Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 8, No. 3 (2010): 501–4

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A Tribute to Ralph McInerny
J ANET E. S MITH
Sacred Heart Major Seminary
Detroit, Michigan

M ANY will write of Ralph’s impressive scholarship and diverse interests. I will write some about Ralph’s accomplishments but I want to
write mostly about Ralph as a person, a friend, and mentor. I am,
however, one of the few who thinks she knows how Ralph managed to
have such prodigious scholarly and popular output. I am convinced his
mind was working full steam on several tracks at the same time; it was
churning out puns and witticisms constantly; it was working on the latest
novel; it was solving complex philosophical problems, processing
profound and sometimes poetic thoughts, and it was fully focused on
whomever he was talking with—all at the same time. Now how you do
that?! I don’t know but I think that was what he was capable of doing.
To the question, “is the light on when the refrigerator door is closed?”
the answer—if Ralph is the refrigerator—is “Yes—and there are several
ice makers doing their job at all times as well.”
It was not hard to love Ralph. He was simultaneously suave, sophisticated, urbane, relaxed, welcoming, and down-to-earth. He was tremendously and effortlessly charming. Recently I saw just a few minutes of an
old Bing Crosby movie and the resemblances seemed to me to be startling. His romantic interest said to the ever debonair Bing, “You are so
charming, sincere, and stable.” That is a good list to commence complimenting Ralph. Bing was also always ready to burst into some comforting, mellifluous song that seemed to put the world right and so it was
with Ralph; he seemed to have the perfect words for all occasions. Bing
and Ralph both had a look of benign mischief in their eyes; you knew
that at any minute you could be in for some gentle teasing that would
serve somehow to build you up, not tear you down.

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Bing captures the grounded but light hearted side of Ralph—the side
that was expressed by his joyful sauntering through life. For the intense
purpose-driven life that Ralph led, Moses comes to mind as the fitting
analogue. Both undertook the mission of leading many to the promised
land. Ralph was acutely aware, more than anyone I have known, that he
was building on the work of his forefathers, for whose work he expressed
pious gratitude, and knew he had an obligation to shape those who were
to carry on the work in future generations. In a sense, his life was an
unrelenting effort to remind us of eternal truths and our obligation to do
what we could to preserve them, understand them deeply, build on them,
and pass them onto others. For many summers he ran both a summer
workshop for accomplished and for up-and coming Thomists and a
workshop on Basic Catholicism for those who couldn’t find reliable
presentations of fundamental Catholicism anywhere. (Isn’t it wonderful
that those days are over? In part thanks to Ralph’s solace and training of
many.) Summer after summer he sat in the front row in rapt attention for
talks he had heard countless times or talks he could have given much
much better. Always full of compliments to the speakers; always spectacularly accessible to the attendees. And we would find that at the end of
the week, he had somehow found time to write another book. That
multi-tracked mind!
It would be easy to exhaust one’s supply of positive adjectives in
describing Ralph. I am confident that all who write tributes to him will
mention his kindness since that was perhaps his most salient characteristic—after his manifest intelligence. Much of his kindness was sub tabula.
I remember watching Ralph ask a poor young scholar at a conference if
she would be at the banquet; she made some lame excuse (which I did
not recognize as lame) for an inability to attend. Not long after we
parted, I saw a conference organizer approach her with an “extra” ticket
for the event. I knew Ralph had purchased one for her. For years he
attended to the widowed Jean Oesterle like she was his mother; he
helped find scholarly projects that kept her going; gave her an office
nearby and doted on her with his daily friendship. I am sure these examples could be multiplied exponentially.
Ralph was marvelous to me during my trials at Notre Dame. He
befriended me when I was a raw recruit in the fight for the good and
true and never acted like he was the “great man” supporting the clueless
newbie; he always treated me as an equal although I knew I was privileged to have him as a mentor and friend. His “mentoring” was of the
most subtle kind; in fact, I learned most simply by being in his company
and observing him deal with people. It was also most edifying to watch

