N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 295 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 295–300 295 The Audacity of Abortion MATTHEW LEVERING Ave Maria University & PETER J. LEITHART New Saint Andrews College NOTRE DAME’S decision to confer an honorary law degree on President Barack Obama has revealed and exacerbated divisions within American Catholicism. Some have defended the university by arguing that, despite his voting record, his endorsements from Planned Parenthood, and his presidential actions to date, Obama is, deep down, pro-life after all. His policies to help poor Americans, Douglas Kmiec has argued, prevent more abortions that anti-abortion legislation, which makes Obama more pro-life than most pro-lifers. Obama’s stance on abortion, though, is clear, and it is deeply rooted in his political outlook, as shown by his The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (New York: Random House, 2006). Obama begins The Audacity of Hope by invoking an American political tradition that, he thinks, has characterized the best of American politics from the Founders through Lincoln to the Civil Rights movement, a tradition “based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart” (2).This is the tradition enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, which, in Obama’s reading, presents an “idea of ordered liberty” that involves “a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or ‘ism,’ any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course, or drive both majorities and minorities into the cruelties of the Inquisition, the pogrom, the gulag, or the jihad” (93). Obama argues that all Americans support “the basic set of individual liberties identified by the Founders” (86), and this fundamental agreement should shape the public square more profoundly than sharp disagreements N&V_Spr09.qxp 296 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 296 Matthew Levering & Peter J. Leithart over, say, “personal decisions involving abortion” (86). No matter how often “we get in a tussle about abortion or flag burning” (89), we should all recognize that constitutional law is complex and open-ended. In Obama’s view, the Constitution simply “won’t tell us whether abortion is good or bad, a decision for a woman to make or a decision for a legislature” (92). In this respect Obama fears that pro-life activists, in their absolute religious certainty, undermine the “fundamental humility” (94) of “the Constitution and our democratic process” (94). For Obama, Lincoln is the greatest exemplar of the pragmatic tradition, and the model for Obama’s own political methods and aspirations. Lincoln fascinates Obama for a number of reasons: Illinois politics, his rapid rise from political obscurity to the presidency, his stand against the Mexican war, his support for a robust national government and public works projects, his gift for public speaking. Lincoln and Obama even share a physical resemblance (tall and gangly). Above all, Obama admires Lincoln for his struggle against slavery and for the pragmatic but determined tenacity with which he waged that battle. In Obama’s view, abstraction is the great enemy of the tradition represented by Lincoln—abstraction and the moral absolutism that Obama associates with it. To maintain his political bearings, Obama aims to rid his thinking of all “abstraction” (93) and to follow the Founders’“realism, their practicality and flexibility and curiosity, that ensured the Union’s survival” (94). Appealing to the example of his own mother, an empathetic sixties liberal, Obama endorses “the pragmatic, non-ideological attitude of the majority of Americans” (34). If Obama understands himself as Lincoln,Alan Keyes—erstwhile presidential candidate and Obama’s Republican opponent for the 2004 Senate seat—is the Stephen Douglas of Obama’s narrative. Seemingly arrogant, bombastic, and absolutist, Keyes represents everything that Obama wants to correct in American politics. And Keyes is no aberration; rather, he embodies “the essential vision of the religious right in this country, shorn of all caveat, compromise, or apology” (212). Obama is irritated at Keyes for the “implicit accusation” that “I was not a true Christian” (212). Faced with a fire-breather like Keyes, what is a pragmatist to do? At the outset of his chapter on “Faith,” Obama describes how empathy informs his interactions with pro-lifers. He feels “a pang of shame” (196) when a pro-life doctor at the University of Chicago calls his attention to a post on Obama’s own website that promises to “fight ‘right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose’ ” (195).While empathy has its limits—there are some “in the antiabortion movement N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 297 The Audacity of Abortion 297 for whom I had no sympathy” (196)—Obama suggests that most pro-life activists are regular folks who deserve a sympathetic hearing. To drive home his point, he describes a conversation he had with a pro-life protester at a campaign event. He disagrees with the protester’s contention that abortion is “murdering babies” (197), and he tries to arouse the protester’s empathy by explaining “that few women made the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually” (197) and “that any pregnant woman felt the full force of the moral issues involved and wrestled with her conscience when making that heart-wrenching decision” (197).What are “the moral issues involved” in the decision to abort a human life? Obama does not say. Rather, focusing upon the woman’s difficult decision, he warns that turning the matter into a public issue will result in further suffering due to unsafe abortions. Obama extends a “presumption of good faith” to pro-lifers, and he expects pro-lifers to do the same for him. He lays out a three-step process for restoring mutual respect and, possibly, achieving consensus. First, we should all grant that those with whom we disagree have reached their conclusions in good faith. Second, he challenges all of us to be consistent in our views, rather than focus our outrage upon a few wedge issues. Third, he points out that disagreement often emerges not at the level of what is right and wrong, but on the level of “whether we need the coercive arm of the state to enforce our values, or whether the subject is one best left to individual conscience and evolving norms” (221). With somewhat backhanded praise, Obama observes that pro-life citizens have shown their willingness to compromise by supporting laws banning abortion with the exception of rape and incest.This exception, he argues, reveals that pro-life and pro-choice citizens have more in common than might at first appear, since he imagines that “even the most ardent pro-choice advocates” are willing “to accept some restrictions on late-term abortion” (222). Both sides, then, can agree in some sense that “a fetus is more than a body part and that society has some interest in its development” (222). Everyone should therefore devote their energies to seeking ways of avoiding unwanted pregnancy. But things are not so simple. Pragmatists keeps bumping into absolutes, not just absolutists, and the problem this poses for Obama is especially evident in his efforts to sort through the abortion debate. Abortion appears over twenty-five times in Obama’s book, and he returns to the issue in six of the book’s nine chapters. He finds to be “undeniably difficult” (37), and adds, “In Illinois, as is true everywhere, abortion vexes” (51). Among other things, it is vexing because it forces Obama to ask whether, in some cases, “uncompromising commitments” are necessary. N&V_Spr09.qxp 298 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 298 Matthew Levering & Peter J. Leithart He recognizes that “it has not always been the pragmatist, the voice of reason, or the force of compromise, that has created the conditions for liberty.”While the pragmatist Lincoln finally eliminated slavery,“the hard, cold facts remind me that it was unbending idealists like William Lloyd Garrison who first sounded the clarion call for justice” (97). This puts Obama in a bind. He remains open to the possibility that pro-life activists (or, he adds, animal rights activists) might be right, despite his deep disagreement with their belief. In the controversy over slavery, after all, absolutists were right—and so “I am robbed even of the certainty of uncertainty—for sometimes absolute truths may well be absolute” (97). Even as he admits the possibility of absolute truths, he gives way as regards his opposition to abstraction. He argues that facts drawn from “the science of fetal development” (127) won’t settle the abortion debate, since in his view the abortion debate turns on abstractions, especially on the question of “personhood.”Those who believe that life begins at conception will not be able to agree with those who, with Obama, “consider the fetus an extension of the woman’s body until birth” (222). Against Obama’s appeal to fact-reliant pragmatism elsewhere, the science of fetal development does not indicate that the fetus in the womb can be described as “an extension of the woman’s body.” Obama is presumably referring to the dependence of the fetus upon the woman’s body, a dependence that takes us back to “abstract” questions of what constitutes “personhood” and “reproductive freedom.” As Obama recognizes, such abstract definitions of personhood were at the heart of the debate over slavery. The Founders’ Constitution gave slaves a 3/5 personhood and privileged the freedom of slaveowners visà-vis their property. Obama can’t help remembering that the anti-slavery absolutists were right. Pro-abortion arguments sound suspiciously like the pro-slavery arguments that treated some human beings as semipersons and as extensions of their owners. No wonder, then, that Obama admits that Keyes got “under my skin in a way that few people ever have” (211). It isn’t only Keyes’s charge that Obama adopted “a ‘slaveholder’s position’ in my defense of abortion rights” (210). It is that Keyes, and the pro-life position he advocates, challenges Obama to recognize that a politics sheared of abstractions and absolutes will end up establishing injustice by decree. Indeed, Obama fancies himself a Lincoln, but The Audacity of Hope is finally haunted by the opposite possibility. In returning over and over again to the topic of abortion, Obama ends up sounding more like Stephen Douglas, who argued for national healing based on reducing human persons to extensions of their masters.This leaves Obama’s arch- N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 299 The Audacity of Abortion 299 enemy Keyes with the role of Lincoln, who defended the humanity of the enslaved person. Keyes is right: at the heart of The Audacity of Hope, we find a Douglas-like “slaveholder’s position.” Herein lies the tragic irony of the University of Notre Dame’s decision to bestow upon PresiN&V dent Obama an honorary doctorate in law. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 301 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 301–26 301 Law, Pinckaers, and the Definition of Christian Ethics J OHN A. C UDDEBACK Christendom College Front Royal,Virginia S INCE the Second Vatican Council’s call for a renewal of moral theology, numerous efforts have been made to return to the sources of Christian ethics, but none more successful than that of Servais Pinckaers, O.P. Crowned, in effect, by the appearance of Veritatis Splendor, his writings have eloquently insisted that Christian moral reflection must begin and end with the New Law of the Gospel. “Clearly, not only ethics but the whole of theology converges in the treatise on the evangelical Law, from the moment of its definition.”1 It is something of a paradox, then, that Pinckaers’s definition of Christian ethics does not include an explicit reference to law as a principle of the science. Here is his definition: Christian ethics is the branch of theology that studies human acts so as to direct them to a loving vision of God seen as our true, complete happiness and our final end.This vision is attained by means of grace, the virtues, and the gifts, in the light of revelation and reason.2 1 Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. (Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 178. See also,“The Return of the New Law to Moral Theology” in The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 2005), 384, where Pinckaers states, “At last, after seven centuries of negligence, the Law of the Gospel now finds its true place at the heart of Christian morality, thanks to the Catechism and the encyclical [Vertitatis Splendor ].” 2 Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 8. N&V_Spr09.qxp 302 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 302 John A. Cuddeback He introduces this as “My Own Definition of Christian Ethics,” and he gives it a line-by-line explanation.3 Most important for a consideration of law is his explanation of the sixth part:“by means of grace, the virtues, and the gifts. . . .”4 Pinckaers writes: A system of morality in which considerations of beatitude, interior acts, and finality predominate will naturally be divided according to the virtues—those qualities of heart and soul that are the interior, lasting principles of action—rather than according to external commandments, which determine obligations. He concludes his explanation of this part saying:“These are the essential elements of a system of morality based on the Gospel. This is why I include them in my definition. I shall return to them again.”5 Pinckaers looks to distinguish his view of ethics from a dominant alternative, in which ethics is based simply on obligation and law. I take up the issue of the definition of Christian ethics inasmuch as it is expressive of how we conceive the place of law in ethics.While I concur that we must distinguish authentic Christian ethics from nominalistinfluenced ethics, I suggest that since law properly understood has a central place in ethics, it likewise has a central place in the definition. In omitting law from the definition of Christian ethics, Pinckaers seems to make the very mistake he seeks to correct. This omission in Pinckaers’s definition is all the more puzzling given his method of interpreting Aquinas, which is to save him from nominal3 It should be noted that in his “comprehensive definition of Christian ethics” at the end of the second chapter, Pinckaers does mention law. Here is that definition: “Christian ethics is that branch of theological wisdom that studies human actions so as to direct them to the loving vision of God, which is complete happiness and our final end. This is done under the impulse of the theological and moral virtues, especially charity and justice, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is effected through experiences of the human condition such as suffering and sin, and is implemented by laws of behavior and commandments, which reveal God’s ways to us” (The Sources of Christian Ethics, 44). 4 It has been suggested to me that law can be seen as included in the seventh and final part of the definition: “in the light of revelation and reason.” But in the explanation of this part Pinckaers in no way adverts to law, while in the explanation of the sixth part he refers to commands in order to explain that they are not the principle of division in ethics. 5 Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 13. Of definitions Pinckaers says: “A definition told you the nature of the subject you were going to study, its essential elements and in general the material it would cover” (1) and “the definition of a science like Christian ethics safeguards and shapes the thinking of those who pursue it and provides a springboard for action” (8). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 303 Pinckaers on Law 303 ist readings by privileging the teleological character of his moral theology. Indeed the very virtues and gifts that Pinckaers stresses are the end of law as Aquinas understands it. If we follow Pinckaers’s lead in reading Aquinas in light of his scriptural and patristic roots, we should conclude that the entire moral life can be seen as a response to the law of God. My argument that law belongs in the definition of Christian ethics stands on the relation of virtue and law.Virtue is the proper effect of law. But a proper effect cannot be understood except through its proper cause,6 and thus law is essential to understanding virtue. But virtue is the subject according to which the science of ethics is divided, as Pinckaers has noted. Hence, law is likewise essential to the science of ethics.7 In this essay I shall examine Aquinas’s view of law with an eye to making clear how law deserves a place, and indeed a central place, in the definition of Christian ethics. I will first examine the causality of law, focusing on the natural law and the New Law as instilling inclinations in man; in this instilling I find the archetype of the causality of law. Seeing law as instilling inclinations is the ground for understanding the causality of law as prior to virtue. To this priority I turn in the second section, where I consider Aquinas’s position that virtue is the proper effect of law. The relation of proper cause to proper effect is the heart of my above argument that law belongs in the definition of ethics. In the third section I address how Aquinas expresses moral perfection in terms of the precepts of the New Law—a law that exercises legal causality most perfectly. If perfection is in precepts, this is further reason to include law in the definition of ethics. In my conclusion I suggest that since law is a work of wisdom, its central place in ethics is very compatible with Pinckaers’s critique of nominalist-influenced ethics. The Causality of Law: Instilling Inclinations The division of his universal moral treatment in the prima secundae reveals Aquinas’s understanding of the moral life.The preface to question ninety is the introduction to the treatment of extrinsic principles. This text is especially revelatory of Aquinas’s view of law’s place in ethics: “But the extrinsic principle moving to good is God, who both instructs us by 6 Cf. Aquinas, De potentia Dei, q. 3, a. 5, ad 1. 7 This is not the only argument that law belongs in the definition; it is the one I have chosen to give here.We might also note that if, as Aquinas says, “the subject of moral philosophy is human action ordered to an end” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, trans. C. I. Litzinger (Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1993), bk. 1, lect. 1, #3, then the primordial principle by which rational order is put into action—that is, law—must be essential to this science. N&V_Spr09.qxp 304 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 304 John A. Cuddeback means of law, and assists us by grace.”8 Aquinas wants us to see God himself as the extrinsic principle moving to good, and law and grace as two ways that he does it.While human law is first in the order of knowledge or discovery,9 clearly implied here is that the first instance of law is in God. The law in which the essence of law resides most fully, and in relation to which any other law is called law, is law in God.10 To understand the role of law in the moral life, then, it is most important to focus on the natural law and the New Law, which are nothing other than specific promulgations of the eternal law.11 In these two laws, legal causality is at the grounding and the perfection of the moral life. The quotation from the preface to question ninety also focuses our attention on the extrinsic character of law,12 or the truth that in law there is another agent that is exercising causality on the human agent.13 This extrinsic character, however, is in no way at odds with law’s exercising a kind of interior causality. Indeed, law in its truest form (when acting most perfectly as law), does precisely this: move from within. A fundamental interiority in the causality of law is already indicated in Aquinas’s speaking of the instructive character of law.14 Law is aliquid rationis, and the proper causality of law is in the conferral of knowledge, knowledge of something to be done.15 Of course the instruction of law can be given, 8 Summa theologiae I–II, q. 90, prologue. 9 Thus in the analogical understanding of law certain aspects of the essence of law, such as that it must be from one who has care of the community, are first of all evident in our experience of human legislation. See ST I–II, q. 90, a. 3. 10 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 3. 11 Human law, a true law and the one most evident to us in its workings, is constituted by conclusions and determinations of the natural law (ST I–II, q. 95, a. 2). 12 That law is always an extrinsic principle can especially be seen in Aquinas’s holding that one never gives law to oneself (ST I–II, q. 93, a. 5) and that law in the primary sense (essentialiter ) exists in the one measuring and ruling, and secondarily (participative ) in the one measured and ruled. See ST I–II, q. 90, a. 1, ad1 and q. 91, a. 6 13 For Aquinas law is ultimately best understood as a matter of God moving his creatures to their end. Cf. Romanus Cessario, O.P., Introduction to Moral Theology (Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 61. In his discussion of the eternal law, he notes: “In every good action which merits eternal life, God and the human person fully exercise distinct but related causalities” (61). 14 Aquinas’s treatment of teaching in De veritate, question 11 is helpful on this point. Teachers are extrinsic efficient causes of a profoundly interior perfection: learning. 15 While the eternal law, as we will see shortly, does exercise a causality on nonrational creatures by giving them inclinations, this is not the full or proper causality of law.This is apparent in the truth that promulgation, or making law known, is of the essence of law (ST I–II, q. 90, a. 4).Aquinas does say that in non-rational creatures the “impression of an active intrinsic principle” corresponds to the N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 305 Pinckaers on Law 305 and received, in various ways, ways that admit of varying degrees of interiority.16 Yet for Aquinas, the more perfect the law, the more it moves from within.To further illustrate and develop this point, I want to highlight the causality of law in its bringing about inclinations, which are perfections of the human agent.17 “Every law,” says Aquinas, “aims at being obeyed by those who are subject to it.” He proceeds to identify the being-well-subjected-to-theruler with the “virtue” of the subject.18 Thus the end of law is virtue,19 a good, habitual inclination. Though not all laws succeed in bringing promulgation of law to rational creatures (ST I–II, q. 93, a. 5, ad 1); yet by this “impression” they participate in the eternal law in a lower mode (cf. ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2 and q. 93, a. 6). See also ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2, ad 3:“But because the rational creature partakes thereof [eternal reason] in an intellectual and rational manner, therefore the participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is properly called a law, since a law is something pertaining to reason, as stated above.” 16 For instance, regarding how the knowledge of the law is given, it can be interiorly “indita,” as in natural law, or it can be conveyed by exterior writing, as in human law. Regarding how it is received by the one subject to it, it can be in accord with one’s habitual desires, or contrary to them, and thus perceived as a coercive, exterior force. 17 In seeing law as causing inclinations, we will not forget that the proper causality of law is first of all cognitive. See S. Brock, “Natural Inclination and the Intelligibility of the Good in Thomistic Natural Law,” Vera Lex VI.1–2 (Winter 2005): 61–65.Again,Aquinas introduces law as how God moves us to the good through instruction (ST I–II, q. 90, prologue). Rational inclination follows upon insight. On this most important point see especially ST I, q. 60, a. 1, sed contra: “Love results from (sequitur ) knowledge; for, nothing is loved except it be first known, as Augustine says (De Trin. x, 1, 2). But there is natural knowledge in the angels. Therefore there is also natural love.” In the corpus he says:“But it is common to every nature to have some inclination; and this is its natural appetite or love.This inclination is found to exist differently in different natures; but in each according to its mode. Consequently, in the intellectual nature there is to be found a natural inclination according to will (secundum voluntatem).” Thus in intellectual creatures natural inclination/love follows upon natural knowledge. It should be noted that at times the term “inclination” seems to be used by St.Thomas to describe both the knowledge and the inclination (in the more specific and proper sense) that follows upon it, as for instance in ST I–II, q. 62, a. 3 quoted below. This might be explained by what he says in ST I–II, q. 17, a. 4, ad 1: “If the distinct powers are not ordained to one another, their acts are diverse simply. But when one power is the mover of the other, then their acts are, in a way, one: since ‘the act of the mover and the act of the thing moved are one act’ (Phys. iii, 3).” I am grateful to Lawrence Dewan, O.P., for pointing this out to me. 18 ST I–II, q. 92, a. 1. 19 See ST I–II, q. 96, a. 3, ad 2 and q. 100, a. 9, obj. 2 and ad 2, and In Ethic. II, lect. l, #251. N&V_Spr09.qxp 306 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 306 John A. Cuddeback about good inclinations, or in any case habitual ones,20 the lawgiver’s intention is to do so, for this is to make the subject good. To better understand law as giving inclinations, let us turn to what is perhaps the most fundamental instance of the causality of law: eternal law’s impressing upon things their natural inclinations: “it is evident that all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends.”21 In stating what the eternal law is Aquinas explains that “the ratio of divine wisdom, as moving all things to their end, bears the character of a law.”22 The most fundamental way in which God moves things to their end (thus, the causality of law) is by giving them their natural inclinations.23 This obtains in the case of man too: Wherefore it (the rational creature) has a share of the eternal reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.24 Man’s rational participation in the eternal law, called the natural law, is the source of his human natural inclinations.25 20 I add this qualification insofar as even in the instance of human law promulgated among men who must be coerced (where we would least think of law as causing inclination), we can say a kind of inclination is brought about precisely through coercion. And of course coercion itself is ordered to bringing about the result that the agent acts from his own habitual inclination, that is, from virtue. See ST I–II, q. 92, a. 2, ad 4. 21 ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2. 22 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 1. 23 See also ST I–II, q. 91, a. 6 for a clear statement of how natural inclinations are from God as legislator : “Accordingly under the divine lawgiver various creatures have various natural inclinations. . . .” 24 ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2 (emphasis added). 25 In some of Pinckaers’s texts it seems that he does not take account of this point, inasmuch as he treats inclination as prior to law, and thus the latter seems to be in the service of the former. Here are a few texts from Sources : “How, then, can we claim to base moral law on inclinations, natural though they be? Yet this is what St.Thomas did, and apparently he found no great problem. For him, natural law was the expression, in the form of precepts, of our natural inclinations, which were guided by our inclination to goodness and truth” (404–5).“According to St.Thomas, the natural inclination to the good is expressed in the proposition that good is to be done and evil avoided” (420). “The natural inclination to goodness comes first, at the beginning of the moral order” (422). “Thus understood, natural inclinations form natural law . . .” (452). In Pinckaers’s Morality: The Catholic View (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2003), one of the N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 307 Pinckaers on Law 307 That law aims at giving inclinations is especially evident in the most perfect expression of the eternal law, the New Law. Here law has come to its fullest power, precisely inasmuch as now it has a unique inclining power, in the form of grace.26 The inclinations instilled by the New Law, while they must be appropriated by the person himself,27 themselves fundamentally enable and even constitute the perfection of man, and of his natural inclinations.Thus we see that one and the same eternal law is formative of the human person’s natural inclinations, through natural law, and then further perfects these inclinations through the New Law. A somewhat lengthy text in which Aquinas compares the New and the Old Laws especially highlights law as instilling inclinations: All the differences assigned between the Old and New Laws are gathered from their relative perfection and imperfection. For the precepts of every law prescribe acts of virtue. Now the imperfect, who as yet are not possessed of a virtuous habit, are inclined in one way to perform virtuous acts, while those who are perfected by the possession of virtuous habits are inclined in another way. For those who as yet are not endowed with virtuous habits, are inclined to the performance of sections in the chapter on natural law is titled:“The Five Inclinations that Establish the Natural Law Within Us.” While it must be granted that, as Aquinas says in question 94, article 2, “according to the order of natural inclinations, is the order of the precepts of the natural law,” that is, that the two orders correspond to one another, one still has priority. My point here is that there is a fundamental priority of law over inclination, precisely inasmuch as the latter is the fruit of the rational/cognitive aspect of the former. Cf. L. Dewan, who is insistent on the priority of knowledge over inclination, in “Jacques Maritain and the Philosophy of Cooperation,” in L’altérité, Vivere ensemble différents, ed. M. Gourgues and G. Mailhiot (Montreal: Bellarmin, 1986), 116–17, including note 26, and “St. Thomas, Our Natural Lights, and the Moral Order,” Angelicum 57 (1990): 292–93, especially note 27. 26 In ST I–II, q. 106, a. 1, ad 2, Aquinas compares the New Law with natural law. Both are “indita homini,” that is, internally promulgated, but the New law is unique in also “adiuvans ad implendum”—aiding in the fulfillment.This aiding, we might say, is in the form of the inclining power of grace, grace being what is principal in the New Law (q. 106, a. 1). Thus the New Law inclines more perfectly. It seems that this more perfect inclining is most of all in the infusion of the supernatural virtues, which flow from grace (see ST I–II, q. 110, a. 4, ad 1). In the generation of the theological virtues we see the structure once again of knowledge yielding inclination (faith precedes hope and charity in the order of generation, ST I–II, q. 62, a. 4), and yet also here there is a unique primacy of charity, without which neither faith nor hope is fully “formed,” or perfect (ibid.). 27 What I refer to here is the role of freedom (liberum arbitrium ) in acting out human perfection. See for instance ST I–II, q. 113, a. 3 on the necessity of a free act in justification and q. 114, a. 1c and ad 1 on the role of freedom in meriting. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 308 John A. Cuddeback 308 virtuous acts by reason of some outward cause: for instance, by the threat of punishment, or the promise of some extrinsic rewards, such as honor, riches, or the like. Hence the Old Law, which was given to men who were imperfect, that is, who had not yet received spiritual grace, was called the “law of fear,” inasmuch as it induced men to observe its commandments by threatening them with penalties; and is spoken of as containing temporal promises. On the other hand, those who are possessed of virtue are inclined to do virtuous deeds through love of virtue, not on account of some extrinsic punishment or reward. Hence the New Law, which derives its pre-eminence from the spiritual grace instilled into our hearts, is called the “Law of love;” and it is described as containing spiritual and eternal promises, which are objects of the virtues, chiefly of charity. Accordingly such persons are inclined of themselves to those objects, not as to something foreign but as to something of their own. For this reason, too, the Old Law is described as “restraining the hand, not the will” since when a man refrains from some sins through fear of being punished, his will does not shrink simply from sin, as does the will of a man who refrains from sin through love of righteousness: and hence the New law, which is the law of love, is said to restrain the will.28 I would like to glean two points from this rich text concerning law as inclining to the good. First, law is fundamentally about inclining subjects to their end, for Aquinas distinguishes two kinds of law precisely by how they incline to the end. Second, we see that in going from Old Law to New Law we are moving from the less perfect to the more perfect law. There is a tendency, I believe, to hold that the New Law acts less like law than the Old law does.29 But Aquinas is at pains to show here that the New Law does everything that law as such does, but does it better than the Old Law.Where the Old Law inclined through penalties and rewards that were themselves extrinsic to the human good,30 the New Law inclines through a love of the human good itself (albeit, in its supernatural fulfillment). Each kind of law can be said to “restrain” (cohibere) those subject to it. The “restraining” of the New Law is precisely in inclining 28 ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1, ad 2. 29 This tendency might take mistaken encouragement from St. Paul’s words on the Old Law, in which he at times speaks of the Old Law simply as “law.” That St. Paul’s judgment of the Old Law does not pertain to law as such should be clear from many of his own words, as well as Our Lord’s. Cf. C. H. Dodd, Gospel and Law (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 64–68, for a response to those Christians who use Paul as ground for their “anti-legal sentiments.” 30 It is thus that Aquinas uses the phrase “ex aliqua causa extrinsica” here as regards the Old Law, a phrase fully distinct in meaning from the labeling of all law as an extrinsic principle in the moral life. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 309 Pinckaers on Law 309 the will to the good as such. Here, then, we see the New Law as the perfect fulfillment of that other law that inclines to the good as such— the natural law. The Proper Effect of Law:Virtue That law is ordered to virtue, a point that Pinckaers emphasizes,31 goes hand in hand with understanding law as instilling inclinations.The relation between law and virtue is the heart of the argument that law belongs in the definition of ethics. Central to Aquinas’s understanding of law is his assertion that virtue is the proper effect of law.32 If virtue is the proper effect of law, then law must be the proper cause of virtue. Law can be seen as a cause of virtue on the level of natural law, human law, and the New Law. Human law, which we will not consider here, is of course a cause of virtue through its instruction and through its coercive power.33 Natural law is a cause of acquired virtue, through its instilling of naturally known principles and the consequent natural inclinations, and New Law is a cause of infused virtues. Let us briefly consider the natural law and then the New Law as causes of virtue. In ST I–II, q. 63, a. 1, Aquinas asks whether virtue is in man “from nature.” In his subtle answer he says that virtue is natural to man only “inchoatively” (secundum quondam inchoationem ). Thus “certain naturally known principles of both knowledge and action” are called the seeds, the seminalia, of virtue. The notion of seed conveys that while these principles are not the perfected habit, they are the necessary source for such a habit.These naturally known principles of action are known through the causality of natural law.34 When Aquinas proceeds to enquire in the next article whether virtue is caused in us by habituation, his affirmative answer requires that he squarely face an objection based in the Aristotelian principle that the effect cannot be more noble than the cause. He simply responds:“[C]ertain seeds or principles of acquired virtues pre-exist in us by nature. These principles are more excellent than the virtues acquired through them.”35 In 31 See for instance Pinckaers, Sources, 453 and 48. 32 ST I–II, q. 92, a. 1: “Unde manifestum est quod hoc sit proprium legis inducere subiectos ad propriam ipsorum virtutem. Cum igitur virtus sit ‘quae facit bonum habentem’, sequitur quod proprius effectus legis sit bonos facere eos quibus datur. . . .” 33 See ST I–II, q. 95, a. 1, where the whole argument for why there are human laws is their role in forming virtue. 34 That the seminalia are from law is explicit in ST I–II, q. 51, a. 1: “the principles of common law are called the seminalia virtutum.” 35 ST I–II, q. 63, a. 2, ad 3 (emphasis added). N&V_Spr09.qxp 310 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 310 John A. Cuddeback the corpus of the article he lays the foundation for this response when he says: “[W]hatever is ruled by human reason is ruled by the divine law too.” Naturally known principles have their causal efficacy from the eternal law itself. It is thus that earlier in the prima secundae Aquinas explains that the goodness of the human will depends on the eternal law: Wherever a number of causes are subordinate to one another, the effect depends more on the first than on the second cause: since the second cause acts only in virtue of the first. Now it is from the eternal law, which is the divine reason, that human reason is the rule of the human will, from which the human will derives its goodness. Hence it is written (Ps 4:6, 7): “Many say: who showeth us good things? The light of thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us,” as though to say: “The light of our reason is able to show us good things, and guide our will, in so far as it is the light of, i.e., derived from, thy countenance.”36 In explaining, then, how the repetition of actions causes virtue, Aquinas says that “human virtue . . . can be caused by human acts: inasmuch as such acts proceed from reason, by whose power and rule the aforesaid good is established.”37 Since reason’s power and rule is only from the divine, or natural, law, it is clear that for Aquinas the seminalia caused by the natural law are the very cause by which acquired virtues are acquired through repeated action.38 I take this point to be of the first importance. Human reason is the active power that measures human actions in such a way that these actions can be productive of moral virtue. And human reason has this power only by virtue of its natural participation in the eternal law. In this same article (q. 63, a. 2) Aquinas proceeds to speak of some virtues which direct man “to good as defined by the Divine Law, and not by human reason,” and these virtues are not able to be caused by human actions and thus must be infused by divine operation. It is the New Law of course that orders man to his supernatural end, through the infusion of grace and its consequent virtues, theological and moral.39 We will not 36 ST I–II, q. 19, a. 4. It is worth noting that the Psalm quoted here is the same one used in q. 91, a. 2 in explanation of the natural law. That the natural law is in question here is also clear from Aquinas’s position that the natural law is the first measure of practical reason. See ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2, ad 2 and q. 95, a. 2. 37 ST I–II, q. 63, a. 2 (emphasis added). 38 Dewan,“St.Thomas, Our Natural Lights, and the Moral Order,” 290:“[O]ur grasp of the sapiential notions [is] the principle of all human . . . moral cultivation.” 39 On the infusion of supernatural moral virtues, see the article after the one we are considering (that is, ST I–II, q. 63, a. 3). Aquinas opens with the principle “Effects must be proportionate to their causes and principles,” and proceeds to N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 311 Pinckaers on Law 311 enquire deeply into this level of law’s causing of virtue.Yet I do want to advert to the unique importance of the causality of the New Law inasmuch as infused charity is the form, root, and mother of all virtues.40 The reasoning of De caritate, question 2 is of particular interest. Grace makes man a citizen in the heavenly Jerusalem. Now since certain virtues are necessary to being a citizen of this heavenly city, they are infused. Foremost among these virtues is charity, the love of the common good of that city, which love is necessary for any other virtues. Given this reasoning, it seems especially fitting that charity be a fruit, as well as the end, of law. Law is always a matter of order to the ultimate end, the common good; indeed law is at the root of the most fundamental unities of order: the universe and the polis. In De caritate, question 2 Aquinas has identified charity as the love of the common good of the supernatural city. Law, as the cause of the order to the common good of the city, fittingly also causes the love of that common good. We can now perhaps better appreciate Aquinas’s assertion that virtue is the proper effect of law, and thus also that law is the proper cause of virtue. It will be helpful first to secure what Aquinas means by “proper effect.” A survey of his use of this phrase reveals that a proper cause and its proper effect have a commensurate universality.41 It also reveals that while a proper cause is not the only per se cause of the proper effect, it is the cause by whose power another cause can cause the proper effect. These points become clear in a very helpful text from De potentia Dei : I answer that in God there is no distinction between existence and essence. In order to make this clear we must observe that when several causes producing various effects produce one effect in common in addition to their various effects, they must needs produce this common effect by virtue of some higher cause to which this effect properly belongs.The reason for this is that since a proper effect is produced by a particular cause in respect of its proper nature or form, different causes having different natures and forms must needs have their respective different proper effects: so that if they have one effect in common, this is not the proper effect of any one of them, but of some higher assert that acquired virtues are to principles naturally in us, as infused moral virtues are to the theological virtues. 40 See De caritate, q. 3 and ST II–II, q. 23, a. 8. 41 The examples are many. See for instance, ST I, q. 8, a. 1:“Now since God is very being by His own essence, created being must be His proper effect; as to ignite is the proper effect of fire.”And in ST II–II, q. 29, a. 3,Aquinas argues that peace is the proper effect of charity; here the objections and the replies make it clear that only charity is the proper cause of peace, and that indeed peace cannot be had without charity. N&V_Spr09.qxp 312 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 312 John A. Cuddeback cause by whose virtue they act: thus pepper, ginger and the like, which differ in characteristics, have the common effect of producing heat; yet each one has its peculiar effect differing from the effects of the others. Hence we must trace their common effect to a higher cause, namely fire, to whom that effect properly belongs.42 Aquinas proceeds to apply this point to “being” (esse ) as an effect.While all created causes have being as an effect, they differ by causing different kinds of being.There must be some higher cause, by virtue of which the lower causes cause being, of which being is the proper effect.This proper cause of being is God.We see, then, our two points about proper causes and their proper effects: (a) there is a commensurate universality between them, and (b) other causes of the proper effect (which can still be per se as opposed to per accidens causes) exercise their causality only by virtue of the proper cause. The implications of virtue being the proper effect of law are significant, and must be properly understood.Virtue does not exist except by the proper causality of law; and other causes of virtue, such as for instance the human will, are causes by virtue of the causality of law.This is what Aquinas says in question 63, article 2. Acquired virtue is caused by repeated actions, only by power of the seminalia from natural law. Infused virtue is caused directly by God, under the causality of the New Law, giver of supernatural inclinations. Pinckaers makes clear that the New Law is central in Aquinas’s understanding of the perfection of the moral life. But he seems to hold that in the New Law grace exercises a causality that is distinct from legal causality by its interiority: The evangelical Law, however, had its own unique nature.As law, it had an external origin, superior to human nature, which was Christ’s divine revelation. As the grace of the Holy Spirit, it penetrated to the interior of the human person and became the very source of the virtues, which were therefore called infused.43 I am suggesting that Aquinas sees the New Law as doing what law as such does—inclining to the good—most perfectly, precisely in and through grace. Pinckaers also states:“The Lord’s teaching penetrates the depths of human nature far too intimately to be viewed as a body of strict commands 42 De potentia Dei, q. 7, a. 2c., St. Thomas Aquinas, On the Power of God, trans. The English Dominican Fathers (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1932), q. 7, art. 2 c. 43 Pinckaers, Sources, 183. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 313 Pinckaers on Law 313 imposed by an external law.”44 Perhaps I am not comprehending this statement, but it seems to me that Pinckaers here is guilty of a mistake he seeks to correct: opposing law and freedom, or opposing law and an interior causality. The affirmation of the proper causality of law need not be interpreted in a nominalist light. If law is nothing more than an expression of the will of God or some other authority, and is unconnected to the nature of man, then indeed my position raises a disquieting specter. But, if we understand law as Aquinas and the “older theological tradition”45 as first of all how God’s wisdom moves man to goodness itself, then seeing law as the proper cause of virtue makes good sense. For Aquinas, the ultimate law, eternal law, is the divine understanding as moving creatures, each in accord with its own nature, to its own end.Thus law is precisely how the first cause moves creatures to their proper goodness and fulfillment. Perfection Is in the Precepts of the Law In examining the causality of law we have focused on the two main instances of law, the natural law and the New Law. In considering law as the proper cause of virtue we especially focused on natural law. I would like now to give more attention to what we might call the height of the moral life.46 In this section I propose to unfold how for Aquinas the very perfection of the moral and spiritual life can and should be understood in terms of law.47 I will first consider whether, in Aquinas’s words, perfection consists in the precepts or the (evangelical) counsels, and then consider briefly Aquinas’s treatment of commandments in his commentary on the Gospel of St. John. In question 184 of the secunda secundae Aquinas gives an account of Christian perfection. He explains that it consists principally in charity, and proceeds to distinguish the kinds or levels of perfection according to the levels of charity. He then turns to ask, “Whether perfection consists 44 Ibid., 160. 45 Russell Hittinger in The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Chris- tian World (Wilmington, DE: ISI, 2003), 61. 46 By focusing on the causality of natural law as at the foundation of the moral life, and on the New Law as at the height or completion, I want to be careful not to imply that causality of natural law is limited to the former. In other words, the causality of natural law pervades the entire moral life. I quoted Dewan above: “[O]ur grasp of the sapiential notions [is] the principle of all human . . . moral cultivation.” (Emphasis of all added.) 47 By “understood” here I mean in the theologians’ and philosophers’ effort to understand moral theology and ethics. I do not intend this to be a pastoral point, although this certainly has pastoral implications that can and should be considered. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 314 John A. Cuddeback 314 in precepts or in counsels?” He immediately distinguishes two ways that perfection is said to consist in something: essentially, and accidentally. Recalling that Christian perfection consists essentially in charity, he says this implies that it consists essentially in the precepts: Now the love of God and of our neighbor is not commanded according to a measure, so that what is in excess of the measure be a matter of counsel. This is evident from the very form of the commandment, pointing, as it does, to perfection—for instance in the words, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart,” since “the whole” is the same as “the perfect,” according to the Philosopher (Phys. iii, 6), and in the words,“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” since every one loves himself most.The reason of this is that “the end of the commandment is charity,” according to the Apostle (1 Tim 1:5); and the end is not subject to a measure, but only such things as are directed to the end, as the Philosopher observes (Polit. i, 3); thus a physician does not measure the amount of his healing, but how much medicine or diet he shall employ for the purpose of healing. Consequently it is evident that perfection consists essentially in the observance of the commandments; wherefore Augustine says (De Perf. Justit. viii):“Why then should not this perfection be prescribed to man, although no man has it in this life?”48 Aquinas proceeds to explain that perfection consists in the counsels “instrumentally” (which comes under the broader classification of “accidentally”) because the counsels are ordered towards removing impediments to the act of charity, the very charity just said to be commanded without measure by precept.49 The second objection brings the issue to a head. All must obey precepts. If perfection is in precepts, then one must be perfect in order to be saved. The objection closes: “And this is evidently false.” But already in the corpus Aquinas has quoted Augustine: “Why then should not this perfection be prescribed to man, although no man has it in this life?” In the reply he turns to him again: As Augustine says (De Perf. Justit. viii), “The perfection of charity is prescribed to man in this life, because one runs not right unless one knows whither to run. And how shall we know this if no precept declares it to us?” And since that which is a matter of precept can be fulfilled variously, one does not break a precept through not fulfilling it 48 ST II–II, q. 184, a. 3. 49 In the reply to the first objection Aquinas explains that Christ’s words “Go, sell all thou hast, and give to the poor” indicate “ways” or “instruments” to the perfection which is properly captured in the words “And follow me.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 315 Pinckaers on Law 315 in the best way, but it is enough to fulfill it in any way. Now the perfection of divine love is a matter of precept for all without exception, so that even the perfection of heaven is not excepted from this precept, as Augustine says, and one escapes transgressing the precept, in whatever measure one attains to the perfection of divine love. Aquinas then delineates the lowest bar:“The lowest degree of divine love is to love nothing more than God, or contrary to God, or equally with God, and whoever fails from this degree of perfection nowise fulfils the precept.” Bracing words indeed. Of first importance here is the concept of levels of fulfillment of the precepts of law. Aquinas is at pains to follow Augustine on this point: the fullness of perfection is commanded by precept. He does not flinch from this position, even to the point of holding that the perfection of heaven comes under the precept.50 We begin to see here that to understand law in Aquinas we must not simply equate “what is commanded” or “what is of the law” with “those things necessary for salvation.” Rather, what is commanded and what is of the law is the very perfection of charity—as is evident in the precept of charity, which is the “greatest (maximum ) precept”51 that contains virtually all other precepts of law.52 We can conclude that while Aquinas would affirm that the moral life is about more than simply not transgressing the law, he would not affirm that the moral life is about more than fulfilling the law.The key to understanding this point is that the perfection of charity is indeed commanded by the New Law.53 When Aquinas explains that the precept of charity cannot be perfectly fulfilled in this life, an objector says that “whoever does not fulfill a precept sins mortally,” and thus no one in this life would be without 50 He makes this same point in ST II–II, q. 44, a. 6, “Now God intends by this precept that man should be entirely united to Him, and this will be realized in heaven, when God will be ‘all in all,’ according to 1 Cor 15:28. Hence this precept will be observed fully and perfectly in heaven; yet it is fulfilled, though imperfectly, on the way.”And in his commentary on “Be ye perfect” in Matthew 5, speaking of the grades of perfection, Aquinas says: “Ad unum horum omnes tenentur, quia ista totalitas potest referri ad actum, et sic est perfectio patriae.” J. P. Renard, “La Lectura super Matthaeum V, 20–48 de Thomas d’Aquin,” Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 50 (1983): 189. According to J. P. Torrell, what Renard has published is a fragment of the authentic manuscript discovered through the Leonine commission. 51 ST II–II, q. 44, a. 1. 52 ST II–II, q. 44, a. 2. 53 See ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1, where he says “[W]hereas 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.’ ” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 316 John A. Cuddeback 316 mortal sin. Aquinas responds: “Even as the soldier who fights legitimately without conquering is not blamed nor deserves to be punished for this, so too he that does not fulfill this precept on the way, but does nothing against the love of God, does not sin mortally.”54 Once again we have the distinction between not-fulfilling and transgressing. As one grows in the spiritual life, one moves beyond simply not transgressing the law to a greater and greater fulfillment of the law.While the fulfillment we achieve in this life will always be “imperfect” with regard to what is ultimately commanded, Aquinas points out that nevertheless, “on the way one man will fulfill it more perfectly than another, and so much the more, as he approaches by some kind of likeness to the perfection of heaven.” 55 But does not Aquinas say something different from the above when he speaks of precepts as concerning what is necessary ? The difference between a counsel and a precept is that a precept implies necessity, whereas a counsel is left to the option of the one to whom it is given. . . .We must therefore understand the precepts of the New Law to have been given about matters that are necessary to gain the end of eternal bliss, to which end the New Law brings us forthwith, but that the counsels are about matters that render the gaining of this end more assured and expeditious.56 In order to answer this reasonable and important objection, we should first distinguish between “necessary to reach heaven” and “necessary for the perfection of heaven.” We have already seen that there are levels of fulfillment of the precept of charity. One level is necessary lest one be a transgressor, and this is what is here called “necessary to gain the end of eternal bliss.” Another level is that of the perfect fulfillment of heaven, which level we can say is “necessary,” not simply to gain the end of eternal bliss, but to live the perfection of eternal bliss. Precepts, Aquinas is telling us, always concern what is necessary; this does not mean that they only concern what is necessary to get to heaven.57 54 ST II–II, q. 44, a. 6, ad 2. 55 ST II–II, q. 44, a. 6. 56 ST I–II, q. 108, a. 4. 57 An objector might also point to ST I–II, q. 108, a. 1, ad 2, where Aquinas explains that the New Law is a law of freedom:“First, because it does not bind us (arctat ) to do or avoid certain things, except such as are of themselves necessary or opposed to salvation, and come under the prescription or prohibition of the law.” To this I note that the context is the New Law’s commanding and prohibiting external actions. Aquinas holds that the New Law imposes many fewer actions than the Old Law in the exterior forum, and in this way is less burdensome. But at the same time the New Law can be seen as more difficult (graviora ) in its N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 317 Pinckaers on Law 317 This issue is significant for the thrust of this article. Some would have it, along the lines of the objection above, that commandments especially concern beginners in the moral life. This approach seems to find foundation in the words of our Lord: “So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty’ ” (Lk 17:10). I propose in accord with my reasoning above that Aquinas would see in these words an admonition against a minimalism that would do only what is necessary to not-transgress the commandments.This does not imply that the perfection of the spiritual life does not consist in doing what is commanded. For Aquinas, perfection is commanded by precept, especially the precept of charity. He clearly distinguishes between the precepts of charity and all other precepts:“For the precepts, other than the precepts of charity, are directed to the removal of things contrary to charity, with which, namely, charity is incompatible. . . .”58 It was earlier in this article that he argued that perfection consists essentially in precepts since the love of God falls under precept without measure. Other precepts, which concern means (ea quae sunt ad finem ), have measure precisely from their relation to charity. Aquinas’s insistence on there being true precepts of charity, and that the maximum praeceptum 59 is of charity, is, I am arguing, central in his moral theory. The whole moral and spiritual life is the drama of seeking to fulfill, more and more perfectly, this precept. It seems to me that Pinckaers does not sufficiently take this into account when he says the following, writing on the New Law: “What St. Thomas has given us is a new precepts regarding interior acts (q. 107, a. 4). Thus as regards external actions especially, the New Law only binds us to that which is necessary for salvation.As regards interior actions, I again advert to the distinction between what is necessary for salvation and what is necessary for full perfection.We are certainly bound to those things necessary for salvation in a way that we are not bound to what is necessary for full perfection. But again, following Augustine,Aquinas holds that the fullness of perfection, achieved of course essentially in interior actions, is by precept in the New Law.And where there is precept, there is obligation. (See ST I–II, q. 99, a. 1; and also ST II–II, q. 44, a. 1, obj. 2 and ad 2, where Aquinas explains that the precepts of charity themselves do impose obligation.) We are not able to address here this distinction in obligation. It is interesting to note, however, that the Catholic understanding of purgatory seems to entail that many who are “saved” (when they die) still have not achieved what is necessary for the perfection of heaven. See Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1030:“All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” 58 ST II–II, q. 184, a. 3. 59 ST II–II, q. 44, a. 1. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 318 John A. Cuddeback 318 moral organism, properly Christian. In it, the virtues outstrip the precepts so effectively that, as the former increase, the need for the latter decreases. This is precisely why the New Law is called the ‘law of freedom’. . . .”60 To conclude our consideration of perfection as in precepts, it will be helpful to take a brief look at the relation of the words and precepts of God in Aquinas’s commentary on the Gospel of St. John.A central theme of the fourth Gospel is the importance of hearing and keeping “the word” of God. “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples” ( Jn 8:31).“He who is of God hears the words of God . . .” ( Jn 8:47).“Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death” ( Jn 8:51). “And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice” ( Jn 10:16).“If a man love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him . . .” ( Jn 14:23). Now in commenting on each of the just quoted texts Aquinas treats the word (or voice) of God as meaning his commandments or precepts.61 One of the more remarkable is his commentary on “if any one keeps my word, he will never see death.” Now the seedbed and source of this [beatific] vision comes into us by the word of Christ: “The seed is the word of God” (Lk 8:11). Therefore, just as a person who keeps the seed of some plant or tree from being destroyed succeeds in obtaining its fruit, so the person who keeps the word of God attains to life everlasting: “Keep my statutes and my ordinances, by doing which a man shall live” (Lev 18:5).62 By the reference to Leviticus Aquinas does not shy away from connecting the notion of law, commandment, and precept with the heart of the Christian life. Another text illustrates the truth that commandments concern not only the heart, but also the height of the Christian life. In the Last Supper discourse Our Lord says, “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me . . .” ( Jn 14:21). Aquinas has this to say: Some have these commandments of God in their heart, by remembering them and continually meditating on them:“I have laid up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Ps 119:11). But this is not enough unless they are kept in one’s actions:“A good understanding have all those who practice it” (Ps 111:10). Others have these commandments on their lips, by preaching and exhorting:“How sweet are your words to 60 Pinckaers, Sources, 185. 61 Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Part II, trans. J. Weisheipl and F. Larcher (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s Publications, 1999), 8.4, #1195; 8.7, #1260; 8.8, #1271; 10.4, #1419; and 14.6, #1942. 62 Ibid., 8.8, #1271. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 319 Pinckaers on Law 319 my taste” (Ps 119:103). They also should follow them in their actions, because “He who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:19).Thus in Matthew, God reprimands those who speak but do not act. Others have them by hearing them, gladly and earnestly listening to them:“He who is of God hears the words of God” (8:47).Yet this is not enough unless they keep them in their actions,“for it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2:13); “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life” (6:27). Therefore, those who have the commandments [in the above ways] do keep them to a certain extent; but they still have to persist in keeping them. For this reason Augustine says:“The person who keeps the commandments in his memory and keeps them in his life, who has them in his speech and keeps them in his conduct, who has them by hearing them and keeps them by doing them, who has them by doing and persisting in doing them, this is one who loves me.”63 Here we have the heights of the moral and spiritual life cast in terms of fidelity or response to commandments, a response that admits of many degrees and of continuous growth in perfection. As a final example, we can turn to another part of the Last Supper discourse. Our Lord says:“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” ( Jn 15:10). Aquinas is willing simply to identify “abiding in his love” with keeping his commandments.64 And Christ presents himself as the example of keeping commandments: in his human nature he keeps the Father’s commandments.65 Christ, the Word, the Son of God, does not keep the Father’s commandments, but is actually himself the “commandment of the Father”!66 Our Lord continues: “These things have I spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” ( Jn 15:11–12).This teaching prompts Aquinas to comment: “Consequently, our Lord wants us to become sharers of his joy by our observing his commandments.”67 Christ then proceeds to present “his” commandment, as though there are not 63 Ibid., 14.5, #1933. 64 Ibid., 15.2, #2001, 2002. 65 Ibid., #2003. 66 Ibid., 14.8, #1976:“Mandatum autem hoc dedit pater non filio Dei, qui cum sit verbum, est etiam mandatum patris. . . .” This is reminiscent of Aquinas’s saying that the promulgation of the eternal law is eternal in the person of the Word in ST I–II, q. 91, a. 1, ad 2. 67 Ibid., 15.2, #2004. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM 320 Page 320 John A. Cuddeback many commandments. Aquinas explains: “The answer, according to Gregory, is that charity is the root and end of all virtues. It is the root, because it is from charity, firmly rooted in the human heart, that we are led to accomplish all other commandments.”68 It seems that Aquinas is saying that our Lord can well sum up his moral teaching in this one commandment; for in this commandment man is called to the one great virtue that is the root of all virtues, and the accomplishing of all commandments. Indeed, it is two verses later that our Lord says:“You are my friends, if you do what I command you.” In the Gospel of St. John,Aquinas sees commandments as those words of God that call, instruct, and move man toward personal intimacy with Christ himself.This fits well with what we saw above: the New Law both commands and empowers those subject to it to attain the heights of perfection. Closing Thoughts I want to suggest that we can capitalize on Pinckaers’s own success in getting beyond false dichotomies, especially that of law and freedom.69 Pinckaers gives an account of the flaws of nominalist-influenced ethics. In this ethics, in which a natural inclination to the good (and happiness) does not underlie freedom, there end up being two poles: that of freedom, and that of law. The notion of law has been transformed. Rather than a sapiential ordering to the good, it becomes simply the expression of the sovereign’s (in the first place, God’s) will. Here we have the fundamental dichotomy between freedom and law. In the absence of a principle that can unite and integrate them, there can really only be some sort of reconciliation.Thus obligation enters the picture:“The moral foundation rested on the two opposed bases of freedom and law, and it focused on the idea of obligation, which became the sole link, the sole conceivable point of agreement between the two.”70 The question of happiness 68 Ibid., #2006. 69 See Pinckaers, Sources, 279:“It is all too easy to say that today the era of the manu- als is over and to take an opposite stand, pronouncing ourselves systematically in favor of freedom and conscience as opposed to law and authority. In so doing, we would be caught in the very spiral of the specific categories of moral theology that we wish to critique, notably the opposition of law and freedom.” Cf. Alasdair MacIntyre’s preface to Pinckaers’s Morality:The Catholic View,“What Father Pinckaers made clear to us was the irrelevance of those preceding debates of recent years, debates that had been informed by false choices between inadequately characterized alternatives: Is the moral life about rules or consequences? Which has priority, authority or autonomy? Is our language to be scholastic or patristic?” (vii). 70 Pinckaers, Sources, 376. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 321 Pinckaers on Law 321 tended more and more to be removed from moral science.71 Thus Pinckaers paints for us a fundamental dichotomy between a morality of obligation on the one hand, and a morality of happiness on the other.72 As I indicated earlier, I see my exposition of law as being precisely that understanding which undergirds Pinckaers’s critique. I want to offer a thought on how seeing law in its essential role in the moral life helps provide a proper response to (or perhaps, a defense against) what we will simply call nominalist-influenced ethics. At the heart of Pinckaers’s own response to this ethics is his understanding and emphasis of natural inclinations. The place and function attributed to natural inclinations mark a decisive split between the two concepts of freedom we have been studying, as well as between the types of morality they produce. In contrast to freedom of indifference, freedom for excellence has its source and foundation in the chief natural human inclinations.73 In Aquinas’s understanding of natural inclinations Pinckaers finds the principle that allows us to overcome the problematic dichotomies of nominalist-influenced ethics. Law and obligation are not at odds with freedom, but rather serve a freedom for excellence that is rooted in natural inclinations. Likewise, there is no dichotomy between obligation and happiness, since the obligation of law is in the context of a natural inclination to happiness. I want to suggest that Pinckaers’s position as outlined in Sources would improve from an explicit reference to law as at the root of natural inclinations. Seeing natural inclinations themselves as the effect of law is especially helpful in responding to nominalist-influenced ethics. In his “Natural Law and Natural Inclinations: Rhonheimer, Pinckaers, McAleer,” Matthew Levering considers natural law as discerned, not constituted, by human reason.74 In the conclusion of his section appreciating Pinckaers’s “reclaiming natural law after nominalism,” Levering states: 71 See Pinckaers, Sources, 262–63, and Morality, 72. 72 See Pinckaers, Sources, 21:“The question of obligation and the question of happi- ness: these are so fundamental that they give rise to two different conceptions of moral theology.” 73 Sources, 400. 74 Matthew Levering,“Natural Law and Natural Inclinations: Rhonheimer, Pinckaers, McAleer,” The Thomist 70 (2006): 155–201. See p. 193, “ ‘[N]atural law’ in this sense is both our mind’s participation in the eternal law and our discernment of a natural (ecstatic) order in creation. . . .” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 322 John A. Cuddeback 322 Practical reason discerns, from the integrated and hierarchically ordered dynamisms of the natural inclinations, the precepts of the natural law. These inclinations inscribe a wisdom whose theocentric grounding cannot be properly articulated outside the kind of richly speculative metaphysical description that Pinckaers provides.75 I suggest that while we may say that inclinations inscribe a wisdom, it is first the case that they are inscribed by a (divine) wisdom, through man’s cognitive participation in that wisdom. I thus suggest a modification in Levering’s language, which echoes Pinckaers’s emphasis of practical reason’s discovery of the natural law in or from natural inclinations.While I affirm that such a discovery indeed takes place, that is, that natural inclinations reveal the order of precepts, I assert that Aquinas holds there is a cognitive insight into the order of precepts that is prior to and grounds the human natural inclinations that pertain to natural law.76 As an effect of law, natural inclinations, and indeed nature itself,77 are thus more clearly seen to be the effect of wisdom, a wisdom that orders things to their proper ends. As Pinckaers insists, the Thomistic understanding of law is that it is a work of wisdom.78 To assert that eternal law is indeed the cause of natural inclinations, and thus at the very foundation of ethics, highlights this most essential truth: the moral order is at one and the same time a work of wisdom, and an order of nature. 75 Ibid., 189. 76 I refer again to S. Brock’s treatment of this issue in “Natural Inclination and the Intelligibility of the Good in Thomistic Natural Law,” 60–65, where he makes the case that the inclinations Aquinas refers to in ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2 are human, and as such must follow upon the insight of reason. His reference to ST III, q. 19, a. 2 is especially helpful. This issue can be cast in terms of the distinction between two modes of participating in the eternal law, per modum cognitionis and per modum actionis et passionis (ST I–II, q. 93, a. 6).As regards the rational creature these two modes should not be separated, as though the latter comes first, giving inclinations, followed by insight into those inclinations. When we are speaking of properly human inclinations, man’s participation is from the first a participation per modum cognitionis. 77 In his section on McAleer, Levering explains:“[This position] is not ‘physicalist,’ however, because it presupposes God’s eternal law, the divine creative intellect, as the structuring principle.As McAleer puts it,‘natural law is the argument that an objective moral law structures nature.’ ” (Levering, “Natural Law and Natural Inclinations, 193; emphasis original from McAleer, Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics, 66). It seems to me that Levering is correct in emphasizing with McAleer the causality of law as a principle that gives structure to nature, and to the moral life.This is indeed precisely why Aquinas’s moral philosophy is no more “physicalist” than it is nominalist. 78 See for instance Pinckaers, Sources, 181, 342, and 343. Cf. Veritatis Splendor, §12, on law as a work of God’s wisdom. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 323 Pinckaers on Law 323 I have argued that law belongs in the definition of Christian ethics. Or in other words, I have argued that given Aquinas’s understanding of the causality of law and its role in the moral life, law must have a central place in the science of the moral life. In sympathy with Pinckaers’s concern about legalism,79 I have also tried to suggest how granting to law properly conceived this central role is in reality a bastion against nominalistinfluenced legalism and voluntarism. I might go one step further in suggesting the appropriateness of emphasizing the centrality of law by invoking two great and connected themes of Pinckaers’s Sources : the unique character of Christian ethics, and the centrality of the New Law in Christian ethics.80 It seems to me that emphasizing the proper notion of law fittingly bolsters both of Pinckaers’s insights. A true lawgiver is motivated by love and an intention of the good of those subject to law.To emphasize law as behind natural inclinations, and to emphasize the ratio of law in the New Law of grace, can and should lead to further insight into love as at the root of morality. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ presents himself, says Aquinas, as one who makes law: a “legis-lator.”81 In the spirit of Pinckaers’s understanding of the unique character of Christian ethics—that ethics itself is a response to a call of love—I suggest emphasizing that law, and not simply natural inclinations, is the foundation. It is a God who loves that commands us to love, and this command is formative of our very being. At the end of the day, Aquinas’s legal theory must be understood in terms of a loving ordinance of wisdom that is a call to friendship, and that moves to friendship.82 Critical to this position is that union of wills is characteristic of friendship.The will of a friend, by the very fact that it is his will, becomes a kind of rule for his friend. This applies in a unique way when the friend is Goodness itself, the ultimate rule.The law of God 79 Cf. Hittinger commenting on Veritatis Splendor : “The Pope explains in the first chapter that the first and ultimate question of morality is not a lawyerly question. Unlike the Pharisees, the rich young man does not ask what the bottom line is, from a legal standpoint. Rather, he asks what must be done in order to achieve the unconditional good, which is communion with God. Christ takes the sting out of law, not by annulling it, but by revealing the Good to which it directs us. Remove or forget the Good and law inevitably becomes legalism.” Hittinger, The First Grace, 27–28. 80 The former theme is treated at length in chapters 4–7 of Sources. Regarding the latter, see footnote 1 above. 81 Lectura super Matthaeum (Renard), #175–76. 82 This, it seems to me, is once again what is behind many statements of Aquinas in his Commentary on the Gospel of John; statements such as this: to fulfill a command shows love for the one commanding (#1426). On friendship as the end of law, see ST I–II, q. 99, a. 1 ad 2 and q. 99, a. 2c. N&V_Spr09.qxp 324 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 324 John A. Cuddeback is what we seek to fulfill more and more perfectly; it is his will that we seek to understand and do. Indeed, as the Psalmist has it, for the just man the law of God becomes an object of meditation: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Ps 1, RSV). In his commentary on these lines Aquinas casts the life of the good man as a successful quest for happiness, in which subjection to God, in the form of a loving subjection to his law, is constitutive of the good life: The happiness of man is in God; “blessed the people whose God is the Lord” (Ps 143).There is therefore a straight path toward happiness that consists primarily in this, that we subject ourselves to God; and this we do in two ways. First through the will, obeying his commands; and thus the Psalmist says: “but in the law of the Lord.” And this especially pertains to Christ: “I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of him who sent me” ( Jn 8).This pertains likewise to each just man.And he says “in lege” as through love, not as though under the law through fear, as in 1 Timothy 1:“law is not imposed upon the just.” Second through the intellect, continually meditating. And thus the Psalmist says:“upon his law he meditates day and night,” that is, continually, either at set hours of day and night, or in good times and in bad.83 In conclusion, then, in looking at the role of law in the moral life, I want to emphasize the centrality and continuity of its causality. Especially in the natural law and the New Law we see law as a work of wisdom that moves men to their proper end. A causality that is first of all in the realm of cognition brings about inclinations, be they natural, acquired, or supernatural. These inclinations, naturally posterior to the sapiential causality of law, are either themselves virtues, or are ordered to and causative of them. Law, then, is the proper cause of virtue, and thus also the cause of friendship. Law in its highest, and most authentically legal, form is a work 83 In psalmos Davidis expositio, Ps 1 (my translation): “Beatitudo autem hominis in Deo est. Psalm. 143: beatus populus cujus est dominus Deus ejus et cetera. Est ergo processus rectus ad beatitudinem primo, ut subdamus nos Deo: et hoc dupliciter. Primo per voluntatem, obediendo mandatis ejus; et ideo dicit: sed in lege domini ; et hoc specialiter pertinet ad Christum. Joan. 8: descendi de caelo non ut faciam voluntatem meam, sed voluntatem ejus qui misit me. Convenit similiter et cuilibet justo. Et dicit in lege per dilectionem, non sub lege per timorem. 1 Timoth. 1: justo non est lex posita. Secundo per intellectum jugiter meditando; et ideo dicit, in lege ejus meditabitur die ac nocte, idest continue, vel certis horis diei et noctis, vel in prosperis et adversis.” Aquinas says earlier that the first Psalm acts as a kind of “title” for the entire Book of Psalms. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 325 Pinckaers on Law 325 of the wisdom of one who is not only the ultimate rule of goodness itself, but also a person who calls rational creatures to friendship. Obedience to this law is ultimately a matter of precisely that assimilation of N&V wills that is proper to friendship. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 326 N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 327 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 327–60 327 Natural Law as Inclination to God F ULVIO D I B LASI Thomas International Palermo, Italy T HIS ARTICLE aims to contribute to the debates over faith and reason and the interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’s ethics. More particularly, my goal is to clarify how, according to Christian thought, one can speak of natural law as an inclination to God. To do so, I will adopt an analytic methodology, explaining one by one the relevant concepts involved in the title, and trying to make understandable and reasonable the overall meaning of it. Of course, talking about “inclination to God” is not the only way to speak of natural law but, as I hope to show, it is a relevant and revealing one. Although my approach here is philosophical, I will also reflect on some central notions of Catholic faith and doctrine. From this viewpoint, Aquinas’s teaching on natural law deserves special attention, not only because he is the most important figure in the history of natural law theory, but above all because he is the Doctor Communis of the Catholic Church. A few other methodological premises: I will try to be as brief as I can. It is not my intention to deal here with either the current or the historical debate on natural law theory. Nor is it my intention to delve deeply into the many topics traditionally related to it.1 I want only to convey as clearly as possible some key interpretative principles about both Aquinas’s thought and the Catholic doctrine. 1 For a fuller discussion, see especially Fulvio Di Blasi, God and the Natural Law:A Rereading of Thomas Aquinas (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2006); idem, “Natural Law and Natural Rights,” in Encyclopedia of British Philosophy, ed. A. C. Grayling and A. Pyle (Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2006); idem, “Practical Syllogism, Proairesis, and the Virtues: Toward a Reconciliation of Virtue Ethics and Natural Law Ethics,” Nova et Vetera 2 (2004): 21–41. N&V_Spr09.qxp 328 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 328 Fulvio Di Blasi Those who are well trained in natural law theory will easily recognize the many nuances and implications of my discussion. I will also try to be old-fashioned “scholastic,” by using reason in order to understand the faith better and more consistently. I maintain (a) that there is a formal distinction between truths known in the light of faith and truths known by unaided reason.At the same time I maintain (b) that there is a unity of knowledge. That is to say, there is one truth but two means by which man comes to know it: revelation (faith) and natural reason. The proper order between these two means of knowing is contained in St. Anselm’s credo ut intelligam. In the words of the Holy Father’s Fides et Ratio, “faith liberates reason in so far as it allows reason to attain correctly what it seeks to know and to place it within the ultimate order of things, in which everything acquires true meaning. In brief, human beings attain truth by way of reason because, enlightened by faith, they discover the deeper meaning of all things and most especially of their own existence.”2 Faith and Natural Law Before beginning an analytic explanation of the phrase natural law as inclination to God, I would like to recall, in this and the next section, some central points of Catholic doctrine regarding natural law, as well as the traditional definition of ethics in terms of its material and formal objects. I hope that, as we engage in our main analysis, the reader will appreciate the harmony and consistency between those points and Aquinas’s view of natural law theory. Revelation and Natural Law Natural law belongs to the depositum fidei.That is to say, it does not belong only to the so-called natural revelation—that is, to what God revealed to men about himself and his will through the perfections of nature—but it belongs also to the supernatural revelation—that is, to what God revealed to human reason through the Tradition of the Church and the inspired authors of the Bible. Both the existence and the content of natural law are, therefore, at the same time truths that belong to human reason and to the faith. Natural Law and the Covenant Natural law indicates what Jews, Christians, and all human beings are called to do even before receiving the highest demands coming from the New Law: the law of grace and the sacraments. In other words, natural 2 John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, §20. