those who really want to think and speak about them, to theologians—if they are not to thresh empty straw—they must always be self-revealed”
(102, emphasis added).

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If the term causa is to be applied legitimately, it must be clearly understood that it is not a master concept to which both God and the creature are subject, nor is it a common denominator to which they may
both be reduced. . . . And if the concept is used, this invitation must be
resisted at all costs.126

Causa, says Barth, is not a “genus,” according to which the “divine and
creaturely causa can then be described as species.” When theology speaks
of the being of God and of the human, it is not “dealing with two species
of the one genus being.”127 Furthermore, when Christian theology speaks
Christologically about the nature of God and the humanity of Christ,“we
are not dealing with two species of the one genus nature.”128 Here Barth
clearly rejects the “cause-effect relation” principle, and he immediately
extends this rejection to his understanding of analogy as follows:
It is true, of course, that although there is no identity of the divine and
creaturely operation or causare, there is a similarity, a correspondence, a
comparableness, an analogy. In theology we can and should speak about
similarity and therefore analogy when we find likeness and unlikeness
between two quantities: a certain likeness which is compromised by a
great unlikeness; or a certain unlikeness which is always relativised and
qualified by a certain existent likeness.The great unlikeness of the work
of God in face of that of the creature consists in the fact that as the work
of the Creator in the preservation and overruling of the creature the
work of God takes the form of an absolute positing, a form which can
never be proper to the work of the creature. But at the same time the
divine work in relation to the creature also has the form of a conditioning, determining, and altering of that which already exists.And inasmuch
as the conditioning of another also belongs to creaturely activity, there is
a certain similarity between the divine and the creaturely work. In view
of this likeness and unlikeness, unlikeness and likeness, we can and should
speak of a similarity, a comparableness, and therefore an analogy between
the divine activity and the human.We have to speak of an analogia operationis, just as elsewhere we can speak of an analogia relationis.129

For many this passage represents Barth’s great contradiction to his dismissal
of what he calls the “Catholic doctrine of the analogia entis.” But surely
126 Ibid., 102.
127 Ibid.
128 Ibid. “To put it rather differently, it must be clearly understood that when the

word causa is applied to God on the one side and the creature on the other, the
concept does not describe the activity but the active subjects, and it does not
signify subjects which are not merely not alike, or not similar, but subjects which
in their absolute antithesis cannot even be compared” (ibid., emphasis added).
129 Ibid.

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Barth does not make this error. For that matter, those who have pointed to
this passage, and the extended discussion of analogia relationis, have often
failed to consider the wider context of Barth’s theological development.
Barth does not at all mean by analogia operationis what either Aquinas or
Przywara mean in their employment of analogy, notwithstanding von
Balthasar’s critique (and those who follow his critique). In this very same
context Barth goes on to deny the analogy of being for the very same
reason that he has always rejected it, and in no uncertain terms. He writes,
Indeed, it would be a mistake to try to compare them simply because
they are both causa. In the same way it would be a mistake to argue as
follows [following Thomism and Jesuitism]. The Creator exists and has
being no less than the creature. Therefore although the being of the
Creator and that of the creature are unlike, in some respects they are alike
and therefore similar.There is therefore an analogia entis between God and
the creature.To that extent there is a master concept, a common denominator, a genus (being) which comprises both God and the creature.And
it would be a really serious mistake if we were to adopt this argument.130

Why does Barth think so? Because he thinks it is based on a mistaken
Christology, which argues that Jesus Christ has a preincarnate divine and
human nature, and that although the two natures are “unlike,” they are
also “alike and similar.” There is therefore an attempt at a Christological
grounding of an analogia naturae between God and man, which is not
biblically warranted. “And to that extent we can speak of a master
concept, a common denominator, a genus (nature) which comprises both
God and man.This is the type of mistake which we have to avoid at this
point. This is the deduction which we have to recognize as false and
therefore illegitimate.”131 Rather, Barth wants to lay clear emphasis on
the fact of the differences between the two acting subjects.
The concept causa does not merely describe activities, but acting
subjects. And between the two subjects as such there is neither likeness
nor similarity, but utter unlikeness.We cannot deduce from the fact that
both subjects are causa the further fact that they both fall under the one
master concept, causa, that they may both be reduced to that one
common denominator, or that they are both species belonging to the
one genus. On the contrary, they cannot even be compared.132
130 Ibid., 103.
131 Ibid.
132 Ibid, 102–3. Barth is unequivocal here. “The divine and creaturely subjects are

not like or similar, but unlike. They are unlike because their basis and constitution as subjects are quite different and therefore absolutely unlike, that is, there is

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The fourth condition relates directly to this third, but “the third condition is the most important so far mentioned, and if it is fulfilled the fourth
will also be fulfilled.” So Barth deals with it very briefly. He writes,“When
the causal concept is introduced, it should not be with either the intention or the consequence that theology should be turned into philosophy
at this point, projecting a kind of total scheme of things.”133 In actuality
this is, for Barth, an overriding concern in that he sees in the concept of
causality the displacement of theology by philosophy. But this concern, as
expressed here, is really in preparation for his fifth and most crucial condition on the use of the term “cause.”134 It at once summarizes and extends
the other four conditions and is typical of Barth’s whole theological enterprise. To miss it, and to misunderstand his intention in stating it, is to
misunderstand Barth’s approach to analogy altogether. It is precisely where
the Catholic and Orthodox traditions most often misunderstand Barth’s
fundamental Christological orientation in his doctrine of revelation.
The fifth condition Barth sets on the use of the term “cause” is stated
as follows:
As the doctrine of the concursus, and indeed the whole doctrine of providence, is expounded, there must be a clear connection between the
first article of the creed and the second. If the causal concept is to be
applied legitimately, its content and interpretation must be determined
by the fact that what it describes is the operation of the Father of Jesus
Christ in relation to that of the creature.135

This, says Barth is the only “positive condition” under which one may
employ the causal concept in the doctrine of concursus. It is, of course, the
not even the slightest similarity between them.The divine causa, as distinct from
the creaturely, is self-grounded, self-positing, self-conditioning, and self-causing”
(ibid., 103). And again; “It is quite indispensable to a true doctrine of the divine
accompanying that the absolute unlikeness of the two causae causantes should be
brought into sharp relief, with the consequent rejection of any idea of an analogia causae. For otherwise there can never be any certainty that we are speaking of
two distinct subjects, God and the creature, when we deal with that twofold
causare which is our present subject. In respect of other essences we can easily
take two quantities and range them under a single master concept, a common
denominator or a genus, thus comparing them the one with the other. But we
cannot do this with God and the creature. If we tried to do so, the twofold activity whose relationship we should be discussing would not be the activity of these
two subjects” (ibid.).
133 Ibid., 104.
134 See Barth’s treatment of Philosophy and Theology in Church Dogmatics, vol. I/1, 2.
135 Church Dogmatics, vol. III/3, 105.

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same condition that he places on analogia relationis.136 Only in this respect
can causal analogy be regarded as “theologically possible and incontestable.”
When it is interpreted in the light of Christology, the causal concept is
certainly not exposed to the danger of becoming a means for interpreting
the Christian faith as an ontology of the one and the many, of the exitus and
reditus that marks the neo-Platonism and, to some degree,Thomistic systems
of thought.Thus, on the negative side these conditions represent a denial of
the establishment of any form of divine and human agency grounded in
nature in and of itself. On the positive side, they do allow for the possibility of a positive dogmatic description of divine/human action that accounts
for causation within a framework of grace, Christologically grounded.
Conclusion
Thus Barth concludes, and so may we, that only under these conditions
can one employ any conception of cause. But under these conditions
causa has “a content in virtue of which it certainly embraces natural
events and the uniformity of their processes, and yet cannot be identified
with the narrow concept of a mechanical natural cause which effects and
is effected automatically.”137 The concept causa, Christologically grounded,
also means that the subjects God and humanity cannot be identified on
either side as a “thing.”138 This being the case then,
The concept causa has a content in virtue of which the two things
signified by it cannot possibly be compared. If we keep before us the
archetype of divine-human co-operation, the co-operation of the holy
God and sinful man in the covenant of grace; if we have regard to the
antithesis which in Jesus Christ became an antithesis in unity, we shall
refrain from drawing any parallels or comparisons, we shall be delivered
from the evil desire to find a master-concept, a common denominator,
a genus, a synthesis, in which God and the creature can be brought

136 Ibid, 106.
137 Ibid.
138 Ibid. Barth explains,“If the causa prima is the mercy of God, and the causa secunda

is its object and recipient, then it follows that neither the one nor the other can
ever be controlled by the one who meditates or speaks concerning them. For
what is there here that we can ‘realize’? We stand before the mystery of grace
both on the one side and on the other. It is clear that the causa prima can be
known only in prayer, and the causa secunda in gratitude, or else not at all. No
thinker or speaker can ever be above these things, but only under them. If in a
dead orthodoxy he is over something, then ipso facto it is not either the causa
prima or the causa secunda in this sense” (ibid.).

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together, and we shall be kept from the pleasure of finding analogies
between the two subjects.139

Finally, says Barth, the causal concept has
no content in virtue of which it ceases to be part of the Christian
confession and theological knowledge and becomes part of a philosophical scheme of things. For when the two subjects are so very different, but so closely inter-related, clearly it is only by revelation and in
faith that the causa princeps and the causa particularis can be known both
in and for themselves and in the concursus of their twofold causare.140

In sum, we have seen how it is that regardless of Barth’s misunderstanding of Przywara’s conception of analogia entis, he has to be taken seriously on his own grounds. Failing to understand this has led not a few
well-meaning theologians to identify the Przywarian/von Balthasarian
view and the “Roman Catholic” view that cannot be borne out in the
details. Such a mistake not only sidesteps the serious concerns that Barth
has leveled against post-Thomistic Roman Catholicism in general, but it
has made it inattentive to that very same ontology of the one and the
many through a reinterpretation of analogy of being in light of a doctrine
of participation as process that is just as indebted to philosophy. There
are, as I see it, three implications for theology should this mistaken identity between the Catholic view and Przywara continue.
On the scholarly level, this approach to the analogia entis may close off
dialogue with some of the most crucial research in relation to the Catholic
tradition that can be had. This reading of analogy also short circuits the
readings of Gilson, Lonergan, Burrell, and Barth, simply because these readings do not support the Przywara reading.As such there is a general failure
to take the massive amount of scholarship in this direction into account.
The net result is that it bypasses any consideration of the possibly serious
consequences that the Thomistic synthesis has had for Christian theology
through the Kantian critique. Redressing this state of affairs cannot be
accomplished simply through a wholesale reversal of the history of philosophy as if it never happened.The very reason for taking this position within
the Radical Orthodox group already admits to a state of affairs about theological speech that they are now wanting to deny. Indeed, as never before,
what we need is careful reading of texts.The fact that some will say I too
have misread the tradition, Aquinas, Kant, or Barth does not mitigate this
139 Ibid.
140 Ibid., 107.

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need. I have merely shown that the self-assured positions of Betz, Hart,
Milbank, et al. demonstrate a fair degree of perspectival reading in respect
to all of these authors.
On the level of tradition, this kind of narrow reading of the development of analogia entis closes off access to what is clearly a rich tradition of
hermeneutic and epistemic scholarship in the service of theological
language within the Roman Catholic tradition. Not all of it has been negative and bad for theology in general. The truncated reading of analogy
through the von Balthasar/Przywara position makes the multifaceted
nature of the development of analogy, and its related hermeneutical, ontological, and theological issues rather monochrome.
On the ecumenical level this reading of analogia entis clearly does not
respect the continuing differences that Protestants have with Roman
Catholics on issues of nature, grace, revelation, Christology, and so on. It
could mean ecumenical closure on some levels. One can argue for the
primacy of Przywara’s view, but this does not mitigate a complete disregard in respect to Barth’s great achievement, however much, as Reinhard
Hütter puts it, it is a particulare verbi.141 The phrase “anti-Christ” was
meant in all seriousness, and not as a caricature. Barth had real concerns
that at its heart the Catholic Church was indeed a displacement of Christ.
These concerns remain for many Protestants, who nevertheless desire
détente. Allow me to finish on a particularly Roman Catholic note by
citing one of its greatest twentieth-century theologians. In his book on
Barth’s theology von Balthasar writes:
This book will proceed, therefore, on the presupposition that something is really being said to us [Catholics] and that we can answer only
after we have really listened. . . . At any rate it is our duty to listen seriously before we for our part respond. Protestants are convinced that
they have seen through Catholicism once and for all; and if it should so
happen that they discover a presentation of Catholic views that they do
not find absurd, this must surely be due to the Catholic habit of countenancing “Jesuitical” arguments, hiding the Church’s true esoteric
features behind politically shrewd masks. . . . How can Catholics
counter such deep mistrust? How can they show that they hold no
“sinister designs”? Let us hear what Barth has to say: “Catholicism
stands before us today much more refined and alluring than in the
sixteenth century. It has become Jesuitical. . . . It speaks more fearlessly
and speaks more skillfully. It presses home its questions to us with
greater urgency and at the same time with greater understanding.” [So
141 Reinhard Hütter, “Karl Barth’s Dialectical Catholicity; Sic et Non,” Modern

Theology 16 (2000).

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Archie J. Spencer
von Balthasar concludes], the result is that, if sloth and inattention
hinder conversation on the Catholic side, mistrust and suspicion cripple it on the Protestant. . . . A calculating spirit of reconciliation is not
N&V
enough; genuine humility must be the mark of all dialogue.142

142 Von Balthasar, Theology of Karl Barth, 17–18.

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377

Intra-Trinitarian Obedience and
Nicene-Chalcedonian Christology
T HOMAS J OSEPH W HITE , O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, DC

I N C HURCH D OGMATICS IV, 1, section 59, Karl Barth seeks to
found a theology of redemption upon the crucifixion of Christ as an intraTrinitarian event. In doing so he posits a “divine obedience” of God the Son
in relation to God the Father, expressed in human form through the obedience and humility of Christ.1 The idea has become a locus classicus for
modern Trinitarian theology, as subsequent thinkers like Hans Urs von
Balthasar, Jürgen Moltmann, and Eberhard Jüngel have all drawn inspiration
from this text in their own writings.2 Yet Barth’s claim that the obedience
of God the Son is the “inner side of the mystery of the divine nature of
Christ”3 also raises important questions. How consistent is Barth’s notion
with the classical perspectives of Nicene-Chalcedonian Christology? Does
this theological vision in fact import distinctly creaturely characteristics into
the life of God? Does it adequately respect the unity of the Triune God?
As a way of responding to these questions, I will examine two basic
ideas in Barth’s treatment of divine obedience in Church Dogmatics, IV, 1,
1 See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/1 (London: T&T Clark and Contin-

uum, 2004), 157–357.
2 Von Balthasar’s work is deeply influenced by Barth’s theology of divine obedi-

ence. See as indications, Mysterium Pascale (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990),
79–83; idem, The Glory of the Lord, vol. I (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982),
478–80; idem, Theodrama, vol.V (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998), 236–39.
Jüngel’s God’s Being Is in Becoming (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 2001)
adopts the perspective of this text systematically. For Jürgen Moltmann’s dependence upon this text, see The Crucified God (New York: Harper and Row, 1973),
200–78, esp. 202–4, which begins Moltmann’s core reflection in the book.
3 Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/1, 193.

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

section 59.The first is his affirmation that God is able to exist in the man
Jesus Christ as one who is humble and obedient and that he does this
without ceding his immutability, eternity, and omnipotence. In other
words, God can take on the attributes of lowliness and service without
ceasing to be the sovereign Lord of his creation.The second idea is that
obedience, found in the man Jesus, in fact has its condition of possibility
in a transcendent “pretemporal” obedience in the immanent life of the
Trinity. God the Son is in some sense eternally obedient to God the
Father, and this is the ontological “presupposition” for the Incarnation.
I will argue that the first of these ideas can be understood as
profoundly consistent with a classical understanding of Chalcedonian
Christology (represented here by Aquinas). I will argue that the second
idea, however, is problematic for two reasons. As it is stated by Barth, the
theory seems to suggest that obedience characterizes the procession of the
Son from the Father.4 If this is the case, then the positing of such obedience in God renders obscure the confession of the unity of the divine
will and power of God. Consequently, it would also make problematic
the affirmation of a divine immutable omnipotence present in the incarnate Son. If this is the case, then, the second idea of Barth is in some real
tension with the first one mentioned above, resulting in a kind of “Trinitarian antinomy.” There is an inevitable discord between the affirmation
that the eternal, wise, and omnipotent God became human, and the affirmation that there is obedience within the very life of God that characterizes the person of the Son as distinct from the Father.
A more benign (re)interpretation of Barth’s pre-temporal obedience is
possible, however. If we understand the Son’s pretemporal obedience as
pertaining to his mission to become incarnate, received from the Father,
then continuity between Barth’s two ideas is possible. According to classical Nicene orthodoxy, God the Word receives and possesses from the
Father the unique divine nature, power, and will of God from all eternity.
This personal “relationality” of the Word implies a “receptivity” of the
divine nature without any ontological subordination or dependence.
Extrapolating from this view one can affirm that the Son’s divine receptivity is the transcendent ontological foundation for his temporal mission
among human beings. It is the Son as God who wills to become incarnate, yet he wills this mission not only with but also from the Father.
4 In this essay I employ the term “procession” in the broader Latin sense of proces-

sio, applicable to both the generation of the Word and the spiration of the Holy
Spirit. However, this is without prejudice to the legitimate Eastern Orthodox
concern to interpret the biblical and patristic Greek notion of ekporeusis (procession) as pertaining uniquely to the spiration of the Holy Spirit from the Father.

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Because this receptivity (as proceeding from the Father) characterizes his
very person, he can be obedient in and through his human actions in a characteristically filial way, that is to say, as the Son made man. His human
obedience thus reveals his eternal, personal relativity to the Father.
This latter perspective does not imply any real multiplicity of wills in
God, nor an obedience in God “according to his divine nature.” It
certainly does not imply ontological dependency of creature to creator.
Rather, it predicates “obedience” to the pre-incarnate Word uniquely in
a figurative or metaphorical sense, as denoting improperly what is in fact
the transcendent divine receptivity proper to eternal generation. Despite
the fact that this “Thomistic” interpretation contradicts some of Barth’s
explicit statements, it nevertheless renders certain of Barth’s influential
intuitions more internally coherent, and permits an interpretation of his
theology more consistent with the classical Christological tradition.
Obedience in God Without Divine Self-Alienation
God in Christ has revealed himself as one who is obedient. Therefore,
divine obedience exists in God. These are affirmations that Barth establishes in Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, section 59, by recourse to an epistemological principle, and a principle of the divine economy.The epistemological
principle is his insistence that the obedience of Christ is a unique locus of
revelation that must in turn critically regulate any other concepts of God.
The God of the New Testament alone has revealed himself as one who
choses in his freedom to become obedient and humble in the man Jesus.
Correspondingly, then, there can be no epistemological warrant in “alien”
speculation as to whether God is able to exist in this “lowly” way in himself.
He is free to do it because he has done it.5 The second principle is related:
What God has done in Christ, through the temporal economy of the
servant Jesus, reveals who God is in his very being. Consequently, the
humility and obedience of the Son of God as man manifests to us that a
divine lowliness exists in God, in his mode of being as Son.6
5 See these points in Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/1, 159, 163–64, 176–77, 186–87.
6 Ibid., 177: “Who the true God is, and what He is, i.e., what is His being as God

. . . his divine nature . . . all this we have to discover from the fact that as such he
is very man and a partaker of human nature, from His becoming man. . . . For, to
put it more pointedly, the mirror in which it can be known (and is known) that
He is God, and of the divine nature, is His becoming flesh and His existence in
the flesh. . . . From the point of view of the obedience of Jesus Christ as such,
fulfilled in that astonishing form, it is a matter of the mystery of the inner being
of God as the being of the Son in relation to the Father.”Although Aquinas would
certainly disagree with Barth’s prohibitions on any natural, philosophical knowledge of God, these two principles can be reformulated succinctly in Thomistic

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Second, however, God is also able to do this without relinquishing in
any way the prerogatives of his divine sovereignty. The latter implies a
divine transcendence, constancy or immutability, and omnipotence, all of
which characterize God’s dynamic relationship to creation as its Lord. His
obedience made manifest in Christ, therefore, entails no contradiction
with respect to such attributes. On the contrary, God can humble himself
without ceding his sovereign freedom and without ceasing to be God.7
It is important to note that Barth frequently restates this point in soteriological terms: God is revealed in Jesus as one who is free to be Godwith-us, who can truly enter our sphere of life as a servant and in
humility.Yet precisely in order to reconcile us with himself (in his Lordship), God can and must do this while remaining truly himself. More to
the point, it is because he is not alienated from his divine prerogatives (of
eternity, omnipotence, etc.) that he can act dynamically and authoritatively in Christ in order to save human beings effectively. And in choosing in particular to assume suffering and obedience as a way to save
humanity, God has in fact offered the distinctive “proof ” of his authentic
power and dynamic freedom as savior and creator.8
There is no doubt that this first idea concerning a “divine obedience”
takes on a paradoxical form of expression in Barth’s writing. Yet, the
prescribed view of the Church Dogmatics in IV, 1 on this point is also in
substantive continuity with the classical Christological tradition of Chalterms: (1) An agent is known by its effects, and consequently God as an unknowable transcendent agent is known in a unique way by his actions and effects of
grace; (2) The revelatory agency of God ad extra reveals (imperfectly but truly)
who he is ad intra. For more on this latter principle in Barth, see Paul Molnar,
Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
2002), 128–34.
7 Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/1, 186–87: “As God was in Christ, far from being
against Himself, or at disunity with Himself, He has put into effect the freedom
of His divine love, the love in which He is divinely free. He has therefore done
and revealed that which corresponds to his divine nature. His immutability does
not stand in the way of this. It must not be denied, but this possibility is included
in His unalterable being. He is absolute, infinite, exalted, active, impassible, transcendent, but in all this He is the One who loves in freedom . . . and therefore
not His own prisoner.” On the same page Barth also mentions the eternity of
the deity of Christ.
8 Ibid., 185 and 187: “Of what value would His deity be to us, if it came to be
outside of Him as He became ours? What would be the value to us of His way
into the far country [of our humanity] if in the course of it He lost Himself? . .
. His omnipotence is that of a divine plenitude of power in the fact that . . . it
can assume the form of weakness and impotence and do so as omnipotence, triumphing in this form” (emphasis added).

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cedon.To show this, we can make a brief comparison between Barth and
a prominent medieval representative of this tradition, Thomas Aquinas.
Here I will note three relevant parallels between the two theologians.
First,Aquinas follows the Chalcedonian tradition in ascribing all properties and actions of both the divine and human natures of Christ to their
one and only concrete subject, who is the incarnate Son of God. This
logical pattern of ascription follows upon an ontological foundation: It is
the hypostasis of Christ who is the principle of unity in the Incarnation.9
Because the Son exists as both God and man, his subsistent, personal
being is the ground of attribution of all predications, both human and
divine.10 This means that while one may not ascribe “abstract” properties
of the divine and human nature to each other directly (“the divine nature
suffers”; “humanity is omnipresent”), one may refer to the natures of
Christ as subjects in their concrete mode, that is to say, insofar as they directly
denote Jesus.11 Consequently, one may say that “in Christ the impassible
one humbles himself,” or “God exists as this obedient man.”The concrete
subject is that one who is truly God, who is this obedient man, et cetera,
because the subject is the Son, the God-man who operates dynamically
in and through two natures.
Second, for Aquinas this dynamic activity of God in the man Jesus
cannot entail any loss or curtailment of the prerogatives of the divine
nature.The reason for this is that the union is hypostatic rather than natural, such that the essential characteristics of the divine and human natures
of God remain distinguishable. It also follows for the same reason that for
Aquinas there is no contradiction implied by paradoxical phrases such as “the
9 Summa theologiae, III, q. 2, a. 2; q. 17, a. 2.
10 ST III, q. 16, a. 1: “Now of every suppositum of any nature we may truly and

properly predicate a word signifying that nature in the concrete, as man may
properly and truly be predicated of Socrates and Plato. Hence, since the Person
of the Son of God for Whom this word God stands, is a suppositum of human
nature, this word man may be truly and properly predicated of this word God, as
it stands for the Person of the Son of God.”All English translations of the ST are
taken from Summa theologica (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1947). Some slight
modifications have been made.
11 ST III, q. 16, a. 4: “[The Nestorians] granted that Christ was born of a Virgin,
and that He was from eternity; but they did not say that God was born of a
virgin, or that the Man was from eternity. Catholics on the other hand maintained that words which are said of Christ either in His Divine or in His human
nature may be said either of God or of man. . . .The reason of this is that, since
there is one hypostasis of both natures, the same hypostasis is signified by the
name of either nature.Thus whether we say man or God, the hypostasis of Divine
and human nature is signified. And therefore . . . of God may be said what
belongs to the human nature, as of a hypostasis of human nature.”

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Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

impassible one suffers” or “the sovereign Lord obeys and is humbled.”This
is the case because such seemingly contrary attributes are not attributed
directly to one another. (To do so they would have to be predicated of
each other abstractly!) Nor, however, are they predicated to the unique
subject of Christ under the same aspect, but rather to the same subject under
different aspects, by virtue of the two natures in which the Son of God
exists.12 The contraries of obedience and omnipotence both exist in the
unique being of God the Son made man (as do, for St.Thomas, impassibility and suffering).Yet they subsist in a unique subject without existing
under the same natural aspect.To say, therefore, that there is obedience in
the very being of God the Son is entirely warranted, according to this
form of Chalcedonian predication of attributes.
Thirdly, one might even admit the phrase, “the divine nature has
assumed a human nature into itself,” so long as the claim is rightly qualified. This qualification would need to be twofold, pertaining to efficient
and final causality respectively.To say that the divine nature is able to unite
itself with human obedience and suffering is true for Aquinas first insofar
as this refers to God’s capacity (by virtue of his omnipotence) to take a
human nature into God’s very existence. However, since this “union” does
not entail any alteration of God’s transcendent and ineffable nature, one
must inquire into the mode of this assumption. Here, a teleological qualification is required. The deity is “able” to assume human obedience into
itself in a hypostatic mode of being, or “enhypostatically.”That is to say, the
divine nature can assume human obedience into to itself personally in God’s
mode of being as Son.13 It does so without in any way diminishing itself
in its divine prerogatives of immutability, omnipotence, eternity, or the like.
Does this perspective correlate profoundly with Barth’s own affirmations, or is such an attempt at conciliation artificially irenic? It is true that
Barth’s work contains no distinct development of a “Christian philosophy” of existence as the basis for his enhypostatic explanations of the
Incarnation, nor does he present an explicit study of logical regulations
governing the “communication of idioms.” Nevertheless, his densely
ontological Christology does clearly parallel Aquinas’s Chalcedonian
reflections on each of the above-mentioned points.
12 ST III, q. 16, a. 4, ad 1: “It is impossible for contraries to be predicated of the

same in the same respects, but nothing prevents their being predicated of the same
in different aspects. And thus contraries are predicated of Christ, not in the same
but in different natures,” (emphasis added).
13 This conceptual interpretation can be found in ST III, q. 3, aa. 3–4.The idea has
recently been studied by Gilles Emery in his “The Personal Mode of Trinitarian
Action in Saint Thomas Aquinas,” The Thomist 69 (2005): 31–77, esp. 47–48.