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him hatch new improbable schemes and seemingly make them materialize overnight. I remember his wife Connie and I agreeing that very few
people wake up each morning with a new grand idea for saving Western
Civilization or for putting an end to dissent in the Church and there are
fewer who make most of them happen, but Ralph was that kind of guy.
When I was denied tenure at Notre Dame, Ralph was prepared to
spearhead an effort to challenge the decision and even went to consult a
lawyer with me. I admit I didn’t know whether his foremost motive was
to support me or to gather material for some impending novel. And he
wasn’t nice only to those who occupied the same ecclesial camp as
himself; he was notorious for championing anyone who he thought got
a raw deal, among them a prominent feminist whom he used to debate
about the possibility of women becoming priests.When she was denied
tenure, he battled for her.
Ralph never backed away from a fight, yet never was pugnacious or
belligerent; he was always the gentleman, always fair, always gracious.
Indeed, he was undeniably fairer to his opponents than they were to him,
both his opponents in the scholarly world and those in the academy. I
doubt that anyone could accuse Ralph of underhanded behavior. Still, he
didn’t hesitate to use his resources to advance the causes and people he
believed in but, again, transparently and fairly.When Notre Dame started
becoming friendly to the political maneuvering of the gay/lesbian lobby,
he arranged for a series of speakers on campus who defended Church
teaching. It infuriated many, but Ralph doggedly reverenced the Church
and its authority more than he reverenced the trendy irreverent climbers
at Notre Dame.
I remember a wonderful quodlibetal (“ask whatever you like”) session
at the University of Dallas where Ralph fielded questions with the finesse
of Roger Federer returning brilliant volleys. That’s when I realized that
those who are in the top 1% of intelligent people can easily make those
who are in the top 2% look like fools if they want to. Ralph didn’t want
to but you knew there was phenomenal power behind that charm. Ralph
didn’t want to flatten anyone. He just wanted to lay out the truth so carefully and clearly that rejecting it would seem simply foolish. Ralph made
the world seem a friendlier and more intelligible place by conveying the
attitude that a lot of it does make sense if you just use your mind to think
about it—and embrace and trust the Catholic faith! His clarity and
certainty about truth did not tend toward dogmatic closure on questions.
The truth we know is just a stepping stone to further knowledge, knowledge cloaked in beauty and wonder and those privileged to have minds
trained to discover it, were obliged to do so and pass that knowledge on

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to others, with an equal combination of humility and determination.
Ralph’s humility and determination inspired others to imitate his
approach to the search for understanding.
Connie, refreshingly candid and delightfully feisty in her own right,
was the perfect wife for Ralph. At home, they entertained beautifully
together; it was a pleasure to be invited to events on Portage Avenue
attended by many of the old guard at Notre Dame; the intimate and
warm friendships were a comfort to all; the conversations were erudite,
hilarious and captivating.
I hope it is not irreverent, but in fact Ralph reminded me a lot of God
(after all, we are supposed to be as perfect as our heavenly Father is
perfect). God is harder at work than any of us; involved in projects galore,
but always ready to interrupt those projects to help us achieve our ends.
And God seems to be equal work and play; he not only instructs and helps
us constantly, he continually provides us with things to delight us. So, of
course, did Ralph. I never knew who the “real” Ralph was, whether he
was a philosopher or a mystery writer at heart. But, like God, he seemed
to want to give us some very serious food for the mind and then to give
us some enchanting frivolity as a complementary palate cleanser.
I count Ralph among those who stood by me and shaped me. I know
there are countless others who have been the beneficiaries of his goodness. I know his children must feel infinitely blessed to have had him and
Connie as their parents; his colleagues and friends at Notre Dame must
feel infinitely blessed to have had him as colleague and friend. We were
all immeasurably blessed to have had Ralph in our lives; we pray now that
he is enjoying truly infinite blessings in the arms of the Truth he loved
N&V
and defended so well.

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505

Obedient unto Death, Even Death on a Cross:
Christ’s Obedience in the Soteriology
of St. Thomas Aquinas
M ARK A RMITAGE
Durham, England

I N The New Testament and the People of God, N.T.Wright describes how
first-century Jewish theology saw salvation-history in terms of God’s
sapiential plan for dealing with the sin of Adam by using Abraham and
his family to bring God’s grace first to Israel (understood as the true
Adamic humanity) and thence to the entire cosmos.1 Wright then shows
how, for Paul, Abraham’s family has become part of the problem rather
than the solution.2 According to Paul, the solution to the problem is
quite simply Jesus Christ, who effectively undoes the sin of Adam, fulfilling in his own person all of the symbols of Israel (Torah, Temple, Land,
Messiah),3 instantiating in himself the true Adamic humanity, inaugurating the new creation, and incorporating those who have faith that God
has fulfilled his covenant promises in Jesus into his New Covenant
family.4 Recent Aquinas scholarship suggests that Thomas needs to be
read in a similar light. In particular, Matthew Levering writes that “at the
heart of Thomas Aquinas’s scientific theology of salvation lies the narrative of Scripture—the fulfillment of Israel’s Torah and Temple through the
1 N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (London: Society for

Promoting Christian Knowledge [SPCK], 1992), 262–79.
2 Ibid., 403–9.
3 N.T.Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), 369–442.
4 N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology

(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 18–40; Paul: Fresh Perspectives (London: SPCK,
2005), 36–37; (as Tom Wright) What St Paul Really Said (Oxford: Lion, 1997),
135–50.