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 329 Natural Law as Inclination to God 329 law is the content of what can be called the basic covenant between God and human beings: a covenant, that is, which depends on the primary relationship that binds creatures to their Creator, and which invites human beings to a loving answer to the gifts of existence, of freedom, and of the responsibility of being ministers of this world, namely, the only beings able to understand it according to the truth and to knowingly direct it back to God the Creator. Natural law is the only path to the love of God: “He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” ( John 14:21). The Pedagogical Character of the Law and the Commandments Especially today, when many people try to remove from ethical theory the concepts of law and authority to the advantage of some ideals of ethical spontaneity and autonomy, it is worthwhile to reflect on the fact that both biblical pedagogy and the tradition of the Church have always presented moral life’s demands by using the semantic of the obedience to the law of God—which is not only the natural law, but also, and more generally, the eternal law and the divine positive law from the old and the new covenant. The commandments given to Moses have always been understood as a perfect historical expression of the natural law, and, therefore, as the basis and the ground of man’s moral life. The recent Catechism of the Catholic Church follows this ancient tradition, and presents the moral life of the faithful by commenting one by one on the ten commandments.With regard to ethics and moral life, the concept of law, and, more specifically, of natural law, is not a part (a part that can be neglected or disregarded), but the core of revelation: the right dialectic of biblical moral life being obedience (loving-God-more-than-ourselves) versus disobedience (loving-ourselves-more-than-God). Natural Law, Free Obedience, and Moral Conscience In this context, the main conceptual structure underneath John Paul II’s encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor —on the fundamentals of the Catholic Church’s moral teaching—can be correctly understood. This structure rests entirely on the relationship between the concepts of freedom, law, and moral conscience. Human beings’ true freedom resides in listening to the law of God, which manifests itself in our moral conscience, where we produce judgments about the good and the evil of every action, thought, and omission. Listening to our moral conscience is, therefore, an act of obedience to the law: “Moral conscience does not close man within an insurmountable and impenetrable solitude, but opens him to the call, to the voice of God. In this, and not in anything else, lies the entire mystery N&V_Spr09.qxp 330 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 330 Fulvio Di Blasi and the dignity of the moral conscience: in being the place, the sacred place where God speaks to man.”3 Here, it clearly appears that legal language—that is, the language of the “law”—does not have (in the Bible as well as in the Catechism) just a pedagogical meaning. Rather, it is a language chosen by God, which expresses an intrinsic truth of our dealing with him which we cannot do without.The reason why Aquinas so much countenanced natural law was not to pay some homage to thinkers from the past or to contingent political powers (as Straussian “Thomists” seem sometimes to suggest), but to pay due attention to the Word of God. Natural Law, Reason, and Revelation Natural law can be known by natural reason. That is, we can know the truth of natural law by believing in God, but we can also reach the knowledge of natural law using our reason only. This does not mean that we could also go on in our moral life without revelation. God revealed natural law because without his help we cannot follow our nature, nor can we even perfectly understand it. “Because,” as Aquinas explains, “on account of the uncertainty of human judgment, especially on contingent and particular matters, different people form different judgments on human acts; whence also different and contrary laws result. In order, therefore, that man may know without any doubt what he ought to do and what he ought to avoid, it was necessary for man to be directed in his proper acts by a law given by God, for it is certain that such a law cannot err.”4 3 John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, §58. See also the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes: “In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths. In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor. In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity.The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.” 4 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, q. 91, a. 4. All translations are by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benzinger, 1947). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 331 Natural Law as Inclination to God 331 One could ask:“Why all these difficulties? Why didn’t God make us able to do better on our own?”An answer to this question can perhaps be found in John Paul II’s Crossing the Threshold of Hope: God is not “the God of the deists”; “He is not the Absolute that remains outside of the world, indifferent to human suffering. He is Emmanuel, God-with-us, a God who shares man’s lot and participates in his destiny.” In God’s original design neither the world nor man is supposed to be “self-sufficient.”5 Nature cannot be nature by itself alone, and God wants to walk together with the good man. Nature and grace belong, so to speak, to the same primordial system of creation. When we say that natural law can be known by natural reason we do not imply that man does not need supernatural aid. Just as a baby cannot develop his natural capacities without his parents, his family, and, in general, the milieu provided by other human beings, so man cannot reach the full moral truth without listening to the Word of God, and he cannot do good actions (that is, he cannot act according to natural law) without “the hidden action of grace.”6 “On the path of the moral life the way of salvation is open to all,” precisely because the “influence of grace” is always present in the actions of those who try to follow “the dictate of conscience” and “to lead an upright life,” even if, without fault, they do not “know anything about Christ or his Church” or “have not yet attained to the express recognition of God.”7 Revelation, grace, natural reason, and natural law are parts of a single design. Natural Law and Love of God Third, natural law is summed up in the precept of love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets” (Mt 22:36).8 Loving God and other human beings is the ratio of natural law, and it is therefore the central truth that all people should understand by their reason if they have to act righteously. It is not by chance that the main passages of Scripture in which it is clearly stated that we can come “to know God by the light of reason alone”9 are truly moral passages, in which 5 See John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (London: Jonathan Cape, 1994), 50–63. 6 See John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, §2. 7 Veritatis Splendor, §3. See also Lumen Gentium, §16. 8 See, also, Deuteronomy 6:5; Romans 13:9–10; Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), §2055. 9 CCC, §37. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 332 Fulvio Di Blasi 332 the pagans’ refusal to know God is the cause of their bad behavior in every field. Moreover, both failures, the refusal and the bad behavior, are strongly condemned.10 “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Rom 1:28–31). Our attitude towards God and our knowledge of natural law appear in the Bible as two sides of the same coin. Natural Law as a Preamble of the Faith Natural law is surely a preamble of our faith in a broad sense, as it is the good work of moral reason preparing us for the gift of faith. But we might even say that it is strictly speaking a preamble of the faith, in the precise sense that we cannot receive (supernatural) faith without some previous knowledge of the natural law. Faith is not only something theoretical but also practical: it affects both the human mind and the human heart. And in order to receive faith we should be naturally able, not only to know God, but also to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, discovering in him our final end and the source of our personal dignity. The structure of the first part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (entitled “The Profession of Faith”) emphasizes that, with regard to faith, the first move is God’s, who decides to reveal himself to human beings (chapter 2, “God Comes to Meet Man”). Only the second move is man’s (chapter 3,“Man’s Response to God”). But, first of all, before the Catechism speaks of God’s revelation, there is a first chapter entitled: “Man’s Capacity for God.” The theoretical reason behind this chapter is that, if man were not capax Dei, he would not be able to receive God’s subsequent message.11 This first chapter of the Catechism underlines, as is obvious, that man’s natural reason, starting from “the physical world and the human person,” is “capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God” (parts 2 and 3); and that is why it is possible to speak “about him to all men and with all men,” and to “dialogue with other religions, with philosophy and science, as well as with unbelievers and atheists” (part 4). But the beginning of the chapter (part 1) is devoted to the moral natural capacity for God: “The Desire for God.” Early in this section, the Cate10 Wisdom 13:1–9; Romans 1. 11 Of course, the original move, so to speak, was by God, who reveals himself through creation (natural revelation), thus making human nature capax Dei. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 333 Natural Law as Inclination to God 333 chism recalls the following passage from Gaudium et spes:“The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists, it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.”12 We may wonder whether our moral capacity should not be the second step, insofar as we cannot desire what we do not know. (This is the reason that ethics is always grounded in, even if not deduced from, metaphysics.) Nevertheless, practical knowledge is first in its own order; and in our lives it is, in a sense, more important, because we cannot act without the original (not chosen) attraction for an end.Actually, we could not even speak of God’s existence if we were not interested in God. From this viewpoint, the strategy of the Catechism appears perfectly justified: it opens with desire, with ethics, and in a sense, as we shall see, with natural law in its basic (natural) religious meaning. Question about Morality, Natural Law, and Ethics’ Religious Aspect Veritatis Splendor likewise stresses many times the religious character of ethics.The beginning of the encyclical is almost entirely devoted to qualifying the “question about morality” which the rich young man asks Jesus as a question about God: a question “about the full meaning of life.” “This is in fact the aspiration at the heart of every human decision and action, the quiet searching and interior prompting which sets freedom in motion.This question is ultimately an appeal to the absolute Good which attracts us and beckons us; it is the echo of a call from God who is the origin and goal of man’s life.”13 Moreover, the question about morality “is an essential and unavoidable question for the life of every man, for it is about the moral good which must be done, and about eternal life. The young man senses that there is a connection between moral good and the fulfillment of his own destiny.”14 A few lines afterward, the Pope clearly states the connection between the question about morality and the natural law. To ask about the good, in fact, ultimately means to turn towards God, the fullness of goodness. Jesus shows that the young man’s question is really a religious question, and that the goodness that attracts and at the same time 12 Gaudium et spes, §19 (italics mine). 13 Veritatis Splendor, §7. 14 Ibid., §8. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 334 Fulvio Di Blasi 334 obliges man has its source in God, and indeed is God himself. God alone is worthy of being loved “with all one’s heart, and with all one’s soul, and with all one’s mind” (Mt 22:37). He is the source of man’s happiness. Jesus brings the question about morally good action back to its religious foundations, to the acknowledgment of God, who alone is goodness, fullness of life, the final end of human activity, and perfect happiness.15 The statement that “There is only one who is good” thus brings us back to the “first tablet” of the commandments, which calls us to acknowledge God as the Lord of all and to worship him alone for his infinite holiness (cf. Ex 20:2–11). The good is belonging to God, obeying him, walking humbly with him in doing justice and in loving kindness (cf. Mic 6:8). Acknowledging the Lord as God is the very core, the heart of the Law, from which the particular precepts flow and towards which they are ordered.16 This religious view of moral life constitutes the background of, and the final answer to, all the main subjects dealt with in the encyclical: from natural law to moral conscience, to intrinsically evil acts, etc. At the end of our philosophical analysis, I hope it will be easy and useful for the reader to compare at least these first passages of the document with Aquinas’s view on natural law and eternal law. Ethics and Natural Law Ethics can be defined as the discipline, or scientia, that studies human beings and their actions as good or evil in the absolute sense (simpliciter ), as opposed to a relative or technical sense of good and evil as when we say,“You played a good match!,” “This is a good gun,” “You trained good muscles,” and the like. Man as the Subject of Ethics Materially speaking—that is, from the viewpoint of its material object—ethics studies the human being as a subject whose being and action are characterized by rationality. Man is an ethical being because he knows according to the truth—namely, he understands the meaning of things—and he freely acts as the owner of himself and of the things that surround him. Other beings, on the other hand, do not ask themselves why things are and what they are; instead of acting they are acted upon . . . by the laws of nature, by their instincts, etc. It is plain obvious that even the non-human animals that move in the most rational way—like the ants or termites in the anthill or the beavers in building their dams—do not 15 Ibid., §9. 16 Ibid., §11. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 335 Natural Law as Inclination to God 335 do it based on calculus, thoughts, and studies on why they do it and what the best way to reach their goals is; rather, they move, so to speak, automatically. Being human, on the contrary, as a specific way of existing, means to know according to the “why” (according to the truth) and to act based on this unique kind of knowledge. For this reason, unlike other beings that, unless they have physical defects, are automatically good with respect to their nature’s ends—as the ant is per se a good member of the anthill—, in the case of men, being moral, being good simpliciter, involves a free life-plan or life-vision whose result cannot be taken for granted. The Importance of Virtue In the first place, ethics concerns the way in which man, through his specific way of existing and acting, can become good simpliciter, simply speaking.This is what makes so important in ethical theory the concept of (moral) virtue, which indicates first, not the moral goodness of the actions, but of the agent. In fact, from an ethical viewpoint, the most important thing is not to have a good action, but to have a good man, who is the cause of the good actions. When we say that a man is (morally) good, we point to a stable quality of his being: namely, something that he possesses—as being courageous, being loyal, being sincere, and the like. This quality is something that man supposedly acquires through his specific way of acting (free and rational), and this is why possessing a moral virtue is meritorious.Virtue is therefore a sort of peace of cloth—a habit —made of moral goodness: a peace of cloth that, once bought or acquired, man always wears, and keeps weaving into richer and more precious fabric. It is only secondarily that ethics deals with specific human actions (like homicide or alms) as good or evil.To be clear: the moral character of the actions is extremely important to evaluate, of course.What I mean is that the main focus of ethical theory should rather be the good person as such: his moral character and fulfillment. Human Action as Ethical Action As far as actions are concerned, ethical theory deals with specifically human actions: namely, the actions that make man either good or evil. In other words, in order to do ethics we need truly human actions, in which both our intellect and our will are fully involved, and not merely acts of man, like the growth of our hair or our body, or the digestive process. But, most importantly, we need to look at human actions in their absolute meaning, and not just according to the relative goals they happen to have. From the viewpoint of ethical theory, there are two basic meanings of N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 336 Fulvio Di Blasi 336 good involved in each action: a relative one and an absolute one. To eat something when we are hungry is surely a “good” thing to do, but is it “the good” thing for us to do here and now? Robert Spaemann explains the difference between the relative good and the absolute good: The doctor says,“It would be a good idea to spend another day in bed.” To be precise the word “good” should be qualified in two ways. The doctor should say, “It is a good idea for you,” and “It is a good idea for you if your first priority is to get well.”These qualifications are important. If for example someone were planning a robbery involving murder for a particular day, then, all things considered, it would doubtless be “better” if that person picked up a lung infection which would put a stop to his project. Conversely, on a particular day, one of us might have something so pressing and urgent to do that we will disregard the doctor’s advice to stay in bed, and take the risk of getting a relapse of influenza. But with regard to the question of whether or not it is “good” to act in this way, the doctor, as a doctor, can make no pronouncement. From a doctor’s point of view “good” means “good for you, if your first priority is your health.” That is the doctor’s area of responsibility. Whether or not our health should always be our first priority is something about which the doctor can make a pronouncement as a fellow human being, but not in his special capacity as a doctor.17 The work of our moral conscience occurs precisely at the level of absolute good.That work is nothing more than to judge—here and now, and taking into account all the relevant circumstances we can reasonably foresee—the relative ends of our actions in light of the absolute end of our life: the final end. Natural Law as an Approach to Ethical Theory In light of the above definition of ethics, we can say, speaking very generally, that natural law theory is an approach to ethics under the aspect of its final foundation. For natural law is exactly the norm that decides or tells our conscience what is good and evil, here and now, in the absolute sense. Of course, “natural law” is not just a label to express a specific branch of moral philosophy: that is, the one involving the question about the final ground of moral duty. Natural law, as we shall see, is also a very specific answer to that question. Basically, the term “natural law” means a philosophical view according to which nature is transparent to the wisdom and will of God (that is, it is known as created ), appearing some17 Robert Spaemann, Basic Moral Concepts, trans. T. J. Armstrong (London: Rout- ledge, 1989), 1–2. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 337 Natural Law as Inclination to God 337 how as a gift; and man understands that “freely taking care of the good of nature” (in all the relevant senses of good) is exactly the way for him to love God, that is, to respond to His gift. The Term “Law”: Some Implications It is now time to begin making the conceptual and terminological clarifications this article aims at. Our first concern is, of course, for the term “law.” In this regard, we have to deal with the following related concepts: (1) the two-subjects relation and the common good, (2) the first meaning of law, (3) the rational character of law, (4) the extrinsic principle, (5) the law’s effectiveness, and (6) the law’s autonomy. The Two-Subjects Relation and the Common Good The concept of law refers immediately to a relation between at least two subjects: a legislator, on the one hand, and one or more subjects (citizens), on the other, with the legislator having the power to impose his will on the citizens. For Aquinas, this power is justified by the end of the law, which is what makes the law rational (or irrational, whenever it drifts away from it), and which coincides with the good that is common to the entire political community. It goes without saying that the ordering to the good of the whole is prerogative either of the whole as such or of someone who represents it. This is the reason why private persons cannot legislate, because “to order anything to the common good” and to make a law belong “either to the whole people or to a public personage who has care of the all people.”18 Most likely, when Aquinas cited the case in which the law is passed by “the whole people,” he was thinking of something similar to what we would call today a democratic process, with a voting assembly endowed with legislative power. Certainly, he was not thinking of a utopian society in which everybody (no exception!) always agrees about the common action to undertake (situation of perfect political unanimity). In fact, he adds that, when the ordering to the common good is done by the whole people, it is the people itself that will retain the vis coactiva “quam debet habere lex” in order to force the recalcitrant and the dissenters.19 At any rate, the “whole people” case is not an exception to the need for a two-subjects relationship, because the official act of the people acquires the nature of law precisely by taking on itself the public character of a directive authoritatively addressing all the citizens, and sanctioned 18 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I–II, q. 90, a. 3. 19 Ibid., ad 2. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM 338 Page 338 Fulvio Di Blasi by some sort of punishment. Public authority, even when it democratically represents the citizens, conceptually remains a subject different from all the citizens addressed by the laws. A key interpretative principle in Aquinas’s treatise on law is offered precisely by his recurrent assertion that law “may be in something”—may exist—“in two ways”:“first, as in that which measures and rules” (the legislator);“secondly, as in that which is measured and ruled” (the subject).20 In this sense, therefore, when we properly use the term law, we should always ask ourselves who the two relevant subjects are, in which law exists according to those two ways.This is the reason why Aquinas says that “properly speaking, none imposes a law on his own actions.”21 But this is also the reason why he can write that “each one is a law to himself, in so far as he shares the direction that he receives from one who rules him.”22 For law, as “participated,” always exists in the subject who is measured by it, and who therefore, in this sense, possesses the law in his own being. The First Meaning It follows, from the above, that the first meaning of law is that of “command,” because what matters about law is first of all its possibility to be effective: obliging somebody to act in a certain way. To avoid misunderstandings about a possible voluntaristic approach behind this statement, we only need to specify that the first meaning of something is also the last in the series of the definition: that is to say, it is the meaning that specifies the nature of something. For example, in the definition of man as “rational animal,” the meaning of “animal”—as the generic element of the definition—comes before the meaning of “rational,” which is its specific element. However, the first meaning of “man,” the meaning that specifies what man means, is that of “rational.” Man is everything that “animal” means plus something else—the specifying element—which is indicated by the adjective “rational.” Likewise, in the case of “law,” the first meaning that—inside the genus to which “law” belongs: that is, the genus of the “acts of reason”—specifies it is that of “command.” “Law” is everything that “act of reason” means plus something else that comes from the concepts of “command,” “common good,” “authority,” and “promulgation.” Among these concepts, “command” seems to be the primary one that specifies the nature of the law as a particular kind of rational act.23 20 See, for example, ST I–II, q. 90, a. 1 ad 1. 21 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 5. 22 See ST I–II, q. 90, aa. 1, 3; q. 91, a. 2. 23 See my “Law as ‘Act of Reason’ and ‘Command,’ ” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 515–28. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 339 Natural Law as Inclination to God 339 In a sense, it is obvious that law belongs to reason because law is always an act of an intelligent being which aims at obtaining a particular effect. Law belongs to reason “since it belongs to the reason to direct to the end.”24 And this is how we evaluate the rationality, or reasonableness, of a law and judge its goodness: by looking at its end and at its chosen means to achieve it. But it is also obvious that this reference to reason would not be enough to define “law.” Again, rationality can define “law” only generically, as the act of an intelligent being, but not specifically, as a particular kind of rational act. Law “directs to an end” (generic nature) to be achieved by means of the authoritative imposition of a particular conduct (specific nature).The function of law is that of government: namely, so to speak, to make use of a variety of things by directing them to only one end (common good), or by imposing on them an order.25 From this viewpoint, a more precise definition of law, offered by Aquinas, is “a dictate of reason, commanding something [rationis dictamen per modum praecipiendi].”26 In the well known definition “quaedam rationis ordinatio ad bonum commune, ab eo qui curam communitatis habet, promulgata,”27 the preceptive character is implicit in the mentioning of the authority as the proper source of the law. The primary meaning of law is therefore heteronymous, because it refers the law to a subject (the legislator) external to those who are bound by it.This is a common sense observation: nobody, I think, can deny that the first idea of law we have in mind is related to the concepts of command and obligation. This is not an invention by either classical voluntarism or modern legal positivism, and there is no need to criticize it if we want to criticize these currents of thought. This is why Aquinas begins his discussion on law by saying that “lex (law) is derived from ligare (to bind), because it binds one to act.”28 While this etymology is very probably false, the supposed root of the word lex shows undoubtedly what is the first meaning of the concept, at least in Aquinas’s understanding.The imposition of the name relates to the grasp of the nature of something. 24 ST I–II, q. 90, a. 1. 25 See, for example, ScG III, c. 64; ST I–II, q. 93, a. 1. 26 ST I–II, q. 92, a. 2:“Just as an assertion is a dictate of reason asserting something, so is a law a dictate of reason, commanding something.” “[S]icut enuntiatio est rationis dictamen per modum enuntiandi, ita etiam lex per modum praecipiendi.” 27 ST I–II, q. 90, a. 4:“an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated.” 28 ST I–II, q. 90, a. 1. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 340 Fulvio Di Blasi 340 With this first meaning of law as (rational) command, we can restate now the two-subject relation saying that we can always look at law from at least two perspectives: that of the legislator who commands, and that of the subject who obeys. Extrinsic Principle The reason why Aquinas begins the treatise on law focusing on its belonging to reason is exactly because the first common-sense-meaning of law is that of command. That is why it is so important to avoid the risk of voluntarism, by stressing immediately that law is basically a rational act. Yet, we should recall that the principle ordering the treatment of “law” in Aquinas’s work is not “reason”: rather, it is the concept of “extrinsic principles of human acts.”The entire second part of the Summa theologiae is devoted to human acts; and in order to deal with them,Aquinas distinguishes among “intrinsic principles”—comprising the “powers of the soul” and the “habits”29—and “extrinsic principles.” We have now to consider the extrinsic principles of acts. Now the extrinsic principle inclining to evil is the devil, of whose temptations we have spoken in the First Part. But the extrinsic principle moving to good is God,Who both instructs us by means of His Law, and assists us by His Grace. These are the opening words of the treatise on law,30 in which man is looked at basically as the measured subject, or the obedient subject, of the law-relation. As a principle of human acts, law comes from the outside: from an authority. It is intrinsically heteronomous.And God is the source of all laws because human law also binds man as far as it is grounded on eternal (or natural) law.31 Effectiveness From the point of view of the legislator, law always requires a (rational) command, on the one hand, and a principle of effectiveness, on the other. That is to say, it would be senseless to command something without having the power to make the command effective. The legislator must therefore have “the coercive power, such as the law should have, in order to prove an efficacious inducement to virtue . . . or to inflict penalties.”32 29 See ST I, q. 77ff; I–II, q. 49ff. 30 ST I–II, q. 90. 31 See ST I–II, q. 96, a. 4. 32 See ST I–II, q. 90, a. 3, obj. 2. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 341 Natural Law as Inclination to God 341 This principle of effectiveness indicates the way in which the law exists in that which is measured and ruled. At the same time, it determines the real existence of a legislator as such: the legislator being exactly he who, as a matter of fact, has, in a particular place and at a particular time, the coercive power to make his will effective.33 Generally speaking, from the point of view of the (rational) subject who obeys the law, the effectiveness can depend on the following: 1. The reasonable confidence in the legislator, grounded in the shared common end/good of the law, and implying (a) the reasonableness of the very existence of the authority as a way to orderly direct the political community (the need for authority), and (b) the reasonableness of the action of the effectively existing authority both at the general level of the legal system’s order, and at the specific level of each individual statute. This is the physiological way for a law to be effective: when citizens see the reasonableness of it and spontaneously conform their conduct to it. 2. The threat of punishment in case of refusal to obey.This is the pathological way for the law to be effective. If most people obeyed most of the legal rules for this reason only, the legal system would be on the path of destruction. 3. A mixture of both (1) and (2): reasonableness and fear. This, I think, matches the most normal way good citizens abide by the laws of their legal systems in case of arguable issues like speed limit, the use of helmets, specific taxes, and the like. Even the good citizen sometimes breaks these laws, or abides by them only to avoid punishments. The Autonomy of the Law Both the reasonable confidence and the threat of punishment (as different ways in which law can be effective in the lives of the measured subjects) require a much deeper principle of effectiveness. That is to say, for the legislative command to have any force there must exist something that is (already) “good” for the subjects: something they are willing either to achieve by obeying or not to be deprived of by disobeying, like saying that before using the carrot and the stick, there must exist pleasure and pain. 33 John Finnis, having grounded authority on its reasonableness, rightly asserts: “It remains true that the sheer fact that virtually everyone will acquiesce in somebody’s say-so is the presumptively necessary and defeasibly sufficient condition for the normative judgment that that person has (i.e. is justified in exercising) authority in that community.” Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Clarendon Press: Oxford 1980), 250. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 342 Fulvio Di Blasi 342 From the internal viewpoint of the obeying-subject, the efficacy of “reasonable confidence” rests on the common good to be achieved through obedience, just as the efficacy of the “threat of punishment” rests on the private good not to be deprived of through disobedience (freedom, money, etc.). In other words, the effectiveness of law presupposes what can be called a principle of autonomy, namely, something belonging to the nature of the agent and determining what for him is good or bad.34 The human legislator cannot create this principle; that is, he cannot command impossible things (hating children, walking always on the hands . . .) because ad impossibilia nemo tenetur, and citizens would eventually react against him. This is basically why “every human law is derived from natural law,” because human law—like all the arts—must operate (in order to achieve its end by binding human beings) as nature itself would have acted. Now, if a legislator could impose even the principle of autonomy by his will, he would be the “perfect legislator,” making nature act according to his plans.To this legislator, the term “law” would apply in its fullest sense. This is why the use of “law” for the ordo creationis (eternal law) is not metaphorical but analogical: “For the natural law above all has the character of law [lex enim naturalis maxime habet rationem legis ].”35 Paraphrasing Aquinas on the “names of God,” we could say that, as regards the “imposition of the names,” the term “law” is “primarily applied by us” to human law—“which we know first”; but as regards the res significata, it is “applied primarily to God,” because what we call “law” exists in God’s action “in a more excellent way.”36 “Natural” We have by now enough elements to understand correctly the impact of the adjective “natural” when applied by Aquinas to the term “law.” 1. First of all, it means that the natural order (ordo creationis ) is the passive subject of a legal “two-subjects-relation” in which God is the Legislator. 2. Second, it means that the natural order as such (as ordo ) is “rational,” and its rationality depends intrinsically on its being the product of the creative action of God. 34 I use the terms “autonomy” and “heteronomy” with the same meaning they have in Veritatis Splendor, §41. 35 ST I–II, q. 90, a. 4, obj. 1. 36 See ST I, q. 13, a. 6. For a sound understanding of the logical meaning of anal- ogy, see Ralph McInerny, Aquinas and Analogy (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 343 Natural Law as Inclination to God 343 3. But what matters most in order to understand the specific nature of the concept is the “first meaning.” The natural order obeys a “command.” It behaves necessarily in a certain way because it is subordinate to a Legislator who created it.“God imprints on the whole of nature the principles of its proper actions.And so, in this way, God is said to command the whole of nature [Deus imprimit toti naturae principia propriorum actuum. Et ideo per hunc modum dicitur Deus praecipere toti naturae ].”37 (Natural) Inclination We should have enough elements also to approach correctly the concept of (natural) “inclination.” Inclination is the way in which law exists in the subjects measured by it. If one law works, if it is effective, it means that (one way or another) it is able to generate, in the subjects it addresses, an inclination to act according to its directives.The inclination is what grounds, at the same time, the effectiveness and the autonomy of the law. And the natural inclinations are the principle of perfect effectiveness of God’s law on creation—that is, on the natural order.They make God’s law perfectly autonomous insofar as they exist, as internal principles of movement, in the nature of every created being. “External principle”—insofar as it indicates the heteronomous character of law—and “inclination”—insofar as it indicates the autonomous character of law—are the two key concepts to be understood if one has to correctly frame the issue.38 In the following passage,Aquinas makes absolutely clear what the term “inclination” means when it is used in defining the concept of law: Since law is a kind of rule and measure, it may be in something in two ways. First, as in that which measures and rules: and since this is proper to reason, it follows that, in this way, law is in the reason alone. Secondly, as in that which is measured and ruled. In this way, law is in all those things that are inclined to something by reason of some law : so that any inclination 37 See ST I–II, q. 93, a. 5. 38 Of course, the reasonable confidence and the threat of punishment, insofar as they make the law effective with respect to its subjects, also come analogically under the notion of inclination: they cause a sort of inclination towards the end of the law, but, as we said, their efficacy depends on the natural inclinations already operating in the subjects. From this viewpoint, also the New Law comes properly under the ratio legis because of its effectiveness: grace acts effectively, in a sense creating in man a further and more perfect inclination to the supernatural end. N&V_Spr09.qxp 344 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 344 Fulvio Di Blasi arising from a law, may be called a law, not essentially but by participation as it were.39 Every created thing necessarily obeys the will of God because it can only behave according to its natural inclinations. It does not choose to move according to its nature; it simply is already in movement: the dog towards the meat, the boy towards the girl, and the girl towards the boy, etc. The existence of natural inclinations is the basic reason why the isought question is a false problem: the world is already in motion. No one can choose to stop it or to create a new movement. We can only work on the movements already existing, as the artists use the natural properties of the colors, the stones, the clay, etc. Moral life, too, is already in motion : causing happiness or unhappiness, regrets, praise, and blame. The ethicist cannot create values from the outside. He cannot decide, for instance, that children are important (this would definitively be a fallacy ). But if they are—and it seems obvious that they are—then this movement has particular rules to work well, to be fulfilling for the agent, etc.What ethics does, if well done, is not to create “oughts,” but to try to understand the moral movements already existing in us and their rules, telling us, sometimes: whether you like it or not, this “ought” is working in you in such a manner because this thing is/is not important/good for you in this precise sense and way. Inclination and Freedom “Natural inclination” is a very general concept applicable both to irrational creatures and to human beings (and to the angels as well), although in different ways. For the rational creature receives a very special inclination intended to effectively submit his free acts to the order willed by God. I know I am using a somewhat provocative and imperfect terminology, but I want to draw attention to a very important point often misunderstood. For, up to this point in Aquinas’s discussion, it is common to explain the difference between irrational and rational creatures more or less as follows: the irrational creatures obey the natural law necessarily, while the rational ones have to recognize by reason their natural inclinations and to act freely according to them.This is right, of course, but it is not enough. This simplified view risks creating a wall of separation between the realm of necessity (proper to inclinations) and the realm of freedom (proper to reason), leaving freedom out of any intrinsic guide provided by the law: that is, out of the effectiveness of law and the realm of inclinations. 39 ST I–II, q. 90, a. 1, ad 1 (italics mine). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 345 Natural Law as Inclination to God 345 Actually, Aquinas says something different. He says: [I]t is evident that all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others.Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end (naturalem inclinationem ad debitum actum et finem): and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.40 The most important thing to stress here is that Aquinas speaks in the singular. The idea is that there is one inclination for the rational creature guiding him towards his debitum actum et finem, where debitum actum is what reason recognizes “here and now” as the action to do or to avoid, all things considered. Natural law is the moral guide for concrete (real) action. It is the “inclination to act according to reason”:41 that means, the inclination to do exactly the particular action that, after all the relevant train of reasoning involved, our conscience judges as the right thing to do. In other words, the working of this basic inclination presupposes the conclusion of the moral reasoning based on all our knowledge of the natural order and, especially, of the several goods we have as human beings (that is, our several natural inclinations), of the general moral principles grounded on them, and of the hierarchy existing among them with respect to our final end.42 In this sense, as Ralph McInerny has insistently clarified in his work, the first principle of practical reason, “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided,”43 is already a moral one. In this formula, the term “good” “gives the formality under which the object is sought or pursued: as completive, as perfective” for the rational human (body and soul) agent. So, it expresses the ratio boni perfecti, or, that is, the ratio ultimi finis. “Natural law relates to inclinations other than reason, which have their own ends, by prescribing how we should humanly pursue those ends. For Thomas, natural law is a dictate of reason, not a physical law. It is by coming under the guidance of reason that goods that are not peculiar to man come to be constituents of the human good.”44 40 See ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2. 41 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 3. 42 See, on these concepts, my “Practical Syllogism, Proairesis, and the Virtues,” 21–41. 43 See ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2:“bonum est faciendum et prosequendum, et malum vitan- dum.” 44 Ralph McInerny, Ethica Thomistica:The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (Wash- ington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982 [1997 rev. ed.]), N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 346 Fulvio Di Blasi 346 In Aquinas’s words: All the inclinations of any parts whatsoever of human nature, e.g., of the concupiscible and irascible parts, in so far as they are ruled by reason [secundum quod regulantur ratione ], belong to the natural law, and are reduced to one first precept: so that the precepts of natural law are many in themselves, but are based on one common foundation [communicant in una radice ].45 Now, of course, the set of inclinations we have “are ruled by reason” in the exact moment of choosing, every day, each one of the thousand actions we do: both mental actions and actions affecting the external reality (whether by a positive act or by omission does not matter).The regulation by reason does not happen in abstract but always in the concrete moral experience, and so it cannot work without virtue. This does not mean that we do not use a general knowledge of the moral principles (or of the natural law simply speaking, in universale ): that knowledge is of course necessary, and has a metaphysical and epistemological primacy with regard to the particular practical judgment by the moral conscience. But it means that the general knowledge in itself is not yet the proper work of practical reason, and it is not in itself the most basic meaning of natural law. That is also why the concrete (that is, the real ) moral action is properly qualified as an action according to or against virtue and not according to or against the general principle or rule: for virtue is exactly what determines the normative, the ought, character of the behavior in the particular circumstances of moral life. Here the deepest meaning of natural law and the concept of virtue go perfectly together, even though natural law as inclination maintains an ontological primacy (that is, virtue is always the perfection of an inclination). It is useful to recall that this is why Aristotle explicitly excluded practical knowledge from the realm of truth:“The object of theoretic knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action; for even when they are investigating how a thing is so, practical men study not the eternal principle but the relative and immediate application.”46 And this is also why he emphasized that “men of experience are more successful than theorists,” because “action deals with particular things,” and prudence 40–48. See also Ralph McInerny,“Grisez and Thomism,” inThe Revival of Natural Law, ed. N. Biggar and R. Black (Ashgate: Aldershot, 2000), 53–72. 45 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2, obj. 2. 46 Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. H.Tredennick (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), II, 1, 993b20–25. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 347 Natural Law as Inclination to God 347 consequently requires “knowledge of particular facts even more than knowledge of general principles.”47 Aquinas clearly had this doctrine in mind when, on the question “Whether the Natural Law Is the Same in All Men,” he wrote that “as regards the general principles whether of speculative or of practical reason, truth or rectitude is the same for all, and is equally known by all.” But “practical reason is busied with contingent matters, about which human actions are concerned [sed ratio practica negotiatur circa contingentia, in quibus sunt operationes humanae ]”; and, “although there is necessity in the general principles [etsi in communibus sit aliqua necessitas ],” as to “the proper conclusions of the practical reason, neither is the truth or rectitude the same for all, nor, where it is the same, is it equally known by all [quantum ad proprias conclusiones rationis practicae, nec est eadem veritas seu rectitudo apud omnes; nec etiam apud quos est eadem, est aequaliter nota ].”48 In the last resort: there is an intrinsic law of our freedom—a “special inclination” imprinted in us—commanding us, through the judgments of our conscience, to perform a particular action here and now (the debitum actum). This inclination is the most basic meaning of natural law; and the work of such inclination depends both (a) on a general theoretical and practical knowledge (which is the most usual meaning of the term “natural law”) and (b) on a good experiential knowledge of the particular reality. Inclination to God We now have the vocabulary enabling us to approach the overall meaning of the “natural law as inclination to God.”This term means that God wanted to make effective his will to be loved by us; and, being the perfect Legislator, he created the relevant principle of autonomy by imprinting in us an inclination to him: that is, an inclination making him important to us. We have now to check if this is a reasonable interpretation of what Aquinas had in mind; and we are going to do it by clarifying (1) the concept of natural law as “participation in the eternal law,” (2) our knowledge of the eternal law, (3) what might be called the “material object” and the “formal 47 See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1934),VI, viii, 1141b14–23; Metaphysics I, 1.This is also the main reason why Aristotle asserts that the young and immature “are not fit to be students of Political Science. For they have no experience of life and conduct, and it is these that supply the premises and subject matter of this branch of philosophy” (Nic. Eth. I, i, 1195a1–4). 48 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 4. See also I–II, q. 91, a. 3, ad 3: “The practical reason is concerned with practical matters [operabilia ], which are singular and contingent: but not with necessary things, with which the speculative reason is concerned.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM 348 Page 348 Fulvio Di Blasi object” of natural law, (4) the dilectio naturalis of the human will, and (5) the relation between the inclination to God and our moral experience. “Participatio Legis Eternae in Rationali Creatura” “Divine Wisdom, as moving all things to their due end [read: natural inclinations; intrinsic principles of effectiveness], bears the character of law. Accordingly the eternal law is nothing else than Divine Wisdom, as directing all actions and movements [ratio divinae sapientiae moventis omnia ad debitum finem, obtinet rationem legis. Et secundum hoc, lex aeterna nihil aliud est quam ratio divinae sapientiae, secundum quod est directiva omnium actuum et motionum ].”49 Once we understand that the eternal law directs “all actions and movements,” we can see that the natural law is not in itself different from the eternal law. So, it is obvious that, when Aquinas asks,“Whether there is in us a natural law,” the first objection he raises is this: “It would seem that there is no natural law in us. Because man is governed sufficiently by the eternal law.” And the answer plainly follows: “This argument would hold, if the natural law were something different from the eternal law.”50 There is nothing belonging to the natural law that does not belong to the eternal law as well, because “all that is in things created by God, whether it be contingent or necessary, is subject to the eternal law.”51 Why, then, the special term “natural law”? Of course, not just because natural law is the piece of eternal law regulating human beings specifically; this would be odd: in such a case, we could call the eternal law a different name for every kind of creature. Of course, we already know the answer from Summa theologiae I–II, q. 91, a. 2. In the case of man’s rational nature there is a qualitative difference: it “is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both for itself and for others.” More technically, man participates in the eternal law “by way of knowledge [ per modum cognitionis ],” somehow having a notion of the eternal law [quia et notionem legis aeternae aliquo modo habet ].52 But what does it mean for man to know the eternal law? Does it only mean that he has a rational nature? In other words, does it only mean that he can recognize the meanings and the natural order of things, and that he can act freely according to those meanings, and that in so doing he brings out the design of the eternal law? Of course, this would not be enough. 49 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 1. 50 ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2, obj. 1 and ad 1. 51 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 4. 52 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 6. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 349 Natural Law as Inclination to God 349 The connection between eternal law and man’s knowledge would be merely extrinsic.As a matter of fact, he would not know the “eternal law” as “an eternal law,” and the term “law” would be used only metaphorically. I think we should take more seriously both the notion of eternal law and Aquinas’s explanation of it. His point is that “Divine Wisdom” directs and moves man to act consciously according to the eternal law. God created man to be loved by him. Accordingly, man by his natural reason knows the eternal law as such, that is, as God directing and moving the world. And man received a special natural inclination to act according to his knowledge of the eternal law, that is, a natural inclination (a) making the design of God important for him, and (b) operating at the level of conscience and freedom. Thanks to this inclination man is created as a free steward (that is, he can refuse the call) of God’s providential action, consciously helping Him in “moving all things to their due end,”53 “by being provident both for himself and for others.”54 But let us see what Aquinas explicitly says about our knowledge of the eternal law. Knowing the Eternal Law When Aquinas explicitly explains how all people know the eternal law, he does not focus simply on the human capacity to know the intelligible aspects of nature (the natural inclinations and movements of all things towards their ends); neither does he refer to revealed truths and to that part of eternal law regarding the divine law (old and new). Rather, anyone acquainted with Aquinas’s metaphysics immediately recognizes in his statements the epistemological a posteriori structure of the (philosophical) ways to know God. In this respect, knowing the eternal law and knowing God are two sides of the same coin. Aquinas says literally that eternal law is known “in its effects, wherein some likeness of that thing is found,” because “no one can know the eternal law, as it is in itself, except the blessed who see God in His Essence. But every rational creature knows it in its reflection, greater or less. For every knowledge of truth is a kind of reflection and participation of the eternal law.” Furthermore, Aquinas does not deny the objection that because the eternal law is something divine we cannot know it, but he says:“We cannot know the things that are of God [ea quae sunt Dei], as they are in themselves; but they are made known to us in their effects, according to Rom. 1.20: The invisible things of God . . . are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” And finally: “Although each one knows the eternal law 53 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 1. 54 ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM 350 Page 350 Fulvio Di Blasi according to his own capacity, in the way explained above, yet none can comprehend it: for it cannot be made perfectly known by its effects.”55 “The notion of the eternal law that somehow man has” (notionem legis aeternae aliquo modo [rationalis natura ] habet )56 is properly speaking a humanly limited—and possibly very confused—notion of God (that is, of ea quae sunt Dei ). It is not just “the knowledge of an intelligible natural order,” but rather “the knowledge of the intelligible natural order as related (two-subject-relation) to the creative will of God (the Supreme Legislator).”This is the proper natural knowledge of the eternal law that we possess. In this regard, we should recall that Aquinas’s philosophical proof for the existence of Providence (which is another name for lex aeterna ) is nothing but the fifth way to prove the existence of God.57 That means that through the fifth way we do not obtain simply the knowledge of God’s existence but, more precisely, the knowledge of the existence of God as the Supreme Lawgiver “directing all actions and movements.”58 In other words, Aquinas’s concept of eternal law should be read in the light of the entire philosophical tradition that, (a) beginning from the first pre-Socratic insights on natural teleology caused by an ordering loveIntelligence (insights interpreted by Aristotle as the discovery of the principle of movement and the final cause),59 (b) appeared already as a strong doctrine on divine providence in Socrates and Plato, (c) and became an 55 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 2. 56 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 6. 57 Cf., for example,Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles III, cap. 64.“Moreover, that natural bodies are moved and made to operate for an end, even though they do not know their end, was proved by the fact that what happens to them is always, or often, for the best; and, if their workings resulted from art, they would not be done differently. But it is impossible for things that do not know their end to work for that end, and to reach that end in an orderly way, unless they are moved by someone possessing knowledge of the end, as in the case of the arrow directed to the target by the archer. So, the whole working of nature must be ordered by some sort of knowledge. And this, in fact, must lead back to God, either mediately or immediately, since every lower art and type of knowledge must get its principles from a higher one, as we also see in the speculative and operative sciences. Therefore, God governs the world by His providence. Furthermore, things that are different in their natures do not come together into one order unless they are gathered into a unit by one ordering agent. But in the whole of reality things are distinct and possessed of contrary natures; yet all come together in one order, and while some things make use of the actions of others, some are helped or commanded by others.Therefore, there must be one orderer and governor of the whole of things.” 58 For a deeper discussion of the structure of the five ways and the nature of our knowledge of God involved in them, see my God and the Natural Law. 59 See Metaphysics I, 1, 984b15ff. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 351 Natural Law as Inclination to God 351 explicit and developed universal-divine-law-view with the Stoics. Christian thought gave to the Greek final-cause-ordering-Intelligence the further connotation of an efficient/creative-cause. And (d) after the early reflections by authors like Theophilus of Antioch, Minucius Felix, Origen, and the Cappadocians, (e) and the clear notion of eternal law in Augustine, (f) the scholastic tradition could deliver to Aquinas all the needed philosophical material for his famous synthesis. Material Object and Formal Object of Natural Law Having clarified the sense in which the participatio legis aeternae in rationali creatura happens per modum cognitionis, we can now say, broadly speaking, that the material object of natural law is the knowledge of the ordo creationis (ourselves and the other human beings included) that we are able to achieve by our natural reason; while the formal object is the normative character under which that same natural order comes into our knowledge. In other words, in the term “natural law,” “natural” means not only human nature but everything we can know about the natural order. In this respect, the natural law and the eternal law (in its philosophical meaning, which does not include the divine, old and new, laws) are the same thing. On the other hand, the term “law” means the normativity of nature, which cannot depend for us merely on the natural inclinations of things (men included), for these inclinations bind intrinsically and necessarily everything except an external rational observer.The fact that the observer understands the need for iron to attract the magnet, or the need for lions to go after their prey, or the need for mothers to nurture their children, does not imply for him any ethical urge. Nature’s normativity needs something else; it depends on the understanding of what is behind the inclinations: that is, it depends on the intelligible connection between the existing inclinations and the will of God (that is, the ratio legis), who wanted them. When we mention the will of God, we do not slide into a sort of voluntaristic view of natural law theory. In this regard, it is certainly useful to recall that in Aquinas’s (Aristotelian) metaphysics the notion of “good” does not add anything to the notion of “being” except that there is a relation with a will wanting it, just as the notion of “truth” adds to that of “being” only a relation with an intellect knowing it. Absolutely speaking, something is true or good not “in itself ” but only “for someone,” man or God. And when man realizes that there is a good (and a beauty) in him and around him that is independent of, and more important than, himself, he is knowing at the same time (with more or less awareness) the will of God.That is why to the “good man” everything belonging to nature appears important in an absolute (transcendental) N&V_Spr09.qxp 352 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 352 Fulvio Di Blasi sense—and not merely because of his desire60—and should somehow be respected according to the meaning it intrinsically has. In short: the term “natural law” indicates our knowledge of the natural order (material object) as created/willed by God (formal object), where the formal object is what makes the natural order absolutely important before our conscience. Dilectio Naturalis of the Human Will Actually, it should be clear that what has been said so far is not yet enough. For we still do not have the principle of effectiveness—or of perfect autonomy—for the will of God “as known by human beings.”All things considered, we are still external observers of the will of God. That is to say, let us grant (a) that we are able to know by our natural reason the intelligible order of nature, the existence of God (even if in a very limited sense of a confused perception of a transcendental meaning of things) and the order of nature as created by God, and that that is exactly why God wanted the existence of man as a free being, to be able to know and love Him. But (b) why should all this knowledge make the natural order absolutely important for us? Why should all this knowledge as such be important for us? The only epistemologically sound answer is that God imprinted in us, as the most basic inclination of our nature, the inclination to love him before and more than ourselves.The immanent and original work of this inclination would make the natural order morally important for us in the exact moment of knowing it as created. This basic inclination would be the principle of perfect autonomy of natural law “as such” (that is,“as the natural order known by human beings as related, in a legal two-subjectsrelation, with the effective/creative will of God”), and it would be also the deepest ground of our moral conscience. But let us see what Aquinas says in this regard. Speaking in ST I–II, question 60, of the amor seu dilectio naturalis of the angels,61 he first states that “natural love is nothing else than the inclination implanted in nature by its Author,” so “it is common to every nature 60 When I say “absolute sense” I mean “with respect to the will of God,” and not, of course, “with respect to the other things.” With respect to the will of God, every creature is important in an absolute sense, but it is also more or less important with regard to the place it occupies in the hierarchical order of all things, and with respect to the final end. 61 It goes without saying that, since we cannot have a direct experience of the angelic nature, our philosophical understanding of it depends on the analogy between angelic nature, on the one hand, and human rational nature, on the other.As such, it presupposes an in-depth study of both human intellect and human will. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 353 Natural Law as Inclination to God 353 to have some inclination; and this is its natural appetite or love.This inclination is found to exist differently in different natures; but in each according to its mode. Consequently, in the intellectual nature there is to be found a natural inclination coming from the will; in the sensitive nature, according to the sensitive appetite; but in a nature devoid of knowledge, only according to the tendency of the nature to something.”62 Without dilectio naturalis nothing could move. And, as regards man, without the inclination of his will towards his final end (happiness, beatitudo ), he could not move, because “all other desires are caused by this natural desire [ex hac naturali voluntate causantur omnes aliae voluntates ]; since whatever a man wills he wills on account of the end.” From here comes the difference between dilectio naturalis and dilectio electiva : in fact, “the love of that good, which a man naturally wills as an end, is his natural love; but the love which comes of this, which is of something loved for the end’s sake, is the love of choice.”63 Angels and men love themselves with both dilectio naturalis and dilectio electiva.This is coherent because “a thing may be loved in two ways”: as a “subsisting good” and as an “accidental good.” In other words, a subject may be inclined simply to “procure what is good for itself ” (dilectio naturalis), and this inclination belongs both to irrational and rational creatures: “hence angel and man naturally love self, in so far as by natural appetite each desires what is good for self.” But angel and man may wish something per electionem, as a means for their good. In this case, they wish the means “unto another [alteri],” and they love themselves with dilectio electiva.Aquinas gives a clear example: when we wish knowledge (scientia), we do not love it in itself (ut ipsa sit bona) “but that it may be possessed [ut habeatur].This kind of love has been called by the name of concupiscence.”64 At precisely this point, after having explained that angels (and men as well) love “another with natural love as he loves himself [sicut seipsum ],”65 Aquinas comes to the last and most important article of quaestio 60: “Whether an Angel by Natural Love Loves God More Than He Loves Himself [utrum angelus naturali dilectione diligat Deum plus quam seipsum ].”66 Here his idea on human nature is extremely clear and sharp: From natural love angel and man alike love God before themselves and with a greater love. Otherwise, if either of them loved self more than God, it would follow that natural love would be perverse, and that it 62 ST I, q. 60, a. 1. 63 ST I, q. 60, a. 2. 64 ST I, q. 60, a. 3. 65 ST I, q. 60, a. 4. 66 ST I, q. 60, a. 5. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 354 Fulvio Di Blasi 354 would not be perfected but destroyed by charity [naturali dilectione etiam angelus et homo plus et principalius diligat Deum quam seipsum. Alioquin si naturaliter plus seipsum diligeret quam Deum, sequeretur quod naturalis dilectio esse perversa, et quod non perficeretur per charitatem, sed destrueretur ].67 The last words of this quotation show unequivocally how much Aquinas was aware of the implications of his philosophical view on dilectio naturalis. Men’s inclination to “love God before themselves and with a greater love” is a necessary natural ground for the action of grace. It is, strictly speaking, a preamble of the faith (preambulum fidei). If man did not already love God in such a way, human nature “would be perverse . . . and it would not be perfected but destroyed by charity.” In other words, we cannot have, under this respect, a natural final end different from the supernatural one to love God. The fifth article of the same question is full of important specifications.68 For instance, (1) that loving God more than oneself is not exclusive to the supernatural love of charity (see obj. 4); or (2) that, as a natural inclination, the dilectio naturalis operates necessarily, that is, it remains, although in a perverse way, even in the sinner (obj. 5). But what matters most to us now is how Aquinas stresses that his specific answer to the question is intended to deny that our love for God is related to our love of concupiscence. In particular, he wants to attack both: (a) the view that, yes, we naturally love God more than ourselves, but only as an aspect of our love of concupiscence (see the main reply); and (b) the view that, exactly because of the love of concupiscence, we do not love God more than ourselves (see, obj. 2). Again, his words are quite clear and unquestionable. I answer that,There have been some who maintained that an angel loves God more than himself with natural love, both as to the love of concupiscence, through his seeking the Divine good for himself rather than his own good; and, in a fashion, as to the love of friendship, in so far as he naturally desires a greater good to God than to himself; because he naturally wishes God to be God, while as for himself, he wills to have his own nature. But absolutely speaking [simpliciter loquendo ], out of natural love he loves himself more than he does God, because he naturally loves himself before God, and with a greater intensity. The falsity of such an opinion stands in evidence. . . .69 It is important to note that what makes Aquinas certain of his own answer is exactly his knowledge of the precepts of the natural law as God 67 ST I, q. 60, a. 5. 68 I briefly recall here only some main points, but I offered a more detailed comment on all of quaestio 60 in my God and the Natural Law. 69 ST I, q. 60, a. 5. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 355 Natural Law as Inclination to God 355 revealed them. So, the only sed contra he stated against the several objections that the angel “does not love God by natural love more than he loves himself ” reads: On the contrary, All the moral precepts of the law come of the law of nature. But the precept of loving God more than self is a moral precept of the law.Therefore, it is of the law of nature. Consequently from natural love the angel loves God more than himself.70 This sed contra testifies vividly to how much Aquinas, talking about the angels, was thinking both of men and of his account of natural law. But let us come back to the second objection regarding the love of concupiscence: Objection 2. That on account of which a thing is such, is yet more so. But every one loves another with natural love for his own sake: because one thing loves another as good for itself.Therefore the angel does not love God more than self with natural love. Reply Objection 2. When it is said that God is loved by an angel in so far as He is good to the angel, if the expression in so far [inquantum] denotes an end, then it is false; for he does not naturally love God for his own good [ propter bonum suum], but for God’s sake [ propter ipsum Deum]. If it denotes the nature of love on the lover’s part [rationem amoris ex parte amantis], then it is true; for it would not be in the nature of anyone to love God, except from this—that everything is dependent on that good which is God. What does it mean that we do not love God with love of concupiscence? It simply means that our human nature has a paradoxical structure: exactly the same one characterizing Christian ethics on the supernatural level of grace.71 Namely, it means that, since our deepest inclination is “to love God before ourselves and with a greater love,” we cannot fulfill our nature, we cannot reach our happiness (or beatitudo ) if we intentionally pursue just our happiness (Mt 10:39). Here Aquinas’s ethics goes together with Augustine’s two loves grounding the two cities:“Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.”72 But it is also perfectly in accord with the classical Aristotelian distinction between good (simpliciter ) and pleasure as the two final formalities under which we tend towards the 70 ST I, q. 60, a. 5, sed contra. 71 “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake, will find it” (Mt 10:39). 72 St. Augustine, The City of God, ed. and trans. W. J. Oates (New York: Random House, 1948), Bk. 14, ch. 28. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM 356 Page 356 Fulvio Di Blasi particular end of each action (the good as useful is only instrumental). Good and pleasure should go together. When we choose something mainly “because it is good” we also enjoy the pleasure coming from our action, but our intentionality takes us somehow beyond, or over, ourselves. But because of our spiritual nature, we are able to separate good, simpliciter dictum, from pleasure, choosing something only “because of the pleasure” we expect (whatever kind of pleasure, even intellectual).This intentionality (“love of concupiscence” in the broadest sense of the term) falls back on ourselves. Both for Aristotle and the Christian tradition, only by choosing the good in itself (bonum honestum: quia honestum dicitur quod per se desideratur ) can man enjoy the greatest pleasure from his action (bonum delectabile : that is, quod terminat motum appetitus ut quies in re desiderata ),73 because pleasure comes from the fulfillment of nature. Inclination to God and Moral Experience But is it not odd, or queer, to talk about such a natural inclination, an inclination to God working necessarily in the practical reasoning of all men and women? Or is it not rather the opposite view that should appear odd and queer, at least to common sense? Sometimes, before people who do not believe in God but fight strongly—with a sort of firm belief and absolute certainty (even with unselfishness)—for certain ethical views, we should rationally wonder why they do so. If there is not anything higher, anything beyond the horizontal level of this existence, why so much stress, worry, and anxiety? And from where does that firm certainty come? Actually, most of the time the evidently unsound arguments of many moral philosophers cannot justify their ethical convictions. Of course, there is something more than reason in them, and in the current “atheist ethical debate” as well. (Too often, in the philosophical debate, the only difference between atheists and believers is that the former do not explicitly try to justify their faith.) Besides, we could get the same feeling of rational exaggeration when facing other people who give to limited goods (say, job, sport, food, order, etc.) something approaching an absolute value as if the importance of those kinds of goods transcended somehow their effective contingent and relative reality. The natural inclination “to love God before ourselves and with a greater love” means that human moral life cannot work without an absolute point of view, one transcending all the contingencies and limitations of this world. It means that man’s authentic moral reasoning cannot work without relativizing himself in view of some higher value, that man 73 See ST I, q. 5, a. 6. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 357 Natural Law as Inclination to God 357 needs some absolute moral truths, that he needs to believe in something and is almost always ready (knowingly or not) to sacrifice his reason for what he previously chose as his own absolute values. Again, it means that man cannot live without aspiring to eternal life and to an infinite good, without hoping that his life be absolutely important for Someone—beyond the transitoriness of human things, and without thinking that his good and bad actions will be a source of merit or condemnation after this brief life. In other words, the natural inclination to God means that behind the moral life there is a notion of something absolute and transcendental, a higher goodness, importance, and truth.A notion—we should say according to the common ending of Aquinas’s five ways to know God—of what “everyone calls God.” In this regard, it is worthwhile to recall that, for Aquinas, every man possesses (necessarily) a certain notion of God that grounds the (necessary) inclination to God.That is why, when he criticizes the so-called (after Kant) ontological argument, he does not deny that the idea of God is already working in every human mind. He only claims that such an idea is not enough to assert clearly (simpliciter) the existence of God. He says explicitly: “To know that God exists in a general and confused way is implanted in us by nature [est nobis naturaliter insertum], inasmuch as God is man’s beatitude. For man naturally desires happiness, and what is naturally desired by man must be naturally known to him. This, however, is not to know absolutely that God exists; just as to know that someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching, even though it is Peter who is approaching; for many there are who imagine that man’s perfect good, which is happiness, consists in riches, and others in pleasures, and others in something else.”74 In the Christian tradition of ethical thought the alternative to God is not atheism but idolatry.That is, since man cannot do without his basic natural notion and inclination to God (his natural capacity for God), if he refuses God, the result will be to attribute to some relative end the absolute and infinitive characteristics belonging, rationally, only to the notion of God. In this respect (that is, the working of the inclination to God in the concrete moral life of all men), a very important part of a sound natural law theory is precisely to deepen the inclination to God in re (that is, phenomenologically) in order to show the deepest feature of moral experience as (a) an experience of the transcendent (that is, of the transcendental basis of the moral good), and (b) an experience of the paradox of finding oneself (fulfilling one’s nature) through the total, absolute, forgetfulness of oneself.Very often even the easiest arguments grounded on our 74 ST I, q. 2, a. 1; also, ScG I, cap. 10–11. N&V_Spr09.qxp 358 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 358 Fulvio Di Blasi knowledge of nature (for example, that there is no difference between killing the unborn and the born babies) are “accepted” by people in difficult situations only when they focus on the idea that “God exists.” This is coherent because that idea is finally what makes their moral choices absolutely “important” to human beings. And this is also why the reality of death is naturally so important for moral conversions. As an example of this kind of understanding of the moral experience, it is surely suggesting what Spaemann says speaking of moral duty, that is: “Every ‘ought’ has to be linked to a want of some kind, otherwise we would have no reason to act on it.”75 Duty is not blind.The right question about moral duty concerns what we really want beyond all the relative goods we like. It concerns the final end of human life. Moral duty reveals the deepest inclination of our rational nature. But we must go further. The real voice of moral conscience requires self-sacrifice. It says: whether you like it or not—no matter how much you might suffer—this action is good, that action is bad.This aspect of moral conscience, in which man relativizes himself, needs epistemologically a transcendental ground. That is, it needs a final (moral) end more important than the rational agent itself. In this sense, we might say that the absolute imperative of conscience reveals the inclination to God. Even our own lives become absolutely important to us only when we look at God, because, notwithstanding all the pains or sorrows we might suffer, God wants us to live.The last (and more beautiful and persuasive) natural law answer to suicide remains that God loves us eternally, and he is the final reason of our actions. By loving God before and more than himself, man finds the absolute reason to love himself and others. God loves man in a special way. In this sense, from the viewpoint of the inclination to God, there is no axiological difference between oneself and others. Maybe that is why the second commandment is like the first:“You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (Mt 22:36), where as seems to mean “no more and no less.”76 Conclusion: Main Theoretical Presuppositions of Classical Natural Law Theory As we mentioned in the beginning, “natural law” is a sort of synthetic term for an overall philosophical view according to which the deepest 75 See, R. Spaemann, Basic Moral Concepts, 14. 76 It goes without saying that the inclination to God—besides giving the absolute moral character to all the moral precepts of natural law—implies specific precepts as well; exactly all those precepts implicitly involved in the first, and hierarchically more important, three commandments of the law given by God (the commandment of the first tablet). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 359 Natural Law as Inclination to God 359 meaning of human life does not lie on this earth, and according to which the experience of moral good (the moral experience) is somehow a transcendent experience: that is, the experience of transcending self-love for the sake of “what we human beings call God,” the experience of a total and absolute self-giving.Again, it is an ethical view in which the work of moral conscience is already a religious experience requiring some notion of, and the inclination to, God. According to natural law philosophy, the order, meaning, beauty, and bounty of the world reveal God to man. And man feels that his destiny and final good lie somehow beyond this world in God, and that this world is precisely the path to reach it.The world appears to man, at the same time, as an image of God, and as a gift and a commitment, as something sacred that man has to administer. Authentic moral experience, therefore, implies the idea of belonging, not to oneself, but to a higher order. It is the experience of profound inner peace of him who is not looking for his own will. A sound understanding of natural law theory sheds light on the strong and deep connection there is in Christian ethics between the terms “law,” “will,” “love” and “obedience.” Both in the supernatural and the natural order obedience is the truth of the human moral life.To the good man, who opens his eyes to creation and his ears to his conscience, moral experience is exactly the experience of the obedience of love to the will of God. Even the most noble and rich human realities, like, for example, family, children, and marriage, reach their full natural and sacred meaning only in the religious man who looks at them as to the main part of his mission in this world. In conclusion, if we had to sketch the main theoretical presuppositions of classical natural law theory, we should say that they are: 1. that man’s unaided reason is able to spontaneously grasp, through the sensible reality offered by the senses—even if sometimes “in a general and confused way”—a certain notion of God; 2. that man’s will is naturally inclined more to God than to itself, or, in other words, that the love for God is the ultimate end of human actions and the ratio of natural law; 3. that man is naturally able to know by his reason an intelligible order present in nature (with himself being part of it), with an understanding of the several ends of the things and of the hierarchical order existing between them. (The specific knowledge of the objective natural order regulating the relationships between human beings goes traditionally, not under the label lex naturalis, but under that of N&V_Spr09.qxp 360 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 360 Fulvio Di Blasi ius naturale and pertains, in Aquinas’s Aristotelian approach, to the treatise on justice);77 4. that man is able to recognize that order as willed by God, that is, as created, therefore conferring on it an absolute (transcendental) value. This last point (4), of course, is just the other side of the first one. For the aspect of sensible reality which refers the human mind to God is nothing else than its being “created”: that is, the fact that it does not have N&V in itself the reason of its own existence. 77 See ST II–II, q. 57ff. Unfortunately, the English terms “natural law” and “natural rights” do not translate well the Latin distinction between lex naturalis and ius naturale. See my “Natural Law and Natural Right(s): Conceptual and Terminological Clarifications,” in Natural Law Today, ed. Christopher Wolfe, forthcoming. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 361 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 361–88 361 The Metaethical Inclusiveness of Natural Law Theory J AMES M. J ACOBS Notre Dame Seminary New Orleans, Louisiana IN A RECENT overview of contemporary metaethics, Bernard Williams curtly asserts that “moral theories are standardly presented as falling into three basic types, centering respectively on consequences, rights, and virtues,” which he then identifies with utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics.1 He says that the difference between these lies in the fact that each defines the good in different terms: the first in terms of attaining maximal states of affairs, the second in terms of doing right actions, and the third in terms of being good persons. Now, what strikes one immediately is the complete ignorance of the natural law tradition as a fourth alternative.Williams, however, is not alone in this, since philosophy textbooks regularly ignore natural law (or, what is worse, implicitly present it as some sort of divine voluntarism). For defenders of the natural law tradition, it is obvious that it cannot be reduced merely to a greatest good, nor to rational duties, nor to virtue, although—crucially—it includes elements of each of these criteria. It is my argument that a major reason why contemporary thinkers are so blind to natural law is the fact that these other theories thematize in an exclusive fashion elements of moral goodness that are unified in the natural law approach.Thus, while each of the contemporary theories has some aspect of truth, each is also radically inadequate because of the way in which it rejects the full character of human goodness. According to the inclusive understanding of the natural 1 Bernard Williams,“Contemporary Philosophy:A Second Look,” in The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, ed. N. F. Bunnin and E. P. Tsui-James (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 33. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 362 James M. Jacobs 362 law, this good is to perfect one’s human nature by doing right actions that bring about the common good. In this essay I will demonstrate how each of the traditions identified by Williams presents partial notions of moral goodness, and how these partial notions are combined in the definition of the good in the natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas. In order to understand how this blindness to the inclusive nature of natural law might arise in contemporary philosophy, we need to recall Alasdair MacIntyre’s argument in the opening section of After Virtue.2 MacIntyre argues that the language we employ for ethical discussion has been emptied of its significance because the cultural and philosophical contexts that once grounded the meaning of those terms have utterly changed. Of the many ethical notions that have fallen into doubtfulness, the most crucial is the good.The reason for this unique importance is that the good is the first principle for moral reasoning and so provides the ultimate motivation for undertaking whatever actions are done. That is, in the end, every act must be justified because the agent believes it to be good. An agent might offer a number of reasons for acting, but the final justification must simply be the affirmation that it is good.This explanation is then taken to be a self-evident explanation for the action, inasmuch as it is nonsensical to ask a person why he aimed for the good.Thus, as Thomas Aquinas often notes, in practical matters the self-evident first principle for acting is the final end aimed at by the agent.3 This fact, though, brings clarity to the debate in contemporary ethics. If, as MacIntyre’s analysis suggests, there are varying conceptions of the good, there will be utterly distinct orders of moral justification existing within a single society. This is the ultimate source of the moral disorder MacIntyre decries: these disparate foundational notions of the good lead people to accept very different acts as morally licit.4 Moreover, this underlying disagreement makes substantive moral debate pointless, for until there is agreement on the first principle, there can be no more than a superficial agreement about the moral life; we can never cobble together 2 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 1–5. 3 See, for example, Summa theologiae I, q. 82, a. 1, I–II, q. 90, a. 2, and II–II, q. 23, a. 7, ad 2; the source of this insight is Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 1998), I.7 (generally) and, more specifically,VI.5 (1140b16–17). 4 MacIntyre discusses this point in his Marquette lecture, First Principles, Final Ends, and Contemporary Philosophical Issues (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1990), reprinted in The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays,Volume I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 143–78. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 363 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 363 a purely practical consensus without common principles, especially without an agreed upon idea of the good,5 the justifying criterion for all actions. What is needed to remedy this situation is a proper philosophical analysis of the various first principles upon which people base their moral reasoning.This might seem to present a problem, for it is generally accepted that a first principle cannot be proved (otherwise, it would not be a first principle).6 Thus, each philosopher claims his first principle to be the self-evident foundation for practical reasoning. Consequently, we must analyze these first principles by dialectical means.7 Accordingly, I will consider the various first principles simply in terms of their adequacy to our moral intuitions and experience. This analysis will yield one unavoidable conclusion: the first principle of natural law ethics (as presented in the thought of Thomas Aquinas) is the most adequate principle because it is the most complete, for it implicitly contains in a holistic way all the insights that are present in partial ways in the competing moral theories.8 Moreover, by recognizing this comprehensive vision of the good in the natural law, we also discover the means by which to solve the problems of moral conflict in society that arise largely due to the impasse caused by exclusive theories of the good.9 5 See John Rist, On Inoculating Moral Philosophy Against God (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2000), 59–61. 6 See Aristotle, Posterior Analytics II.19 (100b4–17) and Metaphysics IV.4 (1006a4–12). This seems to be admitted at least implicitly by the thinkers with whom I will be concerned; see, for example,Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.4;Thomas Aquinas, ST I, q. 1, a. 8, and I–II, q. 94, a. 2; John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 2nd ed., ed. George Sher (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001), chapters 1 and 4; Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James Ellington, 3rd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), 390 and 408. All reference to this work will be according to the Akademie pagination. 7 As Robert George points out, “Any defense of the claim that [a first principle] is self-evident will have to be a dialectical defense, rather than a derivation.The principal dialectical arguments for the first principle of morality demonstrate the failures or inadequacies of proposals that would deny the principle or leave it out of account.” In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999): 52–53. 8 The notion of inclusiveness of natural law theory in opposition to the exclusiveness of modern theories is developed by Heinrich Rommen, who argues that modern thought is linear and excludes other perspectives and so is reductionist, while Catholic thought is “spheric” and so is inclusive of opposing poles of insight and better accountable to the whole complex reality of human nature. On this, see William Haggerty, “The Question of Modernity in the Political Thought of Heinrich Rommen,” in Reassessing the Liberal State: Reading Maritain’s Man and the State, ed. Timothy Fuller (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 34–48. 9 That thinkers from competing traditions might come to accept more adequate first principles is defended by Alasdair MacIntyre, “Moral Relativism,Truth, and Justification,” in The Tasks of Philosophy, 52–73. N&V_Spr09.qxp 364 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 364 James M. Jacobs Foundational Considerations Before we analyze the theories in question, we need to first explain why thinkers can arrive at different notions of the good. After all, if the good is the self-evident first principle of action, should there not be near universal agreement on its definition? The answer can be found in the subtle distinction, elaborated by Thomas, between the definition and the nature of the good.10 The source of this distinction lies in the fact that the good is a transcendental property; as such, it is convertible with being. But, properly speaking, a definition must be a delimitation of being according to genus and specific difference.Thus, as a primary concept convertible with being itself, “good” cannot be defined. The only way to get a hold on any of the transcendentals (which are mutually convertible and only notionally distinct) is according to their effects.11 This effect on us is the notional addition to being that distinguishes each of the transcendentals in our experience, and so it is this experienced aspect of being that is used as a definition for the good. As Aristotle indicates, the effect of the good is to elicit desire.12 But the analysis cannot end here, for if the good is subjectively constituted merely by the desire of the agent, then morality is susceptible to relativism. Consequently, the good (and each of the transcendentals) must be grounded in an objective nature, a real quality of being, which explains why it has the effects it does.13 The nature of the good, that is, the ground for its desirability is, for Thomas, the perfection of being (as will be explained below). This distinction between the definition (the notional addition to being) of the good as appetible and the nature (the ontological ground) of the good as perfection explains why different philosophers might develop different understandings of what the good is. All agree, at least implicitly, that the good is the end to be achieved; it is the principle that is directive of moral actions and so motivates activity. But under what 10 See Summa contra Gentiles I, q. 37, par. 5 and ST I, q. 5, a. 1. An overview of this distinction can be found in Fran O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 85–99. 11 See De veritate q. 1, a. 1 and q. 21, a. 1. 12 Nicomachean Ethics I.1 (1094a3): “The good is that which all things desire.” 13 We can illustrate this with respect to the transcendentals: (1) the definition of unity is undividedness; the nature is a coherently focused center of activity; (2) the definition of the true is the adequation of mind and thing; its nature is the intelligibility of being as act; (3) the definition of the good is being as desirable; the nature is the perfection of being; and (although not strictly Thomistic) (4) the definition of the beautiful is that it gives joy when contemplated; the nature is the presence of the intelligible in the sensible. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 365 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 365 principle does man desire to achieve this end? What is the substantive content of the summum bonum ? The diverse conceptions of the good will be tied to each thinker’s understanding of the nature of the good. And, since the nature of the good is inextricably determined by ideas of nature as a whole, there will emerge distinct ideas of the good as there are distinct understandings of nature. Thus, the objective intelligible principle of goodness will vary according to one’s approach to nature. This methodological consideration is illustrated by the great dichotomy in modern approaches to ethics: deontology versus utilitarianism. It also illustrates why these modern approaches differ so radically from premodern approaches (virtue ethics and natural law). Moreover, these differences explain why the twentieth-century debate came to such a stalemate, as competing theories are simply incommensurable. Both utilitarianism and deontology are responses to Hume’s argument about the fact-value dichotomy.14 Note that this is a critical innovation, for after Hume the good is no longer seen to be an objective part of the order of nature; consequently, the good must therefore be constituted by man.15 There are two basic human faculties by which the good might be so constituted: reason and appetite. Reason would find the good in terms of rational consistency, while the appetites seek satisfaction in terms of pleasure.16 14 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. III, part 1, sec. 1. 15 As John Rist comments, “Part of the real challenge of Nietzscheanism is that it forces us to acknowledge a radical dichotomy in non-Nietzschean moral theory: morality either depends on God or it depends on the will and rationality of man. We either find it or invent it; it rests either on fact or on choice” (On Inoculating Moral Philosophy Against God, 94). Rist develops this argument at greater depth in Real Ethics: Rethinking the Foundations of Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Again, Fulvio Di Blasi epitomizes his interpretation of Thomistic natural law by noting,“If there were no God, even in the presence of an objective order of human good, the individual will would remain the ultimate ethical criterion.” God and the Natural Law: A Rereading of Thomas Aquinas, trans. by David Thunder (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2006), 212. The modern position follows from the nominalism associated with the development of science: if reality is just a collection of atoms undetermined by qualitative forms, then how can there be value of any sort in it? This is perhaps the ultimate explanation for modernity’s ignorance of the natural law: the extreme nominalism which insists that not just the good, but also the true and the beautiful, are constituted by some human act. The assumed nominalism of modern philosophy makes it impossible for thinkers to even see the issues natural law raises. 16 The point to note here is that these two approaches are exclusive: Kant, as will be seen, insists on excluding any empirical sentiment and basing ethics on a priori reason. Utilitarianism, on the other hand, follows Hume’s notorious claim that reason should be the slave to the passions (A Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. II, part 3, sec. 3); Mill’s use of the pleasure/pain criterion is in accord with this N&V_Spr09.qxp 366 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 366 James M. Jacobs Thus the good is either the form of universal lawfulness, or the greatest pleasure principle. On the other hand, for the traditions of virtue ethics and natural law, the good is part of nature and man discovers it through both reason and appetite.17 This is one reason why natural law is more inclusive of the insights of the other theories. But there is one further consequence of the fact-value dichotomy: since for the moderns, the good is created by man, its extension must be restricted to human concerns; for the ancients, on the other hand, moral goodness is merely a subset of the good of nature, so the good transcends merely human concerns. I will develop the consequences of these differences below. One final observation about why natural law tends to be obscured in contemporary debate.When one queries the average person about what it means to be good, one encounters certain spontaneous answers: first, many people will assert that the good is that which makes the most people happy; others will spontaneously say that moral goodness is following the rules or living up to one’s duties; still others would say that being good is what makes you a better person.18 It is not too hard to see that these spontaneous suggestions reflect the traditions of utilitarianism (the good is that which maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain for the greatest number of people),19 Kantian deontology (as epitomized by the categorical imperative: act so that the maxim of your action can simultaneously by willed as a universal law),20 and Aristotelian virtue ethics (a good act is one which makes the act and the agent virtuous or good).21 There seems to be, therefore, a natural inclination to see the good in a somewhat multifaceted way. It is immediately apparent, however, that to choose one of these as an exclusive first principle is to base morality on a principle which restricts the fully human notion of the good; consequently, only a first principle that articulates what is valuable in all of these is adequate, even if it does not spontaneously present itself to an unreflective audience. focus on sentiment: “Pleasure and the freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends.” 17 Aristotle says explicitly that moral choice is based on the combination of both reason and appetite, a “desiderative reason or ratiocinative desire” (Nicomachean Ethics VI.2, 1139b5). Similarly, Thomas argues that moral choice is the result of the deliberative interaction of reason and will (see below). 18 Actually, I believe that a fourth kind of answer would unfortunately be all-toocommon: moral relativism. I exclude it here since it is an inadequate moral theory, because it in no way objectively regulates behavior and so fails to be an ethics. 19 See Mill, Utilitarianism, 7. 20 See Kant, Grounding, 402. 21 See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, I.7 (1098a17–18) and II.6 (1106a23–24). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 367 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 367 Utilitarianism and Deontology It is not the aim of this essay to prove natural law theory to be correct, and alternative theories to be wrong; I aim only to show how natural law’s first principle is inclusive of other principles. Consequently, in this section, I do not intend to directly critique utilitarianism and deontology other than by briefly introducing the way in which the definition of the good as the first principle of ethics is discerned in each theory and indicating how they are only partial notions of the good.22 Utilitarianism’s first principle defines the good as that which generates the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people.The derivation of this first principle is a simple empirical observation: “No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness.This, however, being a fact, we have not only all the proof which the case admits of, but all which it is possible to require, that happiness is a good: that each person’s happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.”23 Mill argues that everything any person might desire is desired for the sake of happiness and concludes that “to desire anything except in proportion as the idea of it is pleasant is a physical and metaphysical impossibility.”24 This conclusion has the virtue of reminding us that for Mill happiness means pleasure. Further, it illustrates how, in agreement with Hume, Mill teaches that sentiment or desire for pleasure is the only motive for acting; consequently, it follows that an act is good to the extent it achieves that end for the greatest number of people. Mill’s theory clearly illustrates the consequences of the fact-value dichotomy for the definition of goodness. Once the good has been removed from the realm of the intelligible, it can only be defined in terms of sentiment or appetite, which reduces to the perception of pain and pleasure as the sole masters of human action. Thus, the maximization of pleasure must be the greatest satisfaction of the appetite, and so is the good.There is, therefore, a responsibility to ensure that the benefits fall to everyone, and not just oneself. Utilitarianism is to be commended for this insight about the need for ethics to aim at a common good. Indeed, Mill takes this notion of the common good so strongly that the utilitarian principle ought to extend even to animals: since pleasure is the end of action, it “to the greatest extent possible [must be] secured to all mankind; and 22 For a direct and devastating critique of these theories, see Henry Veatch, Human Rights: Fact or Fancy? (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985). 23 Mill, Utilitarianism, 35–36. 24 Mill, Utilitarianism, 39. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 368 James M. Jacobs 368 not to them only, but, so far as the nature of things admits, to the whole of sentient creation.”25 Utilitarianism, then, has a laudable dedication to the notion of the good as being fulfilled by maximized common benefit (that is, pleasure). What is problematic, however, is how this common good is understood in terms of consequential pleasure. Now, apart from the general problems of defining the good solely in terms of (unpredictable and immeasurable) pleasurable consequences, 26 there are two specific problems with this definition of the good in terms of the satisfaction of appetite (which implicitly excludes reason’s role in determining the good). First, since the good is derived solely from the appetites, it seems to ignore human rationality in favor of lower instincts. Second, since the good is maximized pleasure, it appears that it cannot ground a notion of inviolable absolute rights that exist despite any general pleasure that might be attained.27 Yet both of these would seem to be integral to any real notion of human flourishing. Moreover, the common good must be truly common to establish objective precepts that are knowable by all, but because utilitarianism identifies the good with pleasure, the common good can only be the sum of individual pleasures and not some shared perfection. Mill’s inability to resolve this discordance is indicative of the limited truth of his definition of the good. Let us now turn to Kant. His first principle is the formal rule of action set forth in the categorical imperative; as long as any action accords with the formal a priori structure of the categorical imperative, it is a morally licit act and so is an end to be sought.28 Reacting against a perceived laxity of a sentiment-based ethic, Kant insists on excluding any empirical sentiment and bases ethics on a priori reason since pure reason alone generates the necessity characteristic of law, thereby clearly disambiguating what is 25 Mill, Utilitarianism, 12. 26 For a critique of consequentialism along these lines, see John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Right (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 111–18 27 Mill, realizing that both issues were left unresolved by Bentham, is moved to write Utilitarianism in answer to these objections. These topics are specifically addressed in chapters 2 and 5. Unfortunately, both attempted solutions fail. First, to distinguish higher pleasures from lower pleasures requires that one use a criterion other than pleasure, which denies the principle of utilitarianism. Second, Mill defines justice in terms of injustice, and so concludes that a right is anything I claim against another based on the other’s fear of punishment; but then, the ultimate foundation for his idea of maximal common good is fear, and it seems impossible to generate an adequate comity and maximal pleasure in society if justice, which ought to recognize and protect my most fundamental agency, is respected only out of fear. 28 Kant, Grounding, 402. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 369 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 369 merely desired from what is seen as duty.This recognition of duty enables reason to act as a motive even in spite of the attractiveness of pleasure. Only this a priori moral law can be the foundation for objective moral duty.29 But this abstraction from the empirical means that moral duty must be purely formal; thus, the good is simply the recognition of doing what is universal and necessary, that which has to be done. In this way Kant arrives at the categorical imperative: “I should never act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law.”30 Again, due to the fact-value divide, Kant believes that man’s judgment constitutes the good. In contrast to Mill, however, Kant sees that desire oftentimes is mere self-interest and so not true moral behavior; accordingly, he posits the idea of rational duty as the remediation for inclinations of self-interest. Moreover, Kant sees that it is only by rejecting the empirical impulses of self-interest that man can truly manifest his freedom, his isolation from the determinism of the phenomenal world. It is in this freedom that human dignity is found. Kant thus discerns a more adequate basis for making objective moral judgments that recognize the inherent value and dignity of human acts since judgments are not based on mere subjective pleasures. Yet these strengths also point to the limitations of Kant’s approach, which flow from his insistence that ethics must be purged of all empirical elements in order to instill a pure sense of rational duty. Most immediately, this does not allow for a legitimate role for loving the good as a source of moral action.31 To act on an inclination to the good vitiates that act, since it is then not acting upon duty.The good must remain an intellectual ideal with no appeal to the appetites that respond empirically to the experience of values. In fact, in his insistence that only purely rational duty can motivate moral action, Kant artificially separates the rational from sensory experience, thus distorting the integral unity of the human person and his contextualized existence in this empirical world.32 This brings up the closely related 29 See Kant, Grounding, 389: “Everyone must admit that if a law is to be morally valid, i.e., valid as a ground of obligation, then it must carry with it absolute necessity. . . . And he must concede that the ground of obligation here must therefore be sought not in the nature of man nor in the circumstances on the world in which man is placed, but must be sought a priori solely in the concepts of pure reason.” 30 Kant, Grounding, 402; cf. 421. I restrict myself to the first formulation of the categorical imperative, since there is great controversy about the precise relation of the other formulations to the first. 31 Kant, Grounding, 398. 32 John Rist criticizes Kant’s unrealistic notion of the person as disembodied reason in Real Ethics, 163ff. N&V_Spr09.qxp 370 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 370 James M. Jacobs problem that Kant makes no room for virtue in the Aristotelian sense: the habituation of sentiment according to a rational rule.33 This weakness is critical, for while Kant does recognize the importance of duties, those duties are purely formal, purely universal and necessary. Actions, on the other hand, are always concrete and specific.Thus, there is in practice a gulf between any universal rule and the way that rule is instantiated in particular circumstances. With no sentiment to mediate application, the discernment of concrete directives from formal rules is problematic at best.34 What is required is the virtue of prudence by which Kant’s formal laws might be applied to the specific, empirically conditioned situations in which we find ourselves.Thus, while Kant’s ethics respects absolutes in a way that utilitarianism does not, his absolutes are abstractly rationalistic formal laws which give little guidance to life as it is lived. Furthermore, since there can be no appetitive fulfillment in the good, the theory seems to provide no real motivation for why one should obey these formal rules.35 Since I can be motivated neither by the idea of personal fulfillment or happiness, nor by the vicarious joy in seeing my neighbor as another self (as opposed to, as Kant would have it, an equally rational, utterly autonomous member of the Kingdom of ends), there is little left to compel me to follow these duties. What is needed is a way to unite formal principles with concrete, lived circumstances. This is achieved by natural law ethics, for it views man as both rational and animal, and provides a layered series of precepts, which guide us in increasingly determinate situations. The Natural Law It would be beneficial at this point, before considering the position of Aristotle’s virtue ethics, to outline Thomas’s natural law ethics. In this presentation, I primarily aim to show how Thomas’s first principle incorporates the seemingly contradictory insights from utilitarianism and deontology. This more profound notion of the good grounds a superior moral theory, for it makes natural law unsusceptible to criticisms due to an overly narrow 33 Nicomachean Ethics II.6 (1106b9–28). 34 A clear illustration of this is the fact that moral dilemmas most often do not concern what my duty is in a particular instance, but rather which of two (or more) competing duties should take precedence. I have duties to my job and my family, but how to decide which one is more important in a particular situation cannot be decided by merely formal rules about “doing one’s duty.” 35 Some of the moral conundrums which result from Kant’s formalism are well brought out by Veatch, Human Rights, 94ff., where he argues that in the end all consequentialism must become a deontology (for example, why should I choose for greatest happiness?) and all deontology must become a consequentialist teleology (for example, why do I have a duty if its not my good?). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 371 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 371 understanding of the good.This exposition of natural law, however, requires many layers of analysis, for to fully grasp the meaning of Thomas’s first principle one must fully understand the meaning of the terms involved.36 I must reiterate that I am not attempting to demonstrate that the natural law approach is true or correct, for that would be a considerably larger project. Thus, we must bracket such potential objections as to whether natures exist (as a nominalist might argue), whether God exists (as per atheism), and even the intramural debate among natural lawyers about the relation between natural law theory and metaphysics. Rather, my point here is to show that the proper understanding of Thomas’s first principle implicitly contains the insights of the other theories. Let us begin by considering the first principle of natural law according to Thomas: Now as “being” is the first thing that falls under the apprehension simply, so “good” is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, which is directed to action: since every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good. Consequently the first principle of practical reason is one founded on the notion of good, viz. that “good is that which all things seek after.” Hence this is the first precept of law, that “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.” All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this: so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man’s good (or evil) belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided.37 Thomas’s first principle is simply that the good is to be done and pursued and evil is to be avoided. But this is an almost tautological point (tautological because the good is simply the end we seek in acting at all, and so is the explanation for the fact of activity in the world). Accordingly, we must explore, first, what is meant by the good, and second, how this precept is understood to be law (that is, obligating). We can then grasp how all precepts of the natural law are derived from it. These investigations will demonstrate how Thomas unites the human inclination for happiness with a rational duty to adhere to law. 36 It might be objected that natural law as presented here only appears more complete because I am giving a fuller exposition; however, I believe that it requires a fuller exposition because it is in fact more complete inasmuch as it accommodates positions specifically excluded by other theories.This is because it has a more adequate metaphysics, and only a proper grasp of being can ground a proper understanding of human nature and activity. 37 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2. All citations from the Summa theologiae are taken from the translation by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benzinger, 1948; reprint, Allen,TX: Christian Classics, 1981). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM 372 Page 372 James M. Jacobs As mentioned above,Thomas understands goodness as not primarily a moral category, but as a metaphysical category. It is an aspect of being, and therefore is discovered by man, not created by him. What makes goodness an end for Thomas is not that it is pleasurable, or simply that it is rationally consistent, but that it is the perfection of being, the full realization of the teleological potential of a substance.38 Indeed, Thomas asserts that the very reason for the existence of things (their first act, the act of existing) is to achieve their purpose: “Indeed, all things created would seem, in a way, to be purposeless, if they lacked an operation proper to them, since the purpose of everything is its operation. For the less perfect is always for the sake of the more perfect: and consequently as the matter is for the sake of the form, so the form which is the first act is for the sake of its operation, which is the second act; and thus operation is the end of the creature.”39 This operation is the perfection, or completion of being, that all creatures naturally seek. But it might be asked, given this idea of perfection, why do creatures tend to it as the good? Aristotle accepted as brute fact that creatures tend to an end; but Thomas understands that this fact needs some causal explanation.40 The answer is found in Thomas’s notion of divine providence. This will be critical, since providence is coextensive with the eternal law,41 and the natural law is defined by reference to the eternal law. Providence follows from the fact that the contingent universe is created by God and ordered by His reason. Thus the universe is established as a manifestation of God’s own goodness.42 But God shares His goodness not only in constituting the existence of substances (first act),43 38 See ST I, q. 5, a. 1, ad 1. 39 ST I, q. 105, a. 5; cf. ScG III, q.113, par. 1. 40 In his review of Anthony Lisska’s Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law: An Analytic Reconstruction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), Alasdair MacIntyre poses two critical questions concerning Lisska’s defense of traditional Aristotelian natural law theory (International Philosophical Quarterly 37 [1997]: 95–99). Given that creatures tend to a telos : (1) Why do they do so? (2) Why is that a good? Thomas supplies answers to both of these: to the second he argues that it is good because good is defined as the perfection of being for which everything strives. I take up the first question here. In both cases the answer is supplied by a richer metaphysics based on the fact of creation. 41 See ST I–II, q. 91, a. 1; cf. De veritate, q. 5, a. 1, ad 6. 42 ST I, q. 44, aa. 1 and 4. 43 This is an important aspect of Thomas’s argument. Through creation, creatures participate in the act of existence (ST I, q. 44, a. 1); but since existence is an act, all creatures are naturally dynamic, oriented to activity. The directedness of this activity—which grounds the regularity of nature that makes this universe intelligible—is ascribed to providence. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 373 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 373 but also in directing them to their perfection (second act).44 Thus providence is the divine order that directs all creatures to perfection. But it must not be thought (as Leibniz might) that this means that all creatures are perfect in themselves. Rather, the object of God’s creative act is the entire universe, and the goal of creation is the perfection of the universe as a whole, not each creature individually.45 What results is a kind of symbiotic perfection by which each creature flourishes by participating in the perfection of other creatures.46 How is this providential directedness to perfection manifested in human affairs? Thomas argues it is manifested in the appetites, or inclinations, that move all creatures to action.47 As Thomas explains, creatures that lack awareness are moved by a natural inclination, such as the natural tendency of water to condense or of plants to grow toward the sun; other things have knowledge, but only of sensible particulars, and so react according to instinctive judgments according to the benefit or harm offered by objects; man, finally, has knowledge not only of particulars, but also of intelligible universals, and so has a natural inclination to the universal good, which is happiness.48 But this very inclination to happiness also constitutes the problem of morality, for while we have an inclination to the universal good, in this life we can attain only finite goods; consequently, we are faced with choosing limited goods as means to attaining human happiness.49 The exercise of this choice constitutes human freedom,50 and so man is responsible for achieving the perfection to which he is inclined by God. 44 ST I, q. 22, a. 1. 45 See ST I, q. 22, a. 2, esp. ad 2:“Since God, then, provides universally for all being, it belongs to His providence to permit certain defects in particular effects, that the perfect good of the universe may not be hindered, for if all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe.” Cf. ST I, q. 47, aa. 1–2 and I, q. 103, a. 1–2. 46 ST I, q. 103, a. 6: “Now it is a greater perfection for a thing to be good in itself and also the cause of goodness in others, than only to be good in itself.” For a good illustration of this idea of the shared perfection flowing from diffusive goodness, see W. Norris Clarke, S.J., Person and Being (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1990), 1–24. 47 ST I, q. 80, a. 1; cf. I, q. 59, a. 1. 48 ST I, q. 82, aa. 1 and 2.Thomas will later argue that this universal good can only be the beatific vision, by which we are united to God (ST I–II, q. 2, a. 8 and q. 3, a. 8); thus, while all things seek perfection in imitation of God, only rational creatures can complete the return to God by actually gaining union with him. 49 ST I, q. 82, a. 2; cf. De malo, q. 6. A good overview of this aspect of practical reason is found in Steven A. Long, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2007): 1–10. 50 ST I, q. 83, a. 1. N&V_Spr09.qxp 374 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 374 James M. Jacobs This very brief overview answers the first question posed above: we now know that the good is the perfection of human nature attained in achieving the universal good of happiness.While man is inclined to this perfection by God, it is the fact of free will that brings us to the second question, how this pursuit of the good can be seen to be a law.This second question will also demonstrate how these inclinations are united to rational duties. Morality is concerned only with human acts, that is, acts that are done knowingly and freely (that is, by reason and will).51 Thomas lays out four basic principles or causes of human acts: inclinations, habits (virtue and vice), law, and grace.52 The first two are intrinsic to man’s nature (virtue merely being the perfection of the inclination inasmuch as the appetites are subordinated to reason);53 law and grace are extrinsic. (As grace is properly a theological concern, we will focus on law.) The purpose of extrinsic principles is to aid man in his deliberative pursuit of the good: that is, the law guides reason’s informing the will about the most appropriate good to be chosen.Thus, where virtue directs us from within, law directs us from without. This role of law is well illustrated by Thomas’s definition, in which he emphasizes its rational essence directing man to his proper end. For Thomas, a law is “an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated.”54 But there are different kinds of law, each of which orders a different community.55 Despite the differences between the groups to be ordered by law,Thomas insists that all laws are derived from the eternal law because that is God’s providential order, and all guidance to perfection must accord with it.56 Therefore law is defined in terms of reason (as the formal cause) and the 51 ST I–II, q. 1, a. 1: “Wherefore those actions alone are properly called human of which man is master. Now man is master of his actions through his reason and his will; whence, too, the free-will is defined as the faculty and will of reason.Therefore those actions are properly called human which proceed from a deliberate will.”Thomas analyzes this deliberative interaction of reason and will (or rational appetite) in controlling the sensitive appetites in ST I, qq. 80–83 and especially I–II, qq. 6–21. It is this notion of deliberation that allows Thomas to avoid the problematic narrowness that results from the fact-value dichotomy. 52 In the prologues to ST I–II, qq. 49 and 90. 53 ST I, q. 55, a. 1. 54 ST I–II, q. 90, a. 4. 55 ST I–II, q. 91. In addition to the natural law, which orders all men to their end, Thomas names the eternal law, which orders the universe; the human (positive) law, which orders a specific human society; and the revealed divine law, which orders a people of faith (Church) to salvation. 56 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 3. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 375 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 375 common good (as the final cause); but both reason (truth) and the common good are defined by the eternal law’s ordering of the universe. Accordingly, the good as the intended perfection of being exists as a characteristic in the order of nature, and no law directive of activity that fails to recognize this order can be legitimate.57 The natural law, which Thomas defines as “the rational creature’s participation of the eternal law,”58 is man’s share in providence that arises due to his rational nature; that is, man’s reason can grasp the providential ordering of creatures to their end, and so issue commands that direct him toward true happiness. Therefore rational creatures have a twofold participation in the eternal law: man is passively inclined by divine providence to perfection, as is all creation; yet, as rational, man can actively and freely determine acts by reference to reason’s knowledge of creation and act for its perfection.59 This rational ordering of man to his end is most clearly articulated in the precepts of the natural law.60 As we saw above,Thomas says the first precept of the natural law is “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.”61 That is, reason universally issues the self-evident command that all human acts are to aim to achieve the end for which we were created. But, inasmuch as this end is happiness, and we are naturally inclined by providence to achieve happiness, there is a coincidence between the empirical reality of our inclinations and reason’s determinations of our duties. 57 ST I–II, q. 95, a. 2. 58 ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2. 59 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 6.Thus there are two rules or standards that guide human behav- ior: reason as the proximate rule that guides natural law and virtue; and the eternal law as the ultimate rule, since it orders the universe and determines why man is measured by reason as a proximate rule; see ST I–II, q. 21, a. 1 and q. 71, a. 6. 60 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2. 61 While I cannot discuss the issue here, it must be noted that the correct interpretation of this first precept has been greatly debated since Germain Grisez’s seminal article “The First Principle of Practical Reason: A Commentary on the Summa Theologica, 1–2, Question 94, Article 2,” Natural Law Forum 10 (1965): 168–201. Grisez has attracted many able supporters, notably John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Right (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980) and Robert George, In Defense of Natural Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).These representatives of the so-called new natural law theory are inspired by the Humean fact-value dichotomy, and so argue that the first precept is prescriptive, based soley on practical reason’s grasp of a good to be pursued.The traditional interpretation (which I employ here) understands the first precept to be descriptive, based on theoretical reason’s grasp of human nature and what is necessary for its fulfillment.There have been a plethora of critical responses to the Grisez-Finnis interpretation; two good examples are Janice Schultz,“Thomistic Metaethics and a Present Controversy,” Thomist 52 (1988): 40–62; and Peter Simpson,“Practical Knowing: Finnis and Aquinas,” Modern Schoolman 67 (1990): 111–22. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 376 James M. Jacobs 376 Hence Thomas asserts that practical reason can issue determinate precepts of the natural law based upon man’s natural inclination to perfection: “Since, however, good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is that all those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally apprehended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance.Wherefore according to the order of natural inclinations, is the order of the precepts of the natural law.”62 Since, as Thomas says, action follows from being, these natural inclinations will follow the ontological order by which man is specified.This order is first, that with all other entities, he is a being (a transcendental property); second, that with all sentient beings, he is an animal (a generic property); and third, that uniquely among animals, man is rational (the specific property). Accordingly, man’s first inclination, shared with all creatures, is to preserve himself in being; second, like all animals, man is inclined to propagate the species; and finally, as rational, characterizing his proper good, man is inclined to social order (a temporal end) and union with God (the eternal end).63 Therefore, since the natural law is a twofold participation in the eternal law, there is a rational duty to fulfill the natural appetite for happiness. The Unity of Ethics in Natural Law Having defined natural law, we can now see more clearly how its first principle is inclusive of other notions of the good.Thomas says the basis of ethics is that the good is to be done and evil avoided, and that the good is the perfection of being in accord with the inclinations given by providence, a perfective order man can know and freely implement through the commands of practical reason. Two things immediately jump out with respect to the principles employed by Mill and Kant: as with Mill’s utilitarianism, appetites direct us to act for the common good; however, as with Kant’s deontology, natural law is an obligating ordinance of reason.What makes this union possible is that the law is promulgated by an authority who orders things to their good.This element will unite the insights of utilitarianism and deontology, and simultaneously prevent them from a shallow identification of the common good with cumula62 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2. 63 Since happiness entails the beatific vision, all these ends are ordered to union with God: thus I can accept martyrdom or celibacy for the sake of God; similarly, I ought to defend my country and family instead of protecting my own life alone. I have examined the relations between these levels of precepts in “The Transcendentals and the Precepts of the Natural Law,” Vera Lex:The Journal of the International Natural Law Society 5 (2004): 7–24. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 377 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 377 tive individual pleasure, on the one hand, and falling into an abstract formalism, on the other. It recognizes the basic insight of utilitarianism because it acknowledges that we ought to act for a common good, but a more profound common good that includes the perfection of all being in accord with providence. It accepts the principle of Kantian deontology because it accepts that we are bound by duty to follow an absolute rational principle; yet this principle is not merely formal, but rather is a reflection of our natural impulse to perfection, which is realizable only in very determinate ways. The necessity of law is retained, in spite of the empirical foundation, because the precepts of the natural law (at least the self-evident principles) are requisite for achieving the foreordained end of happiness. Thus natural law presents a more profound vision of the human good. Let us consider these points more directly. I have said that the element that allows Thomas to unite the insights of the first principles of utilitarianism and deontology is the fact that the universe is directed to its end by God. As a consequence, the good is discovered, not created, by human judgment. But since it is a part of the order of nature, it can be discerned by way of both the appetites and the intellect.That is, the appetites are so constituted that man naturally desires goods conducive to happiness as the end of his activity;64 yet, by reason he grasps the order of nature and the duty to fulfill that end. Therefore, for Thomas, natural law is both feeling and duty: it is a feeling in terms of the connatural inclinations by which we are directed to happiness;65 it is a duty in terms of the commands of practical reason through which the precepts of the natural law are made known as law, an extrinsic guide to action. Without a common causal principle to unite these perspectives, one tends to assume that human interests constitute the good and to focus in an exclusive fashion on either consequences that the appetites desire or the duties that reason apprehends. 64 This is not an exact parallel with utilitarian consequentialism, since utilitarian- ism sees consequences as something subsequent to and independent of the act, where happiness for Thomas is the immanent activity of the agent himself. 65 On connatural knowledge by inclination, see ST I, q. 1, a. 6, ad 3: “Since judgment appertains to wisdom, the twofold manner of judging produces a twofold wisdom. A man may judge in one way by inclination, as whoever has the habit of a virtue judges rightly of what concerns that virtue by his very inclination towards it. Hence it is the virtuous man, as we read, who is the measure and rule of human acts. In another way, by knowledge, just as a man learned in moral science might be able to judge rightly about virtuous acts, though he had not the virtue.” For a brief overview of Thomas’s notion of connatural knowledge, see Jacques Maritain, Natural Law: Reflections on Theory and Practice, ed. William Sweet (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001), 13–24. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 378 James M. Jacobs 378 First, since natural law affirms that inclinations are directed by providence, it is clear that it includes the utilitarian appreciation of the common satisfaction.All law is for the common good; it is clear, then, that the natural law is for the common good of man, but man flourishes only within the perfection of the universe.This helps to resolve the perplexity in utilitarianism concerning the moral status of non-rational creatures. If the common good is merely the sum total of individual experiences of pleasure and pain, there results of necessity any number of absurd analyses which attempt to consider animal pleasure and pain as somehow of equal importance to human experience. What is needed is a more adequate understanding of the common good as not simply the sum total of individual pleasures.This more objective and truly common notion is the natural law’s identification of the good with the perfection of being. As rational, the good for man is not merely pleasure and pain, but following the rational duties of providence. However, since the natural law is for the common good, the duties of providence are for the sake of the perfection not just of an individual, or even of the human species alone; rather, the natural law requires that we act to perfect all of creation, to act providentially in our own limited way.This is the very reason, according to Thomas, why rational creatures are necessary in the order of creation: to bring the universe to perfection.66 Nevertheless,Thomas is also clear that in the order of providence non-rational species exist for the sake of rational species, since the latter alone achieve personal immortality.67 Thus, in fulfilling the duties of his nature and concurrently achieving the perfection of the universe, each person perfects himself individually. As this is a truly common goal, individuals are not torn apart by the subjective nature of individual pleasure, as is potentially the case with utilitarianism.68 Moreover, since the good has determinate content, no longer is the common good determined merely in terms of the consequences alone. One can easily criticize Mill’s claim that “utilitarian moralists have gone 66 See ScG II, q. 46, par. 3. This would be the only sound basis for a consistent ecological ethics. 67 De veritate, q. 5, a. 6. 68 This point is well articulated by James Schall: “Our own happiness and the happiness of others ought not to be conceived as if they were intrinsically contradictory to each other. Being by nature a political and social being means just this recognition of a proper place for every different person in a common whole. . . . Mutual love means that our happiness includes the happiness of another. . . . But if happiness has no objective content, no objection can be proposed to the seeking of one’s own happiness at the expense of another’s.” At the Limits of Political Philosophy (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), 146. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 379 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 379 beyond almost all others in affirming that the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much to do with the worth of the agent.”69 Additionally, he argues that judgments about the goodness of an act must be perpetually revisable to meet the utilitarian standard of maximized pleasure.70 This extreme focus on the consequences, completely independent of the intention or the act itself, implies, as Mill admits, that good and bad actions can be performed by sheer accident with respect to the agent’s real intention: “[Utilitarians] are also aware that a right action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous character, and that actions which are blamable often proceed from qualities entitled to praise.”71 This isolation of consequences from the intention of the agent, and the practical impossibility of correctly predicting the consequences of any intended action, seem to turn utilitarian ethics into a morass of accidents and guesswork. Natural law theory is immune to these problems, for it does not isolate the consequences from the intention or the action. Natural law requires that the agent act in accordance with law and achieve perfection as an end, yet the primary consideration is given to the objective nature of the act as either appropriate to a rational nature or contrary to it.72 Thus, after elucidating the moral implications of act, circumstance (including consequences), and intention,Thomas concludes:“Accordingly a fourfold goodness may be considered in a human action. First, that which, as an action, it derives from its genus; because as much as it has of action and being so much has it of goodness. . . . Secondly, it has goodness according to its species; which is derived from its suitable object. Thirdly, it has goodness from its circumstances, in respect, as it were, of its accidents. Fourthly, it has goodness from its end, to which it is compared as to the cause of its goodness.”73 This corrects the vagueness of Mill’s doctrine because the consequences alone cannot make a bad action good, or a good action bad, especially if those consequences are not foreseen by the agent.74 The consequences are only accidental to the nature of the act,75 and man’s primary duty is to perform fully rational acts by which human nature is perfected.76 With Kant, we can construct a similar analysis.While we have a duty to adhere to rational precepts, in the natural law that duty includes a direction 69 Mill, Utilitarianism, 18. 70 Ibid., 24. 71 Ibid., 20. 72 ST I–II, q. 18. 73 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 4. 74 ST I–II, q. 20, a. 5. 75 ST I–II, q. 7, aa. 3 and 4; Thomas here distinguishes between the act itself as substantial to morality, while the circumstances are seen to be accidental. 76 ST I–II, q. 18, aa. 1 and 2. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 380 380 James M. Jacobs to a substantive good, and so is not purely formal. Kant, as we have seen, grounds our duty to the objectivity of the law in the a priori autonomy of pure practical reason.77 But these precepts therefore remain distanced from the facts of lived experience. This contrasts with the natural law, which locates duty as reason’s command to fulfill providence’s inclinations to perfection. Furthermore, these duties, as revealed in the precepts of the natural law, are not formal and abstract, but can address the contingencies of human life because the precepts reflect upon the content of divine providence and the determinate inclinations specific to human nature. Additionally, in order to guarantee both the truth of rationally formed precepts and to address the contingency of specific circumstance, the natural law issues forth three levels of precepts; the more detailed the precept, the more it allows for exception due to circumstance, yet they nonetheless retain the necessity of law.78 Indeed, Thomas says that the most specific application of precepts requires the careful consideration of a prudential person,79 thereby bridging the insights of Kant and Aristotle: there must be universal laws accessible to all, and yet the contingency of practical life requires wisdom in applying that precept correctly to the issue at hand. Reason, then, has its obligatory force not in its a priori deductions, but in the fact that it discerns the order of providence. So, where Kant insists that man ought to be rational despite the lack of any appetitive satisfaction, for Thomas being rational is in accord with providence and necessary for our own happiness, the perfection of our being.80 In other words, acting rationally brings man happiness. Kant might object that this notion of natural law is really a form of heteronomy, and so an illegitimate basis for the moral “law of freedom.”81 If it is heteronomous, then for Kant there can be no duty to follow it (since it is only empirically, and conditionally, binding). This objection clearly exposes divergent conceptions of freedom. In order to guarantee the free77 Kant, Grounding, 433–45. 78 See ST I–II, q. 94, a. 4 and q. 100, a. 11. I have considered how the precepts of the Decalogue embody this relation between necessity and specificity in “The Precepts of the Decalogue and the Problem of Self-evidence,“ International Philosophical Quarterly 47 (2007): 399–415. 79 ST I–II, q. 100, aa. 3 and 11. 80 Karol Wojtyla argues that the foundation of Kant’s error is his notion that the will is nothing but pure practical reason, and so cannot desire perfection itself; but if the will is the rational appetite, as it is for Thomas, then we desire our own perfection and so have access to substantive moral truths. See the series of essays in Person and Community: Selected Essays, trans. Theresa Sandok, O.S.M. (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 3–72. 81 Kant, Grounding, 440–45. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 381 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 381 dom of the person, Kant removes him from the phenomenal realm completely; consequently, Kant assumes freedom means indetermination, that is, that man is utterly free to choose his ends. For Thomas, on the other hand, freedom is superdetermination, the ability arising from an excess of power to achieve (predetermined) ends in a variety of ways.82 The difference lies in the fact that, for Thomas, freedom and moral goodness are part of the natural world, since they are concreated in the providential order for the sake of perfection. For Kant, on the other hand, since freedom and natural determination are incompatible, man cannot be directed to an end in any way. Consequently, for man to pursue the good at all he must first exercise his absolute autonomy in establishing the substantive end which is to be pursued. But if man can choose the substantive end, the good that justifies all other activities, then that choice is itself arbitrary and all like choices of ends become equally worthy.83 In other words, if freedom as autonomy extends to choosing the end, then there is no standard by which to evaluate that choice of end.84 If we exclude all heteronomy, the only thing that matters in human life is a logical consistency, despite the substantial vacuity of the end chosen. Nevertheless, the natural law allows for a kind of autonomy for the agent inasmuch as the natural law is promulgated in the agent’s reason and so is the proximate standard of moral action.85 82 On the notion of superdetermination, see Yves Simon, Freedom of Choice, ed. Peter Wolff (New York: Fordham University Press, 1969), esp. 153: “Freedom proceeds, not from any weakness on the part of the agent but, on the contrary, from a particular excellence in power, from a plenitude of being and an abundance of determination, from an ability to achieve mastery over diverse possibilities, from a strength of constitution which makes it possible to attain one’s end in a variety of ways. In short, freedom is an active and dominating indifference.” 83 Thus, collecting garden gnomes can be as good as serving other people. The categorical imperative acts only as a limiting principle of what I may do, but it cannot motivate me to act in any one direction or form a life of a certain kind. Since duty excludes desires, I cannot be oriented to happiness; but without happiness (or any other predetermined end) as an end, then anything can be done on the sole condition of logical consistency. Thus, while Kant’s original motivation was to focus moral significance upon motivation (which is under our control), as opposed to consequences (which are not under our control), he isolates motivation so as to exclude from consideration any end whatsoever. But if end has no role to play in the formation of motivations, then any self-consistent motivation is allowable regardless of its substantive content. 84 Some readers have commented that in this Kant has some similarity to the Scotistic theory of will. While I am not familiar enough with Scotus to comment, it does seem to be an important line of argument which could yield further insight. 85 For a discussion of the relation between heteronomy and autonomy in the natural law, see Fulvio Di Blasi, God and the Natural Law, 38–51, and the summary statement at 175. N&V_Spr09.qxp 382 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 382 James M. Jacobs Part of the reason Kant accepts purely formal goods lies in his reduction of the good will to consistency of intention alone. Kant recognizes the problems inherent in a consequence-based criterion, but in his moral theory the pendulum swings too far to the other extreme: for Kant, the only thing that counts is a good will, even if that intention is never translated into action (since that would impose an empirical requirement upon morality).86 As we saw above, for Thomas the intention must be seen together with the act and the circumstances.87 A good will isolated from the concrete realities of human circumstance can never address moral dilemmas as we experience them; the problem is normally not what is good, but rather which good ought to be pursued given these circumstances.A good will must be translated into a concrete act in order to realize the intention as good, for a good will alone can never make an action good.88 Perfection of being comes only in the attainment of act. Without this provision, Kant seems susceptible to the very moral laxity that he so abhorred in sentiment-based ethics. The Case of Aristotle Aristotle is often considered to be a kind of natural law theorist because of his focus on the teleological nature of ethics: that every nature acts for its own end, and that is its good.89 However, if we adequately interpret his first principle, his definition of the good, we clearly see what separates Aristotle’s virtue ethics from Thomas’s natural law. The main insight of virtue ethics is that each agent acts for its own perfection; what is missing in Aristotle, and what is provided by Thomas’s natural law, is why each agent so acts, and why it is good. As argued above, it is Thomas’s more profound metaphysical vision of goodness as the perfection of being in accord with the ordering of divine providence that explains why crea86 Kant, Grounding, 393–96, esp. at 394: “A good will is good not because of what it effects or accomplishes, not because of its fitness to attain some proposed end; it is good only through its willing, i.e., it is good in itself.” 87 See Long, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act, for a discussion of the significance of this. 88 ST I–II, q. 20, a. 5. 89 See, for example, Heinrich Rommen, The Natural Law:A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998), 14–17. Moreover,Aristotle does not suffer from the narrowing of morals that results from the fact-value dichotomy. Aristotle says explicitly that human action is based on the combination of both reason and appetite, a “desiderative reason or ratiocinative desire” (Nicomachean Ethics VI.2, 1139b5), because while human excellence is an activity of the soul in accord with virtue (Nicomachean Ethics I.7, 1098a17–19), it is clear that the soul has both rational and appetitive functions, and so virtues appropriate to both. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 383 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 383 tures are directed to their ends and why those ends are good. Moreover, Thomas’s more profound metaphysical order allows him to shift the perspective of ethics from the perfection of the agent alone to a common good in which all being is perfected.90 But this deepening of metaphysics also helps to answer a further weakness with Aristotle’s virtue theory. Bernard Williams dismisses virtue theory because it concentrates on the nature of a good man and so is unable to supply concrete directives about what acts are good and bad; he concludes that “ ‘virtue theory’ cannot be on the same level as the other two types of theory [that is, utilitarianism and deontology].”91 The reason for this failure is Aristotle’s division of practical reason from speculative reason. Thomas resists this separation by giving all people access to the natural law as the foundation of moral judgments. Aristotle defines the good of man as happiness, which is the ultimate goal of every action. Human happiness, however, must reflect the unique purpose of human nature; accordingly, man’s good is a rational activity of the soul in accord with virtue.92 This is Aristotle’s first principle, and so every act that strengthens virtue as a habit is good, as virtue makes both the man and the act good.93 But there are two types of virtues: moral virtue, by which the appetitive parts of the soul are subjected to reason; and intellectual virtue, by which reason itself is perfected. Since moral virtues are the perfect mean of feeling and action with respect to the agent and the circumstance, there must be a great deal of flexibility with respect to how morality is applied. In fact, it is because of this need to accommodate contingencies that the ultimate rule of ethics, the standard of right action, is the man of practical wisdom:“Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.”94 This is precisely where Aristotle’s 90 This is characteristically done in Thomas’s replacement of the centrality of the polis in Aristotelian ethics with a focus on all of creation. Thomas receives this principle of the precedence of the good of the whole from Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.2, 1094b7–11; he comments on this line in lectio 2, n. 31 of his Commentary, but revises Aristotle so that the ultimate end is not the state but the theological end of man. A good analysis of the shortcomings Thomas finds in Aristotle’s moral theory is in Mary M. Keys, Aquinas,Aristotle, and the Promise of the Common Good (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 102–9 and 124. 91 Williams, “Contemporary Philosophy: A Second Look,” 34. 92 Nicomachean Ethics I.7, esp. at 1098a17–18; he reiterates this definition in I.13, 1102a5–6. 93 Nicomachean Ethics II.6, 1106a22–24. 94 Nicomachean Ethics II.6 (1106b36–1107a3). N&V_Spr09.qxp 384 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 384 James M. Jacobs virtue ethics falls short of natural law, since the ultimate rule is a prudential judgment about flexible contingencies and not of absolutes laws.95 The source of the problem lies in Aristotle’s division of the intellect into the scientific part, which knows necessary truths, and the calculative part, which grasps contingent truths.96 This distinction yields a separation between the virtue of philosophical wisdom and the virtue of practical wisdom.97 Human action is conditioned by contingency and so is subject only to practical wisdom. There emerges the problem that while Aristotle correctly acknowledges the contingency of human experience and the concomitant flexible application of moral principles, he clearly leaves the absolute ground of ethics without a firm basis.98 While the rule or standard is the man of practical wisdom, this seems to leave those without a highly developed practical wisdom at a moral loss for knowing principles.99 What is needed to more adequately ground ethics is a universally accessible absolute standard, a standard that guides us unfailingly and is evident to all (even if it might take prudence to apply that standard in specific instances). In other words, for Aristotle goodness is purely contingent and lacks the necessity of being; this is reflected in his division of the intellect into two distinct faculties. Natural law avoids these defects by grounding goodness in the necessity of the eternal law, thereby enabling practical reason to grasp necessary principles in the form of the precepts of the natural law. Moreover, these precepts are known (at least in their first principles) to all rational beings. We are inclined to our end by providence; these inclinations are perfected by virtue. But we inform virtue by reflecting on providence and issuing practical commands in the form of the precepts of the natural law. In other words, to the Aristotelian notion of teleology in terms of an intrinsic inclination to 95 It is true that Aristotle does acknowledge that there are moral absolutes in Nico- machean Ethics II.6 (1107a9–14) and, in a less specific way, in his discussion of natural justice in V.7. However, these issues need much greater substantiation to be fully considered as natural law; this is just what Thomas does with Aristotle’s undeveloped insights. 96 Nicomachean Ethics VI.1 (1139a5–15). 97 See Nicomachean Ethics VI.7 and VI.5, respectively. 98 This explains Aristotle’s repeated insistence on the difficulty of the moral life; see Nicomachean Ethics II.9 (1109a24–29):“Hence also it is no easy task to be good. . . . [T]o do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for everyone, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.” See also Nicomachean Ethics II.9 (1109b20–23): “But up to what point and to what extent a man must deviate before he becomes blameworthy it is not easy to determine by reasoning . . . [for] such things depend on particular facts, and the decision rests with perception.” 99 This, of course, is why education and the political order take such central roles at the end of the Nicomachean Ethics (X.9). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 385 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 385 self-perfection,Thomas adds the natural law as an extrinsic guide, a guide which is made possible due to his notion of the eternal law, which orders all inclinations.100 Thus, because of this twofold rule of human action, virtue is always implicitly referred to the natural law as its foundation.101 This union of inclination and knowledge is manifested in Thomas’s clear argument against dividing the functions of the intellect, for he insists that the speculative intellect is made practical by extension.102 Therefore, unlike Aristotle, Thomas teaches that both uses of the intellect grasp necessary truths, the only difference being that reason contemplates while practical reason operates on the basis of those necessary truths.103 Thus, the practical intellect knows universal truth, but directs it to operation,104 to the achievement of the good sought.105 The explanation for why practical reason’s knowledge of the good is only an extension of speculative reason takes us back to the deeper metaphysics of goodness.Thomas’s primary definition of the good is not moral, but ontological: the good is not different than being, but is only being under the aspect of perfection.106 This perfection of being is dynamically sought by all natures due to the fact that the act of existence, given by God, endows all creatures with a natural dynamism manifested in an inclination to perfection as to a similitude of the divine perfection.107 Knowledge of the good, then, has a necessity grounded in the 100 Indeed, in ST I–II, q. 92, a. 1,Thomas argues that the purpose of law is to make men good, to inculcate virtue. 101 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 3: “To the natural law belongs everything to which a man is inclined according to his nature. Now each thing is inclined naturally to an operation that is suitable to it according to its form: thus fire is inclined to give heat. Wherefore, since the rational soul is the proper form of man, there is in every man a natural inclination to act according to reason: and this is to act according to virtue. Consequently, considered thus, all acts of virtue are prescribed by the natural law: since each one’s reason naturally dictates to him to act virtuously.” Cf. ST I–II, q. 51, a. 1. 102 ST I, q. 79, a. 11, sed contra. 103 ST I, q. 79, a. 11. This correction to Aristotle’s dichotomizing of the intellect’s knowledge of necessary and contingent truths is also made in Thomas’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics VI.1.1123. In ST I, q. 79, a. 9, ad 3,Thomas argues that both uses are grounded in the necessity of being and truth, but that universal laws reflect perfect being, while the contingency of particular events reflects imperfect being and so requires a distinct aptitude and virtue. 104 ST I, q. 79, a. 11, ad 2. 105 ST II–II, q. 154, a. 12: “Now the principles of reason are those things that are according to nature, because reason presupposes things as determined by nature, before disposing of other things according as it is fitting.” 106 ST I, q. 5, a. 1 c. and ad 1; see also Thomas’s deduction of the transcendental properties in De veritate, q. 1, a. 1 and q. 21, a. 1. 107 ST I, q. 5, a. 4 and I, q. 44, a. 4. N&V_Spr09.qxp 386 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 386 James M. Jacobs practical identity between a nature’s essence and its teleological orientation to its proper operation.108 Hence,Thomas asserts that practical reason can issue necessary and determinate precepts for human behavior based upon the knowledge man has of his natural disposition to perfection. Yet this does not mean that we cannot know singulars, for as Thomas says,“Reason first and chiefly is concerned with universals, and yet it is able to apply universal rules to particular cases: hence the conclusions of syllogisms are not only universal, but also particular, because the intellect by a kind of reflection extends to matter.”109 Thus, while the rule for acting is no longer the man of practical wisdom110 but rather moral absolutes that apply in all cases to human activity, there is still ample room for prudential consideration of circumstances, and for a morality that meets reality at the level of specificity in which it is lived.This is in fact built into the natural law in terms of the more determinate precepts which are more specific rules but which allow for greater flexibility in application.111 In the end, for Thomas, like Aristotle, the prudential person is the one who acts so as to be a good person.112 Thomas, therefore, follows Aristotle in arguing that the moral person makes himself a better person and attains happiness by acting virtuously in accord with reason; but Thomas grounds this in a deeper appreciation of the common good as the perfection of being achieved in fulfilling our duty to objective moral principles. Conclusion Norris Clarke has criticized the nature of much contemporary philosophy as undertaking fragmentary investigations, thereby leaving us with 108 See ST I–II, q. 64, a. 3: “The truth of practical intellectual virtue, if we consider it in relation to things, is by way of that which is measured; so that both in practical and in speculative intellectual virtues, the mean consists in conformity with things.” That is, in knowing the truth of what something is, we can know the truth of what it ought to do, but this is precisely what the good is: the perfection of being in proper operation. 109 ST II–II, q. 47, a. 3, ad 1. 110 This applies ultimately to the notion of the mean to be achieved in virtue. Thomas says the mean is not just between extremes of excess and defect, but is found in a rule: see ST II–II, q. 17, a. 5, ad 2: “In things measured and ruled the mean consists in the measure or rule being attained; if we go beyond the rule, there is excess, if we fall short of the rule, there is deficiency. But in the rule or measure itself there is no such thing as a mean or extremes. Now a moral virtue is concerned with things ruled by reason, and these things are its proper object; wherefore it is proper to it to follow the mean as regards its proper object.” 111 ST I–II, q. 94, aa. 4 and 6; I–II, q. 100, aa. 3 and 11. 112 ST I–II, q. 57, a. 5. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 387 Metaethics and Natural Law Theory 387 fragmented visions of reality and human life.113 I have tried to show that this diagnosis applies not just to metaphysics, but also to ethics. Much contemporary ethics ends up playing theories against one-another, trying to determine which is most satisfactory. Do we accept utilitarians’ insight that we ought to aim for consequences of the greatest common good? Or should we focus on the objective duties and rights of deontology? Or do we aim for the personal perfection of a virtue ethics? With natural law, we do not have to choose, for in natural law all three perspectives are united: since good is perfection of being in accord with providence, by following a duty to law, man perfects himself (and gains happiness) and also moves the universe as a whole toward a common perfection. The natural law tradition, then, is the most adequate approach to ethics, since it is the only approach whose first principle, or definition of the good, accommodates all the common sense insights about morality.This unified vision might explain why so many contemporary theorists, with fragmented metaphysics and fractured worldviews, are blind to the truly N&V unique integrative vision that is Thomistic natural law.114 113 W. Norris Clarke, S.J., The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Meta- physics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 3. 114 The inclusive nature of the Thomistic synthesis has been noted by others, such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988). Perhaps this idea is stated most eloquently by Etienne Gilson: “The privilege of Thomism [is] to be open to all truth and to provide a place even for truths that its author could not explicitly foresee.All that is true in any other philosophy can be justified by the principles of Thomas Aquinas, and there is no other philosophy that it is possible to profess without having to ignore, or reject, some conclusions that are true in the light of these principles. Speaking in a more familiar way, one can be a Thomist without losing the truth of any other philosophy, whereas one cannot subscribe to any other philosophy without losing some of the truth available to the disciple of Thomas Aquinas.” Cited in Leo Sweeney, with William Carroll and John Furlong, Authentic Metaphysics in an Age of Unreality, 2nd ed. (New York: Peter Lang: 1993), 73. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 388 N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 389 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 389–404 389 From Correlation to Assimilation: A New Model for the Church-Culture Dialogue ROBERT B ARRON Mundelein Seminary Mundelein, Illinois A LL OF MY LIFE I’ve heard spirited advocacy for the dialogue between the Church and the wider culture, but this call has come, almost exclusively, from the Church and not from the culture. Putting the Church and the world in conversation has tended to mean that Catholicism must make itself intelligible to politicians, artists, scientists, and social theorists, precisely by utilizing the language and conceptual forms of secular politics, art, science, and social theory. Rarely, if ever, have I heard of avatars of the culture eager to submit their manner of thinking and behavior to the discipline of the Church, or to make themselves intelligible to religious people. It is this one-way quality of the conversation that is, I submit to you, problematic. John Milbank, one of the most incisive ecclesial commentators on the scene today, has said that the pathos of modern theology is its false humility, by which he means its Schleiermacherian tendeny to seek the favor of its cultured despisers by aping their style of thought and expression.1 As Karl Barth indicated nearly a hundred years ago, the sophisticated critics of Christianity have proven remarkably unresponsive to the overtures of Schleiermacher and his numerous disciples.2 What I have called “beige Catholicism,” a Catholicism that is too culturally accommodating, excessively apologetic, shifting and unsure in its identity, is the fruit of this false humility and this largely one-way conversation.3 1 John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Black- well Publishing, 1990), 1. 2 See Karl Barth, The Humanity of God (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1960), 23–24. 3 See Robert Barron, Bridging the Great Divide: Musings of a Post-Liberal, Post-Conser- vative, Evangelical Catholic (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 16–18. N&V_Spr09.qxp 390 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 390 Robert Barron What I should like to do in the course of this essay is, first, to explore more fully the theoretical roots of beige Catholicism in typically modern experiential-expressivist and correlational models of theology and, next, to propose, with the help of John Henry Newman, an assimilationist approach to the Church-culture dialogue.Then, in the light of this method, I should like to show how an assimilating Church might respond to three positive and three negative features of the American political culture. Beige Catholicism The Christian Church’s willingness to engage the secular culture finds its origins in Paul’s address to Greek intellectuals on the Areopagus in Athens sometime in the fifties of the first century and in Justin Martyr’s decision, in the mid second century, to place Christian “philosophy” in conversation with the regnant Platonism of the time. At its best, Christianity has resisted the temptation to ask, with Tertullian, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” or to speak, with Martin Luther, of “that whore reason.” No Christian thinker better exemplified the practice of ecclesial-cultural conversation than Thomas Aquinas, who effected a still stunning adaptation of Aristotelian language to evangelical purposes. But during the modern period, Christian theologians began to engage the culture in a new and distinctive manner, allowing themselves to be positioned by the concerns and demands of the secular world. It is to this way of establishing the rapport between gospel and culture that I object. What was its provenance? Given the enormously negative impact of the wars of religion which had devastated post-Reformation Europe, many modern thinkers began to speculate about a form of religiosity that was, in its universality, both rational and non-violent. It was, they concluded, the very particularity of positive religion and its authoritative interpretation that caused such trouble. Thus, for example, Catholics claimed that the Eucharist involves the real presence of the Lord, whereas most Protestants claimed that it is an evocative symbol—and since there was no way, finally, to adjudicate the dispute, violence was the only recourse. (It is fascinating, by the way, to read many of the Western reactions to the events of September 11th and to see these same modern concerns about revealed religion and violence coming to the fore.) And so we see in Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Jefferson, Hegel, and Emerson, to name just a few, the modern desire to set aside the peculiarities of positive religion and embrace a universal religion of reason. Thomas Jefferson, literally taking a straight razor to the pages of the New Testament, endeavoring to extricate from it all those passages that smack of the supernatural, is a particularly apt illustration of the process. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 391 The Church-Culture Dialogue 391 But the clearest exemplar of the modern religious style is, as we have suggested, Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of modern liberal Protestantism. Religion, for Schleiermacher, is not ethics or metaphysics or aesthetics, or even revelation, but rather a mysticism grounded in what he calls “the feeling of absolute dependency.”4 This feeling, which is in principle open to all, provides the criterion by which the elements of positive religion—dogma, doctrine, liturgy, practice—can and should be judged. Along more or less Cartesian lines, Schleiermacher suggests that the objective and particular be brought before the bar of the subjective and universal for adjudication: experience measures doctrine, rather than the inverse. The radicality and thoroughness of Schleiermacher’s revolution can be seen in his marginalization of the doctrine of the Trinity to an appendix of his magnum opus the Glaubenslehre.The dogma that generations of Christian theologians took to be central to the faith is not discussed in the body of Schleiermacher’s work, since its contents did not correspond, he thought, in any direct way to the feeling of absolute dependency. Schleiermacher’s fondest hope was that this experiencebased and purified version of Christianity would prove attractive, both intellectually and morally, to the enlightened critics of classical religion. The mainstream of modern theological liberalism has raced down the Schleiermacher Autobahn.Thus Rudolf Otto grounds authentic religion in our sense of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans ; Paul Tillich roots it in “ultimate concern”; Karl Rahner sees it in the experience of standing in the presence of “absolute mystery”; and David Tracy anchors it in certain “limit experiences” that both challenge and provoke us.5 In all these cases, some sort of universal religious sensibility becomes the norm for reading and judging the tradition of revelation. In much of liberalism, this basic move is broadened out so as to include the two categories of “the world” or “the situation” on the one hand and “revelation” on the other. And thus the fundamental project becomes the effecting of a correlation (Tillich’s term) between the two realms. Now problems with this method abound, but I will draw attention to what I consider its fundamental flaw: in the measure that theological liberalism allows revelation to be positioned by something outside of 4 Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, in Friedrich Schleiermacher: Pioneer of Modern Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1991), 99–100. 