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The first parallel is evident in Barth’s affirmation of an irreducible
diversity of “essences” in Christ, united enhypostatically in the Son incarnate (or in Barth’s language, in God’s mode of being as Son). Barth insists
that God the Son in Christ is a unique agent always acting in and through
two distinguishable natures.14 Even in the dynamic unity of the being of
Christ, a transcendence of the divine essence and subordination of the
human essence remain.While on earth, God acts historically through his
humanity as the “instrument” or “organ” of salvation. Even when the
man Jesus is exalted and glorified at the ascension, his human characteristics cannot partake of or be identified with some of the characteristics
he possesses uniquely by virtue of his divine essence (as omnipotent,
omnipresent, etc.).15 Correspondingly, the operations of the divine
14 It is true that Barth also seems to posit one unique subject in God, who is pres-

ent as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in three modes.Yet he also clearly wishes to
maintain the Cyrillian insistence on the unity of Christ as a personal agent.This
point of view is thematic in Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/2, sec. 64. Clear indications of it are found in Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/1, on page 183. Correspondingly, Barth distances himself at points from classical Lutheran orthodoxy’s use of
the communication of idioms. The seventeenth-century Lutheran schools of
Giessen and Tübingen, for example, presupposed a certain communication of
properties of the divine nature to the human nature due to the grace of the
hypostatic union.They then disputed whether one might affirm that the historical Jesus during his earthly life was in fact omnipresent and omnipotent in
creation as man, and whether these attributes were ceded during this time or
merely veiled. See Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/1, 180–82, for Barth’s description of
this controversy, where he ultimately refuses any such perspective by refusing
presuppositions embraced by both sides of the controversy. This is more readily
apparent in Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/2, 76–80, where he goes on to discuss what
he terms the Lutheran theory of a genus majestaticum in which divine attributes
such as impassibility and omnipotence are communicated to the human nature
of Jesus in glory by virtue of the Incarnation, and again reaches the same conclusions. In Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/2, 73–76, Barth appeals to a Reformed
doctrine of the “communication of idioms” very similar to that of Aquinas, and
distinguishes this from what he takes to be the above-mentioned perspectives.
He cites the pithy formula of Polanus, the seventeenth-century Reformed
thinker: “Proprietates utriusque naturae Christi personae ipsi communicantur.
Quae enim naturis singulis sunt propria, ea personae Christi sunt communia.”
Bruce McCormack has recently explained very clearly aspects of Barth’s thought
on these matters in “Karl Barth’s Christology as a Resource for a Reformed
Version of Kenoticism,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 8 (2006):
243–47. For an account of Barth’s Christology emphasizing Chalcedonia character, see George Hunsinger, Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 131–47.
15 For Aquinas’s doctrine of “theandric” actions of the Son, which transpire in and
through two co-operative natures, see ST III, qq. 18 and 19. He specifies in q. 16,

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nature of Christ remain distinct from those of his human essence during
the time of his earthly life. Arguably, therefore, according to Barth the
Word of God continues to operate in all creation even while being
historically present in the limited human agency of Jesus.16
Second, Barth refuses what he deems a Hegelian theory of the Incarnation whereby the human attributes of the man Jesus exist in God in
some form of contradiction with the prerogatives of the divine nature.
He explicitly refuses the idea that there can be any contradiction in the
life and being of God.17 Yet if obedience can exist in God the Son witha. 5, ad 3, that the human nature, as an instrument of the Son’s person, does
“participate” in the divine nature by the derivation of the effects of the latter.
However, because certain attributes of God can in no way be transmitted to
created reality they are not participated in by the human essence of Christ. Here
he specifically refers to omnipotence as such an “unparticipated” characteristic.
Barth alludes to what is at least in certain ways an analogous doctrine with regard
to the humanity of Christ as the “organ” of the divine nature in Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/2, 70 and 97.And he develops an explicit doctrine of “non-reciprocal”
mutual participation between the divine and human natures in Christ. “The
participation of His divine in His human essence is not the same as that of His
human in His divine. . . . The determination of His divine essence is to His
human, and the determination of His human essence from His divine. He gives
the human essence a part in His divine, and the human essence receives this part
in the divine from Him” (70). He makes clear that this “participation” entails no
admixture. Even in the exalted glory of Christ his human essence remains utterly
distinct from his transcendent divine essence and is determined to cooperation
with it by the grace of the latter: See Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/2, 63ff., and 88–92.
Clearly, while there are important differences between the two thinkers on these
points, there are also significant similarities.
16 I am referring here to Barth’s qualified acceptance of the so-called “extraCalvinisticum”: The Word continues to sustain the world in being even during
the Incarnation. See Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/1, 180–81.
17 Stating a view that he rejects categorically, Barth writes:“It pleased Him [in His
activity and work as the Reconciler of the world created by Him] not to alter
Himself, but to deny the immutability of His being, His divine nature, to be in
discontinuity with Himself, to be against Himself, to set Himself in self-contradiction. In Himself He was still the omnipresent, almighty, eternal, and glorious
One. . . . But at the same time among us and for us, He was quite different . . .
limited and open to radical and total attack. . . . His identity with Himself [across
these two states] consisted strictly in His determination to be God . . . the
Reconciler of the world, in this inner and outer antithesis to Himself.” He goes
on to state explicitly (184–88) that God entered into our state of contradiction
with God (through sin and death) and reconciled us with himself without incurring contradiction within himself. See also Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/2, 146–47,
for similar views. Paul Molnar (Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent
Trinity, 264) has correctly contrasted this understanding of Barth’s with Jüngel’s
idea of a dialectic of being and non-being that occurs in the essence of God. For

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out being in contradiction with his immutable omnipotence as God,
then this is only because (as with Aquinas) there is not an attribution of
contraries to the same subject under the same aspect.This unity of properties seemingly transpires without contradiction because it occurs in the
being and the person of Christ, and not in a confusion of natures.18 This
seems to be what is implied, at any rate, by the claim that God’s becoming man does not require any self-alienation on God’s part. God can enter
history without introducing any new alterity or contrary into himself,
and without any dialectic in his being.
Third, for Barth, the assumption of obedience “into the being of God”
does not entail any evacuation or substantial alteration of God’s divine
nature per se.This affirmation is evident above all in Barth’s rejection of
the nineteenth-century kenotic theories of Gottfried Thomasius. The
latter claimed that God the Son as God ceded his omnipresence and
omnipotence during the time that he was dynamically present and active
as the historical man Jesus. (These were supposedly attributes of God that
were somehow proper to him only in “relation” to creation, and not
characteristic of God per se.They could therefore be ceded freely by the
deity.) In contradistinction to such an idea, Barth insists that God the Son
does not and cannot cede or alter his divine characteristics when he
becomes man. Nor does he relinquish his omnipotence and omnipresence with respect to creation.The divine life does not undergo a process
of self-abdication or self-transformation in the Incarnation.19 God is free
in his being to assume a human obedience into himself.Yet he is free to
do so without altering what he is from all eternity.20 If our concept of the
examples of this later view, see Eberhard Jüngel, God as the Mystery of the World:
On the Foundation of the Theology of the Crucified One; in the Dispute Between Theism
and Atheism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983), 219, 346–47.
18 This point could be contested if in fact Barth wishes to maintain that there is
only one subject in God, who is omnipotent in “his” mode of being as Father,
and impotent in “his” mode of being as Son. Yet whatever we make of such
language, we cannot ignore Barth’s important insistence (especially in Church
Dogmatics, vol. IV/2) on the unicity of the subject of Christ in whom there are
the irreducibly distinct divine and human essences.
19 Ibid., vol. IV/1, 183: “God for His part is God in His unity with this creature,
this man, in His human and creaturely nature—and this without ceasing to be
God, without any alteration or diminution of his divine nature.”
20 Ibid., 193: “It is His sovereign grace that He wills to be and is amongst us in
humility, our God, God for us. But He shows us this grace, he is amongst us in
humility, our God, God for us, as that which He is in Himself, in the most inward
depth of His Godhead. He does not become another God. In the condescension
in which he gives Himself to us in Jesus Christ, He exists and speaks and acts as
the One He was from eternity and will be to all eternity.The truth and actuality

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divine being and nature of God is to be guided by what he has done in
Christ, then it must hold firmly to both the principles initially elaborated
above: The action of God in history reveals who God truly is. It reveals
who he is precisely in his non-created and transcendent identity, that is
to say in his sovereignty as Lord.
It is this last thought, however, that leads to the next aporia in our
consideration of Barthian thought. If God can assume a temporal obedience into himself without self-alteration, and if he has this capacity in his
being from all eternity, then what does the event of the Incarnation reveal
about the immanent, eternal life of God? What is the eternal “capacity”
in the life of God that makes his existence in humility and obedience
possible? It is in answering this question that Barth develops his second
idea of divine obedience: as something pretemporal, existing in the eternal life of the Trinity. It is to this idea that I will turn next.
Pretemporal Obedience of the Son as Procession
According to Barth, there must exist a condition of possibility in the life
of God such that God can become obedient in history in the incarnate
Son.21 Therefore, the transcendent corollary for the economic manifestation of God in Christ is a pretemporal obedience that exists in God from
all eternity.22 It is the latter that serves as the ontological foundation for
the event of the passion and cross of Christ. Based upon a successive
exclusion of modalism and subordinationism, Barth determines dialectically that this reality of divine obedience must concern God in himself,
as the “posited and self-positing God” in his mode of being as Son and
Father, respectively. In other words, this reality has to be understood in
Trinitarian terms. It is something that characterizes the eternal relation
between the Father and the Son, in their distinctness and reciprocity.This
relationship is prior to creation, and serves as the basis for both the elecof the atonement depend on this being the case. The one who reconciles the
world with God is necessarily the one God Himself in His true Godhead. Otherwise the world would not be reconciled with God. Otherwise it is still the world
which is not reconciled with God.”
21 Ibid., 194: Obedience in Christ reveals an eternal “possibility grounded in the
being of God.”
22 Ibid., 200—201: “We have not only not to deny but actually to affirm and
understand as essential to the being of God the offensive fact that there is in God
Himself an above and a below, a prius and a posterius, a superiority and a subordination. And our present concern is with what is apparently the most offensive
fact of all, that there is a below, a posterius, a subordination, that it belongs to the
inner life of God that there should take place within it obedience.”

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tion and creation of humanity, as well as for the Incarnation of the Son
in history.23
Two important observations need to be made concerning the description of this intra-Trinitarian obedience. First, this eternal, divine obedience clearly seems to concern the deity or divine nature of Jesus Christ.
In this happening we have to do with a divine commission and its
divine execution, with a divine order and divine obedience. What takes
place is the divine fulfillment of a divine decree. . . . But it is clear that
once again, and this time in all seriousness, we are confronted with the
mystery of the deity of Christ.24

Second, this relationship of obedience is a characteristic through which
one can and must understand and interpret the eternal generation of the
Son by the Father.
The One who in this obedience is the perfect image of the ruling God
is Himself—as distinct from every human and creaturely kind—God by
nature, God in His relationship to Himself, that is, God in His mode of
being as the Son in relation to God in His mode of being as the Father,
One with the Father and of one essence. In His mode of being as the Son
He fulfils the divine subordination, just as the Father in His mode of being
as the Father fulfils the divine superiority. In humility as the Son who
complies, He is the same as is the Father in majesty as the Father who disposes.
He is the same in consequence (and obedience) as the Son as is the Father in
origin. He is the same as the Son, that is, as the self-posited God . . . as
is the Father as the self-positing God. . . . The Father as the origin is
never apart from Him as the consequence, the obedient One. The selfpositing of God is never apart from Him as the One who is posited as
God by God.The One who eternally begets is never apart from the One who
is eternally begotten.25

We can conclude from these two points that the divine obedience thus
characterized somehow pertains for Barth to what is classically termed
the eternal procession of the Son from the Father.The reasons for concluding this should be, I think, uncontroversial. In classical Trinitarian monotheism, the divine nature of God is considered an ineffable and transcendent
23 Ibid., 201: “We have to reckon with such an event even in the being and life of

God Himself. It cannot be explained away either as an event in some higher or
supreme creaturely sphere or as a mere appearance of God.Therefore we have to
state firmly that, far from preventing this possibility, His divine unity consists in
the fact that in Himself he is both one who is obeyed and Another who obeys.”
24 Ibid., 195, emphasis added.
25 Ibid., 209, emphasis added.

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mystery, but it is also confessed to be unique: There is only one God.
Because this divine nature is common to the three persons of God, the
latter can only be distinguished hypostatically by their relations of
origin.26 The Son possesses the fullness of the divine nature in a relative
way, as one proceeding eternally from the Father as his Word. Being
generated constitutes the Son as Son, because he receives all that he is
(the ineffable and transcendent being and nature of God) from the
Father. And indeed, as Aquinas points out, these same “subsistent relations” of the persons of God themselves constitute the inner life of
God.27 Ultimately, then, they are the divine nature itself.28 This nature
subsists hypostatically in three Trinitarian “modes” of being: It is communicated from the Father to the Son by way of generation, and to the Holy
Spirit from the Father and the Son by way of spiration.29
It follows from such perspectives that whatever “founds” the relations
of origin in God serves as the principle for the distinction of persons in
the life of God, permitting us to “interpret” the persons in light of such
relations. In turn, this distinction of persons (through their relations of
origin) constitutes the very nature of God, insofar as that nature itself
only exists in distinctly personal ways. For Barth obedience characterizes
the relations of origin of the Son from the Father, and therefore characterizes the distinction of persons (or “modes” of God’s being) in God
eternally.This relationship of commanding and subordinate obedience is,
therefore, also constitutive of the divine nature and deity of God as
triune, as Barth affirms repeatedly. This obedience as described in the
Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, then, may reasonably be interpreted as characterizing the eternal procession of the Son from the Father.30 It is the foundation for their distinction from one another.
Here I would like to note what I think are two interrelated problems
with such a view. First, positing such obedience in God jeopardizes the
26 This theological formulation has its origins in the Cappadocians, as well as

Augustine. The simple, ineffable nature of God subsists in three persons distinguished uniquely by their “relations of origin.”Aquinas discusses the point in ST
I, q. 29, a. 4; q. 30, a. 4; q. 31, a. 2. On the historical origins and structure of this
way of thinking, see Gilles Emery,“Essentialism or Personalism in the Treatise on
God in St.Thomas Aquinas?” The Thomist 64 (2000): 521–63.
27 ST I, q. 29, a. 4.
28 ST I, q. 39, a. 1.
29 ST I, q. 42, a. 4.
30 Paraphrasing this idea in Barth, Bruce McCormack writes (“Karl Barth’s Christology,” 249):“The eternal relation in which the Father ‘commands’ and the Son
‘obeys’ is the very relation by means by which the one God freely constitutes his
own being in eternity.”

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confession of the unity of the divine nature, power, and will of God.
Second, it risks to undermine the intelligibility of Barth’s own soteriological affirmation that God, in order to save us, must in no way be alienated from his own prerogatives of omnipotence in the Incarnation. To
argue for these points, I will briefly consider some elements of classical
Trinitarian thought as elaborated by a figure such as Athanasius. In turn,
Barth’s views can be contrasted profitably with these. As is well-known,
fourth-century “Arian” or anti-Nicene theologians appealed to New
Testament examples of the obedience of Christ in order to argue for a
preexistent, ontological subordination of the Logos to the Father. In
countering this claim, Athanasius develops three interrelated principles
that relate in certain ways to our considerations.
Athanasius notes in the Contra Arianos that the Nicene affirmation of a
unique being of God (the “homoousios” formula) required the elaboration of an understanding of a shared nature common to the Father and Son.
One of his central contributions in this text is to discuss meaningfully how
this nature could be understood to proceed from the Father in the Son, and
how such a filial generation could be constitutive of the very life of God.
For this he appeals to the “analogy of the Word” of the Johannine
prologue. St. John’s doctrine of the Logos asarkos (according to Athanasius’s
reading) provides a revealed, theological analogy that allows one to
perceive how God could exist in and as a procession of persons, even
while being unique in nature and being. If this being is spiritual, then it
can be transmitted (or engendered) after the analogy of spiritual processions in the human soul: The Logos is the Son eternally begotten of the
Father as his wisdom, in and through whom he knows all things.31 This
begotten wisdom contains in himself all that is proper to the divine
essence. Consequently, if the Father gives the Son to possess in himself the
plenitude of divine attributes (ineffable power, goodness, divine willing,
31 C. Arianos I, §16: “If the Offspring of the Father’s essence be the Son, we must

be certain, that the same is the Wisdom and Word of the Father, in and through
whom He creates and makes all things” (in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 2,
vol. IV, ed. A. Richardson, trans. Atkinson [New York: Charles Scribner, 1903]).
See also, ibid., I, §§15; 24–9; II, §§2; 5; 36 ff. For an insightful discussion of these
points, see Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004), 110–17. It is worth emphasizing that this Athanasian understanding of the
Logos asarkos could in principle be held without in any way denying the
“Barthian” principle that this same Logos is only known by means of the Incarnation. Athanasius does not deny that the “preexistence” or “ontological priority” of the Logos asarkos to the economy of the Incarnation was made known in
and through that economy. Nor does the Evangelist himself deny this in the
Gospel of John. See, for example, John 3:13.

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etc.), this is not because the divine substance is divided. Rather, the Father
communicates to the Son his very being as God, and he does so by virtue
of his own identity, since he is himself eternally relative to the Son.This is
why Athanasius emphasizes, against Arianism, that the Father does not
choose to beget the Son by an act of will. Rather, the Father and the Son
share in two different ways in the unique will of God, just as they share in
the unique nature and being of God.32
Second, it follows from the biblical affirmations of God’s spiritual
(non-physical) manner of being, that his unique nature is wisdom (that is
to say, that God is personal: intelligent and freely loving), and God’s
wisdom directs the decisions of his will. Consequently, because the Son
is the only begotten Word of the Father, he is the principle through
whom the Father wills all that he wills.33 Because the Son receives from
the Father’s begetting the very nature of God, he “contains” in himself
the plenitude of divinely ordered potency with regard to creatures.
Consequently, the Son cannot obey the Father precisely because he
enjoys in himself the same plenitude of divine life from all eternity. The
Son could only be subordinate in some way to the Father were he to not
fully share in the power and willing of the Father.Yet this would contradict the confession of a unique spiritual will in God, as suggested by the
Johannine analogy of the Word (through whom all things were freely
made), and would in turn be inconsistent with the Nicene affirmation of
a unique spiritual nature or essence which exists in the one God.34 In other
words, for Athanasius such subordination would undermine the confession of a Trinitarian monotheism.
Finally, Athanasius saw that a soteriological concern of major proportions lay at the heart of his debate with the anti-Nicene theologians. If
the Son of God is to save human beings by uniting God’s own divine
nature with the human flesh he has come to save, then the Arian denial
of the divine nature of the Son will undermine the confession of the
32 C. Arianos II, §2: “God’s creating is second to His begetting, for ‘Son’ implies

something proper to Him [as God] and truly from that blessed and everlasting
Essence, but what is from His will [i.e., created], comes into consistence from
without, and is framed through His proper Offspring who is from It [the divine
essence].”
33 Ibid., §31:“For the Word of God is Framer and Maker, and He is the will of God.”
34 Ibid., §2: “If He has the power of will, and His will is effective, and suffices for
the consistence of the things that come to be, and His Word is effective, and a
Framer, that Word must surely be the living Will of the Father, and an essential
[enousios] energy, and a real word, in whom all things both consist and are excellently governed.”

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saving character of the Incarnation of the Logos.35 In other words, if we
deny the divinity of Christ and the presence in him of the divine nature,
then we irremediably render obscure the confession of Christ as an effective savior of human beings.
One can see immediately a logical connection between the three
ideas: the Logos is the wisdom of God; the Logos possesses the plenitude
of the divine nature, power, and will of God; and the Logos became flesh
to save us by uniting us with him in his divine nature, power, and will. It
follows that any attempt to attribute obedience to the Logos in his
personal relation to the Father will undermine the second affirmation.
Yet, the denial or questioning of the second principle will in turn undermine the intelligibility of the first, and the logical necessity of the third.
Barth’s reflections on the errors of “semi-Arian” perspectives are both
extensive and subtle, and he clearly eschews any form of subordinationism that would jeopardize the confession of the divinity of the Son.
However, I would like to suggest that the doctrine of divine obedience
in God contradicts the second principle established by Athanasius. It
therefore creates potential problems with the other two theses, which
Barth does wish in some way to maintain. The affirmation of a divine
obedience between the persons makes it unclear how there can exist a
unique divine nature and will in God, consistent with the Johannine
“psychological analogy.” It therefore renders problematic the confession
of a divine agency (divinely ordered power, omnipotence) present in the
person of the Son. This in turn affects the soteriological claim that the
transcendent freedom of God is truly present in Christ as a necessary
condition for our effective redemption.
The first problem can be considered by contrasting Barth’s views with
those of Aquinas. As noted above, St. Thomas will affirm that there is a
unique nature and will in God, differentiated hypostatically in three distinct
modes of being, as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “The same essence is
paternity in the Father, and filiation in the Son: so by the same power the
Father begets, and the Son is begotten.”36 There is, in other words, a
uniquely paternal mode of being of the power and will of God, as well as
a filial mode of being of this same power and will.The former is eternally
begetting while the latter is eternally begotten, such that the Son receives
35 Ibid., §70: “For man had not been deified if joined to a creature, or unless the

Son were very God; nor had man been brought into the Father’s presence, unless
He had been His natural and true Word who had put on the body.” See also ibid.,
I, §15; III, §11; and Ayres’s comments on this theme in Athanasius (Nicaea and Its
Legacy, 113–15).
36 ST I, q. 42, a. 6, ad 3.

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all that he is and wills from the Father.Yet, the two persons both possess in
plenitude the same divine nature, power, and will of God. So while the Son
is entirely relative to the Father, he is also omnipotent God.37
This classical Trinitarian perspective rests upon a crucial axiom: Any
notion of the one God as a multiplicity of divine persons can only be
intelligibly construed by taking account of both the generation of the
Word and the procession of the Spirit that “found” the relations of origin
and the common nature which they share.To speak about the Father and
Son as subsisting relations one must refer both to subsistence (the divine
essence) and relations (the relationship to another that distinguishes).The
uniqueness of the divine essence, therefore, enters into the very “definition” of the Son as a person distinct from the Father.38 By a process of
notional “duplication” the person must be thought of both in terms of
relations and in terms of nature. Otherwise, the monotheistic character of
the Trinitarian faith literally becomes inconceivable.
How does this differ from Barth’s presentation? In Church Dogmatics,
IV, 1 and 2, Barth clearly affirms a doctrine of two natures in Christ. It
37 ST I, q. 42, a. 4: “It belongs to the very nature of paternity and filiation that the

Son by generation should attain to the possession of the perfection of the nature
which is in the Father, in the same way as it is in the Father himself. . . .Therefore we must say that the Son was eternally equal to the Father in greatness.” ST
I, q. 43, a. 6, c.: “The Son is necessarily equal to the Father in power. Power of
action is a consequence of perfection of nature. Now it was shown above (a. 4)
that the very notion of the divine paternity and filiation requires that the Son should be
the Father’s equal in greatness—that is, in perfection of nature.Therefore, it follows
that the Son is equal to the Father in power; and the same applies to the Holy
Spirit in relation to both,” emphasis added. See the discussion of this point by
Gilles Emery in “The Treatise on the Trinity in the Summa theologiae,” Trinity
in Aquinas (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2006), 132–34, 139–44.
38 Gilles Emery (“Treatise on the Trinity,” Trinity in Aquinas, 144) comments: “The
capacity of subsistence [implying reference to the divine essence] does not
belong to the relation under the aspect of the relationship to another (ratio), but
it belongs to the relation in so much as this relationship is divine (esse). St.
Thomas explains, in similar terms, that the person designates ‘the distinct subsistent in the divine nature’, by specifying that this ‘distinct subsistent’ is the relation taken in the integrality of its constitution in God, in its esse (divine
substance) and in its ratio (relationship ad aliud that distinguishes). It is therefore
in the ‘subsisting relation,’ which guarantees a strict Trinitarian monotheism, that
St.Thomas effects the synthesis of his doctrine on God the Trinity.”The passage
makes reference to De potentia Dei, q. 10, a. 3 and q. 9, a. 4. It is interesting to
note that in Church Dogmatics, vol. I/1, 366 n. 1, Barth expresses reserves about
such notional “duplication” precisely with regard to Aquinas’s notion of “subsistent relations.” He intimates that the “persons” of the triune God should be
understood by their “relations of origin” without reference to a commonly shared
intellectual and voluntary “res et natura.”

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might seem from this that the Son partakes as Son of the divine attributes we have spoken about previously (omnipresence, omnipotence,
immutability, etc.). He possesses these attributes in his person as a “mode
of being” eternally distinct from the Father. (In much earlier writings,
such as Church Dogmatics, I, 1, Barth affirmed as much explicitly.) Yet,
according to Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, this same Son also only exists eternally as one who obeys the Father. Obedience here characterizes the
procession of the Son from the Father in his eternal generation. Because
it determines the character of his eternal relation to the Father, obedience is entirely constitutive of his person. There is nothing in him that is not
consent of will to another. But in this case, how should we understand
the fact that the Son is characterized in all that he is by obedience, and
that he simultaneously possesses in himself eternally the unique omnipotent will
of God? Or, inversely, if God the Son is eternally omnipotent (possessing
the plenitude of the divine nature, power. and will), how then is his eternal generation characterized hypostatically by consent to the will of
another? It would seem that one must forfeit either the notion of a unity
of will in the persons, or reinterpret Barth’s notion of a distinction of
persons in God derived through obedience.
One might object that there is no substantial dilemma here. After all, it
is true that for a thinker like Aquinas, the Son receives his being and
omnipotence from the Father eternally.Therefore the Son must also eternally receive the Father’s will through generation, even while being eternally omnipotent.39 But Aquinas also qualifies this affirmation by
simultaneously insisting that the Son possesses the very will of the Father,
which he receives from the Father.There is a strict identity of will, communicated from the Father to the Son and shared by them in two hypostatic
modes.40 In Barth’s view, by contrast, the generation of the Son simply
39 In ST I, q. 42, a. 6, ad. 2, Aquinas interprets John 5:30 (“As I hear, so I judge”)

as follows:“The Father’s showing and the Son’s hearing are to be taken in the sense
that the Father communicates knowledge to the Son, as He communicates His
essence. The command of the Father can be explained in the same sense, as
giving Him from eternity knowledge and will to act, by begetting Him. Or
better still, this may be referred to Christ in his human nature.”
40 In Ioan., V, lect. 5 (Marietti ed., §798): Aquinas here comments on John 5:30 (“I
am not seeking my own will, but the will of him who sent me”). “But do not
the Father and the Son have the same will? I answer that the Father and the Son
do have the same will, but the Father does not have his will from another
whereas the Son does have his will from another, i.e., from the Father.Thus the
Son accomplishes his own will as from another, i.e., as having it from another;
but the Father accomplishes his own will as his own, i.e., not having it from
another” (in Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, trans. J.Weisheipl and P. Larcher
[Albany, NY: Magi Books, 1980]). I have described this feature of Aquinas’s

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cannot result in the Son’s plenary possession of the Father’s essence and will.
Instead, the Son can only exist eternally as distinct from the Father and
therefore be Son in and through his act of consent to the will of the Father.
Reciprocity of will enters into the very notion of both the distinction of
persons, and the nature of the Godhead.41 Taken literally, then, the language
of divine obedience excludes an identity of will between the Father and
Son. So while for Athanasius and Aquinas, the procession of the Son from
the Father as his Logos allows one to see how the Son can both receive and
have the one will of the Father, in Barth the viewpoint is inverted.The will
to be receptive in the Son is the foundation for his procession and differentiation from the Father as Son and Word.42
Here the potential difficulties become clearer. If God the Son proceeds
from the Father in and through his act of obedience to the divine will of
the Father, then whatever he receives from the Father (that is, omnipotence), he receives through an act of consent to the Father’s will. May we
say, then, that the Son proceeds from the Father through his consent in
obedience to his being good, wise, immutable, and omnipotent? Yet in
this case, it seems he must be eternally consenting to being invested with
attributes of the divine nature.This in turn suggests that he could somehow act freely in all eternity “prior” to possessing the divine nature
received from the Father, which is patently nonsensical.
Perhaps instead we might ask if God, who is omnipotent as Father, is
obedient in his mode of being as Son, such that the Son is eternally
“void” of such attributes. Barth’s language in Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, at
times certainly leans more in this direction when he speaks about the
Son’s obedience.43 In this case, however, it would seem that God would
thought on Christ’s obedience at more length in White, “The Voluntary Action
of the Earthly Christ and the Necessity of the Beatific Vision,” The Thomist 69
(2005): 497–534, esp. 522–26.
41 Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/1, 209: “The Son is therefore the One who in His
obedience, as a divine and not a human work . . . shows Himself to be the One He is—
not another, a second God, but . . . the one God in His mode of being as the Son.”
(Emphasis added.)
42 Again, to cite McCormack’s paraphrasing of this idea (“Karl Barth’s Christology,” 249):“If the relation in which God ‘commands’ and ‘obeys’ is identical with
the relation which constitutes the very being of God as triune, then it is very
clear that what the Son does and therefore is in time finds its ground in what he
does and therefore is in eternity. [This suggests] that ‘humility’ is not something
added to God in his second mode of being at the point at which he assumes
flesh; it is his second mode of being already in eternity.”
43 See the suggestive comments of Church Dogmatics, vol. IV/1, 203: “In the work
of the reconciliation of the world with God the inward divine relationship
between the One who rules and commands in majesty and the One who obeys

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empty himself of his omnipotence as a condition for being in his mode
as the Son. His omnipotence would somehow have to be ceded by a kind
of voluntary kenosis, occurring through all eternity. How, then, is there a
unique will and power of God present in the two persons? And how is
the transcendent freedom of the Son with respect to creation assured?
Even more fundamentally, how can we affirm the eternity of the Son if
he is not omnipotent with respect to creation?44
While Barth’s explicit proposals concerning divine obedience certainly
rest far afield from our considerations here, a certain inward logic nested
within them seems to push us toward either the affirmation of a filial
consent to the possession of a divine nature or the idea of a kenosis of
divine prerogatives within the life of God. Both are Trinitarian antinomies
of a sort, and neither is consistent with the confession of a unity of will
and power in the life of the Trinity. One can therefore plausibly suggest
that either we must rethink the claim to eternal obedience in the Son, or
else qualify in important ways any affirmation of his omnipotence.45
in humility is identical with the very different relationship between God and one
of His creatures, a man. . . .To do this he empties Himself . . . but as the strangely
logical final continuation of the history in which He is God.”
44 McCormack, (“Karl Barth’s Christology,” 249, note 6) suggests that these problems can be resolved by (1) understanding that it is Jesus Christ and not “merely”
the Logos asarkos who is the active subject (not object!) of divine election from all
eternity, and that (2) “the Spirit is, first and foremost, the mode of being in which
the self-posting God empowers the self-positing God, Jesus Christ, to live a
human life and to live it humanly.”With Paul Molnar (“The Trinity, Election and
God’s Ontological Freedom: A Response to Kevin W. Hector,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 8 [2006]: 294–300) it seems to me that this would
amount to a kind of identification between the Triune God and the act of election, in such a way that God and creation are ontologically distinct, but eternally
indissociable. Inevitably creation and election thus become a necessity for God
and in turn must constitute a dimension of his identity. Barth himself clearly
advocates against any idea that election is a “necessity” for God in his Church
Dogmatics, vol. II/2, 309, 313, and elsewhere. It is possible, however, as McCormack suggests, that the later work of Barth stands in fundamental tension with
his earlier affirmations on this point. See the relevant remarks (and theological
defense of his own position on these matters) by McCormack in “Seek God
Where He May Be Found: A Response to Edwin Chr.Van Driel,” Scottish Journal of Theology 60 (2007): 62–79.
45 I am in sympathy with Bruce McCormack on this point:There exists a potential tension or antinomy between the affirmation of classical divine attributes
such as immutability, omnipresence, and omnipotence (which Barth here and
elsewhere ascribes in unqualified fashion to the Son incarnate), and Barth’s relativization of the classical “psychological analogy” in his rendering of divine
obedience. However, I do not think (contrary to what McCormack suggests,
“Karl Barth’s Christology,” 250) that the idea of an eternal, intra-divine kenosis

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A second issue this raises concerns the coherence of Barth’s claim that
the incarnate Son does not cede his divine attributes in the Incarnation.As
stated above, this insistence on Barth’s part is of fundamental importance
soteriologically, and in this respect his thought parallels the reflection of
Athanasius. God cannot save us if he is in fact alienated from himself in the
act of living among us as a man in history. A dimension of this soteriological principle concerns divine freedom: God, because of who he is, is free
as God to become man and act in obedience without ceding or altering
his divine being. It is because he is not alienated from his omnipotence that
he remains free to redeem us with authority in Christ, and to exalt our
humanity into the life of God through the incarnate Son.46
Yet, it is unclear how this affirmation is itself entirely consistent with
the concept of a divine obedience, if that obedience characterizes the
procession of the Son from the Father. Is it in fact the case that the Son
himself as Son retains the freedom of divine transcendence in his person
even during his historical life as man? Presumably, God the Son was eternally free in his unity of will shared with God the Father to choose
(contingently) whether or not to create us, to become incarnate for our
salvation. But if the Son receives in obedience the entirety of his being as
Son, does this not include his reception of his eventual mission and existence as the Son incarnate? In other words, does the Son of God eternally will our salvation with the Father by a free decision of the Triune
God, or does he eternally consent to the Father in everything he is,
including his consent to the commandment to save us? If the latter is the
case (and it seems it must be), then the Father is free to chose to save us
but the Son is not (since he can only exist as one who receives this
command from the Father). Or, the Father is only Father in generating
the Son as obedient to him, and since this obedience includes our elec-

of omnipotence by the Son in view of his human mission is compatible with the
continued possession by the Son of the subsistent omnipotence of God. McCormack suggests that this is possible due to the agency of the omnipotent Spirit in
the historical existence of the man Jesus. Against this, one can argue that to be
very God, the Son incarnate must partake of the very being of the Father and
the Spirit, and yet this implies in turn the hidden presence in Christ of the
Father’s and the Spirit’s unique will and power as his own filial will and power.
Jesus Christ, therefore, must be understood as omnipotent God in the proper
sense of the term, even when he is obedient in his historical existence.
46 For clear evidence of this view in Barth’s writings at least as late as in Church
Dogmatics, vol. II/2, see Molnar, “The Trinity, Election and God’s Ontological
Freedom,” 296–301.