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New Covenant of Christ Jesus.”5 For Aquinas, as for Paul, what Jesus does
is to deal with the sin of Adam by fulfilling Israel’s Torah and Temple and
by manifesting in himself that graced, redeemed humanity which he
shares sacramentally with the members of his mystical body, who thereby
become God’s New Covenant family.
In this study I propose to show that one of the many ways of looking at
Christ’s fulfillment of Torah and Temple is to focus specifically on the question of Christ’s obedience. Aquinas’s understanding of salvation-history in
terms of the history of disobedience and obedience unfolds in four stages:
(1) Adam’s sin of disobedience, (2) God’s sapiential preparation for a solution in terms of Israel’s external obedience to him through Torah, (3) God’s
reversal of Adam’s sin in terms of Christ’s internal and external obedience,
and (4) the New Law, which consists in that internal obedience which is
the result of the grace of the Spirit communicated by means of the sacraments in virtue of which the members of Christ’s mystical body share in
his true Adamic humanity (that is,Adam’s state of original justice plus additional sanctifying grace).6 In what follows I shall be focusing on phase 3 of
this narrative—Christ’s reversal of the sin of Adam through his meritorious, satisfactory, and sacrificial obedience—and in this regard I propose to
discuss passages from Aquinas’s commentaries on Philippians, Romans,
Hebrews, and John, and also from that part of the Summa theologiae where
Aquinas addresses the question “whether Christ died out of obedience,” in
order to trace the lines of the biblical narrative of disobedience and obedience, which culminates in Christ’s Torah-fulfilling passion.
Commentary on Philippians: Obedience as Humility
A key text for Aquinas is Philippians 2:8–9:“He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the Cross. For this reason
God also has exalted him, and has given him a name which is above all
names.” In his commentary on Philippians Aquinas explores these verses in
some detail, and begins by explaining that Paul is commending the humility of Christ as this manifests itself in the mystery of his passion.7 He quotes
5 Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation according to

Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 3.
6 Original justice includes sanctifying grace (Summa theologiae I, q. 95, a. 1);“in the

state of perfect nature man needs a gratuitous strength superadded to natural
strength for one reason, viz. in order to do and wish supernatural good; but for
two reasons, in the state of corrupt nature, viz. in order to be healed, and furthermore in order to carry out works of supernatural virtue, which are meritorious”
(ST I–II, q. 109, a. 1).
7 Thomas Aquinas, Super epistolam ad Philippenses lectura, cap. 2, lect. 2.The idea that
Christ’s humility reverses the pride which lies at the heart of original sin is key

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Sirach 3:20—“The greater you are, the more you should humble yourself
in all things, and you shall find grace before God”—and argues that, since
Christ is the greatest of all men inasmuch as he is also God, it follows that
it is especially appropriate for him to humble himself.8 At this point
Aquinas introduces the idea that “the manner of humility and the sign of
humility is obedience.”9 This is the corollary of what is said in the Summa
about Adam’s pride resulting in an inordinateness of will (inordinatio voluntatis) which results in disobedience to the divine command.10 In effect, the
sign of humility is obedience, and the sign of pride is disobedience, and, as
we shall see, Aquinas equates sin (especially pride) with inordinatio, and
hence with disobedience, and righteousness (especially humility) with rectitudo ordinis, and hence with obedience.
According to Aquinas, the chief characteristic of the proud is that they
follow their own will.The proud seek altitudo, and it is a characteristic of
the one who is “high” that he does not allow himself to be ruled by
another, but wishes to rule over others.11 The antithesis of this superbia and
altitudo is obedientia, and the fact that Christ is made obedient ( factus est
obediens) serves to demonstrate the perfect humilitas of his passion, which
his obedience also renders meritorious, inasmuch as “obedience invests our
suffering with merit” (obedientia dat meritum passionibus nostris).12 Joseph P.
Wawrykow shows that Aquinas understands merit in terms of the divine
ordinatio—that is, God’s ordering of the life of grace in a “sapiential” fashion which “refers to the wisdom of God that formulates a plan for manifesting the goodness of God in the creation.”13 This divine and sapiential
ordinatio helps bring about the proper ordinatio of the human being both
internally (rectitudo ordinis) and externally (ordinatio towards the goal of eternal life),14 and merit can be seen as consisting in obedience to the divine
commandments inasmuch as the latter denotes both that rectitudo ordinis

to Aquinas’s reading of Philippians. See Francesca Aran Murphy, “Thomas’
Commentaries on Philemon, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and Philippians,” in Aquinas
on Scripture:An Introduction to His Biblical Commentaries, ed.Thomas G.Weinandy,
Daniel A. Keating, and John P.Yocum (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 177–78.
8 Super Philip., cap. 2, lect. 2.
9 Ibid.: “Modus humiliationis et signum humilitatis est obedientia.”
10 ST II–II, q. 163, a. 1, ad 1.
11 Super Philip., cap. 2, lect. 2: “quod non reguletur alio, sed ipsa alia regulet.”
12 Ibid.
13 Joseph P. Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Human Action: “Merit” in the Theology of
Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995),
180–82.
14 God’s Grace and Human Action, 170–71.