5 See Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 8–12; Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1984), 44–50; David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 160–61. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 392 8:47 AM Page 392 Robert Barron itself, it runs counter to the structuring logic of the New Testament.6 In the first chapter of Paul to the Colossians, we find this breathtakingly maximalist claim about Jesus Christ: “in him all things were created, things visible and invisible . . . all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col 1:16–17). And in the prologue to the Johannine Gospel, we hear that the Logos made flesh in Jesus Christ is that through which all things are made, that apart from him, nothing comes to be. But these claims imply that Jesus Christ is the reasonability that positions, explains, and situates everything within finite creation. Nature, humanity, politics, art, science, culture, the planets and stars, things visible and invisible—all of it comes from him and centers around him. But this means, in turn, that Jesus cannot be positioned or explained from any point of vantage external to him. Both Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar complained that the principle problem with modern theology is that it permits Christ to be situated under the more general heading of “religion” or “religious experience,” whereas such a move is directly repugnant to the incarnational logic of Colossians and the prologue to John. For those who navigate the Schleiermacher Autobahn, experience becomes the measure of Christ, but the Jesus of Colossians and the Gospel of John must be the measure of experience—as he is of everything else.7 A similar difficulty emerges when we analyze the various correlational methods of contemporary theological liberalism. In Tillich’s version, for instance, culture, the situation, experience raise the questions to which the theologian attempts to coordinate the “answers” of the biblical tradition. But as any reader of the Platonic dialogues realizes, the one who poses the questions always determines the flow and nature of the conversation. More to it, the questioner provides the context in which the answer, qua answer, appears. Once again, this correlational style requires that a dimension of finite reality positions the Logos by which and for which the whole of finite reality is made. It is none other than this dominance of the environing culture over revelation that produces beige Catholicism. Now does this critique of modern correlationalism and experientialism in theology mean that the Christian Church is doomed to a sectarian retreat from the dialogue with the contemporary culture? The nearly universal tendency to answer that question affirmatively is testament to the pervasive influence of the liberal model. In point of fact, as we saw earlier, numerous Christian thinkers—Paul, Justin, Origen, Augustine, 6 Bruce Marshall, Trinity and Truth (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000), 4–5. 7 Ibid., 108–9. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 393 The Church-Culture Dialogue 393 Anselm, and Aquinas, to name just a few—conversed very creatively with the wider society, but they did so in accord with the Christocentric logic of revelation and not in accord with liberal assumptions. I should like to explicate the nature of this approach more thoroughly by drawing attention to the thought of John Henry Newman, a theologian who was, simultaneously, deeply invested in the dialogue with the culture of his time and, in his own words, a life-long opponent of “the spirit of liberalism in religion.”8 In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Newman argued that one of the marks of a healthy and properly developing Church is “the power of assimilation,” that is to say, its ability to adapt to its environment, taking in what it can and resisting what it must.9 A robust organism draws into itself and adapts to its purposes certain features of its world, and it throws off other elements that would compromise or threaten its essential structure. Newman observes shrewdly that an unhealthy animal will, soon enough, be itself assimilated by the stronger animals around it. In light of these observations, might I suggest a theological relationship to the culture that is assimilationist rather than correlationist? The Church ought to reach out to the world, but never allow the world (as the post-conciliar slogan had it) to set the agenda for the Church. The body of Christ ought to move confidently within the environment around it, adapting to itself whatever is good, true, and beautiful, and expelling whatever is alien to its form of life, using all the time its own organic structure as criterion and norm. Something I’d like especially to stress is this: a beige, culturally accommodating Catholicism is incapable of both proper resistance to and proper absorption of the wider world. The willingness of the Vatican II fathers to turn to modern society in a missionary spirit was born of their serene confidence in the essential doctrinal and moral integrity of the Church. In his recent remarks on the right interpretation of Vatican II, Benedict XVI observed that the purpose of the Council was not to make the Church more like the world but rather to make the world more like the Church. Accordingly, he interprets John XXIII’s famous trope of the opening of the windows as expressive of the Church’s desire to let the wisdom, truth, and spiritual vitality of the Church out, for the sake of transforming the society. Balthasar meant much the same when he spoke in the 1950s of “razing the bastions” of a Church still crouching too defensively behind its own 8 John Henry Newman, Biglietto Speech, as quoted in Ian Ker, John Henry Newman: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 720. 9 John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (West- minster: Christian Classics, 1968), 185–89. N&V_Spr09.qxp 394 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 394 Robert Barron walls. To be sure, the Vatican II fathers called for and implemented changes in the Church, but these changes had a missionary and evangelical purpose; they were meant to render the Church more capable of drawing the logoi of the world into the Logos of Jesus Christ, to assimilate rather than correlate. Sadly, after the Council, this turning toward the modern society was interpreted, in far too many quarters, as a turning into modern society, assimilation devolving into accommodation.What I have called beige Catholicism is the result of this hermeneutical mistake. The Assimilating Church and the American Culture: The Negative Dimension What I should like to do in this next section of this essay is to engage in a reading of our American culture from the standpoint of the assimilating Church, showing how the community gathered around Jesus Christ ought to relate to the positive and negative elements within that culture. I am consciously turning away from the dominant liberal model of analyzing “the situation” in order to put it into correlation with the “answers” coming from the tradition; instead, I will endeavor to show precisely why the Church must resist certain features of the culture and precisely how it can adapt others to itself. Let us turn first to the relatively negative side of the ledger. There is, within the American political culture, a strong strain of Hobbesianism, mediated to it largely by John Locke by way of Thomas Jefferson.Thomas Hobbes’s political philosophy is intelligible only against the background of certain shifts in metaphysics and epistemology at the dawn of the modern period. Under the influence of the nominalism of William of Occam and the univocal conception of being formulated by Duns Scotus, early modern thinkers tended to see the universe as composed of isolated individuals, particles in motion.10 This conception had a clear social implication. Whereas for Thomas Aquinas, the human being is, by nature, a political animal, that is to say, connected to everyone else in the civil society by ontological and not merely conventional bonds, for Thomas Hobbes, the human is, by nature, non-political, self-interested, moved by basic passions for self-preservation.This is why Hobbes’s state of nature is the state of war, productive of a life that is “solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.” Political organization, on Hobbes’s reading, comes about through an artificially contrived social contract in which people reluctantly surrender some of their rights in order to maintain some modicum of peace. Because of this reductive understanding of govern10 Barron, Bridging the Great Divide, 62. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 395 The Church-Culture Dialogue 395 ment, the ethical and spiritual purpose of politics is set aside.The purpose of the state is the adjudication of disputes among the citizens and, ultimately, the protection of each against the violent attacks of others. In the classical context, the raison d’être of government was the encouragement of moral excellence, whereas in the Hobbesian framework, it is the maintenance of order. In his political philosophy, John Locke softened and modified Hobbes’s social contract theory, but kept its most fundamental features, including and especially the artificiality of the political arrangement and the severe truncation of the sense of the common good. Jefferson gives voice to the Hobbes-Locke perspective when he speaks in the Declaration of Independence of the right to pursue happiness as one sees fit. Most Western philosophers, from the classical period through the high middle ages, considered the determination of the objective nature of happiness the central philosophical question, and they furthermore held that the purpose of politics is to conduce, at least to some degree, to the attainment of happiness. In accord with his distinctively modern assumptions, Jefferson relativizes and subjectivizes the meaning of happiness and effectively dissociates it from the work of government. Within the confines of this brief presentation, I can but gesture toward some of the negative consequences of this fundamentally Hobbesian conception of politics. First, we notice the individualism and litigiousness of our society. When the common good remains unexplored and unarticulated, and when the government’s purpose is reduced to that of the adjudication of disputes, we do tend to lose our corporate social identity and a shared sense of moral direction. Further, when we no longer understand ourselves to be ontological siblings, connected to one another by the deepest metaphysical bonds, we do indeed devolve into a collectivity of individuals clamoring for rights and special prerogatives.The Hobbesianism of our society can be seen as well, as Robert Kraynak points out, in the flattening and coarsening of our popular culture.11 When selfexpression becomes the supreme value, aesthetic standards are either overlooked or aggressively marginalized. But the Hobbes influence shows itself perhaps most tragically in the government’s unwillingness to intervene firmly when clear moral values are under attack in the society.Two decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are especially illuminating in this regard. In Roe v. Wade, the court famously found a right to privacy buried in the provisions of the Constitution and on that basis allowed for practically unlimited access to abortion throughout the United States. 11 Robert Kraynak, Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God and Politics in the Fallen World (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 26–27. N&V_Spr09.qxp 396 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 396 Robert Barron But the court’s resolution of the matter of Casey v. Planned Parenthood is even more sobering and disturbing.Expanding on the principle of privacy, the justices decided that it belongs to the very nature of individual liberty to determine the meaning of one’s own life, indeed the meaning of existence and the universe!12 It would be hard to imagine a more radical expression of Hobbesian relativism and individualism. Another negative feature of the American culture—with certain roots in Hobbes—is our typically modern understanding of freedom as choice. The Dominican scholar Servais Pinckaers has drawn a simple but illuminating distinction between this conception of liberty and the idea of freedom that held sway in the classical and Christian periods.The former he calls “the freedom of indifference” and the latter “the freedom for excellence.”13 On the modern reading, freedom is the capacity to hover above the yes and the no and to make a determination in one direction or the other, without any coercion either interior or exterior. In this context, law, discipline, and virtue are in an extremely tensive relationship with freedom, since they represent limitation on the range of choice. Now freedom for excellence is not primarily independent choice but rather the disciplining of desire so as to make the achievement of the good first possible and then effortless. One becomes a free speaker of the English language, not so much by cultivating his power to choose, but rather by submitting himself to a whole series of rules, disciplines, and masters. When those directives are sufficiently internalized, that person becomes capable of expressing in English whatever he wants: he becomes free in his speech. Or one emerges as a free player of golf, not in the measure that she swings the club according to her personal whim, but inasmuch as she submits herself to a strict and densely objective nexus of rules, practices, directives, and restrictions. In this process, she becomes capable of responding well and creatively to the ever-shifting demands of the game of golf. Given this notion of freedom, liberty is by no means opposed to the law but rather finds itself in relation to the law. For the advocates of the freedom for excellence, self-expression is far less important than the ordering of the self in the direction of the good. John Paul II was one of the most eloquent defenders of freedom in the second half of the twentieth century, but throughout his pontificate, he insisted upon the correlation between liberty and truth.14 On a freedom of indifference reading, this juxtaposition is puzzling at best; but on a freedom for 12 Casey v. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 112 Sup. Ct. 2791 at 2807. 13 Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 375. 14 See especially the encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 397 The Church-Culture Dialogue 397 excellence interpretation, it is coherent. There is probably no word that stirs the American heart more than “freedom,” no value that is more prized than liberty. But the mainstream of American culture interprets that term along modern lines, construing it as spontaneous personal choice and self-determination. This is, of course, repugnant to a biblical tradition that identifies the seizing of the prerogative to determine the nature of good and evil for oneself as the originating sin. One might say that the transition from the freedom for excellence to the freedom of indifference is tantamount to the fall. A third negative feature of the American culture that must be resisted by the assimilating Church is the privatization of religion. Stanley Hauerwas has commented that the modern political states forged with religion a sort of peace treaty, the central stipulation of which was that the state would tolerate religious practice as long as it remained essentially a private matter.15 Richard John Neuhaus’s “naked public square,” that is to say, a political arena from which religious ideas and values have been aggressively excluded, is the fruit of this privatization. But authentic Christianity can never be privatized, precisely because it speaks of the creator God who grounds and rules all things. For biblical people, God is not one being among many—as in pagan, Deist, or nominalist conceptions—but rather the creator and ground of all finite things, ipsum esse subsistens rather than ens summum, in the language of Thomas Aquinas. But this means that all areas of life—the public and the private, the social and the individual, the natural and the conventional—belong to God and are related to God, much as the elements that make up the rose window are connected to the center. In point of fact, a thoroughly secular realm, an arena of life untouched by the sacred, is made possible only by an unbiblical reading of God. Accordingly, the Church cannot be one element among many within the society, a collectivity of persons blandly cultivating a private set of convictions; instead, it should be that institution which names the ways that God impinges on every aspect of existence and then encourages participation in the work of God. To be sure, the Christian Church enters into these realms non-violently and using only the power of persuasion—but it certainly doesn’t absent itself from them in a stance of false humility. In regard to these three negative features—Hobbesian individualism, a modern conception of freedom as choice, and the privatization of religion—a robust Church should assume the stance that Augustine assumed vis-à-vis the corrupt society of ancient Rome, that is, one of honest and 15 Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom? (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 70–88. N&V_Spr09.qxp 398 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 398 Robert Barron unambiguous opposition.Augustine attempted, in the City of God, neither correlation with nor accomodation to what he took to be the ersatz justice and peace of the Roman Empire. Instead, he named the sins of Roman social order and proposed an alternative, what he called the civitas Dei, an order predicated upon the worship of the true God.16 However, to remain within a purely reactive framework would be simplistic and counter-productive, for the assimilating Church is also eager to take in and take up what it can from the culture. It is to a consideration of this task that we now turn. The Assimilating Church: The Positive Dimension Thomas Aquinas is today probably the most revered and authoritative voice within the Catholic intellectual tradition. It is therefore easy to forget that, in his own time, he was anything but universally admired. In fact, the innovative synthesis of Aristotelian metaphysics and biblical revelation that he was affecting inspired a number of vocal opponents, one of whom famously commented that Thomas was diluting the wine of the Gospel with the water of a pagan philosopher. To this critique, Thomas deftly responded,“No, rather I am transforming water into wine.”That retort of Aquinas beautifully expresses what Newman meant by the Church’s assimilation of positive features of its environment: it does not simply absorb them; it elevates and perfects them, in accord with the great Catholic principle gratia supponit et perfecit naturam.As I have already hinted, one problem with a beige Catholicism is that it is incapable of defending itself against truly hostile features of the wider culture, but a second and perhaps even more dangerous problem is that it remains incapable of appropriately transfiguring the positive dimensions of that same culture. A particularly good example of this process of elevating assimilation is the manner in which John Paul II embraced the human rights tradition of the Western democracies, especially the United States, becoming by the end of the twentieth-century its most passionate advocate on the world stage. Now at first blush this seems odd, given the rather harsh criticism of the Hobbes-Locke-Jefferson articulation of human rights that was offered in the previous section. A distinction is in order. For the modern political tradition, human rights flow, ultimately, from desire. Hobbes felt that we have a right to life and the avoidance of violent death precisely because those are the things that we most passionately, indeed inevitably, want. Locke expressed the same idea with admirable laconicism: we have a right to those things that we cannot not desire, namely, life and its essen16 See Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, 380–92. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 399 The Church-Culture Dialogue 399 tial supports of liberty and property. Jefferson took in this Lockean understanding, only replacing property with the pursuit of happiness. But John Paul II understood human rights within a different framework. As a biblical person, he saw them as grounded, not so much in the power of subjective desire, as in the facts of creation and redemption. Freely created by God and mercifully redeemed by Jesus Christ, every individual, no matter her background, education, skill level, ethnic origin, etc., is a subject of inviolable dignity and worth. And from this identity flow rights and a claim to justice. For Thomas Aquinas, whom John Paul follows here carefully, justice is the act of rendering to each what is due, and what is due to each person is respect, love, protection, freedom, and the basic necessities of life. Thus, when John Paul spoke glowingly and sincerely of the human rights tradition in our country, he was claiming ideas that were still too redolent of Hobbes and elevating them into a new, evangelical framework. He was creatively assimilating a key feature of the secular culture into the organic life of the Church. A second most important positive dimension of our political culture is our experiment in civilized pluralism.When John Paul II came to Chicago in 1978, he celebrated Mass on the lakefront, preaching to a typically American crowd drawn from numerous races, backgrounds, and religious persuasions. In the course of his homily, he commented positively on the American national motto e pluribus unum, observing that it is an echo of the Church’s call to draw the many nations of the world into unity around Christ. The biblical theologian N.T. Wright has said that Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God was in continuity with the ancient hope that the tribes of Israel would one day be gathered and that through a renewed Israel, the tribes of the world would be gathered into unity around the right worship of God.17 Wright has further argued that the Church understands itself, in accord with Paul’s musings in the ninth through eleventh chapters of Romans, to be the new Israel, which is to say, the instrument through which God has chosen to unite the myriad languages, peoples, and cultures of the world into one body of interdependent cells, molecules, and organs. What John Paul was recognizing was the manner in which the American motto expressed a kind of participation in and anticipation of this full eschatological drawing of the many into one.And what he implied, therefore, is that an assimilation of the American political practice of ordered unity in diversity would be a desideratum. But what precisely is the nature of this practice? John Courtney Murray argued throughout his career that the separation of church and 17 N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 203–4. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 400 Robert Barron 400 state and the granting of full religious liberty should be construed as “articles of peace,” that is to say, ways of fostering civil conversation and practical cooperation among those who entertain varying religious and philosophical perspectives.18 Neither should be read as religious indifferentism or as an invitation to the privatization of the faith and the stripping bare of the public square. Rather, they are the means by which those who disagree most radically can nevertheless find a sort of practical unity. And in this, the articles of peace are grounded in the instincts of the natural law, which are, on Aquinas’s own reading, a participation in the fullness of the eternal law which was made manifest in revelation. Perhaps this is why the fathers of Vatican II were willing, in Dignitatis Humanae, to “baptize” the distinctively modern practice of separating church and state and recognizing religious liberty as a fundamental right. And perhaps this is why both Murray and John Paul II were willing to appreciate e pluribus unum as a real though imperfect echo of the Church’s own voice. I should like to indicate a link between Murray’s articulation of American liberalism and that of Jeffrey Stout. In his Democracy and Tradition, Stout contends that a healthy,American-style pluralism is not ideologically opposed to the presence of religion in the public conversation. Rather, it is, as Murray suggested, simply a means of adjudicating disputes in a civil manner among people with radically different conceptions of the whole.19 Such non-ideological liberalism is not opposed to the respectful and thoughtful injection of religious convictions into political discourse. As prime examples of this style of religious speech in the public square, Stout offers the second inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln and the “I Have a Dream” speech of Martin Luther King.20 Addressing the nation in a political discourse as the Civil War was coming to a close, Lincoln spoke in the cadences of an Old Testament prophet, using explicitly biblical language and referencing the punishment, providence, and mercy of God. And King, speaking in a public forum on an issue of pressing political significance (and standing on the steps of Lincoln’s memorial), drew massively on the moral and spiritual heritage of his Christian tradition. Neither Lincoln nor King should be read as blurring the distinction between church and state or as attempting to impose a sectarian vision on the nation. Rather, each creatively and non-aggressively introduced his most deeply-felt religious convictions into the public forum. One could argue 18 John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1960), 56–57. 19 Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 129ff. 20 Ibid., 69–70. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 401 The Church-Culture Dialogue 401 that Mario Cuomo’s famous distinction between personal conviction and public performance represents a ham-handed resolution of what Lincoln and King handled so deftly. In fact, Cuomo’s sharp dichotomization seems more in line with the ideological brand of liberalism urged by John Rawls or Jürgen Habermas, whereby religion as such must be excluded from properly public forms of political speech. It seems to me that kind of American pluralism advocated by Murray and Stout is what the Church can and should assimilate to itself. A third positive element in the American political culture is the idea of a limited government, carefully structured through a system of checks and balances. G. K. Chesterton commented that the single greatest contribution of Christianity to the West was the doctrine of original sin: the deep conviction that there is something wrong with us at a level so elemental that we cannot, even in principle, fix it on our own. Both classical and modern philosophy come together in advocating a version of human perfectibility. Plato and Aristotle thought that we could reach full flourishing through growth in knowledge and virtue, and Marx and Hegel thought that we could achieve the same end through institutional change and social progress. Against both stands biblical Christianity. A constant theme of the Scriptures is that, left to their own devices, human beings tend to go bad. Even the heroes of the Bible—Moses, Jacob,Abraham, Isaiah, Elijah—are riven with flaws and stand constantly in need of divine grace. More to it, there is no literature anywhere in the world that is so consistently critical of government and governors than is the Bible. When the people of Israel ask for a king, the prophet Samuel warns them: “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to chariots to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots. . . . He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. . . . He will take one tenth of your flocks and you shall be his slaves” (1 Sam 8:11–17). How perennial sounds that description; how it seems to flow from today’s headlines! When the people persist in asking for kings so that they might be like the other nations,YHWH proceeds to give them, beginning with Saul, a line of some of the most dysfunctional, stupid, murderous, and idolatrous leaders in human history. Even David, the best of Israelite kings, is an adulterer and a murderer. It is as though YHWH is saying, “I told you about these kings!” Men and women formed by these biblical stories and by the doctrine of original sin will be profoundly skeptical of government and its officers, and they will embody their suspicion institutionally in a number of N&V_Spr09.qxp 402 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 402 Robert Barron ways. Thus our founders determined that political leaders would be subject regularly to the scrutiny of the electorate and that they would, even while exercising power, be watched, checked, questioned by many others, both inside and outside of the government.The congress watches the president and the president checks the congress; the judiciary watches both of them, and appointments to the judiciary flow from congress and the president. And everyone is critiqued by a skeptical and free press, which is, in turn, disciplined through the dynamics of the market.This is a system born of the experience of being tyrannized; and it is one with which Samuel the prophet would be rather sympathetic. But even more fundamentally, the idea of a limited government is grounded in the biblical sense that law and justice do not flow finally from the government but from God. That law and political institutions are “under God” was a conviction of both the emancipation movement in the nineteenth century and the civil rights movement of the twentieth. Martin Luther King could write his letter from the Birmingham City Jail, urging civil disobedience, precisely because he knew that unjust laws and cruel social practices can and should be challenged through appeal to an authority higher than the government. Interestingly, King, in that very letter, appealed to Thomas Aquinas, who taught the legitimacy of resistance to tyrants and to unjust law.21 Thomas’s permission of civil disobedience was rooted in his understanding of positive law as a declension of the natural law, which is itself a declension of the eternal law, which is identical to the divine mind. In the final analysis, the simplest traffic regulation, if it is just and good, is expressive of God’s providential care for his world, and the most respected and venerable social practice, if it is unjust, runs counter to God’s purposes. The great Catholic tradition knows that when the connection between the positive law and the natural law is severed, totalitarianism, of either the left or right, follows. Therefore, this rich American instinct that government should be limited and disciplined both from without and from within is something that the Church can very much assimilate to itself and adapt to its purposes. Conclusion As I suggested at the outset, the question is not whether the Church ought to engage in a dialogue with the wider culture, but rather how.To deny the legitimacy of that conversation altogether is to revert into 21 Martin Luther King,“Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), 293. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 403 The Church-Culture Dialogue 403 sectarianism, and as Henri de Lubac reminded us long ago, the Church of Jesus Christ can never be a sect. Even when it consisted entirely of Mary and John at the foot of the cross, it was universal in form and purpose. I have tried to argue that the Schleiermacherian style of interfacing with the culture—massively influential for the past two hundred years—is both practically ineffective and theologically questionable. And I have proposed the model of an assimilating Church, neither defensive nor acquiescent, capable of both holding off what it must and taking in what it can. This approach, I hold, mimics the style of the greatest theologians of culture in the Catholic tradition—Origen,Augustine,Aquinas, Newman, Balthasar—and is congruent with the style and substance of the Vatican II documents. St. Paul told us that, in Christ’s light, we should test every spirit, rejecting what is bad and retaining what is good; he also instructed us to bring every thought captive to Christ.The method that I’ve advoN&V cated honors those Pauline directives. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 404 N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 405 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 405–38 405 Imago Repræsentativa Passionis Christi: St. Thomas Aquinas on the Essence of the Sacrifice of the Mass S∑ TE∑ PÁN MARTIN FILIP, O.P.* Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic Introduction: Summa theologiae III, Q. 83, A. 1 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS devoted only one article directly to the theme of the sacrifice of the Mass in the Summa theologiae.This article is the first of question 83 of the tertia pars, which asks “Whether Christ is sacrificed in this sacrament” (Utrum in celebratione huius sacramenti Christus immoletur ). Given that this article, as Fr. Roguet notes,1 should be considered as a recapitulation of Aquinas’s thought on this subject, we shall take it as the point of departure for our exposition.2 Following the traditional model of the Summa theologiae,3 the Eucharistic Doctor first identifies three objections: * Translated by Roger Nutt. 1 Aimon-Marie Roguet, trans. and ed. Somme théologique, vol. 2.: L’Eucharistie (Paris: Desclée, 1967), 378–80. our explanation of this article we are deeply indebted to the profound commentary by Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht, “L’Eucharistie, ‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas,” Revue Thomiste 98 (1998): 355–86, especially 365–71. See also A. A. Stephenson, “Two Views of the Mass: Medieval Linguistic Ambiguities,” Theological Studies 22 (1961): 588–609, especially 590–91. 3 The literature on the method and structure of the Summa theologiae is copious. See for example, F. Albert Blanche,“Le vocabulaire de l’argumentation et la structure de l’article dans les ouvrages de saint Thomas,” Revue de sciences philosophiques et théologiques 14 (1925): 167–87; Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange,“De methodo Sancti Thomae speciatim de structura articulorum Summae Theologiae,” Angelicum 5 (1928): 499–524; Leo Elders, “La méthode suivie par saint Thomas d’Aquin dans 2 In N&V_Spr09.qxp 406 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 406 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. Objection 1. It seems that Christ is not sacrificed in the celebration of this sacrament. For it is written (Heb 10:14) that “Christ by one oblation hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” But that oblation was His oblation. Therefore Christ is not sacrificed in the celebration of this sacrament. Objection 2. Further, Christ’s sacrifice was made upon the cross, whereon “He delivered Himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness,” as is said in Ephesians 5:2. But Christ is not crucified in the celebration of this mystery.Therefore, neither is He sacrificed. Objection 3. Further, as Augustine says (De Trin. iv), in Christ’s sacrifice the priest and the victim are one and the same. But in the celebration of this sacrament the priest and the victim are not the same. Therefore, the celebration of this sacrament is not a sacrifice of Christ.4 We see how the first two objections raise the central problem concerning the sacrifice of the Mass, that of the unicity of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. While the first objection is made on account of the perfection of the sacrifice of the cross, the second objection argues on account of the historical modality of the cross.5 It will be pricisely this problem that, just a few centuries later, led the Protestants to deny the sacrificial character of the Eucharist. In the so-called sed contra of his Summa, St. Thomas always countered the objections with an authority (auctoritas ), which was something very important in medieval theology (though not only medieval theology). Aquinas himself writes on the necessity of authority within sacra doctrina when he states that “[t]his doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus la composition de la Somme de théologie,” Nova et Vetera 67 (1991): 177–91; David Berger, Thomas von Aquins Summa theologiae (Darmstadt:Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004), especially 43–46. 4 ST III, q. 83, a. 1, arg. 1–3: “1. Dicitur enim Hebr. X, quod Christus una oblatione consummavit in sempiternum sanctificatos. Sed illa oblatio fuit eius immolatio. Ergo Christus non immolatur in celebratione huius sacramenti. 2. Praeterea, immolatio Christi facta est in cruce, in qua tradidit semetipsum oblationem et hostiam Deo in odorem suavitatis, ut dicitur Ephes.V. Sed in celebratione huius mysterii Christus non crucifigitur. Ergo nec immolatur. 3. Praeterea, sicut Augustinus dicit, IV de Trin., in immolatione Christi idem est sacerdos et hostia. Sed in celebratione huius sacramenti non est idem sacerdos et hostia. Ergo celebratio huius sacramenti non est Christi immolatio.” 5 Humbrecht, “L’Eucharistie, ‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas,” 366. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 407 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 407 we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made.”6 The Angelic Doctor then distinguishes the various types of authority in sacra doctrina and their respective force: [S]acred doctrine makes use also of the authority of philosophers in those questions in which they were able to know the truth by natural reason . . . Nevertheless, sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities as extrinsic and probable arguments; but properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable.7 We can see that St.Thomas distinguishes the “incontrovertible truth [ex necessitate argumentando]” of Sacred Scripture8 from the authority “merely as probable [ probabiliter]” of the Fathers of the Church9 and from the authority “extrinsic and probable” of the philosophers.10 Morever, following other texts from St. Thomas’s opera,11 we can add the authority that 6 ST I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2: “argumentari ex auctoritate est maxime proprium huius doctrinae, eo quod principia huius doctrinae per revelationem habentur, et sic oportet quod credatur auctoritati eorum quibus revelatio facta est.” On the use of “authority” in St. Thomas see Marie-Dominique Philippe, “Reverentissime exponens frater Thomas,” The Thomist 32 (1968): 84–105. 7 ST I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2:“Et inde est quod etiam auctoritatibus philosophorum sacra doctrina utitur, ubi per rationem naturalem veritatem cognoscere potuerunt. Sed tamen sacra doctrina huiusmodi auctoritatibus utitur quasi extraneis argumentis, et probabilibus. Auctoritatibus autem canonicae Scripturae utitur proprie, ex necessitate argumentando. Auctoritatibus autem aliorum doctorum Ecclesiae, quasi arguendo ex propriis, sed probabiliter.” 8 On the authority of Sacred Scripture in St.Thomas’s doctrine see Jan van der Ploeg, “The Place of Holy Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas,” The Thomist 10 (1947): 398–422; Ceslao Pera, Le fonti del pensiero di S.Tommaso d’Aquino nella Somma Teologica (Torino: Marietti, 1979), 19–26;Wilhelmus Valkenburg, Words of the Living God: The Place and Function of Holy Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Leuven: Peeters, 2000); D. Berger, Thomas von Aquins Summa theologiae, 64–66. 9 On the authority of the Fathers of the Church in St.Thomas’ doctrine see above all Godfroid Geenen, “Le fonti patristiche come ‘autorità’ nella teologia di S. Tommaso,” Sacra Doctrina 20 (1975): 7–67; Pera, Le fonti del pensiero di S.Tommaso d’Aquino nella Somma Teologica, 29–62; Leo Elders, “Thomas Aquinas and the Fathers of the Church,” in The Reception of the Fathers of the Church in the West from the Carolingians to the Maurists, ed. Irena Backus (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997), 337–66; Berger, Thomas von Aquins Summa theologiae, 66–70. 10 See Pera, Le fonti del pensiero di S.Tommaso d’Aquino nella Somma Teologica, 65–102; Berger, Thomas von Aquins Summa theologiae, 72–74. 11 See Quaestiones de Quodlibet III, q. 4, a. 2; ST II–II, q. 11, a. 2, ad 3. Also Pera, Le fonti del pensiero di S.Tommaso d’Aquino nella Somma Teologica, 26–28. N&V_Spr09.qxp 408 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 408 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. we refer to today as the Magisterium of the Church, which Aquinas followed faithfully, accentuating what Ceslao Pera calls “the Romanesque Christianity of his thought.”12 In the sed contra of this article (ST III, q. 83, a. 1), the second authority, “merely as probable” of the Church Fathers is cited with a reference to St. Augustine’s Ninety-eighth Letter to Bishop Bonfice. From this letter of St. Augustine, which is one of the most important patristic witnesses concerning the sacrifice of the Mass,Thomas underscores the following sentence,“Christ was sacrificed once in Himself, and yet He is sacrificed daily in the Sacrament.”13 What was proposed authoritatively in the sed contra, was then developed and explained by the Eucharistic Doctor in the body of the article (corpus articoli ), which affirms the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist for the following two reasons: The celebration of this sacrament is called a sacrifice for two reasons. First, because, as Augustine says (Ad Simplician. ii),“the images of things are called by the names of the things whereof they are the images; as when we look upon a picture or a fresco, we say, ‘This is Cicero and that is Sallust.’ ” But, as was said above (q. 79, a. 1), the celebration of this sacrament is an image representing Christ’s Passion, which is His true sacrifice [immolatio ]. Accordingly the celebration of this sacrament is called Christ’s sacrifice. Hence it is that Ambrose, in commenting on Hebrews 10:1, says: “In Christ was offered up a sacrifice capable of giving eternal salvation; what then do we do? Do we not offer it up every day in memory of His death?” Secondly it is called a sacrifice, in respect of the effect of His Passion: because, to wit, by this sacrament, we are made partakers of the fruit of our Lord’s Passion. Hence in one of the Sunday Secrets (Ninth Sunday after Pentecost) we say: “Whenever the commemoration of this sacrifice is celebrated, the work of our redemption is enacted.” Consequently, according to the first reason, it is true to say that Christ was sacrificed [immoletur ], even in the figures of the Old Testament: hence it is stated in the Apocalypse (13:8):“Whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world.” But according to the second reason, it is proper to this sacrament for Christ to be sacrificed in its celebration.14 12 Pera, Le fonti del pensiero di S.Tommaso d’Aquino nella Somma Teologica, 26. 13 ST III, q. 83, a. 1, sed contra: “semel immolatus est in semetipso Christus, et tamen quotidie immolatur in sacramento.” 14 ST III, q. 83, a. 1: “Respondeo dicendum quod duplici ratione celebratio huius sacramenti dicitur Christi immolatio. Primo quidem quia, sicut Augustinus dicit, ad Simplicianum, solent imagines earum rerum nominibus appellari quarum imagines sunt, sicut cum, intuentes tabulam aut parietem pictum, dicimus, ille Cicero est, ille Sallustius. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 409 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 409 It is interesting, therefore, to see how the body of this article with its two reasons for the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist is magisterially summarized accordingly in the subsequent article (a. 2) of question 83: “in the celebration of this mystery, we must take into consideration the representation of our Lord’s Passion, and the participation of its fruits.”15 And especially in the famous prayer of the office for the feast Corpus Domini : “O God, Who under a wonderful Sacrament hast left us a memorial of Thy Passion, grant us, we beseech Thee, so to venerate the sacred mysteries of Thy Body and Blood that we may ever feel within us the fruit of Thy Redemption.”16 We also encounter in the body of this article the other patristic authority attributed here to St. Ambrose. This text, so important for the whole of the Middle Ages, actually originates from St. John Chrysostom17 and was attributed to St. Ambrose by Yves de Chartres (+1116).18 As far as the content of the body of this article is concerned, the first reason for the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, the fact of it being “an image representing Christ’s Passion” appears, at first glance, to be quite weak.19 This impression is suggested to us above all by the comparison Celebratio autem huius sacramenti, sicut supra dictum est, imago est quaedam repraesentativa passionis Christi, quae est vera immolatio. Unde Ambrosius dicit, super epistolam ad Heb., in Christo semel oblata est hostia ad salutem sempiternam potens. Quid ergo nos? Nonne per singulos dies offerimus ad recordationem mortis eius? Alio modo, quantum ad effectum passionis, quia scilicet per hoc sacramentum participes efficimur fructus dominicae passionis. Unde et in quadam dominicali oratione secreta dicitur, quoties huius hostiae commemoratio celebratur, opus nostrae redemptionis exercetur. Quantum igitur ad primum modum, poterat Christus dici immolari etiam in figuris veteris testamenti, unde et in Apoc. XIII dicitur, quorum nomina non sunt scripta in libro vitae agni, qui occisus est ab origine mundi. Sed quantum ad modum secundum, proprium est huic sacramento quod in eius celebratione Christus immoletur.” 15 ST III, q. 83, a. 2: “in celebratione huius mysterii attenditur et repraesentatio dominicae passionis, et participatio fructus eius.” 16 Found originally in Evening Prayer I for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi.The English is taken from the introductory collect of the Feast of Corpus Christi in the 1962 Roman Missal:“Deus qui nobis sub sacramento mirabili passionis tuae memoriam reliquisti, tribue, quaesumus, ita nos corporis et sanguinis tui sacra mysteria venerari, ut redemptionis tuae fructum in nobis iugiter sentiamus.” 17 See Patralogia Graeca, vol. 63, 131 [In Hebr., hom. XVII]. 18 For further treatment of this issue see Marius Lepin, L’idée du sacrifice de la Messe d’après les théologiens depuis l’origine jusqu’à nos jours (Paris: Beauchesne, 1926), 42–44; and José Antonio Sayés, El misterio eucarístico (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1986), 268–69. 19 Humbrecht, in “L’Eucharistie, ‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas,” 367, notes the following about the first argument:“Le premier argument N&V_Spr09.qxp 410 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 410 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. chosen by St. Thomas based on a text of St. Augustine, that of a picture of Cicero or Sallust. The participation of a picture in its model is really only extrinsic, depending on the simple relationship of exemplarity without intrinsic causal dependence.20 The impression of the weakness of the first reason for the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist isalso further accentuated by the sentence underscored in the article:“the celebration of this sacrament is an image representing Christ’s Passion, which is His true sacrifice [immolatio ].”The “true sacrifice” is therefore the passion of the Lord, whereas the Eucharistic celebration is only its inferior reproduction and dependent on it—a figure, which is distinguished from the truth. It is for this reason that Aquinas adds that “Christ was sacrificed [immoletur ], even in the figures of the Old Testament.” Nonetheless, at first glance the affirmations of Thomas just mentioned provoke a certain perplexity: do they not confirm the opinion of some that St.Thomas’s doctrine on the sacrifice of the Mass is weak and immature21 and is far from the teaching of the Council of Trent? Is it not in direct opposition to the canon of Trent which anathematizes those who say that “a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God in the Mass,” and that the sacrifice of the Mass “is a mere commemoration of the sacrifice enacted on the cross”?22 To nullify this first and superficial impression we must view things from a fuller perspective, one which sees the sense that Thomas gives to the pregnant terms in this article, especially the term image (imago ). Speaking of man as the image of God (imago Dei ), the Angelic Doctor states that image expresses a likeness completely unique and singular: Not every likeness, not even what is copied from something else, is sufficient to make an image; for if the likeness be only generic, or existing by virtue of some common accident, this does not suffice for one thing to be the image of another. For instance, a worm, though from man it may originate, cannot be called man’s image, merely because of the generic likeness. Nor, if anything is made white like something else, ne laisse pas d’être troublant et il n’est pas impossible que la ‘déception’ ressentie par certains, pour ne pas dire l’inquiétude, lui doive beaucoup.” 20 See Humbrecht,“L’Eucharistie,‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas,” 367–68. 21 See, for example, the comments of Sayés in El misterio eucaristico, 284. 22 For the Latin and English texts used here and below from the Council of Trent on the sacrifice of the Mass (17 September, 1562) see Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 2, ed. Norman Tanner, S.J. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 732ff. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 411 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 411 can we say that it is the image of that thing; for whiteness is an accident belonging to many species. But the nature of an image requires likeness in species; thus the image of the king exists in his son: or, at least, in some specific accident, and chiefly in the shape; thus, we speak of a man’s image in copper.23 We see, therefore, that to have an image requires likeness according to species, or at least according to certain specific accidents.24 It is also necessary, as Aquinas adds elsewhere, that the like entity derive its origin from its model, like the Son from the Father. Obviously, for something to have an image in the general sense does not require equality with its model. Rather, such equality is demanded in the case of a perfect image.The Common Doctor writes, But equality does not belong to the essence of an image; for as Augustine says (Eighty-Three Questions, q. 74):“Where there is an image there is not necessarily equality,” as we see in a person’s image reflected in a glass.Yet this is of the essence of a perfect image; for in a perfect image nothing is wanting that is to be found in that of which it is a copy.25 This especially indicates the highest usage of the term image as proper to the Son as a person of the Holy Trinity who is the “perfect image of the Father” ( perfecta Patris imago ).26 From what we have just unravelled, it appears evident that “image” is not an expression utilized for a vague likeness, but for what is “particularized and individualized to such a point that this likeness tends to and 23 ST I, q. 93, a. 2: “non quaelibet similitudo, etiam si sit expressa ex altero, sufficit ad rationem imaginis. Si enim similitudo sit secundum genus tantum, vel secundum aliquod accidens commune, non propter hoc dicetur aliquid esse ad imaginem alterius, non enim posset dici quod vermis qui oritur ex homine, sit imago hominis propter similitudinem generis; neque iterum potest dici quod, si aliquid fiat album ad similitudinem alterius, quod propter hoc sit ad eius imaginem, quia album est accidens commune pluribus speciebus. Requiritur autem ad rationem imaginis quod sit similitudo secundum speciem, sicut imago regis est in filio suo, vel ad minus secundum aliquod accidens proprium speciei, et praecipue secundum figuram, sicut hominis imago dicitur esse in cupro.” 24 In other passages in his work, St.Thomas uses the expression signum speciei for the specific accident of species: see ST I, q. 35, a. 1; In I Epistolam ad Corinthios, cap. XI, lect. 2; In Epistolam ad Colossenes, cap. I, lect. 4. 25 ST I, q. 93, a. 1:“Aequalitas autem non est de ratione imaginis, quia, ut Augustinus ibidem dicit, ubi est imago, non continuo est aequalitas ; ut patet in imagine alicuius in speculo relucente. Est tamen de ratione perfectae imaginis, nam in perfecta imagine non deest aliquid imagini, quod insit illi de quo expressa est.” 26 ST I, q. 35, a. 2, ad 3. See also q. 93, a. 1, ad 2 and In I Cor., cap. XI, lect. 2, [604]. N&V_Spr09.qxp 412 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 412 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. becomes identical with the individual itself.”27 Therefore, when this article of the Summa uses the term “an image representing Christ’s Passion,” it does not weaken the connection between the sacrifice of Christ on the cross and the sacrifice of the Mass, but reinforces it. In fact, this term implicitly indicates the virtue of the passion of Christ, which operates uniquely in the Eucharist. The second reason for the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist consists, according to this article, in the fact that this sacrament gives us a participation in the fruits of the passion of Christ. It is clear that this second reason is subordinated to the first and derived from it because the Eucharistic celebration could not give us a participation in the fruits of the Lord’s passion if the Eucharist itself were not participating in the virtue of the passion—if it was not “an image representing Christ’s Passion.” Hence, we are able to say with Humbrecht that the twofold sacrificial theme of this article is not “one single reason looked at from the perspective of its cause and from its effects.”28 After the body of this doctrinally dense article that we have just briefly expounded comes—as it happens in the Summa theologiae —the responses to the initial objections. In the response to the first objection on the unicity of Christ’s sacrifice in relation to its perfection, the Eucharistic Doctor responds by citing again the passage of St. John Chrysostom, which we have already noted was attributed to St. Ambrose during St.Thomas’s life: As Ambrose says (commenting on Hebrews 10:1), “there is but one victim,” namely that which Christ offered, and which we offer,“and not many victims, because Christ was offered but once: and this latter sacrifice is the pattern of the former. For, just as what is offered everywhere is one body, and not many bodies, so also is it but one sacrifice.”29 For the response to the second objection that Christ is not crucified in the Mass, Thomas writes, “As the celebration of this sacrament is an 27 Humbrecht, “L’Eucharistie, ‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas,” 369: “une similitude particularisée, indivualisée, à tel point que cette similitude tend à denvenir identité dans l’individu lui-même.” 28 Humbrecht, “L’Eucharistie, ‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas,” 371:“une unique raison, envisage depuis sa cause et depuis ses effects.” 29 ST III, q. 83, a. 1, ad 1: “Ad primum ergo dicendum quod, sicut Ambrosius ibidem dicit, una est hostia, quam scilicet Christus obtulit et nos offerimus, et non multae, quia semel oblatus est Christus, hoc autem sacrificium exemplum est illius. Sicut enim quod ubique offertur unum est corpus et non multa corpora, ita et unum sacrificium.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 413 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 413 image representing Christ’s Passion, so the altar is representative of the cross itself, upon which Christ was sacrificed in His proper species.”30 To the third objection, that of the non-identity between the priest and victim in the Mass, Aquinas responds, For the same reason (cf. Reply to Obj. 2) the priest also bears Christ’s image, in Whose person and by Whose power he pronounces the words of consecration, as is evident from what was said above (q. 82, aa. 1, 3). And so, in a measure, the priest and victim are one and the same.31 In the article that we have just fully examined, the principal lines of the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass are sketched in a synthetic manner as Humbrecht explains,“[The article] allows us to grasp the main point of our problem.”32 Thus, in the body of the article, the essence of this sacrifice is indicated in its material aspect and its formal aspect with the pregnant expression “an image representing Christ’s Passion,” and it also speaks to us about the Eucharist as a participation in the fruits of the Lord’s passion. The response to the first objection affirms the unity between the sacrifice of the cross and the Eucharistic sacrifice. In the response to the third objection, with the phrase “the priest also bears Christ’s image,” the clarification of the formal essence of the sacrifice of the Mass is introduced.We will now devote ourselves to a more analytic exposition of these questions, above all the problem of the formal part of the Eucharistic sacrifice. The Sacrament of the Eucharist is a Sacrifice The first fundamental datum that we can draw on from the doctrine of Aquinas pertaining to our topic is that the sacrament of the Eucharist is —differently from the other sacraments—a sacrifice (est sacrificium ).“This sacrament,” Aquinas declares, “has this in addition to the others, that it is a sacrifice.”33 St.Thomas states this fundamental datum of the Eucharist with other expressions as well, writing that it is named sacrifice (nominator sacrificium ): “This sacrament has a threefold significance: one with 30 ST III, q. 83, a. 1, ad 2:“sicut celebratio huius sacramenti est imago repraesenta- tiva passionis Christi, ita altare est repraesentativum crucis ipsius, in qua Christus in propria specie immolatus est.” 31 ST III, q. 83, a. 1, ad 3: “per eandem rationem, etiam sacerdos gerit imaginem Christi, in cuius persona et virtute verba pronuntiat ad consecrandum, ut ex supra dictis patet. Et ita quodammodo idem est sacerdos et hostia.” 32 Humbrecht, “L’Eucharistie, ‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas,” 365. 33 ST III, q. 79, a. 7, ad 1:“hoc sacramentum prae aliis habet quod est sacrificium.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 414 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 414 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. regard to the past, inasmuch as it is commemorative of our Lord’s Passion, which was a true sacrifice . . . and in this respect it is called [nominator ] a ‘Sacrifice.’ ”34 The Eucharist is also called a sacrifice (dicitur sacrificium ): “This sacrament is called a ‘Sacrifice’ inasmuch as it represents the Passion of Christ.”35 Similarly, Aquinas explains the reason why the Eucharist is named a sacrifice (vocatur sacrificium ): The origin of all the sacraments is the passion of Christ, from whose side hanging on the cross flowed the sacraments, thus they are called holy. . . .These things are, however, found in the Eucharist with a certain excellence: since this sacrament is especially in memory of the Lord’s passion, and therefore, in relation to its origin it is called sacrifice or host [hostia ].36 Also, according to St.Thomas, the Blessed Sacrament has the nature of a sacrifice (habet rationem sacrificii ): [T]his sacrament is not only a sacrament, but also a sacrifice. For, it has the nature of a sacrifice inasmuch as in this sacrament Christ’s Passion is represented . . . and it has the nature of a sacrament inasmuch as invisible grace is bestowed in this sacrament under a visible species.37 We can add in the margin that these terms express the same reality of the sacrificial character of the Eucharist, since the words nominator, dicitur, and vocatur are not simply expressions of an exterior denomination, but rather, given that St.Thomas is not a nominalist, of a relation with reality.38 34 ST III, q. 73, a. 4: “hoc sacramentum habet triplicem significationem. Unam quidem respectu praeteriti, inquantum scilicet est commemorativum dominicae passionis, quae fuit verum sacrificium. . . . Et secundum hoc nominatur sacrificium.” 35 ST III, q. 73, a. 4, ad 3:“hoc sacramentum dicitur sacrificium, inquantum repraesentat ipsam passionem Christi.” 36 In Sententiis IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, q.la 3, corpus. “Origo autem omnium sacramentorum est passio Christi, de cujus latere in cruce pendentis sacramenta profluxerunt, ut sancti dicunt. . . . Haec autem per quamdam excellentiam in Eucharistia inveniuntur. Quia hoc sacramentum est specialiter in memoriam dominicae passionis; unde Matthaei 26: quotiescumque feceritis, in mei memoriam facietis ; et ideo quantum ad originem vocatur sacrificium vel hostia.” 37 ST III, q. 79, a. 7: “Inquantum enim in hoc sacramento repraesentatur passio Christi, qua Christus obtulit se hostiam Deo, ut dicitur Ephes.V, habet rationem sacrificii, inquantum vero in hoc sacramento traditur invisibiliter gratia sub visibili specie, habet rationem sacramenti.” See also ST III, q. 79, a. 5. 38 See Paul Nau, Le mystère du Corps e du Sang de Seigneur: La messe d’après saint Thomas d’Aquin, son rite d’après l’histoire (Solesmes:Abbaye Saint-Pierre, 1976), 60. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 415 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 415 The Angelic Doctor also confirms the sacrificial character of the Eucharist saying simply that it is offered to God (offertur Deo ): “In the sanctification of the host, the Eucharist is offered to God.”39 Finally, St.Thomas says many times that the Eucharist is both a sacrifice and a sacrament :“This sacrament is both a sacrifice and a sacrament; it has the nature of a sacrifice inasmuch as it is offered up; and it has the nature of a sacrament inasmuch as it is received.”40 And similarly, The Eucharist is not only a sacrament, but it is also a sacrifice. In so far as it is a sacrament, it has an effect on all the living, in whom it requires pre-existing life. But, in so far as it is a sacrifice it also has an effect on behalf of those for whom it is offered, in whom spiritual life does not preexist in act, but in potency only.41 We must stress that these Thomistic sentences do not mean that the Eucharist as sacrifice does not belong to the sacramental order and prescinds from it, but, on the contrary, these sentences teach us, as Abbot Vonier explains, that “[t]he Eucharistic sacrifice is entirely subsumed under the concept of the Eucharistic sacrament. . . .”42 This fact already appears from what St.Thomas expressly says, that “[t]his sacrament is both a sacrifice and a sacrament.”43 We see therefore that he uses the term sacrament first in a wide sense attributing it to the sacrament of the Eucharist in its totality, and later he makes use of the term in a narrower sense to express only one of the two modalities of the Blessed Sacrament. 39 In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 2, ad 2: “Eucharistia offertur Deo in sanctificatione hostiae. . . .” 40 ST III, q. 79, a. 5:“hoc sacramentum simul est et sacrificium et sacramentum, sed rationem sacrificii habet inquantum offertur; rationem autem sacramenti inquantum sumitur.” 41 In Sent. IV, d. 12, q. 2, a. 2, q.la 2, ad 4:“Eucharistia non solum est sacramentum, sed etiam est sacrificium. Inquantum autem est sacramentum, habet effectum in omni vivente, in quo requirit vitam praeexistere. Sed inquantum est sacrificium, habet effectum etiam in aliis, pro quibus offertur, in quibus non praeexigit vitam spiritualem in actu, sed in potentia tantum.” 42 Anscar Vonier, A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist (Eugene, OR:Wipf and Stock, 2002), 76. See also Damian C. Fandal,“The Essence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice” (S.T.D. dissertation, Angelicum, 1960), 23–29; Joseph de Saint-Marie, “L’Eucharistie, sacrament et sacrifice du Christ et de l’Eglise: Développements des perspectives thomistes,” Divinitas 18 (1974): 237–49; Humbrecht, “L’Eucharistie, ‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas,” 377–79. 43 ST III, q. 79, a. 5:“hoc sacramentum simul est et sacrificium et sacramentum. . . .” What we are saying is confirmed by the fact that St.Thomas also says the same thing from the opposite perspective, “hoc sacrificium etiam est sacramentum.” ST I–II, q. 101, a. 4, ad 2. N&V_Spr09.qxp 416 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 416 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. This sacramental modality of the Eucharist distinguishes itself from its sacrificial modality by the peculiar action—in point of fact as a sacrament the Eucharist is received and as a sacrifice it is offered—and subsequently through the diversity of its effects.44 This is all very clear if we attentively read the texts of the Angelic Doctor cited above. The Eucharistic Celebration Represents the Passion of Christ We have clearly established that St.Thomas teaches that the sacrament of the Eucharist is a sacrifice. Now we must identify what it is that makes this sacrament have the nature of a sacrifice. As we have just seen above, the Angelic Doctor distinguishes the modalities that are proper to the sacrament of the Eucharist: the modality of the sacrament is that it is received, and the modality of the sacrifice is that it is offered.That which is offered to God is connected with the act of oblation (oblatio ).Thus we can say that the Eucharist is a sacrifice because it is connected with the act of oblation.Thomas himself says this expressly: “Receiving is of the very nature of the sacrament, but offering belongs to the nature of sacrifice.”45 Oblation (oblatio) and Sacrifice (sacrificium) Continuing our line of reasoning, we must now make a brief stop and pay some attention to Aquinas’s profound teaching on sacrifice in general46 in order to clarify what the notions oblation (oblatio ) and sacrifice (sacrificio ) mean. 44 Angel Ródenas Martínez,“Santo Tomás de Aquino y la esencia sacramental dela misa” in Miscelánea Manuel Cuervo López. Homenaje de antiguos alumnos, eds. Horacio Santiago-Otero and Silva Costoyas (Salamanca: imprenta de Aldecoa, Burgos, 1970), 194. 45 ST III, q. 79, a. 7, ad 3: “sumptio pertinet ad rationem sacramenti, sed oblatio pertinet ad rationem sacrificii.” 46 St.Thomas expounds his general doctrine of sacrifice most fully in ST II–II, q. 85. The literature on this theme in St.Thomas is sufficiently rich: Barnabé Augier,“Le sacrifice,” Revue Thomiste 12 (1929): 193–218, “L’offrande,” Revue Thomiste 12 (1929): 3–34,“L’offrande religieuse,” Revue Thomiste 12 (1929): 117–31,“Le sacrifice du pécheur,” Revue Thomiste 12 (1929): 476–88; Henricus A Sancta Teresa, Notio sacrificii in communi in synthesi S. Thomae (Romae: Collegium Internazionale SS. Theresiae a Jesu et Joannis a Cruce, 1934); Damianus Klein,“De dono Deo in sacrificio offerendo,” Antonianum 11 (1936): 117–34,“De distinctione oblatorum secundum Aquinatem,” Antonianum 12 (1937): 105–24, “De fine sacrificii,” Antonianum 12 (1938): 3–18; François Bourassa, “Présence ‘mystérique’ et sacrifice eucharistique,” Sciences ecclésiastiques 10 (1958): 23–48; Fandal,“The Essence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” 28–48; Mannes M. Matthijs, De aeternitate Sacerdotii Christi et de unitate Sacrificii crucis et altaris (Roma: Pontificia Studiorum Universitas a S.Thoma Aq. in N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 417 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 417 Regarding oblation, the Angelic Doctor teaches that “an ‘oblation’ is properly the offering of something to God.”47 Taken in this wider sense oblation expresses only the genus of sacrifice. Sacrifice, therefore, is a specific oblation—it is a species of the genus of oblation. St.Thomas then indicates the specific difference (differentia specifica ) o sacrifice: “A ‘sacrifice,’ properly speaking, requires that something be done to the thing which is offered to God, for instance animals were slain and burnt, the bread is broken, eaten, blessed.”48 Thus we can see that the specific difference of sacrifice consists in the fact that “something be done to the thing” (circa res Deo oblatas aliquid fit ). This fact distinguishes the sacrifice from the mere oblation (mera oblatio )—from oblation taken in the narrower sense as when something is only offered to God and not terminated by some other act. Thomas expresses this difference between sacrifice and mere oblation by saying, [T]he term “oblation” is common to all things offered for the Divine worship, so that if a thing be offered to be destroyed in worship of God, as though it were being made into something holy, it is both an oblation and a sacrifice.Wherefore it is written (Exodus 29:18):“Thou shalt offer the whole ram for a burnt-offering upon the altar; it is an oblation to the Lord, a most sweet savor of the victim of the Lord”; and (Leviticus 2:1): “When anyone shall offer an oblation of sacrifice to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flour.” If, on the other hand, it be offered with a view to its remaining entire and being deputed to the worship of God or to the use of His ministers, it will be an oblation and not a sacrifice.49 Urbe, 1963), 20–26; R. Michel Roberge,“ ‘Interius spirituale sacrificium’ selon saint Thomas d’Aquin,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Laval, 1972), 129–48; Joseph de Saint-Marie, “L’Eucharistie, sacrament et sacrifice du Christ et de l’Eglise,” 242–61; Ladislao Mariano Orosz, De sacrificio ad mentem S. Thomae Aquinatis (Roma: Tipografia Ugo Detti, 1985); Natanael Thanner, “O ‘único Sacrifício perfeito’: Sua essência e sua prefiguração,” Sapientia Crucis 4 (2003): 41–112. 47 ST II–II, q. 85, a. 3, ad 3:“Oblatio autem directe dicitur cum Deo aliquid offertur. . . .” See also ST II–II, q. 86, a. 1:“nomen oblationis commune est ad omnes res quae in cultum Dei exhibentur.” 48 ST II–II, q. 85, a. 3, ad 3:“sacrificia proprie dicuntur quando circa res Deo oblatas aliquid fit, sicut quod animalia occidebantur, quod panis frangitur et comeditur et benedicitur.” 49 ST II–II, q. 86, a. 1: “nomen oblationis commune est ad omnes res quae in cultum Dei exhibentur. Ita quod si aliquid exhibeatur in cultum divinum quasi in aliquod sacrum quod inde fieri debeat consumendum, et oblatio est et sacrificium, unde dicitur Exod. XXIX, offeres totum arietem in incensum super altare, oblatio est domino, odor suavissimus victimae Dei ; et Levit. II dicitur, anima cum obtulerit oblationem sacrificii domino, simila erit eius oblatio. Si vero sic exhibeatur ut integrum maneat, divino cultui deputandum vel in usus ministrorum expendendum, erit oblatio et non sacrificium.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 418 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. 418 That is why, consequently,Thomas states that “every sacrifice is an oblation, but not conversely.”50 From what we have just shown generally about Aquinas’s teaching on sacrifice, it appears obvious that when he speaks of the sacrament of the Eucharist that is offered, he indicates only oblation as genus, to which it belongs as a sacrifice, but not the act of the oblation alone as a constitutive part of the Eucharistic sacrifice.This is necessary to highlight with respect to the oblationistic changes in Thomistic thought made by Lepin.51 The Eucharist Is Offered inasmuch as It Represents the Passion of Christ After having made a brief but important stop to consider oblation and sacrifice, we can now take up our line of reasoning again, asking why the Eucharist is offered and what its connection is to the act of oblation? Thomas responds to us by noting that “this sacrament is not only a sacrament, but also a sacrifice. For, it has the nature of a sacrifice inasmuch as in this sacrament Christ’s Passion is represented, whereby Christ ‘offered Himself a Victim to God’ (Ephesians 5:2). . . .”52 St. Thomas thus unites the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist with its representation of the passion of Christ: the sacrament of the Eucharist is offered, in as much as it represents Christ’s passion. A Linguistic Variety The connection between the Eucharist and the passion of Christ is expressed by Aquinas in the first article of question 83, already citied above, with the words “an image representing Christ’s Passion” (imago repraesentativa passionis Christi) 53 but his language in this matter also knows how to be more amplified. This verbal wealth confirms the well documented fact that St. Thomas’s terminology, though precise, is not rigid, but ample and used with great liberty and magnanimity. To cite a few examples, Thomas uses the following words to express the connection between the passion and the Eucharist: he uses the verb 50 ST II–II, q. 85, a. 3, ad 3:“Unde omne sacrificium est oblatio, sed non converti- tur.” 51 Lepin, L’idée du sacrifice de la Messe d’après les théologiens depuis l’origine jusqu’à nos jours, 189–90. For a criticism of the Lepinian interpretation of St. Thomas see Matthijs, De aeternitate Sacerdotii Christi et de unitate Sacrificii crucis et altaris, 22. 52 ST III, q. 79, a. 7: “hoc sacramentum non solum est sacramentum, sed etiam est sacrificium. Inquantum enim in hoc sacramento repraesentatur passio Christi, qua Christus obtulit se hostiam Deo, ut dicitur Ephes.V, habet rationem sacrificii. . . .” 53 See ST III, q. 83, a. 1. See also the ad 2 of the same article. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 419 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 419 represent (repraesentare )54—“This sacrament is called a ‘Sacrifice’ inasmuch as it represents the Passion of Christ.”55 He also uses the verb represent to indicate the relationship between the Eucharist and the work of our redemption (repraesentare opus nostrae redemptionis):“The Eucharist is a sacrament of necessity in so far as it represents to faith none other than the work of our redemption.”56 Furthermore, the verb represent is used by Aquinas to show the link between the Eucharist and Christ’s death (repraesentare mortem Domini ):“All the things that are in the Eucharist pertain to representing the same thing—the death of the Lord. . . .”57 Thomas draws on the verb figure to explain the Eucharist as a symbol of the reparation of the human race ( figurare reparationem humani generis ):“[Christ] instituting this sacrament . . . , lifted his eyes to the Father giving thanks to Him for the reparation of the human race, which is symbolized in this sacrament.”58 He similarly has recourse to the verb signify to explain the Eucharist’s relation to both Christ’s passion (significare passionem Christi ) and the mystery of redemption (significare redemptionis mysterium ):“the passion of Christ is signified in this sacrament, in which his blood was separated from his body,”59 and “the mystery of redemption is signified through the 54 This verb and the related expressions come from the magisterial analysis of Humbrecht, “L’Eucharistie, ‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas.” 55 ST III, q. 73, a. 4, ad 3:“hoc sacramentum dicitur sacrificium, inquantum repraesentat ipsam passionem Christi”; q. 76, a. 2, ad 1:“quamvis totus Christus sit sub utraque specie, non tamen frustra. Nam primo quidem, hoc valet ad repraesentandam passionem Christi, in qua seorsum sanguis fuit a corpore”; q. 79, a. 7: “Inquantum enim in hoc sacramento repraesentatur passio Christi, qua Christus obtulit se hostiam Deo . . .”; q. 80, a. 10, ad 2: “agnus paschalis praecipue fuit figura huius sacramenti quantum ad passionem Christi, quae repraesentatur per hoc sacramentum.” See also In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 2, a. 1, q.la 4, ad 3; IV, d. 8, q. 2, a. 4, q.la 1, ad 1; IV, d. 8, expos. text.; IV, d. 11, q. 2, a. 1, q.la 1, corpus; IV, d. 11, q. 2, a. 4, q.la 4, ad 2; IV, d. 12, q. 2, a. 2, q.la 2, arg. 2; IV, d. 13, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 3, ad 1; ST II–II, q. 40, a. 2; III, q. 74, a. 1, arg. 1; III, q. 79, a. 1; III, q. 80, a. 10, arg. 1; III, q. 80, a. 10, ad 2; III, q. 81, a. 3, ad 1; III, q. 83, a. 5 corpus and ad 9. 56 In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 2, ad 5: “Sed Eucharistia est sacramentum necessitates quantum ad fidem eius quod repraesentat, scilicet opus nostrae redemptionis.” 57 In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, q.la 2, sed contra 2: “Sed omnia quae in Eucharistia sunt, pertinent ad idem repraesentandum, scilicet mortem Domini. . . .” See also In I Cor., cap. XI, lect. 6 [686]. 58 In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 2, a. 1, q.la 5, ad 1:“instituens hos sacramentum . . . oculos ad Patrem levaverit, gratias agens Patri de reparatione humani generis quae hoc sacramento figuratur. . . .” 59 In Sent. IV, d. 11, q. 2, a. 1, q.la 1, corpus: “in hoc sacramento significatur passio Christi, in qua separatus fuit eius sanguis a corpore.” See also In Mattheum, cap. XXVI, lect. 4, where Aquinas notes,“istud significat memoriam passionis Christi. . . .” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 420 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. 420 blood. . . .”60 The verb commemorate is utilized to describe the commemoration of the mystery of redemption (commemorare redemptionis mysterium ) in the sacrament of the Eucharist: “solemn Masses are celebrated on behalf of baptized children, the mystery of redemption that is commemorated in this sacrament ought to be praised, through which the young obtain eternal salvation.”61 St. Thomas employs the verb recall to describe how the Eucharist recalls Christ’s passion (recolere Christi passionem ): “Christ’s Passion is recalled in this sacrament, inasmuch as its effect flows out to the faithful. . . .”62 In addition, St. Thomas also exploits the following expressions: the sacrament is explained as “rememorative of the Lord’s Passion” (rememorativum dominicae passionis ): It was necessary accordingly that there should be at all times among men something to show forth our Lord’s Passion; the chief sacrament of which in the old Law was the Paschal Lamb. Hence the Apostle says (1 Corinthians 5:7): “Christ our Pasch is sacrificed.” But its successor under the New Testament is the sacrament of the Eucharist, which is a remembrance of the Passion now past, just as the other was figurative of the Passion to come.63 Aquinas notes the same thing in his reflections on the Last Supper in his Commentary on Matthew: “that sacrament is rememorative of the Lord’s Passion.”64 Aquinas also makes use of the words commemorative and commemoration to express the connection between the sacrament of the Eucharist 60 In Sent. IV, d. 13, q. 1, a. 3, q.la 2, corpus: “per sanguinem significatur redemp- tionis mysterium. . . .” 61 In Sent. IV, d. 12, q. 2, a. 1, q.la 2, ad 2:“pro pueris baptizatis Missarum solemnia celebrantur . . . ad commendandum redemptionis mysterium, quod in hoc sacramento commemoratur, per quod parvuli sine proprio merito salutem consequuntur aeternam.” 62 ST III, q. 83, a. 2, ad 1:“in hoc sacramento recolitur passio Christi secundum quod eius effectus ad fideles derivatur.” See also In Sent. IV, d. 12, q. 3, a. 1, q.la 3, ad 2; IV, d. 13, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 3, arg. 1: “in Missa recolitur dominica passio”; IV, d. 13, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 4, corpus:“in Missa recolitur mors Christi. . . .”; Officium Corporis Christi, ad II Vesperas, antiphona ad Magnificat:“recolitur memoria passionis eius. . . .” 63 ST III, q. 73, a. 5: “Et ideo oportuit omni tempore apud homines esse aliquod repraesentativum dominicae passionis. Cuius in veteri quidem testamento praecipuum sacramentum erat agnus paschalis, unde et apostolus dicit, I Cor.V, Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus. Successit autem ei in novo testamento Eucharistiae sacramentum, quod est rememorativum praeteritae passionis, sicut et illud fuit praefigurativum futurae.” 64 In Matth., caput XXVI, lect. 4. “illud sacramentum est rememorativum dominicae passionis.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 421 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 421 and Christ’s passion (commemorativum and commemoratio).“This sacrament,” he notes,“is commemorative of our Lord’s Passion. . . .”65 And,“The Sacrifice which is offered every day in the Church is not distinct from that which Christ Himself offered, but is a commemoration thereof.”66 Aquinas has recourse too to the words memory and representation to articulate the connection between the Eucharist and the Lord’s passion. Furthermore, in the Summa contra Gentiles, Aquinas argues that “[w]e are given the sacrament of His body separately under the appearance of bread, and of His blood under the appearance of wine; and so we have in this sacrament both memory and the representation of our Lord’s passion.”67 St.Thomas also enlists the terms figure and representation ( figura et exemplum dominicae passionis ) to explain this relationship between the sacrament and the cross:“But this sacrament is a figure and a representation of our Lord’s Passion. . . .”68 Thomas speaks too of the Eucharist as the “memorial of Christ’s passion” (memoriale passionis Christi ): In Christ’s Passion, of which this is the memorial, the other parts of the body were not separated from one another, as the blood was, but the body remained entire, according to Exodus 12:46:“You shall not break a bone thereof.” And therefore in this sacrament the blood is consecrated apart from the body, but no other part is consecrated separately from the rest.69 Finally, Aquinas speaks of the Eucharist as both the sacrament (sacramentum passionis) and sign (signum passionis) of the passion.“The Eucharist,” St. Thomas explains,“is the perfect sacrament of our Lord’s Passion, as containing Christ crucified.”70 As a sign of the passion, Thomas acknowledges, 65 ST III, q. 73, a. 4, corpus: “hoc sacramentum . . . est commemorativum domini- cae passionis. . . .” 66 ST III, q. 22, a. 3, ad 2: “Sacrificium autem quod quotidie in Ecclesia offertur, non est aliud a sacrificio quod ipse Christus obtulit, sed eius commemoratio.” 67 Summa contra Gentiles IV, cap.. 61, par. 4: “separatim nobis traditur sacramentum corporis eius sub specie panis, et sanguinis sub specie vini; ut sic in hoc sacramento passionis dominicae memoria et repraesentatio habeatur.” [The English translation is from Summa contra Gentiles, Book Four: Salvation, trans. Charles O’Neil (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 253.] 68 ST III, q. 83, a. 2, ad 2: “Hoc autem sacramentum est figura quaedam et exemplum passionis dominicae. . . .” 69 ST III, q. 76, a. 2, ad 2: “in passione Christi, cuius hoc sacramentum est memoriale, non fuerunt aliae partes corporis ab invicem separatae, sicut sanguis, sed corpus indissolutum permansit, secundum quod legitur Exod. XII, os non comminuetis ex eo. Et ideo in hoc sacramento seorsum consecratur sanguis a corpore, non autem alia pars ab alia.” 70 ST III, q. 73, a. 5, ad 2: “Eucharistia est sacramentum perfectum dominicae passionis, tanquam continens ipsum Christum passum.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 422 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 422 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. “this sacrament preserves man from sin. . . . [I]nasmuch as it is a sign of Christ’s Passion, whereby the devils are conquered, it repels all the assaults of demons.”71 Repraesentare Passionem Christi Among these various terms just examined, pride of place is certainly given to repraesentare passionem Christi.72 The many synonyms of this term that we have referred to above clearly indicate that it conveys itself in a symbolic manner; that is to say, figuratively and in the image of the passion of Christ. Thus, we cannot agree with Dom Odo Casel, who interpreted St. Thomas’s expression repraesentare passionem Christi too literally and realistically, adapting it to his Mysteriengegenwart theory in the sense that repraesentare passionem Christi is better stated as to actually make present the very passion of Christ.73 Referring to the symbolic nature of the Lord’s passion in the Eucharistic sacrifice, we do not want, on the other hand, to fall into the opposite extreme and say that it is a question of pure sign or symbol. In the Eucharist, according to the first sacramental principle that the sacraments significando causant —cause by signifying—the power of Christ’s passion works in a special mode. It is in this sense of the power of the passion and not in the Caselian sense of the very same event of the passion that we can therefore affirm that the sacrifice of the Mass represents and at the same time re-presents Christ’s passion. 71 ST III, q. 79, a. 6: “hoc sacramentum praeservat a peccato. . . . [I]nquantum signum est passionis Christi, per quam victi sunt Daemones, repellit enim omnem Daemonum impugnationem.” 72 See Bernhard Poschmann, “ ‘Mysteriengegenwart’ im Licht des hl. Thomas,” Theologische Quartalschrift 116 (1935): 77–84; Adolf Hoffmann, “De sacrificio Missae iuxta S. Thomam,” Angelicum 15 (1938): 267–71; Richard Tremblay, “Mystère de la messe,” Angelicum 36 (1959): 190–97; Fandal,“The Essence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” 31–34; Ródenas Martínes, “Santo Tomás de Aquino y la esencia sacramental de la Misa,” 200–1; Humbrecht, “L’Eucharistie, ‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas,” passim. 73 See his article “Mysteriengegenwart,” Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft 8 (1928 [i. e. 1929]): 176ff; and Marie-Vincent Leroy, “Un traité de Cajetan sur la Messe,” in Ordo sapientiae et amoris. Image et message de saint Thomas d’Aquin à travers les récentes études historiques, herméneutiques et doctrinales. Hommage au professeur Jean-Pierre Torrell OP à l’occasion de 65e anniversaire, ed. Carlos-Josaphat Pinto De Oliveira (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1993), 479: “J’ajoute que rien n’autorise, par la seule magie d’un tiret introduit par fraude (re-présenter), à traduire le ‘représenter’ du Concile et de saint Thomas par ‘render réellement présent’. . . .” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 423 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 423 The Eucharistic Celebration Uniquely Represents the Passion of Christ74 We have demonstrated that St. Thomas teaches that the Mass represents the passion of the Lord.We must, however, realize the fact that according to Aquinas the other sacraments, too, have an intimate connection with the Lord’s passion.We can cite in relation to this the celebrated Thomistic text from the Summa theologiae on the sacraments in general: [A] sacrament properly speaking is that which is ordained to signify our sanctification. In which three things may be considered; viz. the very cause of our sanctification, which is Christ’s passion; the form of our sanctification, which is grace and the virtues; and the ultimate end of our sanctification, which is eternal life.And all these are signified by the sacraments. Consequently a sacrament is a sign that is both a reminder of the past, i.e., the passion of Christ; and an indication of that which is effected in us by Christ’s passion, i.e. grace; and a prognostic, that is, a foretelling of future glory.75 We see therefore that each sacrament is a “rememorative” sign (signum rememorativum ) of Christ’s passion, which is to say that each sacrament represents Christ’s passion. In conjunction with this the Eucharistic Doctor teaches that the sacraments receive their power from the Lord’s passion: Now sacramental grace seems to be ordained principally to two things: namely, to take away the defects consequent on past sins, in so far as they are transitory in act, but endure in guilt; and, further, to perfect the soul in things pertaining to Divine Worship in regard to the Christian Religion. But . . . that Christ delivered us from our sins principally 74 See Hoffmann, “De sacrificio Missae iuxta S. Thomam,” 264–65; Fandal, “The Essence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” 34–37. 75 ST III, q. 60, a. 3:“sacramentum proprie dicitur quod ordinatur ad significandam nostram sanctificationem. In qua tria possunt considerari, videlicet ipsa causa sanctificationis nostrae, quae est passio Christi; et forma nostrae sanctificationis, quae consistit in gratia et virtutibus; et ultimus finis nostrae sanctificationis, qui est vita aeterna. Et haec omnia per sacramenta significantur. Unde sacramentum est et signum rememorativum eius quod praecessit, scilicet passionis Christi; et demonstrativum eius quod in nobis efficitur per Christi passionem, scilicet gratiae; et prognosticum, idest praenuntiativum, futurae gloriae.” See Jean-Marie Roger Tillard,“La triple dimension du signe sacramentel. À propos de S.Theol., III, 60, 3,” Nouvelle Revue Thélogique 83 (1961): 225–54; In Sent. IV, d. 1, q. 1, a. 1, q.la 1, ad 4; Off. Corp. Chr., ad II Vesperas, antiphona ad Magnificat: “O sacrum convivium! In quo Christus sumitur, recolitur memoria passionis eius, mens impletur gratia, et futura gloriae nobis pignus datur.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 424 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 424 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. through His Passion, not only by way of efficiency and merit, but also by way of satisfaction. Likewise by His Passion He inaugurated the Rites of the Christian Religion. . . . Wherefore it is manifest that the sacraments of the Church derive their power specially from Christ’s Passion, the virtue of which is in a manner united to us by our receiving the sacraments. It was in sign of this that from the side of Christ hanging on the Cross there flowed water and blood, the former of which belongs to Baptism, the latter to the Eucharist, which are the principal sacraments.76 Concerning baptism, St. Thomas says explicitly that it represents the passion of Christ: “Christ’s passion acts in the Baptism of Water by way of a figurative representation. . . .”77 Speaking of the validity of single immersion in baptism, Aquinas notes that “Christ’s death is sufficiently represented in the one immersion.”78 Although baptism and the other sacraments represent the passion of the Lord and receive their power from it, nevertheless the Angelic Doctor never says that this endows them with a sacrificial character.Yet he does teach—as we have already seen—that the Eucharist has a sacrificial nature precisely because it represents the passion of Christ.The solution to this difficulty can be found in a passage from Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences. Just as in the citation from the Summa theologiae, he first distinguishes three aspects of a sacrament: There are three things to consider in each sacrament: namely, its origin, perfection, and final end. The origin of each of the sacraments is the passion of Christ, from whose side hanging on the cross, as the saints say, the sacraments flowed.The perfection of the sacrament is that it contains 76 ST III, q. 62, a. 5: “Gratia autem sacramentalis ad duo praecipue ordinari videtur, videlicet ad tollendos defectus praeteritorum peccatorum, inquantum transeunt actu et remanent reatu; et iterum ad perficiendum animam in his quae pertinent ad cultum Dei secundum religionem Christianae vitae. Manifestum est autem ex his quae supra dicta sunt, quod Christus liberavit nos a peccatis nostris praecipue per suam passionem, non solum efficienter et meritorie, sed etiam satisfactorie. Similiter etiam per suam passionem initiavit ritum Christianae religionis, offerens seipsum oblationem et hostiam Deo, ut dicitur Ephes.V. Unde manifestum est quod sacramenta Ecclesiae specialiter habent virtutem ex passione Christi, cuius virtus quodammodo nobis copulatur per susceptionem sacramentorum. In cuius signum, de latere Christi pendentis in cruce fluxerunt aqua et sanguis, quorum unum pertinet ad Baptismum, aliud ad Eucharistiam, quae sunt potissima sacramenta.” 77 ST III, q. 66, a. 12:“Nam passio Christi operatur quidem in Baptismo aquae per quandam figuralem repraesentationem. . . .” See also In Sent. IV, d. 11, q. 2, a. 4, q.la 4, ad 2. 78 ST III, q. 66, a. 8, ad 1:“mors Christi figuratur sufficienter in unica immersione.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 425 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 425 grace. The end of the sacrament is two-fold: proximate, which is the sanctification of the one receiving, and ultimate, which is eternal life.79 Thomas then adds something important: “These things, however, are found in the Eucharist with a certain excellence because this sacrament is uniquely in memory of the Lord’s passion.”80 We can see that the Eucharist—unlike the other sacraments—has a sacrificial nature because it represents the passion of Christ in an excellent, unique, and completely singular mode. Aquinas’s affirmation of the special representation of the Lord’s passion in the Eucharist can be found not only in the passage from the Commentary on the Sentences, but also in other places. Here again we encounter the use of a certain linguistic variety to indicate this reality. The Common Doctor thus teaches that, in relation to the passion, the sacrament of the Eucharist is “directly” representative (directe est repraesentativum ),81 “specially” representative (est speciale repraesentativum ),82 that it “expressly” represents the passion (expressius passionem Christi repraesentat ),83 is the “perfect sacrament” of the passion (est sacramentum perfectum ),84 and “more fitting” (magis convenit ) with Christ’s passion.85 We can conclude this part of our discussion by indicating again that the fact of the unique representation of Christ’s passion by the Eucharist is only a special application of the more general principle, the principle that everything common to each of the sacraments is attributed to the Eucharist according to a certain excellence. St. Thomas expresses this principle in the following way, “[w]hat is attributed to all the sacraments is attributed antonomastically to this one [the Eucharist] on account of its excellence.”86 79 In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1, q.la 3, corpus: “in quolibet sacramento est tria consid- erare; scilicet originem, perfectionem, et finem ad quem est. Origo autem omnium sacramentorum est passio Christi, de cujus latere in cruce pendentis sacramenta profluxerunt, ut sancti dicunt; perfectio autem sacramenti est in hoc quod continet gratiam; finis autem sacramenti est duplex; proximus, scilicet sanctificatio recipientis, et ultimus, scilicet vita aeterna.” 80 Ibid: “Haec autem per quamdam excellentiam in Eucharistia inveniuntur. Quia hoc sacramentum est specialiter inmemoriam dominicae passionis. . . .” 81 See In Sent. IV, d. 2, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 1, arg. 1 and In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 2, a. 1, q.la 4, ad 4. 82 See In Sent. IV, d. 4, q. 2, a. 1, q.la 2, arg. 3. 83 See In Sent. IV, d. 12, q. 2, a. 2, q.la 2, arg. 2. 84 See ST III, q. 73, a. 8, ad 2. 85 See In Sent. IV, d. 12, q. 3, a. 1, q.la 1, arg. 2. 86 See ST III, q. 73, a. 4, ad 2: “id quod est commune omnibus sacramentis, attribuitur antonomastice ei, propter eius excellentiam.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 426 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 426 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. The Eucharistic Celebration Uniquely Represents the Passion of Christ in the Consecration87 Having demonstrated that St. Thomas teaches that the Eucharist has a sacrificial nature since it represents Christ’s passion in a completely unique way, we can now ask, where, within the celebration of the Mass, is the passion of Christ so singularly represented? When we search for an answer to our question we see that in Thomas’s writings some references are found for the representation of the passion of Christ in various parts and numerous aspects of the Eucharistic celebration, including the addition of the water to the wine,88 the fraction rite,89 the consumption of the Lord’s body,90 the reception of communion one time per day,91 the making of the bread and the wine,92 the use of wheaten bread,93 and the chalice itself.94 87 Poschmann, “ ‘Mysteriengegenwart’ im Licht des hl. Thomas,” 93; Adolf Hoff- man,“Passionis repraesentatio,” Theologische Quartalschrift 117 (1936): 505–31 and “De sacrificio Missae iuxta S. Thomam,” 265–66; Fandal, “The Essence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” 60–61. 88 ST III, q. 74, a. 6: “vino quod offertur in hoc sacramento debet aqua misceri. Primo quidem, propter institutionem. Probabiliter enim creditur quod dominus hoc sacramentum instituerit in vino aqua permixto, secundum morem terrae illius, unde et Proverb. IX dicitur, bibite vinum quod miscui vobis. Secundo, quia hoc convenit repraesentationi dominicae passionis. Unde dicit Alexander Papa, non debet in calice domini aut vinum solum, aut aqua sola offerri, sed utrumque permixtum, quia utrumque ex latere Christi in passione sua profluxisse legitur.” See also In Matth., cap. XXVI, lect. 4 [2193]. 89 In Sent. IV, d. 12, q. 1, a. 3, q.la 1, ad 2: “hoc sacramentum est signum passionis Christi, et non ipsa passio; ideo oportet quod passio quam significat fractio, non sit in corpore Christi, sed in speciebus, quae sunt signum ejus.” See also ST III, q. 77, a. 7; In Sent. IV, d. 12, q. 1, a. 3, q.la 3, arg. 1, corpus, and ad 2; In I Cor., cap. XI, lect. 5 [665]; In Matth., cap. XXVI, lect. 4 [2177]; ST III, q. 83, a. 5, ad 7; Ródenas Martínes,“Santo Tomás de Aquino y la esencia sacramental de la Misa,” 203–4. 90 In Sent. IV, d. 9, q. 1, a. 1, q.la 1, corpus: “Competit etiam manducatio passioni Christi in hoc sacramento repraesentatae, per quam corpus Christi vulneratum fuit. . . .” 91 ST III, q. 80, a. 10, ad 4: “quia dominus dicit, panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, non est pluries in die communicandum, ut saltem per hoc quod aliquis semel in die communicat, repraesentetur unitas passionis Christi.” See also In Sent. IV, d. 12, q. 3, a. 1, q.la 4, corpus. 92 In Sent. IV, d. 11, q. 2, a. 1, q.la 2, corpus:“grana in area conculcantur, et panis in fornace decoquitur, et vinum in torculari exprimitur; quae omnia competunt ad repraesentandum passionem Christi.” 93 In Sent. IV, d. 11, q. 2, a. 2, q.la 1, ad 1:“in passione Christi non fuit aliqua duritia ex parte Christi qui patiebatur, sed summa benignitas; et quia hostia panis significat et continet ipsum Christum, ideo non ita competit huic sacramento panis hordeaceus, vel alterius modi, sicut panis triticeus, qui est delicatior et suavior.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 427 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 427 St.Thomas attributes the representation of the Lord’s passion not only to the rites that directly concern Christ’s body and blood under the species of bread and wine, but as we have just seen, to almost every rite within the Mass. We can say that according to Thomas, the whole Eucharistic celebration in its various parts and aspects is a living image of the passion of Christ.95 “There are two things to be considered regarding the equipment of this sacrament,” Aquinas explains. “[O]ne of these belongs to the representation of the events connected with our Lord’s Passion . . .”96 and thus “[w]here it could be done without danger, the Church gave order for that thing to be used which more expressively represents Christ’s Passion.”97 In this vision of the Mass, St. Thomas follows, though with equilibrium, the allegorical interpretation that was introduced by Amalarius of Metz (+837) and was so dominate during the Middle Ages.98 This allegorical sense is valid whether it is used directly for the rites concerning the body and blood of Christ or for the interpretation of the other aspects of the Mass. Of the latter, Aquinas identifies the following: the 94 ST III, q. 83, a. 5, ad 9: “per calicem duo possunt significari. Uno modo, ipsa passio, quae repraesentatur in hoc sacramento. 95 Auguste Gaudel,“Le sacrifice de la messe dans l’Église latine du IVe siècle jusqu’a la veille de la Réforme,” in Dictionnaire de la théologie catholique, vol. 10 (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1928), 1058: “saint Thomas . . . cherche dans l’ensemble des cérémonies de la messe comme un tableau de la passion.Tout en effet à la messe concourt à nous donner de la passion une vive impression; les paroles prononcées, les gestes, la matière du sacrifice, le prêtre, l’autel, le calice.” See also Hoffmann, “De sacrificio Missae iuxta S. Thomam,” 265; Ródenas Martínes, “Santo Tomás de Aquino y la esencia sacramental de la Misa,” 201–2. 96 ST III, q. 83, a. 3:“in his quae circumstant hoc sacramentum, duo considerantur, quorum unum pertinet ad repraesentationem eorum quae circa dominicam passionem sunt acta. . . .” 97 ST III, q. 83, a. 3, ad 7: “ubi potuit sine periculo fieri, Ecclesia statuit circa hoc sacramentum id quod expressius repraesentat passionem Christi.” See also ST III, q. 83, a. 5, passim. 98 Josef A. Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia. Origini, liturgia, storia e teologia della Messa romana, vol. 1, translated by the Benedictine Monastery of St. Paul in Sorrento (Torino: Marietti, 1953), 98; English title: The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (Missarum Sollemnia), 2 vols., various editions; the original German is Missarum Sollemnia. Eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe (Wien: Herder, 1949); Luciano Parisse,“L’Eucharistie,‘memorial de la passion du Seigneur’: La mise en œuvre du donné traditionnel dans la théologie de S. Thomas d’Aquin,” (S.T.D. dissertation, Angelicum, 1965): 18–20; David Berger, Thomas Aquinas and the Liturgy (Naples: Sapientia Press, 2005), 37–41; Franck Quoëx, “Thomas d’Aquin, mystagogue. L’expositio missae de la Somme de théologie (IIIa, q. 83, a. 4–5),” Revue Thomiste 105 (2005): 179–225, 435–72. N&V_Spr09.qxp 428 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 428 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. numerous signs of the cross made during the Mass,99 the extension of the priest’s arms after the consecration,100 the bowing of the priest,101 the priest’s silent words,102 the time of the celebration of the Mass,103 the altar,104 the altar linen (corporal),105 and the use of Greek (Kyrie ), Hebrew (alleluia ), and Latin words during the Eucharistic celebration.106 We have already shown that St.Thomas sees the representation of the passion of the Lord in the reception of communion one time per day. Similarly and more generally, he aligns this representation with the singularity of daily Mass.We conclude our treatment about Aquinas’s allegorical explanation of the Mass with the following passage: “As is set down in the decree (De Consecr., dist. 1), in virtue of a decree of Pope Alexander II, ‘it is enough for a priest to celebrate one mass each day, because Christ suffered once and redeemed the whole world; and very happy is he who can worthily celebrate one mass.’ ”107 99 ST III, q. 83, a. 5, ad 3: “. . . sacerdos in celebratione Missae utitur crucesigna- tione ad exprimendam passionem Christi, quae ad crucem est terminata.” See also Berger, Thomas von Aquin und die Liturgie, 40–47. 100 ST III, q. 83, a. 5, ad 5: “ea quae sacerdos in Missa facit, non sunt ridiculosae gesticulationes, fiunt enim ad aliquid repraesentandum. Quod enim sacerdos brachia extendit post consecrationem, significat extensionem brachiorum Christi in cruce.” 101 ST III, q. 83, a. 5, ad 5: “Quod autem manus interdum iungit, et inclinat se, suppliciter et humiliter orans, designat humilitatem et obedientiam Christi, ex qua passus est.” 102 In Sent. IV, d. 12, expos. text. “Tacita etiam locutio exprimit consilium Judaeorum mortem Christi machinantium, vel discipulorum, qui palam Christum confiteri non audebant.” 103 ST III, q. 83, a. 2:“Quia vero dominica passio celebrata est a tertia hora usque ad nonam, ideo regulariter in illa parte diei solemniter celebratur in Ecclesia hoc sacramentum.” 104 ST III, q. 83, a. 1, ad 2:“sicut celebratio huius sacramenti est imago repraesentativa passionis Christi, ita altare est repraesentativum crucis ipsius, in qua Christus in propria specie immolatus est.” 105 ST III, q. 83, a. 3, ad 7: “corporale tamen fit de panno lineo, quo corpus Christi fuit involutum. . . . Competit etiam pannus lineus, propter sui munditiam, ad significandum conscientiae puritatem; et, propter multiplicem laborem quo talis pannus praeparatur, ad significandam passionem Christi.” 106 In Sent. IV, d. 8, expos. text:“Sciendum autem, quod in officio Missae, ubi passio repraesentatur, quaedam continentur verba Graeca, sicut, kyrie eleison, idest domine miserere: quaedam Hebraica, sicut alleluja, idest laudate Deum; Sabaoth, idest exercituum; hosanna, salva obsecro; amen, idest vere, vel fiat: quaedam Latina, quae patent: quia his tribus linguis scriptus est titulus crucis Christi, Joan. 19.” 107 ST III, q. 83, a. 2, ad 5: “sicut habetur de Consecr., dist. I, ex decreto Alexandri Papae, sufficit sacerdoti in die unam Missam celebrare, quia Christus semel passus est et totum mundum redemit; et valde felix est qui unam digne celebrare potest.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 429 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 429 St.Thomas accordingly affirms that the various rites and aspects of the Eucharistic celebration represent the Lord’s passion; however, he never says that these bestow a sacrificial character on the Eucharist.We can say, too, that this case more or less repeats the situation referred to above when we spoke of the representation of the passion of Christ in the Eucharist and the other sacraments. Just as this representation does not bestow a sacrificial nature on baptism or the other sacraments save the Eucharist, neither does the allegorical representation make the various rites and aspects of the Mass equal to the Blessed Sacrament itself. With the allegorical interpretation, it is not a question of that unique, excellent, and direct representation of the passion which was spoken of above. What is it then that makes the Eucharist uniquely represent the passion of the Lord and constitutes it as a sacrifice? St.Thomas responds to this question by teaching that there is only one rite of the Mass which represents the passion in an excellent and direct manner thus giving it its sacrificial character—this rite is the very consecration of the bread into in the body of Christ and the wine into his blood.108 According to Lepin, on this point the Angelic Doctor follows the path of St. Paschasius Radbertus (+851) and Alexander of Hales (+1245).109 For example, when comparing the consecration of the matter of the various sacraments, Aquinas notes that “[t]he consecration of chrism or of anything else is not a sacrifice, as the consecration of the Eucharist is.”110 And, regarding the relationship between giving the faithful sacraments and offering the Eucharist to God, Aquinas articulates the following about the consecration: “But the opportunity of offering sacrifice is considered not merely in relation to the faithful of Christ, to whom the sacraments must be administered, but chiefly with regard to God, to Whom the sacrifice of this sacrament is offered by consecrating.”111 Similarly, Aquinas argues that 108 See Poschmann,“ ‘Mysteriengegenwart’ im Licht des hl.Thomas,” 93; Hoffmann, “De sacrificio Missae iuxta S. Thomam,” 265–66; Ródenas Martínes, “Santo Tomás de Aquino y la esencia sacramental de la Misa,” 204–8. 109 See Lepin, L’idée du sacrifice de la Messe d’après les théologiens depuis l’origine jusqu’à nos jours, 186. 110 ST III, q. 82, a. 4, ad 1: “consecratio chrismatis, vel cuiuscumque alterius materiae, non est sacrificium, sicut consecratio Eucharistiae.” 111 ST III, q. 82, a. 10:“Opportunitas autem sacrificium offerendi non solum attenditur per comparationem ad fideles Christi, quibus oportet sacramenta ministrari, sed principaliter per comparationem ad Deum, cui in consecratione huius sacramenti sacrificium offertur.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 430 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 430 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. [t]he other sacraments are accomplished in being used by the faithful, and therefore he alone is bound to administer them who has undertaken the care of souls. But this sacrament is performed in the consecration of the Eucharist, whereby a sacrifice is offered to God, to which the priest is bound from the order he has received.112 Aquinas also teaches that once begun, the sacrifice ought not to be interrupted: “if after the consecration has been begun the priest remembers that he has eaten or drunk anything, he ought nevertheless to complete the sacrifice and receive the sacrament.”113 Likewise, on the importance of the double-consecration Aquinas notes, “Our Lord’s Passion is represented in the very consecration of this sacrament, in which the body ought not to be consecrated without the blood.”114 That the perfection of the Eucharist consists in the very consecration of the matter, while the other sacraments are perfected in the use of consecrated matter, does not directly and explicitly enunciate the fact of sacrifice in the consecration of the Eucharist; however, such is done in an indirect and implicit manner, which is to say that it can be deduced from it.This is clearly indicated by A. Ródenas Martínes when he writes, “If, in fact, the fulfillment of this sacrament happens in the sacrifice on the altar and the essential moment of the sacrament’s realization is in the consecration, it follows that St. Thomas affirms that the essence of the sacrifice of the Mass is the consecration. . . .”115 112 ST III, q. 82, a. 10, ad 1:“[A]lia sacramenta perficiuntur in usu fidelium. Et ideo in illis ministrare non tenetur nisi ille qui super fideles suscipit curam. Sed hoc sacramentum perficitur in consecratione Eucharistiae, in qua sacrificium Deo offertur, ad quod sacerdos obligatur ex ordine iam suscepto.” 113 ST III, q. 83, a. 6, ad 2: “si sacerdos, post consecrationem incoeptam, recordetur aliquid comedisse vel bibisse, nihilominus debet perficere sacrificium et sumere sacramentum.” 114 ST III, q. 80, a. 12, ad 3: “[R]epraesentatio dominicae passionis agitur in ipsa consecratione huius sacramenti, in qua non debet corpus sine sanguine consecrari.” See also ST III, q. 83, a. 4, where he writes the following about the prayer in the Mass which immediately follows the consecration:“Quarto, petit hoc sacrificium peractum esse Deo acceptum, cum dicit, Unde et memores.”We can also add that Aquinas often exchanges the expressions consecrare, offerre and sacrificare ; see ST III, q. 82, a. 4. For similar references in which Aquinas establishes that the perfection of the Eucharist, unlike the other sacraments, consists in the consecration of the body and blood, rather than in the use and application of consecrated matter, see ST III, q. 73, a. 1, ad 3; In Matth., cap. XXVI, lect. 3; In Sent. IV, d. 11, q. 2, a. 4, q.la 2, corpus; and In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 1, passim. 115 Ródenas Martínes,“Santo Tomás de Aquino y la esencia sacramental de la Misa,” 208. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 431 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 431 Having established that only the unique representation of the passion of Christ in the consecration bestows the nature of sacrifice on the Eucharist, we can still add that the other rites of the Mass, though not giving it a sacrificial character, contribute nonetheless to a better representation of the passion of Christ in the consecration.116 This in fact manifests, as Humbrecht notes, “the sense that St.Thomas has of the unique worth of the liturgical actions within the Mass.”117 This enhancement of the representation of the passion on the part of the various rites is not indispensable for the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, which is why even without these the sacrifice of the Mass is truly offered in the consecration.118 The Unique Representation of the Passion in the Eucharist in the Twofold Consecration119 We have seen that St. Thomas teaches that the celebration of the Mass uniquely represents the passion of Christ in the consecration itself. Now we can ask how the excellent representation of the passion in the Eucharistic consecration happens: for what reason and why exactly does the consecration uniquely represent the passion of the Lord thus giving the Eucharist its sacrificial nature? St. Thomas offers us two primary texts that give the response to this question.120 The first of these texts is his Commentary on the First Letter to the Corinthians and the second is his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. 116 Hoffmann, “De sacrificio Missae iuxta S.Thomam,” 266. 117 Humbrecht, “L’Eucharistie, ‘representation’ du sacrifice du Christ, selon saint Thomas,” 366. 118 See In Sent. IV, d. 13, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 6, corpus, where Aquinas says,“[R]emotis his quae non sunt de essentia rei, nihilominus res manet; unde cum hujusmodi ritus quantum ad determinationem horae vel loci vel indumentorum, non sint de essentia sacramenti, sed de solemnitate, si omittantur, nihilominus consecratum est sacrificium, dummodo adsint ea quae sunt de essentia sacramenti. . . .” See also In Sent. IV, d. 13, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 6, ad 2. 119 See Vonier, A Key to Doctrine of the Eucharist, 108–33; Fandal,“The Essence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” 71–79; Poschmann, “ ‘Mysteriengegenwart’ im Licht des hl.Thomas,” 84–88; Hoffman, “Passionis repraesentatio,” 528–30 and “De sacrificio Missae iuxta S. Thomam,” 282–83; Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, De Eucharistia:Accedunt de Paenitentia quaestiones dogmaticae. Commentarius in Summam theologicam S. Thomae (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1943), 284–88; Matthijs, De aeternitate Sacerdotii Christi et de unitate Sacrificii crucis et altaris, 52–58. 120 Hoffmann, in “De sacrificio Missae iuxta S.Thomam,” 282, highlights the importance of these two texts. N&V_Spr09.qxp 432 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 432 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. In the first excerpt, from his Pauline commentary, St. Thomas makes his classical distinction121, made also by the Church’s magisterium,122 between the presence from the power of the sacrament (ex vi sacramenti ), that is, by the power of the consecration (ex vi consecrationis ), and presence through real concomitance (ex reali concomitantia ): For it should be noted that in this sacrament something is present in two ways: in one way in virtue of the consecration, namely, that into which the conversion of the bread and wine is terminated, as is signified by the form of the consecration; and in this way under the appearance of bread the body of Christ is present. In another way something is present in this sacrament by real concomitance, as the divinity of the Word is present in this sacrament on account of its indissoluble union with the body of Christ, although the substance of bread is in no way converted into the divinity. Likewise, the soul is there, which is really joined to the body. The same is true of the blood. For under the appearances of bread in virtue of the consecration is present Christ’s body, into which the substance of bread is converted. But the blood is there by real concomitance, because then the blood of Christ is not really separated from the body.And for the same reason under the appearance of wine the blood of Christ is present in virtue of the consecration, but the body by real concomitance, so that the whole Christ is under both species.123 121 Besides the text cited here, for other references to this distinction in Thomas’s work see In Sent. IV, d. 10, a. 2, q.la 1, corpus; Quodlibet 7, q. 4, a. 1, corpus; In Matth., cap. XXVI, lect. 3; In Ioannem, cap.VI, lect.VI, 7; ST III, q. 76, a.1 corpus and ad 1; q. 76, a. 2, corpus; q. 78, a. 6, ad 1; q. 81, a. 4, ad 2. 122 See the decrees from the eighth session (October 11th, 1551) of the Council of Trent, especially chapter 3 and canon 1. 123 Commentary by St.Thomas Aquinas on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. Fabian Larcher, O.P., available at www.aquinas.avemaria.edu/Aquinas-Corinthians.pdf, 124–25 [#674]. “Sciendum est enim quod in hoc sacramento dupliciter aliquid est. Uno modo ex vi consecrationis, illud scilicet in quod terminatur conversio panis et vini, sicut per formam consecrationis significatur, et sic sub specie panis est corpus Christi.Alio modo est aliquid in hoc sacramento ex reali concomitantia, sicut divinitas verbi est in hoc sacramento propter indissolubilem unionem ipsius ad corpus Christi, licet nullo modo substantia panis in divinitatem convertatur. Et similiter est ibi anima, quae coniuncta est realiter ipsi corpori. Si vero in triduo mortis Christi, fuisset corpus Christi ab aliquo apostolorum consecratum, non fuisset ibi anima quae tunc realiter erat a corpore separata. Et idem dicendum est de sanguine. Nam sub speciebus panis ex vi consecrationis est corpus Christi, in quod substantia panis convertitur. Sanguis autem est ibi ex reali concomitantia, quia tunc realiter sanguis Christi non est ab eius corpore separatus. Et, eadem ratione, sub specie vini est sanguis Christi ex vi consecrationis, corpus autem ex reali concomitantia, ita quod sub utraque specie est totus Christus.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 433 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 433 The Angelic Doctor then adds as a consequence and confirmation of the distinction that he made between the presence by the power of the sacrament and by real concomitance the hypothetical case of the celebration of the Eucharist by the Apostles during the time of Christ’s passion: But if during the time of the passion, when the blood of Christ had been drained from his body, this sacrament had been celebrated by any of the apostles, there would have been under the appearances of bread only the body of Christ without the blood; under the appearances of wine there would have been only the blood of Christ.124 Speaking about the blood of Christ, St.Thomas affirms that it is under the species of wine through the power of the consecration or by the power of the sacrament. “[T]he blood of Christ” he explains, “in the sacrament directly represents the passion, through which it was poured out. . . .”125 We can see that the real separation of Christ’s blood from his body, which took place on the cross, is represented in a special manner in the Mass by the fact of the twofold consecration; that is, by the fact that the bread and wine are separately consecrated into the body and blood of the Lord. The body and blood of Christ truly united—by real concomitance—through the power of the consecration or the sacrament, are made present as separated, since the consecration of the bread terminates in the body of the Lord and the consecration of the wine exclusively in his blood.The physical separation of the blood from the body on the cross is thus represented by means of their sacramental separation, and in this sacramental separation consists the sacramental immolation of Christ.126 124 Commentary by St.Thomas Aquinas on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 125:“Si vero tempore passionis quando sanguis Christi erat ex corpore effusus, fuisset hoc sacramentum ab aliquo apostolorum perfectum, sub panis specie fuisset solum corpus Christi ex sangue, sub speciebus autem vini fuisset solus sanguis Christi.” This sentence is repeated by Thomas in the following texts: In Matth., cap. XXVI, lect. 4 [2192]; ST III, q. 76, a. 2; q. 81, a. 4, ad 2. Similarly, St.Thomas teaches that in the hypothetical case of the celebration of the Mass during the time of the Lord’s passion the body would have been without soul under the species of bread: In Sent. IV, d. 11, q. 3, a. 4, q.la 2, corpus; Quodlibet 5, q. 6, a. 1, ad 1; In I Cor., cap. XI, lect. 6 [# 674]; In Matth., cap. XXVI, lect. 3 [2186]; In Ioannem, cap.VI, lect.VI, 7 [#962]. 125 Commentary by St.Thomas Aquinas on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 125. “Sed sanguis Christi in sacramento directe repraesentat passionem, per quam est effusus. . . .” See also ibid., #681, where Aquinas further specifies that the separate consecration of the blood represents the passion in a special way because of the separation between Christ’s body and blood. 126 Several centuries later pope Pius XII spoke happily of how “according to the plan of divine wisdom, the sacrifice of our Redeemer is shown forth in an N&V_Spr09.qxp 434 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 434 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. St.Thomas proposes a similar doctrine in his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. He first asks why the sacrament of the Eucharist was instituted not only under one species but two. His response is as follows: One reason is because there are three things in this sacrament: one is the sacramentum tantum, another is the res tantum, and another is the sacramentum et res. The species of bread and wine are the sacramentum tantum, the res tantum is the spiritual effect, the res et sacramentum is the contained body. If therefore we consider the sacramentum tantum, it is properly befitting that the body should be signified under the species of bread and the blood under the species of wine because it is signified as something indicating spiritual refreshment, but refreshment is proper to food and drink. . . . Likewise, if it is understood as res et sacramentum it is rememorative of the Lord’s passion. And, [the passion] couldn’t have been better signified than this: that the blood be signified as shed and separated from the body.127 In summary of this text from the Commentary on Matthew we can say that it was highly fitting that the Eucharist be instituted under the two species. So, too, regarding the res et sacramentum, which is the contained body and blood of Christ, because these are signified as separated, and thus are a highest memorial of the passion of the Lord.128 Christus passus129 This teaching on the twofold consecration as the singular representation of the passion of Christ is then summarized by the Eucharistic Doctor in admirable manner by external signs which are the symbols of His death.” Mediator Dei (1947), §70. 127 In Matth., cap. XXVI, lect. 4: “Una ratio est, quia tria sunt in hoc sacramento: unum quod est sacramentum tantum, aliud quod est res tantum, aliud quod est sacramentum et res. Sacramentum tantum sunt species panis et vini, res tantum est effectus spiritualis, res et sacramentum est corpus contentum. Si ergo consideremus sacramentum tantum, sic bene competit ut corpus signetur sub specie panis, sanguis sub specie vini, quia signatur ut indicans refectionem spiritualem; sed refectio est proprie in cibo et potu, ideo et cetera. Item si sumatur ut res et sacramentum, ad hoc competit quod illud sacramentum est rememorativum dominicae passionis. Et non potuit melius significare quam sic, ut significetur sanguis ut effusus et separatus a corpore.” 128 Thomas also takes up this theme in a number of other works. See, for example, In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 2, a. 2, q.la 1, ad 2.; IV, d. 11, q. 2, a. 1, q.la 1, corpus; ScG IV, cap. 61. 129 See Barnabé Augier, “Le sacrifice ecclésiastique,” Revue Thomiste 15 (1932): 205–13; Poschmann, “ ‘Mysteriengegenwart’ im Licht des hl. Thomas,” 84–87; Hoffmann,“De sacrificio Missae iuxta S.Thomam,” 279–81; Fandal,“The Essence of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” 75–76; Matthijs, De aeternitate Sacerdotii Christi et de unitate Sacrificii crucis et altaris, 52–56; Humbert Bouëssé,“Théologie de la messe,” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 435 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 435 the happy expression Christus passus which we can encounter a number of times in his doctrine on the Eucharist. He says that Christus passus is contained in the sacrament of the Eucharist:“The Eucharist is the perfect sacrament of our Lord’s Passion, as containing Christ crucified.”130 Thomas affirms even further that Christus passus is the res et sacramentum of the Eucharist when he says “in so far as what is the res et sacramentum, namely Christ himself who suffered, the paschal lamb was a representation. . . .”131 St. Thomas also writes that the Eucharist unites man to Christus passus and it offers him to us as the paschal banquet. Finally, as we have just touched on,Thomas teaches that Christus passus was prefigured in the Old Testament by the paschal lamb.132 We must interpret the expression Christus passus, used in these various circumstances, in the sense of Christ sacramentally immolated.The explanation of Dom Odo Casel, who maintained according to his theory of Mysteriengegenwart that continere Christum passum means nothing other than to contain the passion of Christ itself, is therefore foreign to the mind of the Common Doctor.133 As we have already clarified, the Eucharistic sacrifice consists solely in the consecration. Holy communion does not therefore pertain to the essence of this sacrifice, but it is required by its integrity (at least the communion of the priest). Consequently and complementarily, St.Thomas sees the representation of the passion of Christ not only in the twofold consecration, but also in communion under both species. We can cite in reference to this a profound passage from the Commentary on the Sentences: He who consecrates must always eat the body and blood of Christ . . . whose ratio is able to be obtained on the part of the sacrament itself, which receives its completion in the very consumption since, as Augustine says, La Vie spirituelle, Supplement, 224 (1938): 169; and our own “ ‘Christus passus’ nella dottrina eucaristica di San Tommaso d’Aquino,” Acta Universitatis Palackianae Olomucensis, Theologica Olomucensia 2 (2000): 3/1–14. 130 ST III, q. 73, a. 5, ad 2. “Eucharistia est sacramentum perfectum dominicae passionis, tanquam continens ipsum Christum passum.” Also, see In Ioannem, cap. VI, lect.VI, 7 [963]; ST III, q. 73, a. 6; q. 75, a. 1. 131 In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 2, q.la 2, corpus: “quantum autem ad id quod est res et sacramentum, scilicet ipsum Christum passum, fuit figura agnus paschalis.” 132 See In Sent. IV, d. 8, q. 1, a. 2, q.1a 2, corpus; ST III, q. 73, a. 3, ad 3; q. 66, a. 9, ad 5. 133 See Casel’s article “Meßopferlehre der Tradition,” Theologie und Glaube 23 (1931): 351–67. Also see our criticisms of Casel’s position in “ ‘Christus passus’ nella dottrina eucaristica di San Tommaso d’Aquino,” 7–9, and those of Stephenson in “Two Views of the Mass: Medieval Linguistic Ambiguities,” 596–97. N&V_Spr09.qxp 436 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 436 Ste∑ ∑pán Martin Filip, O.P. when the blood is poured into the mouth of the faithful from the chalice, the effusion of the blood from the side of Christ is indicated. . . .134 Summarizing this paragraph of our exposition we see that the special representation of the passion of Christ in the Mass consists in the fact of the separate consecration of the body of the Lord and of his blood: so the body and blood of the Lord, now united through the power of the sacrament, are rendered present as separate and are in this sense a perfect image of the passion.The image of the passion of the Lord in the twofold consecration is then completed by the representation of the passion in communion under the two species. The corollary of the aforementioned doctrine is the necessity of the twofold consecration for the essence of the sacrifice of the Mass, as it clearly appears according to this text of the Eucharistic Doctor: Although wheat and wine are not produced in every country, yet they can easily be conveyed to every land, that is, as much as is needful for the use of this sacrament: at the same time one is not to be consecrated when the other is lacking, because it would not be a complete sacrament.135 Conclusion We have completed our exposition—a quasi spiritual journey into the writings of St.Thomas Aquinas—penetrating ever more deeply into the problem of the material aspect of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Our research can be summarized in the following theses: 1. The sacrament of the Eucharist has the nature of a sacrifice, which is lacking in the other sacraments. 2. The sacrament of the Eucharist has the nature of a sacrifice because it is offered, and it is offered since it represents the passion of Christ. 3. The sacrament of the Eucharist has the nature of a sacrifice because it represents the passion of Christ in a unique way. 134 In Sent. IV, d. 12, q. 3, a. 2, q.la 2, corpus:“semper ille qui consecrat, debet sumere corpus et sanguinem Christi . . . cujus ratio potest sumi ex parte ipsius sacramenti, quod in ipsa sumptione complementum suae significationis accipit: quia, ut dicit Augustinus, dum sanguis in ore fidelium de calice funditur, sanguinis effusio de latere Christi designatur. . . .” 135 ST III, q. 74, a. 1, ad 2: “licet non in omnibus terris nascatur triticum et vinum, tamen de facili ad omnes terras deferri potest quantum sufficit ad usum huius sacramenti. Nec propter defectum alterius, est unum tantum sine altero consecrandum, quia non esset perfectum sacrificium.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 437 Aquinas on the Sacrifice of the Mass 437 4. The sacrament of the Eucharist represents the passion of Christ in a unique way in the consecration. 5. The sacrament of the Eucharist represents the passion of Christ in a unique way in the twofold consecration because, by the power of the sacrament, the body and the blood of the Lord are made present as separated. We can synthesize the preceding theses as follows: St.Thomas Aquinas teaches that the sacrament of the Eucharist has the nature of a sacrifice because it symbolically represents the passion of Christ in a supreme and special way: namely, in the separation of his blood from his body in the twofold consecration of the bread and the wine, which makes present the body and the blood of the Lord as separated. Hence, the material part of the essence of the sacrifice of the Mass or the body of the Eucharistic sacrifice consists in the twofold consecration of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ as a special representation of his passion. N&V N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 438 N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 439 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 439–76 439 Being Good: Thomas Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication A ARON R ICHES Nottingham University Nottingham, England M ODIFYING Marie-Dominique Chenu’s claim of exitus et reditus as the “very plan of the Summa,” Michel Corbin has proposed an extension of this twofold movement into a tripartite pattern.1 On Corbin’s modification, a further mediation lies in the tertia pars where the exitus of God’s descent in the prima pars and the reditus of humanity’s graceful ascent in the secunda pars are embodied in an incarnational-sacramental “synthesis” of the two movements.2 In as much as Corbin wants to rethink Chenu’s “plan,” he is nevertheless faithful to Chenu’s fundamental intuition: “the Christian Neoplatonists are plainly the thinkers who can supply Saint Thomas with expression and support for this vast theme, and, de facto, the Dionysian tradition.”3 • • • This essay is not primarily concerned to clarify the debate concerning the “plan” of the Summa theologiae.4 The question here, rather, concerns 1 For Chenu’s “plan,” see M.-D. Chenu, O.P., Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, trans. A.-M. Landry and D. Hughes (Chicago: H. Regnery, 1964), 297–318, at 304; and cf. idem, “Le plan de La Somme théologique de saint Thomas,” Revue Thomiste 47 (1939): 93–107. For Corbin’s modification, see Michel Corbin, S.J., Le chemin de la théologie chez Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972), 794ff. 2 Corbin, Le chemin de la théologie chez Thomas d’Aquin, 788ff. Cf. John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas (New York: Routledge, 2001), 58ff. 3 Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, 306. 4 Jean-Pierre Torrell identifies three principal positions on the “plan” of the Summa. First, Chenu’s, which understands the exitus et reditus as correlating to the prima pars and the secunda pars, and therefore leaves the tertia pars as something of an afterthought. Second, the view represented by A.-M. Patfoort, who very much rejects N&V_Spr09.qxp 440 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 440 Aaron Riches the nature of Aquinas’s use and reading of Denys the Areopagite, and specifically the Dionysian triplex via, by which we come to know God according to the triadic pattern: by negation ( per remotionem/paqà a< uaiqéxy), by eminence ( per eminentiam/paqà t> peqovǵy ), and by causal attribution ( per causalitatem/paqà ai< síay ).5 In what follows I want to suggest a reading of Aquinas’s metaphysical noetic sensitive to the middle mediation of the Dionysian triplex via— “per eminentiam”—, a mode of mediation that both transcends and interplays in the midst of “attribution” and “negation.” I want to suggest that “per eminentiam” functions as a “redoubling mediation,” and that herein it both qualifies and expands “attribution” and “negation” through a noncollapsible “synthesis” of the two rhythms that yet moves “beyond” in the direction of a theoretical reductio in mysterium.6 For this reason I invoke Chenu’s “plan,” arguing that the exitus et reditus motif recurs throughout the Summa but does not structure the movement of the whole. See A.-M. Patfoort, “L’unité de la Ia Pars et le movement interne de la Somme théologique de S. Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue des science philosophiques et théologiques 47 (1963): 513–44.The last principal position, according to Torrell, is represented by the response of M.-V. Leroy to Patfoort’s rejection of Chenu.This position seeks critically to modify the exitus et reditus “plan” in order to integrate the tertia pars more significantly into the overall structure of Aquinas’s work. See M.-V. Leroy’s review of Patfoort’s essay in Revue Thomiste 84 (1984): 298–303. Although Torrell does not mention Corbin in his discussion of the principal positions, nevertheless Corbin fits very much into this third position. For Torrell’s discussion see Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and his Work, trans. Robert Royal (Washington: Catholic University, 1996), 150–53. More recently, Rudi te Velde has rejected Chenu’s plan tout court in his Aquinas On God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae (Aldershot:Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006), 9–18.Against the circular scheme of Chenu, te Velde articulates a “linear movement of increasing concretization.” ‚ <´meilem e< m sg 5 Denys, De divinis nominibus, 7.3 (PG 3.872A): jasà dt́malim a ∫ ‚ ‚ pámsxm a< uaiqérei jaì t> peqovg∫ , jaì e< m sg∫ pámsxt ai< sía∫ . Naming a triplex via in Denys is often wrongly attributed to Aquinas; in fact it seems it was Aquinas’s teacher, Albert the Great, who first so named this Dionysian text (though I think the triadic pattern is, in fact, native to Denys). See Harry C. Marsh, Jr., “Cosmic Structure and the Knowledge of God: Thomas Aquinas’ In Librum Beati Dionysii De Divinis Nominibus Expositio” (Ph.D. dissertation,Vanderbilt University, 1994), 91. Cf. Fran O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1992), 31. For an English translation of the Corpus Dionysiacum, see Pseudo-Dionysius:The Complete Works, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press, 1987). Henceforth, unless otherwise noted, I have followed Luibheid’s translation.Translation here modified. 6 By “redoubling mediation” I mean a process of mediating exitus et reditus/“attribution” and “negation” that synthetically preserves the double rhythm of the movements in the mediation of a “third.” Underpinning my thought is William Desmond’s notion of the “metaxological” and the doubling he identifies as a N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 441 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 441 Corbin: because of his insistence on a further mediation in the tertia pars, which contains and expands the exitus et reditus in something like a mystical union of the “two,” this I read as somewhat correlative with the function of the Dionysian triplex via. My interest, therefore, is to explore the nature of the triplex via as an essential Dionysian contribution to Aquinas’s causal metaphysics, his pre-eminent name of God and what has come to be called the analogia entis.7 My argument on behalf of a Dionysian resource at the service of Aquinas’s pre-eminent name of God may seem counter-intuitive. Denys names God pre-eminently “the good” and clarifies that he does so because God is “beyond being” (t> potríxy).8 Indeed, Denys’s God “beyond being” has been deployed, not least by Jean-Luc Marion, to attack the supposed “onto-théo-logie” of the Thomistic pre-eminent name of God.9 correspondence to “the eros and agape of metaphysics.” In order to emphasise the metaxological (as opposed to the mere dialectical) Desmond specifies that in the metaxological there is a “redoubling in excess of the dialectical reduction,” which is therefore the preservation of the dia beyond the dialectic. See William Desmond, Being and the Between (Albany: SUNY, 1995), 177–222. 7 The term analogia entis is of course not proper to Aquinas or Denys. It seems first to have been used by Aquinas’s famous sixteenth-century commentator, Cardinal Cajetan de Vio (whose commentary is included in the Leonine edition). Nevertheless, as John Betz states, “what it [analogia entis] describes is more or less original to Aquinas,” and especially in the sense that the analogia entis of Aquinas was exposited by Erich Przywara, S.J. in his Analogia Entis, in Schriften, vol. 3 (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verdlag, 1962). What the Przywaran emphasis clarified, as Betz shows, is that “analogia entis is precisely . . . [the] unstable rhythm between similarity and an ultimate dissimilarity; and this is why Przywara summarizes the analogia entis (explicitly against Hegel) as a methodological reductio in mysterium.” In the briefest terms, again as Betz summarises, analogia entis for Przywara was “an analogy between an absolute identity of essence and existence in God and an utterly contingent and gratuitous relation of essence and existence in creatures.” See John R. Betz, “The Beauty of the Metaphysical Imagination,” in Belief and Metaphysics, ed. Conor Cunningham and Peter M. Candler, Jr. (London: SCM Press, 2007), 41–65; on Przywara and the analogia entis, see especially 51–60, quotations here at 53 and 54. Przywara’s Analogia Entis is currently being translated into English for publication with Eerdmans by Betz and David Bentley Hart. 8 Cf. Denys, De divinis nominibus, 4.3 (PG 3.697A), and 5.1 (PG 3.816B). 9 Jean-Luc Marion, Dieu sans l’être (Paris: PUF, 1982), 111–22. Here Marion contrasts Denys to Aquinas, who, for the author of Dieu sans l’être, represents an “onto-théo-logie” which imprisons the God of revelation in the philosophy of “being.” By contrast, Denys is said to represent a “théo-onto-logie,” a recapitulation of the philosophy of “being” through revelation into a theology of “loving” that now determines the content of “being.” Marion subsequently retracted this early position against Aquinas. For his retraction see Jean-Luc Marion, “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et l’onto-theo-logie,” Revue Thomiste 95 (1995): 31–66; and his N&V_Spr09.qxp 442 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 442 Aaron Riches However, as Jan Aertsen has shown, the dichotomy between “the good” (summum bonum) and “being” (esse) is false in Aquinas, for whom there is an essential convertibility of the two transcendentia.10 From this convertibility, I argue that it is through fidelity to Dionysian theology and the triplex via that Aquinas resolutely affirms “being” as pre-eminent name. Thus exploring, I seek to propose and creatively investigate the Thomistic modifications of Dionysian causality in terms of a discontinuous-continuity with a focus on the nature of participating being as “gift.” Causality and the “Third” Way: Naming God “Being” Rudi te Velde has written that the triplex via “determines the form under which the ontological reality of [Aquinas’s] God becomes knowable and meaningful to us.”11 It is the noetic way: per remotionem, per eminentiam, per causalitatem. According to this tripartite pattern, the rhythms of negation ( per remotionem) and attribution ( per causalitatem) are further mediated by a redoubling of cataphasis and apophasis in terms of an unequalisable attributive-negation: per eminentiam. Thus the metaphysics of causality involve a complex interplay in which the rhythms of apophasis (negation/exitus) and cataphasis (attribution/reditus) are caught up in a further variation. Here negation and attribution are mediated by a plenitudenal “third,” which now becomes integral to the logic of how the cause is at once cataphatically unveiled and apophatically veiled in the participating effect. The causal logic of the veiled-unveiling of the cause in the effect means, as Jean Durantel writes,“for St Thomas as much as for Denys . . . the sensible world is a transparency of the invisible.”12 Aquinas and Denys read creation as a pattern of signs that signify what paradoxically exceeds signification: “Creation for Denys and Thomas is first of all a procession of a term that images more than can be named or understood . . . [because] the very first characteristic of creation is its being some kind of 1991 preface to the English edition of Dieu sans l’être, idem., God Without Being, trans.Thomas A. Carlson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), xxii–xxiv. 10 Jan A. Aertsen, “The Convertibility of being and Good in St Thomas Aquinas,” The New Scholasticism 59 (1985): 449–70. Further, as Adrian Pabst has clarified, the whole tradition reaching back to‚ Plato, according to which the good is said to be “beyond being” (e< péjeim sgy ot< ríay/t> potríxy), has been too often misconstrued; as Pabst argues, the good’s status “beyond being” should in Plato be read as signifying “its superabundance and plenitude, not its separation from being.” See Adrian Pabst, “The Primacy of Relation over Substance and the Recovery of a Theological Metaphysics,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 81 (2007): 557–82, at 567–68. 11 Rudi te Velde, Aquinas On God, 174. 12 J. Durantel, Saint Thomas et le Pseudo-Denis (Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1919), 238. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 443 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 443 likeness [or trace] of the divine being.”13 In other words, on Durantel’s reading, for Denys and Aquinas, knowledge of God and naming God are tightly tied to the reality of the causal ontology of creation as such. If creation and signification are linked, then being is already a kind of predication.14 The act of existence mediates the cause of creation, and this mediation of God in creation makes predication of God possible. This logic is rooted in the middle “way” of the Summa’s famous quinque viae: awakening to the truth that there are beings for whom it is possible not to be (est sumpta ex possibili et necessario ).15 This “way” to God proceeds through what Aidan Nichols names the “fragility of beings.”16 If beings exist with fragility, with a potency not to be, then being must arrive as a gift from a source of being which of necessity must be. Thomistic divine causality is hereby grounded in the irreducible relation of the gift of being:“To be a sharer in being is to be a receiver, to accept a gift from a source, from unparticipated existence, He Who Is, ipsum subsistens.”17 Thus “fragility” is convertible with the ontological necessity of receptivity to gift, since the fragile being only “is” to the extent that it receives its being from that which is “beyond fragility.” Or as William Desmond writes: His third way, the way from possible being, latter called the proof from contingency, hangs on the fact that the world is a happening that carries no self-explanation. It is, but it might possibly not be; there is no inherent necessity that it must be. It is a happening that happens to be, but the happening as happening points to being beyond contingency that is the source or ground of happening.18 The fragility of being hereby presupposes an ontological openness beyond self-explanation, the “happening” of a mysterious arrival of gift beyond every claim of self-sufficiency. On Desmond’s reading this is constitutive of 13 Ibid., 247. 14 On being and predication cf. Barry Miller, The Fullness of Being:A New Paradigm for Existence (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002). 15 Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3. All English quotations from the Summa generally follow (with light modification sometimes) the translation of the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (New York: Benzinger Bros, 1948). 16 See the chapter “Thomas Aquinas and the fragility of beings,” in Aidan Nichols, O.P., A Grammar of Consent: The Existence of God in Christian Tradition (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 81–96. 17 Ibid., 83. 18 William Desmond, Is There a Sabbath for Thought?: Between Religion and Philosophy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 12–13. Cf.William Desmond, God and the Between (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 132–34. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 444 8:47 AM Page 444 Aaron Riches the “elemental wonder of metaphysical astonishment,” the participational mystery of being’s givenness:“its givenness as given into being.”19 The logic of the third “way” thus involves a careful modification of the naturalism of Aristotelian causality in the direction of causal procession and participation.20 Aristotle’s principle of kinesis is here read through the contingency of existence itself; the cause is no longer a temporal position preceding the effect, but the ontological relation between act and potency.21 As John Milbank argues, Aquinas derives “the ‘is’ of temporal/ spatial beings entirely from the first principle, but a principle no longer conceived as itself a representable object or being [as with Aristotle], which would depend for its foundation upon what it is supposed to 19 Ibid., 13. 20 On the view of Aidan Nichols, the first, second, fourth, and fifth “ways” corre- spond to the familiar fourfold scheme of Aristotelian causality: material, efficient, formal, and final. Nichols suggests that the third “way” occupies the central position not by chance:“The Third Way indicates the ground or basis of the fourfold causality whose role in the relation between the world and God the First, Second, Fourth and Fifth Ways explore.” As Nichols notes, causality for Aquinas is in fact much closer to Avicenna’s Neoplatonised-Aristotelianism than the “pure” Aristotelianism according to which Aquinas has often been read (cf. Avicenna, De Philosophia Prima 1.6–7). Thus Nichols argues: “the perspective in which the Third Way, the central way of the Five Ways, attains to God is the most important for Thomas’s metaphysics, and indeed for any creation thinking. The Third Way concludes to God as the foundation and source not of this or that aspect of things nor of this or that aspect of the world as a whole, but of the very being of things, the very being of the world.” See Aidan Nichols, O.P., Discovering Aquinas: An Introduction to his Life and Work (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 45–47. Cf. Milbank and Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas, 34. Further on the quinque viae, cf. Fergus Kerr, O.P., “Theology in Philosophy: Revisiting the Five Ways,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 15 (2001): 115–30; and W. J. Hankey, God in Himself: Aquinas’ Doctrine of God as Expounded in the Summa Theologiae (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 36–56. 21 Here, as W. Norris Clarke has shown, for Aquinas, the Aristotelian act-potency relation is fully grounded in the doctrine of limitation such that it “requires the introduction of the Neoplatonic theory of participation.” For Clarke, modifying slightly the view of Cornelio Fabro, we find in Aquinas an “Aristotelianism specified by Neoplatonism.” See W. Norris Clarke, S.J., “The Limitation of Act by Potency in St.Thomas:Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism?,” in Explorations in Metaphysics: Being—God—Person (London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 65–88, at 66 and 82. Cf. Cornelio Fabro, La nozione metafisica di partecipazione secondo s. Tommaso d’Aquino (Turin: 1950). Further, on the “Neoplatonism” of Aquinas, cf.W. J. Hankey, “Aquinas’ First Principle, Being or Unity?” Dionysius 4 (1980): 133–72; idem, God in Himself, 2–13; and Adrian Pabst,“Matter and Form in Aquinas: The Cause and the Principle of Individuation,” chapter 5 of Pabst, Creation and Individuation:Theology and Politics in Patristic, Medieval and Early Modern Thought (Ph.D. thesis: University of Cambridge, 2007), 110–33. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 445 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 445 found.”22 This means that Aquinas’s notion of causality should be read in terms of the Neoplatonist tradition, which, ever since Plotinus, was already synthesizing Aristotelian notions of causality into the logic of causal emanation.23 The first cause is both the transcendent and immanent cause of being without being reduced to a “fragile” being among beings: the “causal origin is really for Aquinas less Aristotelian ‘cause’ than the Dionysian ‘requisite’ (aitia), or attribution to the original source of the ‘gift’ in its whole entity as effect.”24 This is to understand the relation of the creature to God through the middle “way” of the quinque viae, to agree with Nichols:“The nerve of the proof . . . [is] to wit, the necessity of a first cause which is Pure Act or being, itself subsistent in its own right.”25 • • • The Thomistic metaphysics of causal participation are thus deeply Neoplatonic; and Aquinas draws this depth largely (but not exclusively) from the Corpus Dionysiacum.26 Fran O’Rourke points to a single Dionysian epistle, Epistola 9, as containing the key to Denys’s noetic of divine causality.27 There Denys explains the reality of creation as a pattern of symbols according to which the veiled theology of the distant God is learned in‚ the clarity of unveiling (pqojaktllásxm e< jsòy heokocíay rauoty a< jgjoósey).28 Denys writes: 22 John Milbank,“Only Theology Overcomes Metaphysics,” inThe Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997), 36–52, here at 41. Cf. David Burrell, C.S.C.,“Analogy, Creation, and Theology,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Rik van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 77–98, at 81:“[I]t was specifically the works of Dionysius the Areopagite that facilitated the breakthrough to esse, which allowed Aquinas (in [Edward] Booth’s terms), to overcome the aporia bequeathed by Aristotle to philosophy, and especially to subsequent commentators on his work,” the “aporia” being Aristotle’s conflation of substance and the implications thereof (cf. Metaphysics, 9.8 [1050b]). See Edward Booth, Aristotelian Aporetic Ontology in Islamic and Christian Thinkers (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983). 23 See Lloyd Gerson, God and Greek Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1990). 24 Milbank and Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas, 31, citing Jean-Luc Marion, “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et l’onto-theo-logic,” 31–66. 25 Nichols, A Grammar of Consent, 90. 26 It would be hard to overemphasise the importance of Denys in Aquinas’s thought. After Aristotle and Augustine, he is the most quoted authority in the entire Summa. Durantel counts 1702 express citations and an additional 12 general references without citation. In the first twelve questions of the prima pars alone Chenu counts 25 references to Denys. See Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, 127; and Durantel, Saint Thomas et le Pseudo-Denis, 60. 27 O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas, 9. 28 Denys, Epistola 9.1 (PG 3.1108B). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 446 Aaron Riches 446 [L]et us not suppose that the outward face of these contrived symbols [the various beings of the multiple creation] exist for its own sake. Rather, it is the protective garb of the understanding of what is ineffable and invisible to the common multitude. . . . As Paul said and as true reason has said, the ordered arrangement of the whole visible realm makes known the invisible things of God.29 Hereby Denys establishes the cosmos “poetically”: as a text which, when read properly, is understood as a hymn of praise written of God himself. The variety of created effects form a pattern, a texture of communication that cataphatically unveil God’s glory to the “lover of holiness,” while apophatically veiling the intimacy of that glory from “the profane.”30 Only the “lover of holiness,” who apprehends the complete consort dancing together,31 only he can read the poem of creation’s variety and know it as a sign of the divine cause. For Denys this logic is grounded in Scripture (cf. Rom 1:20).32 Affirming the multiplicity of creation as a pattern that reveals the invisible things of the Creator’s Godhead and power, herein lies the first meaning of the plurality of the world for Aquinas. Following Denys’s causal logic, Aquinas writes, “every effect . . . receives the similitude of the agent not in its full degree, but in a measure that falls short, so that what is divided and multiplied in the effects resides in the agent simply, and in the same manner.”33 Since the intensity of the cause necessarily declines to the effect, the effect can never image the cause in its full refulgence.Thus the God who creates the world to communicate his goodness (bonum diffusivum sui) produces a multiplicity of beings to form a communal pattern: esse cum ordine in rebus.34 Thereby the heterogeneity of different beings within the cosmic order of their communion (their symphonic/poetic pattern of difference) communicates the One Source. As Aquinas writes: [T]he distinction and multitude of things come from the intention of the first agent, who is God. For He brought things into being in order that His goodness might be communicated to creatures, and be represented by them; and because His goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, He produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one in representation of the divine 29 Ibid., 1–2 (PG 3.1105C–1108B). 30 Cf. Ibid. (PG 3.1105C–1108B). 31 To paraphrase from T. S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding.” 32 Cf. Denys, De divinis nominibus, 4.4 (PG 3.700C). 33 ST I, q. 13, a. 5. 34 Aquinas, Super De divinis nominibus, cap. 7, l. 4. Cf. O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas, 33. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 447 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 447 goodness might be supplied by another . . . hence the whole universe together participates in divine goodness more perfectly, and signifies it better than any single creature whatever.35 The multiplicity of creation is hereby posited as a semiotic unity (universum) in which what “is” has significant meaning: it is the divine convenientia according to which the being of the world is redolent of the glory of God.36 What has been rehearsed yields to that metaphysical tradition which, as Pope John Paul II described it, “views reality in its ontological, causal and communicative structures . . . because it is based upon the very act of being itself, which allows a full and comprehensive openness to reality as a whole, surpassing every limit in order to reach the One who brings all things to fulfilment.”37 This “comprehensive openness” involves a move to what Desmond calls the “metaxological”: a mindfulness of being’s plurivocity in the “pluralization of the mediations of givenness” understood in terms “of unity, of difference and of mediated community.”38 This is analogia entis. It is a mode of being and cognising being that allows for the reality of beings’ “being between” equivocity and univocity; it is a mediation of thought and speech that tarries with the fragility of beings in the midst of the causal plurivocity of effects. As Aquinas writes:“in analogical terms a word taken in one signification must be placed in the definition of the same word taken in other senses.”39 An analogical mode of thought is thus able to account for an excessively un-encompassable communication of alterity between different terms in which “a multiple sense” comes to signify “various proportions to some one thing.”40 The plurivocity of analogous discourse makes possible a community of signification that does not collapse diverse modes of being into either the pure negativity (apophasis) of equivocity, or the pure positivity (cataphasis) of univocity. Here “to be” is fully determined by the First Principle, which itself remains indeterminable, a non-representable cause, not grounded in that which it creates, but nevertheless intelligible within the realm of participation. Thus the possibility of meaningful language of God is rooted in the soil of meaningful being: the analogia entis is the condition of the possibility of analogia verbi. Analogy is the real way to be, to talk, to read and to name. 35 ST I, q. 47, a. 2. 36 Cf. Desmond, Is There a Sabbath for Thought?, 12. 37 John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, §97. Cf. Fergus Kerr, O.P., After Aquinas: Visions of Thomism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 73ff. 38 Desmond, Being and the Between, 177, and cf. 288. 39 ST I, q. 13, a. 10. 40 ST I, q. 13, a. 5. N&V_Spr09.qxp 448 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 448 Aaron Riches Causality between Faith and Reason If the first meaning of the plurality of the world for Aquinas lies in the mode by which the multiplicity of beings communicates the goodness of the One cause, the second meaning of the plurality of the world is rooted in the divine processions of the Triune God. Gilles Emery and Philipp Rosemann have both highlighted the inherently Trinitarian nature of the Thomistic conception of divine causality.41 As Aquinas writes:“The eternal processions of the persons [of the Trinity] are the cause and reason [causa et ratio ] of the production of creatures.”42 Thus, for both Emery and Rosemann, the exitus et reditus scheme of creation in Aquinas is Trinitarian, which means that the multiplicity of creation is not a mere declension from a monadic unity, but a participation in the multitudo transcendens of the triadic Godhead.43 The revelation of the Trinity is crucial for two reasons: in order that humankind might have proper knowledge of creation (that is, exitus ), and in order that human beings might have the right view of salvation (that is, reditus ).44 This leads Emery to conclude that there is a “double transcendent ‘mediation’ ” of the Son and Spirit proceeding and returning.45 In the circular movement of creation’s exitus et reditus “the Trinitarian processions are the dynamic pivot.”46 This Trinitarian conception of causality complicates how we should conceive the interrelation of philosophy and theology in Aquinas. • • • Pope Benedict XVI has recently invoked Aquinas as a “model of harmony between reason and faith”—first in his Angelus address on the 41 See Gilles Emery, O.P., La Trinité créatrice:Trinité et création dans les commentaires aux ‘Sentences’ de Thomas d’ Aquin et de ses précurseurs Albert le Grand et Bonaventure (Paris: J.Vrin, 1995); idem, Trinity in Aquinas (Ypsilanti, MI: Sapientia Press, 2003); idem, “Trinity and Creation,” trans. Patrick I. Martin, in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, 58–76; and Philipp W. Rosemann, Omne ens est aliquid: Introduction à la lecture du “système” philosophique de saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Éditions Peeters, 1996), 191–210. Further to Emery and Rosemann cf. Rowan Williams, “What Does Love Know? St Thomas on the Trinity,” New Blackfriars 8 (2001): 260–72. 42 Aquinas, Super Sententiis, lib. 1, d. 14, q. 1, at 1. As Emery notes, this thesis, which occurs no fewer than ten times in Super Sententiis, is not confined to the early commentary but repeats in all the major works of Aquinas. Emery points specifically to De potentia, q. 10, a. 2, arg. 19, sed contra 2, and ad 19; and ST I, q. 45, a. 6, and a. 7, ad 3. See Emery,“Essentialism or Personalism in the Treatise on God in St.Thomas Aquinas?,” trans. Matthew Levering, in Trinity in Aquinas, 165–208, at 172 n. 23. 43 ST I, q. 30, a. 3; Emery, “Trinity and Creation,” 73. 44 ST I, q. 32, a. 1, ad 3. 45 Emery, “Trinity and Creation,” 67. 46 Ibid. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 449 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 449 Feast of St.Thomas Aquinas (2007), and then in his abandoned lecture at La Sapienza University ( January 17, 2008).47 By these two invocations, Benedict has brought the Angelic Doctor to bear on one of the great themes of his pontificate: recovering the “grandeur” of reason. And, as I shall presently propose, the Pope’s invocation is helpfully deployed when specifying the mode of the Thomistic noetic of divine causality. In his Regensburg address, Benedict articulated the recovery of the “grandeur” of reason in terms of reversing modernity’s “programme of dehellenization,” a program according to which: (1) “faith” is detached from “reason” such that God is left to be understood purely in terms of divine will (voluntas ordinata); and (2) “reason” is secularised and conceived of as fully autonomous, replete and no longer in need of the supernatural purification and illumination of “faith.”48 In this way the secularisation of the modern mind is directly linked to a voluntaristic conception of God such that, as Tracey Rowland writes, “Faith without reason ends in fideism, but reason without faith ends in nihilism.”49 Against the threatening consequences of this bifurcation of faith and reason, Benedict has pointed to Aquinas, who, having the charism of both a “philosopher” and a “theologian,” is said to have embodied the mode by which “[f]aith presupposes reason and perfects it, and reason, enlightened by faith, finds the strength to rise to knowledge of God and spiritual realities.”50 Thus, as James V. Schall summarises the argument of Benedict’s Angelus on Aquinas: “Reason by itself is not full reason. Faith by itself is not full faith.”51 Likewise Rowland writes that according to Benedict’s reading of Aquinas,“faith and reason, theology and philosophy, are symbiotically, and 47 Benedict XVI,“Faith and Reason in Dialogue:Angelus, Memorial of St Thomas Aquinas: 28 January,” in L’Osservatore Romano,Weekly Edition in English ( January 31, 2007), 1, quotation here at para. 1; idem, “Lecture of the Holy Father Benedict XVI for his visit to La Sapienza University of Rome” ( January 17, 2008).The lecture at La Sapienza in particular seems to have been conceived as an explicit extension of Regensburg, the two lectures forming something of a “diptych.” 48 See Benedict XVI,“The Regensburg Lecture” (September 12, 2006), in James V. Schall, S.J., The Regensburg Lecture (South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s Press, 2007), 130–48. 49 Tracey Rowland, Ratzinger’s Faith: the Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 5; and cf. idem, Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II (New York: Routledge, 2003). Further, on the intrinsic relation between rationalism and nihilism, cf. John Paul II, Fides et ratio, §§45ff. 50 Benedict XVI,“Faith and Reason in Dialogue:Angelus, Memorial of St Thomas Aquinas,” §6. Cf. Milbank and Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas, 19–59. 51 James V. Schall, S.J., “Benedict on Aquinas: ‘Faith Implies Reason’ ” (February 1, 2007), sect. 2; online at www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2007/schall.asp. N&V_Spr09.qxp 450 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 450 Aaron Riches not extrinsically, related.”52 Schall and Rowland commonly show how Benedict’s understanding of Aquinas brings him to occupy the polyvalence of a “suspended middle” in which “philosophy is not philosophy if it is only philosophy and theology is not theology if it is only theology.”53 There is an organic interpenetration of theology and philosophy according to which it would be technically false to attempt to conceive of something like a “pure” reason. For Benedict, if reason is to be truly reasonable— if it is to be most fully itself—reason must enter into communication with faith: credo ut intelligam. Faith is the “purifying force for reason, helping it to be more fully itself.”54 Thus, the Pope describes every philosophical pretension to repleteness as destructive of the very essence of reason: “if reason, out of concern for its alleged purity, becomes deaf to the great message that comes to it from Christian faith and wisdom, then it withers like a tree whose roots can no longer reach the waters that give it life.”55 Faith is integral to the “courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not [to succumb to] the denial of its grandeur.”56 In these terms the Pope proposes that the recovery of the “grandeur” of reason will involve a rediscovery of the Christian “synthesis” of Abrahamic faith with Hellenistic reason in order, thereby, to allow “reason and faith [to] come together in a new way.”57 Herein he reclaims Aquinas in his characteristic manner of refusing tout court the parallelism of faith and reason evident in certain variants of Neoscholasticism.58 For Benedict, 52 Rowland, Ratzinger’s Faith: the Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, 5. 53 Schall, “Benedict on Aquinas: ‘Faith Implies Reason,’ ” sect. 2. Hans Urs von Balthasar coined the term “suspended middle” (which Schall does not use) to describe how Henri de Lubac, resourcing Aquinas’s theology of desiderium naturale visionis Dei, came to a position “in which he could not practice any philosophy without its transcendence into theology, but also no theology without its essential inner substructure of philosophy.” Balthasar, The Theology of Henri de Lubac: An Overview, trans. Joseph Fessio, S.J., and Michael M.Waldstein (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1983), 15. John Milbank describes the “suspended middle” as a metaphysical sensibility “between the discourses of philosophy and theology, fracturing their respective autonomies, but tying them loosely yet firmly together.” Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate Concerning the Supernatural (London: SCM Press, 2005), 5. Cf. Henri de Lubac, S.J., Surnaturel: Études historiques (Paris: Aubier, 1946). 54 Benedict XVI, “La Sapienza,” §11; cf. idem, Spe Salvi, §23. 55 Benedict XVI, “La Sapienza,” §12. 56 Benedict XVI, “The Regensburg Lecture,” §16. 57 Ibid., §15. 58 Cf. Joseph Ratzinger, The Nature and Mission of Theology: Approaches to Understanding Its Role in the Light of Present Controversy, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 13–29; and idem, “The Dignity of the Human Person”: Commentary on Chapter I, Part I of Gaudium et spes, in Commentary on N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 451 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 451 Aquinas is a doctor in whom “human reason, as it were,‘breathes’: it moves within a vast open horizon in which it can express the best of itself.”59 The “breath” of Thomistic reason is precisely faith.Thus Aquinas’s particular achievement is to have specified the Christian “synthesis” in terms of the paradox of the unified-differentiation of philosophy and theology, a paradox the prime analogate of which is Christological. As the Pope states: “Saint Thomas’s idea concerning the relationship between philosophy and theology could be expressed using the formula that the Council of Chalcedon adopted for Christology: philosophy and theology must be interrelated ‘without confusion and without separation’.”60 Thus a communicatio idiomatum of theology and philosophy is proposed as integral to how Aquinas’s thought embodies the “grandeur” of reason. • • • What Benedict perceives as the Chalcedonian paradox of Aquinas’s understanding of the relation of philosophy and theology is substantiated by the implication of the Trinitarian nature of divine causality. In identifying this Trinitarian dimension of Thomistic causality, Emery and Rosemann destabilise the Neoscholastic pseudo-division of the treatise on God in the Summa according to which questions 2 through 43 of the prima pars are read as two discrete discourses: a “philosophical,” non-Trinitarian treatises de Deo uno; followed by a “theological” treatise de Deo trino. Emery states that he seeks to redress “the shortcomings of certain currents in Thomistic neo-scholasticism,” which insisted “too exclusively on the unity of operations of the Trinity” and thus have unwittingly leant credence to the false but prevalent view that “Saint Thomas has a monistic conception of divine creative activity.”61 What Emery shows is to the contrary:Aquinas’s doctrine of the Trinity—far from being an isolated chapter of his “theology”—is itself integral to his understanding of creation as such, and thereby his Trinitarian theology underpins all he writes on the nature of divine causality outlined in the so-called “philosophical” treatises de Deo uno.62 This means that the discourses de Deo uno and de Deo trino cannot be dissociated into a purely rationalistic scheme on the one hand, and a scheme based wholly on revelation on the other. Rather, as Emery demonstrates, the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler et al., vol. 5 (Herder and Herder, 1969), 115–63. 59 Benedict XVI,“Faith and Reason in Dialogue:Angelus, Memorial of St Thomas Aquinas,” §2. 60 Ibid. 61 Emery, “Trinity and Creation,” at 59, 69, 58. 62 Emery,“Trinity and Creation,” 73:“The doctrine of the creative Trinity, in Saint Thomas, does not constitute an isolated chapter in theology. It provides a key to the interpretation of all reality.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 452 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 452 Aaron Riches for Aquinas, the treatises intimately interlock according to the pattern of a “law of redoublement.”63 According to this law of redoublement, the interconnection of the proper and the common, the difference and the unity of the Godhead, are simultaneously thought so as to avoid conflating the unity and distinction of Persons in God, while at the same time resisting the temptation to make the common essence “a reified ‘fourth’ in the Trinity.”64 Thus redoublement is the model Aquinas himself gives by which to speak the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Emery writes:“In order to speak the Trinitarian mystery, it is necessary always to employ two words, two formulas, in a reflection in two modes that joins here the substantial (essential) aspect and the distinction of persons (relative properties).This is precisely what Thomas does in the structure of his treaties on God.”65 In this way Aquinas’s Trinitarian theology is proposed in such a way that, in Desmond’s terms, we could speak of a mediation of de Deo uno and de Deo trino that preserves the dia of dialectical difference beyond the dialectic (essence-relation/being-person).66 The Christian God is “only adequately expressed by the complex redoublement of our discourse joining the aspect of the divine substance and that of the relative property.”67 Emery’s notion of redoublement can be read as linking up with the ethos of the redoubling mediation of the triplex via outlined above, especially insofar as it exemplifies a non-collapsible “synthesis,” a mediation that preserves difference in terms of a differentiated-unity. Moreover, the law of redoublement evidences what Benedict intuits as the Chalcedonian interrelation of faith and reason in Aquinas (“without confusion and without separation”); and this all the more since the division of the treatises de Deo uno and de Deo trino is the fault-line separating a so-called purely “philosophical” speculation on God from the more fully “theological” reflection on the revelation of God as Triune.What Emery can thus be read as specifying is the communicatio idiomatum of philosophy and theology in Aquinas’s doctrine of God, which is shown to lie in the metaphysics of the Common Doctor’s notion of causality as occasioned by the eternal processions of the Persons of the Trinity. In this way Aquinas’s treatises on God bears witness to the mode by which theology and philosophy function in Aquinas as a “strange pair of 63 Emery,“Essentialism or Personalism,” 178. Emery’s analysis of the Thomistic prac- tice of redoublement in Aquinas’s doctrine of God is an expansion on the work of Ghislain Lafont, O.S.B., Peut-on connaître Dieu en Jésus Christ? (Paris: Cerf, 1969). 