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tion in Christ, the election of Jesus Christ as the God-man enters into
the very differentiation of the eternal persons.47
In either of these cases, however, does Christ still have the power and
freedom to choose as God to redeem us? It would seem not. Presumably,
he must depend for these attributes on the interventions of the Father
and the Holy Spirit. Consequently, if obedience characterizes the eternal
procession of the Son from the Father, have we really avoided the problems of “traditional” nineteenth-century kenosis theory, or have we
merely displaced them from time into eternity? God no longer “empties
himself ” of his divine prerogatives while he is incarnate, but does so,
rather, from all eternity in his mode of being as Son, in view of the Incarnation in time. In addition to the problem of its metaphysical incoherence, any inversion of the Son’s mission into the life of God poses serious
soteriological risks. A God who is eternally on a mission to save humanity through suffering and death seems to be himself immersed inextricably in the problem of moral and natural evil as a constitutive dimension
of his identity. Can such a God truly be expected to save us?
The Pretemporal “Obedience” of the Son Reconsidered
Barth’s central intuition is that there needs to be an eternal foundation in
the life of God for all that transpires between the persons of God in the
economic mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit. Were there not such a
transcendent corollary in the life of God, the temporal obedience of the
incarnate Son would not effectively reveal his eternal relation to the
Father.Therefore, while the direct application of obedience to the life of
the persons of the immanent Trinity raises difficulties, a more benign
interpretation of this “eternal foundation” would seem necessary.
One possibility is to consider the Son’s being originate from the Father
alone as a sufficient condition for the filial character of his economic mission.48
In this case, God the Son receives and possesses from the Father the unique
divine nature, power, and will of God from all eternity.This divine receptivity in turn acts as the transcendent ontological foundation for the temporal mission of Christ. The Son wills with the Father that he become
incarnate, while simultaneously receiving this will from the Father.This filial
receptivity in turn is reflected in all the actions of the incarnate Son in his
47 One can find an interpretation of Barth that resembles this description in Bruce

McCormack’s “Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl
Barth’s Theological Ontology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, ed.
John Webster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 92–110.
48 In framing the issue in these terms, I am influenced by various insightful suggestions of Bruce Marshall.

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temporal history as man. Because the Son becomes the obedient servant
Jesus, his voluntary human obedience reveals his personal relativity toward
the Father, as well as the receptive character of his divine mode of being.
In this second interpretation of divine obedience, the person of the
Son is revealed in and through the obedience of God in history.Yet this
obedience pertains to his human nature and does not characterize the
eternal life of the Son as deity. It does not stand at the origin of his
procession from the Father. Rather, the inverse is true.The procession of
the Son from the Father is the eternal basis for his relation to the Father
in his temporal mission.49 The latter in turn is the basis for his filial way
of being a man, that is to say, as the Word made flesh who proceeds from
the Father. In this case, then, the eternal Son is also omnipotent throughout his history as an obedient man. This viewpoint can be examined
through a threefold series of interrelated claims, each of which helps us
further clarify this position.
As we have noted above, the eternal relativity of the Son to the Father
has its fundamental basis in his procession from the Father. The Son
proceeds eternally from the Father as his Word, and receives in this generation the totality of the divine life, power, and will. The same is true of
the Holy Spirit through eternal spiration.Therefore, while the nature of
God is one, this ineffable nature exists in the three hypostases of the
triune God in irreducibly different ways.“The same essence, which in the
Father is paternity, in the Son is filiation.”50 Likewise, for the power and
will of God:“The Son has the same omnipotence as the Father, but with
another relation; the Father possessing power as giving, signified when we
say that he is able to beget, while the Son possesses the power of receiving, signified by saying that He can be begotten.”51 This means that the
hypostatic character of the person utterly characterizes the way in which
the divine essence subsists in that person.52 Because this relationality is
49 ST I, q. 43, a. 2, ad 3: “Mission signifies not only procession from the principle,

but also determines the temporal term of the procession. Hence mission is only
temporal. Or we may say that it includes the eternal procession, with the addition of a temporal effect. For the relation of a divine person to His principle must
be eternal. Hence the procession may be called a twin procession, eternal and
temporal, not that there is a double relation to the principle, but a double term,
temporal and eternal.”
50 ST I, q. 42, a. 4, ad 2.
51 ST I, q. 42, a. 6, ad 3.
52 Aquinas is influenced in making this distinction between the essence and its
personal mode by the Greek Christological and Trinitarian distinction between
the logos (nature) and the tropos (mode), found in Maximus the Confessor and
John Damascene. See on this point Jean Miguel Garrigues, “L’instrumentalité

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absolutely fundamental within the very life of God, it characterizes in
some way not only God’s immanent activity of knowledge and love, but
also all action of God ad extra in creating and redeeming.53
Second, then, God is in no way compelled to create or redeem the
world and human beings, but rather acts freely in creation by his omnipotence with respect to a radically dependent creation. Nevertheless, based
upon the first point discussed above, this same divine freedom exists within the
immanent life of God in three subsistent modes.54 Thus while the contingent, economic decisions of the Father and Son occur through the unique
act of both persons with respect to creatures, such action is possessed
within the Trinitarian life in two distinct ways.The eternal decree that the
Son assume flesh and die for us exists in the Father as in its unoriginate
source, and in the Son as the begotten wisdom through whom this action
is willed.The Son wills as omnipotent God to become incarnate as man,
but he also necessarily receives this will eternally from the Father.55 In all
rédemptrice du libre arbitre du Christ chez Maxime le Confessor,” Revue
Thomiste 104 (2004): 531–50. Barth advances compatible views, no doubt
informed indirectly by this tradition, throughout his reflection on the essence
and threefold modes of God’s being in Church Dogmatics, vol. I/1, sec. 9.
53 On this, see ST I, q. 43, a. 2, ad 3, and the remarks of Emery,“The Personal Mode
of Trinitarian Action in Saint Thomas Aquinas,” 67. Barth himself emphasizes
both these points together in Church Dogmatics, vol. I/1, 371–74.
54 Emery has studied this concept in Aquinas at length in his “The Personal Mode of
Trinitarian Action in Saint Thomas Aquinas.” See page 52: “The Son exists from
the Father and, accordingly, acts by receiving his being and his power of action
from the Father: the Son acts as the ‘principle from the principle.’This means no
subordination but only the relation of origin by which the Son is referred to the
Father. This distinction does not divide the action of the Trinity, or its power, or
the principle of action, which are common to the three persons by reason of their
one nature. It also does not concern the effects of the action: these effects come
forth from the three persons in virtue of their one action. One could also, indeed,
show this by the doctrine of perichoresis: the Father is in the Son, the Son is in the
Father, the Holy Spirit is in the Father and in the Son, and reciprocally. For this
reason, the action of the three persons is inseparable.Thomas Aquinas explains, for
example: ‘The Son acts by reason of the Father who dwells in him by a unity of
nature’ [In Ioan. 14:12 (§1898)].The profundity of the perichoresis is such that, in
the act of the Son, the Father himself acts, and the Holy Spirit acts in them, inseparably.The action of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is not therefore different from
that of the Father, since the persons act in indwelling the one in the other, according to their mutual immanence and thus by one and the same operation.”
55 Commenting on John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world that he gave his only
begotten Son”), Aquinas writes (In Ioan. 3:16, §478):“But did God give his Son
with the intention that he should die on the cross? He did indeed give him for
the death of the cross inasmuch as he gave him the will to suffer on it. And he
did this in two ways. First, because as the Son of God he willed from eternity to

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that occurs in his temporal mission, therefore, the incarnate Son “naturally”
expresses through human actions both his divine being and willing, and the
fact that this being and willing are received from the Father.
Finally, the voluntary human obedience of the Son in temporal history
implies a dynamic subordination of his human will to the agency of his
transcendent will, which he shares with the Father. It thus implies a duality of wills (and natures), human and divine, in the God-man who is
Christ.Yet this subordination also transpires in a unique historical person,
in accordance with his aforementioned filial mode of being.Thus while
the operations of the two natures and wills of Christ are distinct, they do
have the same identical mode of being.This mode of being in turn informs
all the operations of divine and human life in Christ. Both operations
subsist in him and cooperate in such a way as to express Jesus’ unique filial
relation to the Father. Consequently, the human thoughts, desires,
emotions, words, and gestures of Jesus manifest and conceal the hidden
presence of an ineffable divine nature working in Jesus, and this same
divine nature as received from the Father. God’s actions of obedient
subordination to the Father’s will transpire historically in the incarnate
Son, and can only occur because of his human agency.Yet these human
actions are always and everywhere theandric:They manifest and conceal
his filial relation to the Father, and the presence in Jesus of a divine will
received from the Father. This is true on the one hand when Christ
performs miracles by the power he shares with the Father, and receives
from him. But it is also true when he accepts to submit himself to passive
torment and physical execution in obedience to the Father for our sake.
Both his passive historical submission and his self-determined human
actions find their perfect, transcendent exemplar in his filial manner of
being as the Son, at once eternally receptive of the divine life he receives
from the Father, and active (in this same divine life) in all things.
Evidently, obedience, suffering, and death are ways in which the
human being inevitably experiences a greater dependence or relativity
with regard to others, and particularly toward God. Such events in human
nature speak more profoundly of “relativity” than any other conceivable
kinds of human activity or passivity, since they connote for each person
a unique and last recourse to God alone as regards the destiny of his or
her own being. It was only fitting (and very beautiful) that these human
forms of extreme dependency should be assumed by the incarnate God as
ways to denote to us in and through our contingent state of being his
own inner life of fundamental receptivity constituted by the subsistent
assume flesh and to suffer for us; and this will he had from the Father. Secondly,
because the will to suffer was infused into the soul of Christ by God.”

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relations. God the Son reveals himself through his obedience, humiliation, and suffering as one who is utterly relative to another in his very
existence. This can occur because the historical human actions of Jesus
exist and subsist in his personal mode of being as the Son of God in his
dynamic relation to the Father. Yet this also occurs without the Son
ceding in any way the omnipotence and omnipresence that he possesses
as God, by virtue of his deity received from the Father. Rather, the deity
is hidden in Christ, even as he is mocked, scourged, beaten, and killed for
our sake. It is operative with the Father and the Holy Spirit, in the action
of the resurrection.
In this sense, the obedience of Christ is to be understood in light of
three distinct but interrelated “levels” of reflection. It implicates the
processions of the persons in one respect, their common will to undertake the mission of our salvation in another respect, and the human
actions and words of Christ in a third respect.The latter reveals the first
two (procession and mission) without collapsing these three dimensions
of the divine obedience into one another. Clearly, this perspective does
not allow us to attribute obedience to God the Son in his eternal procession as God.Therefore, it seems improper to say (as Barth does at times)
that this obedience characterizes Christ in his deity and divine nature.
But this perspective does safeguard the reality of the transcendent freedom of the persons vis-à-vis the creation and temporal mission of Christ,
and distinguishes clearly the two natures of Christ, as human and divine.
It does so while still indicating something about how the human, temporal obedience of Christ could reveal the eternal relativity of the Son to
the Father.This revelation occurs by virtue of the hypostatic union:The
obedience of the Son made man not only exists in God, but also subsists
hypostatically so as to reveal that Jesus is personally relative to the Father.
Conclusion
It is clear that Karl Barth’s theory of divine obedience contains a multitude of rich intuitions. His understanding of the way God exists in Christ
as one who is both omnipotent and obedient is profound, and can be
profitably compared with the principles of Christology that are characteristic of classical Chalcedonian thought. Nevertheless, Barth’s claim that
the generation of the Son from the Father is itself characterized essentially by obedience is an affirmation latent with difficulties. One central
question Barth’s theory raises concerns the unity of God’s will. If obedience characterizes the very procession of the Son from the Father, how
are we to avoid the conclusion of a kenotic dimension in the life of God
that ruptures his unique nature? In this case, can the will of the Father in

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fact be possessed in plenary fashion by the person of the Son? And if the
Son is omnipotent, how is it that his procession from the Father, and
therefore his entire person, is characterized by consent to another’s will?
Second, there is a problem that results concerning the presence of the
effective saving will of God in the person of Christ. Christ is the savior
because he bears within himself the action of God who reconciles us
with himself effectively, through the event of Jesus’ passion, death, and
resurrection. Does the Son, however, possess the plenitude of the divine
action in himself if his person is characterized hypostatically by obedience? It would seem that he cannot, and that he would therefore depend
upon the Father and the Holy Spirit in order to act in himself to save us.
If the latter is the case, then the soteriological principle enunciated above
cannot continue to hold true.
A fruitful counterproposal is to consider the obedience of the Son as
a figurative expression of his eternal reception of the divine will from the
Father. In this case, however, three levels of reflection need to be carefully
distinguished.The Son proceeds eternally from the Father and therefore
possesses his divine will from the Father. This eternal relativity of being
permits him to receive from the Father his omnipotent will to become
man for our salvation. The existence of the Son as a human being in
temporal history reflects this relativity toward the Father in all that the
incarnate Logos does as man. In this way the obedience of God the Son
in his human nature reveals something of his relation to the Father in his
divine nature. It reveals that this nature is eternally relative to the Father
in the person of the Son. It does not, however, teach us that there is an
obedience in the divine nature itself. Nor does it oblige us to posit a relation of commandment and obedience as constitutive of the immanent
life of the Trinitarian persons.
N&V

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 6, No. 2 (2008): 403–418

403

Is Limbo Ready to Be Abolished?
Limbo Revisited
B ASIL C OLE , O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, DC

I N M ARCH 1985, I wrote an article titled “Is Limbo Still in
Limbo?” for Homiletic and Pastoral Review. Dr. Grisez and Fr. Kenneth
Baker, S.J., both taught that it was a simple theological theory, implying
that there may be other possibilities for these children’s eternal happiness,
but not revealed by God.1 Teaching of Christ: A Catholic Catechism for
Adults, originally published in 1975, had this to say about limbo:
The Church has never made any official pronouncement on the reality or nature of limbo; but it does teach that baptism in some form is
required for salvation.
Many contemporary scholars have suggested that God will provide
for the eternal salvation of these persons, enabling them in some way
to obtain grace by a baptism of desire before death. Revelation does not
give any certainty on this point. God remains infinitely merciful, but
the gifts of grace are entirely gratuitous, and we are not certain that the
mercy He shows them will include the gift of supernatural beatitude.
For this reason the Church insists that the faithful take care so that their
children are baptized promptly.The vision of God is so precious a gift

I wish to thank Gilles Emery, O.P., Michael Carey, O.P., and Juan-Diego Brunetta,
O.P., for their criticisms of the text.
1 German Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, vol. 1, Christian Moral Principles (Chicago:
Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), 354, note 20; Kenneth Baker, S.J., Fundamentals of
Catholicism, vol. 2 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983), 173–74.

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Basil Cole, O.P.
that we must take every reasonable step to obtain it for ourselves and
for those entrusted to our care.2

Nevertheless, I tried to show that canonizing all unbaptized children did
not seem possible in light of several general councils of the Church.
Father Jean-Hervé Nicolas proposes another theory. In their suffering
and death, unbaptized babies could be mysteriously conformed to Christ
who endured a violent death for our salvation.This conformation could
be understood as redemptive and salvific. So, we could imagine that such
a death “conforms” infants to Christ’s death: that would be neither a
“moral conformation” to Christ (this way is open to adults only, after the
age of discretion), nor a “sacramental conformation” to Christ (since it is
precisely what such babies lack), but a conformity or conformation secundum imitationem operis.3 As we shall see, there are still some difficulties in
canonizing unbaptized babies immediately after death.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church now teaches quite clearly the
following:
As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can
only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites
for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men
should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused
him to say: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,” allow
us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without
Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little
children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.4

But is the hope for their salvation merely “wishful” or sentimental thinking itself as a basis of hope? People also hope that the Church changes her
teaching on contraception as well. How can the theologian overcome the
strong evidence of the sacred Magisterium concerning the necessity of
Baptism and the clear teaching that the unbaptized are in hell? Here
below are the major problems as stated by the sacred Magisterium, that is,
three popes, and two general councils of the Church, which the theologian must surmount, interpret, or perhaps evolve in order to defend the
teaching found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1261.
2 Ronald Lawler, O.F.M. Cap, Donald Wuerl, and Thomas Comerford Lawler, eds.,

The Teaching of Christ: A Catholic Catechism For Adults (Huntington, IN: Our
Sunday Visitor, 1976).
3 Cf. J.-H. Nicolas, Synthèse dogmatique: De la Trinité à la Trinité (Fribourg-Paris:
Editions Universitaires, 1985), 851–52.
4 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1261, quoting Mk 10:14, emphasis added.

Is Limbo Ready to Be Abolished?

405

Recently, the International Theological Commission published a
lengthy document, The Hope of Salvation, in essence saying that we hope
God will do what we humans are unable to do, if children are not
baptized sacramentally before they die.5 This is based upon St.Thomas’s
dictum,“God did not bind his power to the sacraments so as to be unable
to bestow the sacramental effect without conferring the sacrament.”6 So,
given the love of Jesus for children, it is likely that they will be saved.Yet,
the commission maintains that we do not know with certitude, if they
really are saved, since it has not been revealed.7
Further, the commission suggests that it is a sign of the sensus fidelium
that all non-baptized children may be saved because God has other means
to save them besides the ones he as revealed.A sign of this is that whereas
before the Second Vatican Council, there was no Mass of the dead offered
for the unbaptized, after the council, one was crafted and is full of hope.
Appealing to the principle of Lex orandi, lex credendi, together with the
Church’s desire for the salvation of all as well as Christ’s coming to save
all, it may be the case that by this desire, it is possible that unbaptized
infants are saved.Yet as they put it,“none of these considerations . . . may
be used to negate the necessity of Baptism nor to delay the conferral of
the sacrament.”8 What the commission seems to be saying is that we are
certain that validly baptized babies do go to heaven, but we do not know
for certain that unbaptized babies go there but we can hope that they do.
The Tradition
The first document comes from Pope Innocent III in a letter to the archbishop of Lyons (1206) where he teaches the fate of unbaptized children:
original (sin), therefore, which is committed without consent, is remitted
without consent through the power of the sacrament (Baptism); but actual
(sin) which is contracted with consent, is not mitigated in the slightest
without consent. . . .The punishment of original sin is deprivation of the

5 International Theological Commission,“The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who

Die Without Being Baptised,” www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/
cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html.
6 Summa theologiae III, q. 67, a. 7; cf. III, q. 64, a. 3; III, q. 66, a. 6; III, q. 68, a. 2.
7 79. It must be clearly acknowledged that the Church does not have sure knowledge about the salvation of unbaptized infants who die. . . . What we do positively know of God, Christ, and the Church gives us grounds to hope for their
salvation, as must now be explained.
8 International Theological Commission, “The Hope of Salvation,” preface.

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Basil Cole, O.P.
vision of God, but the punishment of actual sin is the torments of everlasting hell.9

One will notice that being deprived of the vision of God is considered a
“punishment” but implied here is that the unbaptized children suffer no
torments nor anything contrary to their wills. The phrase “everlasting
hell” is used for those who committed actual sin.Therefore, the punishment that emerges from their condition is something objective not
subjective.They may not even know that it is a punishment according to
St.Thomas.10 It flows rather from the nature of original sin, not from the
direct or intentional will of God, which all inherit save the Blessed Virgin
Mary and Jesus Christ, and for which the babies are not responsible.
Some years later the Council of Lyons I (1274) also uses the word hell
as the “place,” analogously speaking so it would seem, where the unbaptized children go with mortal sinners: “The souls of those who die in
mortal sin or with original sin only, however, immediately descend to
hell, yet to be punished with different punishments.”11 Some 37 years
later, Pope John XXII will teach in a letter to the Armenians that they
will go to a “different” place: The Roman Church “teaches . . . that the
souls . . . of those who die in mortal sin, or with only original sin, descend
immediately into hell; however, to be punished with different penalties
and in different places.”12 Here one should note that the words “different places” are used and spiritual entities do not actually live in a place,
since they are outside of space and time. So the words must be metaphorical not analogical.
Later, Pope Benedict XII in 1341 writing on the errors of the Armenians addresses the question of unbaptized children:
Also the Armenians say that the souls of children who are born from
Christian parents after the passion of Christ, if they die before they are
baptized, go to a terrestrial Paradise in which Adam was before sin; but
the souls of children who are born after the passion of Christ from
9 Denzinger-Schönmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationeum

de rebus ridie et morum, Adolfus Schönmetzer, S.J. (Rome: Herder 1965), §780.
10 St. Thomas Aquinas, On Evil, trans. Jean Oesterly (Notre Dame, IN: University

of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 5, 4: “But that perfect good for which man was
made is that glory which the saints possess is beyond natural knowledge. . . . And
therefore the souls of children do not know that they are deprived of such a
good (the beatific vision), and do not grieve on account of this; but knowledge
which they have by nature, they possess without grief.”
11 DS §858.
12 DS §§925–26.

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407

non-Christian parents and who die without baptism go to the place
where the souls of their parents are.13

Here two errors are highlighted by the pope, namely, unbaptized children
of Christian parents go to Adam’s paradise when they die, and if they are
from non-Christian parents, they could go either to heaven, hell of the
damned, or purgatory.
Next, the Council of Florence (1439–45) goes even further doctrinally and states a definition, which does not seem to be a mere theological opinion: It has likewise been defined that “the souls of those who
depart in actual mortal sin or in original sin only, descend immediately
into hell but to undergo punishments of a different kind.”14 If unbaptized
babies descend immediately into hell, then the theory of limbo according to Aquinas among others is used to explain the consequences of
being in “hell.” If the theory of limbo were merely a theory, then one still
has to explain the meaning of “hell” as used in the Council of Florence.
To say that it is only a common doctrine of the Church but to be distinguished from the faith of the Church seems disingenuous.15
One more document, written by Pius VI in 1794, actually uses the
word “limbo” for the first time in magisterial documents. Here the pope
condemns Jansenists who claim that the doctrine of limbo is an invention of the Pelagians. He writes:
The doctrine which rejects as a Pelagian fable that place of the lower
regions (which the faithful generally designated by the name of the
limbo of children) in which the souls of those departing with the sole
guilt of original sin are punished with the punishment of the
condemned, exclusive of fire, just as if, by this very fact, that those who
remove the punishment of fire introduced that middle place and state
free of guilt and punishment between the kingdom of God and eternal
damnation, such as that about which the Pelagians idly talk, (this is)
false, rash, injurious to Catholic schools.16

13 DS §1008.
14 DS §1306.
15 International Theological Commission, The Hope of Salvation, §40.
16 DS §2626. Here the papal commission asserts that “[p]apal interventions during

this period, then, protected the freedom of the Catholic Schools to wrestle with
this question. They did not endorse the theory of limbo as a doctrine of faith.
Limbo, however, was the common Catholic teaching until the mid-twentieth
century.” But can one say that the teaching on limbo was then erroneous, which
would be a reasonable conclusion of the commission? This would seem to raise
more problems than solutions.

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Quite rightly, this paragraph is merely getting facts in line with reality
and rightly, the Hope of Salvation says that Pius VI was mere protecting
“the freedom of the Catholic schools to wrestle with this question.”17
The Challenge for the Theologian
The problems facing the theologian from the documents seem hopeless
for reconciling the Tradition with the present Catechism because one is
dealing with either metaphorical or analogical knowledge using words
such as “punishment,” “descend,” “place,” and “penalty,” which will have
different meanings for adult sinners and unbaptized children. The major
question is simple: How can an all-good and all-loving God “punish”
someone who has not consented to personal sin and therefore is personally innocent? Further, how can an all-good God create innocent children
who die soon afterward, and then are given a punishment for something
they did not do?18 St.Thomas provides an answer when he writes:
I answer that, Punishment should be proportionate to fault, according
to the saying of Isaiah (27:8),“In measure against measure, when it shall
be cast off, thou shalt judge it.” Now the defect transmitted to us
through our origin, and having the character of a sin does not result
from the withdrawal or corruption of a good consequent upon human
nature by virtue of its principles, but from the withdrawal or corruption of something that had been superadded to nature.19

Here Aquinas is referring to the withdrawal of sanctifying grace, a gift over
and beyond human nature, caused not by God but by the sin of Adam and
Eve. Hence, God does not cause the punishment but allows it to flow from
the nature of original sin. Of its very nature, original sin deprives one of
the beatific vision.The notion of punishment as punitive from the point
of view of the receiver implies something contrary to his will and the
infliction of pain. But the little ones do not deserve either; and if Aquinas
is correct, they are not punished in this sense since they have committed
no sin but only possess inherited sin. So, we can say, they are punished
objectively speaking because they are deprived of some wonderful gifts,
and because of their sinful condition, inherited from Adam but not
chosen.This is what makes punishment and penalty analogical.
17 International Theological Commission, The Hope of Salvation, 26d.
18 For a study of the major medieval theologians,Thomas and Thomists of that time

in particular, see the article of Serge-Thomas Bonino, “La théorie des limbes et
le mystère du surnaturel chez saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Thomiste 101 (2001):
131–66.
19 ST Supplementum, Appendix I, q. 1, a. 1.

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Thomas continues:
Nor does this sin belong to this particular man, except in so far as he
has such a nature, that is deprived of this good, which in the ordinary
course of things he would have had and would have been able to keep.
Wherefore no further punishment is due to him, besides the privation
of that end to which the gift withdrawn destined him, which gift
human nature is unable of itself to obtain. Now this is the divine vision;
and consequently the loss of this vision is the proper and only punishment of original sin after death: because, if any other sensible punishment were inflicted after death for original sin, a man would be
punished out of proportion to his guilt, for sensible punishment is
inflicted for that which is proper to the person, since a man undergoes
sensible punishment in so far as he suffers in his person.20

What Thomas is saying is that the punishment coming from the mere
absence of sanctifying grace without consent to mortal sin, therefore,
does not inflict pain but merely is an absence of a good beyond human
nature.This also implies that grace is not, strictly speaking, owed or due
to human nature but a pure undeserved gift. Aquinas again distinguishes:
Hence, as his guilt did not result from an action of his own, even so
neither should he be punished by suffering himself, but only by losing
that which his nature was unable to obtain. On the other hand, those
who are under sentence for original sin will suffer no loss whatever in
other kinds of perfection and goodness which are consequent upon
human nature by virtue of its principles.21

Moreover, Thomas insists that the unbaptized children do not grieve,
rather “they will rejoice for that they will have a large share of God’s
goodness and their own natural perfections.” And if they will know they
lack grace to have the beatific vision, this “will not cause sorrow in children who die without Baptism, anymore than the lack of many graces
accorded to others of the same condition makes a wise man to grieve.”22
Why Limbo as Such Is Only a Theory
The word “limbo” means “rim,”“hem,” or a border to something, and, in
this context, the rim of hell. Before Thomas, it was forged at the turn of
the twelfth century, about forty years before Aquinas’s teacher, St. Albert
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid.
22 ST Supplementum, Appendix I, q. 1, a. 2.

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the Great, began to write.23 Perhaps the reason the Angelic Doctor’s
teaching was not officially embraced by the Magisterium was due, in
part, to the fact that he makes “limbo” for unbaptized children a state of
natural happiness, which suggests it could not be hell strictly taken. For
an unbaptized infant who has died, not seeing God as a mere objective
punishment and natural happiness can co-exist and so are not contraries.
This would seem to suggest that truly the infants do not suffer any
personal punishment. But for those who have univocal minds, analogical
punishment seems to be no punishment at all.
These souls with original sin only know and love God naturally.When
compared with someone who possesses the beatific vision, this happiness
appears to be almost no happiness at all.When considered from a purely
natural point of view, it seems quite satisfactory. When considered from
the perspective of the people in the hell of the damned, these children
are in bliss. What is interesting, however, from the vantage of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is that hell is no longer thought of in terms
of a genus but a species.24 Let us take a look, one by one, of the numbers
dealing with hell.
Number 1033 of the Catechism is interesting for the theology of limbo
because hell is defined as a state for mortal sinners freely chosen, especially with regard to the love of neighbor. So, unbaptized children cannot
fall into this category:
We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him.
But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our
neighbor, or against ourselves:“He who does not love remains in death.
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no
murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” Our Lord warns us that we
shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the
poor and the little ones who are his brethren.To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice.This state of definitive
self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called
“hell.” (§1033)

23 Cf. Richard Weberberger, O.S.B., “Limbus puerorum. Zur Entstehung eines

theologischen Begriffes,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 35 (1968):
83–133, and 241–59, and 112–13.
24 In contrast to the Catechism, it is clear in St. Thomas that hell has four states or
places as seen in ST III, q. 52, aa. 1–8: hell of the lost, hell of the Holy Fathers
awaiting Christ, the abode where children live who die without Baptism, and
finally, purgatory.Therefore the word and reality of “hell” is a genus for Aquinas.

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Number 1034 of the same Catechism says that those in hell are called
evil-doers. But the children who are not baptized cannot be called evildoers nor did they refuse to believe in Jesus:
Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for
those who, to the end of their lives, refuse to believe and be converted,
where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he
“will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw
them into the furnace of fire,” and that he will pronounce the condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!” (§1034)

Number 1035 pronounces that eternity of hell will be the lot of those
who die in the state of mortal sin and its chief punishment is that separation from God. But unbaptized children are not absolutely separated
from God by their choices but by something attributed to another
(Adam and Eve’s choice) as Thomas had already taught:
The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of
mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell,
“eternal fire.” The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from
God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which
he was created and for which he longs. (§1035)

This idea of eternal punishment in the Tradition goes back to the
Church, which clearly and unequivocally teaches that this state is perpetual as seen, for example in the Council of Lyons (1254): “Moreover, if
anyone without repentance dies in mortal sin, without a doubt he is
tortured forever by the flames of eternal hell.”25 What those flames actually are is not clearly taught by the Church as they could be physical or
spiritual, but one should note that the eternity of hell is for those who
die “unrepentant in mortal sin,” which is precisely not the case of unbaptized infants.
In my original article, I attempted to use St.Thomas’s idea that “hell”
or “infernos” was a genus not a species with a fourfold analogy of state:
hell of the damned, hell of purgatory, hell of the Holy Fathers awaiting
Christ, and hell of those in limbo. This distinction is found in Aquinas’s
Supplementum.26 What is interesting from the perspective of today’s Catechism, as shown previously and will be shown by the next number, is that
“hell” is a word reserved exclusively for those who have left this world in
25 DS §839.
26 Cf. ST Supplementum, q. 69, aa. 1–7.