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which derives from humility and that co-operation with the divine ordinatio which orders the will both internally and externally.
In the Philippians commentary, Christ is made obedient “not by his
divine will, which is the rule, but by his human will, which is ruled in all
things according to his Father’s will.”15 The idea that Christ allows himself
to be ruled by his Father’s will anticipates the discussion about Christ’s
subjection to the Father in the Summa where Aquinas speaks of “the subjection of subservience, whereby every creature serves God, being subject to
his ordinatio,”16 grounding what he calls this “subiectio obedientiae” in Philippians 2:8 (“becoming obedient unto death”). This “subjection of obedience” to the divine ordinatio needs to be understood in relation to that
proper ordinatio (rectitudo ordinis) of the lower parts of the soul to reason and
of reason to God in which original iustitia consists,17 and represents a
configuration with God’s sapiential ordinatio.18 By justification, God effectively “re-orders” what has become disordered, bringing about a restoration
of this iustitia or rectitudo ordinis.19 The obedience in virtue of which Christ
is ruled entirely by his Father’s will—that is, the perfect subjection of his will
to that of his Father—constitutes Christ as truly just and well-ordered, and
is the means by which he merits both for himself and for others.20
Aquinas observes that it is fitting that Christ’s passion is characterized
above all by obedience, because Adam’s transgression was one of disobe15 Super Philip., cap. 2, lect. 2:“Non voluntate divina, quia ipsa est regula; sed volun-

tate humana, quae regulata est in omnibus secundum voluntatem paternam.”
Aquinas quotes Matthew 26:39: “not as I will, but as you will.” On Christ’s
human will, see Paul Gondreau,“The Humanity of Christ, the Incarnate Word,”
in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph
Wawrykow (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), 266.
16 ST III, q. 20, a. 1: “subiectio servitutis, secundum quod omnis creatura Deo
servit, eius ordinationi subiecta.”
17 ST I–II, q. 113, a. 1:“Justice is so-called inasmuch as it implies a certain rectitude
of order (rectitudo ordinis ) in the interior disposition of a human being, in so far
as what is highest in humans is subject to God, and the inferior powers of the
soul are subject to the superior, i.e. to the reason; and this disposition the
Philosopher calls ‘justice metaphorically speaking.’ ”
18 Cf. Wisdom 16:24 (“the creature serving you, the Creator”) cited in ST III, q.
20, a. 1.
19 J. Mark Armitage,“A Certain Rectitude of Order: Jesus and Justification According to Aquinas,” The Thomist 72 (2008): 45–66. See also Brian Davies, O.P., The
Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 335–39;
Daniel A. Keating, “Justification, Sanctification and Divinization in Thomas
Aquinas,” in Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction, ed. Thomas Weinandy,
Daniel Keating, and John Yocum (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 139–58.
20 J. Mark Armitage, “A Certain Rectitude of Order,” 57–66.

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dience:“For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners;
so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just” (Rom 5:19).21
Again, he draws attention to the pattern whereby disobedience leads to
sin/injustice and obedience leads to justice.Aquinas perceives that Christ’s
obedience is comprehensive of both his humility and his iustitia. “By
obedience,” says Aquinas, “we understand every virtue, because a man is
just inasmuch as he keeps the commandments of God,”22 and one might
almost say that, for Aquinas in his commentary on Philippians, sin equals
pride equals disobedience, while virtue equals humility equals obedience.
Accordingly, because Christ’s fullness of grace, itself a consequence of the
hypostatic union, constitutes him as iustus from the outset,23 it follows that
his original justice necessarily manifests itself in humble obedience in such
a way that the latter prolongs his justice—his rectitudo ordinis—throughout
his entire mission, culminating in the meritorious obedience of the Cross.
Aquinas explains that the highest form of obedience is displayed
“when someone follows the command of another contrary to the movement of his own will.”24 The motus of the human will tends towards two
things—life and honour—and, in dying on the Cross, Christ refuses
neither death (in the act of dying for our sins) nor ignominy (inasmuch
as death on a Cross is ignominiosissima ). In the Summa Aquinas argues that
Adam’s sin of superbia consisted above all in coveting an inordinate likeness with God, and in relying on himself “in rejection of the divine order
of rule” (contempto divinae regulae ordine ).25 In the Philippians commentary, Christ’s acceptance of death and ignominy is, in effect, the precise
opposite of Adam’s craving similitudo with God, for by his humble obedience he accepts the divinae regulae ordo and so effects the undoing of
Adam’s sin of pride and disobedience. Elsewhere Aquinas interprets this
re-ordering in terms of the restoration of the imago Dei, which was lost
21 Cited in Super Philip., cap. 2, lect. 2. In the Summa Aquinas contends that “man’s

first sin consisted in his coveting some spiritual good above his measure; and this
pertains to pride,” but he adds that “[m]an’s disobedience to the divine command
was not willed by man for his own sake, for this could not happen unless one
presuppose inordinateness in his will. It remains therefore that he willed it for
the sake of something else. Now the first thing he coveted inordinately was his
own excellence; and consequently his disobedience was the result of his pride”
(ST II–II, q. 163, a. 1, corpus; ad 1).
22 Super Philip., cap. 2, lect. 3:“per obedientiam intelligitur omnis virtus: quia ex hoc
est homo iustus, quod mandata Dei custodit.”
23 On Christ’s fullness of grace, see ST III, q. 7, aa. 1 and 9.
24 Super Philip., cap. 2, lect. 2: “quando sequitur imperium alterius contra motum
proprium.” Cf ST II–II, q. 104, a. 3.
25 ST II–II, q. 163, a. 2.