64 Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics:Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 197. 65 Emery, “Essentialism or Personalism,” 178; as quoted in Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, 215. 66 See note 6 above. 67 Emery, “Essentialism or Personalism,” 178. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 453 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 453 twins, in which neither of the two can be totally separated from the other.”68 Apprehending God causally, therefore, involves an organic understanding of the interrelated communication of ascending reason in descending faith. If “the exitus of the persons in the unity of essence is the cause of the exitus of creatures in a diversity of essence,”69 then the rational apprehension de Deo uno involves the revelation de Deo trino (and vice versa). • • • In the Summa contra Gentiles, Aquinas argues that there are three ways of knowing God: by the light of natural reason, by the gift of truth from God, and by a particular mystical grace whereby the mind is raised up by God to perfectly intuit those things revealed. The first two ways of knowing God are respectively “katababatic” and “anabatic” (via qua descenditur et ascenditur).70 By the latter, God is known through the ascent of the intellect facilitated by reason; by the former, knowledge of God descends from God and is grasped through the gift of faith. In this way the exitus et reditus of creation is constitutive of an inverted reditus et exitus approach of the mind to God such that our noetic movement to God participates and mirrors the ontological relation of creation to Creator. Or, as Augustine puts it, we discover God through a double movement: ad exterioribus ad interioria, ab inferioribus ad superiora.71 Desmond describes the first Augustinian movement—“from the exterior to the interior”—as coming to a mindfulness of “the dunamis of our openness.”72 The noetic movement, beginning as a return of the mind to itself, opens into a “self-transcending” movement “from the inferior to the superior.” Desmond writes:“We are the interior urgency of ultimacy, this [other whom we meet in our inferiority] is ultimacy as the superior.”73 On this scheme there is an interpenetrating continuity between the ascent of inferior reason and the descent of superior faith.Thus, as Catherine Pickstock describes Aquinas’s view, the intellect is “drawn upwards by divine light, while, inversely, revelation . . . [involves] the conjunction of radiant being and further illuminated mind.”74 Herein, in the ascent of the mind illuminated in the double mediation of the 68 Benedict XVI, “La Sapienza,” §10. 69 Aquinas, Super Sententiis, lib. 1, d. 2, div. text. Cf. Emery, “Trinity and Creation: The Trinitarian Principle of the Creation in the Commentaries of Albert the Great, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas on the Sentences,” trans. Heather Buttery, in Trinity in Aquinas, 33–70, here at 58. 70 Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles IV, c. 1. Cf. Nichols, Discovering Aquinas, 37–42 71 Augustine, Enarratio in Psalmos, 145.5 (PL 37.1887). 72 William Desmond, Perplexity and Ultimacy (Albany: SUNY, 1995), 11. 73 Ibid. 74 Catherine Pickstock, “Duns Scotus: His Historical and Contemporary Significance,” Modern Theology 21 (2005): 543–84, at 548. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 454 Aaron Riches 454 descent of the gift of faith in the midst of radiant being, we discover a crisscross of the redoubling logic of the triplex via. In the triplex via Aquinas discerns the heart of the Dionysian noetic, how God is “known through knowledge and through unknowing.”75 As Sarracenus’s Latin translation of Denys puts it: we come to know God in omnium ablatione et excessu et in omnium causa.76 Knowledge of God is “meta”-knowledge: it comes both from “between” and “beyond.”77 The noetic way participates both in beings’ likeness to God and in beings’ difference from God, which means that the approach requires a mindfulness of being in the midst of cataphasis and apophasis such that neither can be thought of as the determinate way. Denys writes: [W]e cannot know God in his nature, since this is unknowable and is beyond the reach of mind or of reason. But we know him from the arrangement of everything, because everything is, in a sense, projected out from him, and this order possesses certain images and semblances of his divine paradigms.78 The theological task thus is to “interpret all things of God in a way that befits God,”79 to be mindful of being in the midst of equivocity and univocity within the analogical sympathy that draws the effect beyond itself. In his commentary on De divinis nominibus Aquinas proceeds by arguing that Denys himself situates the triplex via as the third of three steps: first Denys proposes a “doubt,” second he “solves it,” and third he “infers a conclusion” (the triplex via being the inferred conclusion).80 The doubt follows from how God knows God’s creation. If God is to be known purely in the manner that God knows all things (that is, in his essence), 75 Denys, De divinis nominibus, 7.3 (PG 3.872A). 76 Ibid. (PG 3.872A); Sarracenus’s translation is as quoted by te Velde in Aquinas on God, 76. 77 Cf. Desmond, God and the Between, 123:“The metaxological approach to God is metaphorical in being a ‘crossing’ and a ‘carrying across’: meta-pherein. We are crossed by a difference, and ferried across that difference. As carrying one from here to there (meta-phora ), immanent in metaphor is a poros, a way making us porous to the surprise of otherness. Relevantly, ‘meta’ can mean both ‘in the midst of ’ and yet also ‘over and above.’ ” 78 Denys, De divinis nominibus, 7.3 (PG 3.869CD). 79 Ibid., 7.2 (PG 3.869A). 80 Aquinas, Super De divinis nominibus, cap. 7, l. 4. On the background and historical context of Super De divinis nominibus, see Torrell, Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and his Work, 127–29. For an English translation of Super De divinis nominibus, see the appendix of Harry Marsh, Jr.,“Cosmic Structure and the Knowledge of God: Thomas Aquinas’ In Librum Beati Dionysii De Divinis Nominibus Expositio.” I have followed this translation (with light modification) throughout. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 455 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 455 then “God is not intelligible, but above intelligibles.”81 And if,“all of our cognition is through intellect or sense,” then “we do not know [cognoscere ] God . . . [because] God’s essence is unknown to every creature and exceeds not only sense, but also all human knowledge and also every angelic mind.”82 To know God’s essence “cannot befit someone except by a gift of grace.”83 And this last qualification (which is Aquinas’s gloss on the Dionysian paraphrase) brings the argument back to the three ways of knowing God outlined in the Summa contra Gentiles. Denys proposes the way of knowing through the ascent of reason in the descent of faith: the noetic of the created mind’s reditus et exitus toward God. The triplex via is thus situated within the intersection of the “anabatic” and “katababatic” ways to God, rooted in the ontological relation of fragile beings to the One Who Is. Knowledge of God-as-cause is both a work of faith and a work of reason because it is ontologically related to the procession and reversion of all things to and from God. From this,Aquinas argues, Denys “solves the proposed doubt.” He writes: [T]he universe of creatures itself is proposed to us by God that through it we might know [cognoscere ] God insofar as the ordained universe has certain images and similitudes, although imperfect ones, of divine things which are compared to it as principal exemplars.84 It is thus that Aquinas posits Denys’s triplex via as inferring the conclusion to the stated doubt. The triplex via is the scheme by which the cosmos is read on the way to God. In response to the Dionysian injunction—“we must interpret the things of God in a way that befits God”85—Aquinas posits the triplex via : And this [the Dionysian noetic to God] occurs in three modes: first and principally in the ablation of all things [in omnium ablatione], namely insofar as nothing of these which we see in the order of creatures do we esteem to be God or something befitting God; but secondarily through excess [per excessum], for we do not remove the perfections of creatures . . . from God because of some defect of God, but because God exceeds every perfection of the creature . . . third, according to the causality of all things [secundum causalitatem omnium], while we consider that whatever is in creatures proceeds from God as from a cause.86 81 Aquinas, Super De divinis nominibus, cap. 7, l. 4. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. 85 Denys, De divinis nominibus, 7.2 (PG 3.869A). 86 Aquinas, Super De divinis nominibus, cap. 7, l. 4. N&V_Spr09.qxp 456 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 456 Aaron Riches Here, by a kind of reciprocity, the in omnium ablatione/per remotionem qualifies and is qualified by per excessum/per eminentiam such that any simple “synthesis” of per causalitatem with per remotionem is foreclosed.There can be no term of “synthesis” other than a mystical per excessum, a paradoxical passing beyond (t> péq/supra ): beyond both negation and attribution. In this way the “cause” (a< isía) needs to be conceived as exceeding analogical assertion since the denial of all things to God has been overdetermined by an assertion of supra-eminence ( per excessum ): God is “above being,” not as meaning-less but as meaning-overfull. On the logic of the triplex via, negation qualifies the meaning of attribution in the direction of an untotalisable excess. In the same way, attribution qualifies negation beyond pure apophasis such that one can say that attribution already “negates negation” in the direction of something like a “synthesis.” Here, however, the “synthesis” (unlike Hegel) is further negatively qualified by the sheer “mystery” of the divine cause which is “above every noetic,” beyond both negation and attribution. This leads the mind into a theoretical reductio in mysterium. As Denys argues in the closing of De mystica theologia, the noetic approach to the divine cause (ai peqovǵy). On this reading the most radically “apophatic” knowledge will involve a move toward a paradox of “simple” unknowing: beyond the specific denial of this or that quality, into a hyper-unknowing that awakens to an ultimacy in which eminence (t> peqovǵ) and first cause (ai pèq hérim e< rsim g> pamsekg̀y ‚ jaì e> miaía sxm pámsxm ai< sía, jaì t> pèq ‚ < ‚ param < > > > g tqeqovg̀ sot pámsxm a pkx y apokektlémot jaì pa ram auaíqerim ‚ > ´ kxm.” e< péjeima sxm o N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 457 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 457 The negative and positive moments redouble in the causal logic that mediates and exceeds them both “between” and “beyond.”The triplex via is thus a movement toward a hyper-eminence in which God is realized as the One who is both the Wholly Other of creation and more intimate to creation than creation is to itself, he is causally “all in all” (Deus est omnia in omnibus causaliter).88 The truth of Neoplatonist logic is, therefore, fulfilled in Scripture because the noetic way to God participates and anticipates the eschatological ingathering of the whole creation into the totus Christus: “the head over all things for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph 1:22–23). Apophatic and Cataphatic: the Triplex Via as Continuity The centrality of the triplex via to Aquinas is not contended, even if it is the subject of a certain debate. Jean-Pierre Torrell writes that Aquinas “simultaneously repeats, extends, and modifies the triple way that the celebrated Areopagite proposed for approaching God.”89 What Torrell suggests, primarily through reading Aquinas’s use of the triplex via in In ad Romanos, is that Aquinas represents both continuity and discontinuity with the Areopagite.90 Here the contention of the literature arises; it concerns the nature of the balance of continuity and discontinuity between Denys and Aquinas.The basic question (if we acknowledge that there is modification and discontinuity) is this: Does Aquinas’s reading and use of the triplex via represent a rupture?—or does this discontinuity take place within a tradition of transformative community? There are two main contentions of rupture.The first proposes that there is no triplex via in Denys; rather, on this view, Aquinas “corrupts” what is properly a duplex via.The Russian Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky is representative of this charge against Aquinas. The second contention, put forward by M.-D. Chenu and Étienne Gilson, holds that Aquinas’s triplex via stands Denys “on his head” by reversing the order of the original Dionysian operation. I submit that both of these positions are wrong. (1) According to Lossky the triplex via is a glossed misreading of De divinis nominibus. For him a distinctly “third way,” a via superlationis or eminentiae beyond attribution and negation, far from being indigenous to the text 88 Aquinas, Super De divinis nominibus, cap. 7, l. 4. Cf. Henri de Lubac, S.J., The Discovery of God, trans. Alexander Dru (New York: Kennedy & Sons, 1960), 67; and Augustine, Confessions, 3.6.11. 89 Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2, Spiritual Master, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 39. 90 Torrell, Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2, Spiritual Master, 36–42; Aquinas, In ad Romanos I, lect. 6, nn. 114–15. N&V_Spr09.qxp 458 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 458 Aaron Riches of the Areopagite is, rather, a Latin corruption.91 In Denys, Lossky discerns a mere duplex via: Dionysius distinguishes two possible theological ways. One—that of cataphatic or positive theology—proceeds by affirmations; the other— apophatic or negative theology—by negations.The first leads us to some knowledge of God, but it is an imperfect way.The perfect way, the only way which is fitting in regard to God, who is of His very nature unknowable, is the second—which leads us finally to total ignorance.92 According to Lossky, the apophatic way is superior to the cataphatic way because it is aware of the “total ignorance” which, on this view, is the end of every noetic approach to God. In this way a duplex via is discerned in terms of a dissociated twofold way wherein one via is deemed “imperfect” and the other “perfect.” But in dissociating “apophasis” from “cataphasis” thus, this duplex via loses the “between,” the mediation of the relation of apophatic and cataphatic toward the “beyond” who is God.Thus Denys is read as an equivocal thinker who, paradoxically, risks slipping into a kind of quasi-univocal negativity, since “nothing” now tends to become a kind of total predicate of the God whose “very nature,” according to Lossky, is “unknowable.” The apophatic, on this scheme, does not resolve the illusion of cataphatic “capture”; it merely repositions the noetic “capture of God” in the direction of pure negation.93 Lossky’s intention to maintain a dissociation of two viae is grounded in his anxiety that, if set to work together, the apophatic and cataphatic > péq” and “t> peqovǵ” desig91 According to Lossky, Denys’s superlative usage of “t nates in all cases a transcendent passing beyond proper to the Areopagite’s apophatic theology and therefore indissociable from the Dionysian via negativa. Thus he concludes: “Je ne crois pas qu’on ait le droit de parler d’ébauche d’une ‘troisième voie’, qui serait une via superlationis ou eminentiae, chez Denys luimême. On l’admet habituellement, sans se douter à quel point on reste tributaire de la tradition ultérieure qui transforma—surtout en Occident—la doctrine de Corpus dionysien.”Vladimir Lossky, Théologie négative et connaissance de Dieu chez Maître Eckhart (Paris: J. Vrin, 1960), 21–22, n. 31. For a similar view, cf. Jean Vanneste, Le Mystère de Dieu. Essai sur la structure rationnelle de la doctrine mystique du Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1959), 113. Cf. O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas, 31. 92 Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, trans. “a small group of members of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius” (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), 25. 93 On this point see T.-D. Humbrecht, “La théologie negative chez saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Thomiste 93 (1993): 535–66, and 94 (1994), 71–99. Humbrecht shows how a “pure” negative theology is actually impossible, and that the via negativa in fact only functions in terms of a prior cataphatic knowledge. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 459 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 459 will be transmuted into the two polls of a quasi-Hegelian dialectic. Lossky is not wrong to want to avoid reading Denys in this direction.The problem of the dialectical way, as Lossky seems to have apprehended, is that it thinks the poles of the dialectic by synthesizing their difference through a mediation premised on the elimination of difference according to the dictum first associated with Spinoza: Omnis determinatio est negatio.94 The dialectic thus sets in motion a logic whereby being cannot “be” until it first eliminates its “other,” non-being. On this scheme, mediation and synthesis, at best, involve the sublation of ontological difference.95 Alternately, and worse, the dialectical way may betray what Conor Cunningham has called a “univocity of non-being” in which reditus ontologically precedes exitus (that is, apophasis is cataphasis) such that “something is made nothing and then the nothing [is] approached as something.”96 Lossky is therefore right to avoid reading Denys as a “dialectician.” He is wrong to attribute this error to Aquinas and to claim that in so doing 94 Cf. G. W. F. Hegel, Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1969), 113. 95 Cf. William Desmond, Hegel’s God: A Counterfeit Double? (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2003). 96 Conor Cunningham, Genealogy of Nihilism: Philosophies of Nothing and the Differ- ence of Theology (London: Routledge, 2002), 100–30, at 125. In The Sublime Object of Ideology, Slavoj Z∑ iz∑ek summarises a thesis on behalf of a startling re-reading of Hegel that should be understood as correlative to Cunningham’s critique. Z∑ iz∑ek proposes that the antagonism of difference in the dialectic does not yield a positive “synthesis”; rather, “far from being a story of its [the dialectic’s] progressive overcoming, dialectics is for Hegel a systematic notation of the failure of all such attempts—‘absolute knowledge’ denotes a subjective position which finally accepts ‘contradiction’ as an internal contradiction of every identity. In other words, Hegelian ‘reconciliation’ is not a ‘panlogicist’ sublation of all reality in the Concept but a final consent to the fact that the Concept is ‘not-all’ (to use this Lacanian term).” Thus, on Z∑ iz∑ek’s reading, Hegel’s dialectic is no longer at the service of an Enlightenment progressivism, rather, now it is conceived as the great example of thought thinking the Lacanian “Real.” More recently Z∑ iz∑ek has reiterated his position in The Parallax View, writing that, for Hegel, the “negation of negation” involves the “shift of perspective which turns failure into true success.” He adds: “Hegel’s move is not to ‘overcome’ the Kantian division but, rather, to assert it ‘as such’, to drop the need for its ‘overcoming’, for the additional ‘reconciliation’ of opposites: to gain insight—through a purely formal parallax shift—into how positing the distinction ‘as such’ already is the looked-for ‘reconciliation’.” Here—amazingly—Z∑ iz∑ek’s “parallax view” (reducing the dialectic to a mere apparent change based, not on the position of the object, but on the subjective positioning of the object vis-à-vis the changed position of the subject looking at the object) corresponds perfectly with Cunningham’s diagnosis of Hegel’s dialectic in terms of the Gestalt logic of the “philosophies of Nothing.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 460 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 460 Aaron Riches “Aquinas reduces the two ways of Dionysius to one, making negative theology a corrective to affirmative theology.”97 Aquinas is not Lossky’s “dialectician”: he is an analogical thinker who searches for “a term which . . . [can be] used in a multiple sense signif[ying] various proportions to some one thing.”98 This analogical term is a mediating term that does not erase difference; rather, it affirms a community of meaning between differences in a relation of essential non-collapsibility. Through this logic Aquinas is able to predicate the unspeakable in a way that exceeds Lossky’s equivocity because Aquinas is able to think the negative and positive moments of predicating God at the same time, without resigning the mind to the illusion of either “pure” equivocation/negation, or “pure” univocation/attribution.This, I submit, is the achievement of the operation of the triplex via, more faithful to the Dionysian theology of causality than Lossky’s mystical apophatism of “total ignorance.” Lossky’s radical apophatism and his insistence that Denys proposes a dissociated duplex via is palpably insensitive to the Neoplatonist metaphysics that underpin Denys’s thought; indeed, Lossky’s apophatism is expressive of his stated resolve to recover a supposedly “pure” Denys,“dePlatonised” (if not also “de-Latinized”).99 Nevertheless, as Andrew Louth has written, Denys’s “language and categories are inconceivable except against the background of Procline-Neoplatonism.”100 And this is especially true of Denys’s conception of causality. For Cunningham the Gestalt figure of the Duck/Rabbit is the logic of the dualmonism of nihilism according to which nothing can be thought of as something. But herein the dualism of “nothing” and “something” is revealed to be a mere Gestalt effect, betraying a more fundamental monism: we only ever see an aspect (either “Duck” or “Rabbit”) and never the alternative. More importantly, we never see the “One” upon which the two possible aspects are made possible: the “One” remains hidden, though not noumenally; rather, it is only expressed as one of two modes.Thus, according to Cunningham, the “One” of monism is a noncoincident “One”—it is neither a matter of reconciliation nor “synthesis”; and it is here that Z∑ iz∑ek appears to be in full agreement. In this way Z∑ iz∑ek’s “parallax view” is an unheimlich echo of Cunningham’s critique of “positive nihilism” (unheimlich because the Gestalt figure fully anticipates the “parallax view”). See Slavoj Z∑ iz∑ek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (New York:Verso, 1989), at 6; idem, The Parallax View (London: MIT Press, 2006), at 27 and 28. 97 Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 26. 98 ST I, q. 13, a. 5. 99 Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 29. 100 Andrew Louth, Denys the Areopagite, (New York: Continuum, 2001), 14. Further on the Neoplatonism of Denys, see Sarah Klitenic Wear and John Dillon, Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition: Despoiling the Hellenes (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 461 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 461 According to Procline-Neoplatonism, despite the radical declension‚ between cause and effect,“The procession . . . in declension preserves [sg∫ t> uérei rx́∫ fei] an identity betwixt engenderer [cause] and engendered [effect].”101 The preservation (rx́∫ fx ) of the identity of the cause in the effect makes it necessary to speak of a relationship of both similitude and alterity, of cataphasis and apophasis. Proclus concludes: In so far, then, as it [the effect] has an element of identity with the producer, the product remains in it [the cause]; insofar as it differs it proceeds from it. But being like it, it is at once identical with it in some respect and different from it: accordingly it both remains and proceeds, and the two relations are inseparable.102 In other words, to speak of any cause through its effect is to speak of a relation of differentiated-likeness. And, hereby, through the logic of Procline-Neoplatonism, Denys aquires a grammar by which to articulate the noetic way to God, succeeding precisely where Lossky’s reading of Denys fails. Procline causal logic makes it possible to think the apophatic and cataphatic together, in a community of plurivocal communication. And this is the logic to which the Common Doctor of the Latin tradition is supremely attentive: a logic wherein “every effect . . . receives the similitude of the agent not in its full degree, but in a measure that falls short, so that what is divided and multiplied in the effects resides in the agent simply, and in the same manner.”103 (2) If Lossky represents one position of discontinuity between Aquinas and Denys on the triplex via, M.-D. Chenu and Étienne Gilson represent another (albeit one that favours Aquinas). The charge of Chenu and Gilson hangs on a citation of Denys in Scriptum super Sententiis : “Dicit enim quod ex creaturis tribus modis devenimus in Deum: scilicet per causalitatem, per remotionem, per eminentiam.”104 Noting here the reversal of Denys’s order of operation, Chenu writes:“De facto, the entire Dionysian doctrine is thus reversed.”105 Gilson’s reaction is more emphatic. Turning to the Dionysian text he exclaimes: “how far we are from the text to which St.Thomas appeals!”106 101 Proclus, The Elements of Theology: A Revised Text with Translation, Introduction and Commentary, trans. E. R. Dodds (Oxford: Clarendon, second edition, 1963), prop. 29. All quotations from Proclus follow Dodds’s translation. 102 Ibid., prop. 30. 103 ST I, q. 13, a. 5. 104 Aquinas, Super Sententiis, lib. 1, d. 3, q. 1 pr. 105 Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, 229, n. 51. 106 Étienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas (New York: Random House, 1956), 140. Torrell seems to tend to agree with Chenu and N&V_Spr09.qxp 462 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 462 Aaron Riches According to Gilson, Aquinas overcomes a so-called “Dionysian obstacle” native to the order of the triplex via, wherein Denys supposedly moves from negation to eminence and only lastly to causality.107 Gilson thinks this order of operation prioritises the via negativa in such a way that it betrays an inherent lack of community between cause and effect. On his view, Denys’s method of beginning with “sensible datum in order to ascend to its cause” is in reality not an ascent to the cause because the cause is beyond anything sensible.108 Thus,“sensible datum” is said to only yield “Ideas” for Denys and therefore nothing of the cause itself. Gilson charges: “All that Denis will grant is that, beginning from things, we can arrive at a kind of knowledge of the Ideas of God.”109 For Gilson, this is further confirmed in Denys’s singularly preferred divine name:“the good.”The implication of the Dionysian position, so Gilson reasons, is that perfection is not inherent to existence; and more, that the two are somehow divisible. Thus, the Dionysian order of operation of the triplex via is said to betray a noetic limit wherein God is confined to dwell in a narrow “transcendent” inaccessibility. God’s perfection is thus presumed to be posited as different and superior to God’s existence in such a way that God is known more properly by the “Idea” of perfection than the existence of beings. This apparent inaccessibility of the cause in Denys is what Gilson understands Aquinas to have solved in his supposed reversal of the triplex via, which, for Gilson, is coterminous with Aquinas’s insistence on the name “being” as the preeminent name of God. Gilson writes: “For Denis, God was superesse, because He was ‘not yet’ the esse . . . [while for] St.Thomas, God is the superesse because He is superlatively being: the Esse pure and simple.”110 Gilson’s estimation of the difference between Dionysian and Thomistic superesse is, in a qualified sense, not entirely false; but it is overstated and it misconstrues the causal logic of the triplex via.What Gilson evidently fails to Gilson on this point but with moderation and without making it the occasion of such radical discontinuity. Cf.Torrell, Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2, Spiritual Master, 39. 107 Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 140. This “Dionysian obstacle” could, for Gilson, be equally named a “Neoplatonic obstacle”—insofar as it contradicts Gilson’s deep commitment to Aristotelianism over and against Platonism. Cf. Gilson, Being and Some Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1952), 1–73. On the problem of Gilson’s understanding of Neoplatonism in Aquinas cf.W. Norris Clarke, S.J., “The Limitation of Act by Potency in St.Thomas: Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism?,” 65–88; and Wayne Hankey, “Denys and Aquinas: Antimodern Cold and Postmodern Hot,” in Christian Origins:Theology, Rhetoric and Community, ed. Lewis Ayres and Gareth Jones (New York: Routledge, 1998), 139–84, here at 146–48. 108 Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 140. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 463 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 463 fully appreciate is that “causality” is not at all confined to the “attributive” moment (per causalitatem). On the contrary,“causality” underpins the logic of both the attributive (cataphatic) and negative (apophatic) moments in Denys.111 It is therefore hard to see how Denys’s apparent prioritizing of per remotionem could demote causality tout court. In quaestio 12 of the prima pars, Aquinas writes that God is known through creatures, so far as to be the cause of them all [omnium est causa ]; also that creatures differ from Him [et differentiam creaturarum ab ipso ], inasmuch as He is not in any way part of what is caused by Him; and that creatures are not removed from Him by any reason of any defect on His part, but because He superexceeds them all [sed quia superexcedit ].112 In this passage Aquinas uses the order of operation of Scriptum super Sententiis ( per causalitatem, per remotionem, per eminentiam).And then, in quaestio 13 Aquinas lists the order differently, writing that, “neither any Catholic nor pagan knows the very nature of God as it is in itself; but each one knows it according to some idea of causality [causalitatis], or excellence [excellentiae], or remotion [remotionis], as it is stated above [q. 12, a. 12].”113 Aquinas himself refers back to quaestio 12 as if he were repeating an identical principle, which signals that for him diverse orders of operations in the triplex via still present the one noetic movement.What is more, in his commentary on the triplex via in the Super De divinis nominibus, Aquinas makes no attempt to clarify any order of operation contrary to Denys—indeed, against Gilson’s contention, Aquinas there states that negation is not only the first movement of the triplex via, but primo quidem et principaliter.114 Michael Ewbank has shown that Aquinas actually moves between five different orders of operation of the triplex via throughout his oeuvre; and these divers orderings are in each case most likely based on the particular context of the argument in which they are deployed.115 No order 111 Cf. O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas, 36. 112 ST I, q. 12, a. 12. 113 ST I, q. 13, a. 10, ad 5. 114 Aquinas, Super De divinis nominibus, cap. 7, l. 4. 115 Michael B. Ewbank, “Diverse Orderings of Dionysius’s Triplex Via By St.Thomas Aquinas,” Medieval Studies 52 (1990): 82–109.The five orders given by Ewbank are as follows: (1) per remotionem, per eminentiam, per causalitatem (cf. Super De divinis nominibus, cap. 7, l. 4.); (2) per causalitatem, per remotionem, per eminentiam (cf. Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 3 q. 1 pr.); (3) per remotionem, per causalitatem, per eminentiam (cf. In Boethium Super de Trinitate, 6.3); (4) per eminentiam, per causalitatem, per remotionem (cf. ST I, q. 13, a. 8, ad 2.); (5) per causalitatem, per eminentiam, per remotionem (cf. ScG III, c. 49). N&V_Spr09.qxp 464 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 464 Aaron Riches should be read as fixed or normative. Moreover, not once does Aquinas comment on, or mention any implicit meaning in the order of operation of the triplex via. Rather, for Aquinas, the triplex via functions not through a strict order of operation, but, as O’Rourke describes it, as “a threefold variation . . . three paths which merely reflect differing moments of the causal relation.”116 Therefore, from the order of operation it is not clear how Aquinas might modify Denys’s triplex via ; moreover, the single text of Scriptum super Sententiis cannot sustain the weight of being posited as Aquinas’s definitive word on Denys.117 Despite Gilson’s claim, one should conclude to the contrary: Aquinas did not privilege one particular order of operation of the triplex via and his re-ordering in Scriptum super Sententiis should not be read as “overturning” the Dionysian via. Analogical Theology: From Neoplatonic Causality to the Thomistic Name of God “Plato corrected the error of the ancient natural philosophers, who did not distinguish between matter and form in generable and corruptible things, positing prime matter to be some body in act.”118 This judgement of Aquinas correlates with an earlier comment in De divinis nominibus where he writes that Denys “excludes a certain error. . . . For there were certain Platonists who reduced the processions of perfections into diverse principles.”119 Aquinas goes on: And in order to exclude this he [Denys] says that God is truly praised as principal substance of all things [ principalis substantia omnium ] insofar as God is the principle of being to all things [ principium existendi omnibus ], and God is called the perfective cause of all things [causa perfectiva omnium ] insofar as God gives all perfections to things.120 The essential continuity of the Platonic and Dionysian achievements is important. It signals that for Aquinas, the Dionysian corrective turns on a Platonic genealogy of transformation, of discontinuous-continuity that 116 O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas, 32. 117 Further, Scriptum super Sententiis is Aquinas’s first major work, which he began to compose sometime during his first stay in Paris (1252–54), some fifteen years before he started working on the Summa (1268), and at least ten years before his commentary on Denys (sometime between 1261–1268). See Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and his Work, 332, 333, and 346. 118 Aquinas, Super De divinis nominibus, cap. 4, l. 3. 119 Ibid., cap. 1, l. 3. 120 Ibid. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 465 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 465 stretches back through Denys to Plato.121 This is the context in which Aquinas understands the Dionysian installation of God as the principal substance ( principalis substantia ) and principle of being ( principium existendi ), and thus as completing Plato’s refusal to conflate matter and form or posit prime matter as a body in act. An essential stage in the Platonic genealogy that Aquinas discerns moving towards Denys proceeds through the work of Proclus.122 • • • In proposition 18 of his Elementatio theologia, Proclus argues that the character of every effect pre-exists in its cause where it exists in “a higher reality than the character bestowed.”123 The character of the cause is different than the character of the effect because it exceeds the character of the effect.The cause is the perfect intensification of all the effect truly is. Within this logic of causality “either the two [cause and effect] are identical and have a common definition; or there is nothing common or identical in both; or the one exists primitively [pqx́sxy] and the other by derivation [detséqxy].”124 There are thus three possible ontological modes according to which an effect can exist in relation to its cause: univocally (by identical definition), equivocally (with nothing in common), or analogically (primitively and by derivation). Proclus writes: [I]f they had a common definition [that is, if they were univocally related], the one could not be, as we have assumed, cause and the other resultant; the one could not be in itself and the other in the participant; the one could not be the author and the other the subject of a process. And if they had nothing identical [that is, if they were equivocally related], the second, having nothing in common with the existence of the first, could not arise from existence. It remains, then, that where one thing receives bestowal from another in virtue of that other’s mere exis121 My position here is essentially convertible with Wayne Hankey, who argues on behalf of a Neoplatonic genealogy of development in which the differences between Denys and Aquinas (as well as those among Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblicus, and Proclus) “are best understood as moments in a continuous tradition.” See Hankey, “Denys and Aquinas: Antimodern Cold and Postmodern Hot,” 172. 122 I am not trying to imply that Aquinas would offer a genealogy with the same names and dates that we would offer today. Only after Moerbeke’s translation of Elementatio theologia in 1268 did Aquinas even read Proclus directly, thought he did know Procline philosophy as it was mediated through the Liber de causis.And, of course, the Corpus Dionysiacum was, in the thirteenth century, still presumed to have been written by the first-century convert of the Apostle Paul (cf. Acts 17:34). See Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, The Person and his Work, 221. 123 Proclus, The Elements of Theology, prop. 18. 124 Ibid. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 466 Aaron Riches 466 tence, the giver possesses primitively the character, which it gives [that is, the one exists analogically in relation to the other], while the recipient is by derivation what the giver is.125 On this view, effects participate in the reality of their cause in such a way that, for there to be beings, being must be analogical.126 In Aquinas this will come to mean that the esse of creatures is esse-ad.127 Beings do not own their own existence, they receive it from an Other, from One in whom they participate by gift, from the One in whom they live and move and have their being (cf. Acts 17:28). And this ontological relationship is so profound that “the recipient is by derivation what the giver is.” For Proclus, being is the most universal cause, the first in the Primordial Triad: “being,” “life,” and “intellect.” And yet, even as “being” is the most universal cause, nevertheless, it is below the divine realm of “the good,” and even the henads.128 On the Procline view, the primacy reserved for “the good” resides above causality such that the First Principle is unknowable because unparticipated.129 The difference between Aquinas and ProclineNeoplatonism, therefore, hinges on two issues: (1) multiple causality and (2) the situation of the One discretely above causality according to one version of the Neoplatonic axiom of “the good” being “beyond being.”130 The 125 Ibid. 126 Cunningham, Genealogy of Nihilism, 181–89. Cf. David B. Burrell C.S.C., Anal- ogy and Philosophical Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973); and idem,“From Analogy of ‘Being’ to Analogy of Being,” in Recovering Nature: Essays in Natural Philosophy, Ethics and Metaphysics in Honor of Ralph McInerny, ed. Thomas Hibbs and John O’Callaghan (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 253–65. 127 David B. Burrell C.S.C., “Act of Creation with its Theological Consequences,” in Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction, ed. Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap, Daniel A. Keating, and John P.Yocum (London:T & T Clark, 2004), 27–44. 128 Cf. Proclus, The Elements of Theology, prop. 115. 129 Ibid., prop. 123. 130 Cf. Plotinus, The Enneads, 3. 6. 4. Here importantly Proclus is already a modification of Plotinus in terms of the good and being. For Proclus the good is above ‚ being in the sense of being “beyond being” (e< péjeim sgy ot< ríay/t> potríxy) by way of excess. On this Procline scheme the good is not necessarily dissociated from being tout court in the way that it is for Plotinus, for whom the One is a “hen” and therefore ontologically discrete. Thus Proclus already represents a more relational notion of the good and being, whereas Plotinus’s account of the One vis-à-vis being is more strictly henological. For this clarification I am indebted to a conversation with Adrian Pabst. Further, see the critique of Plotinus’s account in Cunningham, Genealogy of Nihilism, 3–32; and cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy, trans. P. Christopher Smith (New Haven:Yale University Press). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 467 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 467 One would have to be “being” in order to be analogically predicated (for there cannot be an analogia verbi without analogia entis). Thus for Proclus, there is still an unbridgeable gap between the world and the One. For Aquinas, bridging this gap is the great Dionysian achievement: the unification of causality and the lifting of it into the First Principle who is both ipsum esse per se subsistens and summum bonum. Henceforth, from Denys, the esse-ad of creatures is a participation in the perfection of “the good” itself.131 For Aquinas, the Dionysian unification of Neoplatonist causality necessarily involves God properly understood as both the universal transcendent perfection (summum bonum) and the universal existent (ipsum esse per se subsistens). And yet, Denys does not homogenise the distinct processions of the triad:“being”—“life”—“intellect”/“wisdom.” On the contrary, he reads them as part of the causal hierarchy of perfection in God and reserves “the good” as the perfect name of God, which is “pre-eminently set apart for the supra-divine God from all other names.”132 But what exactly does this mean? How can there be one cause and yet something of this cause remain unparticipatable? And how is Denys’s pre-eminent name of God reconcilable with Aquinas’s pre-eminent name? The answer here lies in the nature of the theology of participation, how for Aquinas and Denys creatures are esse-ad and God is principalis substantia omnium. Only through the theology of participation can one establish the nature of the relation of ipsum esse per se subsistens and summum bonum, a relation which is correlative to the Dionysian achievement of making the one Godhead causa perfectiva omnium. Rudi te Velde has engaged these issues in Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas.133 He begins from Boethius’s question in De hebdomadibus : in what sense can things be said to be good? In De veritate, question 21, Aquinas argues that the answer lies in the convertibility of “good” and “being”: things are perfect insofar as they have being, insofar as they are in actu.134 Thus, since act is the ratio of being, “being good” and “having being” are coterminous. And since Aquinas’s understanding of God as ipsum esse per se subsistens is rooted wholly in his conception of 131 Aquinas, Super librum de Causis, prop. 3: “Dionysius . . . corrects this position [of Neoplatonic multiple causality]. . . . For it must be said that all these are essentially the first cause of all things itself, from which things participate all such perfections. . . . How this can be he shows subsequently from the fact that since God is being itself and the very essence of goodness, whatever belongs to the perfection of goodness and being belongs essentially to him as a whole.” 132 Denys, De divinis nominibus, 4.1 (PG 3.693B). 133 Rudi A. te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995). 134 Ibid., 8–20. Cf. David Burrell, “Act of Creation with is Theological Consequences,” 34–38. N&V_Spr09.qxp 468 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 468 Aaron Riches being as the universal perfection, being is therefore the first term of perfection, the term par excellence of goodness itself: nihil bonum nisi ens.135 The source of this Thomistic logic is the theology of causal participation Aquinas learns from Denys—and this is where Denys’s reserve of something unparticipatable in God is important. According to te Velde, for Denys, God’s essence is not participated, the divine essence is imparticipata et incommunicata ; what is participated, rather, is the similitudo the divine cause produces of itself in the created perfections.136 On first glance, this suggests that something of God is “held in reserve” in such a way that a perfect intimacy of participation (theosis or union) is foreclosed—but in fact the contrary is the case.The distinction gives ontological depth to the nature of creaturely participation since by it the otherness of the creature—its difference —becomes integral to how it participates in God and how it analogously signifies God’s goodness. In other words, the creature’s perfection is neither contrastive to God, nor does it risk being homogenised into the divine “One” of God.The creature participates, not in God’s “essence,” but in the emanating perfections of God’s esse ; and yet, paradoxically, these emanations are fully God himself. Difference is now the first term of likeness and union.137 This metaphysical logic is expressive of the doctrine of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) according to which the difference between the creature and the Creator is always greater than their likeness.138 On the view here rehearsed, God is able to authentically express himself as different from himself in such a way that difference is fully analogical and not merely a Neoplatonist “declension.” This is the Dionysian logic out of which Aquinas formulates his theology of God as ipsum esse per se subsistens. As te Velde writes: [T]he divine cause expresses itself in its effects as distinguished from itself and in each distinct creature the divine cause is distinguished from itself 135 ST I, q. 5, a. 2, ad 4. Cf.Te Velde, Aquinas on God, 85; and ST I, q. 5, a. 2: “Good is attributed to God inasmuch as all desired perfections flow from him as from the first cause.” 136 Te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas, 92ff. 137 Cf. David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite:The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 314. Or as Henri de Lubac puts it, the paradox of Christian union is that “the distinction between the different parts of a being stand out the more clearly as the union of these parts is closer.” Henri de Lubac, S.J., Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, trans. Lancelot Sheppard and Sister Elizabeth Englund, O.C.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 328. 138 For the Lateran doctrine, see Constitutiones, 2. De errore abbatis Iochim, in Norman P. Tanner, S.J. (ed), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1, Nicaea I to Lateran V (London: Sheed & Ward, 1990), 231–33. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 469 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 469 in a distinct way in accordance with the appropriate idea of this creature. So the negation in the effect of the identity of essence and esse in God is included in the likeness each creature has of God.This is exactly the reason of calling the likeness between God and creatures “analogous”: since it is not in spite of their difference that they are similar in a certain respect.They are different from one another in what they have in common, the one has being in identity with its essence, the other has being as distinct from its essence.139 Te Velde here establishes the fundamental continuity between Aquinas and the Areopagite on the analogous relation of difference and likeness between God and his creatures. However, where this logic leads Denys to name God pre-eminently “the good” (to signify something of his unparticipatable essence), it leads Aquinas to name God pre-eminently “being.”140 And therefore (and second of all) it is precisely and paradoxically continuity with Dionysian logic that is the condition of the possibility of this Thomistic discontinuity. The key to this reading lies in caput 5, lectio 1 of Aquinas’s commentary on De divinis nominibus.There Aquinas comments on this passage of the Areopagite: The first gift therefore of absolute transcendent goodness is the gift of being, and that goodness is praised from those that first and principally have a share of being. From there is being itself [i<´rsim ‚ ‚ being< and in being > < < < < e n atsg̀y, jaì e m atsg∫ , jaì atsò sò eimai]: the source of beings, and of all beings and whatever else has a portion of being.This characteristic is in it as an irrepressible, comprehensive, and singular feature.141 From being and in being there is “being itself,” est ex ipsa et in ipsa per se esse. Here per se is the crucial term for Aquinas, the term of operation by which Denys unites Neoplatonist causality into that cause which is the source of being and of all being and of whatever participates in being.142 First of all, Aquinas perceives, if God is to be named through the logic of the triplex via it is most fitting to name God from his first and principal effect: esse. Thus every creaturely perfection is contingent first on this perfection (esse ).This means that God, in whom all perfection resides, is first participated as being itself ( per se esse ).And this leads to the real heart of Aquinas’s reading, which turns on this per se and blends with the logic 139 Te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas, 116. 140 Cf. Hankey, “Denys and Aquinas: Antimodern Cold and Postmodern Hot,” 169–73. 141 Denys, De divinis nominibus, 5.6 (PG 3.820CD).Translation modified. 142 Cf. te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas, 261–65. N&V_Spr09.qxp 470 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 470 Aaron Riches of the triplex via : the reality of participating being (esse-ad ) is signified in relation to the perfection participated in a mode that is neither univocal (simply “attributive”) nor equivocal (simply “negative”). Rather, the reality of being esse-ad is signified by a real relation between terms such that the ontology of essential difference is named within the redoubling plurivocity of essential community, that is, within the paradox of a rhythmical synthesis per eminentiam. For Aquinas the meaning of Denys’s est ex ipsa et in ipsa per se esse is thus suspended within the ontological redoubling of unequalisable significance inherent in per se, which analogically signifies God in himself and the created perfection in itself at the same time.143 This is the operation by which Denys tensively unifies the discrete multiple causality of Neoplatonism and the realm of causality itself with the First Principle. Thus per se functions such that it signifies the apophasis of causal exitus in the cataphasis of effectual reditus through a mediation in which the ultimacy of the One who is “beyond” being is specified in the intimacy of every “between.” On this Dionysian logic, the creature can be named as fully participating in what God is, and yet, she can be named as participating in God differently. It is a logic whereby a conjunctive mediates an untotalisable difference in which the creature is per se esse by a mode of derivation (detséqxy) that is, nevertheless, essentially related to how God is primitively (pqx́séy) per se esse.144 Mobilizing the Dionysian per se is, therefore, central to how Aquinas names God pre-eminently “being,” how he draws out and radicalises the analogia entis of Dionysian causal logic.145 Now per se means both the supra-origin and the way of participation. • • • If the great achievement of the Areopagite lies in the mode by which his causal metaphysics unite causality in terms of non-contrastive participation, then the first achievement of Aquinas lies in recognizing that “being” is the first perfection and therefore the pre-eminent name of God.146 This 143 Cf. Aquinas, Super De divine nominibus, cap. 5, l. 1: “For . . . the Platonists, whom Dionysius imitates in this work in many things, before all composed participants posited separate existences per se, which are participated by the composites. . . . And similarly they [the Neoplatonists] said that before these living composites there was a certain separated life, which they called life per se; and similarly wisdom per se and esse per se ; but they posited these separated principles to be diverse from each other and from the first principle which they named the good per se or the One per se.” 144 Cf. Denys, De divinis nominibus, 11.6 (PG 3.953C–956AD).Translation modified. 145 Te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas, 262–64. 146 ST I, q. 4, a. 2: “Since therefore God is the first effective cause of things, the perfection of all things must pre-exist in God in a more eminent way. Dionysius N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 471 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 471 logic is rooted in what has been established as the “first meaning of the plurality of the world”: the communication of the goodness of the one cause through the multiplicity of creation. The second achievement of Aquinas is grounded in the “second meaning of the plurality of the world”: the eternal processions of the Persons of the Trinity. Aquinas’s conviction that the Trinitarian processions are the cause of creation clarifies that the mode and reality of the self-communication of “the good” in creaturely emanation is not a declension; rather, creation is a created participation in a personal and free gift of God. It is thus that the Godhead manifests ad extra the glory of what he is ad intra : because the Word and Love of the Father are the ratio of creation, therefore being is “gift” in the economy of divine communication (bonum diffusivum sui ). As Aquinas writes: The divine Persons, according to the nature of their procession, have a causality respecting the creation of things. . . . God is the cause of all things by his intellect and will, just as the craftsman is cause of the things made by his craft. Now the craftsman works through the word conceived in his mind, and through the love of his will regarding some object. Hence also God the Father made the creature through His Word, which is His Son; and through his Love, which is the Holy Spirit.147 Here Aquinas is doing much more than simply stating that the relational difference ad intra is the cause of relational difference ad extra. First, by establishing creation in terms of the Logos, the intellect of the Father, Aquinas proposes that the trace of similitude that images forth in the created effect is the intelligent imprint of the craftsman-God such that the difference of the image cannot be reduced to ontological declension. On the contrary, the sympathy of the effect to the cause is, hereby, made an integral participation in the internal ratio of the interval between the Son and the craftsman-Father. Second, by further specifying the causality of the world in terms of the Father’s Love (his will),Aquinas specifies the freedom of the divine creative act. In this way creation can no longer be conceived in terms of necessary emanation; rather, from now on the mode of God’s gratuitous communication (bonum diffusivum sui) must be thought wholly in terms of God’s willful bestowal of the gift of being. Thus, Aquinas carefully uses the Trinitarian processions to further complete and qualify the Dionysian ontology of causality. But how does implies the same line of argument by saying of God (Div. Nom. v): It is not that He is this and not that, but that He is all, as the cause of all.” 147 ST I, q. 45, a. 6. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 472 Aaron Riches 472 this Trinitarian scheme transform the analogia entis? And how does created being analogically predicate the Triune God? Matthew Levering has described the Thomistic pattern of redoublement as the means by which “the concept of Person as subsisting relation integrates the concept of [divine] ‘essence.’ ”148 In this way Levering clarifies that divine relationality cannot be something “added” to the unity of the divine essence, nor can it be an “extra” of God; on the contrary, the divine relations are the divine being such that the essence in the Father is paternitas, just as in the Son the essence is filiatio.149 According to the law of redoublement, therefore, the reality of the subsistent relations of the Trinity is that they are fully the divine being such that essence and relation, unity and triad overlap.150 The Persons of the Trinity are fully expressive of the divine being. The divine being cannot be collapsed into the relationality of the Triune God nor can the relations be sublated into the divine being. The logic of redoublement thus requires a Chalcedonian logic—“without confusion and without separation”—whereby the unity of the divine being and the relationality of the Persons can be non-collapsibly thought at the same time. This is to hold tenaciously to the logic of Aquinas: The relations in God, although they constitute the hypostases and thus make them subsist, do it however insofar as they are the divine essence; indeed, the relation insofar as it is relation does not have anything of what subsists or makes subsist: that belongs solely to the substance.151 For Aquinas, therefore, the Trinitarian relations subsist in the divine being, but they do not derive from that being. And so, as Levering shows, the divine being in Aquinas does not relate: the relations subsist in the divine essence as undivided and, thus,“God’s being is not a communion, because being is not what relates in God.”152 In this way Levering critiques certain variants of “Trinitarian ontology,” showing how the development of such an ontology runs the risk of confusing the divine being (essence) with the relations of the Persons, conflating what is common in the Godhead with what is incommunicable.And so, in fidelity to Aquinas, it would seem that the analogia entis must pertain strictly to 148 Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, 215. 149 Cf. ST I, q. 24, a. 4. 150 Cf. Emery, “Essence or Personalism,” 181–82. 151 Aquinas, De potentia, q. 8, a. 3, ad 7; as quoted in Emery, “Essence or Personal- ism,” 200. Cf. ST I, q. 28 a. 2: “in Deo non est aliud esse relationis et esse essentiae, sed unum et idem.” 152 Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, 228; cf. ST I, q. 30, a. 1, ad 3, and q. 31, a. 1, ad 4. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 473 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 473 what is one in God.153 And yet, the causal act that grounds the metaphysical reality of the analogia entis is Trinitarian: “The processions of the divine Persons are the cause of creation.”154 There is therefore a mystical aporia at the heart of Thomistic causality: the divine processions are the condition of the possibility of creation; and yet, paradoxically, creation is analogically grounded in the divine unity. Or, as Emery puts it, “divine relation possesses the universal causality of the divine essence.”155 This works to suggest that, at the most intimate level of created being, there may be something like a participational redoublement in the Trinitarian mode of the gift of esse-ad. And Levering seems to signal to this effect when he calls for a nuancing of the analogia entis in terms of the Triune gift of being.156 Only thereby do we arrive at the sufficient paradox of being related to the God who is three-in-one (as opposed to a mere “communion” of three). In realizing the analogia entis as the Trinitarian gift of the undivided being of God, we return to the middle “way” of the quinque viae: to the “metaphysical astonishment” of being’s “givenness as given into being,”157 where to be is “to accept a gift from a source.”158 Awakening to the givenness of being thus involves the astonishing recognition of the arrival of a genuine “Other” in the knowledge of the gift of a “happening”: the intentional grace of existence itself.Thus, the analogia entis—though conceived in terms of what is one in God—arrives, nevertheless, in terms of the relationality of personhood: as a gift from someone. And what is personal and relational in God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Hereby, the redoublement by which we are permitted to think the Trinity becomes the mode of thought—on a different plane—by which we think the gift of being in terms of the selfcommunication of “the good.” The pattern of redoublement allows us to integrate the divine being into the “subsisting relations.” And this is the condition of the possibility of fully conceiving creation as gift, as arriving not merely as the emanation 153 Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, 228: “The analogy of being cannot be ‘Trini- tarian,’ because the divine being is (necessarily) conceptually distinct from the relations in the divine being.” 154 ST I, q. 45, a. 6, ad 1. 155 Emery, “Trinity and Creation,” 72–73. 156 Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, 228. This nuancing is itself qualified so as to avoid the errors Levering perceives in “Trinitarian ontology.” He writes: “Although the gift of being is Trinitarian . . . . the analogy of being pertains to the analogy, which must always be cautiously expressed, between infinite divine being, which is undivided and one, and creaturely being.” 157 Desmond, Is There a Sabbath for Thought?, 13. 158 Nichols, A Grammar of Consent, 83. N&V_Spr09.qxp 474 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 474 Aaron Riches of an “essence,” but as genuinely given by someone who communicates his goodness.The pattern of gift concretises the analogy by which creation is “a participation in the fullness of the Trinitarian life of God.”159 Levering writes: The divine nature . . .“exist[s] in the Father by the relation of giver, and in the Son by the relation of receiver.” Given the identity of “being” and “Person,” despite the distinction of Persons, no inequality between giver and receiver is possible. Divine being subsists in the ordered Trinitarian relations. In this sense, which is the only theologically valid sense in which “Trinitarian ontology” could be understood, one sees fully that being exists in God in the relations, and vise versa.160 In the paradox of the interval of being’s givenness, the prime analogate of being is Trinitarian goodness (bonum diffusivum sui): being exists fully in God in the communicative relations, and being exists fully in the communicative relations in God. Participation is therefore mysteriously rooted in the personal (incommunicable) reality of the gift of being as such.And so, by gift, we specify the mode according to which the analogia entis is planted in the soil of what is most good and perfect in nature: the personal fulfillment of being that actualizes the gesture of being-given and beingreceived—persona significat id quod est perfectissimum in tota natura.161 And this makes it possible to return to the Dionysian pre-eminent name, which was set apart from all other names to specify the supra-divine and unparticipatable “essence” of God. For the logic of redoublement extends precisely into the paradox of God signified by the Dionysian pre-eminent name, according to which God is fully participated, and yet the divine “essence” is imparticipata et incommunicata. For the Thomistic logic is that being arrives as gift out of the condition of the possibility of being in the interval of the Trinitarian processions.Thus the gift of being (the communication ad extra of the summum bonum that is ad intra) arrives by means of a givenness rooted in the fact that the “subsisting relations” of God communicate fully, and fully are, the unparticipatable “essence” as Father, as Son, and as Spirit. God’s “essence” is, therefore, unparticipated just as the act of giving is un-giveable: what the Father gives the Son paternally, the Son receives filially; just as what God will give the creature uncreatedly, the creature will receive in the difference of being-created (hence the 159 Emery, “Trinity and Creation,” 73. 160 Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, 230; quoting ST I, q. 42, a. 4, ad 2. 161 ST I, q. 29, a. 3; cf. Adrian J. Walker, “Personal Singularity and the Communio Personarum : A Creative Development of Thomas Aquinas’ Doctrine of Esse Commune,” Communio 31 (2004): 457–79. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 475 Aquinas and Dionysian Causal Predication 475 doctrine of the Fourth Lateran Council). And yet, what the Father gives the Son is precisely all the Godhead is (in God “no inequality between giver and receiver is possible”).To receive oneself as gift is always to receive oneself as other, as integrally different. In the same way, to participate in what most totally belongs to oneself is to participate in what is unparticipatable: intimior intimo meo. The analogia entis is, hereby, rooted in the Trinitarian relation of the giver and the receiver, Father and Son. As David Hart suggests, because the Son is the true image of the Father “one may speak of God as a God who is, in himself, always analogous; the coincidence in God of mediacy and intimacy, image and difference, is the ‘proportion’ that makes every finite interval a possible disclosure—tabernacle—of God’s truth.”162 The Trinity is the condition of the possibility of analogical being because the undivided being of God is fully communicated in the divine processions which are the ratio of the gift of creation itself.And if the truth of creation is internal to what Hart describes as “the endless articulation of the inexhaustible content of the Father’s likeness in the Son,”163 then, in the Incarnation of the Verbum, the analogical interval between God and the world is perfected to subsist fully in the life of God himself. And this makes sense (in another way) of Emery’s claim: “in the mystery of the incarnation of the Son, the entire redeemed universe returns to its principle.”164 If the Son is the ratio of the production of creatures, being himself the wisdom and art of the Father, he will by the same token manifest perfectly the pattern of the form of the creature’s return to God.165 Thus, the Incarnate Son is the ground of all causal knowledge.166 Jesus sums up the exitus et reditus of creation in himself: he is “ ‘the concrete analogy of being’ . . . since he constitutes in himself, in the unity of his divine and human natures, the proportion of every interval between God and man.”167 The analogy of being is analogia Christi. Conclusion The Thomistic postulation of “being” as the pre-eminent name of God, far from signalling a radical discontinuity with Denys, is in fact part of a 162 Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite, 186. 163 Ibid., 185. 164 Emery, “Trinity and Creation,” 69. 165 David Burrell, “Act of Creation with its Theological Consequences,” 42; citing Emery, La Trinité créatrice, 270ff. 166 Cf. Milbank and Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas, 60ff. 167 Hans Urs von Balthasar, A Theology of History (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 29–70, n. 5. I am grateful to Chris Hackett for pointing this quotation out to me. N&V_Spr09.qxp 476 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 476 Aaron Riches discontinuous-continuity that completes an indigenous Dionysian trajectory. To name God pre-eminently “being” is to name him from his first perfection, the original sign of the final cause: “Since good has the nature of the desirable, it expresses the status of a final cause.”168 Thus, the recipient of being is by derivation what the giver is: per se bonum (cf. Gen 1:31).169 This means a double name—“being good”—fittingly predicates the Triune cause in the redoubling relation of exitus et reditus. The name “being” already contains “the good [who] returns all things to itself and gathers together whatever may be scattered.”170 The more the two names redouble, the more they bring to completion the plurivocal unity of cataphatic-exitus and the apophatic-reditus, correlating and expanding the triplex via into the metaphysical astonishment of the Christic communicaN&V tion of being’s givenness.171 168 ST I, q. 5, a. 2, ad 1. (Trans. Alfred J. Freddoso.) Here it should be noted that this is stated in the context of Aquinas posing the question as to whether “being” is the penultimate name to “the good.”Taking his sed contra from the Liber de causis he answers negatively: “prima rerum creatarum est esse” (ST I, q. 5, a. 2, sed contra). Thus, we are concretely at the moment of discontinuity with the Areopagite, especially since Denys is quoted in the first objection of this article: “But Dionysius (Div. Nom. iii) assigned the first place, among other names of God, to his goodness rather than His being” (ST I, q. 5, a. 2, obj. 1). Aquinas is careful when responding to this objection to name it a misreading to posit the Dionysian sentiment against his own.Thus he defends Denys’s position:“Dionysius discusses the Divine Names (Div. Nom. i, iii) as implying some causal relation in God; for we name God, as he says, from creatures, as a cause from its effects. But goodness, since it has the aspect of desirable, implies the idea of a final cause” (ST I, q. 5, a. 2, ad 1). Cf. Aquinas, Super De divinis nominibus, cap. 1, l. 3. 169 ST I, q. 5, a. 3: “Every being, as being, is good. For all being, as being, has actuality and is in some way perfect; since every act implies some sort of perfection; and perfection implies desirability and goodness.” 170 Denys, De divinis nominibus, 4.4 (PG 3.700B). 171 I am grateful to Augustine Thompson, O.P., who read the first drafts of this essay, provided generous criticism, and encouraged me to submit it for publication. I would also like to thank Matthew Levering and the editors of Nova et Vetera, as well as Peter M. Candler, Jr., Conor Cunningham,Willis Jenkins, John Milbank, Adrian Pabst, Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., and Adrian J. Walker—all of whom, either through comments on earlier drafts or relevant conversation, contributed to this essay’s published form. All errors are, of course, my own. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 477 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 477–84 477 Quasi in Figura : A Brief Reflection on Jewish Election, after Thomas Aquinas B RUCE D. M ARSHALL Perkins School of Theology Southern Methodist University Dallas,Texas I T IS NOW widely agreed among Christian theologians that being a supersessionist is a bad thing. In rejecting supersessionism—or perhaps better, in hoping we can avoid it—we do not always agree, however, on what it is we are against. Here I think we can usefully take our cues from Nostra Aetate. “God does not repent of the gifts he made to the Jews and his calling of them. They still remain most dear to him for the sake of their fathers”—this, of course, in echo of Romans 11:28–29. So the Jews today, the descendents of the patriarchs, remain God’s elect and beloved. To deny this is supersessionism—to hold that the Jews are no longer God’s elect but are “rejected and accursed.”1 Supersessionism involves, more precisely, the thought that the gifts God gave and the promises God made to the Jews now apply to us, the Church, instead of to the Jews. They have been taken away from the Jews and given to us. The trick, of course, is to follow Nostra Aetate in avoiding this supersessionist thought, while at the same time affirming, also with Nostra Aetate, that “the Church is the new people of God,” that in Jesus Christ all the promises of God, not least his promises to the Jewish people, find their yea and amen (2 Cor 1:20).2 Just how to do this—to believe in the universal primacy of Christ (cf. Col 1:15–20) without being a supersessionist—is far from clear. 1 All from Nostra Aetate §4. My translation from Giuseppe Alberigo et al., eds., Concil- iorum Oecumenicorum Decreta (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane, 1991), 970.26–28; 971.1 2 Nostra Aetate §4; Alberigo, Decreta, 970.38. N&V_Spr09.qxp 478 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 478 Bruce D. Marshall I A theology which seeks support in the Christian tradition for rejecting supersessionism and affirming the permanent election of the Jewish people quickly runs into a problem. It is actually rather difficult to find, in the Christian theological tradition, much interest in the election of Israel. The most basic problem for a post-supersessionist theology is not, as recent Christian reflection on Jewish election often assumes, that the tradition openly rejects God’s continuing election of carnal Israel (to borrow Michael Wyschogrod’s phrase)—God’s irrevocable choice of the family which descends from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be, out of all the nations of the earth, his uniquely treasured possession (cf. Deut 7:6).3 The problem, rather, is that it is difficult to get any traction on the question of Jewish election in the first place.4 Israel’s election usually is not discussed at all, at least in any explicit way, let alone the question whether Jewish election continues after Christ. As sometimes happens when we go looking in the tradition for ideas we have already decided to reject, clear supersessionist claims (for example, that divine election now takes place by new “spiritual” rules rather than the old “carnal” ones) are more difficult to find than we might assume.5 Of course there are passages, especially in the early history of Christian theology, which explicitly repudiate the abiding election of carnal Israel:“You deceive yourselves,” Justin Martyr warns the Jews,“while you fancy that, because you are the seed of Abraham after the flesh . . . you shall fully inherit the good things announced to be bestowed by God through Christ. . . . It becomes you to eradicate this hope from your souls.”6 But texts of this kind are relatively sparse. While Christian theologians across the centuries have a lot to say about the Jews, they rarely reflect openly on the nature and status of Jewish election. One way to get some traction on the election of Israel in the Christian tradition is by attending to the tradition’s ongoing and often very involved discussion of the law of Moses. Theologians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries devoted particular attention to the “old law,” and especially to its “sacraments,” namely circumcision and the Levitical ceremonies.Thomas Aquinas is no exception. 3 See Michael Wyschogrod, The Body of Faith: God and the People Israel, 2nd ed. (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1996). 4 I am grateful to Robert Wilken for pressing this point. 5 More difficult, indeed, than I assumed in my essay “The Jewish People and Christian Theology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, ed. Colin E. Gunton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 81–100, here 83–85. 6 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 44, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, 216b–17a. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 479 Jewish Election and Thomas Aquinas 479 Aquinas’s account of the Mosaic law, however, immediately discourages the thought that he might be a resource in the tradition for postsupersessionist Christian theology. Thomas clearly regards the continued observance of the Torah after Christ as fatal.That is, the vast bulk of the Mosaic legislation, everything in the “old law” which Aquinas considers distinctively Jewish (everything, that is, except the ten commandments), has been set aside by the coming of Christ. More than that: everything which pertains to the worship of God in Israel, the totality of the Levitical cult—what Aquinas calls the “ceremonial law”—is now not only useless, but destructive. After Christ these laws are not simply dead (mortua ), but deadly (mortifera ); those who continue to observe them “now sin mortally” (Summa theologiae I–II, q. 103, a. 4, c; cf. q. 104, a. 3, c).Thomas devotes special attention on this score to circumcision (cf. ST I–II, q. 103, a. 3, ad 4). To be sure, Aquinas sides with Augustine against Jerome, and holds that the Levitical cult did not cast its practitioners into the sin which separates from God all at once; it took some time (cf. ST I–II, q. 103, a. 4, ad 1). But that time is now well past (Super Epistolam ad Galatas Lectura 2, 3, no. 86).7 A person who now, for example, has his son circumcised, in observance of the command which (as Aquinas does not doubt) God gave to Moses, actually disobeys God, and puts in peril both his own salvation and that of his offspring (cf. ST I–II, q. 103, a. 4, sed contra and c.). Aquinas takes this view, which is hardly unique to him, because of the way he understands the rationale (ratio) or purpose (causa) of the Old Testament ceremonies. All of the ceremonies are ways of exhibiting the inward faith of those who practice or engage in them (sunt quaedam protestationes fidei, ST I–II, q. 103, a. 4, c). They attest the faith of those who practice them in two different ways, corresponding to the twofold purpose for which God gave them to Israel.The purpose of the Levitical cult is at once literal and figurative. Literally its ratio is to worship the one true God: to recall the benefits God has bestowed on Israel, to exalt and glorify God, and so forth. Figuratively, its ratio is to point toward and anticipate Christ and the Church, the redeemer to come and the body of which he will be the head (ST I–II, q. 102, a. 2, c).Thus the literal purpose of the Passover celebration is to recall the liberation of God’s elect people 7 The period prior to the promulgation (divulgatio ) of the gospel of Christ was only “a short time” (modico tempore ), apparently equivalent to “the outset of the time of the apostles” (sicut tempus Apostolorum in principio ) (In Gal. 2, 3 [no. 86]), and a period apparently past by the time Paul wrote to the Galatians (cf. In Gal. 5, 1 [no. 280]). Raphael Cai, ed., S.Thomae Aquinatis super epistolas Pauli lectura, vol. 1, 8th ed. (Turin & Rome: Marietti, 1953). N&V_Spr09.qxp 480 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 480 Bruce D. Marshall from Egypt (ST I–II, q. 102, a. 2, ad 1), while its figurative purpose is to sketch out in advance the passion and resurrection of Christ (ST I–II, q. 103, a. 3, ad 4). The literal purpose of circumcision is to signify “the covenant which God had with Abraham” (ST I–II, q. 102, a. 2, ad 1), while its figurative purpose is to point toward the saving union with Christ opened up to all nations in baptism (ST I–II, q. 103, a. 3, ad 4).8 Given this picture, it is not difficult to understand why Aquinas thinks that the continued practice of the Levitical cult after Christ is sin. It belongs to the divinely given purpose of the cult that it points figuratively to Christ. More precisely, for Aquinas, the ceremonial law points pre figuratively to Christ; it anticipates his future advent. To practice this cult is thus inherently to attest one’s faith that Christ will come one day, but has not come yet. To practice this cult now, after Christ has in fact come, is thus inherently to deny Christ, to deny his coming (cf. ST I–II, q. 103, a. 4, c; q. 107, a. 2, ad 1). Of course the ceremonies also have a literal purpose, the worship of the one true God. But since the figurative purpose of the ceremonies now makes it impossible to enact them without mortal sin, and since God cannot, presumably, be worshipped by an act which is mortal sin, it seems as though Israel’s liturgy can no longer succeed in worshipping the God who made a covenant with Abraham: its literal purpose was good only “for that time”—namely, before the coming of Christ (cf. ST I–II, q. 102, a. 2, c). Of course Thomas can and does say that God does not, in all this, “repent” of the gifts he once bestowed on Israel. Their purpose, rather, has been fulfilled. We should be cautious, I think, about taking the idea that the Mosaic law has been fulfilled in Christ and the Church as the solution to our problem about supersessionism. Take, for example, the commonplace that the commandment to circumcise is fulfilled in the act of baptism.This does not mean, it is sometimes argued, that the old law (of circumcision) has been rejected or superseded; rather it has been retained in its very fulfillment.This seems to suggest, though, that what a Jew should do in order to observe God’s command regarding his eight day old son is take him to church and get him baptized. It seems, in other 8 As Thomas’s presentation here shows, the ratio of an act—the reason why the act is performed—should not be confused with the meaning (sensus ) of a text.The literal sense of texts in which God commands circumcision, for example, is that God commands the removal of the foreskin of Israelite males, while the literal ratio of the act of circumcision is to worship the God of Israel.Thomas’s discussion of the literal and figurative ratio of the Old Testament ceremonies (for example, ST I–II, q. 101, a. 2; q. 102, a. 2) is thus not simply a case of the fourfold sensus of scripture at work (cf. ST I, q. 1, a. 10), but deals with a different issue. On this see especially ST I–II, q. 102, a. 2, ad 1. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 481 Jewish Election and Thomas Aquinas 481 words, that on this view the way for Jews to observe the law is to become Christians. Now the notion that the law of Moses finds its complete fulfillment in Christ and the Church is, I think, indispensable for Christianity. But this ancient idea is not the solution to the problem of supersessionism. It is the problem. Thomas himself seems quite clear on this score, and so has no trouble viewing the Church’s rites and sacraments as straightforward replacements for the old ones:“the ceremonies of the law are taken away (tolluntur ) when they are fulfilled” (ST I–II, q. 107, a. 2, ad 1). Thus baptism “succeeds” circumcision, and the celebration of the Easter Triduum “succeeds” the Passover (ST I–II, q. 103, a. 3, ad 4). Thomas says “succedit” here, but he might as well have said “supersedet.” Richard Schenk picks up this point, and argues that Aquinas (unhappily, if we want to get beyond supersessionism) places increasing stress on the figural ratio of the ceremonies, and increasingly de-emphasizes their literal ratio.9 Even if this is the case (which raises exegetical questions I will not pursue here), a greater stress on the literal or “immanent” purpose of the Jewish law will not by itself soften what look like supersessionist implications of Aquinas’s view. One can make as much as one likes of the literal ratio of the Levitical cult. But as long as the saving (that is, justifying) efficacy of the cult depends on its also having a prefigurative ratio— as long as a prefigural purpose is a necessary, even if not sufficient, condition for its saving efficacy—then something like Thomas’s argument against the continued practice of the cult after Christ will still go through. That is,“figural ratio” is just Thomas’s term for the connection the ancient rites have to Christ (however this connection may be conceived in particular cases).Without a tie to Christ these rites can have no saving efficacy, whatever their literal ratio, and however important we think it to be. This it (rightly) never occurs to Thomas to doubt. All sacraments give the one grace of Christ, whether under the old or the new law.10 But here (in ST I–II, q. 103, a. 4), at least, Thomas attributes to the ancient rites an inherent temporal structure which makes it impossible for them to retain their figural ratio after Christ’s advent. They no longer point at 9 See Richard Schenk, O.P.,“Views of the Two Covenants in Medieval Theology,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 891–915; cf. Francis Martin, “Election, Covenant, and Law,” Nova et Vetera 4 (2006): 857–90. This essay was originally presented as a response to the papers by Schenk and Martin at a conference on ChristianJewish dialogue, held at the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, DC. 10 “By observing the sacraments of the law the ancient Fathers were joined to Christ [ferebantur in Christum] by the same faith and love by which we are joined to him” (ST III, q. 8, a. 3, ad 3; cf. I–II, q. 98, a. 2, ad 4; q. 103, a. 2, c; III, q. 61, a. 3, c). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 482 Bruce D. Marshall 482 him, but away from him; they no longer attest faith in his coming, but the denial that he has come. II There is a lot in Thomas’s view of the Jews and Judaism with which the quest for a post-supersessionist Christian theology quickly resonates: his commitment to the eschatological salvation of at least some among Israel, rooted in his conviction that the unfaithfulness of the Jews does not make void the faithfulness of God, who promised to “multiply and magnify” this people (Super Epistolam ad Romanos Lectura, 3, 1, no. 253); his vehement resistance to novel and especially cruel forms of coercion, such as baptizing Jewish children without the knowledge, or against the will, of their parents (cf. ST II–II, q. 10, a. 12).11 Yet his official view of Israel includes, seemingly at its heart, the conviction that by keeping the commandments of the Torah—by continuing to exist, and to be publicly recognizable, as Jews—Abraham’s descendants according to the flesh reject God and exist in opposition to him.12 It is hard to see how this is compatible with the thought that God continues to elect the Jewish people, to will their existence, precisely as Jews (whatever Aquinas may say, exegetically, about God’s faithfulness to the Jews). Yet on just this score there are suggestions of an unofficial view in Thomas, alongside of, and perhaps in striking opposition to, his official view. This comes out in a particularly noteworthy way when Thomas considers the question whether the worship of infidels, unbelievers, should be tolerated by Christians (ST II–II, q. 10, a. 11). In general Christians should tolerate the ritus of unbelievers only when some greater evil would result from trying to get rid of them. But the Jews are an exception to this rule. Even though Jewish worship falls under the general stricture that “unbelievers sin in their worship” (infideles in suis ritibus peccent ), Christians should simply permit this worship, and not attempt to hinder it (ST II–II, q. 10, a. 11, c). The argument Thomas gives for this recommendation is, up to a point, an Augustinian commonplace. Since in the worship of the Jews “the truth of the faith that we hold was at one time prefigured,” something good happens when the Jews practice this worship today, namely that “we have a testimony to the truth of our faith from our enemies.” Aquinas might 11 On both of these points see Marshall, “The Jewish People and Christian Theol- ogy,” 86. 12 By his “official” view I mean what Aquinas (or anybody) says when a question explicitly arises, as distinguished from his “unofficial” view: what he may suggest about the same question when he is dealing with other matters. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 483 Jewish Election and Thomas Aquinas 483 well have stopped there, but instead the argument goes on, and takes an unexpected turn. When the Jews practice their rites, observe the Torah before our eyes,“this represents to us what we ourselves believe, in a kind of figure”—quasi in figura (all from ST II–II, q. 10, a. 11, c). This is not simply the old Augustinian argument that we Christians should leave the Jews their worship in order to show the world that we did not make up the prophecies which we say have been fulfilled in Christ. Rather Aquinas explicitly distinguishes the prefigurative sense of Jewish worship from its present significance, and attaches to Jewish worship, even after Christ—in the synagogues of Paris—a kind of continuing figurative worth. Given the tremendous weight Thomas ascribes to the figurative meaning of Jewish worship before Christ, to say that this worship retains a figurative significance after Christ is not a trivial claim. If Jewish worship even now attests Christian truth in a figurative way, it must somehow still do what it did from the beginning: point to Jesus Christ in its own distinctive fashion, join the faithful worshipper to his incarnation and passion, and so confer the grace of justification (cf. ST I–II, q. 103, a. 2, c; In Gal. 3, 4, no. 145). Obviously, present Jewish worship cannot be a figure of Christian truth if it attests some other Messiah, if it gives figural witness to some other savior besides Jesus Christ. And if Jewish worship still retains its figural ratio, it presumably also retains its literal ratio (that is, reason or purpose), which is to worship the one true God. Jesus Christ cannot, presumably, be figurally attested by worship of a false God, or worship which fails to attain the one true God (and is in that sense false, or at least radically inadequate, worship), quite apart from what seems to be the general dependence of the figural upon the literal for Aquinas. So a lot seems to follow from the thought that Jewish worship after Christ still “represents what we ourselves believe, quasi in figura.” It means that the Jewish people, just by being faithful Jews, by circumcising their sons and celebrating the Passover, (literally) worship the one true God, and (figuratively) his Christ, despite their literal rejection of him. Whether there is any way to harmonize this unofficial undercurrent in Aquinas’s theology with his official position I will not here try to decide.To say that there is ambiguity in Aquinas’s position may be something of an understatement. It is a bit hard to see how Jewish worship could be a denial of Christ (as ST I–II, q. 103, a. 4 says), and at the same time could figurally attest Christ. Thomas seems aware of the difficulty when he says that the Jewish ritus before Christ attests him in figura, without qualification (In Gal. 3, 4, no. 145), while after Christ it attests Christian truth quasi in figura.Thomas never says “quasi” unless he means it, so there must be some difference between the figurative function of the Jewish N&V_Spr09.qxp 484 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 484 Bruce D. Marshall ritus after Christ and its figurative function before Christ. But what that difference is—compatibly with any continued figure—Aquinas does not say. In any case, better a quasi-figure than no figure at all. Have we gained anything with Aquinas’s unofficial view (prescinding from whether there is some way of harmonizing it with his official view)? It takes, after all, a view of Jewish worship which no Jew can endorse.We have gained, I think, at least this:Thomas’s unofficial view allows Jews to be Jews, and precisely thereby to worship the one true God.This much, at least, seems necessary for the claim that the Jews remain God’s elect, and so it seems necessary if we are, with Nostra Aetate, to reject supersessionism. Taking this view does not mean that we Christians construe Jewish worship, and the God we both worship, the same way they do—any more than they construe our worship the way we do. But it locates the issue between Jews and Christians in the right place, and not in a place that denies Jewish election. It locates the difference between Jews and Christians where it truly lies: not in a disagreement over whether the Jews remain God’s elect, but in a disagreement over who the one true God is (the Trinity, or not) and what this God has done with Jesus (raise and exalt him, or not).There, perhaps, we can safely let the matter rest until the one N&V true God brings it to a close in his own good time. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 485 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 485–504 485 The Election of Israel Today: Supersessionism, Post-supersessionism, and Fulfillment E MMANUEL P ERRIER , O.P. * Dominican Studium Toulouse, France I I T IS ALWAYS difficult to arrive in the middle of a discussion. One is exposed to the consequences of one’s naiveté, and one especially risks obscuring the exchanges because one did not follow the first developments, or because of insufficient reflection upon the debated question. That said, it can also happen that a new eye is useful by the very reason of its ingenuousness. In proposing some reflections inspired by reading the response of Bruce Marshall to Francis Martin and Richard Schenk, I hope that at least certain of these reflections will pertain to the second category. In truth, it is not so much participation in a symposium organized by Nova et Vetera that raises on my part these preliminary precautions, as it is the subject itself of this symposium:“supersessionism” is an appellation that does not have an equivalent in my language, French. Not that reflection on the election of Israel after Christ has no place in Frenchspeaking theology,1 where some forms do draw near to supersessionism,2 but it has generally not followed a path as resolute as that defined by Bruce Marshall: “Supersessionism involves, more precisely, the thought that the gifts God gave and the promises God made to the Jews now * Translated by Matthew Levering. 1 Cf. for example Denise Judant, Judaïsme et christianisme. Dossier patristique (Paris: Les Editions du Cèdre, 1969); Jean-Marie Lustiger, La Promesse.“Mes yeux devancent la fin de la nuit pour méditer sur ta promesse” (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2002). 2 For example, C. Focant and A.Wenin,“L’Alliance ancienne et nouvelle,” Nouvelle revue théologique 110 (1988): 850–66. N&V_Spr09.qxp 486 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 486 Emmanuel Perrier, O.P. apply to us, the Church, instead of to the Jews.”3 This definition has the merit of clarity: the central notion of supersessionism is the substitution of the new People of God for the old. On this basis, harmonization with Nostra Aetate is made evidently difficult and one is naturally led to seek to resolve the issue by a position that goes beyond it, what Marshall calls post-supersessionist. However, if I have understood the givens of the discussion thanks to Marshall’s exposition, the supersessionist position continues to appear strange to me and, with it, the post-supersessionist position as well. I see at least three reasons. Is Post-supersessionism the Sole Way Out of Supersessionism? In the first place, supersessionism appears to me to be directly opposed to Romans 11:29: “For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”This is so because to substitute or replace implies that the new takes the place of the old and, on this basis, that the old loses its prerogatives. One could retort that supersessionism does not envision a replacement in strictly identical terms: it is indeed evident that the new Temple that is the Body of Christ is not of the same order as the old Temple of Jerusalem (cf. Jn 2:21:“He spoke of the temple of his body”).There is between the old and the new a relationship of fulfillment that avoids the idea of a pure and simple substitution. Indeed, between substitution and fulfillment, which are two different modes of relationships between realities, the second, it seems to me, should receive the priority in the measure to which it is much more consonant with the revealed given (cf. for example Mt 5:17: “I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them”). Thus it seems preferable to me to ask if the fulfillment of the Old Covenant by the New is reducible to a substitution, rather than to ask how the substitution can integrate the idea of fulfillment. Marshall himself observes that this notion of fulfillment is indispensable to Christianity. And he adds: “But this ancient idea isn’t the solution to the problem of supersessionism. It is the problem” (4). If such is the case, it would be better to reverse the proposition: is supersessionism the solution to the problem of knowing in what consists the fulfillment by Christ of the election of Israel? This is why I am not convinced by the idea that one has to seek a post-supersessionist solution to supersessionism, as if supersessionism is the right way of posing the question of what becomes of the election of Israel. In sum, supersessionism is not presented as a problematic, but as a solution, and this is why its limits call not for a going-beyond but for a revision. 3 Bruce D. Marshall,“Quasi in Figura : A Brief Reflection on Jewish Election, after Thomas Aquinas,” Nova et Vetera 7:2 (2009): 477–84. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 487 Supersessionism, Post-supersessionism, and Fulfillment 487 A Post-supersessionism Without Messianism? In the second place, Marshall seems to return at the end of his article to what he calls the “non-official position” of St. Thomas, consisting in “allowing the Jews to be Jews,” and leaving to the side the question of understanding what this means for the election of Israel after Christ (6). If I understand him, Marshall proposes as a post-supersessionist solution to no longer respond to the question that the supersessionist position raised. To employ a geometric image, supersessionism envisages the relationship between the people of Israel and the Christian people as two segments of a straight line, consecutive one after the other. Post-supersessionism would consist in no longer being occupied with this relationship and in acting as if the two peoples formed two parallel lines (called ultimately to be rejoined at the infinite point, that is to say the Last Judgment). It would be better, Marshall explains, to discuss with the Jews faith in the Trinity or the Resurrection of Christ, rather than to continue to squabble on the point of knowing which one, of our two peoples, is now the elected of God (6). If, on principle, one can only approve this irenic focus on the essential, always preferable to conflicts of heritage, I am not however certain that this settles the difficulty, because the first subject of discussion that we have with the Jews is not the Trinity or the Resurrection but the question of knowing whether Christ is, yes or no, the Messiah announced by the prophets of Israel and the subject of the promise made to Abraham (cf. Gal 3:16ff.). As much for Jews as for Christians, the messianic thematic is at the heart of the faith. And to be questioned on this messianic thematic, from the Christian point of view, is inevitably to put into relationship the Old with the New Covenant, as shown in various ways by the Gospels, then the first Christological discourses narrated by the Acts of the Apostles, and finally the Catholic epistles.The insistence of the New Testament to present to us the figure of the Christ from the angle of fulfillment should have for us the value of a warning: it is not possible to know Christ in truth outside the rootedness of his humanity in the history of Israel. I therefore do not see how our discussions with the Jews could be the discussions of two travelers keeping on one side and the other of a river. It seems to me in fact that Marshall, even when he wishes to avoid it, remains prisoner to the supersessionist manner of reflecting on the relationship between the Church and the promises made to Israel, and this manner consists in locking us in a strict alternative: either there is a relationship of substitution, or there is no relationship. That Marshall does not succeed in avoiding this aporia strengthens me in the idea that supersessionism is incapable of integrating the perspective of fulfillment, which consists neither in a pure and simple substitution, nor in a pure and simple juxtaposition.And if fulfillment does N&V_Spr09.qxp 488 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 488 Emmanuel Perrier, O.P. not seem to Marshall the solution to the problem of supersessionism (3), this is quite simply because fulfillment cannot consist in a substitution, nor can substitution be a form of fulfillment. The impasse into which supersessionism leads us is, however, not without interest: it shows us that the relationship between the Church and Israel cannot be thought on the mode of a relationship between foreign bodies. It is not possible, understood here after the coming of Christ, to ignore that Israel and the Church belong to the unique salvific plan of God, that the second is rooted in the first and fulfills its most fundamental traits. It is necessary, therefore, for us to seek an understanding of our question more fine than the dialectic of all or nothing, which characterizes supersessionism. Is the Dialectic Imposed by Supersessionism Relevant to the Teaching of St. Thomas? In the third place, I have some concern that Marshall has continued to apply this dialectic when taking counsel from St.Thomas. I find evidence of it in the opposition that he discerns between an “official position” and a “non-official position” of Thomas, the one and the other encountered in some questions far apart in the Summa theologiae (cf. 5–6).The thesis is bold. It is based on the fact that in Thomas, concern for synthesis is never transformed into the spirit of system, and that he always prefers to respect all the aspects of a question rather than to reduce the revealed given by forcibly making it fit an artificial theological construction.This intellectual generosity of Aquinas is not for nothing in the capacity of his teaching to serve as a source of inspiration even today. It is not, however, possible to keep to this view:Thomas is by no means a mere collector of good theological ideas that he scribbled one after the other in the miscellany of doctrine. On the contrary, he most manifests his genius in his constant effort to maintain the organic unity of theological discourse despite the difficulties of harmonization of the revealed sources.This characteristic of Thomas’s work proceeds above all from a theological conviction: the object of faith is simple, all the discursivity of our discourse regarding this object—First Truth—comes from the limits of our intelligence.4 This is why the irreducible complexity of theology does not deny that there exists always a principle of order of this complexity, a principle that results from the unity of the object of faith and that a contemplative investigation alone allows one to bring out. Thus I regret that Marshall 4 Cf. for example, Quaestiones de veritate, q. 14, a. 8, ad 12: “quamvis fides sit de complexo quantum ad id quod in nobis est; tamen quantum ad id in quod per fidem ducimur sicut in obiectum, est de simplici veritate.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 489 Supersessionism, Post-supersessionism, and Fulfillment 489 does not try to harmonize what he calls the “official position” and the “non-official position” of Thomas (cf. 6) or, more exactly, that he has not attempted this harmonization before speaking of an “official position” and a “non-official position.” If it happens that Aquinas does not achieve a homogeneous doctrine on a given subject, it is always a good method to verify beforehand that one is truly faced with such a situation. Marshall has assembled in his study the principal places where Thomas evokes the election of Israel in the Summa theologiae, and he has indicated many aspects that hint at conciliation between these texts (such as the difference between in figura and quasi in figura ), but without pursuing his reflection further.The reason for this, it seems to me, is that the hypothesis of opposition corresponded better to what he sought to show, namely that the post-supersessionist position that he proposes validates at the same time that it goes beyond the presuppositions of the supersessionist position. II One will have seen that the essential element of my reservations concerning the article of Bruce Marshall consists in the fact that he does not appear to have gone far enough in the critique of the presuppositions of supersessionism, and that, by way of consequence, he remains prisoner to the too sharp dialectic of supersessionism. Now, it is this dialectic of all or nothing, whatever may be the form, that appears to me to prevent access to the true stakes of the dialogue with Israel as the Second Vatican Council has fixed the terms. Regarding these terms, one could summarize them in the following manner: the more the Church deepens its links with the people of Abraham according to the flesh, the more it renews the knowledge of its universal mission in the sole source of the universality of salvation, who is the Christ. Inversely, the less theology respects the complexity of the relationship that Christianity has with Judaism, the less it integrates the perspective of the fulfillment of the promises made to Israel, and the more it is tempted to seek elsewhere than in the Christ, Word made flesh, the principle of the universality of salvation. In other words, Christ is universal mediator of salvation in his person, that is to say, not only because he is God, but also and indissociably, in that which his humanity has of the more particular, more culturally situated, namely this culture—Jewish—that is the fruit of a sacred history, that is to say, of an election. I concede quite willingly to Marshall that the connection in Christ of the universal mediation with the particular election of Israel is difficult to make clear theologically (cf. 1). But is it not, however, an obligatory connection for those who take the Incarnation seriously? N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 490 Emmanuel Perrier, O.P. 490 Some years ago, Cardinal Ratzinger set himself a quite similar question at a conference that took place in Israel and was later published: “Can Christian faith, retaining its inner power and dignity, not only tolerate Judaism but accept it in its historic mission? Or can it not?”5 The Cardinal remarked in effect that if one separated Christianity from the Old Testament, then not only would the God of Israel become for us, Christians, a strange God, but in addition Christian identity itself would be affected: the center of our faith would no longer be Christ; it would be reduced to the universal message of Christ.The person of Christ, the fact of his historical rootedness, no longer could be the universal source of salvation but, quite to the contrary, it would become a curb to the universality of the message of salvation.This renewed form of Marcionism is not a fantasy.There is a way of opposing the historical Jesus to the Jesus of faith, or of making Christ the bearer of the liberty of faith, the radical contradictor of the observances of Judaism, which leads in theological practice to the denial of the unity of biblical Revelation. The Gospels, in contrast, show us a quite different reality. On the one hand, Christ perfectly fulfills the Law by conforming to it completely as only the Just One can do, to the point of being able to fulfill the Law in the place of all sinners and of taking on himself the “curse of the Law” (Gal 3:13). His death on the Cross, which makes vain all the sacrifices commanded by the Law, does not make them vain by repudiating them or by scorning them, but on the contrary, through an intimate solidarity with the Law and with Israel: Christ celebrates the Pasch with his disciples, before dying at the moment when the pascal lamb is slain in the Temple. On the other hand, by reminding us that all the Law and the prophets depend on the twofold commandment of love of God and of neighbor, Christ opens membership to the children of Abraham to all those who enter into “the will of God in which moral commandment and profession of the oneness of God are indivisible.”6 “Jesus broadened the Law, wanted to open it up, not as a liberal reformer, not out of a lesser loyalty to the Law, but in strictest obedience to its fulfillment, out of his being one with the Father in whom alone Law and promise are one and in whom Israel could become blessing and salvation for the nations.”7 Put otherwise, it is not by abandoning the particular election of Israel that Christ universally bears salvation, but by broadening it to the dimensions of the world: “The history of Israel should become the history of 5 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Many Religions—One Covenant: Israel, the Church and the World, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 24. 6 Ibid., 34. 7 Ibid., 39. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 491 Supersessionism, Post-supersessionism, and Fulfillment 491 all, Abraham’s sonship is to be extended to the ‘many’.”8 The election of Israel is not abolished but enlarged to all the worshippers in Spirit and in truth of the true God, revealed in Jesus Christ.This interior transformation of election was possible in the measure to which the faith of Israel, because it was faith in the one God, Creator of the world and of all human beings, already envisioned universality.“Since it is devoted to the one God of all men, it also bore within itself the promise to become the faith of all nations. But the Law, in which it was expressed, was particular, quite concretely directed to Israel and its history; it could not be universalized in this form.”9 The particular election of Israel, therefore, does not have to be opposed to the universal mission of the Church, either by substitution, or by juxtaposition: it is found at the source of this universal mission, in Christ, and it follows that its consideration is indispensable for attaining to the true notion of Christian universality. By re-centering on Christ the reflection concerning the relationships between Jews and Christians, the future Benedict XVI makes us attentive to the following fact: the particular relationship that Christians hold with the Jewish people, through which is recognized the singularity of the Jewish people among all the peoples, cannot consist in another relationship than the one that Christ holds with the people from which he comes according to the flesh. Certainly, this relationship takes different cultural forms over the epochs, and it is weighed down by the burdens of a tumultuous past, but the theological principles that we apply are and should remain fundamentally Christological: if we are, we also, “Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:29), this is uniquely considered as “sons of God, through faith” (Gal 3:26). How, then, to characterize the relationship between Christ and Israel? Christ is the one in whom all the promises of God have their amen (cf. 2 Cor 1:20), their realization. Having been subjected to the Law, announced by the prophets, he has by his life and by his death carried to their fulfillment the messianic, prophetic, and royal figures; he has offered in his body the perfect sacrifice and this body has become the new Temple. Otherwise put, Christ is the perfect terminus of the Old Testament Revelation. He is the terminus in the sense that all that preceded him was an announcement, a preparation, a pedagogy for his coming.And he is the perfect terminus in the sense that what preceded Christ was incapable of supplying what he alone supplied. 8 Ibid., 27.This is also the conviction of Cardinal Lustiger. Cf. Lustiger, La Promesse, 99 and 127:“baptism, from the fact that it incorporates into Christ, is equally an ‘incorporation into Israel.’ ”This is why “the mystery of Israel is indissolubly the mystery of Christians.” 9 Ratzinger, Many Religions—One Covenant, 38. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 492 8:47 AM Page 492 Emmanuel Perrier, O.P. Thus whilst Israel is for us the witness of this divine pedagogy that introduces us to the understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation and of the redemption in Christ Jesus, it remains only that: the witness of this pedagogy. Israel is for us the indispensable figure that leads us to the knowledge and love of Christ, but it is only the figure of a reality that goes beyond it by fulfilling it. To say that Israel is the figure of the reality who is Christ means consequently two things, which should be clearly distinguished: First, the figure is a pedagogy of the reality, it clarifies it, it disposes us to receive it, and this on two levels: • On the one hand, Israel has among all the peoples been chosen in order to prepare the coming of the Word in the flesh. From this point of view, Israel has a unique and incommunicable role in the history of salvation: to be the figure of Christ. • On the other hand, subjectively, the history of Israel as it was transmitted to us in the Revelation of the Old Testament possesses for every human being a propaedeutic value for knowing and encountering Christ in truth. From this point of view, Israel is a figure in as much as it is a common past to every human being who seeks to encounter Christ. In this way the present Israel, as it exists and has developed after Christ, is not the figure of the Messiah to come, but the present witness of the past figure: its existence and its permanence attest to the truth of the figure, they attest to the fact that the figure of which the Old Testament tells us is not a myth; but its development after Christ means that the present Israel does not perfectly overlap with the Israel of which the Old Testament tells us.10 Second, the figure is also distinguished from the reality from the point of view of efficacy: it is not capable of procuring for us what the reality procures for us. Christ is the unique savior of all human beings, by consequence including the Jews (cf. for example Acts 4:12). • The institutions of the Old Testament and the Law were therefore— and are still—by themselves incapable of causing salvation (cf. for example Heb 7:19: “the law made nothing perfect”). From this point of view, the coming of Christ has changed nothing. 10 The fact that Israel is no longer the figure of the Word to come in our flesh, but only the present witness of the past figure, leaves intact the question of understanding whether Israel still possesses today the character of a figure. I will return to this question below. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 493 Supersessionism, Post-supersessionism, and Fulfillment 493 • However, insofar as they prefigured Christ and his salvific work, they guided toward Christ and disposed the heart of the just to live according to his grace. The descendants of Abraham were thus opened to salvation by faith in the one who was to come (cf. Gal 3:6ff.).This is why, if the Jewish institutions and Law did not cause salvation by themselves, insofar as they were attached to Christ and to his work, they were that through which salvation was given to the Jews. From this point of view, the coming of Christ changed something: to remain faithful to Judaism despite Christ, is to prefer the figure to the reality, and to give to the figure the value that belongs only to the reality. It is necessary here to distinguish between the evolution of the Jewish tradition and the situation of each Jew: • After the coming of Christ, Judaism has continued to enrich its tradition, sometimes consciously against Christianity. Thus the Jewish institutions and Law, as they are comprised and transmitted today, no longer possess the same openness to Christ that they possessed before Christ.11 • From the subjective point of view, each Jew following in good faith his tradition is led toward Christ and receives Christ’s grace in the measure to which this tradition conserves its right orientation toward Christ. He cannot remain in good faith if, arriving at explicit knowledge of Christ, he continues to prefer what he henceforth perceives as being only a figure of Christ. The various theological principles that I have rapidly set forth would call for a number of complementary developments. But they suffice to outline an alternative position to supersessionism and post-supersessionism, a position whose importance and range go beyond the question of the relationship of the Church and Israel. The central idea of this position is found in the following affirmation: if there is a unique Savior, there 11 Perhaps it is necessary to make this point more precise. There has undeniably been an evolution of the tradition of Israel after Christ and the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. For example, the rites have been adapted to the new situation of Israel, messianism has become more exclusively eschatological, and some interpretative traditions such as those set forth in the Talmud have been crystallized.Thus it is no longer as evident today for a Jew to recognize in Christ the fulfillment of the Law announced by the prophets.That said, the particularity of this enrichment is that it is joined to the Old Testament Revelation without being inserted into it, that it limits itself to the comprehension and the transmission of this Revelation. Put otherwise, the Jewish tradition after Christ remains always conscious of its secondary character in relation to Revelation. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 494 8:47 AM Page 494 Emmanuel Perrier, O.P. can only be one single economy of salvation and one single Church of Christ. Far from being an obvious position, the correlation of the three onenesses rests on two convictions: • On the one hand, each of the terms is Christocentric: Christ is the sole Savior by reason of the mystery of his person, where his humanity is the conjoined instrument of his divinity; the economy of salvation is one because it is the work that Christ accomplishes by the power of his Spirit, according to the benevolent plan of the Father; the Church is one because it is the mystical Body of Christ. Thus, there is only one Savior, one work, and one Body, as summed up by the mystery of the Pasch of Christ. • On the other hand, the oneness of the economy and the oneness of the Church are a necessary consequence of the oneness of the Savior.This results from their Christocentric definition.This twofold derivation requires for theology the task of making explicit in what manner the grace of salvation is offered to all human beings, in space and time, and how all those who receive this grace and live it belong to the mystical Body of Christ. The difficulties that the theology of religions encounters after the Second Vatican Council show that this task is hardly easy. One notes that faced with difficulties, the recurring temptation among theologians is to strain or question the connection between Christology, economy, and ecclesiology. One can justify this critical trend by concluding that these difficulties are the sign that Vatican II made a mistake: either by an excess of openness in not excluding completely from salvation those who are not sacramentally baptized, or by narrowness in not recognizing a plurality of paths of salvation, of revelations, and of religions uniting human beings in communities. These two contrary reactions offer the seduction of a facile solution. And it seems to me that the supersessionist and postsupersessionist positions, as Marshall presents them, engage us respectively in one or the other reactions. (Is this not the reason why Marshall, conscious that these positions remain unsatisfactory, is very prudent in his argumentation and his conclusions?) But the current difficulties in uniting Christology, economy, and ecclesiology can lead us to another conclusion. After all, it might also be that Vatican II was more advanced than the theology, or, more precisely, the theology of religions had not yet attained the degree of profundity necessary for interpreting the Magisterium of Vatican II: if we do not succeed in holding the connection between the oneness of the Savior, N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 495 Supersessionism, Post-supersessionism, and Fulfillment 495 the oneness of the economy, and the oneness of the Church, perhaps this is due to the fact that we still possess an insufficiently Christocentric conception of each of these terms. Seen from this angle, the work of theology of religions is not anecdotal, or secondary, in relation to more fundamental dogmatic questions; on the contrary, it draws us back to the heart of Christian faith. And this is why, even if I do not accept the conclusions, the reflections of Bruce Marshall are so stimulating. III Up to now, I have left to the side what constitutes the more developed part of Marshall’s article, namely the exegesis of Thomistic doctrine. It was preferable not to make rest on St.Thomas all the weight of a determination concerning the supersessionist and post-supersessionist positions, since these positions in themselves raise some difficulties independent of the thought of Aquinas.That said, the theological principles that I have proposed in the preceding section have St. Thomas for their principal source. In order not to lengthen too much my exposition, I will present some complementary observations. It seems to me important first of all to recall that St. Thomas did not develop a theology of religions for itself. If he sought to inform himself about the believers in contact with Christendom—the Jews and the Muslims—his preoccupations concerning them were not ours.12 The same judgment should be made regarding his theology of history:13 it is undeniable that Aquinas possesses “at least an embryonic historical hermeneutic,”14 and similarly it is uncontestable that he develops, notably in the treatise on the Law in the Summa theologiae, a theological outline of the periods of salvation history. But here again, he offers us only an outline of a perspective the importance of which would only appear after him.We are therefore reduced to gleaning here and there, and consequently we should take care not only with regard to the context of the texts to which we appeal, but also to their limited scope. Thus Marshall has good reason to turn to the treatise on the Old Law “to get some traction on the election 12 Cf. Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P.,“Ecclesia Judaeorum —Quelques jugements positifs de saint Thomas d’Aquin à l’égard des juifs et du judaïsme,” in Les philosophies morales et politiques au Moyen Âge.Actes du IXe congrès international de Philosophie médiévale, vol. 3, ed. B. Carlos Bazán, E. Andújar, and L. G. Sbrocchi (New York: LEGAS, 1995), 1732–41; Jean-Pierre Torrell, “Saint Thomas et les non-chrétiens,” Revue Thomiste 106 (2006): 17–49. 13 Cf. Max Seckler, Le salut et l’histoire. La pensée de saint Thomas d’Aquin sur la théologie de l’histoire (Paris, Cerf, 1967). 14 Jean-Pierre Torrell, “Saint Thomas et l’histoire,” Revue Thomiste 105 (2005): 355–409, at 407. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 496 Emmanuel Perrier, O.P. 496 of Israel in the Christian tradition” (2). But he does not seem to me to accord enough importance to the fact that, for St.Thomas, (1) the promise is not fulfilled in the same way the Law is fulfilled, and that (2) the fulfillment of the Old Law by Christ is not realized in a homogeneous manner. Concerning the first point, I will content myself with placing side by side two significant texts: The Gentiles who were converted to Christ were not joined to another church different from the church of the Jews, but were grafted on to the existing olive tree and church.15 The New Law is compared to the Old as the perfect to the imperfect. Now everything perfect fulfils that which is lacking in the imperfect. And accordingly the New Law fulfils the Old by supplying that which was lacking in the Old Law.16 These two texts describe contrary movements: the new is integrated into the old in one case, the old is integrated into the new in the other. Is this the sign of a contradiction in the doctrine of Aquinas? In reality, these two movements proceed from one single thesis: the old and the new do not mutually exclude each other, they are integrated the one in the other. How is it, then, that this integration is not effected in the same direction? St. Thomas furnishes us the correct explanation before the second text: this belongs to the nature of the law, which “ordains human conduct to some end.”17 Thus two laws are differentiated when they have different ends. If their end is the same, then their relationship will be a relationship of perfection, according as the one is nearer to the end than the other. “All the differences assigned between the Old and New Laws are gathered from their relative perfection and imperfection.”18 This is because the Old Law and the New Law have in common “man’s subjection to God.”19 It follows that one can indeed inverse the direction of the integration between the Old Law and the New Law, and say that the New Law is contained in the Old Law, since the New Law only carries the guiding principles to their perfection:20 just as the Gentiles were integrated into the Church of the Jews, the Church was brought to its perfection. 15 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, vol. 2, trans. Fabian Larcher, O.P. (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s Publications, 1999), no. 2481 (p. 591). 16 Summa theologiae I–II, q. 107, a. 2. 17 ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1. 18 ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1, ad 2. 19 ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1. 20 Cf. ST I–II, q. 107, a. 2: “Sicut genus continent species potestate . . . per hunc modum nova lex continetur in veteri.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 497 Supersessionism, Post-supersessionism, and Fulfillment 497 This little example helps us understand the following point: God gives salvation through created mediations (the Law, the priesthood, the king, election, promise, Church . . .), and these mediations were instituted in two times, the first being the figure of the second. From this point of view, the relationship between these two times is always the same, consisting in a fulfillment. But this same relationship differs with respect to the manner in which the fulfillment is accomplished, according to the nature of the mediation that one envisions. It is therefore not necessary to conclude too quickly from apparently divergent texts that St. Thomas holds at the same time two contradictory positions. These divergences come in reality from the fact that fulfillment concerns realities of different natures. The same reasoning applies with regard to the second point: there are different modes of fulfillment at the very heart of the Old Law. St. Thomas distinguishes quite consciously the moral precepts, the ceremonial precepts, and the judicial precepts, not with a taxonomic purpose in mind but because their mode of fulfillment is not identical.21 “The Old Law is said to be for ever simply and absolutely, as regards its moral precepts; but as regards the ceremonial precepts it lasts for ever in respect of the reality which those ceremonies foreshadowed.”22 This is why the Decalogue, which only expressed the natural law, subsists as such, and with it all the other moral precepts that reduce to it,23 whereas baptism succeeds (succedit ) circumcision since the latter only was a figure.24 With respect to the judicial precepts, they have been “rendered empty by the coming of Christ: yet not in the same way as the ceremonial precepts,”25 in the measure to which they were not essentially and immediately figurative as were the ceremonial precepts.26 Thus, after Christ, the natural law remains unchanged, the cult is totally renewed by the work of Christ, and the judicial system applying to the people loses its obligatory force. Such changes are radical from the point of view of the materiality of the precepts, and yet they do not constitute an abolition of the Old Law, in 21 Cf. ST I–II, q. 99, a. 5. 22 ST I–II, q. 103, a. 3, ad 1:“Lex vetus dicitur esse in aeternum, secundum moralia quidem, simpliciter et absolute, secundum caeremonialia vero, quantum ad veritatem per ea figuratam.” 23 Cf. ST I–II, q. 100, aa. 1, 3, 11. 24 Cf. ST I–II, q. 103, a. 3, ad 4, with regard to Christian feasts that succeed the Jewish feasts: “Beneficia illi populo exhibita, significant beneficia nobis concessa per Christum. Unde festo phase succedit festum passionis Christi et resurrectionis.” 25 ST I–II, q. 104, a. 3:“Iudicialia praecepta non habuerunt perpetuam obligationem, sed sunt evacuata per adventum Christi, aliter tamen quam caeremonialia.” 26 Cf. ST I–II, q. 104, aa. 2, 3. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 498 Emmanuel Perrier, O.P. 498 the measure to which the finality of the Old Law is attained by the New Law in a perfect manner.27 This is indeed always a matter of the one and only fulfillment, but the modality of the fulfillment differs. We are here at the heart of the alternative position to supersessionism and post-supersessionism: by elaborating in great detail a veritable theology of the fulfillment of the Old Law, St. Thomas reveals himself to be particularly attentive to showing the economic unity of the history of salvation, beyond the decisive transition that consists in the coming of Christ.The economy receives this unity from its center, which is also its perfection: Christ, and the grace that he gives to those who turn toward him. By showing this unity, Aquinas sets in place the foundations of the two great parts that follow the prima secundae of the Summa theologiae : the life of grace in man, which determines his conformation to Christ (II–II), and the person and work of the Savior, who gives grace notably in the sacraments (III).This perspective of Aquinas does not immediately touch our subject, in the measure to which it does not make explicit the status of Israel after Christ, but only how Israel before Christ leads to Christ. However, its importance for our subject is crucial: it furnishes us the two theological principles that govern the relationship between Israel and the Church, and that I have described in the preceding section. On the one hand, Israel is the indispensable figure that leads us to Christ. On the other hand, Christ alone gives salvation, and the institutions of the Old Covenant only insofar as they lead to Christ. These two principles permit us to unravel the last difficulties evoked by Marshall: objectively, to practice after Christ the Jewish ceremonies and to promulgate anew the judicial precepts of the Old Law in the name of their divine institution amounts to denying to Christ his mission of Savior and therefore to refusing to recognize him as the source of all grace.28 There is therefore mortal sin. The reason is simple: “nothing save mortal sin hinders us from receiving Christ’s fruit.”29 That which requires here the severity of the solution of St. Thomas is not a particular animosity against Judaism, nor the wish to deny the permanence of the election of Israel, but quite simply the fact that it is impossible for man to approach to beatitude without grace, and that grace only can come from Christ.The precepts of the Old Covenant are therefore not objected to in themselves because they are now after Christ; they are objected to because they can 27 Cf. ST I–II, q. 107, a. 2. 28 For the ceremonies, cf. ST I–II, q. 103, a. 4; for the judicial precepts, cf. ST I–II, q. 104, a. 3. 29 ST I–II, q. 103, a. 4, sed contra : “Nihil excludit fructum Christi nisi peccatum mortale.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 499 Supersessionism, Post-supersessionism, and Fulfillment 499 now be used for refusing Christ. It is here that it is necessary not to forget the subjective dimension of all sin, with respect to whether it is mortal or not: to practice the Old Law after Christ amounts objectively to refusing its fulfillment in Christ, but subjectively, this practice may not result from a conscious refusal of Christ.Thus a Jew can be completely unaware of the existence of Christ, and consequently practice his religion with a perfectly good conscience without any sin.30 But more frequently, the situation is otherwise: while knowing some rudiments concerning Christ, a Jew lives according to the Old Law not because he would reject Christ, but because he has been prevented from recognizing in him the Messiah for all kinds of reasons—the weight of his tradition, the weight of the conflictual history with Christians, anti-Semitism, etc. In this case, where invincible ignorance is the cause of the act, there is absolutely no sin, neither mortal nor venial.31 It is necessary, therefore, to keep in view the qualification by St. Thomas regarding mortal sin with respect to the observance of the obsolete precepts of the Old Law: practically, it concerns first, and almost exclusively, Christians who would attempt to “judaize.” Although here again I have not followed Marshall in his conclusions, I share his interest in the thought of Aquinas and appreciate the generous reading that he has undertaken. As I said in concluding the preceding section, the work of theology of religions is not secondary: it brings us back to the heart of Christology and ecclesiology in order to probe the most profound principles. In this crucible, few theological traditions are not consumed, as shown by the “twists and turns” and shortcomings in the midst of which we work today. In a surprising manner, the doctrine of St. Thomas here is revealed on the contrary not only resisting such errors, but as capable of guiding us toward solutions at the same time innovative and respectful of the Tradition.32 IV In short, the stimulating reflection of Bruce Marshall has led me to two responses: a critique and a proposition. My critique, to repeat it here, consists in the fact that supersessionism rests on a poor manner of presenting the problem of the election of Israel 30 Cf. ST I–II, q. 6, a. 8. 31 Cf. ST I–II, q. 76, aa. 2, 3.This does not obviate the exigency, on pain of sin, of seeking to know Christ as soon as the least doubt surfaces, weakening the invincibility of the ignorance: see ST I–II, q. 88, a. 6, ad 2. 32 One could verify this in the recent proceedings of the conference of the I.S.T.A. on St. Thomas and the theology of religions, which appeared in Revue Thomiste 106 (2006), no. 1–2. N&V_Spr09.qxp 500 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 500 Emmanuel Perrier, O.P. after Christ, because it imposes upon us an understanding of fulfillment in terms of discontinuity, whereas the notion of fulfillment designates primarily a certain continuity. Marshall’s response to supersessionism appears insufficient to me because it continues to privilege discontinuity, and falls into the opposite extreme from that which it seeks to avoid. Neither the substitution of one election for another (supersessionism), nor a duality of parallel elections (post-supersessionism) can constitute forms of fulfillment of one reality by another. The study of St. Thomas offers a confirmation of this: when one approaches his doctrine with discontinuity as the interpretive key, one has the impression of an irreducible tension between contrary affirmations (between an official position and a non-official position). These apparent contradictions vanish when one perceives that St. Thomas develops a unified and coherent doctrine of fulfillment, in which the unique fulfillment realized by Christ occurs in modalities particular to each fulfilled reality. In sum, one only goes beyond supersessionism by otherwise posing the problem that it seeks to resolve, namely by asking in what the continuity of the election of Israel can consist after the coming of Christ. In order to respond to this question, I suggested that it is necessary for us to return to the most firm point of departure that we possess: Christ is the sole savior of all human beings, of Jews as of Gentiles; he is by consequence the center of the one economy of salvation and the head of his one mystical Body. Put otherwise, the question of the status of the election of Israel before as well as after Christ should be resolved through the relationship existing between the election of Israel and the person of Christ,Word made flesh at the heart of his elect people.This relationship is twofold: On the one hand, from Israel to Christ the relationship is that of the figure with respect to the reality that it prefigures: the election of Israel was the path chosen by God for preparing all of humanity for the Incarnation and redemption.This unique and past role of Israel continues today in the measure to which it is by the sacred history of Israel that we are led to know and love Christ.The Church “is nourished from the root of the good olive tree.”33 And because this figure is indispensable for approaching Christ, the perdurance of Israel today is itself also, so to say, indispensable for the proclamation of the Gospel.As St.Thomas puts it:“The Jews are like our letter carriers, keeping the books that bear witness to our faith”; “Christ and the Church have received in every place from the books of the Jews the testimony to Christian faith, in order to convert the 33 Second Vatican Council, Nostra Aetate, §4:“[Ecclesia] nutriri radice bonae olivae.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 501 Supersessionism, Post-supersessionism, and Fulfillment 501 nations.”34 Israel is therefore the present witness of the past figure, and this value of witness is correlative to election. From this point of view, the perdurance of the election of Israel is complementary and necessary to the call of all human beings to conversion to Christ in the Church. On the other hand, from Christ to Israel the relationship is that of the Savior to all those who are open to his grace, whether they belong to the Church by sacramental baptism, or whether they belong to the Church invisibly. To this openness to the grace of Christ, the Jews are helped by their religious tradition, as are all the believers of other religions, that is to say, insofar as their tradition disposes them to know and love Christ, and does not prevent them from it. From the point of view of the general principle according to which only faith in Christ saves, the Jews are not therefore in a different situation from other human beings, because the Law, while given by God, brings nothing to perfection by itself.35 One is saved insofar as one belongs to Christ; belonging to the elect people changes nothing as regards this fundamental given of faith. St.Thomas returns many times in his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans to the fact that the great multitude of the people of Israel have not obtained what they sought, namely justice, but that only those Jews who continue to render true worship to God are elect of Christ: belonging to the Jewish people, beneficiary of election in the Old Covenant, does not suffice for being the beneficiary of election in the New Covenant.36 However, it is necessary immediately to make precise this principle, because it is clear that it does not suffice: while it is indeed certain that neither the sacraments of Judaism nor the Law causes grace by itself, and that they are in this sense in the same situation as the other texts, rites, and practices of the great religious traditions, it is also necessary to account for the specificity of the institutions of Israel, which have been willed by God in view of preparing for salvation by Christ, and which the Jewish tradition has substantially preserved. In what way is a Jew practicing his religion led more surely to Christ the Savior than a Muslim or a Hindu practicing his religion? The difference consists, in my view, in the distinction between the figure of Christ and the seeds of the Word.The seeds of the Word are present 34 In Rom., cap. 9, lect. 2, v. 13 (761):“Iudaei sunt nostri capsarii, custodientes libros ex quibus nostrae fidei testimonium perhibetur”; In Rom., cap. 11, lect. 2, v. 11 (881):“Et sic Christus et Ecclesia ubique a libris Iudaeorum testimonium habuit fidei Christianae, ad convertendos gentiles qui suspicari potuissent prophetias de Christo, quas praedicatores fidei inducebant, esse confictas, nisi probarentur testimonio Iudaeorum.” 35 Cf. for example, In Rom., cap. 9, lect. 5, v. 31 (809–10). 36 Cf. for example, In Rom., cap. 11, lect. 1, v. 8 (872); cap. 11, lect. 4, v. 25 (915). N&V_Spr09.qxp 502 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 502 Emmanuel Perrier, O.P. in the very imperfect works of man in search of salvation. They are precious stones of expectation of the Gospel deposited in traditions that, otherwise, lead away from Christ.This is why these traditions have need of being “clarified and purified” by the proclamation of the Gospel.37 Such is not the case with the traditions of Judaism, which, while amplified or subtracted from after Christ, always conserve as their foundation the Old Testament Revelation. St. Thomas cites three privileges of the Jews over the Gentiles: the worship of God, by the fulfillment of which the Jews are called the people of God; the love of election that consists in a special grace; and the release from original sin by circumcision.38 It is fitting here to add the gift of the Law, by the observance of which the Jews are led rightly to love God and their neighbor. Through all these privileges accorded in prefiguration of the salvation coming from Christ, the Jews are therefore disposed without error to receive his grace: the worship rendered to God is truthful insofar as it accords with Revelation, the observance of the Law rightly perfects the subject insofar as it consists in the love of God and of neighbor, and “their faith is the same as ours.”39 Thus, although it signaled the extension of the promises to all humanity, the coming of Christ did not annul these privileges but strengthens them, because it manifests their raison d’être and their goal. In sum, the situation of Israel after Christ is not different from the situation of other religions, from the point of view of the efficiency of salvation, but it is radically different as regards the means by which salvation is conferred: among all the religious traditions, only the Jewish tradition disposes, by itself, to sanctification by Christ insofar as it does not stray from its figurative value. By contrast, the other religious traditions do not dispose, by themselves, to sanctification by Christ: the only figure is that which prepares for the visible mission of the Word in our flesh.The religious traditions other than the Jewish tradition only dispose to sanctification by the seeds scattered by the Word which they have received. My proposition concerning the present status of the election of Israel consists, therefore, in always relating Israel to its value of figure of salva37 Second Vatican Council, Ad Gentes, §3:“Haec enim incepta indigent illuminari et sanari”; §15: “Spiritus Sanctus, qui omnes hominess per semina Verbi praedicationemque Evangelii ad Christum vocat et in cordibus obsequium fidei suscitat.” 38 Cf. In Rom., cap. 9, lect. 5, v. 25 (799).When he comments on “salvation is from the Jews” ( Jn 4:22), Thomas gives three reasons for this affirmation: while the pagans were in error, the Jews dwelt in the doctrine of the truth; prophecy and the other gifts of the Holy Spirit have been given first to them; Christ is born from the Jews according to the flesh. Cf. In Ioan., cap. 4, lect. 2, v. 22 (606). 39 In Ps. 2, no. 7:“Eadem enim est fides eorum et nostra.” Also In Ioan., cap. 4, lect. 2, v. 22 (605). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 503 Supersessionism, Post-supersessionism, and Fulfillment 503 tion. Israel is the witness of the figure by which we are led to Christ, and the witness to the truthfulness of the divine promises; Israel is, through the gifts that have been made to it, the figure disposing the Jews to sanctification by Christ. For these two reasons, the election of Israel is neither incompatible (supersessionism) nor foreign (post-supersessionism) to the election of all the saints in the one Church of Christ.The two elections are, on the contrary, tightly connected, to the point that the perdurance of Israel today should be received by Christians as a reminder: just as God is faithful to the promises made to Abraham, so also Christ will keep the promise that he has made to the Church to conserve it whole and unshakable until his return in glory.This last point leads me to add a third reason for the permanence of the election of Israel today40: one can think that, as the watchman awaiting the dawn, Israel remains a present figure in the eschatological expectation of the second coming of Christ, of that moment when all the history of salvation will be consummated in glory. Thus, just as Israel before Christ was ordered to the fulfillment of the promises in Christ, so also Israel after Christ recalls for the Church the N&V actuality of Christ’s promise regarding his second coming. 40 This question was suggested to me by Fr. Benoît-Dominique de la Soujeole, O.P. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 504 N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 505 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 505–22 505 Quasi in figura : A Cosmological Reading of the Thomistic Phrase T RENT P OMPLUN Loyola College in Maryland Baltimore, Maryland S UPERSESSIONISM has been widely decried in certain circles of theology, and rightly so. But many have been so quick to root it out of theology that one may wonder precisely what we oppose and what we leave in its wake. While the Magisterium has clearly repudiated antiSemitism, the Church has left the task of constructing a positive account of Israel’s gifts to her theologians. This has proved to be a challenging task.The theologian, who cannot ignore that Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life” ( Jn 14:6), must walk a tightrope. A step to the left, and he denies that Christ is the fulfillment of the Law and prophets (Mt 5:17); a step to the right, and he denies God’s irrevocable gifts to Israel (Rom 11:28).The Pontifical Biblical Commission’s statement The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible describes this balancing act as follows: The notion of fulfillment is an extremely complex one, one that could easily be distorted if there is a unilateral insistence either on continuity or discontinuity. Christian faith recognizes the fulfillment, in Christ, of the Scriptures and the hopes of Israel, but it does not understand this fulfillment as a literal one. Such a conception would be reductionist. In reality, in the mystery of Christ crucified and risen, fulfillment is brought about in a manner unforeseen. It includes transcendence.1 Complex indeed; one need not be the sharpest tool in the shed to recognize that this statement—with its appeal to continuity, discontinuity, 1 The Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001), §21. N&V_Spr09.qxp 506 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 506 Trent Pomplun reductionism, and transcendence—could be interpreted in several different, even mutually contradictory, ways, but it highlights the exegetical crux of our problem nonetheless. Salvation has a temporal structure that eludes us; even with the eyes of faith, we see through a glass darkly. Its figure is the proverbial mystery wrapped in an enigma; we cannot approach it without compounding the mystery of God’s saving mercy with the well-known paradoxes of time. The philosopher may well exclaim, with Augustine, that he knows very well what time is—until someone asks—but we have been charged to give an account of our faith to anyone who asks, philosopher or not. One of the most challenging test cases of such complexity is the question of Israel’s practice of Law after the coming of Christ. As Bruce Marshall’s excellent reflection indicates, the question of the continued significance of the Law—a question famously debated by Jerome and Augustine—drags us into thickets surrounding the “inherent temporal structure” of salvation. In what follows, I will offer some of my own reflections on the continued significance of the Law, which have been occasioned by Marshall’s essay. I will begin by placing Aquinas’s “unofficial” position in the larger Augustinian tradition of Israel as a “witness people.” After purging this older Augustinian tradition of elements that are incompatible with the present Magisterium on the election of Israel, I will then offer my own reflections on the Thomistic teaching that remains.The “figure” of Israel, I will argue, is best considered as a transhistorical reality, embodied in the mystical conception of the Law as given by angels. If we prayerfully attend to this mystery, I think we may catch a glimpse, beyond the irreducible complexity of our own history, of the more simple mystery of God’s mercy. Bruce Marshall on Thomas Aquinas As Marshall indicates,Aquinas believes that Levitical worship was not only dead (mortua), but death-dealing (mortifera). Even though Aquinas agreed with Augustine against Jerome that Levitical worship became deadly to its practitioners only with time, that time is now well past, and those who practice the precepts of the Law are guilty of mortal sin.And so the sacraments of the New Law, containing the very grace that they signify, replace the sacraments of the Old Law, which merely attested to the Jews’ faith in a Messiah to come. Before Christ’s advent, Levitical worship signified this faith in a twofold manner. Literally, the cult displayed the Israelites’ worship of the one, true God; figuratively, the cult pointed prophetically to the coming of Christ. But—and this is an important caveat—Aquinas believes a Jew who practices the Law sins mortally even as he worships the N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 507 A Cosmological Reading of Quasi in Figura 507 one, true God. Since Levitical worship attests to a prefigurative faith in Christ’s advent, to worship in such a way after Christ has indeed come is to deny, at least implicitly, that He is the promised Messiah. Because Christ alone is the mediator between God and man, the literal ratio of Levitical worship is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for saving grace.The figurative ratio is equally necessary, and the Jew who denies Christ, implicitly or explicitly, after His advent severs the link between the literal and figurative rationes of his own worship. Marshall summarizes the “official” position thus: “All sacraments give the one grace of Christ, whether under the Old or the New Law. But here, at least, Aquinas attributes to the ancient rites an inherent temporal structure which makes it impossible for them to retain their figural ratio after Christ’s advent. They no longer point at him, but away from him; they no longer attest faith in his coming, but the denial that he has come.”2 To this, though, Marshall contrasts an “unofficial” view, in which Aquinas suggests that Christians should permit Jewish worship and not hinder it. Aquinas notes that in Jewish worship, “we have a testimony to the truth from our enemies,”—a fairly typical invocation of the Augustinian tradition—but with a significant twist.When Jews circumcise their children and observe the Torah, “this represents to us what we ourselves believe in a kind of figure.”3 Marshall concludes, “Aquinas explicitly distinguishes the prefigurative sense of Jewish worship from its present significance, and attaches to Jewish worship, even after Christ—in the synagogues of Paris—a kind of continuing figurative worth.” Jewish worship, Marshall concludes,“must point to Christ in its own distinctive fashion, join the faithful worshiper to his incarnation and passion and so confer the grace of justification.”4 Thus faithful Jews worship the one true God literally and Christ implicitly quasi in figura, despite their explicit denial of the Incarnation. I am in substantial agreement with Marshall. Even so, I would prefer not to make too much of the phrase quasi in figura and so am inclined to soften Marshall’s categorical statement “Aquinas never uses the word quasi unless he means it.”5 I agree—or I think I agree—with this statement in its uncontroversial sense: I do not think Aquinas throws words around carelessly.The greater problem is determining what Aquinas does, in fact, mean when he uses the phrase, especially in this context. In the first place, 2 Bruce Marshall, “Quasi in figura : A Brief Reflection on Jewish Election, after Thomas Aquinas,” supra. 3 Summa theologiae II–II, q. 10, a. 11, c. 4 Bruce Marshall, “Quasi in figura.” 5 Ibid. N&V_Spr09.qxp 508 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 508 Trent Pomplun the term figura itself denotes a rhetorical as much as a historical dimension. A figura is as much a “figure” of speech as it is a “shape” of historical time. Similarly, the word quasi does not necessarily imply a defective form as it does in English. In other words, I am not yet convinced that the phrase quasi in figura requires that we see Israel as a quasi-figure rather than a figure. I am also a bit wary of describing Aquinas’s quasi in figura remark as a position, even an “unofficial” one. As I read him, though, Marshall does not place too much importance on the terms “official” and “unofficial.” (I probably would have called the phrase under question “subterranean,” but that betrays my Romantic sympathies. In any event, I pray everyone agrees that we cannot speak of an exoteric and esoteric teaching in the Angelic Doctor!) In any event, the Angelic Doctor might mean the phrase to mean no more than “in a manner of speaking.” These are mere semantic quibbles, but I point them out because I think that we must unmoor the notion of such a figura from the shoals of our own experience of history if we wish to express Aquinas’s unofficial “position” in a way that considerably furthers Marshall’s own claims. Lest I give the wrong impression, let me quickly point out that I am not going to deny that salvation has an inherently temporal structure; indeed, I am going to argue that its temporal structure is reflected in every ontological order of created being. If we count ourselves successors to the fathers and great scholastics—no less St. Paul and the apostles—we would do well to remember that our order is but one of many, and the lowest, wherein the experience of time is most fragmented. No creature that lives below the moon, not even the Angelic Doctor, can escape these paradoxes.Although Aquinas explicitly agrees with Augustine against Jerome on the question of the continued significance of the Mosaic Law after Christ, his rather stark emphasis on the Incarnation’s perpendicular bisection of history is strongly colored by Jerome’s reflections, if not his temperament. I think in this case—one of the very few indeed— Aquinas simply failed to achieve a perfect synthesis. It is a mark of the saint’s enduring genius, however, that he also gives us the very tools needed to solve the problem. The Augustinian Backdrop Many of the passages that figure in Marshall’s interpretation of Aquinas have already been treated extensively in Jeremy Cohen’s history of the Augustinian doctrine of “Jewish witness.”6 In Cohen’s analysis, the very passages that Marshall discusses form the backbone of an ambiguous, unsta6 Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1999). See the same author’s The Friars and the Jews:The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 509 A Cosmological Reading of Quasi in Figura 509 ble synthesis that undoes the previous patristic tradition and paves the way for the notions of anti-Judaism—and perhaps even anti-Semitism—of the modern period. Aquinas accordingly plays an important role in the construction of what Cohen calls the “hermeneutical Jew,” a figure created by the exigencies of Christian theology with an ambiguous and multifaceted relationship to real Jews, living and dead.7 These are serious charges; rarely is Aquinas thought such a revolutionary. Since Cohen claims that the writings of Aquinas mark a significant departure from the Augustinian tradition, we might do well to take a fairly long detour through his work.8 Although Cohen acknowledges that the “hermeneutical Jew”— perhaps even several different hermeneutical Jews—wander across the sands of the New Testament, he begins his discussion with the most difficult Pauline passages from Galatians and Romans, most notably the allegory of the two covenants (Gal 4:22–31) and the mystery of the olive tree (Rom 11:1–36), and then traces a brief history of adversus Iudaeos themes in the likely candidates: Melito of Sardis, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, and John Chrysostom. Although Augustine did not depart significantly from these previous thinkers, his own contribution to this tradition is typically grand, and his account of Jewish witness takes pride of place in Cohen’s analysis. In arguing that living Jews served as witnesses to the truth of Christianity,Augustine not only adopted a far more moderate, even tolerant, stance than his predecessors; he granted Jews a positive, albeit limited, 7 For related studies, see Paula Fredriksen,“Excaecati Occulta Iustitia Dei : Augustine on the Jews and Judaism,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3 (1995): 299–324; idem, “Secundum Carnem: History and Israel in the Theology of St. Augustine on the Destiny of Israel,” in The Limits of Ancient Christianity. Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus, ed.William Klingshirn and Mark Vessay (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 26–41; idem, “Augustine and Israel: Interpretatio ad litteram, Jews, and Judaism in Augustine’s Theology of History,” Studia patristica 38 (2001): 119–35; Franklin T. Harkins, “Nuancing Augustine’s Hermeneutical Jew: Allegory and Actual Jews in the Bishop’s Sermons,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 36 (2005): 41–64; and C.C. Pecknold, “Theo-Semiotics and Augustine’s Hermeneutical Jew,” Augustinian Studies 37 (2006): 27–42. 8 Not surprisingly, several scholars objected to some of Cohen’s earlier remarks about Thomas Aquinas. I cannot do justice to these debates here, but much useful information can be found in Dieter Berg,“Servitus Judaeorum : Zum Verhältnis des Thomas von Aquin und seines Ordens zu den Juden in Europa im 13. Jahrhundert,” in Thomas von Aquin: Werk und Wirkung im Licht neuerer Forschungen, ed. Albert Zimmerman (Berlin, 1988), 439–58; Jean-Pierre Torrell, “Ecclesia Iudaeorum—Quelques jugements positifs de Saint Thomas d’Aquin à l’égard des Juifs et du Judaïsme,” in Les Philosophies morales et politiques au Moyen Âge, vol. 3, ed. Carlos Bazán, et al. (Ottawa, 1995), 1734; and John Y. B. Hood, Aquinas and the Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 510 510 Trent Pomplun presence in Christendom that influenced public policy until the late thirteenth century and “controlled the Western idea of the Jew ever since.”9 Augustine’s early treatments of Jews and Judaism treat the subject typologically. In the De Genesi adversos Manicheos (388/389) and the De vera religione (390/391), he interprets the history of Israel in light of the larger cosmological concerns of the hexaemeral literature.10 The seven ages of history, in which the Jews play a fundamental role, mirror the seven days of creation, and the total cycle can be expressed microcosmically as the life of a single man from birth to death. For Cohen, however, these rather spiritual concerns give way to a more mature and nuanced appreciation of the role of Jews in present Christian society in Augustine’s works after the thirty-three books of the Contra Faustum (397/399). For Cohen, Augustine’s decisive move is his admission of the perfect accord between the two testaments, such that all that Moses wrote pertains to Christ in figura, as it were. Only when this figurative link is forged can Augustine argue that the continued survival of Jews after Christ has been prefigured by Cain (Gen 4:1–15) and Ham (Gen 9:18–27). And so Cohen conveniently summarizes Augustine’s early development of the witness doctrine under three headings: (1) prefigured by the ancient murderer Cain, the Jews’ survival after the destruction of the Temple is a punishment for rejecting Christ; (2) Jews, blinded by the veil of carnality, confirm biblical prophecies about the Messiah’s refusal by his own people; (3) as a result, Jews carry the books of the Old Testament, especially the prophets, in servitude to the Church, demonstrating against her enemies that the prophecies about Christ have not been forged. Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos 58 (59), which was composed around 413/414, marks a significant change in Augustine’s teaching. Although Cohen notes that Augustine hints that Jewish perseverance in their observance of the Law is praiseworthy in both the Contra Faustum (397/399) and De consensu evangelistarum (399/400?), the idea is fully expressed only in Augustine’s works after 414, namely his one-hundred and forty-ninth letter to Paulinus of Nola (414), De civitate Dei (413/427), Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum (421), and the Tractatus adversus Iudaeos (428/429).11 In these works, Jews are not merely custodians of 9 Cohen, Living Letters, 15. 10 I have slightly modified Cohen’s dates, based upon the data presented in Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A., ed., Augustine through the Ages (Grand Rapids, MI:William B. Eerdmans, 1999), xxxv–il.These slight changes do not affect Cohen’s arguments. 11 Cohen dates the De fide rerum invisibilium at 420/425, although Eric Plummer and the editors of Augustine through the Ages date it circa 400. Since this work contains four, arguably five, of the six themes Cohen highlights, including the N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 511 A Cosmological Reading of Quasi in Figura 511 Scriptures that provide an independent witness to Christ, but the observers of a law that serves an identical function in Christian society.Their steadfast refusal to abandon the forma Iudaeorum —what a rich phrase!—serves as a model for persecuted Christians. Furthermore, a typological reading of Psalm 59:12, “Slay them not, lest at any time they forget your law,” provides the basis for an Augustinian public policy toward Jews. Cohen thus identifies three more themes in Augustine’s doctrine of Jewish witness, for a total of six: (4) the Jews’ perseverance in their observance of the Law is praiseworthy because it testifies to the truths contained in Scripture, even in the face of Roman persecution; (5) Jews must be allowed to live as observant Jews, following Psalm 59:12; but (6) Jews must be engaged and refuted in order to show the truth of Christ, even without hope of converting them, for such cannot happen until the full number of Gentiles have entered the Church. Taken in their totality, these six themes allow the emergence of a rich exegesis of the “hardening” of Israel’s heart (Cf. Rom 11:25). Jews, for Augustine, are neither targets of evangelization nor extermination, for their blindness towards the Gospel is a mystery that admits of no human comprehension. Paradoxically, Jews serve God and the Church with their very stubbornness and ending it is akin to meddling with God’s mysterious designs: Jewish recalcitrance is necessary for Gentiles to be brought into the Church until the full number of the elect is reached. Cohen is less convincing when he attempts to demonstrate how Augustine’s mature teaching on Jewish witness comes to fruition in the identification of Jews and Judaism with a literal understanding of Scripture, a strong material emphasis on terrestrial history, and a rigorous concern for the demands of the body. He argues that Augustine’s increasing tendency to privilege the literal meaning of Scripture nourished a corresponding appreciation of the positive gifts of Israel, an appreciation that led him to retreat from the typological treatment of Israel, especially in the figure of Cain.This retreat from the spiritual meaning of Scripture is part of Augustine’s increasing preference for the gritty details of real, material history, particularly sexuality. Augustine’s identification of Israel with text, history, and body will influence the Western conception of Jews and Judaism for a considerable time.The Jew, for Augustine, is a “paradox, a set of living contradictions,”12 part of Christendom and yet separate; bearing witness to Christ and yet blind; awaiting a future Messiah and yet stuck, perhaps hopelessly, in a perpetual antiquity. He remains, strangely, both spirit and flesh. exegesis of Psalm 58 (59), the earlier dating arguably makes Augustine consistent across the entirety of his career. 12 Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, 60. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 512 Trent Pomplun 512 Aquinas and Jewish Infidelity Cohen begins his own account of Aquinas with his advice to the Duchess of Brabant.13 In answering the duchess’s questions about public policy, Aquinas remarks that Jews have been consigned to perpetual servitude, because of their guilt, and princes can thus confiscate their property and return it to its rightful Christian owners as long as allowances are made to ensure that Jews have basic necessities. He also recommends that Jews be distinguished by their dress in order to prevent undue fraternizing with Christians. Cohen rightly notes that Aquinas’s talking points are rooted in two basic Augustinian premises and their application in canon law: Jewish servitude results from their sin, but no Christian can deprive them of their basic necessities. Aquinas does display a desire for the peaceful co-existence of Jews and Christians, and he advises the duchess to forego imposing taxes upon the Jews—taxes that would rightfully be hers nevertheless—in order to lessen the chance of Jewish blasphemy against Christ. For Cohen, the notion of Jewish blasphemy becomes the key that will distinguish Aquinas from the earlier Augustinian tradition and set the stage for later developments in Christian-Jewish relations, especially in the early modern period. Cohen builds his case on the very passage that Marshall builds his, the question of whether the rites of unbelievers can be tolerated: Human government is derived from divine government, and should imitate it. Although God is all-powerful and supremely good, He still allows certain evils to take place in the universe, which he could prevent, so that greater goods not be forfeited nor greater evils ensue. So in human government, too, authorities rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost or certain greater evils occur. . . . Consequently, although unbelievers sin in their rites, they may be tolerated, either on account of some good that results from it or some evil that is avoided. Thus because the Jews observe their rites that have foreshadowed our faith from antiquity, a good follows, namely, that our very enemies bear witness to our faith, which is represented to us, in a kind of figure.14 Aquinas here places Jews in the general category of unbelievers. Jews, Aquinas reasons, resist the faith after having accepted it figuratively.15 This resistance, while not as grave as the resistance of heretics, is still worse than that of pagans, for having accepted the figure of the faith in the Old 13 Cf.Thomas Aquinas, Epistola ad ducissam Brabantiae, in Opera Omnia 3, ed. Roberto Busa (Stuttgart, 1980), 594–95. 14 ST II–II, q. 10, a. 11. 15 ST II–II, q. 10, a. 5. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 513 A Cosmological Reading of Quasi in Figura 513 Law, Jews corrupt it by interpreting it falsely. On the other hand, since the Jews have accepted the faith in figure, they have corrupted such matters less than pagans, although more than heretics. When comparing these two descending figures, in which Jews occupy the middle between the extremes,Aquinas concludes that the former sort of resistance outweighs the latter in terms of guilt.16 Three tightly interlocking conclusions follow from situating Jews in a larger typology of unbelief. First—for good or ill—Aquinas significantly weakens the uniqueness of Jewish unbelief. Second, Aquinas further removes himself from the ancient tradition by expressly linking Judaism with heresy. Finally, for Aquinas, Jews are not merely blind, but active corrupters of the faith.While the earlier tradition emphasized their ignorance, Aquinas’s typology of disbelief makes Israel’s rejection an intentional act of dissent.17 According to Cohen, Aquinas consequently “took the lead” in developing the case that the rabbis of the first century knew that Jesus was both the promised Messiah and the Son of God. Having beheld the blatant signs of Christ’s divinity, the rabbis corrupted them out of jealousy and hatred.18 In this, the sages of first-century Judaism become the paradigmatic heretics, for they know exactly whom they reject, and their ignorance is entirely voluntary. Cohen even bolsters his reading with Aquinas’s insistence in De malo that willful ignorance does not mitigate sin, but rather increases it and, lest one protest too much, even shows how Aquinas argues that such willful ignorance is compatible with willful malice.19 Although Cohen does not advance as far, one could even make a case that the Jews’ crucifixion of Christ is the supremely culpable sin, for the corruption of intellect and will involved therein most nearly approaches the malice of the fallen angels. If Biblical Jews actively and knowingly denied the Messiah, even in contrast to their own professed faith, Aquinas followed the example of both William of Auvergne and John de la Rochelle in affirming the goodness and rectitude of the literal meaning of the Law. Interestingly enough, Aquinas consistently defended the literal ratio of the Old Law not by highlighting its distinctiveness, but precisely by appealing to its conformity to natural law: The rationes of the ceremonial precepts of the Old Law can be understood in two ways. First, by reason of the divine worship which was 16 ST II–II, q. 10, a. 6. 17 ST II–II, q. 10, a. 2. 18 ST III, q. 47, a. 5. 19 De malo, q. 3, a. 8. Cf. ST I–II, q. 76; I–II, q. 78. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 514 Trent Pomplun 514 meant to be observed at that time. These rationes are literal, whether they refer to the avoidance of idolatry, recall certain divine blessings, remind men of the excellence of divinity, or make known the spiritual disposition required of worshippers of God. Secondly, their rationes can be understood insofar as they foreshadow Christ.These rationes are figurative and mystical, whether they look to Christ Himself and the Church, which pertains to the allegorical sense; to Christian morals, which pertains to the moral sense, or to the state of future glory, inasmuch as Christ delivers us, which pertains to the anagogical sense.20 Here again, Cohen’s interpretation of Aquinas rests upon a passage already used by Marshall. For Cohen,Aquinas cleverly expands the literal sense to include a symbolic meaning that neither prefigures Christ nor rests entirely on the way the words hang together. Cohen thus explains away an apparent contradiction in Aquinas’s assertion that observances of the Old Law cannot be said to possess any inherent ratio.21 In this respect, Aquinas means only that the Law prohibits things, such as cotton polyester blends, that do not contradict the natural law. The ratio of the Law is thus entirely time dependent: it was meant to be observed for that time ( pro tempore illo ). In both cases, however, Aquinas seems to conceive the literal ratio of the Law negatively. It is no more than a mediation between the eternal verities of Christ and the natural law. Apart from his tantalizing remark that the ceremonial precepts allow the Israelites to recall divine blessings, which would allow for a more positive construal, Aquinas generally presents the observance of the law as a way for the ancient Israelites to fulfill the natural law while it prepares them for the coming of the future Messiah. Essentially imperfect, and yet perfect for its time, the Law is, in every sense, a self-consuming artifact, meant only to underscore its own inadequacies before passing into twilight. Two Baroque Adjustments Living Letters of the Law has its rough spots, to be sure—not least in its interpretation of Thomas Aquinas—but we can take heart in the resources that he has made known after certain corrections have been made. Its most serious difficulty is the artificial distance that Cohen creates between Augustine and Aquinas.Although I myself often bristle at suggestions that Aquinas is an Augustinian tout court —especially when they are made at the expense of other medieval traditions that followed the text of Augustine quite closely (such as the Augustinian Hermits themselves)—in this case, at least, Cohen has unduly exaggerated the differences between the 20 ST I–II, q. 102, a. 2. 