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412

the state of mortal sin. In the earlier numbers, the Catechism teaches that
those in mortal sin have explicitly and definitively chosen to live and die
in it. However, with regard to purgatory, we find a different state of existence from hell:
The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the
elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.27
The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially
at the Councils of Florence and Trent.The tradition of the Church, by
reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire.28 As for
certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment,
there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor
in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain
offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to
come.29 (§1031)

The key words in number 1031 is “entirely different” implying therefore,
it seems, that it is not an analogous part of hell, even though the souls in
purgatory do not see God either.We also know from revelation that this
state is eliminated at the end of time.
The Catechism, quoting Lyons II, teaches that “[t]he holy Roman
Church firmly believes and confesses that on the Day of Judgment all
men will appear in their own bodies before Christ’s tribunal to render an
account of their own deeds.”30
Finally, the Catechism makes note that:
Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the
very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life
to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven—through a
purification or immediately—or immediate and everlasting damnation.
At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love. (§1022)

Since unbaptized infants cannot choose for or against Christ, their “retribution” may not be “eternal” as we shall see.
For Thomas, because children (he does not specify if baptized or not)
dying before the use of reason have no deeds to account for, teaches in
the Supplementum that “[c]hildren who have died without reaching the
27 Cf. Council of Florence (1439), DS §1304; Council of Trent (1563), DS §1820;

ibid. (1547), §1580; see also Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus (1336), DS §1000.
28 Cf. 1 Cor 3:15; 1 Pet 1:7.
29 St. Gregory the Great, Dial. 4, 39 (PL 77, 396); cf. Mt 12:31.
30 CCC, §1059, citing Council of Lyons II (1274): DS §859; cf. DS §1549.

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perfect age will be present at the judgment, not be judged, but to see the
Judge’s glory.”31
But how is it possible for the unbaptized children to see the glory of
Jesus if that glory is supernatural? For one thing,Thomas does not say it
is supernatural glory; but it could be. Second, he says “children” without
any qualifications.Third, seeing Christ’s glory with human eyes does not
yet mean the beatific vision. I would think the humans that are damned
will also see something of his natural glory physically. Perhaps Thomas
caught a glimpse of a possible solution to the ultimate fate of the unbaptized babies. Unlike the fallen angels and mortal sinners, it is not clear
that the unbaptized children’s wills are fixed either for or against the
supernatural order.This means a new possibility could exist for them.
Can We Communicate With Them?
In order for humans to pray to them, God would have to give them infused
ideas, since their knowledge comes about by turning in on themselves and
beginning to reason together with any ideas that God may decide to infuse
into their intellects. It sometimes happens that mothers who aborted their
children pray to them for forgiveness. Does this make sense? In the case of
aborted children, all we can do is assume that God could allow these children to receive the requests made to them by their parent(s) who aborted
them. Also, an infused idea might prompt them naturally to pray for their
mothers and/or whoever fathered them.Writing on the mercy of God for
people praying in the state of mortal sin, St.Thomas teaches:
On the other hand, God hears the prayer of a sinner proceeding from a
good natural desire, not from justice, because the sinner does not merit
this, but rather out of pure mercy, provided however the four conditions
mentioned above are fulfilled, namely that the prayers are for himself,
for things necessary for salvation, piously and perseveringly.32

Applying St. Thomas’s thought on adults in this life to the unbaptized
souls in limbo, it could also mean that during their sojourn in limbo, they
might be praying for their own ultimate salvation and this could be
granted them from the pure mercy of God. Is such a scenario possible?
A New Defense Based Upon Bernard Leeming’s Theory
Origen is the author of apokatastasis or the notion that there would be a
universal restoration or reunion of all souls and angels at the end of time.
31 ST Supplementum, q. 89, a. 5, ad 3.
32 Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II–II, q. 83, a. 16; Kevin D. O’Rourke, O.P., Religion

and Worship, vol. 39 (New York: McGraw Hill Book Company, 1964).

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All persons, angels, and humankind would ultimately be saved regardless
of their choices against God.This was condemned as heresy by the Fifth
Ecumenical Synod of Constantinople (553) when it said: “If anyone says
or holds that the punishment of the demons and of impious men is
temporary, and that it will have an end at some time, that is to say, there
will be a complete restoration of the demons or of impious men, let him
be anathema.”33 Nevertheless, one segment of persons not mentioned in
this condemnation: the personally innocent souls without Baptism are
omitted. So, it could be the case, notwithstanding the Church’s silence,
Bernard Leeming,Vincent Wilken,34 and now I, repropose that the possibility for the unbaptized children remains that they will be given initial
grace for the beatific vision but only at the end of time, since their wills
are not irrevocably fixed in evil but only in natural goodness.The original sin, which they possess, is only analogously a “sin” since it lacks a
choice on their part, that is, they did not commit it. The Hope of Salvation
does make the point that “the church has never taught the ‘absolute
necessity’ of sacramental Baptism for salvation; there are other avenues
whereby the configuration with Christ can be realized” (66b).
It would seem that if God can give to the souls of the baby martyrs
(the Holy Innocents) sanctifying grace immediately rendering them
capable of seeing God with the aid of lumen gloriae but without their
consent or the consent of their parents who were in total ignorance of
the cause of the deaths of their children, God could give the same grace
to those in limbo at any instant. It would not be an imposition but a pure
gift without their consent, just as baptized babies are given the gift without their consent and sometimes even without their parents’ consent. As
St.Thomas expressed it this way: “The soul is naturally capable of grace,
as Augustine says; simply from the fact that it is to the image of God, it is
capable of God through grace.”35 The Church’s teaching however
precludes that option of God’s gift at “any instant” based upon the teaching of the councils and popes. But does this teaching also include the
notion of “forever”? The limbo of the just was not forever,36 so, will the
unbaptized children be denied the beatific vision forever? Or, do they
33 DS §411.
34 Bernard Leeming, “Is Their Baptism Really Necessary?” Clergy Review (1954):

66–85, 193–222, 321–40; Vincent Wilkin, From Limbo to Heaven (New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1961).
35 ST I–II, q. 133, a. 10.
36 The reason for Christ’s descent into “hell” was to release those souls as well as
the souls in purgatory. Cf. ST III, q. 52, aa. 5 and 8. It is interesting to note that
in the Summa theologiae, Thomas refrains from using the phrase “limbo of the
just,” but in the Supplementum, it is used in q. 69, a. 6.

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415

have a possible future of being with God in a beatific-vision state of existence? This seems to have been overlooked by The Hope of Salvation.
At the end of time, since it is clear that there are only two states in
existence at the final judgment (Mt 25: 34, 41), it seems fitting, based
upon God’s indissoluble love for the unbaptized babies, that he could
grant them sanctifying grace much as he grants the same through the
Baptism of water, or blood, or perhaps the desire of parents (according to
the opinion of Cajetan).While it is possible that he may grant this grace
to unbaptized babies, we are not certain that he will in fact choose to do
this for them, since God has not revealed this as a fact to us.
It is more certain, however, that unbaptized children will not be in the
“hell” as described by the Catechism, and, at least, it is reasonable by arguments of fittingness to piously believe that they may be in heaven due to
a gratuitous gift of grace at the end of time. Moreover, it could be argued
that had God revealed this latter option, the Christian faithful would not
as readily have their children baptized, the ordinary way through which
dying babies enter into heaven. (Even parents do not tell their children
everything.) Since it is God’s antecedent will to save children, certainly,
through Baptism of water or blood, it is more fitting that he not reveal
this last option of doing so at the end of time, even though reason and
devotion suggest it is more fitting and probable that he do this than leave
these unbaptized infants in their merely natural state of existence.
Why not give unbaptized infants the grace to get into heaven simultaneously at the final judgment by a generous act of his will? And, why
only at the end of time? Based on early ecclesial documents, God has
chosen to keep them in their state of original sin at death to preserve the
ordinary way infants get into heaven if they suddenly die. However, when
the world ends, it is fitting that he grant them postredemptive grace (my
terminology), just as it was fitting that he granted preredemptive grace to
the Holy Innocents and John the Baptist, St. Joseph, and even more so
the Blessed Mother based upon the sufferings of Jesus Christ for all.37
First, Christ suffered and died for the children with the same merciful
love as he did for every person in the material cosmos.38 While his
redemption is not fruitful to sinners who reject his grace, it can be fruitful in children, as shown by the power of Baptism, and would be fruitful
by gratuitously giving initial grace to unbaptized children at the end of
time.To say that “a major weakness of the traditional view of limbo is that
it is unclear whether the souls there have any relationship to Christ”
37 This would fit it with International Theological Commission, The Hope of Salva-

tion, 88–92, concerning the children’s relationship to Christ as redeemer.
38 DS §2304; DS §794.

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416

ignores St. Thomas at least.39 Writing about the Word in the Trinity, he
clearly states,
The Word has a kingship not only with rational natures, but also
universally with every creature. For the Word contains the “patterns” of
everything which God creates, analogously to how the human artist has
an intellectual conception which contains the “models” for his works
of art.Thus, then, the totality of creatures are nothing but a kind of real
expression and representation of that contained in the conception of
the divine Word.This is why all things are said to be made by the Word
( Jn 1:3). So it was fitting that the Word was united to the creature,
namely, to human nature.40

Second, from examining the magisterial teaching, it becomes clear that
unbaptized children, before reaching the ability to reason, do not go to
heaven but rather to another state of existence called “hell,” in earlier
centuries, later called “limbo” in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by
theologians. However, since these innocents have not committed any
grave or personal sins, theirs cannot be one of everlasting punishment
since they have done nothing personally or actually wrong. As a result,
their wills are not fixed in moral evil, rather, their wills are fixed in natural goodness.
When a human person is created, the will is not fixed either in
personal moral goodness or evil. It is only as he matures that he gains the
ability to reason about the true and good, and he slowly enters into the
realm of being morally good or evil. Still the will remains vertibile or flexible or fickle even in the state of sanctifying grace. If a person dies as an
unbaptized baby, he does not choose for or against God supernaturally,
but does choose God naturally, since he can only be in a naturally happy
state of being.
In the next life, the unbaptized babies will have no natural will against
God. In this life too, no natural will against God exists in babies, otherwise they would be born in the state of mortal sin as well as original sin.
It is absolutely clear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and St.Thomas
that personal sin and inherited sin are two really distinct kinds of sin,
making them analogous.
That a change of will in eternity is not possible for angels and men, I
totally agree; however, it may be possible for unbaptized babies because
they will come back to earth temporarily for the last judgment to receive
a body.Absolute fixity of will for or against God in the supernatural order
39 International Theological Commission, The Hope of Salvation, 90.
40 SCG IV, ch. 42 (§3803).

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arises from a personal and irrevocable choice. God gives what a person
wants. God no longer forgives the people in hell (devils and mortal
sinners) because they have definitively chosen to be unrepentant and separated from him. In the case of baptized babies who die, their fixity in God
comes solely from gratuitous grace without also their personal choice.
God does not impose grace on anyone capable of a free act. It is a
gratuitous gift, which may be possible for these unbaptized infants.They
have no personal animus or will against God, but have a natural desire for
him. That is all God needs to elevate them. The same is true for living
babies. If living babies had a will totally opposed to God, then Baptism
would not do them any good either, whether of water or of blood.
Furthermore, Baptism by water or blood is only an instrument of communicating grace, a communication that God does not, absolutely speaking,
need in order to give sanctifying grace. For example, He did not baptize
John the Baptist, nor Isaiah, nor Jeremiah, nor possibly St. Joseph, and
certainly not the Blessed Virgin Mary.With the exception of Mary who
was immaculately conceived, the others were gratuitously sanctified in
the womb whereby original sin was removed. Thus, for any unbaptized
child, to be baptized by water or blood, sanctified in the womb or in
heaven at judgment is not a contradiction.
Third, the Councils of Orange and Trent and Thomas himself teach
that initial grace is never merited;41 so the Holy Innocents simply
possessed sanctifying grace gratuitously by a kind of Baptism of blood
freely accepted by God.This flowed somewhat from a loving and ineffable will of God who can choose to give grace to whom and when he will.
Fourth, regardless of the almost necessity of Baptism in this life, God
will cease using all the sacraments once time has ceased. Then, it would
be fitting that he grant the unbaptized children sanctifying grace, given
his antecedent desire to save all mankind who pose no obstacle. It seems
probable therefore in the case of the unbaptized infants that he do so.
Perhaps Thomas also saw this when he mentioned that at the end of time,
“they (children) will see the glory of Christ.”42
Conclusion
In summary, it seems reasonable to think to or to have a pious belief that,
barring any official magisterial document regarding the fate of unbaptized infants and those unable to do a human act (the insane), God will
ultimately save them gratuitously, but only at the end of time. Our hope
41 DS §388; DS §1525; ST I–II, q. 114, a. 5.
42 ST Supplementum, q. 89, a. 5, ad 3.

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is based on the infinite mercy of God and his love, and Christ’s passion
and death and postredemptive grace. This theory can be said to be
supported by the Magisterium itself because none of its teaching seems
to exclude the possibility of postredemption of the unbaptized infants,
N&V
but only at the end of time.

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419

Catholic Eschatology and the
Development of Doctrine
E DWARD T. OAKES, S.J.
Mundelein Seminary
Mundelein, Illinois

T HE NOTION of development of doctrine has always been controversial, as it can too easily become a license for any innovation whatever,
but it is never more controversial than when the issue is eschatology. I still
recall the cartoon in The New Yorker that was published shortly after the
bishops of the United States allowed American Catholics to eat meat on
Fridays, something that had previously been prohibited under pain of
mortal sin. The cartoon showed two devils conducting their business in
hell, with one saying to the other: “What do we do now with all those
in here who ate meat on Friday?” The ribbing was surely meant to be
facetious, but the humor relies for its bite on this dilemma: What do we
do with all those souls who died with one understanding of heaven, hell,
death, and judgment, if the Church later proclaims what seems at first
glance to be a different understanding of the Last Things?
Although the dilemma is real, I shall be arguing in this essay that development of doctrine in matters of eschatology is still inevitable, a development of understanding that will be forced on the Church’s collective
mind both by the internal laws of doctrinal development and by the
change in horizon brought about by the Church’s pilgrimage through
history. To establish this thesis, I will concentrate here on two issues,
limbo and hell, and show how they serve as the two loci where development has become both the most exigent, crying out for development,
and the most obvious, in the sense that a denial of that development will
lead to impossible conclusions at variance with the most ancient forms
of the Church’s creed.

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Limbo and Development
Even before the close of the Second Vatican Council the question of
limbo was becoming more and more problematic.1 Given the doctrinal
confusions that invaded the Church in the wake of that epochal Council, it does not surprise the historian to discover that no theologian
enthusiastic about the Council felt any attraction to the hypothesis of
limbo or cared to defend it. But even among those theologians who most
deplored what was happening to the doctrinal cohesion of the Church’s
message of salvation, limbo was rarely defended—or even much
mentioned.2 Other theologians of unimpeachable orthodoxy denied it
outright, very much including Joseph Ratzinger. Indeed, in the very
book that made his reputation as a vigorous defender of Church orthodoxy, he openly denied the doctrine. “Limbo was never a defined truth
of the faith. Personally—and here I am speaking more as a theologian and
not as Prefect of the Congregation—I would abandon it since it was only
a theological hypothesis.”3
1 See especially George Dyer, Limbo: Unsettled Question (New York: Sheed and

Ward, 1964), written in the midst of Vatican II but which was a briefer account
for the general public of Dyer’s doctoral dissertation, The Denial of Limbo and the
Jansenist Controversy (Mundelein, IL: University of St. Mary of the Lake, 1955).
2 For example, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., in his book Life Everlasting,
trans. Patrick Cummins, O.S.B. (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1952), mentions
limbo only once (at 165); and there he was referring exclusively to the limbus
patrum, where the Old Testament patriarchs awaited their release from bondage
on Holy Saturday. Georges Panneton, in his book Heaven or Hell, trans. Ann M.
C. Forster (French 1955;Westminster, MD:The Newman Press, 1965), mentions
limbo only thrice (17, 19, 21), only the first and last referring to the limbus infantium. The fact that these books were both published before Vatican II is significant, but the same holds true after the Council. For example, Joseph Ratzinger,
in his book Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, trans. Michael Waldstein, ed.Aidan
Nichols, O.P. (German 1977;Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 1988), never mentions the topic, a silence that would later become
outright denial with The Ratzinger Report (see immediately below).
3 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger with Vittorio Messori, The Ratzinger Report:An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church, trans. Salvator Attanasio and Graham
Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985), 147. Far from representing some
kind of postconciliar latitudinarianism, the cardinal makes it clear that the presence of heresy in the Church does great damage: “Thus you can see that even
for the post-conciliar Church . . . , heretics and heresies—characterized by the
new Code [of Canon Law] as ‘punishable offenses against religion and the unity
of the Church’—exist, and ways have been provided to protect the community
from them. . . . From this viewpoint, in regard to error, it must not be forgotten
that the right of the individual theologian must be protected but that the rights
of the community must likewise be protected” (ibid, 25).

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These doubts were obviously shared by Pope John Paul II, because he
was the pope who first directed the papally appointed International
Theological Commission to study the question. After John Paul’s death,
Pope Benedict XVI asked the International Theological Commission to
continue its work. It finally issued its report, with papal approval, on January 19, 2007.4
Whatever one thinks of this report, the fact that it was commissioned
and later issued with papal approval shows the fact of development, one
that I shall argue was due to an impasse that the history of development
in other areas made necessary. It was, after all, this impasse that prompted
two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to reopen the question.
Moreover, a careful analysis of the history of this question will also show
why the question of eschatology cannot avoid the laws of development
that affect other Christian dogmas as well.
Not being a full-scale monograph, this article can only highlight four
key milestones in the debate: (1) St. Augustine’s rejection of the prospect
of eternal life for unbaptized babies as a dangerously Pelagian innovation;
(2) the mitigation of Augustine’s grim conclusions by most medieval
theologians with their own concept of a painless limbo; (3) the Jansenists’
rejection of that mitigating hypothesis; and finally (4) the attack on the
concept of “pure nature” by the Jesuit cardinal Henri de Lubac, which
(assuming his arguments are cogent) made the concept of limbo even
more problematic than it had been.
As I work through this quite brief tour d’histoire, it will become apparent that both the hypothesis of limbo and its rejection entail certain
“antinomies,” a word made famous by Immanuel Kant in the conclusion
of his Critique of Pure Reason to refer to that reality often encountered in
both philosophy and theology: Assert one thing, and soon history proves
that the assertion’s implications lead to the opposite problem.
1. In its normal acceptation, the term “limbo” conjures up a painless,
soteriologically neutral place where unbaptized infants are deprived of
the beatific vision but otherwise feel no further deprivation (and do
not necessarily even notice that deprivation, apparently under the
rubric of “what you don’t know won’t hurt you”). Unfortunately for
that hypothesis, the fifth-century heretic Pelagius proposed something very similar, and therein lies the heart of the dilemma from the
fifth century to ours.
4 International Theological Commission,“The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who

Die Without Being Baptised,” www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/
cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html.

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Pelagius’s denial of original sin always had one great weakness: the
universal practice of infant Baptism, which was too embedded in
Church life for him to overthrow. But why baptize babies if original
sin didn’t exist?5 Citing the very verse that the orthodox used to insist
on the necessity of Baptism ( John 3:5: “No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit”), Pelagius
granted the point but then made a distinction between the kingdom
of God (for access to which Baptism is required) and what he called
“eternal life,” which, he claimed, unbaptized infants enjoy by virtue of
their having immortal souls.
Now if by “eternal life” Pelagius meant supernatural eternal life,
then his exegesis of John’s Gospel was obviously specious. But maybe
he meant something like a purely “natural” eternal life? If one
assumes with Pelagius that original sin does not exist, the latter
option would seem not to run into the same exegetical difficulties.
But of course for Augustine original sin does exist, which automatically precludes Pelagius’s hypothesis of “eternal life” under any guise.
But then comes the kicker in his logic: If unbaptized infants do not
enjoy eternal life, then eternal death must be their fate:
Once he had dealt with the idea of “eternal life,” Augustine was
ready to close his trap on the Pelagians. Children who die unbaptized are certainly excluded from the kingdom of God; and since
eternal life for them is out of the question, nothing remains but eternal death.The Pelagians were now in a dilemma. Either they had to
question the justice of God, or they had to admit the existence of
original sin. God admittedly does not condemn the innocent. The
condemnation of the unbaptized child demands an explanation, and
the sin of Adam is the only explanation.6

But if original sin is real and “justifies” God in condemning the
unbaptized, where then do they go? Without a doubt, it must be hell.
Dyer again deftly summarizes Augustine’s entirely logical conclusion,
most grimly portrayed in his influential Sermon 294:

5 “The smooth explanation of the Pelagian doctrine halted abruptly when it

encountered the Sacrament of Baptism. How were they to explain the Baptism
of children? If they were to challenge the necessity of infant Baptism, they would
run full tilt against the universal practice of the time. If, on the other hand, they
were to admit its necessity, they would destroy the logic of their system which
denied original sin.” Dyer, Denial, 14.
6 Dyer, Limbo, 14

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Augustine had employed his formidable scriptural armament to
exclude children from eternal life and from the kingdom of God; . . .
and so in language that was largely scriptural, he painted a chilling
description of the future life of the unbaptized child. He must face the
judgment of God, said Augustine; he is a vessel of wrath, a vessel of
contumely, and the judgment of God is upon him. Baptism is the only
thing that can deliver him from the kingdom of death and the power
of the devil. If no one frees him from the grasp of the devil, what
wonder is it that he must suffer in flames with Satan? There can be no
doubt about the matter, the saint concludes, he must go into eternal
fire with the devil.7

True, in a letter to Jerome, Augustine expressed certain misgivings
about this conclusion, which is understandable, given how grim his
position was.8 But the bulk of his writings never deviates from this basic
conclusion—that at the end of time there will only be two regions: on
the right hand of Christ, the kingdom of God where the sheep dwell;
and on his left, the kingdom of Satan where the goats reside:
The Scriptural dichotomy of eternal life and eternal death runs like a
refrain through Augustine’s writings, . . . [which] recognized but two
alternatives, heaven and hell. . . . Those unfortunate children who
would die without Baptism must face the judgment of God; and their
lot is one of most grievous damnation.They are vessels of contumely,
vessels of wrath, and the wrath of God is upon them. Baptism is the
only thing that can deliver these unfortunate infants from the kingdom
of death and from the power of the devil. If no one frees them from
the grasp of the devil, what wonder is it they must suffer in flames with
him? There can be no doubt about the matter: they will go into eternal fire with the devil.9
7 Ibid., 14–15. In this debate Augustine will recognize only the exclusive and

entirely binary categories of right and left:“Judgment will be passed on the living
and the dead; some will be on the right, others on the left; I don’t know any
other destiny.” Augustine, “Sermon 294,” in idem, Sermons III/8 (273–305A),
trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1994), 181.
8 Augustine, Epistle 166, 16 (PL 33:727). But as Dyer points out, Augustine’s real
problem was the premature death of the unbaptized infant, not its ultimate fate
in eternity (Dyer, Denial, 27–28). In his book Contra Julianum, Book V, ch. 44 (PL
44:809), the bishop of Hippo admits he is unable to define the “quae, qualis, et
quanta” of infantile punishment, but that they would be punished he had no
doubt:“Quaecumque autem sine gratia Mediatoris et Sacramento ejus, in quolibet corporis aetate, de corpore exierit, et in poenam futuram, et in ultimo judicio recepturam corpus ad poenam.” Epistle 186, 16, 5 (PL 33:722).
9 Dyer, Denial, 25–26, with numerous citations from Augustine’s anti-Pelagian
polemics, the starkest of which is probably Sermon 294 (PL 38:1337): “Qui non

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2. Augustine’s vacillations, though diffidently expressed and generally
misinterpreted, provided a modest amount of wiggle room for later
theologians, but the real change came with the introduction of the
writings of Dionysius the Areopagite into Western theology, who
defined, in the typical neo-Platonist manner, evil as a privation. In
that case, unbaptized infants merely lacked the grace of justification
but had done nothing to merit punishment due to personal sin. Peter
Lombard adopted this view in his famous Sentences,10 thereby insuring its semicanonical status, from which theologians drew various
conclusions and hypotheses. Here again, rather than going into the
plethora of suggestions proposed by medieval theologians, I will let
Dyer provide the simple summary:
In 1255 [Aquinas] said that children are aware of their lost destiny
but feel no regret. In 1265 he said they feel no regret because they
have no idea of what they have lost. . . . Saint Bonaventure, however,
had quite a different reason to offer. Children in limbo, he said, enjoy
a perfect balance between their knowledge and their desires, thanks
to the good offices of their Creator. Since grief would imply a lack
of balance, it can have no part in the lives of these children. These
children stand midway between the blessed and the damned, and so
they share something of each state of life. Like the damned, they are
exiles from heaven; like the blessed, they know no grief. . . . [For
Duns Scotus] children die in a state of personal innocence [emphasis
added: Scotus did not deny original sin]; by divine decree they will
remain so for eternity.Were they to grieve over their loss of heaven,
they would lose their innocence either by murmuring against God
or by sinking into despair.This is clearly impossible. Since they died
without personal fault, they will remain so for eternity. Therefore
there can be no unhappiness among them over what they are or
what they have lost. According to Scotus, there can be no unhappiness of any sort in limbo. Grief, he remarks, is a greater punishment
than the pain of sense, because it attacks a higher faculty, the human
will. Since children are spared the pain of sense, they must logically
be free of any unhappiness. It would be absurd to suppose that they
were spared the lighter punishment and left to bear the heavier.11
in dextra, procul dubio in sinistra; ergo qui non in regno procul dubio in igne
aeterno. . . . Ecce exposui tibi quid sit regnum, et quid sit ignis aeternus; ut
quando confiteris parvulum non futurum in regno, fatearis futurum in igne
aeterno.”The operative logic here is always either/or.
10 Petri Lombardi Episcopi Parisiensis Sententiarum libri quattuor (Paris: Louis Vivès,
1892), the first volume of which has now been translated into English as Peter
Lombard, The Sentences: Book 1: The Mystery of the Trinity (Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2007).
11 Dyer, Limbo, 52–54.

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3. If these views seem perilously close to Pelagius’s suggestion of a realm
of “eternal life,” Bishop Cornelius Jansen would agree. As he said in
his massive two-volume Augustinus, “Scholastics who gave natural
happiness or immunity from eternal fire to infants dying unbaptized
had departed far from the mind of Augustine and perhaps of the
Church, which had condemned the Pelagians according to his principles.”12 In this opinion Jansen not only had the backing of Augustine but also, it would seem, of the Second Council of Lyon (1274)
and the Council of Florence (1438–45), which both taught, in almost
identical words, that “[t]he souls of those who die in actual mortal sin
or in original sin only immediately descend into hell, even though they
suffer different penalties.”13
The debate at this point gets complicated (as if it were not already
complicated enough) with the overlapping theses of the Jansenists, the
Jesuits, and the Augustinians (meaning here members of the religious
order founded by St.Augustine and to which Martin Luther had once
belonged).“The Jansenists denied limbo and accused its Jesuit defenders of Pelagianism. In their rebuttal Jesuit theologians” often went so
far in their attacks on the Jansenists that they “angered the Augustinians, who then came to the defense of their patron.”14 In this unpleasant and quite unedifying catfight,15 various popes intervened, both
affirming the orthodoxy of the Augustinians who denied limbo but
12 Cornelius Jansenius, Augustinus seu Doctrina Sancti Augustini de humanae naturae

sanitate, aegritudine, medicina adversus Pelagianos & Massilienses (Paris: Sumptibus
Michaelis Soly et Matthaei Guillemot, 1641), Tome II, Book II, ch. 25, 181:
“longe ab Augustini & fortassis Ecclesiae, quae Pelagianos juxta ejus principia
damnavit, mente recessisse Scholasticos, qui parvulis sine baptismo morientibus
vel beatitudinem naturalem, vel immunitatem a sensibilibus ignis aeterni poenis
tribuerunt.”
13 The Second Council of Lyons: “Illorum autem animas, qui in mortali peccato
vel cum solo originali decedunt, mox in infernum descendere, poenis tamen
disparibus puniendas” (DS 859); the Council of Florence: “Illorum autem
animas, qui in actuali mortali peccato vel solo originali decedunt, mox in infernum descendere, poenis autem disparibus puniendas” (DS 1306); emphasis
added.
14 “In the discussion that followed there were times when it was difficult for some
of the Jesuit theologians to distinguish Jansenist from Augustinian, and heated
accusations were often made, . . . [generating] more fire than light.” Dyer, Limbo,
76–77.
15 “The Jansenists detested the Jesuits, the Jesuits reciprocated, and the Augustinians disliked both.The air was charged with suspicion and at times with libel.The
Jesuits were denounced as Pelagians; the Augustinians as Jansenists; and the
Jansenists, rightly enough, as heretics.” Dyer, Limbo, 81.

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Edward T. Oakes, S.J.

also condemning the Jansenist assertion that the Jesuit defense of limbo
was inherently Pelagian.16
It might seem that the Jesuit defense of a painless limbo conflicted
with the Councils of Lyons and Florence, already cited above, which
clearly envisioned some sort of punishment. But that was not the view
of Pius VI, who condemned the Jansenist Synod of Pistoia (1786) in
his bull Auctorem Fidei, published in 1794 (ironically, this defense of the
Jesuit position came during the years of their suppression, so they can
hardly be accused of having undue influence in its formulation).
Given the fact that earlier popes had cleared the Augustinians of
heresy for denying limbo in favor of an actual hell of suffering for
unbaptized infants, Pius could hardly claim the hypothesis of limbo
was an obligatory belief. But the Synod of Pistoia went too far, for it
openly asserted that limbo was part and parcel of the Pelagian heresy;
and this, said Pius, was false as well as insulting to a great number of
Catholic theologians, including, most uncomfortably for the
Jansenists, nearly every medieval theologian who took up the topic.17
(Perhaps Pius was wistfully thinking here of the Jesuits, now no longer
available to defend the pope against the onslaughts of the anticlerical
Jacobins of the French Revolution, now proceeding apace.)
But the story does not quite end there. For several popes in
succession condemned the Jansenists for a whole host of other heresies, including the following condemned propositions: All the works
of unbelievers are sinful and the virtues of the philosophers are mere
depravity (DS §1925); the death of Jesus was not for all mankind (DS
§2005); only evil exists outside the grace of Christianity (DS §§2438,
2440, 2459). These propositions obviously have implications for the
16 It should be stressed, however, that the lines of the debate were not always to be

neatly pigeonholed by religious orders. For one of the first theologians to trump
the scholastic notion of a painless limbo in favor of Augustine was a French
Jesuit, Denis Petau, and one of the more balanced Augustinians was Henry Noris
(despite his English name, an Italian Augustinian). See Dyer, Denial, 83–107, for
the details of this extremely convoluted debate.
17 As the International Theological Commission Report on Limbo rightly notes
(§38), Auctorem fidei “is not a dogmatic definition of the existence of Limbo; the
papal Bull confines itself to rejecting the Jansenist charge that the ‘Limbo’ taught
by the scholastic theologians is identical with the ‘eternal life’ promised to
unbaptized infants by the ancient Pelagians. Pius VI did not condemn the
Jansenists because they denied Limbo, but because they held that the defenders
of Limbo were guilty of the heresy of Pelagius. By maintaining the freedom of
the Catholic Schools to promote different solutions to the problems of the fate
of unbaptized infants, the Holy See defended the common teaching as an
acceptable and legitimate option, without endorsing it.”