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by Adam’s prideful and disobedient quest for similitudo,26 and Romanus
Cessario has argued convincingly that (1) original justice can be identified with the perfection of imago Dei, (2) sin can be identified with the
loss of the divine image,27 and (3) Christ’s work of atonement needs to
be understood in terms of the restoration of the divine image.28
Having discussed Christ’s humility, Aquinas now examines the reward
( praemium ) of this humility, which is exaltatio et gloria.29 He is drawing
here on Luke 14:11 and 18:14—“Because everyone that exalts himself,
shall be humbled; and everyone that humbles himself, shall be exalted”—
and Job 22:29—“For he who has been humbled shall be in glory.” From
this it follows that, since Christ was exalted in virtue of the fact that he
humbled himself, we should know that, if we humble ourselves, we too
shall be exalted as long as we humble ourselves in obedience to the
divine will.30 In the Summa Aquinas shows how Christ merited his own
exaltation by humbling himself.31 He explains that “when anyone by
reason of his unjust will ascribes to himself something beyond his due, it
is only just that he be deprived of something else which is his due,” and
that “likewise, when any man through his just will has stripped himself of
what he ought to have, he deserves that something further be granted to
him as the reward of his just will.” In his passion “Christ humbled [humiliavit ] himself beneath his dignity,” and so by the “lowliness” (humilitas ) of
his passion merited exaltatio.What Christ merits for himself he merits also
on behalf of the members of his mystical body, so Christ’s humilitas merits
gloria not only for himself but for all the faithful ( Jn 17:10).32
Christ’s humble obedience can be understood not only as merit but
also as sacrifice. Aquinas quotes 1 Samuel 15:22—“obedience is better
26 Cf. Joseph P.Wawrykow, The SCM Press A–Z of Thomas Aquinas (London: SCM

Press, 2005), 101–2. On the imago Dei according to Aquinas, see especially D.
Juvenal Merriell, C.O., To the Image of the Trinity: A Study of the Development of
Aquinas’Teaching (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990); A. N.
Williams, The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 68–72.
27 The imago Dei consists in knowing and loving God in imitation of God’s knowing and loving of himself: “[M]an is said to be the image of God by reason of his
intellectual nature; he is the most perfectly like God according to that in which he
can best imitate God in his intellectual nature. Now the intellectual nature imitates
God chiefly in this, that God understands and loves himself ” (ST I, q. 93, a. 1).
28 Romanus Cessario, O.P., The Godly Image: Christ and Salvation in Catholic Theology
from Anselm to Aquinas (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s Publications, 1990), 181–90.
29 Super Philip., cap. 2, lect. 3.
30 Ibid.
31 ST III, q. 49, a. 6.
32 ST III, q. 48, a. 1, corpus and sed contra.

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than sacrifices: and to hearken rather than to offer the fat of rams”—and
observes that “to make an offering from what is external to oneself is a
great thing, but to make an offering out of one’s own body is greater, and
to make an offering out of one’s soul and will, which takes place through
obedience, is the greatest thing of all.”33 Aquinas makes a similar point in
the Summa where he quotes Gregory the Great to the effect that “obedience is rightly preferred to sacrifices, because by sacrifices another’s body
is slain whereas by obedience we slay our own will,” and concludes
any other acts of virtue are meritorious before God through being
performed out of obedience to God’s will. For were one to suffer even
martyrdom, or to give all one’s goods to the poor, unless one directed
these things to the fulfilment of the divine will, which pertains directly to
obedience, they could not be meritorious, as neither would they be if they
were done without charity, which cannot exist apart from obedience.34

Elsewhere in the Summa Aquinas presents sacrifice as a sensible and exterior sign of our interior subjection to God: “[I]t is a dictate of natural
reason that man should use certain sensibles, by offering them to God in
sign of the subjection and honor due to him [in signum debitae subiectionis
et honoris].”35 In the commentary on Philippians Aquinas applies these
principles in such a way as to portray Christ’s sacrifice as a matter of
humble obedience (consisting in subjection to God) in virtue of which he
reverses Adam’s prideful disobedience, establishes in himself the true (that
is, obedient, well-ordered, graced) Adamic humanity, and merits exaltation
for himself and eternal life for the members of his mystical body.
Commentary on Romans: Obedience as Justice
In his commentary on Romans, Aquinas argues that one way of looking
at Christ’s death is to see it “as depending on Christ’s will to suffer.” He
explains that “his will . . . was formed unto the taking up of death, since,
out of obedience to the Father,‘He became obedient’ to the Father ‘even
unto death’ (Phil 2:8), and, out of charity towards men, ‘Christ loved us
and gave himself up for us’ (Eph 5:2).”36 Viewed in this light, says Aquinas,
33 Super Philip., cap. 2, lect. 3:“offerre de rebus exterioribus est magnum, sed maius