21 ST I–II, q. 102, a. 1, ad 1. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 515 A Cosmological Reading of Quasi in Figura 515 two doctors. His dependence on Markus notably voids Augustine’s magnum opus of its grand figurative scheme and reduces it to a cipher for material, secular history—which is paradoxically turned into a figure for Jews and Judaism. This is the weakest part of Cohen’s argument, for it assumes—quite against Augustine’s own intentions—that the two cities are not themselves figures. But the Doctor of Grace makes it very clear that the two cities are founded on two wills, and this bedrock figure, expressed in the prologue of De civitate Dei, makes it impossible to separate Augustine’s mystical understanding of Jewish blindness from Aquinas’s understanding of its voluntary nature. Aquinas may well have painted a picture that was grittier, even nastier, than Augustine’s, but he did not deviate from the general outlines sketched out by the Bishop of Hippo. If anything, Aquinas simply applied a few more of the darker tones of the late Augustinian palette. In any event, we need not despair of having taken medieval theologians as our exemplars. If the theologies of Aquinas and Scotus, or for that matter Kilwardby and Grosseteste, look quaint—at their best—or virulently intolerant—at their worst—it is because they did not wrestle with the challenges that the voyages of discovery of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries posed to the Augustinian tradition. These medieval theologians imagined the “inherent temporal structure” as a horizontal line of history bisected by the vertical line of the Incarnation. In their chosen figure, the Law was effective pro tempore illo, that is, before the horizontal line was bisected. But, as the famous debate between Augustine and Jerome has already shown, drawing the vertical line is much, much harder than we often suppose. When called to do this, the theologian must draw the time of Christ, not simply in his earthly ministry, from conception to death, or even in his Resurrection and ascension, but rather with the full, dynamic volumes of the whole Christ. In other words, the theological determination of the pro tempore illo in the Augustinian tradition, tied as it is to the universal proclamation of the Gospel, resists being reduced to a single historical moment. Renaissance and baroque theologians made two very significant adjustments to this picture after the discovery of vast numbers of people who had not heard the Gospel.Their first, rather obvious, adjustment was to jettison the idea that the Gospel had been proclaimed universally. This led them to release the idea of implicit and explicit faith from any crude historicism, as if there were a point in time, say March 30, 407 at 6:42 p.m. EST, at which the Gospel was universally proclaimed and God placed the mark of Cain upon Israel.22 This, in turn, allowed them to 22 Truth be told, the scholastic tradition never held a particularly rigorous under- standing of such universal proclamation. Most scholastics, Aquinas included, still N&V_Spr09.qxp 516 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 516 Trent Pomplun grant the possibility that the various people they encountered preserved aspects of their old “pre-figurative” faiths.23 In other words, baroque theologians were wont to allow all expressions of faith, even when mixed with error, to speak of Christ quasi in figura. This did not obliviate the tension between the literal and figural rationes of any implicit faith, whether Jew or Gentile, but it did allow the theologians and missionaries of the early modern world more dynamic interpretations of Augustine’s fourfold division between ante legem, sub lege, sub gratia, and in pace, at least for the religions ante legem.24 For the theologians of the voyages of discovery, the perpendicular line with which the Incarnation bisects history is existential, as it were.The difference between an implicit, figurative faith and an explicit profession of Christian doctrine is located at the point when Christ is born in the soul. Far from lessening the impulse to evangelize—as some often suppose—the baroque expansion of the theology of implicit faith demanded it. This leads us to a second important development. All too often we reduce the early modern missions to the overseas missions, but Renaissance and baroque theologians understood missions to be the evangelization of their own culture(s) as much as the evangelization of others’. And imagined virtuous Turks who had not heard the Gospel as hypothetical cases of the salvation of non-Christians. 23 I know the Jesuit literature from this period far better than I know the relevant Dominican, Franciscan, or Augustinian literature. My own research in the history of the Asian and American missions makes me suspect that there was not a single theological or missiological innovation for which the Jesuits are usually given credit that was not first attempted by the friars. Although we cannot discount the intense political hatred between the orders, the mendicants often criticized Jesuit approaches because they already had decades or even centuries of missionary experience. Ironically, most of the historically successful forms of inculturation, such as the open-air churches or monumental crosses of Mexico, resulted in territories administered by friars. I am confident that non-Jesuit theologians tackled these problems with just as much verve as Juan de Lugo or Juan Martínez de Ripalda. 24 Cohen is wrong on two counts when he says that Augustine replaced the seven ages of history with a “fourfold division that emphasized the radical disjunction between epochs” (Living Letters, 42). The fourfold division does not replace the seven ages of history, as Cohen later admits, nor are terms ante legem, sub lege, sub gratia, and in pace material or temporal grades that an individual or the human race passes through or ascends.These four terms give us a history of the spirit, a mystical evolution of the Church from Abel to the coming of Christ.The “radical disjunction” between them can only be conceived in terms of the sacramental graces of each. In this respect, Cohen has depended a bit too heavily on F. Edward Cranz, “The Development of Augustine’s Idea on Society before the Donatist Controversy,” Harvard Theological Review 47 (1954): 255–316. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 517 A Cosmological Reading of Quasi in Figura 517 so early modern “missionaries” evangelized Jew as well as Gentile.25 It may well be that Jews and Judaism came to be seen as targets of evangelization only after the friars departed from certain aspects of the Augustinian tradition, notably, their divinely-caused blindness, but the Augustinian tradition’s voluntarism—I use the term in its positive sense— allows theologians to apply the same theological reasoning that we have exercised on behalf of other religious groups to Jews and Judaism, and so wipe the mark of Cain from their faces. Once the line between figure and fulfillment is construed in terms of the individual’s call and election—once the inherent temporal structure of salvation is widened and deepened—we can no longer say with scientific certainty that a Jew who practices the Law sins mortally, as Aquinas insists in his “official” position. In fact, we have every reason to believe that the Angelic Doctor’s “unofficial position” has carried the day, for the implicit faith so restored in the literal ratio of Jewish worship cannot but be figurative in character once we allow the baroque adjustment. Here again Nostra Aetate offers an instructive illustration. Although the early modern tradition generally claimed that an explicit profession of atheism always involved mortal sin, modern scholastics, facing the possibility of someone educated in an atheist country, much as their predecessors faced the possibility of the Turk or Tartar who had never heard the Gospel, generally concluded that an atheist might deny the existence of God for what he mistakenly believes are morally commendable reasons. If Nostra Aetate allows the possibility—obliquely, to be sure—that this theoretical atheist has not sinned mortally, how much less, then, the Jew who denies the Incarnation in fidelity to the Messiah he eagerly awaits.26 Time, Law, and the Angels For all of the merciful allowances made for men and women who lived under the ancient religions, for the new faiths encountered during the great missions, for Islam, even for individuals living under modern statesponsored atheism, precious little has been granted to Jews. In fact, the 25 In many respects, institutions like the Jesuit-run Casa di Catechumeni in Rome developed only after Thomas Aquinas identified Jewish unbelief as one type of voluntary infidelity. But before we make too much of Aquinas’s tolerance, we should note the parallels in his treatment of Jews and prostitutes. Cf. Lance Gabriel Lazar, Working in the Vineyard of the Lord: Jesuit Confraternities in Early Modern Italy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), especially 99–124. 26 A useful summary of these debates before the Second Vatican Council can be found in Riccardo Lombardi, S.J., The Salvation of the Unbeliever, trans. Dorothy M.White (Westminster, MD:The Newman Press, 1956). N&V_Spr09.qxp 518 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 518 Trent Pomplun development of the Church’s doctrine about the salvation of non-Christians seems to have progressed with willful ignorance of Israel, to whom God has given adoption, glory, the covenant, worship, and the promises, the patriarchs, and indeed, according to the flesh, the Christ (Rom 9:4–5). If we accept any variant of the modern interpretation of figurative faith—as I think Nostra Aetate urges us—it only makes sense to allow Jews the same privileges as Gentiles, who have no more than the sacraments of nature. While both the natural and Mosaic sacraments are fulfilled in Christ, however, the survival of the Law outside the Church is much harder to justify with Scripture.The Law, after all, has no power to justify (Rom 2:13, 3:30; Gal 2:16–19), and its practice is sternly forbidden.And yet the Law is holy (Rom 7:12) and righteous (Rom 8:14). Paul even voices his desire to “establish” it (Rom 3:31). It is, in its own right, one of the irrevocable gifts of God (Rom 11:28). And so we have come, after our survey of Roman Catholic theologies of Jews and other non-Christians, back to the irreducible complexity of our claim that Christ fulfills the Law without abrogating it. I think our survey gives us ample reason to see a continued “pre-figurative” value in Israel’s gifts, even in the Law itself.To do so, however, we must still account for the irreducible difference between faith and the Law, since the latter comes from Moses, but grace through Christ ( Jn 1:17). To this end, I suggest that we best conceive this difference as the difference between eternity and time—or between eschatology and providence—such that the Law is an aeviternal reality that stands above our normal experience of history. If we attend to this more cosmological understanding of the Law, I think we can overcome some of the difficulties presented by what Marshall calls the “inherent temporal structure” of salvation history without resorting to a unilateral insistence on continuity or discontinuity. More importantly, I believe such a cosmological conception of the Law allows us to recognize the positive, enduring significance of the Law in a way that is consistent with Paul’s teaching that the Law pedagogically leads one to Christ (Gal 3:24–25) and, further, that it is the economy of sin that curses all those who live under the Law (Gal 3:10). The notion that Law was given to Israel by angels is a common scriptural motif.27 The Epistle to the Hebrews says, “Thus we must pay the closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word declared by angels was steadfast and every transgression or disobedience received just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great 27 Readers will note that I am reprising a common theme, and several of the favorite texts, found in the writings of Jean Daniélou, S.J. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 519 A Cosmological Reading of Quasi in Figura 519 salvation?” (Heb 2:1–3). Luke also shows his indebtedness to this tradition, when he notes it in Stephen’s sermon: “Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who announced the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who have received the Law as an ordinance of angels, but did not keep it” (Acts 7:53). Not surprisingly, the idea is ubiquitous in the Fathers, and represented most notably in Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius.28 A favorite passage comes from Hilary of Poitiers: “These flaming torches, these dazzling fires, these rumbling thunders, this terror that accompanies the entire coming of the Lord, all manifest the presence of angelic ministers, proclaiming the Law through the hand of a mediator.”29 In fact, some Fathers felt that the whole economy of the Old Testament was communicated to Israel by angels, which would include Levitical worship as well as inspired Scripture. Clement of Alexandria maintains “an angel initiated Abraham into the secrets of God.”30 Fathers such as Eusebius, Hilary, and Methodius emphasize the angelic dimensions of prophecy. Origen notes that the Temple itself was given through angelic intermediaries.31 Paul also stands firmly in this tradition (Gal 3:19), whose cosmological vision is echoed in his comparison of the two covenants to Hagar and Sarah (Gal 4:22–31). The “historical” narrative of Abraham and his two wives is itself a figure of Christ’s advent, which Paul expresses both cosmologically and architecturally. The Old Covenant, from Sinai, is the present Jerusalem, in slavery to sin with her children; the New Covenant, however, is from above, our mother like Sarah, who gives birth to free children. Here, too, salvation has a temporal structure, but one that is considerably larger than our own. For Paul, the “old” figure is not identified with the past but with the present. It is the present age of the world that labors under sin (Gal 1:3), and it is the form of this world that is passing away. In spatial terms, the “new” is from the “heavenly places” that transcend planetary time altogether. If we emphasize the historical narrative (which divides Israel’s past from the Church’s present) at the expense of the cosmological (which divides the present age of the world from its eschatological realization in Jesus Christ), we cannot but fall into a punitive supersessionism. But taken together, the realized eschatology of the “new” covenant does not bisect history so much as raise us above it. If Paul urges the Galatians to “cast out the slave woman and her son” (cf. 28 Augustine, De civitate Dei, 10, 15; Dionysius, De coelesti hierarchia, 4,2,3. 29 Hilary of Poitiers, Tract. Ps. 67. 30 Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5, 11. 31 Hilary, Tract. Ps. 118, 121; Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 7,5; Methodius, De sanguisuga, 7; Origen, Comm. In Cant. 2. N&V_Spr09.qxp 520 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 520 Trent Pomplun Gen 21:10), he asks them to free themselves from all things of the “present age.” Lest one worry that Paul’s own narrative appears to privilege the historical over the cosmological, we need only remark that Paul could not have been ignorant of the mysterious angelic visitation that concludes the story of Hagar. Paul consistently describes the relationship of Jews and Christians in figures that reject the simple bisection of history. If we must use figures, it is more proper to say that the Incarnation is akin to a tangential line. From our perspective, the point at which this line intersects the circle of history is the conception of Christ. But the line itself stretches, as it were, from heaven to heaven: the nativity bears the Christ to us from heaven and the ascension lifts history beyond the stars. If the rejection of Israel means the reconciliation of the world, it is a figure of Christ’s crucifixion, and so finds itself at the crucial point at which the tangent transcends history as we normally experience it. But Paul also adduces Israel’s acceptance of the Law as a figure of the resurrection, a theological move that has two very important consequences. First, it places Israel’s acceptance under the peculiar logic of eschatological statements—or indeed ecstatic statements, which are in fact identical in the cosmology of the ancient saints.This first consequence gives rise to a second that is crucial for our considerations. If Israel’s acceptance is eschatological, Christ’s resurrection inverts the dialectic between figure and fulfillment, and the resurrection becomes a historical figure for the reconciliation of Jew and Gentile in the general resurrection, when the circle of history is lifted in the ecstasy of the Eternal slain Lamb before the altar. If we attend this ancient tradition, the difference between the New Law and the Old Law is not a difference between eternity and time—as we experience it—but rather a difference between the participated eternity of Christ and the aeviternal time of the angels. Christ, of course, is superior to the angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent (Heb 1:4). As followers of Christ, we have no need of the Law, which has been fulfilled in his perfect, eternal love (Rom 13:10). Baptized into his death, we are freed from its injunctions, and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass we ascend with him above the temporal structures that make the Levitical sacrifices necessary. But the angels do not cease to be “ministering spirits sent forth to serve those who are to obtain salvation” (Heb 1:14). For those without faith in Christ, who are neither baptized into his death nor who partake of the fruits of his heavenly sacrifice, the Law remains steadfast and just. The temporal structure of salvation is more complex perhaps than we bargained for. It includes transcendence twice over. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 521 A Cosmological Reading of Quasi in Figura 521 Conclusions We are now in a position to offer a brief doctrinal synthesis. The teaching of the Second Vatican Council and later Magisterial documents mitigates several aspects of the Augustinian teaching and rejects others outright. The first three components identified by Cohen (and many of the strictures of canon law based upon them) come under immediate censure. Jews cannot be typologically identified with Cain— much less Ham!—, nor can their survival after the destruction of the Temple be seen as a curse.Their adherence to the Law and the prophets may well be an act of service to the Church, but never servitude. Once these unsavory elements have been cast away, the three components of Augustine’s later teaching emerge in a new light. Jews’ perseverance in the observance of the Law is indeed praiseworthy and testifies to the truth of both the Old and the New Testaments. Consequently, Jews must be allowed, even encouraged in certain respects, to live as observant Jews. A Jew who converts must be welcomed into the Church, of course, but our theological dialogues and controversies with Jews have two other aims: first, they enrich both communities by our shared study of God’s word, but, more paradoxically, they make the truth of Christ known to the Gentile bystander, the full number of whom have not yet entered the Church. Lest we be wise to our own conceits, we should note that these two aims are not entirely separable; we are enriched precisely in our continued understanding that we, who were once Gentiles, have been graciously grafted on the olive tree.32 The inherent temporal structure of the ancient rites retains both their literal and figural rationes, just as the Law still serves to lead people to Christ, on the one hand, and serves to represent our own faith to us in figura. The signs that God himself has decreed in salvation history retain their pedagogical function even when sin obscures them, and Levitical worship cannot cease to point to Christ. In this respect, the Law is neither dead nor death-dealing in itself; it is death-dealing for Christians who, having died with Christ in baptism, are freed from its injunctions (Gal 2:19). For Christians, in other words, the time of the Law is indeed past, and Christians who depend upon its works trade the imperishable for the perishable, and the eternal for the temporal, and they sin mortally when 32 I must note my indebtedness to the ideas of Stephen Fowl, “Learning to be a Gentile: Christ’s Transformation and Redemption of Our Past,” a paper given at the Christology and Scripture Symposium at the University of Gloucester in December, 2005.While Romans is usually cited in support of this notion, Fowl bases his own presentation of the “Christ directed perception” of our past upon Ephesians 2:11–22. N&V_Spr09.qxp 522 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 522 Trent Pomplun they do.The figure of the Law, indeed the forma Iudaeorum itself, is a form of that which is passing away (1 Cor 7:31; cf. 1 Jn 2:17). I think it crucial to note the tense of this definition: as forms of the present age, such figures have not passed away entirely, nor can they as long as the heavens remain (Mt 5:18). Like heaven and earth, and all “former things,” the carnal Law must pass (Mt 24:35; 2 Pet 3:10; Rev 21:1); it falls to the ground and dies, only to be made, in the twinkling of an eye, a spiritual law. As creatures who live below the heavens, we simply do not enjoy a vantage point from which the spirituality of the New Law can be comprehended. Being ordered in our fallen economy to know material realities only through our senses, we see election and justification only within the temporal history that is natural to us as human beings. Except in rare cases of spiritual rapture, we ourselves cannot directly gaze upon the irrevocable gifts of God, for they, too, have been given “in heavenly places” (Cf. Eph 1:20, 2:6).The beloved of God, Israel, will be a witness people until the eschatological fulfillment of his promises, when God’s law is written on every heart, the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile is abolished, the Gospel is universally promulgated, on the day that Christ is all in all (Phil 1:6). This witness is not merely negative, but is a figure of things to come and, as such, is a continued source of prevenient grace for Jews. In this respect, I see no problem in granting that the sacraments and ceremonies of the Old Law mediate Christ’s salvation to Israel, as long as we also insist upon the superiority of the New Law over the Old Law, and the necessity of preaching the Gospel to circumcision and uncircumcision alike. Have I also constructed a hermeneutical Jew? I suppose I have, but could I do otherwise? I pray I am not guilty of special pleading if I persist in the hope—following that great Augustinian suggestion—that a properly Christian hermeneutic can actually increase our love for those brought into its orbit. None of us, after all, reads Scripture alone; we read the book of nature, a marvelous little piece of writing that just happens to have some very lively Jewish characters, saints and sinners alike, and several of my dear friends. My own rough words will always be fragmentary, but if God can use things as well as words to signify, there can be no difference, in the divine writing of the world, between the historN&V ical and the hermeneutical Jew. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 523 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 523–28 523 Postscript and Prospect B RUCE D. M ARSHALL Perkins School of Theology Southern Methodist University Dallas,Texas I AM GRATEFUL to Emmanuel Perrier and Trent Pomplun for their rich and generous responses to my brief paper. Naturally I cannot here address all the issues they raise.1 For the moment I will simply try to explain why, despite my having learned much from their presentations, the basic question with which all of us are concerned—how we Christians can square our faith in the irrevocable election of the Jewish people with our faith in the universal primacy of Jesus Christ—remains puzzling to me. Near the beginning of “Quasi in Figura” I suggested that sustained reflection on the election of Israel is difficult to come across in the Christian tradition.Whatever truth there may be in this generalization, it does not fit Thomas Aquinas (as I knew well enough at the time, but had not yet connected the dots). In his late Lectura on Romans, St.Thomas presents not only an exegetically detailed treatment of Jewish election, but a profound affirmation of God’s undying love for the Jewish people, rooted in the promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.2 Three interlocking points made by St. Thomas deserve particular mention (all of which Thomas, of course, sees as the authoritative teaching of St. Paul). 1. The election of Israel is not simply God’s favor toward those who meet basic spiritual criteria, but has an irreducibly “carnal” character. 1 I hope to deal with these matters more adequately in a forthcoming book on Christ and Israel in St.Thomas and contemporary theology. 2 On this see Steven C. Boguslawski, O.P., Thomas Aquinas on the Jews: Insights into His Commentary on Romans 9 –11 (New York: Paulist Press, 2008), and Jean Miguel Garrigues, O.P., “Les prérogatives inaliénables du peuple juif selon saint Thomas commentant saint Paul,” Revue Thomiste 103 (2003): 145–58. N&V_Spr09.qxp 524 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 524 Bruce D. Marshall It is God’s special love for the descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob secundum carnem. Paul “ascribes dignity to the Jews on account of their origin . . . that is, because they are descended according to the flesh from the patriarchs, who were most greatly acceptable to God.”3 2. Basic to Israel’s election is a promise of salvation. As Perrier and Pomplun rightly emphasize, this is, and can only be, salvation in Jesus Christ.At the same time, this promise has an inextricable link to fleshly descent. God promised salvation not only to the patriarchs, but to their descendents secundum carnem, and God does not go back on his promises.“God from all eternity freely elected both the fathers and their children, but in a certain order, namely that the children would obtain salvation for the sake of the fathers.” In just this way,“an abundance of divine grace and mercy has been shown to the fathers, so that for the sake of the promises made to them, their children might also be saved.”4 3. Rooted as it is in God’s own promise, the election of Israel according to the flesh is irrevocable, and thus permanent. This does more than guarantee that the Jewish people will abide until the end of time, and will play a decisive role in the eschatological drama to come, important as both these affirmations are. Nothing,Thomas emphasizes, can undo God’s electing love for Israel, not even the hostility (inimicitia) of the majority of Jews towards Christ and his gospel. For Thomas Romans 11:29 is Paul’s deliberate reply to the objection (evidently voiced by Christians in Thomas’s world as well as in Paul’s) that “even if the Jews were once most dear to God on account of their fathers, the hostility which they exhibit against the gospel rules out their future salvation.”Thomas, following Paul, brushes this objection aside: “The Apostle says this is false. . . . [H]e means that if God gives a certain people a gift, or calls them, this is ‘without repentance,’ because God does not change his mind about this.”5 3 In Rom 9, 1 (no. 745): Paul “describit dignitatem Iudaeorum ex origine . . . quia scilicet secundum carnem sunt progeniti ab illis patribus qui fuerunt maxime Deo accepti.” Here, as often, Aquinas takes Deuteronomy 4:37 (God “loved the patriarchs, and elected their seed after them”) as a basic scriptural locus for the distinctive character of Jewish election. 4 In Rom 11, 4 (no. 923):“Deus ab aeterno eligit gratis et patres et filios, hoc tamen ordine ut filii propter patres consequerentur salutem . . . per quamdam abundantiam divinae gratiae et misericordiae . . . quae intantum patribus est exhibita, ut propter promissiones eis factas, etiam filii salvarentur.” 5 In Rom 11, 4 (no. 924):“Posset enim aliquis obviando dicere quod Iudaei, et si olim fuerint charissimi propter patres, tamen inimicitia, quam contra Evangelium exercent, prohibet ne in futurum salventur. Sed hoc Apostolus falsum esse asserit . . . N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 525 Postscript and Prospect 525 “Supersessionism” has more and more become a term of abuse rather than of description; it typically expresses the user’s moral revulsion at the theological views to which he attaches it, rather than saying anything specific about the content of those views. If, however, we take “supersessionism” to mean specifically that God’s election of the Jewish people according to the flesh has ceased with the coming of Christ, then St. Thomas repudiates supersessionism in his Lectura on Romans, as explicitly as one could wish. Why, then, should there still be a problem about the election of Israel for Thomas, or any other theologian who similarly affirms its irrevocability? Because, in a word, the election of Israel cannot be a thing of the past, but the Jewish religion, it seems, must be.Yet it also seems impossible that the Jews can abide until the end of time as a people distinct from the nations without the practice of Judaism. So if God wills the election of Israel irrevocably (as Thomas asserts), it seems that he must also will the practice of Judaism—of the “old law”—irrevocably (which Thomas denies). Conversely, it seems that if God does not will the practice of the Old Testament law irrevocably, then he cannot will that the election of Israel be permanent. Let me spell this out, I hope not too briefly. In “Quasi in Figura” I concentrated, as others have done, on St.Thomas’s contention that the “ceremonial law,” which forms the basis of distinctively Jewish practice and religious life, becomes “death dealing” (mortifera) after the passion of Christ (or, more precisely, after the announcement of his saving passion and glorification has been adequately “promulgated”). This might foster the misleading impression that the basic problem in thinking about the relationship between Christ and the Jewish people is soteriological. How, that is, can Jews who practice God’s revealed law in good faith exist in the perilous condition of mortal sin, while Thomas seems to hold, and subsequent Catholic teaching certainly does, that even gentiles wholly outside the sphere of public revelation are not thereby excluded from salvation in Christ?6 This is surely an important question but not, I think, the really basic difficulty. Aquinas already includes the salvation of the Jews in his understanding of their election, and both of my interlocutors make valuable quasi dicat: quod Deus aliquid aliquibus donet vel aliquos vocet, hoc est ‘sine poenitentia,’ quia de hoc Deum non poenitet.” 6 See ST II–II, q. 2, a. 7, ad 3: “Si qui tamen salvati fuerunt quibus revelatio non fuit facta, non fuerunt salvati absque fide mediatoris. Quia etsi non habuerunt fidem explicitam, habuerunt tamen fidem implicitam in divina providentia, credentes Deum esse liberatorem hominum secundum modos sibi placitos et secundum quod aliquibus veritatem cognoscentibus ipse revelasset, secundum illud Iob XXXV, qui docet nos super iumenta terrae.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 526 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 526 Bruce D. Marshall suggestions about how this might be taken to work (in particular Perrier’s observation that when St.Thomas calls the old law after Christ “mortifera,” this has to be read in light of his own nuanced account of the circumstances under which an act can, and cannot, count as mortal sin). The more basic problem, it seems to me, is theological in the strict sense. Its home is the doctrine of God, and it concerns what God can coherently be understood to will. St.Thomas’s characterization of the ceremonial law as “dead” (mortua) brings this out. Unlike the notion that the law is mortifera, this is a wholly objective state of affairs, a fact about the law that does not depend on anyone’s attitude towards it. The law is “dead” in that it now has no “power” (virtus ), or any obligation that it be observed.7 What brings the power of the old law to an end is the passion of Christ. As Perrier notes, this traditional claim, emphatically affirmed by Aquinas, does not stem from anti-Judaism. That is: Aquinas’s claim that the old law, and to that extent Judaism, is “dead” follows not from prior convictions about the Jews and Judaism (whatever these may have been in Thomas’s own case), but from prior convictions about the supremely world-transforming significance of the cross. No one attains salvation except through Christ, who brings life out of death by joining us to himself. In order to have a share in the salvation accomplished by his passion, those who lived before his coming must be united to him, or become his “members,” no less than those who live after him.8 The great dignity of the “old law” was its divinely given power to elicit in Israel the faith which joins to Christ, by serving as a complex figure of his future incarnation and passion. But the passion of Christ, which makes the difference for all creation between life and death, heaven and hell, is not a Platonic idea, accessible in the same way at all times and in all places. It is a temporal event, with a before and after.The salvation accomplished by the cross of Christ must therefore change the world. It must bring life where before there was death, heaven where before there was hell.While there must be saving access to Christ before his advent (otherwise he is not the savior of all), his passion must change radically the way in which we have saving access to him. Everything— 7 ST I–II, q. 103, a. 4, ad 1:“[M]ortua, idest non habentia virtutem et obligationem . . . mortua, quia neque vim aliquam habebant, neque aliquis ea observare tenebatur.” 8 ST III, q. 68, a. 1, c : “Manifestum est autem quod nullus salutem potest consequi nisi per Christum.” Therefore “nunquam homines potuerunt salvari, etiam ante Christi adventum, nisi fierent membra Christi” (ad 1); here, as often when he makes this point, St.Thomas invokes Acts 4:12 (cf. ST II–II, q. 2, a. 7, c). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 527 Postscript and Prospect 527 above all our provision for being joined to Christ, or becoming his member—must be different after than it was before. Otherwise Christ died to no purpose (Gal 2:21).9 His passion, that is, cannot liberate all from sin and death by happening at a particular time and place, by being a temporal event, if anyone’s access to salvation is unaffected by whether this event has actually occurred. Aquinas deliberately aims for as high a view of the old law as he believes is compatible with this affirmation.10 But the idea that the ancient rites retain the power to elicit saving faith in Christ after his advent, just as they did before, cannot be part of such a view. Israel’s ceremonies have, as Perrier stresses, been fulfilled by Christ. In other words, the future saving event to which, as a whole, they once gave divinely mandated access has now come to pass. As a result they can no longer give access to this event, any more than the statements “The once for all saving event will come to pass” and “The once for all saving event has come to pass” can both be true at the same time.11 The high place the ceremonies have in the purposes of God before the coming of Christ is just what requires that they lose this place after he has come.12 There are many reasons why one might hold that God does not simply permit the practice of the Mosaic law after Christ, but wills it as a positive good. It might be because permanent Torah observance is a necessary condition for the irrevocable election of the Jewish people, as I have suggested. It might be to provide a permanent witness as to whence salvation has come, as Perrier suggests. More harshly, Thomas proposes that it offers Christians an abiding testimony to the truth of their faith from their “enemies” (whether this counts as a good reason is another matter).13 In any case, if the temporal event of Christ’s cross has the world-transforming power upon which St.Thomas insists, then the practice of the Mosaic law after Christ, even if there is nothing “deadly” about it, can no longer grant access to Christ. It can no longer serve as a figura 9 See, for example, ST I–II, q. 103, a. 2, sed contra. 10 See in particular ST III, q. 62, a. 6, with its critical assessment of other views (including Aquinas’s own earlier interpretation of circumcision). 11 ST III, q. 68, a. 1, ad 1: “[A]lio signo manifestatur fides rei iam praesentis quam demonstrabatur quando erat futura: sicut aliis verbis significatur praesens, praeteritum et futurum.” 12 ST I–II, q. 103, a. 4, ad 1: “[R]itus autem legis cessabat tanquam impletus per Christi passionem, utpote a Deo in figuram Christi institutus.” 13 As in ST II–II, q. 10, a. 11, c: “Ex hoc autem quod Iudaei ritus suos observant, in quibus olim praefigurabatur veritas fidei quam tenemus, hoc bonum provenit quod testimonium fidei nostrae habemus ab hostibus, et quasi in figura nobis repraesentatur quod credimus.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 528 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 528 Bruce D. Marshall of Christ, a sacramental means by which human beings draw near to him in faith. So if God positively wills the practice of Judaism after Christ, it seems that he cannot will union with Christ for those called upon to practice it. In that case the vocation of humanity to union with Christ is not universal, and he is not the universal savior. St.Thomas and normative Catholic teaching insist, however, that the vocation of humanity to union with Christ is utterly universal; it is the will of God for each human being in every time and place. In that case it seems that God cannot positively will (though he might of course permit) the practice of Judaism after Christ. And without positively willing the practice of Judaism, it seems that he cannot will the election of Israel. This, it seems to me, is the root theological problem about Christ and Israel.We have compelling reason to think that God wills a range of temporal realities which appear, on reflection, not to be entirely compatible with one another: the cross as the transformation of the world, the vocation of all humanity to life in union with the Crucified, the irrevocable election of Israel, the permanent practice of Judaism. Obviously this is not St. Thomas’s problem alone. In fact one of the merits of St.Thomas (which I did not nearly enough appreciate in “Quasi in figura”) is to have brought this problem out with exceptional clarity. Most theologians who write about Judaism and Christianity sense this difficulty, and imply or propose various solutions to it—though rarely with the sympathy and perception of Perrier and Pomplun. It remains, I think, a pressing problem for Catholic N&V theology, calling for our most faithful and creative labor. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 529 Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 529–46 529 Book Reviews The Spirit of Celibacy by Johann Adam Möhler, translated by Cyprian Blamires, edited by Dieter Hattrup and Emery de Gaal (Chicago: Hillenbrandbooks, 2007), xxviii + 166 pp. B ETTER KNOWN for his 1825 Unity in the Church and his 1832 Symbolics, Johann Adam Möhler (1796–1838) has long been regarded as one of the most important Catholic theologians in the nineteenth century.With this largely forgotten text, translated into English for the first time, those interested in Möhler will have a resource that gives them a richer picture of the theology and ecclesiology of perhaps the greatest theologian of the Tübingen School. Without understanding the wider context of The Spirit of Celibacy one easily misreads it. The first third of the nineteenth century was tranquil neither for the German people nor for the Catholic Church. Napoleonic invasions and the subsequent agreements between Church and state truncated the rights of Catholics in places like Württemberg. Möhler’s 1825 Unity placed him squarely outside both the Gallican and the scholastic camp. His position gained him the suspicion of Cologne’s archbishop, which ended up costing him a coveted appointment in Bonn. Several Tübingen colleagues, whom Rome had desired to serve as bishops, were vetoed by local governments for being “too Roman.” By 1828, Möhler, whose attitude had been more geared toward aggiornamento, foresaw a looming crisis between the Church and a culture increasingly unwilling to think within the framework of Christian categories. In this light one must read Möhler’s vociferous defense of celibacy. The Denkschrift to which Möhler responded was a poorly argued call for the abolition of mandatory celibacy issued by a group of professors in nearby Freiburg. Möhler’s response consisted of a two-part article that he published in the ultramontane Der Katholik out of Mainz.The choice of publication led to intrigue, for almost every other article by Möhler appeared in the theologische Quartalschrift, the literary organ of the Catholic faculty in Tübingen. Möhler’s motives are unknown, but noted N&V_Spr09.qxp 530 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 530 Book Reviews Tübingen scholar Rudolf Reinhardt has seized on this fact as central to his argument that Möhler quite deliberately sought to shove the faculty in a conservative, Roman direction. The editors of The Spirit of Celibacy certainly read Möhler as a champion of all things Roman. After an introduction decrying the lack of faith exhibited by his opponents, Möhler treats both the New Testament (the evangelical council of Matthew 19:12 and Paul’s exaltation of celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7) and early Church teachings on celibacy and priesthood. What most irks Möhler are the factual errors and hermeneutical bludgeoning routinely employed by his opponents, who fail to see the theological importance of celibacy both for biblical and early Christianity. Möhler points to evidence of mandatory celibacy in the earlier religious expression in India, Greece, and “even in the deepest Germanic North” (33). Möhler lays it on a bit thick when he writes,“The seeds of a celibate priesthood clearly go back to pre-heathen days and belong to a time when feelings were purer, views clearer, and generally the heart was more open to the acceptance of the divine” (34).The Jewish prohibition of priestly intercourse around the time of sacrifice demonstrates a theology that sees holiness as involving a separation from certain elements of worldliness. Möhler then argues that Christianity deftly steered between the Gnostics, who forbade all sexuality, and a line of thought that saw no value in the eschatological witness of virginity. Against his opponents, who consistently betray an ignorance of early Christian texts, Möhler demonstrates clearly that the early Christian Church, while not forbidding married clergy, called for celibate priests to remain so, and for married clergy to abstain from intercourse with their wives. It was only when the Roman Empire “succumbed to the invasions of the uncouth Nordic tribes” that celibacy was abandoned by large numbers of priests until the Gregorian reforms in the eleventh century. The final chapter on the theology of the priesthood (66–96) contains both the most essentially “Möhlerian” sections of the text and the most illuminating arguments. Ever the Romantic, Möhler stresses the spiritual fatherhood that Catholic priests, unlike Protestant pastors, exercise over their flock. Möhler also faces down arguments that celibacy discourages the most talented from entering, in this case the aristocracy. Möhler is happy to let them go, for “only a small number of such persons would actually devote themselves to the service of the Church” (74) and “most of the families of the ruling classes live lives that are too unspiritual, lives given over to externals and appearances” (75). The same willingness to accept a “remnant” Church that has characterized some of Pope Benedict’s prophetic statements animates Möhler’s argument as well. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 531 Book Reviews 531 Most compelling of all is the political argument with which he concludes the essay. Möhler states, “Celibacy does of course provide unmistakable evidence of the non-unity of Church and State” (86). Although he assures the reader of his approval of peaceful relations between throne and altar, Möhler points out that a celibate clergy remains a politically dangerous entity because it points to the otherworldly. Moreover, because of the freedom of the celibate, he alone, and not his family, is subject to the violence of the state, and thus less cowed by it. Möhler predicts the problem of a clergy too closely entangled with the state and bemoans Protestantism’s tendency to “wholly agree with the states in which they have become predominant” (91). Behind the Denkschrift’s argument, says Möhler, is the Gallican desire “to make the Church more dependent on the state and to diminish the influence of the Pope” (93).This deserves highlighting, not only because it sheds light on the context of Möhler’s polemics, but also because it shows how a fidelity to Rome provided the most reliable basis for maintaining critical distance from the state. Here we turn our attention to the substance of Möhler’s argument to the translation and apparatus. Blamires’ translation captures both the spirit and the letter of Möhler’s text. He follows the 1992 German edition by Hattrup. As a translation, it exceeds in fluidity the recent effort by Peter Erb (Unity ) and in accuracy the nineteenth-century work of James Robinson (Symbolics ). This makes all the more lamentable the inclusion of Hattrup’s afterword from the 1992 German edition. In response to a heated text from an earlier time, a measured editorial assessment is usually in order. Instead Hattrup, forgetting Möhler’s qualified debt to the Enlightenment, as well as any sense of proportion, compares its moral fabric to that of National Socialism (107). Hattrup groups the Tübingen professors who, in the 1992 issue of the Quartalschrift, revisited the question of mandatory celibacy, with “the Blood and Soil ideologists of 1938” (108). Hattrup’s Möhler is the ideal priest and theologian, but among his teachers there was “contempt for everything spiritual and Catholic” (113). Perhaps Hattrup would be surprised to learn that Möhler’s colleagues and students complained that he so infrequently celebrated mass. Hattrup, for all of his claims to orthodoxy, has an essentially Manichean view in which the forces of light and darkness are opposed diametrically. Thus any disagreement concerning the current rule, which not even Möhler sees as a necessity, must stem from an absence of faith or an embrace of an anti-Christian worldview. It is to the detriment for those who laud Möhler that this most recent translation is appended by vitriol so at odds with Möhler’s moving tribute to love in Unity in the Church. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM 532 Page 532 Book Reviews What, then, of the question of celibacy? Catholic arguments about a celibate priesthood must begin with the claim that celibacy and virginity have a necessary role in the Church as disciplines that witness to an eschatological hope. Especially in a crudely materialistic culture, celibacy is an urgent witness to the reality that the Christian kingdom is not of this world. The Gregorian reforms did not eradicate a millennium of happily married clergy for reasons related only to material concerns about property (as is commonly told), but sought to correct and recover a deeper patristic and biblical understanding of the connection between priesthood and asceticism. Despite all of these truths, it remains the case now more than ever that the charism of celibacy, which is supposed to function as a witness, increasingly is viewed as part of a package deal for those called to priesthood. Moreover, the empirical fact that so many priests fail to remain chaste or celibate, while most immediately caused by insufficient discipline and prayer, remains seared in the consciousness of believer and non-believer alike. Should the Catholic Church, then, consider whether optional celibacy for diocesan priests, as practiced in the Eastern Rite, might more visibly demonstrate the eschatological witness of the call to celibacy? Would not a clearer demonstration that celibacy is freely chosen provide a greater witness to a culture increasingly adrift from the saving faith of Christ? This reviewer does not see how raising such a question demonstrates a lack of love for the Church or faith in the gospel. Although The Spirit of Celibacy does not get to the root of the question, it remains a valuable resource for those interested in a deeper understanding of celibacy. In addition, it gives readers another resource for understanding nineteenth-century German N&V Catholicism and perhaps that century’s greatest theologian. Grant Kaplan Saint Louis University Saint Louis, Missouri History and Spirit:The Understanding of Scripture according to Origen by Henri de Lubac, translated by Anne Englund Nash with Greek and Latin translation by Juvenal Merriell of the Oratory (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007), 507 pp. (French original: Histoire et esprit: L’Intelligence de l’Ecriture d’après Origène [Paris: Éditions Montaigne, 1950].) W HEN THIS BOOK was first published in 1950, it received an extended review by the Catholic Old Testament scholar John L. McKenzie, S.J.1 McKenzie had sufficient intelligence to recognize that de Lubac, in this 1 In Theological Studies 12 (1951): 365–81. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 533 Book Reviews 533 inductive study of Origen’s exegesis based mostly on the homilies on the Hexateuch, had done more than any other writer to clarify Origen’s terminology and practice. McKenzie went so far as to say that future discussions of Origen should take de Lubac’s exposition of Origen as their point of departure.The present writer agrees that this is what should have happened, even though, in American Origen scholarship at least, it did not. In some circles, de Lubac was dismissed (along with Daniélou and Crouzel) as “Catholic apologists for Origen.” To the present day, discussions of Origen’s interpretation of Scripture still tend to focus on his theory (found in Peri Archon, book 4) rather than his practice.Therefore, the appearance of de Lubac’s study in English translation is all the more welcome. However, for all his recognition of the superiority of de Lubac’s comprehensive and inductive study, McKenzie still objected to de Lubac’s core proposal. For de Lubac had urged modern Catholic exegetes to remain faithful to the fundamental hermeneutical principles of Origen and of the Church Fathers in general, since Origen’s spiritual exegesis is altogether inspired by the Christian mystery. McKenzie saw no point in this, since to him higher criticism of the Bible proved that the Christian principles, even though they were grounded in the New Testament’s own interpretation of the Old Testament, were invalid. McKenzie therefore demurred at de Lubac’s suggestion that modern scholars have something to learn from Origen’s humility, and that they should even make a real effort to unite their modern “historical sense” to that profound “sense of history” which Origen’s spiritual exegesis could draw from the text. McKenzie himself had little sympathy for Origen’s approach to interpretation and would remain an opponent of the recovery of patristic exegesis for the remaining four decades of his career. McKenzie was convinced that there was no intrinsic or organic connection between Origen’s homiletical exegesis and the original meaning of the Bible. McKenzie eventually reached the position that the Old Testament was completely comprehensible on its own and did not need the New Testament as a key that unlocks its meaning. De Lubac’s initial reviewer would later write: “There is no messianism in the New Testament which is derived from the Old Testament.”2 And further:“The Old Testament in no way predicts or leads one to expect the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth nor the saving act which the disciples of Jesus proclaimed as accomplished in him.”3 It might be said that de Lubac’s first English language reviewer was, or at least became, the anti-Origen. Whereas for 2 J. L. McKenzie, A Theology of the Old Testament (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976), 278. 3 Ibid., 279. N&V_Spr09.qxp 534 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 534 Book Reviews Origen every detail of the Old Testament bears a Christological meaning that the Spirit-filled interpreter might be capable of uncovering, if God deems him worthy, for McKenzie, on the other hand, the method of higher criticism has proven that there is not a single line in the Old Testament that points in any way toward the New Testament fulfillment. The Old Testament is a self-contained book that does not need light from elsewhere to illumine it. It is no wonder McKenzie was hostile to Origen’s Christian reading of the Old Testament and to de Lubac’s defense of it! McKenzie also dismissed St. Paul as an interpreter of the Old Testament. 4 Thus McKenzie represents a mixed reception of de Lubac’s work. On the positive side, even as a non-specialist, he was able to recognize the depth and competence of de Lubac’s Origen scholarship. He agreed that de Lubac had succeeded in demonstrating that Contra Celsum and Peri Archon do not exhibit the principles of Origen’s exegesis and, therefore, that the standard procedure contained in manuals for treating Origen’s exegesis should be abandoned. But on the negative side, McKenzie’s commitment to rationalistic historicism led him to reject categorically de Lubac’s proposals for making Origen’s spiritual exegesis relevant for the modern period. Eventually, McKenzie would come to repudiate the entire New Testament mode of interpreting the Old Testament. In my view it was somewhat unfortunate that the reception of (the French edition of) de Lubac’s magisterial study of Origen in the English speaking world was largely determined by a review from a Catholic Old Testament scholar with rationalist and Marcionite tendencies. In the fifty-seven years since the French edition of de Lubac’s book appeared, McKenzie’s objections to de Lubac have won the day in Catholic Old Testament scholarship, at least on the American scene.Today it is mainly Protestant scholars, led by Thomas Oden, who are now endeavoring to recover the patristic exegesis of the Bible.5 McKenzie’s objections seem to have prevailed over his own recognition of the incomparable superiority of de Lubac’s study over all other attempts to understand Origen’s interpretive principles. In America, Origen studies fell heavily under the influence of Joseph Trigg, whose monograph on Origen reproduces the very positions exposed by de Lubac as bankrupt and devoid of any real familiarity with Origen’s writings.6 4 For a study of McKenzie’s own scholarship, see Guillermo V. Villegas, The Old Testament as a Christian Book:A Study of Three Catholic Biblical Scholars: Pierre Grelot, John L. McKenzie, Luis Alonso Schökel (Manilla: Divine Word Publications, 1988). 5 See the series Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (InterVarsity Press). 6 Trigg’s main work is Origen:The Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983). Henri Crouzel, in “The Literature on Origen N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 535 Book Reviews 535 As one for whom Origen of Alexandria has been somewhat of a scholarly focus, I would judge the appearance of de Lubac’s work in its first English translation as a happy and indeed epoch-making event. We should immediately recall that Hans Urs von Balthasar translated this work into German. I will identify what I regard as some of the great strengths of de Lubac’s study. First, he lays a foundation for understanding Origen by discussing how Jesus, St. Paul, St. John, and the author of Hebrews—that is to say, how the New Testament authors themselves—practice the interpretation of Scripture. These are the interpreters who directly inspired Origen’s whole program. Too many modern students of Origen’s “method” of exegesis skip over any consideration of the New Testament patterns of interpretation.The tendency is to try to depict Origen as a Hellenizer, as an imitator of Porphyry’s Neo-Platonic allegorizing of Homer, or of Philo.While such influences are obviously present in Origen’s writings, they are not fundamental. Modern scholars too often forget about St. Paul and the author of Hebrews. In Origen’s eyes the author of Hebrews was the greatest exegete of all. By clarifying the New Testament patterns of interpretation, de Lubac embeds Origen in the New Testament itself and shows that Origen’s spiritual exegesis is wholly Christian and wholly traditional (49). At the beginning of this work, de Lubac tells us that his inductive study of Origen’s writings led him to see that the main principle of Origen’s exegesis was not really a matter solely of exegesis.“It was a whole manner of thinking, a whole world view . . . a whole interpretation of Christianity of which Origen . . . was less the author than the witness” (11). Secondly, in assessing secondary works on Origen, de Lubac shows that few scholars have had the patience to move beyond Origen’s “theory” for exegesis, described in book 4 of Peri Archon, and to examine how Origen actually conducts his exegesis of Scripture. De Lubac recommends observing Origen “at work” in order to determine his exegetical principles. This does not seem too much to ask of an Origen scholar. De Lubac then proceeds to do this in breathtaking detail. De Lubac belonged to an older generation of Catholic theological scholarship in which translations were quite unnecessary, since Greek and Latin texts were completely at the scholars’ fingertips. He shows how it came about that Origen’s works Peri Archon and Contra Celsum have caused such serious misunderstandings of Origen’s hermeneutics. The latter work contains ad hominem remarks by Origen where he argues that the 1970–1988,” Theological Studies 49 (1988): 505, writes of Trigg’s book:“His return to the systematic Origen of the beginning of this century and his inability to comprehend the spiritual and allegorical exegete seem anachronistic.” N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 536 Book Reviews 536 allegorization of the biblical narratives is no more unreasonable than the allegorization, or rationalization, of the Greek myths, which was fashionable in the erudite Greek world of his day. Many scholars have extrapolated from these remarks and wrongly concluded that Origen’s exegetical principles were derived from Neo-Platonic allegorization of Homer. As we have already discussed above, de Lubac shows that, in spite of the widespread scholarly misunderstanding of Origen’s ad hominem remarks here, these statements simply do not become principles which are found in Origen’s exegesis (33–42). The same applies to Origen’s theoretical hermeneutical principles found in Peri Archon, book 4. De Lubac insists that scholars should observe Origen at work in his actual exegesis (as opposed to his theoretical discussions) to determine the principles of his hermeneutics.What makes the modern misapprehension of Origen on this point all the more tragic is that in the very book Contra Celsum, and in all his other works, Origen refuses to treat the Bible, or any part of it, like a Platonic myth. Origen’s exegesis does not imperil, let alone reject, the primacy of the literal sense of the Bible. On the contrary, Origen defends historical Christianity against the attacks of Gnosticism, down to the very details concerning the dimensions of Noah’s ark.7 In a word, de Lubac shows that in spite of the spontaneous reactions of many modern scholars, it must not be concluded from the fact that Origen allegorizes a story that he does not believe in the historicity of the literal account, which is perfectly compatible with the quest for a spiritual meaning. In this connection the present writer finds it difficult to disagree with de Lubac’s repeated observation: Origen is rarely read. Further, I have also learned from de Lubac not to fear the charge of “moralism” that is often leveled against Origen’s theology. Protestant writers, beginning with Luther, have often made this charge.8 It is true that Origen’s theology is constantly oriented toward morality, and that he does not cease to exhort his listeners to engage in spiritual combat against the devil, a combat that was initiated at baptism (212). Unlike Luther, Origen insists that Christian salvation is more than hiding oneself from God’s wrath underneath the protective wings of Christ. But de Lubac reminds us that St. Paul’s theology has precisely the same Origenian emphases, as the reader of 1 Corinthians can notice (209). In other words, Origen does not sever morality from religion, any more than St. Paul did. A general strength of de Lubac’s patristic scholarship is the way he 7 Cf. Origen, Hom in Gn 2.1. 8 See my discussion of Luther and Melanchthon in chapter 6 of my book Origen and the History of Justification:The Legacy of Origen’s Commentary on Romans (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008). N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 537 Book Reviews 537 combines an intensive knowledge of Scripture with his expertise in the writings of the Fathers. Finally, de Lubac is one of the few scholars I have run across who has noticed that Origen’s exegesis of St. Paul (his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans ) differs from his Old Testament exegesis (the homilies on the Hexateuch).9 The latter are, of course, heavily allegorical, since Origen aims to bring out the Christian meaning of the letter of the Old Testament.The former, in contrast, aims primarily at the apprehension of the “letter” of Paul’s argument, since Paul’s doctrine in Romans is itself a theology (263). (McKenzie completely bypassed de Lubac’s observation in this connection, which confirms my suspicion that the actual writings of Origen were a closed book to him.) Seldom do studies of patristic exegesis make valuable distinctions like this, between the allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament text and the more literal exposition of St. Paul’s epistles.Yet such a distinction needs to be made.The implication is that the Pauline exegesis of the Fathers has the most to offer the modern exegete, with his almost exclusive interest in the literal level of meaning, since the Fathers tended to stay on this level in their interpretation of St. Paul. In spite of this reality, modern Catholic exegetes ignore the Pauline exegesis of the Fathers just as blatantly as they avoid their Old Testament exegesis. If they only knew what they were missing!10 The sixteenth century Catholic humanist Beatus Rhenanus once described Erasmus of Rotterdam in a letter to Ulrich Zwingli in these words: “It seems to me that [Pope] Leo X does not properly understand how great Erasmus is; he thinks perhaps that he is just one of us. Erasmus is not to be measured by common standards; he has risen far above the summit of human greatness.”11 Forgive me for saying it, but such a depiction describes my feelings for the patristic scholarship of Henri de Lubac. The 9 See Thomas P. Scheck, trans., Origen: Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, 2 volumes, Fathers of the Church, 103 and 104 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001–2). 10 Cf. Jeremy Cohen,“The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation: Romans 11:25–26 in Patristic and Medieval Exegesis,” Harvard Theological Review 98:3 (2005): 247–81. The author claims that Origen’s exegesis of Romans is far more extensive and detailed than that of Origen’s successors, John Chrysostom, Ambrosiaster, Pelagius, Augustine, Gregory the Great. The author finds that Origen does a better job than his Christian successors of preserving the ambiguities of Paul’s texts. Cohen rightly notes that most other extant patristic commentaries on Romans “pale in comparison with Origen’s—in the depth of their exposition of chapters 9–11, in the level of their commitment to grapple with the exegetical problems inherent in the text, and in the extent of their engagement with the issue of Israel’s salvation,” 263. 11 Cited by P. S. Allen, Erasmus: Lectures and Wayfaring Sketches (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), 13. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM 538 Page 538 Book Reviews depth of his knowledge of the Greek and Latin exegetical tradition has not been matched since Erasmus himself.Yet de Lubac’s familiarity with that tradition did not render him uncritical of its methodological weaknesses. He was quite ready to reproach Origen’s exegetical practices. Therefore de Lubac cannot be fairly labeled an “apologist for Origen,” though he was most certainly an expert on Origen. And as a competent guide to patristic and medieval exegesis, de Lubac was a giant.“He was not just one of us. He cannot be measured by common standards; he has risen far above the summit of human greatness.” De Lubac’s History and Spirit deserved a more sympathetic hearing when this book first appeared fifty seven years ago. He deserves to be heard even more now in the twenty-first century, by those who have walked through the wreckage of the McKenzian approach to biblical interpretation.Above all, let Origen scholars rejoice: the classic study N&V of Origen’s exegesis has been turned into English! Thomas P. Scheck Ave Maria University Ave Maria, FL Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith by Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2007), vii +209 pp. I N THE PREFACE of this book, Cardinal Dulles mentions a difficulty that professors and students of theology have faced for years: the lack of a clear, concise, and up-to-date manual on the subject of the Magisterium. Since the pontificate of Pope John Paul II the need for such a manual has been especially felt. For the last several decades, the Church’s teaching office has promulgated numerous important documents, some of which have addressed and clarified points that have been a matter of some dispute among theologians and pastors. The 1989 Profession of Faith, Ordinatio Sacerdotialis (1994), and Ad Tuendam Fidem (1998) immediately come to mind.The principal aims of this book on the Magisterium, according to Cardinal Dulles are “to explain the rationale for such an organ in the Church, to access the biblical grounding for its claims, to present a survey of its historical development, and to expound the functioning of the Magisterium in the contemporary Church, including the much debated question of infalliblity” (p. vii). All of this is done with the intention of including the interventions and instructions issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under its prefect Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, and the teaching of Pope John Paul II. Remarkably, Dulles accomplishes these aims in eight chapters in only 113 pages. Written in a very accessible style, the book addresses the N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 539 Book Reviews 539 following areas: the nature and function of the Magisterium, the Magisterium in the New Testament, historical development, hierarchical and non-hierarchical teachers, organs of the Magisterium, infallibility, the response due to the Magisterium, and reception. Dulles manages to synthesize a tremendous amount of material into a well organized and succinct presentation. In chapter after chapter he goes right to the heart of the matter, identifying and explaining the central points of the subject he examines.The book may leave some readers wishing that he had written about this or that point in more detail, but he chose wisely for a disciplined focus.Taking up certain points in great detail would distract from the central purpose of the book. In explaining the nature and function of the Magisterium, Dulles reminds us that we must first look to Jesus Christ in whom we find united and fulfilled the three offices of priest, prophet (teacher), and king. Jesus, before his ascension, conferred a participation in the function of these offices on the Church and its apostolic leaders. The apostles and those who succeeded them have power and authority to teach the nations the gospel, to sanctify the faith through sacramental worship, and to govern the Church. Drawing on the work of Robert Sokolowski, Dulles argues that teaching holds a certain primacy. Just as faith opens up the whole area of Christian life and provides the space where hope and charity can occur so, in an analogous fashion, teaching sets up the space in which sanctification and governance can take their place, making clear what they truly are. Dulles is very alive to contemporary misgivings about the very idea of a Magisterium. After stating that the word “Magisterium” refers not only to the function of official Church teaching but also to the body of authorized teachers who carry out this function, Dulles addresses a common objection to the idea of a Magisterium common among persons in contemporary liberal democratic societies. Many believe that they have the right and responsibility to make up their own mind about what to believe in religious matters. The issue here is one of freedom. Dulles’s response is twofold. First, he shows that the authority of the Magisterium is very closely connected to the structure of Christian faith itself, which involves the free personal self-surrender to the divinely revealed word of God. We do not have knowledge of this word from our own powers of reason and discovery. Anyone who wants to know the word of God must receive it directly or indirectly from persons to whom Christ chose to entrust it. It was the twelve apostles whom Jesus chose for this function. Therefore one cannot make a personal self-surrender to the word of God apart from accepting the authority of the apostles from which we ascertain N&V_Spr09.qxp 540 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 540 Book Reviews the word of God in the first place. This point helps Dulles to answer the objection to the Magisterium in the name of personal freedom. Freedom is ordered to the truth. It is given so that we might hold fast to the truth and live according to it.The truth of salvation is given to us by way of revelation which comes down to us by witnesses and teachers authorized by Christ.Therefore to withhold our assent to the authority of their testimony would be a misuse of freedom itself.The authority of authorized teachers is not a threat to freedom but helps to make a free act of faith possible in the first place. It stands to reason that if Christ gives humanity a revelation of divine things then he surely provided organs of transmission for insuring its conservation and purity. Here we see the limits of the Church’s teaching office as well.As a reliable organ of transmission the Magisterium does not have the power to impose a version of the truth all its own or annouce new revelations. The Magisterium can only propose what it has received so that persons might freely surrender to the word of God. So the Magisterium, Dulles wants to say, far from restricting the human freedom of persons who are searching for religious truth, is an aid to freedom because it directs freedom to the fullness of the truth of revelation that is handed down from the apostles. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the historical development of the Magisterium.These chapters amount to a clear alternative to an approach which supposes that Jesus had no plan for the constitution of his Church. Dulles eschews the position, adopted by some Catholic theologians, which holds that the guidance of the Holy Spirit led the developing Church to recognize the bishops as the successors to the apostles in teaching authority. Following the lead of Lumen Gentium (§§18, 20, 22), Dulles insists that the teaching office of the apostles and their successors has a firm historical connection to Christ. He understands the action of the Holy Spirit as being at the service of Christ’s intention for the institutional structure of the Church.The Magisterium is rooted above all in Jesus as divine teacher who instructed his apostles “to teach all nations.” It was according to the intention of Jesus that the authority to teach in his name be handed on to successors in order to complete the work of evangelization. Books of the New Testament attest to a clear teaching function of the apostles and the leaders they appointed.The epistles of Paul show that the teaching activity of the apostles involved not only proclamation but also fairly advanced doctrine as well. It is apparent, Dulles argues, that in the New Testament battling against heresy and errors was a major activity of the apostolic Magisterium in the first century. From its very beginnings the Church was faced with a need for an authority in order to sustain a faithful proclamation and correct interpretation of the gospel message. In the time of the N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 541 Book Reviews 541 Fathers of the Church the concern for orthodoxy remained particularly intense. The teaching of the bishops, who guarded the faith as received from the apostles, was a remedy against heresy.Without their judgments as to what belonged to the Christian faith and what lies beyond it, the purity of the gospel message would have been lost.This is a reality that remains true with every age. Dulles gives a short overview in chapter 3 of the historical development of the Magisterium from the time of the Fathers up to Vatican I. What informs his entire historical presentation is the conviction that the teaching authority of Jesus and the teaching mandate he gave to the Twelve lives on today sacramentally in the episcopacy. Moreover, Dulles writes in such a way that the consequences of this truth for a proper understanding of Church councils shine forth. Although there is representation in a council, it is not like that of a parliament in which representation rests on the will of the people. Representation in a Church council rests on the sacrament of the apostolic office. A bishop must represent the faith of the whole Church, which originates in the apostolic testimony to Christ. A Church council always involves the act of making present—albeit according to the needs of the times—what the Church received from the beginning. In chapter 4 Dulles points out that the term “Magisterium” was not always understood in the precise and modern sense as the power of the bishops and the pope to teach officially in the name of Christ and to make binding judgments on matters of faith. Prior to the nineteenth century, the term “Magisterium” was applied more broadly than in the modern sense. Some theologians, for example, made a distinction between a magisterium of the professorial chair and a magisterium of the pastoral chair connected to the governing power in the Church. In the nineteenth century, canonists connected the concept of the Magisterium as an exercise of hierarchical authority to the powers of teaching, sanctifying, and ruling. Understood in this sense it became commonplace to speak of the Magisterium. Once the term “Magisterium” was understood to be an exercise of the hierarchical authority of the pope and bishops to teach, sanctify, and rule in the name of Christ, then it became clear that theologians and other teachers in the Church do not have a magisterial status. Chapter 5 discusses how different organs of the Magisterium teach with varying degrees of authority.To understand the Magisterium properly, it is crucial to be aware of the identity and variety of its bearers. Dulles gives a helpful overview of teachings that emanate from the college of bishops, the pope as the head of the college, the dicasteries of the Holy See, bishops in groups, and individual bishops. N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 542 542 Book Reviews “The Scope of the Magisterium: Infallibility” is the topic of the sixth chapter. Here, in particular, Dulles displays his remarkable ability for synthesis as he weaves a tremendous amount of material into a short, compact exposition of a complex subject. Before he discusses infallibility, he spells out the functions of the Magisterium: (1) to proclaim the apostolic faith and to translate it for a new historical situation, (2) a negative function whereby the bishops and the pope defend the faith against errors. Dulles argues that in condemning misinterpretations the Magisterium gives a precise interpretation to the doctrinal tradition. In this way doctrine develops: (3) the Magisterium clarifies the faith in the face of new questions. At times in this process there emerge up-to-then-unnoticed implications of the faith. Only after discussing these functions does Dulles explain the infallibility of the Church as a whole, the subject and exercise of infallibility, the universal Magisterium of the bishops, and the papal Magisterium: ordinary and extraordinary. Dulles gives a careful presentation of the important distinction between primary and secondary objects of infallibility that readers will find helpful for understanding the teachings of Vatican I and II on infallibility, as well as recent interventions of the Magisterium. In chapter 7 Dulles observes that after Vatican II there was a period of confusion with regard to what Church doctrines were binding, on what basis, and in what measure. The 1989 Profession of Faith and Ad tuendam fidem (1998) are the remedies to the confusion. On the basis of these two important documents, Dulles provides the reader with an expert discussion of the responses owed to the Magisterium. A section with a short exploration on the problem of dissent rounds out the chapter. Dulles believes that dissent has always been a problem in the Church and that in recent years it has become more widespread. He argues that people who live in a democratic society often have a hard time seeing the distinctiveness of the Church as a community of faith where membership is dependent upon sharing the same beliefs. The last chapter of the book deals with the topic of reception. First, Dulles examines how the Magisterium, which is a servant of the Word, is itself receptive, before he addresses receptivity and Church councils, receptivity as interpretation, and ecumenical dialogue and reception. Nine appendices of key Church documents on the subject of the Magisterium complement the book. Cardinal Dulles has given us something that will be the standard handbook on the Magisterium for years to come. N&V Lawrence J.Welch Kenrick School of Theology St. Louis, MO N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 543 Book Reviews 543 Form and Being: Studies in Thomistic Metaphysics by Lawrence Dewan, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), xv + 265 pp. OVER THE PAST several years Lawrence Dewan has proven himself to be one of the preeminent authorities on the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas. In a multitude of articles, he has addressed virtually every aspect of Aquinas’s metaphysical thought. Yet the influence of this remarkable body of work has been somewhat limited due to the fact that these articles have appeared in a wide range of periodicals, many of which are very hard to obtain.Accordingly,The Catholic University of America Press has done scholars a great service by publishing this collection of articles by Dewan. The present volume is the first of three that Dewan has in the works. This book focuses on the relation between form and being. The promised collections will address the doctrine of the act of being and natural theology. In addition, it is worth mentioning that a further collection of Dewan’s articles on ethics has been recently published by Fordham University Press. The unifying leitmotif of this volume is the role of form in ontological analysis. In many ways this has been the distinctive aspect in Dewan’s reading of St. Thomas. Thomistic studies, especially in North America, have, of course, been dominated by the focus on esse promoted so strongly by Gilson, Owens, and others. In fact, Dewan was himself trained in this tradition and retains the central focus on esse. However, he is much more careful situate esse in the context of other aspects of metaphysical attention, such as form, essence, and substance.This awareness of the full breadth of Aquinas’s metaphysics is what is so unique and valuable in Dewan’s work. The first four articles in the book address the nature of metaphysics as a discipline. In “What is Metaphysics?” Dewan explores the tension between the objectivity and certainty of metaphysics and its difficulty for human beings to acquire. The second paper “What Does It Mean to Study Being as ‘Being’?” discusses the subject matter proper to metaphysics. Here Dewan argues that there is a need to begin with sensible material things, but that metaphysics also rises to the existence of a higher mode of being, namely God. So there is a hierarchy uncovered within the field of metaphysics including both perishable and imperishable beings. The next two papers deal with the “seed” of metaphysics, and the knowledge that is a precondition for metaphysics.This provides the basis for his critique of the River Forest School, which argues that it is necessary to prove the existence of God prior to engaging in metaphysics.While they N&V_Spr09.qxp 544 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 544 Book Reviews argue that without this knowledge philosophy of nature would be the highest science, Dewan provides an alternative reading of the same texts to show that philosophy of nature is itself rooted in metaphysics, and that Aristotle understood the Pre-Socratic philosophers to be metaphysicians. The next three articles focus on specific problems of causality, analogy, and substance. The work on causality addresses Owens’s reading of Thomas and applies Aquinas’s teaching to Hume’s famous critique of causality. In addressing analogy, Dewan provides a compelling critique of Ralph McInerny’s influential work on the subject. Dewan notes that analogy is treated by both the logician and metaphysician, but in different ways, and that McInerny’s treatment is not attentive to this difference. The paper on substance shows the relevance Aquinas’s doctrine of substance to contemporary debates about evolution, a topic Dewan has recently revisited in his Aquinas Lecture, St.Thomas and Form as Something Divine in Things (Marquette University Press, 2007). The last six papers in the volume focus more explicitly on the role of form in metaphysics.These include a study of Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, books 7 and 8. Dewan highlights the fact that Thomas holds that metaphysical demonstrations function primarily through the formal cause. He also explores how this is based upon metaphysical practice and an awareness of the role of substantial form in metaphysical method. Three of these papers are devoted to demonstrating what I would say is perhaps most distinctive and illuminating in Dewan’s reading of Thomas, the view that form as a cause is a principle of esse. These include a critique of Owens’s well-known position that esse is an accident of the created thing, a study of the relation between form and being in Aquinas’s demonstration of the soul’s incorruptibility, and a presentation of Dewan’s very unique interpretation of the renowned distinction between being and essence. In “Nature as a Metaphysical Object” Dewan turns his attention to essence and form as a principle of operation, with special attention given to the human soul as a prime example of how substantial form is a source of power and operation.The final article moves from form to the particular subsisting thing and offers a study of the principle of individuation, which takes to task Owens’s view that being is the principle of individuation in all things. In contrast, Dewan argues that individuality is found diversely and analogously in material beings, separate substances, and God. Certainly, no brief summary such as this can do justice to the richness and care with which Dewan presents St.Thomas’s thought.Yet the range and depth of the treatment he offers is clear.Those who wish to come to terms with the full breadth of Aquinas’s metaphysics are very much in N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 545 Book Reviews 545 Dewan’s debt, and will undoubtedly read and re-read this work for years to come. N&V J. L. A.West Newman Theological College Edmonton, Canada N&V_Spr09.qxp 8/20/09 8:47 AM Page 546