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notion of limbo, since if pagans can (theoretically) be saved, then why
not their young children, whose only “sin” was to die before reaching the age of reason, where they perhaps could have made the same
saving choice as their parents?
4. Parallel to this debate on limbo was another concerning “pure
nature.” If we grant that God created us all with a desire for union
with him, does that not imply an “obligation” on his part to grant us
the fulfillment of that desire, since he created us for union with him?
But does that “obligation” on God’s part not in turn undermine the
concept of the gratuity of grace, which says that God is under no
obligation to grant what is freely his to give? Hence the concept of
“pure nature,” which was, as everyone conceded, a purely theoretical
distinction, made solely to guard the concept of gratuitous grace. But
as far as de facto creation went,Augustine himself says,“Our hearts are
restless until they rest in thee.”And does not Thomas Aquinas say that
“every intellect naturally desires the vision of the divine substance”
(SCG, bk. III, ch. 3)?
That of course is only one sentence from the vast sea of Thomas’s
writings; and many other Thomists dispute the point, citing other
texts.18 I cannot take a position on that debate here.All I want to say
is that if Henri de Lubac is right in his book The Mystery of the Supernatural, then this conclusion inexorably follows:
For this desire [for God] is not some “accident” in me. It does not
result from some peculiarity, possibly alterable, of my individual
being, or from some historical contingency whose effects are more
or less transitory. . . . It is in me as a result of my belonging to humanity as it is, that humanity which is, as we say,“called.” For God’s call is
constitutive. My finality, which is expressed by this desire, is inscribed
upon my very being as it has been put into this universe by God.
And, by God’s will, I now have no other genuine end, no end really
assigned to my nature or presented for my free acceptance under any
guise, except that of “seeing God.”19

Which conclusion leads us back, by the same inexorable logic, to a final
Eschaton that knows only a heaven and a hell, with no room for limbo:
18 Most recently by Ralph McInerny, Praeambula Fidei:Thomism and the God of the

Philosophers (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006),
69–90.
19 Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural, trans. Rosemary Sheed, introduction by David L. Schindler (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 54–55, emphasis
added.

Edward T. Oakes, S.J.

428

It is said that a universe might have existed in which man, though
without necessarily excluding any other desire, would have his rational
ambitions limited to some lower, purely human, beatitude. Certainly I
do not deny it. But having said that, one is obliged to admit—indeed
one is automatically affirming—that in our world as it is this is not the
case. . . . [Thus] the “desire to see God” cannot be permanently frustrated without an essential suffering.To deny this is to undermine my
entire Credo. For is not this, in effect, the definition of the “pain of the
damned”? And consequently—at least in appearance—a good and just
God could hardly frustrate me, unless I, through my own fault, turn
away from him by choice. The infinite importance of the desire
implanted in me by my Creator is what constitutes the infinite importance of the drama of human existence.20

This is hardly the place to resolve this extremely complex
debate.21 I only wish to point out how many theological presuppositions come into play when theologians discuss the Eschaton in its
relation to the sacraments, grace, free will, and sin (both original and
personal). In a way, because these issues are still outstanding, the
concept of limbo has served as a kind of pis aller, an expedient
invoked because something seems not quite right about either
Augustine or Pelagius. Pelagius was condemned easily enough, but
did Augustine have the right answer when he claimed that all
newborns are vessels of wrath deserving of hell unless their parents
make it to the baptismal font before the baby dies of some congenital defect or because of the ministrations of an unhygienic midwife?
The International Theological Commission certainly demurs
from the authority of Augustine here when it points to this central
flaw in his reasoning:“Every man is Adam,” he said,“just as, in the case
20 Ibid., 54.
21 Although I do accept de Lubac’s basic point, as I have already tried to show in

this journal: see Edward T. Oakes, “The Paradox of Nature and Grace,” Nova et
Vetera 4 (2006): 667–95. And dare I add that the debate on pure nature has
already been resolved by Vatican II? “Human dignity rests above all on the fact
that humanity is called to communion with God. . . . Since Christ died for all,
and since all are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we
must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery” (Gaudium et Spes, §§19,
22). Even assuming the (highly debatable) claim that de Lubac misinterpreted
Thomas, Church teaching now emphatically proclaims the truth that de facto all
humanity is called by God to communion with Him; indeed that call constitutes
man’s very dignity, a dignity that has always been assumed to arise from his
nature. Roma locuta, causa finita.

Catholic Eschatology and the Development of Doctrine

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of those who believe, every man is Christ, for they are his members.”22
As the Commission rightly observes, this inverts the perspective
bequeathed to us by revelation:“Many traditional accounts of sin and
salvation (and of Limbo) have stressed solidarity with Adam more
than solidarity with Christ, or at least such accounts have had a
restrictive conception of the ways by which human beings benefit
from solidarity with Christ” (§91). In other words, this entire debate
has been conducted by looking at the issue of limbo, as it were,
through the wrong end of the telescope:
We wish to stress that humanity’s solidarity with Christ (or, more
properly, Christ’s solidarity with all of humanity) must have priority
over the solidarity of human beings with Adam, and that the question
of the destiny of unbaptized infants who die must be addressed in that
light. (§91)
The traditional view is that it is only through sacramental Baptism
that infants have solidarity with Christ and hence access to the vision
of God. Otherwise, solidarity with Adam has priority; we may ask,
however, how that view might be changed if priority were restored
to our solidarity with Christ (i.e., Christ’s solidarity with us). (§93)

A further point to mention is that before the opening session of
Vatican II, some bishops asked the council fathers to declare officially
that unbaptized babies are eternally deprived of the beatific vision.
But the proposal was rejected because so many other bishops testified that this view did not correspond to the faith of their people.23 And
thank God it was rejected, for it would have made so many other
statements the council did make about ecumenism and world religions (and even atheism) impossible, especially the declaration that all
human beings have been created with that same humanity that
Christ himself had assumed, so that everyone lives in some kind of
relation to him (Lumen Gentium, §16; see Col 1:15–18). But given
the fact that the council did so declare our primal and universal solidarity with Christ, it rendered limbo even more problematic: What
was made possible by the council’s refusal to consign unbaptized
infants to limbo itself undermines limbo, once the priority of Christ
over Adam was proclaimed.
22 Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 70, Book II, ch. 1 (PL 36:891): “Omnis autem

homo Adam; sicut in his qui crediderunt, omnis homo Christus, quia membra sunt
Christi.” Cited by the International Theological Commission report at note 123.
23 See the International Theological Commission Report on Limbo, §96, for a
reference to this objection.

Edward T. Oakes, S.J.

430

So what about the necessity of Baptism? The solution to this conundrum, the International Theological Commission report says, lies in
seeing salvation as social (§96), a point explicitly taught by Vatican II
(Gaudium et Spes, §12). I would even go further and say that salvation
is not just social but even more it is cosmic and physical:“We know that
the whole creation has been groaning as if in the pangs of childbirth
right up to the present day. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have
the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we await eagerly for our
adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:22–23).
What has so bedeviled, so to speak, this debate on limbo and the
unbaptized is how little consideration has been given to St. Paul’s
insistence that in Baptism we are baptized into the Body of Christ. To
hear some people’s reaction to the Vatican’s statement on limbo “The
Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised,”
one would think that Baptism is a kind of celestial life-insurance
policy, of relevance for the recipient alone but of no consequence to
the body of the cosmos whatever (and certainly worthless tender
when debased by the non-baptized getting into heaven too!). In this
context I am once again reminded of the shrewd insight of John A.
T. Robinson in his study of Pauline anthropology, The Body, which
opens with this important (and often overlooked) insight:
One could say without exaggeration that the concept of the body
forms the keystone of Paul’s theology. In its closely interconnected
meanings, the word soma [body] knits together all his great themes.
It is from the body of sin and death that we are delivered; it is
through the body of Christ on the Cross that we are saved; it is into
His body the Church that we are incorporated; it is by His body in
the Eucharist that this Community is sustained; it is in our body that
its new life has to be manifested; it is to a resurrection of this body
to the likeness of His glorious body that we are destined. Here, with
the exception of the doctrine of God, are represented all the main
tenets of the Christian Faith—the doctrines of Man, Sin, the Incarnation and Atonement, the Church, the Sacraments, Sanctification,
and Eschatology. To trace the subtle links and interaction between
the different senses of this word soma is to grasp the thread that leads
through the maze of Pauline thought.24

Although the doctrine, or rather the hypothesis of limbo, hardly
takes a place high up on the hierarchy of truths spoken of by Vatican
II, a history of the debate on this much controverted issue does high24 John A.T. Robinson, The Body:A Study in Pauline Theology (London: SCM Press,

1952), 9.

Catholic Eschatology and the Development of Doctrine

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light a genuine development here. To go from Augustine’s Sermon
294 and Contra Julianum to the International Theological Commission’s “The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being
Baptised” cannot help but show development at work. Perhaps the
most significant signpost of the necessity for that development comes
from this remarkable distinction made in the International Theological Commission report:
In summary: the affirmation that infants who die without Baptism
suffer the privation of the beatific vision has long been the common
doctrine of the Church, which must be distinguished from the faith of
the Church. As for the theory that the privation of the beatific
vision is their sole punishment, to the exclusion of any other pain,
this is a theological opinion, despite its long acceptance in the West.
The particular theological thesis concerning a “natural happiness”
sometimes ascribed to these infants likewise constitutes a theological opinion. (§40, emphasis added)

Whether, how, and to what extent this distinction between the
doctrine and the faith of the Church plays a role in the debate on
hell as well will now be the focus of the next part of this article.
Hell and Development
Although the place of hell surely ranks higher in the hierarchy of truths
than does limbo (for one thing, the existence of hell is no mere “hypothesis” but established doctrine), that does not mean that the Church’s
understanding of hell’s place in the economy of salvation is not subject
to development, as can readily be seen in the few years that separate St.
Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) from Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). Because
of his reputation as the Christian poet (who could be more medieval,
Catholic, orthodox?), and despite the huge success of his Divine Comedy
even upon its immediate publication, Dante was not infrequently regarded
as a heretic by his contemporaries. Not everyone, Peter Hawkins reports,
acclaimed the Florentine as “divine”:
Some clerics thundered from their pulpits against his flights of fancy.
The Dominican Guido Vernani went so far as to condemn Dante as a
“vessel of the devil” and “a man who wrote many fantastic things in
poetry, a verbose solipsist [who] fraudulently seduces not only sickly
minds but even zealous ones to the distraction of salutary truth.”25
25 Peter S. Hawkins, Dante: A Brief History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 27; citations

from Vernani in The Dante Encyclopedia, ed. Richard Lansing (New York: Garland,
2000), 855.

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Elsewhere Hawkins mentions the late fourteenth-century bishop of
Florence, Antonino, who dismissed the entirety of Dante’s vision as
“nothing but poetry.”26
The anxiety provoked by Dante among his contemporaries surely tells
us much about the state of the Italian church in the fourteenth century.
No doubt his heated denunciations of certain popes and bishops, whom
he did not hesitate to place in hell, must have played a role. But surely the
greatest of his “heresies” was his placement of certain pagan and Muslim(!)
notables in limbo, not hell.We know this represents an innovation, for in
De veritate Thomas asserts the contrary: “Augustine says that the concupiscence deriving from original sin makes infants disposed to experience
concupiscence, and adults actually do so. For it is unlikely that one who
is infected with original sin will not submit to the concupiscence of sin
by consent to a sin.”27 Dante also innovates when he downplays the role
of fire in eternal punishment, a point noticed by one of his English translators, Anthony Esolen:
Readers may be surprised at first by how little fire there is in Dante’s
Hell. That is because the meaning of fire is incompatible [for Dante]
with the punishment of most sins. Lesser portrayers of eternal damnation have fixed upon fire for obvious reasons: fire is often (though by
no means exclusively) so used in Scripture, and fire hurts. But Dante,
considering fiery heavens above, the nature of fire to rise, the liveliness
of flame, and, of course, such scriptural passages as “Our God is a
consuming fire” (Heb 12:29), will not suffer the indecorous presence of
that noble element in Hell.28

These “innovations,” such as they are, might not seem like much; but
the years that divide Thomas from Dante are not much either. So what
can we say of development of the doctrine of hell across all the centuries
of Church tradition and teaching? Here I shall be concentrating not so
26 Hawkins, Dante’s Testaments: Essays in Scriptural Imagination (Stanford, CA: Stan-

ford University Press, 1999), 316, note 27.
27 Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth (Chicago: H. Regnery, 1952–1954),

q. 28, a. 3, ad 4. Admittedly, this passage stands in a certain tension with other
passages where Thomas seems more open to at least the possibility of pagan
redemption; see ST II–II, q. 2, a. 7, ad 3. My point is only that, to judge by some
contemporary reactions, Dante was seen as a dangerous innovator, and
condemned for that reason: Once pagans and Muslims are allowed to make it
into a post-Incarnation version of the pre-Christian limbus patrum, who knows
what will follow?
28 Anthony Esolen, introduction to Dante’s Inferno, trans. Anthony Esolen (New
York:The Modern Library, 2003), xvii–xviii, original emphasis.

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much on the question of the population of hell as on the question of
Christ’s descent thereto, a doctrine made especially prominent (and
controversial) in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar but which also
marks in significant ways the theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI. Again, my tour d’histoire must needs be brief; but I think—as
with the treatment of limbo above—its brevity will serve to highlight the
significant points of development more than a full-scale monograph can
do (“seeing the forest for the trees” and all that).
Given his importance for determining the terms of debate on limbo,
perhaps the best place to begin with the question of Christ’s descent into
hell will be with Augustine again. In his famous Letter 164 to Bishop
Evodius that proved decisive for later medieval discussion of this theme,
Augustine confesses his bafflement at the doctrine, not least because of his
views on the pervasive range of the effects of original sin. But pondering
the lines from 1 Peter that after his death Christ “went to preach to those
spirits in prison who disobeyed God long ago” (3:19–20), with the result
that “the gospel was preached to those who are now dead, so that they
might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in the spirit” (4:6), he comes to this important conclusion:
Consequently, if holy Scripture had said that Christ after death came
into that bosom of Abraham, without naming hell and its sorrows, I
wonder if anyone would dare to affirm that He descended into hell.
But, because this clear testimony mentions both hell and its sorrows, I
can think of no reason for believing that the Savior went there except
to save souls from its sorrows. I am still uncertain whether He saved all
those whom He found there or certain ones whom He deemed worthy
of that boon. I do not doubt, however, that He was in hell, and that He
granted this favor to those entangled in its sorrows.29

On Augustine’s dubium about the soteriological range of Christ’s descent
Cyril of Alexandria at least has no doubts. In one of his Easter homilies he
says that as a consequence of Christ’s descent, the devil was left all alone
with a devastated hell, sulking in a corner like a pouty schoolboy: “For
having destroyed hell and opened the impassable gates for the departed
spirits, He left the devil there abandoned and lonely.”30 To be sure, opinion
among the Fathers about the number of the liberated ranges all over the
29 Augustine, Letter 164 “To Evodius,” in idem, Saint Augustine: Letters, vol. III,

131–164, trans. Sr.Wilfrid Parsons, S.N.D. (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc.
1953), 386. Also: “Who, then, but an unbeliever will deny that Christ was in
hell?” Ibid., 383.
30 Cyril of Alexandria, 7th Paschal Homily 2 (PG 77, 552 A; also 657).

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map, from the most generous, Gregory of Nyssa, to the narrowest, Pope
Gregory the Great.31 But the real significance of their common teaching
emerges in a trope commonly used in early Christian literature to explain
the atonement, the fishhook that Satan swallows:The bait is Christ’s human
nature, the hook is his divinity, and the devil is the deceived Leviathan
whose innards are ripped apart when he ingests the hook. This piscine
imagery has been much derided by later theologians for its implication that
Satan had a “right” to all the other “bait” (the rest of us) and needed to be
“deceived” in order to be induced to swallow Christ’s divinity. Perhaps so,
but to concentrate on the folksy naivete of the imagery is to miss its real
point: that Satan’s kingdom could only be destroyed when God’s power
breaks into the underworld and destroys it from within.
This motif of conquest from within is surely the point of Jesus’ prediction of his death and descent when he compares his fate with that of
Jonah in “the belly of the beast” (Mt 12:40) and insists that no one can
despoil a strong man’s house unless he first overpowers and ties up the
owner of the house (Mt 12:29); and after he has accomplished this task
on Holy Saturday, he can say in his risen state: “I am the Living One; I
was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever. I hold the keys of death
and Hades” (Rev 1:18).
But the question that will preoccupy the tradition is not so much the
fact of the descent, but how Christ overcame the “strong man” of evil.
Here one notices a definite development, especially in the West, where
the connection between suffering and atonement was especially strong.
But that connection was also made, however embryonically in the East as
well, as deftly summarized by Jaroslav Pelikan:
The words of Jesus in Matthew 12:29 meant that Satan would be
bound with the very chains with which he had bound man and would
31 In a delicious irony, Cyril of Alexandria (a man not exactly known to history for

his friendliness to heretics) preaches a complete vastation of hell (see previous
note), but Origen holds that during his sojourn in the underworld Christ left
some behind, men judged worthy of hell: “Even if he [Celsus] dislikes it, we
maintain that when he [Christ] was in the body he convinced not merely a few
[Jews], but so many that the multitude of those persuaded by him led to the
conspiracy [of the few] against him; and that when he became a soul unclothed
by a body, he conversed with souls unclothed by bodies, converting also those of
them who were willing to accept him, or those who, for reasons which he himself
knew, he saw to be ready to do so.” Origen, Contra Celsum, trans. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), bk. II, §43 (pp. 99–100).
The implication seems to be that as Christ converted “many” Jews but a few
conspired against him, leading to his execution, the same outcome played itself
out in the underworld.

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be led captive. Paraphrasing the passage, Irenaeus said: “He [Christ]
fought and was victorious; for he was man doing battle for the fathers,
and by his obedience utterly abolishing disobedience. For he bound the
strong man, liberated the weak, and by destroying sin endowed his
creation with salvation.”
From [this statement of Irenaeus] it is evident that not only the
resurrection of Christ, but especially his passion and death belonged to
the description of salvation as the victory of Christ over the enemies of
man. Another event sometimes associated with that victory was the
descent into hell. . . . But it was in the West that the descent acquired
creedal status with its incorporation into the final text of the Apostles’
Creed, no earlier than 370. By that time, however, Western theology
was interpreting the atonement as a sacrifice and increasingly as an act
of satisfaction offered by the death of Christ. . . . As “the harrowing of
hell,” the decent played a significant part in the arts as well as in the
church’s teaching, but it was not until the Middle Ages and the Reformation that it became an issue of dogmatic debate.32

In that debate Thomas Aquinas strikes an important note, one that will
become increasingly dominant later, especially in the mystical tradition.
In his Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed (written in the last year of his life),
Thomas explains this Creed’s famous descent clause thus:“There are four
reasons why Christ descended in his [human] soul to hell. The first was
to take on the entire punishment of sin and thereby to atone [expiaret]
wholly for its guilt.”33 Once Thomas had made that link explicit between
atoning suffering and the descent, certain mystics begin to speak ever
more frequently of their own souls’ experiences of hell (“cum animis
eorum,” as it were), most prominently of course St. John of the Cross but
also Blessed Angela of Foligno34 and St. Rose of Lima.35
32 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine,

vol. I, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600) (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1971), 150–51, quoting Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, ch. 21, §3.
33 Thomas Aquinas, In Symbolum Apostolorum Expositio, art. 5, 926, in Opuscula Theologica, vol. II, ed. Raimund Spiazzi, O.P. (Turin/Rome: Marietti, 1954), 204:“Sunt
autem quatuor rationes quare Christus cum anima ad infernum descendit. Prima
ut sustineret totam poenam peccati, ut sic totam culpam expiaret.”
34 “I perceive that demons hold my soul in a state of suspension; just as a hanged
man has nothing to support him, so my soul does not seem to have any supports
left. . . .While I am in this most horrible darkness caused by demons, it seems to
me that there is nothing I can hope for. . . .When I am in that darkness I think
I would prefer to be burned than to suffer such afflictions. I even cry out for
death to come in whatever form God would grant it. I beseech him to send me
to hell without delay.‘Since you have abandoned me,’ I tell him,‘make an end to
it now and completely submerge me.’ ” Angela of Foligno, Memorial, ch.VIII, a
and b, in Angela of Foligno: Complete Works, trans. Paul Lachance, O.F.M. (New

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Rather than continue on in this vein,36 I prefer to bring this motif to
its apparent culmination in the remarkable autobiography of St.Thérèse
de Lisieux, The Story of a Soul, where the author recounts how she came
to volunteer for hell:
One night, not knowing how to tell Jesus that I loved Him and how
much I desired that He be everywhere loved and glorified, I was thinking with sorrow that He could never receive in hell a single act of love.
So I told God that to please Him I would willingly consent to find
myself plunged into hell, so that He might be eternally loved in that
place of blasphemy.37

It was left to several twentieth-century theologians to realize that the
Persons of the Trinity could hardly be less generous in their desire to find
love in the underworld of rejected love than was a bourgeois French
adolescent. The most obvious proponent of this view that the Trinity is
fully engaged in the event of Christ’s descent into hell is, of course, Hans
Urs von Balthasar, who draws on all the authors so far cited and then adds
four key motifs from the tradition to forge his own account of the
descent: Pauline soteriology, patristic accounts of Christ’s vastation of hell,
the Christology of Maximus the Confessor, and the medieval distinction
York: Paulist Press, 1993), 197, 198. See also Paul Lachance, O.F.M., The Spiritual
Journey of Blessed Angela of Foligno According to the Memorial of Frater A. (Rome:
Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum, 1984), especially here:“ ‘Surrounded on all
sides by demons,’ she feels trapped in a kind of hell, even damned to its lowest
depths. Not only is all hope lost, . . . her soul is reduced to a complete blankness
about God’s presence (and the memory of it), and is brimming over with that of
the evil one” (312–13).
35 “She was daily visited by the most frightful nights of the soul which . . . for hours
caused her anxiety that she knew not if she were in hell. . . . Her will wanted to
tend to love, but was paralyzed as if petrified in ice. . . .Terror and anguish took
possession of her totally, and her heart, overwhelmed, cried out: ‘My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?’ But no one replied. . . .Yet what was worst of
all in her sufferings was that these ills presented themselves as having to last eternally; that no glimpse was given of an end to the distress; and that, since a wall of
bronze made all escape impossible, no exit from the labyrinth could be found.”
Quoted in Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mysterium Paschale:The Mystery of Easter, trans.
Aidan Nichols, O.P (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 87, note 77.
36 Auguste Poulain, Des grâces d’oraison (Paris: Beauchesne, 1921), names Francis de
Sales, Philip Beniti, Hildegard of Bingen, and Marguerite Marie Alacoque as
those who directly experienced their damnation.
37 St.Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul, trans. Robert J. Edmonson, C.J. (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006), 122. This passage occurs where the saint is
describing her experiences roughly a year before she entered Carmel at the age
of fifteen.

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between the immanent and economic Trinity. But as to the specific link,
already made by Aquinas, between atoning suffering and Christ’s descent,
Balthasar is hardly alone among his contemporary peers. He himself cites
Jean Daniélou, Maurice Blondel, and numerous French exegetes who
agree with him (and Thomas) here.38 But obviously his most important
ally on this theologoumenon will surely prove to be Joseph Ratzinger,
whose career shows a remarkable consistency when he comes to discuss
the connection between Christ’s vicarious, atoning suffering and his
descent into hell. As early as his Introduction to Christianity (originally
published in German in 1968), the future pope has this to say:
After this, do we still need to ask what worship must be in our hour of
darkness? Can it be anything else but the cry from the depths in
company with the Lord who “has descended into hell” and who has
established the nearness of God in the midst of abandonment by God ? . . .
This brings us back to our starting point, the article of the Creed that
speaks of the descent into hell.This article thus asserts that Christ strode
through the gate of our final loneliness, that in his Passion he went
down into the abyss of our abandonment.Where no voice can reach us
any longer, there is he. Hell is thereby overcome, or, to be more accurate, death, which was previously hell, is hell no longer. Neither is the
same any longer because there is life in the midst of death, because love
dwells in it. Now only deliberate self-enclosure is hell or, as the Bible calls
it, the second death (Rev 20:14, for example). But death is no longer
the path into icy solitude, the gates of sheol have been opened.39

In his 1977 book Eschatology, the professor of dogmatic theology (as he
still was at the time) makes the link between Christ’s suffering in hell, the
experiences of the mystics, and a renewed theology of the descent even
more explicit:
The answer [to the mystery of evil] lies hidden in Jesus’ descent into
Sheol, in the night of the soul which he suffered, a night which no one can
observe except by entering this darkness in suffering faith.Thus, in the
history of holiness which hagiology offers us, and notably in the course
of recent centuries, in John of the Cross, in Carmelite piety in general,
and in that of Thérèse of Lisieux in particular, “Hell” has taken on a
completely new meaning and form. For the saints, “Hell” is not so much
a threat to be hurled at other people but a challenge to oneself. It is a challenge
to suffer in the dark night of faith, to experience communion with
38 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Drama, vol. IV, The Action, trans. Graham Harrison

(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 96–97.
39 Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, trans. J. R. Porter (San Francisco:

Ignatius Press, 2004), 297, 301; emphases added.

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Christ in solidarity with his descent into the Night. One draws near to
the Lord’s radiance by sharing his darkness. One serves the salvation of
the world by leaving one’s own salvation behind for the sake of others.
In such piety, nothing of the dreadful reality of Hell is denied. Hell is
so real that it reaches right into the existence of the saints. Hope can
take it on, only if one shares in the suffering of Hell’s night by the side
of the One who came to transform our night by his suffering.40

Finally, there is his most recent book, written entirely during his
tenure in the Chair of Peter, Jesus of Nazareth, which draws on a traditional patristic theme that interprets Jesus’ descent into the river Jordan
at his Baptism as an anticipation of his descent into hell:
Jesus’ Baptism, then, is understood as a repetition of the whole of
history, which both recapitulates the past and anticipates the future. His
entering into the sin of others is a descent into the “inferno.” But he
does not descend merely in the role of a spectator, as in Dante’s Inferno.
Rather, he goes down in the role of one whose suffering-with-others
is a transforming suffering that turns the underworld around, knocking
down and flinging open the gates of the abyss. His Baptism is a descent
into the house of the evil one, combat with the “strong man” (cf. Lk
11:22) who holds men captive (and the truth is that we are all very
much captive to powers that anonymously manipulate us!). Throughout all its history, the world is powerless to defeat the “strong man”; he
is overcome and bound by one yet stronger, who, because of his equality with God, can take upon himself all the sin of the world and then
suffers it through to the end—omitting nothing on the downward path
40 Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology, 217–18, emphases added. In hindsight, this passage

also shows why Cardinal Ratzinger expressed reservations about limbo (and, a
fortiori, Augustine’s consignment of unbaptized infants to hell proper). He is even
more explicit in this passage: “We cannot start to set limits on God’s behalf; the
very heart of the faith has been lost to anyone who supposes that it is only worthwhile, if it
is, so to say, made worthwhile by the damnation of others. Such a way of thinking, which
finds the punishment of other people necessary, springs from not having inwardly
accepted the faith; from loving only oneself and not God the Creator, to whom
his creatures belong. That way of thinking would be like the attitude of those
people who could not bear the workers who came last being paid a denarius like
the rest; like the attitude of people who feel properly rewarded only if others have
received less. This would be the attitude of the son who stayed at home, who
could not bear the reconciling kindness of his father. It would be a hardening of
our hearts, in which it would become clear that we were only looking out for
ourselves and not looking for God; in which it would be clear that we did not
love our faith, but merely bore it like a burden. . . . It is a basic element of the
biblical message that the Lord died for all—being jealous of salvation is not Christian.” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, God Is Near Us:The Eucharist, the Heart of Life,
trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 35–36, emphasis added.

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into identity with the fallen.This struggle is the “conversion” of being
that brings it into a new condition, that prepares a new heaven and a
new earth. Looked at from this angle, the sacrament of Baptism appears
as the gift of participation in Jesus’ world-transforming struggle in the
conversion of life that took place in his descent and ascent.41

To be sure, Pope Benedict explicitly avows that he is not writing these
lines as pope but is “merely” speaking his own opinions in propria persona:
It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the
magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search “for the
face of the Lord” (cf. Ps 27:8). Everyone is free, then, to contradict me.
I would only ask my readers for that initial goodwill without which
there can be no understanding.42

That said, I would nonetheless argue that the developments sketched here
are not just legitimate as private opinions of individual theologians, but
inevitable. Maybe the linkage between Christ’s suffering soul in his
passion and his descent into hell will never reach the level of infallible,
obligatory teaching,43 but I predict the link will become (if it has not
already done so) the consensus among theologians.
Perhaps the best way to establish the inevitability of this consensus
would be to examine the consequences that befall theology when this
development is denied, the best example of which is provided by Alyssa
Lyra Pitstick’s recent book Light in Darkness.44 In this work, and even
more in the dissertation on which it is based, Pitstick resolutely insists
that Christ’s human soul underwent no suffering whatever in his sojourn
in the underworld but went solely to greet the souls of the patriarchs of
the Old Testament and perhaps a few pagans (note the unacknowledged
influence of Dante here) who were already redeemed and in the state of
grace before the death of Christ. I think the passages I have already cited
41 Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the

Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans.Adrian J.Walker (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 20.
42 Ibid., xxiv.
43 The way the descent clause tends to bob up and down in the Creeds (present in

the Apostles’, absent in the Nicene, etc.) is just one indication among many of
how puzzled the Church remains about this obscure point of revelation.
44 Alyssa Lyra Pitstick, Light in Darkness: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic
Doctrine of Christ’s Descent into Hell (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), a somewhat abbreviated version of her doctoral dissertation, Lux in Tenebris:The Traditional Catholic Doctrine of Christ’s Descent into Hell and the Theological Opinion of
Hans Urs von Balthasar (Rome: University of St. Thomas Aquinas [Angelicum]
Press, 2005).