si de corpore, maximum autem si de anima et voluntate tua, quod fit per obedientiam.”
34 ST II–II, q. 104, a. 3.
35 ST II–II, q. 85, a. 1.
36 Super epistolam ad Romanos lectura, cap. 5, lect. 2: “secundum quod processit ex
voluntate Christi patientis, quae quidem voluntas informata fuit ad mortem sustinendam, cum ex obedientia ad patrem, Phil. II, 8: factus est obediens patri usque

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“the death of Christ was meritorious and provided satisfaction for our
sins.” Merit and satisfaction are the first two of the five soteriological
models discussed in Summa theologiae III, question 48, the third being
sacrifice, which we have already shown to be bound up with the concept
of merit. We have said (quoting Joseph Wawrykow) that Christ’s merit
“refers to the wisdom of God that formulates a plan for manifesting the
goodness of God in the creation,”37 and exactly the same could be said of
his work of satisfaction, which, like merit, has to do with God’s sapiential
ordination of creation through the loving obedience of Christ. Aquinas
explains that “Christ gave more to God than was required to compensate
for the offenses of the whole human race . . . because of the exceeding
charity from which he suffered.”38 The source of Christ’s merit is likewise
his charity,39 and Christ’s passion is in fact a single saving action flowing
from charity which may be viewed as merit, inasmuch as it is an act of his
will, and as satisfaction, inasmuch as it is an act of his flesh.40
It is important at this stage to note that Aquinas does not see Christ’s
sacrifice in penal or substitutionary terms. Christ does not offer satisfaction in place of us; rather, through his humility and obedience he offers
satisfaction in such a way that, incorporated into his mystical body, we
participate in his work of satisfaction and sacrifice and merit. Rik Van
Nieuwenhove writes:
Christ’s death, which functions as a sign of his utter humility and
obedience, atones (satisfacit ) because of the charity in which he bore it.
This “satisfaction” changes us (and our relationship with God), not God
as such. Seeing that sin is a turning away from God, through our incorporation in Christ we begin to share in the divine life through faith and
charity.41

Christ’s merit, satisfaction, and sacrifice, grounded as they are in his
humility and his loving obedience, have to do with sapiential re-ordering (Wawrykow), image-restoration (Cessario), and Torah-fulfillment
(Levering), and Aquinas’s treatment of the obedientia Christi in his
Romans commentary needs to be understood accordingly.
ad mortem, tum etiam ex charitate ad homines, Eph.V, 2: dilexit nos et tradidit se
pro nobis.”
37 Joseph P.Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Human Action, 57.
38 ST III, q. 48, a. 2.
39 ST III, q. 48, a. 1, obj. 1.
40 ST III, q. 48, a. 6, ad 3.
41 Rik Van Nieuwenhove,“ ‘Bearing the Marks of Christ’s Passion’:Aquinas’s Soteriology,” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed. Van Nieuwenhove and Wawrykow,
291.

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Key to Aquinas’s line of argument is the insight that it was the inobedientia of Adam, which was characterized by the ratio iniustitiae, which
constituted all human beings as peccatores and iniusti.42 Original sin is
coterminous with disobedience and inordinateness,43 and, as Rudi te
Velde has shown, humans are reduced by Adam’s disobedience to a state
of disorder and disharmony in the light of which they are unable to realize that freedom which is intrinsic to what it means to be truly human.44
By the same token, it is the obedience of Christ, which bore the ratio
iustitiae, that constitutes us (by incorporation into his mystical body) as
iusti, and it is in this sense that we are to understand the insistence in verse
16 [referring to Rom 5:16] that “grace proceeds forth into all men unto
justification.”45 It is axiomatic for Aquinas that that justification which
results in a proper ordinatio of the lower part of the soul to the higher and
of the higher part to God is the effect of grace,46 and this grace is in turn
the grace of Christ, derived from his passion and accessed by faith and
through the sacraments,47 in virtue of which the justified participate in
Christ’s iustitia and obedientia.48
Aquinas asks whether it really is the case that Adam’s sin consisted in
disobedience rather than pride, and quotes Sirach 10:13 to the effect that
“the beginning of every sin is pride.”49 Aquinas answers that
the first stage of pride consists in a person’s unwillingness to be subject
to the divine precepts, and this pertains to disobedience. From this it
follows that man’s first sin appears to have been disobedience, not according to the exterior action, but according to the interior movement of
pride, in virtue of which he wills to go against the divine precept.50