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are enough to prove that the tradition of Christ’s descent is too varied to
admit of so univocal a reading as she provides. But the real crunch comes
when she has to dispatch Aquinas’s linkage of atoning suffering of Christ’s
soul with his descent into hell. Her interpretation takes two tacks, the
first of which goes like this:
Yet here St.Thomas Aquinas seems to differ from the Church’s liturgy.
In his commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, St.Thomas Aquinas writes
that the first reason Christ descended into hell was “to undergo the
entire punishment of sin and thus to expiate all guilt.” If the Descent is
expiatory, must it not also have been meritorious and have continued
Christ’s work on the cross? As St.Thomas would be understood consistently with the Church in her liturgical tradition, however, it seems one
must distinguish between Christ’s death as perfect expiation in that it
accomplished man’s redemption, and Christ’s descent as expiatory insofar as it is essentially connected to that perfect expiation.45

But since that is precisely Balthasar’s (and Ratzinger’s!) point, she has not
succeeded in dispatching what she obviously regards as a threat to her
entire case. So she must take a second tack, as explained here:
His soul deserved to enter heaven immediately on His own merits.
Instead, however, He descended in His soul into limbo. He did not
suffer there the delay of the vision of God, however, for Christ always
possessed the beatific vision. (In a certain sense, one might say His soul was
in heaven immediately after death as it deserved to be, insofar as the joy of
heaven’s beatitude which He always had filled His entire soul after the end of
the sorrows of the Passion.)46

Unfortunately for her thesis, she is not interpreting the notion of the
beatific vision here secundum mentem divi Thomae, who never held that the
beatific vision served as a kind of celestial anesthetic, inuring the human
soul of Christ from pain, as can be proved from an abundance of passages
in which Thomas consistently holds that Christ endured every human
suffering—not specifically of course, since no man can suffer both the
pains of dying in a burning building and of death by drowning, but
generically, since Christ knew all types of suffering.47 Nor is this compat45 Pitstick, Light in Darkness, 66, with almost identical wording in idem, Lux in Tene-

bris, 84.
46 Pitstick, Light, 66, emphasis added; idem, Lux, 85.Tellingly, the parenthetical (and

here italicized) sentence appears only in the dissertation, presumably lest her
outright denial of the Descent clause in the Apostles’ Creed become too glaring.
47 For example:“In His head He suffered from the crown of piercing thorns; in His
hands and feet, from the fastening of the nails; on His face from the blows and

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ibility of the most intense suffering with Christ’s consciousness of union
with his Father—however paradoxical it at first seems—merely a theological opinion, for it has now received magisterial status in Pope John
Paul II’s encyclical Novo millennio ineunte, where the pope teaches:
At the very moment when he identifies with our sin, “abandoned” by
the Father, he “abandons” himself into the hands of the Father. Precisely
because of the knowledge and experience of the Father which he alone
has, even at this moment of darkness he sees clearly the gravity of sin and
suffers because of it. He alone, who sees the Father and rejoices fully in
him, can understand completely what it means to resist the Father’s love
by sin. More than an experience of physical pain, his passion is an agonizing suffering of the soul.Theological tradition had not failed to ask how
Jesus could possibly experience at one and the same time his profound
unity with the Father, by its very nature a source of joy and happiness,
and an agony that goes all the way to his final cry of abandonment.The
simultaneous presence of these two seemingly irreconcilable aspects is
rooted in the fathomless depths of the hypostatic union. (§26)48

Another problem with Pitstick’s assertion that Christ really went to
heaven rather than hell from the moment of his death is that such a thesis
implies that the damned are already damned before Christ came on earth
“for us and for our salvation.” In Pitstick’s reading of the tradition, those
who were damned before the coming of Christ stay damned, since Christ
never visited them in the first place. But it is precisely Catholic teaching
that no one is damned except through the judgment of Christ himself,
one made fully applicable to all those born before the coming of Christ
by his descent into the abode of the dead:
The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to
complete fulfillment.This is the last phase of Jesus’ messianic mission, a
phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the
spread of Christ’s redemptive work to all men of all times and all places,
for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption.49
spittle; and from the lashes over His entire body. Moreover, He suffered in all His
bodily senses: in touch, by being scourged and nailed; in taste, by being given
vinegar and gall to drink; in smell, by being fastened to the gibbet in a place
reeking with the stench of corpses; in hearing, by being tormented with the cries
of blasphemers and scorners; in sight, by beholding the tears of His Mother and
of the disciple whim He loved.” ST III, q. 46, a. 5.
48 For a fascinating commentary on this passage as a window of interpretation into
Balthasar’ theology, see Matthew Levering, “Balthasar on Christ’s Consciousness
on the Cross,” The Thomist 65 (2001): 567–81.
49 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §634. In contrast Pitstick insists that when Jesus
said “It is accomplished/finished/completed” ( Jn 19:30) the moment before he

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But the whole point of John’s Gospel is that the power of judgment
has been handed over to Christ:
For the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the
Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. . . .Amen
I tell you, a time is coming and is now come when the dead will hear
the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the
Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in
himself.And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son
of Man.50

There are two implications to be drawn from this passage. First, as
regards the history of salvation, it is not even possible to give a definitive
No to God until God has definitively revealed himself in his total identity by sending his Son.51 Second, this means that the underworld populated by the dead born before Christ must remain undifferentiated until
Christ comes to complete his work by descending into the underworld.
As the Bible teaches (Revelation 20:13–5), hell does not become defindied, he was referring to the end of his mission, not his life, an idiosyncratic
interpretation followed by no contemporary exegete and which in any event is
contradicted by the Catechism here cited.
50 John 5:22–23, 25–27.This passage also explains why I have insisted throughout
this section that the question of apokatastasis (universal redemption) must be
distinguished from the descent as such. There is, in other words, no conflict
between asserting a connection between atonement and descent and saying that,
ultimately, some men might not be saved. In fact, I would go further and insist
that there is really no development at all on the question of the population of
heaven and hell, precisely because the Church has received no revelation on that
issue. Different ages will be more or less pessimistic about that; but no one
knows. All we do know is that no one can say that all men will be saved (that is
Origenism), nor that some have definitely not been saved, which would make
the Church’s prayer that no one be lost a lie. On this, see the wise words of Pope
John Paul II: “Who will these [condemned to hell] be? The Church has never
made any pronouncement in this regard. This is a mystery, truly inscrutable,
which embraces the holiness of God and the conscience of man.The silence of
the Church is, therefore, the only appropriate position for Christian faith. Even
when Jesus says of Judas, the traitor, ‘It would be better for that man if he had
never been born’ (Matthew 26:24), His words do not allude for certain to eternal damnation.” John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, trans Jenny McPhee
and Martha McPhee (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1994), 185–86.
51 This is the direct correlate of Paul’s line that “the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who
was preached among you by me and Silas and Timothy, was not Yes and No, but
in him it has always been Yes. For no matter how many promises God has made,
they are all Yes in Christ” (2 Cor 1:19–20). Definitive reprobation can thus only
arise by a human’s free No to that definitive Yes.

Catholic Eschatology and the Development of Doctrine

443

itive until Christ truly descends there.As then-Cardinal Ratzinger says on
this point:
In reality, the “inferi” [lower regions referred to by the Apostles’ Creed]
. . . , that in German was first translated by hell [Hölle] and more recently
by kingdom of the dead [das Reich des Todes], is simply the Latin equivalent of the Hebrew word sheol which indicates a realm of the dead that
can be imagined as a kind of shadowy existence, existence and nonexistence at the same time. . . .
Yes, Jesus died, he “descended” into the mysterious depths death
leads to. He went to the ultimate solitude where no one can accompany us, for “being dead” is above all loss of communication. It is isolation where love does not penetrate. In this sense Christ descended “into
hell” whose essence is precisely the loss of love, of being cut off from
God and man.52

Needless to say, this brief snapshot of theological developments regarding Christ’s descent into hell does not, in and of itself, fully account for—
let alone justify—the vast theological vision of Hans Urs von Balthasar,
which would in any event require much fuller treatment than is possible
here.53 But to show the inevitability of a theology that will at least
roughly resemble something like what Balthasar has produced, let me
52 Joseph Ratzinger, “Reflections on the Origin of My Meditations on Holy

Week,” in Joseph Ratzinger and William Congdon, The Sabbath of History (Washington, DC:The William G. Congdon Foundation, 2000), 21–22.This quotation
comes from the cardinal’s preface to this book of mediations on Holy Week
accompanied by Congdon’s artwork; the preface was written in 1997. In my
debate with Pitstick in First Things on her book, she claimed that in this hard-tolocate book Cardinal Ratzinger supported her thesis of Balthasar’s heresy, which
cannot be remotely justified by what the cardinal actually says, not only in the
quotation given above but especially here: “ ‘Descended into hell’—this profession of Holy Saturday means that Christ has traversed the gate of loneliness, that
he has descended into the unreachable, insurmountable ground of abandonment.
It means that even in the last night in which no word can be heard, in which we
are all like crying, forlorn children, there is a voice that calls us, a hand that takes
and leads us.The insuperable loneliness of man is overcome since He was there
in it.” Ratzinger, “Reflections,” 45.
53 Such a full treatment can be found in Helmut Dieser, Der gottähnliche Mensch und die
Gottlosigkeit der Sünde: Zur Theologie des Descensus Christi bei Hans Urs von Balthasar
(Trier: Paulinus Verlag, 1998). See also Thomas Rudolph Krenski, Passio Caritatis:
Trinitarische Passiologie im Werk Hans Urs von Balthasars (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1990).
This last work, however, occasionally obscures a point often overlooked by both
Balthasar’s supporters and his opponents: the distinction between “Jesus’ experience
of the abyss from that of the damned,” for which see Theo-Drama, vol. IV, The Action,
297, note 55.

444

Edward T. Oakes, S.J.

conclude this account with his interpretation of these lines from St. Paul,
with emphases added:
But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.
This is why it says: “When he ascended on high, he led captives in his
train and gave gifts to men” [Ps 68:18]. But what does “he ascended”
mean except that he also descended to the depths of the earth? He who is
descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in
order to fill all things. (Eph 4: 7–10)

For Balthasar, Paul’s expression “all things” [ta panta] must truly mean
all things. First he insists that Jesus’ claim to be the Truth ( John 14:6), and
not just a way to the truth, means that he differs from all other founders
of world religions and philosophies without exception. But how can that
be unless Christ does actually “fill all things”? Here is his interpretation:
If this claim stands, the whole Truth must possess a ballast, an absolute
counterweight, that can be counterbalanced by nothing else; and because
it is a question of truth, it must be able to show that it is so.The stone in
the one pan of the scales [of justice] must be so heavy that one can place
in the other pan all the truth there is in the world, every religion, every
philosophy, every complaint against God, without counterbalancing it.
Only if that is true is it worthwhile remaining a Christian today. If there
were any other weight capable, ever so slightly, of raising up the Christian side of the scales and moving that absolute counterweight into the
sphere of relativity, then being a Christian would be a matter of preference, and one would have to reject it unconditionally. Somehow or other
it would have been outflanked.To think of [this kind of relativized Christianity] as of more than historical interest would be a waste of time.54

The great irony in this debate is that many liberal Christians distance
themselves from the atonement during Christ’s passion as representing a
theology of patriarchal child-abuse, while certain conservative Catholics
of an Infernalist bent object to any hint of atonement in hell, pace Aquinas
and a host of others, very much including the present pope feliciter
regnans. But both groups will inevitably end up relativizing Christ’s claim
to absoluteness, making him but one more way “to” the truth, but not
the Truth itself.55
54 Hans Urs von Balthasar,“Why I Am Still a Christian,” in Hans Urs von Balthasar

and Joseph Ratzinger, Two Say Why, trans. John Griffiths (London: Search Press,
1973), 29–30.
55 I have tried to argue that point specifically elsewhere. See Edward T. Oakes,“The
Internal Logic of Holy Saturday in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar,”
International Journal of Systematic Theology 9 (2007): 184–99, where the focus is on

Catholic Eschatology and the Development of Doctrine

445

Finally, let me conclude with an observation made by Pope John Paul
II in a message he sent in June 1988 to a group of scientists and theologians gathered by papal invitation at the Vatican Observatory, where he
pointed out how much more development of doctrine the Church could
expect in the future, given how vast in time that future now seems to
open up before us, given the findings of cosmology:
If the cosmologies of the ancient Near Eastern world could be purified
and assimilated into the first chapters of Genesis, might contemporary
cosmology have something to offer our reflections upon creation?
Does an evolutionary perspective bring any light to bear upon theological anthropology, the meaning of the human person as the imago
Dei, the problem of Christology—and even upon the development of
doctrine itself? What, if any, are the eschatological implications of
contemporary cosmology, especially in light of the vast future of our
universe?56

I suspect the Church has barely begun the task of plumbing the depths
of meaning lurking in the Apostles’ Creed.What will prove to be a long
N&V
story has just begun.

the consequences for Christological relativism if a radical theology of the descent
is denied in favor of Pitstick’s insistence that Christ went directly to heaven after
his death.
56 Pope John Paul II, “Message to the Director of the Vatican Observatory,” in
Physics, Philosophy and Theology: A Quest for Common Understanding, ed. Robert J.
Russell,William R. Stoeger, S.J., and George V. Coyne, S.J. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1988), M11. Compare this position to the attitude of so
many Muslims to the rationality of science: “They were some of the best and
brightest in the Muslim world who toiled for years to master their knowledge.
Now they stand accused of seeking mass murder. For weeks, commentators and
analysts in the Muslim world have been grappling with the implications that a
Muslim doctor and engineer, at the pinnacle of their society, may have been
behind the failed car bombings in London and Glasgow last month. The question being asked in many educated and official circles is this: How could such
acts be committed by people who have supposedly dedicated their lives to scientific rationalism and to helping others? The answer, some scientists and analysts
say, may lie in the way that a growing movement of fervent Muslims use science
as reinforcement of religious belief, rather than as a means for questioning and
exploring the foundations of the natural world. . . . In other words, science is a
tool for furthering an ideology rather than a means of examining core beliefs.”
Hassan M. Fattah,“Radicalism among Muslim Professionals Worries Many,” New
York Times, July 14, 2007, A3 (National Edition, filed from Dubai, United Arab
Emirates, July 13, 2007).

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 6, No. 2 (2008): 447–482

447

Book Reviews
Barth’s Earlier Theology: Four Studies by John Webster (London:
T&T Clark, 2005), v + 144 pp.
IN THIS LATEST installment from master theologian and interpreter of
Karl Barth par excellence, John Webster, we are presented with a
commanding study of the early years of Barth’s career, 1921–1925, as
Honorary Professor of Reformed Theology at the University of Göttingen.Taking a fresh look at the mostly neglected writings of this period,
Webster focuses on Barth’s early lecture cycles on Zwingli (chapter 2),
the Reformed Confessions (chapter 3), 1 Corinthians (chapter 4), and
nineteenth-century Protestant thought (chapter 5). In a study that
combines the rare gift of readability with sophisticated academic nuance,
each chapter shows how Barth gained an early and impressive command
of the historical, biblical, and ethical issues that helped form the bedrock
of his later theological knowledge in the Church Dogmatics (CD).
Most impressive about Webster’s latest foray into Barth’s theology is
not only his ability to show the influence of these formative years on
Barth’s later theological development, but also the way in which he
implements Barth’s own hermeneutical principles in his study. Not
content to present Barth’s thought according to general thematic expositions, changing socio-historical and cultural contexts, or theological
common denominators (though these too have their place), Webster
simply offers close and attentive readings of specific texts in order to
grasp “what Barth is seeking to communicate in a single piece of writing” (9). Like Barth,Webster learns and teaches us to listen, to hear, and
to question relentlessly after the divine subject matter of Christian theology to which the text itself bears witness. In essence, then, these studies
are not simply academic representations of neglected strains in Barth’s
thought or attempts to overcome common misunderstandings; they are
the reflections of a seasoned expert endeavoring to give “theological

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readings of Barth” that need to be “read with an eye for the interpretation of the Christian gospel” (9) in various periods of Christian thought.
In this Webster follows Barth and seeks to grasp (or to be grasped by!) the
divine activity that underlies all genuine theological reflection. It is
precisely this activity that brings forth the “astonishment” and “shock”
that “stands at the beginning of every theological perception, inquiry, and
thought,” whenever “the mind is seized” by the object of its investigation
(9). As Webster makes clear throughout this work, for Barth theological
investigation in historical, biblical, and moral theology derives the
perception of truth from the self-communicative and “revelatory presence of God” (3). This crucial observation makes Webster not only an
astute reader of Barth’s theology, but also a sagacious interpreter of the
key theological and spiritual foundation of God’s activity that sustains and
nourishes all theology that adequately conveys its divine subject matter.
Although their purpose is principally theological, these essays also go
a long way toward correcting common misperceptions of Barth’s thought.
From the beginning,Webster notes, Barth was seen as a “theological dissident whose natural genre is the polemical essay or highly charged
address, and whose presentation of the Christian faith is dominated by an
oppositional view of the world” (3). However, as each chapter so clearly
demonstrates, from the very start of his career Barth was determined to
rebuild a positive theological foundation for the human and ethical challenges of modern theology. Eschewing a one-sided theology of divine
freedom, transcendence, and aseity, Barth was always concerned with the
other side of the dialectic: the human ethical response to divine sovereignty and grace.As Webster repeatedly argues, Barth by no means championed the wholesale rejection of the anthropological, historical, and
ethical preoccupations of nineteenth-century theology. Rather, he sought
to take these concerns seriously and to develop a positive response on the
solid foundation of God’s prior and present revelatory activity in and for
the world in Jesus Christ. Such issues are confronted head-on throughout this volume, nowhere less so than in Barth’s interpretation of his
fellow Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli.
According to Webster, when Barth arrived at Göttingen and began to
teach Zwingli, he became immediately embroiled in the controversy
between the Lutherans and his own Swiss Reformed tradition. Unwilling
to enter the debate, either as a partisan defender of Zwingli or as a detractor of Luther,Webster shows how Barth relativized the differences among
Protestant theologians by focusing his attention directly on Zwingli’s text
and the Sache of the Reformation itself, even as he remained sensitive to
prevailing Lutheran criticism at that time. What first fascinated Barth

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449

about Zwingli was his unique way of handling the human and ethical
challenges that constituted the “distinctive genius of the Reformed tradition” (17) on the basis of God’s radical transcendence, freedom, and aseity.
Indeed, for Barth, Zwingli could remain a “total Humanist, a total man of
the Reformation, a total politician, [and] a total Swiss” (17) precisely
because he understood that God was God and cannot be confused or
commingled with any created reality, as in Lutheran and medieval
Catholic thought. Thus, it was Zwingli who nurtured the seed that had
already germinated during the writing of Barth’s Römerbrief, the seed that
God’s radical transcendence and sovereignty do not undermine human
agency but rather constitute and engender it by preventing its absorption
or divinization in the divine being and activity, and by demanding the free
ethical response for others. As Barth states, “[t]he majesty and transcendence of God allowed, even required, humankind to live on the earth in
an earthly way . . . and it was precisely from justification by faith alone that
Zwingli derived the duty of such obedience” (26).
The remainder of the chapter focuses on Zwingli’s theology of
Eucharist, providence, and Baptism. Here, Webster shows that despite
Zwingli’s strong influence on Barth’s understanding of God’s relation to
the world, Barth did not assume Zwingli’s thought tout court. In particular, he objected to the way in which Zwingli was too eager to resolve
dialectical tensions and settle theological disputes once and for all
through applying regulative concepts or principles that dominated his
thought. For example, although Barth appreciated Zwingli’s theology of
the Eucharist to avoid the “false adoration of creaturely realities” (29) that
would replace ethical responsibility with cultic participation, he thought
that Zwingli’s denial of the bodily presence of Christ in the Eucharist
risked vitiating the doctrine by relegating it to the psychological domain
of the believer’s faith. Barth also criticized Zwingli’s theology of providence for being founded upon a concept of God’s absolute originality
that failed to give sufficient weight to the doctrine’s Christological core.
Confronted by Zwingli’s pure and abstract theocentrism, Barth believed
Zwingli incapable of developing a sufficiently positive doctrine of God’s
relation to the world.Thus, while Zwingli may indeed have taught Barth
not to identify God and the world in order to protect both God’s
absolute originality and the integrity of creaturely agency, Barth still
needed to take what he had learned from Zwingli and move on, so as to
develop further the implications of sovereign grace for the concrete life
of ethical action.
In the third chapter Webster offers a penetrating analysis of Barth’s
lectures on the Reformed Confessions during the summer semester of

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1923. Following Barth’s analysis, Webster groups his discussion thematically and as follows: “the debate with Rome; the positive doctrine of
Christianity; the controversy with Lutheranism; and the battle against
modern Christianity” (44). More important, however, are Barth’s two
preliminary discussions on the nature of the Confessions in the Reformed
Church and the scripture principle, both of which set the tone for Barth’s
lectures and elucidate his clear and distinct grasp of the power and promise of Reformed theology in opposition to Roman Catholic and
Lutheran thought.
According to Webster, what is distinctive of the Reformed approach
to the confessions in Barth’s view is that they are “less institutionally settled
and more transparent” (45) than those of Catholicism or Lutheranism.
“Essential to the Reformed church,” Barth writes, “is the fact that . . . it is
not a pure and not a secure church. . . . [T]here is no victorious confession like that of the Augsburg Confession” (45). Rather, framing the
discussion in the context of God’s revelatory presence and action,Webster
shows that Barth “reinterpreted [the confession] as [an] event” that is
made known by God through “the constant process of attending to Holy
Scripture” (45). As such, it eschews any easy identification with “a given
reality in a well-seated religious culture” and makes no claim at an absolutism or finality that would sanctify or enthrone a religious or social
culture. Indeed, as Barth would proclaim throughout his career, the
significance of the Reformed confession is that it makes “merely provisional, improvable and replaceable offerings [which are] never . . . an
authority” in themselves (46). The confession is simply a human work
that speaks humbly from below and does not bellow from above. Its
significance consists in its “essential nonsignificance . . . relativity, humanity, multiplicity, mutability and transitoriness” (46), which must ever
appeal to scripture and the voice of the living God.Thus instead of seeing
the confession as a secure possession of a Church that is “at home in
public history,” Barth understands that the reality to which it points is
disruptive of church and social life so that the Church always stands under
God’s judgment and receives its authority from God’s Word in scripture,
“the viva vox Dei,” through “the self-communicative presence and activity of God” (46–47).
Hence, for Barth, the conditional and relative character of the
Reformed confession is not something that can be separated from the life
of the church and the voice of God, but stands in absolute dependence
upon the continuing activity of God, of which no person or church can
lay claim as exclusive property. The heart of the Reformed confession,
then (and what is lacking in some Lutheran and Catholic quarters), is the

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life of utter dependence upon God’s continuing activity, which comes to
fruition in the church. Without sundering the activity of God from the
human response and responsibility, the remainder of this chapter develops Barth’s criticisms of Catholic, Lutheran, and modernist shortcomings
in their tendency to identify God’s activity with Church or culture. Positively stated, the Reformed confession tolerates no mediation of creaturely realities that would usurp the freedom and sovereignty of God and
thereby undermine the human responsibility to turn to God’s continuing, authoritative presence and action in the church.There is no human
or ecclesial mediation because God alone provides that possibility
through the gracious presence of the Word of God itself, who brings the
transcendence of the Father and the immanence of the Spirit together in
Jesus Christ.
In the fourth chapter Webster offers an insightful analysis of Barth’s
exegetical lectures on 1 Corinthians, also given in the summer of 1923.
Although these lectures have been published for more than eighty years,
Webster notes that few interpreters have grappled with the key exegetical
and theological issues that had occupied Barth’s mind during this time.
Even recent studies of Barth’s hermeneutics and theology prior to the
Church Dogmatics have failed to offer careful readings of the specific
content of Barth’s study, preferring instead to offer “excessively conceptual” interpretations that subject his work to abstract intellectual schemas
(69). Hence,Webster’s exposition is concerned to uncover Barth’s Erklärung
of this important epistle, particularly as it pertains both to the unique
manner of scripture and to Barth’s centering theme of 1 Corinthians 15
on the resurrection of the dead for understanding the relation between
eschatology and ethics.
Webster begins by posing two pointed questions: (1) “What kind of
text does Barth consider himself to be interpreting? and (2) What is the
relation between the biblical text and Barth’s Erklärung ?” (69) These
questions are significant because they show Barth trying to break free
from the hegemony of much historical-critical studies to forge a new
path toward theological exegesis. Webster points out that Barth understood himself to be interpreting a unique text, that is, scripture, which has
its origin in the manifestation of divine revelation that creates a new relationship with human beings after the fall (70). As such, his exposition of
1 Corinthians is concerned both with God’s revelatory economy in its
direct address to Paul and with its contemporary reception for the faithful interpreter. Aware of Barth’s concern over understanding the theme
and content of Paul’s address,Webster shows that biblical exegesis cannot
ignore important historical and philological questions as Barth is so often

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accused of doing. Instead,Webster argues, Barth understands Paul’s epistles as a form of “apostolic address” that is not simply “a religious text
from the past” but also provides “the occasion and means of present
divine revelation” (71) in which God makes the past revelation in Jesus
Christ known through the apostle Paul in the present event of revelation.
Clearly, this has immediate consequences for the life of the faithful
believer, for it “requires that the interpreter adopt a particular stance
before or, better, beneath the matter to whose active presence the text
testifies” (71).
But what kind of interpretation is Barth offering here? According to
Webster, it is neither a standard biblical commentary that comments on
every line nor simply a thematic study of Paul’s epistle. Citing its location
as somewhere between a commentary and a theological exposition,
Webster shows that Barth’s intention is “to re-present the matter of the
text, not to articulate it in a more secure or coherent or potent way than
Paul himself ” but to “re-state what the text itself states . . . in order to
allow the inherent clarity and force of the matter of the text to make
itself felt” (77).Through “paraphrase, imagery, and conceptual restatement
or analysis” (78),Webster explains how Barth attempts to get to the heart
of biblical revelation by “drawing the reader into his own process of
discovering the Sache” of the text itself, in order that the subject matter
make itself known. In this sense, then, Webster offers a valuable exposition of some of Barth’s most ingenious expositions of scripture that shine
forth with the sheer originality and creativity of Barth’s project and its
promise for returning biblical exegesis to its proper theological foundation in God.
The latter half of this chapter offers a dense and compelling reading of
Barth’s exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15 as the culmination of Paul’s argument on the resurrection of the dead. Here especially Webster is
concerned to vindicate Barth from charges that he has underestimated
Paul’s eschatology in favor of an unhealthy obsession with God’s pretemporal eternity and that Barth has little to say with regard to the general
resurrection of the dead. Rather, as Webster insists, Barth’s point is not to
offer general comments on ethics or the resurrection but to reestablish
human action comprehensively “on the basis of a theological-eschatological ontology and corresponding moral anthropology” (87). It is not
that we are simply to turn to Paul’s discussion of love in 1 Corinthians
13 to understand Christian ethics apart from God’s raising Jesus from the
dead, but rather to understand the ethical command in light of God’s
reconciling work in Christ and promise for future redemption. Positioned, as it were, between “the perishing of the old” and “the becoming

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of the new” (86) human beings are to recognize that they are already
dead in sin, yet alive in the newness of eternal life.To misunderstand the
ethical ontology of the resurrection is to understand Christian ethics in
a general and abstract manner that overlooks “the all-determining reality
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead [which] is rich in recreative power” (85). Hence, Easter Day itself enables those who are already
dead to live anew in a life that is not yet.This dialectical juxtaposition of
the “already” and the “not yet” not only prevents establishing Christian
ethics in general virtue ethics or in a psychological/sentimental moral
theory of love but also enables Christians to see that the miracle that God
performs in the resurrection of Christ has already set them free from
death. In redrawing ethical ontology in terms of Christ’s resurrection,
Barth is well on his way toward developing a fully theological and biblical vision of God’s re-creative power in Christ between present reconciliation and future redemption in the parousia.
The final chapter on Barth’s Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth
Century offers an original and important exposition on the nature and
task of historical theology. It also shows that Barth is a far more “perceptive, sophisticated and modest” (91) historian than is usually thought to
be the case. According to Webster, one of Barth’s reasons for publishing
this collection of essays in 1947 was not to denigrate or dismiss his
Protestant forbears of the previous century, for those giants of the nineteenth century also belong to the church in the communion of saints and
had grappled with common theological tasks and responsibilities that
occupy theology in every age. Rather, it was to admonish Barth’s followers to be more loving, attentive, and appreciative of their theology.Thus
against every misperception of Barth as a theological iconoclast and
polemic despiser of natural and experiential theology, Webster shows
Barth to be a careful and lovingly attentive reader of nineteenth-century
Protestant thought as he struggles to see the issues of their day, clearly and
on their own terms.
Most important, however, is Webster’s treatment of Barth’s explicitly
theological understanding of historical theology. Against the modern trend
to ground historical theology in the neutral and detached investigation of
the non-partisan observer (e.g., Harnack), Barth understands historical
theology to be concerned with the investigation of the Christian gospel,
an investigation that comes only from the event of divine revelation. Just
as Barth in the CD sought to ground world history in the history of the
church and salvation, so too does he seek to establish historical theology
in terms of God’s activity in the history of the church. Historical theology is thus a theological task “because it is concerned with the history of

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the church not simply in its externality, but in its character as an episode
in the divine knowing and forming of creaturely occurrence” (102).This
means that historical theology is not “directly perceptible” to human
eyes, but is only indirectly conceived when its own historical investigation is gripped by the power and the presence of its subject matter. As
Webster writes,“a theological interpretation of the history of the church
does not simply read off its verdicts from the empirical surface of events;
rather it reaches its judgments on the basis of a perception that those
events are caught up in the divine governance of things” (104). Therefore, the present perception of theological truth in the past is possible
only through God’s acts of justification and sanctification “in the event of
grace” itself (104).
Crucial to this interpretation of historical theology, however, is that
“the visibility of the history of the church is spiritual visibility” (105).Yet
this does not “remove Church history from . . . history generally,” as Peter
Hodgson has argued, so that the church is relegated to a private sphere
that is cut off from the general study of history.As Webster shows, Barth’s
point is simply to recenter historical theology around its divine object so
that the perception of church history is seen through God’s eyes. In other
words, it is a matter of distinguishing God’s primary agency from the
secondary agency of created beings in order that history is understood as
the object of God’s gracious action and presence. As such it does not
preclude the possibility of general historical investigation but places that
investigation in a theological ontology of the church. Moreover, since the
present perception of truth in the past depends upon the presence of
God’s revelatory activity, historical theology, just like biblical interpretation, requires a specific attitude on behalf of the interpreter who must be
“caught up in God’s reconciling activity” and enabled to see the “the
spiritual visibility of the divine work taking shape in forms of human life
and activity” (110). In this Webster offers an unparalleled interpretation
of Barth’s timeless contribution to the theological and spiritual foundation of historical theology in that historical interpretation requires a
“special participation” with a “certain attitude” of openness, attentiveness,
and loving trust to see that the theologians of the past also belong to the
church of the present. As Barth puts it, “Augustine, Thomas Aquinas,
Luther, Schleiermacher and all the rest are not dead but living. . . .There
is no past in the Church, so there is no past in theology. ‘In him they all
live’ ” (112).
With the four studies of this text, Webster brings his characteristic
lucidity, depth, and nuance to the some of the most neglected writings of
Barth’s corpus. Though he is chiefly concerned to bring forth the early

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insights, which Barth would develop brilliantly in his later years, this
book makes a long-lasting and significant contribution to one of the
most fruitful periods in Barth’s theological career. Yet despite Webster’s
obvious agreement with Barth on the issues that pervade Barth’s work,
Webster is no slavish admirer who holds back criticism in favor of praise.
He is quick to point out lectures that were hastily put together near the
end of the semester, when Barth was running out of time and steam or
where Barth had lost control of his material by indulging in sweeping
historical generalizations, not to mention the occasional unkind polemic
(e.g., Albrecht Ritschl). Webster’s analyses are also accompanied by a
continuous stream of excerpts from Barth’s own letters that show Barth’s
understanding of these texts and the development of his thought in such
a short and intense period of study.Webster’s book thus offers a fair and
balanced look at these earlier lectures with a clear and profound presentation of Barth’s early integration of biblical, historical, and ethical materials according to the self-communicative and revelatory presence of
God. Unfortunately, and this is the works greatest shortcoming, it is far
too short, covering only a fraction of Barth’s earlier writings and leaving
untouched the rest of Barth’s lectures of that period (e.g., Anselm,
Aquinas, Calvin, Schleiermacher, etc.).We can only hope for a companN&V
ion volume to these compelling studies.
Michael T. Dempsey
St. John’s University
Queens, New York

The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture by
Brevard Childs (Grand Rapids, MI:William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
2004), xii + 332 pp.
THE STRUGGLE to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture studies the
hermeneutical issues that have arisen throughout the history of Christian
attempts to understand Isaiah as a tradent of the Gospel. Profiting from a
broad slew of recent scholarship as well as his own work, Childs’s concern
is twofold. First, he attempts to understand the unifying features of the Christian exegetical tradition by focusing on a particularly important book.
Second, he wants a reading of this tradition that is both theological and ecclesial. His main interlocutor is the Religionsgeschicte school of thought insofar
as it tends to dismiss Christian exegesis as eisegesis, thus ignoring theology.
Indeed, the book responds to J. F. A. Sawyer’s The Fifth Gospel on this very
point. Part of this double project involves probing the viability of allegory
(x) and answering to some degree the charge of eisegesis.