Genesis 3:17 describes above all else an act of disobedience, which is put
right by the obedience of Christ, which consists in his being obedient to
42 Super Rom., cap. 5, lect. 5.
43 Original sin “is an inordinate disposition, arising from the destruction of the

harmony which was essential to original justice” (ST I–II, q. 81, a. 1).
44 Rudi A. te Velde,“Evil, Sin, and Death:Thomas Aquinas on Original Sin,” in The

Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed.Van Nieuwenhove and Wawrykow, 157–59.
45 Super Rom., cap. 5, lect. 5: “quod gratia procedit in omnes homines in iustifica-

tionem.”
46 ST I–II, q. 113, a. 3.
47 ST III, q. 46, a. 6, ad 2.
48 ST III, q. 62, a. 1: “[I]t is evident that through the sacraments of the New Law

man is incorporated with Christ.” The faithful share in all that pertains to his
merit (ST III, q. 48, a. 1) and satisfaction (III, q. 48, a. 2, ad 1) in virtue of their
membership of his mystical body.
49 Super Rom., cap. 5, lect. 5.
50 Ibid.

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his Father’s command ( praecepto patris obediens ), and accordingly accepting death for our salvation (Phil 2:8).The obedience of Christ cancels out
the disobedience of Adam, and the ratio iustitiae of the second Adam, in
which the members of his mystical body participate, cancels out the ratio
iniustitiae of the first.
Aquinas notes that “this does not contradict what is said elsewhere,
namely, that Christ died out of charity, as is clear from Ephesians 5:2,
because the fact that he obeyed proceeded out of the love which he bore
towards his Father and towards us.”51 (Here, doubtless, Aquinas has in
mind Mark 12:30–31 and parallels, in which Jesus summarizes the Law
as love of God and neighbour.) He goes on to explain that
by obedience and disobedience [Paul] proves that we were made
sinners through one man and were justified through one man, since
legal justice, which is the totality of every virtue, is discerned in observance of the precepts of the law, which pertains to the ratio of obedience. But legal injustice, which is the totality of every kind of
wickedness . . . , is discerned in transgression of the commandments of
the law, which pertains to the ratio of disobedience.52

From this Aquinas concludes that “it is fittingly said that men are constituted as just through obedience, and as sinners through disobedience.”53
Where disobedient Adam introduced the ratio of disobedience and
constituted men as sinners (that is, “inordinate”) in virtue of their legal
injustice, Christ, through his obedience to the Father, introduces the ratio
of obedience and constitutes men as just in virtue of their participation
in his legal justice.
Aquinas goes on to quote Romans 6:16—“Do you not know that if of
your own will [propria voluntate] you offer yourselves to anyone as slaves,
you spontaneously [spontanee] become slaves of the one whom you obey—
either slaves of sin, or else slaves of obedience unto justice?”54 Significantly,
propria voluntate and spontanee are not present in the Vulgate text. For
Aquinas, the gifts of freedom and instinctive spontaneity are connected
with the grace of the Spirit, in which the New Law primarily consists.55
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid.:“Sic ergo convenienter dicitur quod per obedientiam constituuntur homines

iusti, et per inobedientiam peccatores.”
54 Super Rom., cap. 6, lect. 3.: propria voluntate and spontanee are not present in the

Latin, and represent Aquinas’s own gloss.
55 ST I–II, q. 106, a. 1. Cf. Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas,Volume 2,

Spiritual Master, trans. Robert Royal (Washington DC: The Catholic University
of America Press, 2003), 201–11.

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The inordinatio that follows from original sin is characterized by the loss of
a spontaneous obedience of the lower part of the soul to the higher
(rational) part and of the higher part to God.The Old Law offers not spontaneous obedience proceeding (by grace) propria voluntate but compliance
with legislation out of fear of punishment. The outpouring of the Spirit
makes possible the kind of spontaneous obedience (equivalent to the obedientia sine mora of the Rule of St. Benedict)56 which exceeds the capacity of
the Old Law,57 restoring human beings to the imago Dei by enabling them
to obey God out of spontaneous love.58 Accordingly, obedience, iustitia, and
rectitudo ordinis all find their fullest expression in that spontaneity which is
the corollary of right order between the human soul and God.59
Aquinas goes on to explain that slavery to sin leads to death (that is, to
damnation), and that the slavery of obedience—that is, of obedience to
the divine precepts—leads to iustitia, and adds that “whoever obeys God
is made a slave of this obedience, since, through the habit of obeying, the
mind is inclined more and more towards obeying and consequently
brings iustitia to perfection.”60 Aquinas notes that Paul presents sin and
obedience as opposites (satis convenienter obeditionem peccato opponit ), citing
Ambrose to the effect that “sin is a transgression of the divine law, and
disobedience of the heavenly commandments,” which accords with what
was said above about sin being “legal injustice.”61 This is not to say that
sin equals trangression of the Old Law (which is a determination of
Divine Law for a specific place and time), but that it equals a transgression of Divine Law itself—that is to say, of that Eternal Law which is a
ratio of the divine Wisdom.62 Where Sirach equates Torah with divine
Wisdom, Aquinas equates the Eternal Law in which Torah participates
56 Regula Benedicti 5:1–4.
57 See Daniel A. Keating, “Justification, Sanctification and Divinization in Thomas