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Childs assigns one chapter apiece to Christian theologians who have
written a commentary or homilies on Isaiah and who also influenced
subsequent tradition or interpretation of previous tradition.The introductory chapter discusses the Christian reception of the Hebrew bible. The
theologians studied include Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome, John Chrysostom, Cyril of
Alexanria,Theodoret of Cyrus,Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Lyra, Martin
Luther, and John Calvin. The next three chapters consider seventeenthand eighteenth-century, nineteenth- and twentieth-century, and postmodern interpretations. A final chapter draws broad hermeneutical
conclusions. At various points, Childs acknowledges his own limitations,
stresses the introductory character of the study, or admits the somewhat
distorted perspective that arises from focusing on Isaiah alone. Each chapter possesses a bibliography of primary and secondary sources roughly two
and a half pages in length. The chapters themselves vary somewhat in
quality and are sufficiently autonomous that they can be consulted individually. Childs maintains, however, the unity of his study.What follows is
a representative selection from among the best chapters.
In chapter five on Origen, Childs makes allegory and history within
the context of the Alexandrian school the prominent theme.With laudable clarity he discusses the Alexandrian background, the controversy
over allegory (here referring to Danielou, Hanson, and Lampe, as well as
the allegory-typology distinction), and the current rehabilitation of allegory. He calls upon the aid of scholars such as Louth, de Lubac, and
Frances Young. He argues that misunderstanding about Origen’s
hermeneutical principles arose because Origen meant something different by “literal” than do modern scholars. He also argues that Origen
taught the organic unity of literal and spiritual senses and that the multiple “senses” in Origen’s usage are in fact multiple referents. As in other
chapters, he limits actual consideration of Isaiah’s text to a few specific
passages. Childs’s strength in this chapter is his ability to synthesize quite
a bit of scholarship in a clear and concise fashion.
In chapter ten on Theodoret, spiritual sense and history are again a
prominent theme—now within the context of the Antiochene school.
Childs emphasizes that Theodoret sought a via media between the historicizing of Theodore of Mopsuestia and the excesses of Origen, a response
that “called forth remarkably sophisticated reflection on proper exegetical methods” (134). Childs rehearses some of Theodoret’s contributions:
for example, irony as a part of the literal sense, the figurative sense as a
metaphorical extension of the literal, and rules within scriptural idiom
governing the move to figurative exegesis.Thus, for instance, in a sample

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prophecy from Isa 32, Childs observes that Theodoret “seeks to show that
the promise of a royal figure could not apply to Hezekiah, Josiah, or
Zerubbabel. . . . Rather, the virtues of the ruler depicted . . . only find
fulfillment outside of the Old Testament. . . . [T]he hyperbolic nature of
the language . . . indicates to the reader the need to transcend the ordinary historical sense” (144–45).According to Childs,Theodoret does not
regard the figurative sense “as a separate meaning, unlike Origen, but
rather as an extension of the word or concept being interpreted” (143).
Childs helps to clear up some confusion regarding Theodoret’s terminology for the spiritual sense, and also shows his occasional use of “double
fulfillment” of prophecy.
In chapter eleven on Thomas Aquinas, Childs recalls his limited intention “to raise certain basic hermeneutical issues of theological importance” (148). He first considers Thomas’s Augustinian and Hieronymian
background as a combination of Alexandrian and Antiochene elements.
He structures the chapter on the debate over novelty and tradition in
Aquinas’s interpretation.The first position points to his emphasis on the
literal sense and the univocity of biblical words.The other position, represented by de Lubac, points to his retention of the fourfold schema in his
actual commentaries. Discussing Isa 40–66, Childs responds that
Thomas’s interpretation “is not primarily directed to the text itself . . . but
to [its] substance. He does not distinguish between literal and figurative
senses according to the Alexandrian tradition, but passes through the
words . . . to their theological substance, which inevitably transcends the
verbal sense” (159). Childs characterizes this approach as “ontological”
(160). He regards Aquinas’s philosophical reflection as useful for theological precision in this context. In the end, Childs concludes that “Thomas’s
largely non-allegorical manner of penetrating to the figurative sense by
means of an ontological, intertextual move shaped by the substance of the
witness itself ” (162) is his chief innovation. Childs leaves to one side the
somewhat confusing status of the literal sense in Aquinas’s thought based
on ST I Q. 1 a. 10, in which Thomas acknowledges that even the literal
can contain many senses.
Chapter thirteen on Martin Luther reveals a certain shift in Childs’s
analysis; he is clearly more comfortable analyzing Luther than discussing
some of the fathers. The chapter is one of the longest in the book. He
first discusses Luther in light of his medieval roots. Then, Childs points
out some general characterstics. First, Luther rejected the fourfold
scheme: “It was pushed to the periphery as a result of his focus on the
theological content” (183). Second, Luther employed a dialectical
hermeneutic (between Law and Gospel, in its final developed form).

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Gospel is whatever preaches Christ. As for the dialectic itself, “Luther
regarded this distinction as a flexible one, in the sense that the recovery
of the gospel within scripture was never a static given, lest it itself turn
once again into law. For this reason scripture remains the active dynamic
preached Word that continues to free” (188). He also discusses philological analysis, paraphrase, and rhetorical tropes in Luther’s exegesis (193).
An example of the dialectical method in Isaiah is Luther’s exegesis of the
first two chapters. Childs shows how he juxtaposes corrupt Jerusalem
with “the picture of Zion, the faithful city” (196). In the end, Childs
emphasizes the dialectical method, because Luther used it to keep the
existential force of the Old Testament such that it could also teach the
gospel. Childs critiques modern readings for failing to recognize the
theological character of Luther’s exegesis:“Ever since the Enlightenment,
Luther’s Christological approach has often been rejected as a naïve distortion. . . . Such a criticism has failed to grasp the heart of Luther’s
approach. Rather, . . . he was able to evoke from the ancient text a rich
Christian texture in a fresh, close reading of its words” (203).
The final chapter draws hermeneutical conclusions. Childs concludes
that on at least seven counts the Christian exegetical tradition possesses a
basic family resemblance. The first five are familiar (hence, a bit pedestrian): 1. the authority of Scripture; 2. the literal and spiritual senses; 3.
the two testaments as Christian Scripture (although their relationship has
been variously articulated); 4. the divine and human character of scripture; and 5. the Christological content of Scripture. The last two points
relate rather more clearly to his own concerns: 1. the dialectical nature of
history (understood in a non-technical sense in order to articulate the
importance of sacred history), and 2. exegesis as a theological task based
on the final form of the text.
In general, Childs’s scholarship is careful, and he is quite frank about
his own limitations so that there is little to critique. He emphasizes the
continuities in Christian exegesis, without glossing over the discontinuities. It is worth, however, rehearsing a certain weakness of the study
(admitted by Childs himself), so that readers will know what not to
expect. Since the criterion of inclusion is that the theologian be influential and that he write some form of commentary or homily on Isaiah, the
result is that certain thinkers very significant for hermeneutics in general
remain unconsidered. For example, the Cappadocian fathers receive no
attention. Augustine and Gregory the Great are also missing. Bernard of
Clairvaux is absent. Additionally, since Childs had to work outside his
own specialties in many cases, as he acknowledges, the text is bound to
disappoint any with specific expertise in patristics or medieval theology—

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at least to some degree.This is a caution to potential readers, not a criticism of Childs, who deserves commendation for drawing so well on a
vast range of scholarship.
Since, however, the book is a contribution in favor of theological
exegesis, Childs himself remains vulnerable to a small theological criticism. He tends to assume that it makes sense to speak of a strong opposition between history and allegory, implied in the assumption that distinct
spiritual senses blunt the “plain sense” (304), or in his assumption that allegory contained an anti-historical tendency that needed to be moderated
(303–304). What epistemology underlies such assumptions? Is there,
perhaps, an unstated opposition between universal and particular (i.e.,
nominalism) at work? Why does a hermeneutic of multiple senses blunt
existential force or plain meaning? In short, his seeming preference for
Luther’s opposition between history and allegory undercuts his interest in
rehabilitating allegory and colors how he views the history of exegesis to
the point that he sees Theodoret as challenging “the traditional denigration
of the Old Testament as, in principle, ‘carnal’ or peripheral to Christian
theology” (133, emphasis added). No one expects Childs to renounce his
preference for Luther, but the crucial issues left unstated are what differing epistemologies are at stake, how we ourselves employ these in analyzing
the history of interpretation (so that some can view denigration of the
Old Testament as somehow traditional!), and whether they accurately
characterize the history of interpretation. Otherwise, it is difficult to see
how to overcome modern and postmodern objections to Christian allegory or “eisegesis” except by bracketing the truth claim of theology. In all
fairness, however, it is clear that he desires to overcome false AlexandrianAntiochene dichotomies, and moreover the criticism does not imply that
we should embrace all allegory uncritically, only that the epistemological
issue of multiple senses needs recognition and careful handling lest we
distort history. He has shown that the tradition, with broad unanimity,
seeks theological content transcending the merely literal.
Overall, the book possesses the advantage of comparing theological,
hermeneutical, and modern critical ideas in a cohesive, sympathetically
handled synthesis of scholarship.The book should be a useful resource for
students and scholars seeking familiarity with the Christian exegetical
tradition and for anyone doing specialized work in Old Testament
hermeneutics or Isaiah. Moreover, it should provide a starting point with
concrete examples for theologians interested in recovering traditional
theological exegesis. (A welcome feature in this regard is Childs’s demonstration that patristic exegetical tradition, both Alexandrian and Antiochene, saw the need for careful philological and textual work.) In the final

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analysis, however, it is imperative to realize that the book is fundamentally
introductory and to judge its usefulness accordingly.
N&V
Andrew Hayes
Catholic University of America
Washington, DC

Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke by
C. Kavin Rowe (New York:Walter de Gruyter, 2006), 277 pp.
IN ACCORDANCE with Greek-speaking Judaism, Luke the evangelist
refers to the God of Israel as jt́qioy.What does it mean, then, when Luke
also names Jesus jt́qioy, and when he records the speech of others who
address Jesus as jt́qie prior to Jesus’ Resurrection? Is Luke purposefully
inscribing Jesus’ identity into YHWH’s? If so, has Luke conflated pre- and
post-Resurrection epistemology, with the result that readers of the Gospel
must construct alternative bridges to the identity of Jesus prior to the
apostolic faith in his Resurrection? Or has Luke, in writing his Gospel,
anticipated this problem and addressed it by means of his use of jt́qioy
In lucidly engaging these questions, Kavin Rowe’s book goes significantly beyond the standard studies of Luke’s Christology. Discussing one
such study, Joseph Fitzmyer’s two-volume commentary on Luke, Rowe
observes that Fitzmyer distinguishes between three stages in the development of the Gospels: (I) the historical Jesus, (II) Jesus as proclaimed by his
followers after the Resurrection, and (III) the written gospels (in the
context of the other writings collected in the New Testament). Fitzmyer
aims to focus his commentary on stage 3, but his treatment of kyrios
frequently takes its bearings not from hypotheses related to the earlier
two stages. Rowe points out that “Fitzmyer translates jt́qie in Luke 5:12
(‘jt́qie, if you will, you can make me clean’) as ‘Sir,’ and then in the
Notes writes,‘The translation,“Sir,” suits the Gospel tradition in Stage I;
for Luke, writing at Stage III, it may have the connotation of “Lord” ’
(210). As Rowe remarks, the problem here is the translation “Sir”: If
intended as a translation of the actual Gospel of Luke, then it should have
been translated as “Lord,” assuming that the goal of translation is to
convey accurately the intended meaning of the Gospel itself. Otherwise
the translation risks becoming a mixture of what Luke aims to convey
(Stage III) and what the contemporary biblical scholar construes as befitting the situation of the historical Jesus (Stage I). At this point the translation ceases to be a translation, and instead stands as a historical-critical
reconstruction that, because of its inattention to Luke’s narrative artistry,
distorts the Christology of Luke’s Gospel.

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Fitzmyer is not, of course, alone in this mistake. In light of this situation, Rowe aims to trace the use of jt́qioy in Luke’s Gospel with the
systematic goal of uncovering “the meaning of the word in its Lukan
context and literary development” (210). He argues that Luke, in light of
the post-Resurrection connotations of jt́qioy, carefully employs the
ambiguity of the term throughout the Gospel to assist his readers in
perceiving the dramatic ironies involved in the use of jt́qioy with regard
to Jesus. For Luke, “jt́qie is . . . both Christologically ‘Lord’ and historically ‘sir/master’ ” (216). Since the word has these diverse meanings in
Greek, Luke allows his readers to discover in and through his use of
jt́qioy both that Jesus is fully man and that Jesus is fully Lord. As Rowe
concludes,“The life of the Lord, for Luke, is not written without explicit,
post-resurrection christological claims, but neither is pre-resurrection
history thereby annihilated anachronistically with spiritualizing theology” (216). Focusing on the precise way in which Luke has constructed
his narrative shows how he unites appreciation for pre-Resurrection
historical context with post-Resurrection theological reflection.
The bulk of the book consists in Rowe’s four chapters of detailed
exegesis of the Gospel of Luke. Chapter one treats the birth and infancy
narratives, along with the role of John the Baptist (Luke 1–3). Chapter
two treats Jesus’ mission in Galilee (Luke 4–7). Chapter three explores
Jesus’ journeying toward Jerusalem (Luke 10–14, including Jesus’ parables). Lastly, chapter four examines Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, Passion,
and Resurrection (Luke 19–24). As he proceeds through the Gospel,
Rowe seeks to show that Luke’s narrative “[binds] together the jt́qioy
of Israel and the life of Jesus jt́qioy” (121). As Rowe intends, it is the
cumulative weight of his examples that impresses; and as he points out,
this means that those who wish to dispute his interpretation henceforth
must interpret jt́qioy through the entire narrative of Luke’s Gospel.
Commenting on Luke 1, Rowe observes that “prior to 1:43 jt́qioy
is used of the God of Israel (ten times; on 1:17 see below), but now as
Jesus himself enters the narrative he is given the name/title o> jt́qioy”
(40; cf. 48–49 for theological commentary). Luke, however, does not
explain this. Indeed, commenting on Luke 3:4 (which quotes Isaiah
40:3), Rowe finds that the ambiguity in jt́qioy cannot be resolved. Even
so, “due to the movement of the narrative, our initial tendencies to
resolve the ambiguity move from God in 1:17 to Jesus by 3:4” (74), with
the result that the ambiguity itself “expresses the fundamental correlation
and continuity between the God of Israel and Jesus” (76).To what degree
was this correlation and continuity known before Jesus’ resurrection?
Commenting on Luke 5:8, Rowe notes that while Peter’s use of jt́qie

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cannot mean merely “sir,” Luke retains sufficient ambiguity to leave
“open the possibility that the one in whose mouth jt́qie occurs need
not possess ‘post-resurrection’ fullness of knowledge at every point in the
story—or, indeed, at any point prior to the resurrection” (89).
As Luke’s Gospel proceeds, Rowe finds that the theological conclusion
becomes increasingly evident. Commenting on Luke 10:21–22, Rowe
states, “The tensive agility of jt́qioy in the movement of the narrative
creates a unity such that both Jesus and God the Father are jt́qioy with
respect to who they are in Luke’s story (i.e., the narration of their character is inseparable from their identity as jt́qioy)” (137). They possess
their identity as jt́qioy, however, within the distinction of Father and
Son. Again, commenting on Luke 19:31–34, Rowe shows (with N. T.
Wright’s research in the background) that Jesus’ royal and messianic entry
into Jerusalem “takes on the character of an embodied coming of the
God of Israel as jt́qioy through his vqirsòy jt́qioy” (165).
Rowe arrives at three central conclusions. First, he argues that Luke
employs jt́qioy in a sophisticated manner to communicate his understanding of Jesus. Second, he proposes that Luke’s literary sophistication
is such that one needs to study all instances of jt́qioy in Luke’s Gospel
before offering an assessment of Luke’s Christology. Here Rowe draws
upon Martin Buber to highlight “the dynamic of verbal repetition, a
word’s recurrence and the intrinsic significance of its unfolding pattern
for meaning” (199). Third, he emphasizes that the ambiguity of the
meaning of jt́qioy at particular places in Luke’s Gospel, and especially
in the infancy narrative, purposefully opens up a dual referent: jt́qioy
has to do both with Jesus and with God.Taken as a whole, the narrative
of the Gospel reveals that Jesus’ entrance into the world is the entrance
of the jt́qioy of Israel; heaven and earth meet in Jesus.
As Rowe points out, Jesus jt́qioy remains always distinct from God
jt́qioy: Luke’s distinction between Heóy/pasǵq and vqirsóy/ti>´oy is
confirmed by Luke’s sophisticated use of jt́qioy. But how can the true
jt́qioy suffer and die? Luke’s answer is that the true jt́qioy manifests
himself through cruciform power, a power defined by self-giving love.
This redefinition of power assists Luke in identifying the suffering
jt́qioy with the exalted jt́qioy after his Resurrection and ascension.As
Rowe says,“Through the depiction of the human Jesus as jt́qioy, Luke
shapes the understanding of ‘Lord’ to include, by definition of his life on
earth, misunderstanding, opposition, and even crucifixion in the identity
of the heavenly Lord” (206–7). Rowe has in view not a Hegelian dialectic within God, but the continuity between the earthly and risen Jesus, a
continuity that includes the inclusion in the identity of God. Thus the

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ambiguities in jt́qioy assist Luke in narrating the extraordinarily
complex identity of the Jesus whom the Gospel proclaims. Luke achieves
what Rowe terms “a narrative Verbindung, a coherent pattern of characterization that binds God and Jesus together through the word jt́qioy
such that they finally cannot be separated or abstracted from one another
in the story” (201). Rowe’s conclusion fits both with the Gospel and with
the account of identity that Rowe derives from Hans Frei and Paul
Ricoeur (as well as from the novelist Henry James).As Rowe puts it,“this
study rejects the notion that the question ‘who is the jt́qioy?’ can be
settled beforehand, as if we can arrive at the answer in abstraction from
the narrative, without the story” (19).
In a postscript to his book, Rowe observes that scholars generally
assume that the Christologies of Paul and John diverge significantly from
Luke’s. As Rowe points out, however, evidence from Paul’s letters indicates that “by the time Luke wrote his Gospel, Christian communities
would thus have been confessing Jesus as jt́qioy for several decades”
(220). Paul’s reliance upon jt́qioy in speaking about Jesus fits well with
Luke’s approach, and refutes any attempt to divide Paul and Luke along
Christological lines. John only rarely identifies Jesus as jt́qioy, but Rowe
persuasively recounts the importance of jt́qioy both in the footwashing
scene in John 13 and in Mary Magdalene’s and the disciple Thomas’s
recognition of the risen Jesus. Rowe concludes that John, like Luke,“uses
dramatic irony as the literary glue for post-resurrection jt́qioy christology and pre-resurrection history” (229). Even though John does not
develop jt́qioy throughout his narrative, John’s account of Thomas’s
words upon recognizing Jesus-“o> jt́qioy lot jaì o> heóy lot” ( Jn
20:28)—confirms “the direction in which Luke’s use of jt́qioy points—
the ‘pressure’ of the Lukan narrative logic—but John is the one who
actually says it explicitly” (229–30). For Rowe, then, Luke is joined by
Paul and John in judging that Jesus, as experienced by his disciples in his
earthly ministry and in his heavenly exaltation, “shares an identity with
God as jt́qioy” (231).
How might theologians respond to Rowe’s book? First, theologians
should learn from Rowe and others that any easy dichotomy between
“low Christology” and “high Christology” in the New Testament needs
to be put to pasture. Second, this step, rather than solving our theological
difficulties, leads to deeper ones. Granted that Luke’s narrative gives Jesus
an identity recognizably in continuity with later dogmatic (creedal) judgments, why should we accept Luke’s claim as true? Similarly, what is the
relationship of Luke and his Gospel to the Church that later made those
dogmatic judgments? Given that dogmatic judgments are propositional

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and metaphysical, even if grounded in narratives, does dogma diverge from
Luke’s own understanding of how to appropriate Jesus’ identity? Did the
Councils and the Fathers, in their exegesis, interpret Luke well? Again,
what does it mean to say that Luke belongs to the canonical Bible? If Luke
“[binds] together the jt́qioy of Israel and the life of Jesus jt́qioy,” what
about Jesus’ followers? Do they participate through the Holy Spirit as a
visible communion in the crucified and risen jt́qioy of Israel?
Fortunately, Luke himself recognized the pressing nature of these
questions and paired his Gospel with the Book of Acts. Not surprisingly,
then, after reading Rowe’s book theologians and exegetes will find themselves eager to turn to Luke’s witness to the Church in the Book of Acts,
and to reflect on this basis also upon the liturgy, exegesis, and doctrine of
the patristic Church. Indeed, we can hope that Kavin Rowe, having
offered a rich reading of the Gospel of Luke, will in due time turn his
considerable talents to Luke’s second volume—and thus to the ongoing
problem of how to understand the union of believers, in the Holy Spirit,
with “the jt́qioy of Israel and the life of Jesus jt́qioy.”
N&V
Matthew Levering
Ave Maria University
Ave Maria, Florida

Bound to Be Free: Evangelical Catholic Engagements in Ecclesiology, Ethics, and Ecumenism by Reinhard Hütter (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 2004), x + 313 pp.
THIS is an impressive work of constructive theology: committed, rigorous, vigorous, and, for the most part, beautifully wrought. That the
author, an associate professor of theology at Duke Divinity School, has
become a Roman Catholic since its publication should, for readers of
these pages, be an occasion of confident hope. He is one of a number of
astute, bold, and committed theologians to have taken such a step in
recent years (others include Bruce Marshall, Douglas Farrow,Alvin Kimel
and R. R. Reno). This should legitimately be the cause of some theological optimism for Roman Catholics, coming as it does, strikingly, at
the same time as a very public and very painful dark night of the sinfulness of the Church’s members, reminding us, had we forgotten, that the
Church is a corpus permixtum.
One of the most exciting things about this book is how the balance
between “theologology” and theology proper is redressed. Too much
contemporary theology is concerned with getting theology’s story right
(where things went wrong) that it becomes exclusively preoccupied with

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exegesis of itself and society, becoming a self-obsessive and self-pleasuring discourse, forgetting its primary justification as a ministerium Verbi. Of
course these two directions are not mutually exclusive, nevertheless, it is
comparatively rare to read a work that gives determining priority to
kerygma. Let us hope and pray that the Church may realize (in both
senses) the gifts she has received.
That Hütter has now become a Roman Catholic accounts for something of a feel of ecclesiological schizophrenia in the essays he has gathered to form this book: sometimes more clearly addressed toward
Protestants and at others more clearly toward Catholics; the book seems
to come from something of an ecclesiological ivory tower.The essays are
all previously published and roughly span ten years, but are not presented
in chronological fashion. By and large their editing together has been
well done, though there is some repetition (for instance essays 7 and 8
might have been better presented as a single essay).
The essays have been marshalled into three sections which deal with
Church (ekklesi˜ a), freedom (eleutheria), and truthful ecumenical speech
(parrhesi˜ a). The initial introductory essay outlines the reasoning for this
threefold division, and is itself an excellent piece, arguing for the reintegration of these three aspects of Christian thought as mutually indwelling.
The first section is “Ekklesi˜ a—or, Free to be Church” and comprises
five essays. In the first Hütter argues that the Church should see herself
as a “public,” in a manner analogical to the way ancient poleis have been
described by Hannah Arendt.They are defined by a common telos, core
practices, and binding convictions. Using the exchanges between Erik
Peterson and Karl Barth, Hütter shows how these two tended toward
either ecclesiological objectivism or ecclesiological subjectivism, both of
which end up not taking God with the seriousness he demands and
deserves. Although Barth helps one to see that God is only the object of
theology insofar as he is its subject, his ecclesiology has the consequence
of avoiding all purchase on reality: it is too abstract as Hütter notes in a
subsequent essay. Hütter goes on in this essay to explore and expand on
what Luther saw as core practices of the Church. Here, as throughout the
book, Hütter is at pains to emphasize the Spirit’s role in the economy,
strikingly adapting Kant: “Pneumatology without ecclesiology is empty;
ecclesiology without pneumatology is blind” (38). Nevertheless he is
adamant that it is crucial, to safeguard God’s freedom, not to identify the
Spirit’s actions with one ecclesial body.
In the next essay Hütter is keen to reverse the modern paradigm, shared
by Kant and Schleiermacher in their different ways, which makes the
subject the end of the Church. Rather, Hütter argues, it is the practices of

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the Church that save and transform and therefore antecede us.We come
to the Church, not vice versa. Likewise, we do not own knowledge of
God, it owns us. Indeed, Hütter goes further: strictly speaking there is no
neutral knowledge of God. Theological reflection does not, therefore,
occupy some “ideal locus standi” (Rowan Williams), but rather is stretched
out between memory and hope, one might say in a posture of cruciform
imprecation.Theology occurs within the Church and is therefore subject
to her practices: it has no negative freedom.
Chapter four deals with the themes of hospitality and truth.True hospitality, like God’s hospitality into which we are invited, Hütter argues, is never
“mere entertaining”; it always involves truth, about ourselves and others.
Hütter uses a story from C. S. Lewis and the account of the Lord meeting
the disciples on the way to Emmaus to make his point.Truth and hospitality belong together and perichoretically point to each other, as do word and
sacrament, worship and doctrine. Rightly, Hütter reckons that one of our
greatest needs at the present time is good catechesis. He also argues that
practitioners of theology (and, incidentally, that includes all the baptized)
should go about their theologizing joyfully. It is worth repeating his quotation of Barth on this point:“A theologian who has no joy in his work is no
theologian at all. Sulky faces, morose thoughts, and boring ways of speaking
are intolerable in this science” (214, note 34). Hütter goes on, in chapter
five, to take a closer look at Karl Barth’s “dialectical catholicity,” tracing
Barth’s real sense of the question posed by Catholicism to the Protestant
ecclesial communities: to what extent are they “churches”? Of course time
has passed since Barth, and even Hütter, wrote, but this is still a question,
perhaps even more so now. For Hütter, Barth is an evangelical catholic (a
description Barth applies to himself), and the theology of the Reformers
helps him avoid the excesses of Catholicism on the one hand and neoProtestantism on the other, though consistently preferring Catholicism.
Both fail, however, because they instill principles to which God is answerable: they undercut or ignore God’s sovereignty. Within a focus on God’s
majestic freedom, conversion is always to Christ, and anthropology and
ecclesiology are Christologically relocated. Such a Christological relocation
allows a dialectic between Israel and the Church, between grace and judgment.The problem, as already alluded to, is that Barth’s ecclesiology is thus
led to stand on a knife-edge, between God’s saving activity and human
witness to it. Shy of ecclesiological embodiment, it is too abstract.
The sixth chapter moves beyond Barth’s knife-edge dialectic to an
investigation of apophatic theology, a surer way, Hütter suggests, of avoiding conceptual idolatries. Hütter provides a good account of the close
relationship between positive and negative theology, closely following the

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account of Denys Turner’s The Darkness of God. He shows that the relation is not symmetrical, and that positive theology rightly enjoys a priority. Negative theology is not a cancellation of the positive, but rather a
reminding of the creaturely contours of positive theological formulations, a shaking of the carpet under theology’s feet. It polices the creature/Creator distinction. Interestingly Hütter relates the dynamic he sees
between the positive theology of est, as he puts it, and the negative theology of God’s esse, to icons that also share the same, Christologically
mandated and configured, hiddenness in revelation. This is the sort of
textured and careful understanding of apophatic theology that is needed
to counter the common understanding that such theology simply peddles
negative statements and bad mystery.
The second section, “Eleutheria—or, Free to Live with God,” deals
largely with freedom and seeks to counter the pared down caricatures
that are found in society under that name today. In the first of the three
essays of the section Hütter distinguishes between three types of freedom:
(negative) freedom from interference; (positive) freedom from determination; and the divine freedom in which creatures participate—real freedom one might say. To be genuinely free is to live our existence as
creatures truthfully. Hütter turns to an appreciative engagement with
John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor (his comments about the late pontiff are
mixed in this book, perhaps accounted for by the jumbled chronology of
the essays), which he argues puts a timely challenge to the largely antinomian Protestant ethics of today. Spurred on by Kant and Fichte, the
Promethean self dissolved itself in Nietzschean bile and is now on a
manic-depressive rollercoaster ride veering from relativism to totalitarianism.The solution, proposed by the Polish pontiff, is to realize that the
right ordering of the relation between freedom and law is teleological,
that is to say, law is ordered to freedom. The relation is most definitely
not oppositional in an exclusive sort of way. Human freedom, Hütter
argues, is only fulfilled when it is encountered by a limit that grounds and
shapes it.The shape of freedom is not to be grasped by a self-originating
human being, but received from the Creator. Freedom seized is freedom
lost. Here Hütter strongly emphasizes the role of the Commandments,
and especially the first. Indeed one might say that arguing for the recognition and affirmation of the importance of the first commandment is
the most important subplot of this book. To counter the unbalanced
modern reading of Luther as tending toward antinomianism, Hütter
rereads his Theses Against the Antinomians and his Lectures on Genesis. He
concludes by giving his own ten theses for the relation of freedom and
law, emphasizing the role communities play in the practice of both.

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Essay eight overlaps significantly with the previous one and tackles
what Hütter calls the “license of autarky” and the impoverished understanding of freedom that it bespeaks.Again he emphasizes what we might
call the terribile commercium of modernity whereby sovereignty has been
reassigned to the human being and contingency to God, and the replacing of the moral law with one of unexamined desires. Hütter says, following his Duke colleague Stanley Hauerwas, that we need to learn to be
sinners again.This requires a new way of seeing, a new optic. Such a vision
does not see desire as bad per se, but does see that it needs to be harnessed
and (re)educated. He concludes the essay with a brief look at natural law
and a commendation of the daily meditation of Psalm 119.
The last essay of this section considers the tongue: a small organ of
inordinate power. He argues that the eighth commandment indicates
three orderings of right speech: political or natural, concerned with what
we do as creatures; moral, to do with sin; and thirdly good works that lead
the tongue to be free for praise. This chapter includes a searing indictment of moral euphemization: bang on target.
The final section of the book,“Parrhes˜ia—or, Free to Speak Ecumenically,” contains three detailed and largely sympathetic—but by no means
uncritical—engagements with recent documents of the Magisterium: Ut
Unum Sint, Fides et Ratio, and The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures
in the Christian Bible. Given the detailed textual work they contain (the
latter two essays are gems of close reading), it is impossible to review
them adequately here, but a few comments may be in order. The first
essay on the Petrine ministry now feels a little dated; we have yet to see
the effects that the way the current pontiff exercises it may have on
ecumenical relations. Given the course of the current pontificate so far
(and the overwhelmingly theological nature of the current pontiff), there is
cause for hopeful optimism. It may be an indictment of my naivete as a
Catholic born in the year of the three popes, and thus well after Vatican
II, but I found Hütter’s repeated plea that the papacy be exercised “under
the gospel” astonishing, perhaps almost offensive.
His engagement of Fides et Ratio complains, rightly, about the various
translations offered of the text and suggests convincingly that what is
missing from this important text is an engagement of the relation of the
will to the operations of faith and reason.
His comments on The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the
Christian Bible are most interesting and are part of something of a wave of
interest in the documents of the inobtrusive but quietly influential Pontifical Biblical Commission. He suggests that the document could have been
titled “In,” arguing as it does for a much closer relation of mutual

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indwelling between Israel and Church, a cause championed recently by
John Paul II as well as a number of contemporary Catholic theologians,
and a matter of no small controversy. Dialogue with Judaism thus becomes
an ecumenical, and not interreligious, affair. Still, The Jewish People and
Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible argues that the relationship is
not one of complementarity, nor is it dialectical, but rather one of promise and fulfillment; and thus both parties are eschatologically conditioned.
It is here in the last essay that we get closest to a clear expression of
the logic that operates throughout the volume and seems to guide its
content and structure. I would term it a paradoxical logic of the
both/and, a logic of perichoresis and participation that does not look on
theological topics with zero-sum spectacles. It is a profoundly Catholic
logic: et . . . et rather than aut . . . aut. We see this in Hütter’s book-long
argument for the perichoretic relation of Church, freedom, and truth,
and more particularly in the relations between hospitality and truth,
between positive and negative theology, freedom and commandment,
Israel and Church, and, overarchingly, knowledge and practice. These
“ands” are fundamentally Chalcedonian, that is they are Christologically
grounded. If the Incarnation is the principle of this logic, as Hütter
suggests (for instance on 213) and I would strongly agree, then an essay
on this logic and the Incarnation would have been very welcome. If The
Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible could have
been titled “In,” then Hütter’s book could have been called “And.”
My only significant irritation with this book is the dislocation of notes
and text. I can see no good theoretical reason for “Nestorian” endnotesespecially when the notes themselves are so rich. It is ironic and unfortunate that a book which argues so strongly for the mutual indwelling of
theory and practice should effectively separate them in its own text, thus
giving the main body a Docetic air.
That niggle aside, this is an inspiring book that will repay careful reading. But—cave lector!—it is also a convicting book: I frequently found
myself judged and found wanting. Yet because of the “and” logic of the
book, we are also strongly reminded that we are bound for freedom. N&V
Philip McCosker
Peterhouse, Cambridge
& St. Benet’s Hall, Oxford

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The Contested Theological Authority of Thomas Aquinas: The
Controversies between Hervaeus Natalis and Durandus of St.
Pourçain by Elizabeth Lowe (New York & London: Routledge, 2003), xviii
+ 259 pp.
Durandus of St. Pourçain: A Dominican Theologian in the
Shadow of Aquinas by Isabel Iribarren (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005), xiv + 311 pp.
D URANDUS of St. Pourçain, if he is known to theologians at all, is
generally known as the master of the opinio singularis. He makes sporadic
appearances in the dogmatic textbooks of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries as the sole purveyor of views that would make even the most
committed Ockhamist blush. Indeed, at a recent gathering of Thomists in
Utrecht, when someone blurted, “Well no one has ever believed that,” a
veritable chorus raced to the punch line, “Durandus did!” A kind friar
from California cried out, “Poor Durandus!” after this exchange. I
thought he lamented the unfortunate abuse suffered by his departed
confrere, but the Thomist sitting to my left quickly pointed out that I had
let my Franciscan sympathies mislead me.The sun-drenched Dominican,
he assured me, merely lamented the fact that Durandus was always wrong.
Two new works by Elizabeth Lowe and Isabel Iribarren do much to
dispel the darkness surrounding the renegade Dominican theologian.
They are two substantially different books and are best read in tandem.
Lowe provides a historical account of the controversy between
Hervaeus and Durandus with a broad view of the theological issues
involved. Her account outlines the educational structures of the Dominican order, its intellectual traditions, the political background of the
controversy, and the way it affected—and was affected by—the promotion of Aquinas as a theological authority. Lowe also devotes a chapter to
selected issues in the controversy, briefly focusing on debates about relations, cognition, and the scientific nature of theology.
Although Iribarren’s work is ordered chronologically and has much
interesting historical detail besides, its strength lies in its detailed reconstruction of the minutiae of early-fourteenth century scholastic arguments.Accordingly, the first part of Iribarren’s book outlines the doctrinal
and philosophical background from the Fourth Lateran Council to the
inception of the controversy between the two Dominicans. She begins
with the twin influences of St. Augustine and St. Anselm on Lateran
Trinitarian theology, follows with a chapter devoted to St. Thomas
Aquinas, and then one on the respective contributions of St. Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent, and Bl. John Duns Scotus to Trinitarian theology.

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In these chapters—and those that follow on Hervaeus and Durandus—
Iribarren carefully describes each theologian’s account of the divine relations, processions, and persons, and traces the kaleidoscopic path of these
Trinitarian issues as both Dominicans refine their terms and definitions
over the course of their twenty-year argument. Iribarren also backs all of
her interpretations with a truly impressive array of quotations from the
primary sources.
The general story one hears of the controversy between Hervaeus and
Durandus casts the former as a partisan of Thomas and the latter as a
nominalistic defender of the more traditional Augustinian theology. Such
accounts, as Lowe characterizes them, “soar along the plane of ideas and
abstractions, dipping now and then into [conventual politics] to acknowledge the occasional capitular acta or ecclesiastical censure” (67). By
contrast, Lowe’s account focuses quite squarely on the two men’s personalities, neither of whom come off as particularly likable people. She
judges both Dominicans “volatile” and likely to “rant and rave” (74).
Durandus, by all accounts a brilliant man, mitigates his own admirable
defense of free inquiry within the bounds of tradition with his propensity to refer to his detractors as idiota. In any event, after reading Lowe’s
account of the two men’s difficulties with each another, one can only
conclude that the Dominican order was not big enough for the both of
them. Pope Clement V made Durandus Bishop of Limoux in 1317, thus
freeing him of his Dominican duties; the Doctor resolutissimus went on to
antagonize a series of papal patrons. Lowe’s story is convincing, in part
because she spends time discussing several Dominicans, like Dietrich of
Freiburg, James of Metz, and Meister Eckhart, who criticized Aquinas’s
teachings without suffering censure.
The picture that emerges in Iribarren’s telling is complex, to say the least.
Rather than a dispute between one man who is faithful to the teachings of
Thomas Aquinas and one man who is not, we are treated to a fascinating
exchange between a Thomist who deploys Scotist insights in a battle with
another theologian attempting to remain true to the earlier Augustinian
language found in Bonaventure and Henry of Ghent even as he turns this
language to his own ends. Iribarren shows uncommon mastery of the technical vocabulary of scholasticism, and a truly remarkable skill in heading off
misunderstandings that come from a hasty translation of one scholastic
vocabulary into another.“This is not to say . . . ” is a steady—and welcome—
refrain in her technical discussions of Trinitarian theology. Of course, one
can quibble with her readings of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, but
scholastically inclined theologians can always quibble. I for one would have
liked to see Iribarren turn her fine mind more to the Trinitarian theology

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found in Scotus’s quodlibetal questions, although she rightly focuses on
Scotus’s Lectura for historical reasons. I, too, am inclined to shade Durandus
a tad closer to Henry of Ghent than Iribarren does.The Ghentian insistence
that esse is not said properly of relations in no way mitigates the strong use
of analogy that pervades Durandus’s exotic recasting of the language of
divine relations. In fact, the Ghentian dictum supports Durandus’s account,
since the esse of relations would be said secundum quid even if they possessed
a distinct modal reality (cf. 64, 121).
Beyond such technical details, two issues in the controversy between
Hervaeus and Durandus make Lowe’s and Iribarren’s works of some
significance for the interpretation of Thomas Aquinas today. First, both
books provide interesting perspectives on the construction of Thomas’s
theological authority in the early fourteenth century. It should go without saying that this construction required no small amount of skillful
negotiation, especially since Thomas did not agree with the “magisterial”
teaching of his day—that is to say, the teaching of the masters, primarily
at the University of Paris—nor did Hervaeus always follow the Angelic
Doctor to the letter. In light of the role Thomas has assumed in theology
after Aeterni Patris, the way in which Hervaeus replaced the common
teaching with a highly individual common teacher in order to bolster his
own political machinations is eye-opening, to say the least. Secondly, the
controversy between Hervaeus and Durandus raises similar issues about
the normative role of Thomistic metaphysics in Catholic philosophy. Over
the last century, we have seen Wittgensteinian Thomists attack allegedly
Cartesian ones, and these supposed Cartesians set themselves against a
wide variety of Kantian Thomists. We have seen Thomists build their
metaphysics on Bergsonian insights, and we have seen a Thomist with
distinctive Sartrean and Heideggarian overtones write a history of metaphysics in which everyone, Augustine and Bonaventure included, stands
accused of falling into the abyss of essentialism. Even as more scholastically
inclined theologians return to the commentarial tradition, one is
confronted with the multifarious interpretations of Capreolus, John of St.
Thomas, Cajetan, Bañez, Garrigou-Lagrange, and—it must be acknowledged—Francisco Suárez. Of course, nothing less than the proper understanding of Aquinas is at stake in these squabbles, but as the increasingly
elusive quarry of “Thomistic metaphysics” assumes dogmatic stature, I fear
we run the risk of repeating the paradox of Jorge Luis Borges’s story
“Pierre Menard,Author of the Quixote.” One can imagine a Thomist, like
poor Pierre Menard, so concerned to understand the thought of his
master, that his lifelong researches produce, free of any outside influence,
every single word, and no more, of the saint’s Opera Omnia.

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Would Aquinas himself have welcomed non-Thomistic innovations in
order to make his own theological insights clearer? To raise the philosophical stakes somewhat, was Aquinas—as A. G. Sertillanges once put it,
“hardly an author, or even a man, but rather a channel connecting us
directly with intelligible truths”? Did the Angelic Doctor achieve the
most perfect form of metaphysics possible in via ? I think it of no small
significance that these two studies demonstrate that the Angelic Doctor’s
N&V
earliest and most fervent defenders did not think so.
Trent Pomplun
Loyola College in Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland

Ecumenism and Philosophy: Philosophical Questions for a
Renewal of Dialogue by Charles Morerod, O.P. (Naples, FL: Sapientia
Press, 2006), xxiii + 199 pp.
Tradition et unité des Chrétiens: Le dogme comme condition de
possibilité de l’œcuménisme by Charles Morerod, O.P. (Paris: Parole et
Silence, 2005), 248 pp.
E CUMENICAL theology is challenging precisely when it obliges us to
justify, or conversely tempts us to neutralize, the most fundamental principles of our confessional traditions.When Thomistic theology has functioned at its best in this domain as, for example, in the work of Charles
Journet, and Yves Congar, it has provided an impetus toward Christian
unity, but it has done so precisely by discerning ultimate theological
commitments and perennial ecclesiological principles. Swiss Dominican
Charles Morerod has recently produced an important and provocative
contribution to ecumenical theology that seeks to follow in this tradition.This two-volume project skillfully employs ideas from the Thomist
tradition to examine the causes of ecumenical division. Likewise, it
considers possible resources for future Christian unity in ecclesiological
“places” typically dismissed all too readily: living tradition, developing
dogma, and the dynamic role of the papacy. Perhaps most atypically,
Morerod’s work shows the relevance of recourse to Thomistic philosophy for the diagnosis of contemporary problems in ecumenism, and
second, uses convincingly Thomas Aquinas’s ideas about the theological
virtues to suggest ways to reinvigorate this latter project. Evidently, then,
this is an interesting contribution worthy of attentive study.
The first book of this two-volume series (itself originally published in
French as Oecuménism et philosophie by Parole et Silence in 2004) recognizes

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two phases in the development of modern ecumenism (xiii–xix). The
first phase, generally dated from the early decades of the twentieth
century to the mid-1970s, was marked by a progressive recognition
among Christians of a shared set of beliefs and practices, in the midst of
an increasingly post-Christian modern world. The movement sought to
emphasize the common heritage of the diverse Christian traditions and
aspired (genuinely, but sometimes prematurely) to a profound unity that
could overcome historically conditioned differences. A second phase,
however, of the last thirty years, has been marked by an increasing recognition of a crisis: There exist so-called “fundamental” differences intrinsic to diverse confessional traditions that seem insurmountable. In light of
this realization, the temptation exists to abandon the pursuit of Christian
unity, a temptation definitively rejected by the late Pope John Paul II in
Ut Unum Sint (1995). However, Morerod argues here (xix–xxii) that
continuation of the project requires a third phase characterized by
research into the nature and origins of such fundamental differences. In
view of this goal, he proposes to examine an often-neglected dimension
of the Protestant/Catholic divide: the competing philosophical conceptions of the ontological relationship between God and creatures in the
two traditions. In short, Morerod poses the question:What are the effects
of diverse philosophical perspectives upon the theological differences of
Catholic and Protestant ecclesiology, respectively? Can a better understanding of these historically received, sometimes unexamined philosophical tendencies facilitate a better understanding of the difficulties
confronted in ecumenical discussion?
In order to approach the doctrinal question, however, it is first necessary to see how actual notions of “ecumenical dialogue” themselves are
permeated by a contemporary epistemology stemming from the philosophy of the natural sciences. In the first part of the book (3–46), then,
Morerod examines the theories of Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul
Feyerabend concerning progress in scientific knowledge. These theorists
underscore the fact that science rarely has cause to exclude absolutely any
given theory, because there exist no sure criteria by which to verify every
aspect of a given theory. Instead, through a historical process of experimentation, the partial truths of various hypotheses in the sciences need to
be adopted, while experts may find one theory more useful to the organization of data than another. Plausible explanations can be found to be
intrinsically incommensurable with one another (in physics, for example),
even as their hypotheses remain simultaneously useful as “paradigms” of
explanation.The danger, therefore, is to prematurely exclude the legitimate
diversity of theories through the pretense to any kind of “totalitarian”

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explanation. Instead, a dialogue between persons holding partial perspectives is the inevitable route toward any form of longstanding truth.
It is easy to see the parallels between this account of epistemic certitude
and one that prevails among many ecumenists (27–34). Dogmatic truthclaims in various confessional traditions seem like unverifiable “hypotheses,”
with each tradition presenting itself as a true interpretation of Christianity.
These traditions themselves, however, could be seen as partial “adaptations”
of the Christian religion, drawn from diverse historical experiences. No
one tradition, then, can claim to have a “totalitarian” grasp of the doctrinal
truth of Christianity, or the fullness of means of salvation. Rather,“the very
idea of a specific ecclesiological model [or] sacramental model—is perceived
as violence” (34). However, in contrast to such perspectives, Morerod notes
that ecumenical dialogue itself is only possible if one presupposes a method
and object of faith other than the one present in the experimental sciences
(38–41). As Aquinas points out, knowledge of this object is not acquired
through experimental research, but received uniquely through faith in
divine revelation. But this revelation must be expressed in some kind of
doctrinal, ecclesial form. Consequently, because there exists a universal,
saving truth given in Christ, a doctrinal Christian confession of faith is both
possible and necessary (42–44). The unity of that confession is precisely
what is sought in ecumenical dialogue, and is the presupposition for the
existence of the latter.
In the second part of the book, the author peers into the more classical philosophical divide that exists between the Reformers and the
Catholic Church: that concerning the relation between human and divine
agency. The first sections of this part deal principally with the unstated
philosophical presuppositions of Luther, and the diagnostic of these views
by Cajetan during their theological debates in 1518 (59–93). Essentially,
Morerod provides evidence that Luther’s reaction to the Nominalist
theology of merit, particularly that of Gabriel Biel, safeguarded a “leftover” presupposition from that same theology. Following a derivative
metaphysics of univocity (indirectly inherited from Duns Scotus), Luther
often conceived of the activity of divine and human agents as intrinsically
exclusive of one another:Where God acts by grace to justify us, free will
is excluded, and vice versa. This theology of “concurrence” or rivalry
between divine and created causality was deeply to affect Luther’s theology of justification, his political doctrine of the two kingdoms, his sacramental theology, and even (according to Congar) his Christology.
Meanwhile, Cajetan perceived this metaphysical issue to be present in
Luther’s thought even during their initial debates, which concerned the
sacrament of penance. His own approach to the question was marked,

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therefore, by a self-consciously Thomistic application of the doctrine of
analogical causality. “For Cajetan, it is essential for all sacramental theology to understand the relation between God and his creatures in terms
of subordination and not concurrence” (80). In this view, God and the
creature can be simultaneous causes of the same effect in analogical, not
univocal, ways. God is the total cause of the existence of any creature, and
therefore he can create that reality in such a way that it is itself the origin
of genuine actions and results.When this process is “elevated” by God so
as to produce works of grace, the “instrumental” causality of the created
agent truly produces effects of grace.Yet it does so in strict dependence
upon God, without rivalry vis-à-vis Jesus Christ, and through no previous merit of its own. This “metaphysics of participation” allows us to
envisage an ecclesiology in which ministers are the delegated mediators
of grace, and yet no human act produces any effect except in complete
dependence upon the primary agency of God.
Morerod goes on to document the continued historical effects of a
“metaphysics of concurrence” in Calvin’s theology of the sacraments and
his ecclesiology (94–102). He then notes the ironical reapplication of the
principle in modern philosophers such as Hobbes and Kant (103–15).
Whereas the Reformers excluded the possibility of human agency in
certain domains in order to safeguard the transcendence of God, these
philosophers do the inverse. They interpret the absence of a discernable
causal analogy between God and the world as the occasion for a moral
and/or intellectual autonomy on the part of man, who must operate
without reference to either grace or speculative knowledge of God.
Finally, Morerod charts the continued and unmistakable influence of an
ontology of divine-human rivalry in twentieth-century Protestant
thought (117–51). Here, illustrations from Karl Barth, Paul Tillich,
modern ecumenical documents, and contemporary Protestant responses
to the Joint Declaration (1999) all offer ample evidence of the actual vitality of this original idea.The observation is noteworthy and the issue itself
deserves to become a standard point of reflection among ecumenists.
Finally, Morerod finishes with a discussion on the theological defensibility of a metaphysics of participation (153–71). Is it licit to relate so intimately a metaphysical conception of creation with the Catholic,
theological affirmation of human instrumental cooperation with God?
Here he makes two main points (161). First, philosophy is as unavoidable
as human nature, and therefore its reception into theology should be selfconscious and well-discerned, so as to be better proportioned to the service of divine revelation. Second, the reality of a human ministerial
participation in the work of salvation is manifest upon every page of the

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New Testament: in the acts of Christ and the apostles. Indeed, without
such a metaphysical perspective, it is impossible to conceive even of the
mystery of inspired Scripture as a composition that is simultaneously
human and divine. Most important, it provides the foundation for thinking ontologically about the Incarnation.Therefore,“where another metaphysics would obscure the Gospels . . . this metaphysics provides the basis
for a peaceable understanding of the relationship between causalities, as
expressed in the Gospels and the life of the Church” (162).
It follows from what has been said that Ecumenism and Philosophy contains
excellent analysis and offers numerous, significant insights.A chief complaint
is that there is not enough of it.The topic under consideration would well
merit at least another fifty to one hundred pages from such a competent
author. Detailed treatment of Aquinas’s theology of primary and secondary
causality would have strengthened the argument.The work discusses Scotus,
Luther, and Hobbes too briefly (in sometimes quite controversial terms);
and in doing so contains no treatment of William of Ockham, though he is
a central figure in the story.The discussions of Nietzsche and Barth are really
too brief to be helpful, and a more thorough treatment of each would have
better illustrated the contemporary applicability of the author’s point with
respect to postmodernist theology and atheology. With these reserves in
mind, however, the book is recommendable and important.
Morerod’s second volume, Tradition et unité des Chrétiens, is more internally unified and is perhaps the more original of the two works. It contains
a great deal of persuasive argument, and reveals the author’s competence in
engaging contemporary theological topics with resources drawn from the
Thomist tradition. The volume is very thought-provoking through its
consistently insightful use of Aquinas, John of St.Thomas, Journet, Congar,
and Jean-Marie Tillard in discussion with actual ecumenical questions.
The basic goal of Tradition et unité is to show that helpful resources for
Christian unity exist in three interrelated places that are commonly considered uniquely as sources of division: tradition, dogma, and the papacy. In
fact, as the subtitle of the work suggests, the argument ultimately seeks to
make a more radical point: There is no possibility of an authentic
ecumenism without a quest for dogmatic unity. Therefore, some kind of
doctrinal universalism is the condition of possibility for any perennial form
of Christian communion. What is especially compelling about the argument is how Morerod demonstrates its simultaneous applicability from
within both a Thomistic theology of ecclesial faith and the framework of
contemporary ecumenical research.
The first part of the book (11–44) deals with the philosophical and
theological question of “memory.”What is the nature and mode of human

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memory in its individual and collective forms? How does this dimension
of human anthropology function under the effects of grace as a necessary
element in the transmission of divinely revealed truth? The author draws
upon contemporary research in cognitive psychology to demonstrate that
the selections human beings make in our stored memories are highly
conditioned by what we consider the present and future importance of
our actual experiences.The act of memory connects both the body and
human reason with a set of expectations about the future, in light of a
person’s past. Likewise, on the collective level, the retelling of history
serves as a principle for cultural orientation toward a perceived future,
with reference to a common patrimony. Yet if “history” as a collective
memory is to help us negotiate the future, it must not be rendered ideologically simplistic or artificially uniform, as is often the case in a homogenized totalitarian (or consumerist) society.
On a theological level, numerous consequences follow from these
observations.This “natural” dimension of human culture is not destroyed
by grace, but in fact is present from the beginning of Christianity. The
New Testament writings themselves are products of “tradition” in the
sense that they are the self-conscious expression of a collective patrimony,
ordered toward the transmission of saving truth.The specifically Christian memory, then, is centered on Christ and has an “eschatological”
orientation toward the future. Because this supernatural center of Christian memory and expectation is present in the Eucharist, the liturgy
thereby becomes an acute expression (in spiritual and corporeal terms) of
the Christian collective identity. If this patrimony is to be communicated
intellectually (even within the liturgy itself), then the Church must order
its received beliefs synthetically, as in the Creed and other ecclesial forms
of doctrine.
The second part of Morerod’s study (45–105) treats a difficult and
important question: How should we understand the Church’s traditional
insistence on the unity of the Catholic faith in light of Vatican II’s affirmation of a doctrinal “hierarchy of truths”? According to Aquinas, the
Church’s articles of faith are “material” expressions of revealed truth
given by God, while God is the “formal object” of divine faith, as the one
who reveals himself. The rejection of even one of these truths, then,
carries with it an implicit rejection of the formal object: the divine source
of the teachings. “The act of confidence in God who reveals himself is
the existential foundation of every act of faith in this or that particular
article” (50). In fact, any genuine ecumenism necessarily presupposes a
divine origin of faith insofar as it must be based upon some kind of
objective truth claim. But paradoxically, this could lead us to the conclu-

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sion that those who do not adhere to the fullness of the Catholic faith in
fact lack faith as such. Morerod develops a response to this problem by
appeal to Cajetan and Journet. He develops their distinction between
heresy, a willful and obstinate refusal to assent to Catholic teaching, and
the non-culpable, sincere promotion of a Christian patrimony along with
erroneous or misguided conceptions.
For ecumenism, this raises the question of discerning an authentic
doctrinal patrimony. Morerod examines the seventeenth-century debate
between Pierre Jurieu and Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet on this question
(filled with fascinating arguments), and notes an irony in the Protestant
theologian’s solution. Jurieu claims that a common patrimony should be
discerned by the political consensus of a confederation of churches, and
the use of natural reason. But this means that the very elements that the
original Reformers wished to exclude from the process of divine revelation (extra-apostolic, human mediators/ecclesial tribunals) now become
arbiters of the content of divine revelation without any assurance of
divine assistance. Bossuet points out that this makes ecumenism (and its
doctrinal formulations) a matter of human politics. A study of the
contemporary Magisterium (from Unitatis Redintegratio to Ad tuendam
fidem ) suggests an alternative Catholic perspective. In fact the “hierarchy
of truths” proclaimed by Vatican II implies a center to revelation—Christ
and the Trinitarian mystery—which is shared by all Christians.“Subordinate truths” of the Catholic faith are not subordinate because they are in
any way less true, but because they can only be understood in light of
these “higher” truths. Catholic ecumenism, therefore, has the task of illustrating the implicit necessity (or fittingness) of the whole deposit of faith
in light of the commonly received “center” of the faith: the doctrines of
the Trinity and the Incarnation.
This conclusion leads to the third part of the book (117–41), which
concerns developing dogma as a vehicle for Christian unity. The first
point the author makes is that the Catholic Magisterium and Protestants
such as Calvin and Barth share a common aspiration: to formulate all
ecclesial, dogmatic assertions uniquely in reference to divine revelation.
For the Catholic Church, however, “it is because dogma defines what is
implicitly contained in the revelation, that its authority is inseparable
from that of the revelation” (111). The presupposition here is that the
Christian community is capable of resolving theological divisions by
recourse to some kind of internal process, discussion, and doctrinal
formulation. But this is the very presupposition of the ecumenical movement as well: “Whether these formulas are called ‘dogmas,’ or of some
other name with less negative connotations for certain Christians, the fact

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remains that one cannot revoke such formulations of faith without at the
same time revoking ecumenism as such” (131). True, the expression of
dogma is heavily conditioned at times by historical circumstances and a
reactive climate.Therefore, theology can seek to reformulate and nuance
the acquisitions of the Christian historical patrimony. This process is
continually undertaken not only by ecumenists, but also by the Catholic
Magisterium in dialogue with sister churches. However, the teleological
aim of such reconsideration is the more perfect, more explicit, and more
profound expression of shared Christian truth. It is a dogmatic procedure.
The need for dogma poses the painful ecumenical question of how a
unified body of Christians might finally have recourse to an ecclesial
means in order to determine the content of the doctrinal unity that they
share. For the Catholic theologian, this inevitably raises the question of
the Petrine ministry. In parts 4 and 5 of the book (139–217), Morerod
discusses a Catholic understanding of the exercise of the Petrine ministry
in a global, ecumenical context. Particularly interesting is his discussion
(in response to John Zizioulas) of the historical and theological arguments in favor of the papacy. Appealing here to Cajetan’s and John of St.
Thomas’s commentaries on Aquinas, he delineates extremely interesting
Thomistic “arguments of fittingness” in favor of a singular figure of final
doctrinal recourse. Following thinkers such as Marie-Joseph Le Guillou
and Tillard, he suggests ways in which the gift of such an authority is one
of the preconditions needed for a visible ecclesial communion. For
Catholic theology, the pope acts precisely as a principle of authentic
communion amidst diverse churches. His office seeks to safeguard the
unity of the “universal” Church, made up of particular churches, in and
through charity.
This vision need not translate into the early-modern Catholic request
that non-Catholic Christian churches “return to Rome.”The latter idea
was characteristic of Roman theology prior to Vatican II, but has, in a
certain sense, been definitively abandoned by the Magisterium (in particular with regard to the Orthodox churches, as Morerod points out).Yet
if today the Catholic Church insists that unity can be discovered only
through mutual conversion to Christ, does this not render superfluous
the unique role of the successor of Peter?
A double element is clearly present: the ministry of the successor of
Peter is necessary, but we must continually seek to better understand
the exercise of this ministry. . . .The renunciation of a call to “return to
Rome” as an ecumenical stance does not imply that full, visible unity
of all baptized persons would somehow be possible without the pope.
It should signal above all that non-Catholics must not think that the

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Catholic Church expects from them an acceptance of the ministry of
the pope identical with that which existed at the time when their
community became separated. (208–9)

Indeed, it is this question of the historically dynamic form of the Petrine
ministry that makes its “mode of exercise” a living question for
ecumenism.Those who seek a common doctrinal teaching and a fundamental unity of life among Christians need to reflect on the role of the
successor of Peter as one who may safeguard and facilitate that unity.
Finally, we can say that there is a harmonious unity between these two
books by Morerod. The first helps us to identify the underlying epistemological questions that differentiate the Protestant and Catholic understandings of human mediation in the Church. The second studies how
such mediation functions in the important forms of tradition, dogma, and
ecclesial authority. This allows the author to argue that there is an
inevitable role that communal agreement, doctrine, and the papacy must
play if there is to be some form of lasting Christian unity. Morerod’s
vision of a Thomistically inspired ecumenism is compelling and competent. One would look forward to the translation of other eventual works
by this author into the English language.
N&V
Thomas Joseph White, O.P.
Dominican House of Studies
Washington, DC