Aquinas,” 148–51.
58 See Michael Dauphinais, “Loving the Lord Your God: The imago Dei in Saint

Thomas Aquinas,” The Thomist 63 (1999): 241–67.
59 On “spontaneity” and the New Law, see Pedro Rodríguez,“Spontanéité et carac-

tère légal de la loi nouvelle” in Lex et Libertas, Studi Tomistici 30, ed. Leo Elders
and K. Hedwig (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1987), 254–64.
60 Super Rom., cap. 6, lect. 3: “Qui vero obedit Deo, efficitur huius obedientiae
servus: quia per assuetudinem obediendi, mens eius magis ac magis ad obediendum inclinatur et ex hoc iustitiam perficit.”
61 Ibid.:“peccatum est transgressio legis divinae et caelestium inobedientia mandatorum.”
62 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 1. Jean Porter rightly emphasizes the equation of eternal law
with divine Wisdom: “Right Reason and the Love of God: The Parameters of
Aquinas’ Moral Theology” in The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, ed.Van Nieuwenhove and Wawrykow, 180–86.

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with divine Wisdom.63 Aquinas also identifies Eternal Law with the
person of the Son,64 so that sin-disorder-disobedience is, in effect, nothing other than a transgression of that Eternal Law which Aquinas identifies with the very person of the Son-Word-Wisdom of God. We might
add that, in his divinity, Christ himself is the divine Wisdom to whom
human reason (including his own human reason) is properly subordinated, while, in his humanity, the lower parts of his soul are duly ordered
to the higher rational parts, and the higher rational parts stand in subiectio to the divine Wisdom.65 Accordingly, Christ in his humanity is subject
to himself—to the person of the Son-Word-Wisdom of God (Christus est
servus sui ipsius, et sibi subditus ).66 As incarnate Wisdom, he is just, wellordered, and rational—in the sense that his human reason is sapientially
subordinated, subjected, and spontaneously obedient to the ratio of the
divine Wisdom which he himself incarnates.67
Fundamental to his reading of this section of Romans is Aquinas’s
insight that those who have been slaves of sin become obedient to God
“by believing, not as though compelled but from the heart.”68 Here he
refers to the New Law—to “the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is given
63 On Sirach, see Ben Witherington III, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom

(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 85–86.
64 ST I–II, q. 93, a. 1, ad 2.
65 On the question of Wisdom christology, see Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfill-

ment of Torah and Temple: Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 31–50; Joseph P. Wawrykow, “Wisdom
in the Christology of Thomas Aquinas,” in Christ Among the Medieval Dominicans,
ed. Kent Emery, Jr., and Joseph P. Wawrykow (Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1999), 175–96.
66 ST III, q. 20, a. 2, sed contra. At first sight, this appears to contradict the sixth of
Cyril of Alexandria’s twelve anathematizations against Nestorius:“If anyone shall
dare say that the Word of God the Father is the God of Christ or the Lord of
Christ, and shall not rather confess him as at the same time both God and Man,
since according to the Scriptures, ‘The Word was made flesh,’ let him be anathema.” However,Aquinas is saying not that the divine Word is Lord of the human
Christ, but that the humanity of the God-man Christ is perfectly subjected (and
ordered) to the person of the Word who has assumed and hypostatically united
himself to that humanity and who, while remaining a divine person, truly “is” a
human being. Discussing the “incarnational ‘is,’ ” Thomas Weinandy writes that
“Jesus is the Son of God existing as man” (“Aquinas: God IS Man:The Marvel
of the Incarnation,” Aquinas on Doctrine, 83).
67 Cf. ST III, q. 46. a. 9: “Christ’s passion was subject to his will. But his will was
ruled by the divine wisdom which ‘orders all things’ conveniently and ‘sweetly’
(Wis 8:1).”
68 Super Rom., cap. 6, lect. 3:“scilicet credendo . . . et hoc non coacti, sed ex corde.”

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through faith in Christ” and which is written on hearts,69 which comes
through faith in Christ,70 which leads to justification,71 which is obeyed
out of love rather than out of fear,72 and which is the law of charity (lex
caritatis) that leads men to perfection by bringing about their subiectio to
God.73 Aquinas juxtaposes texts from Romans 1:5 (“obedience to the
faith, in all nations”) and 10:10 (“with the heart we believe unto justice”)
to make the point that obedience to God which proceeds ex corde is what
leads to iustitia. (This obedience, we must reiterate, proceeds from grace, is
coterminous with iustitia, and results in ordinateness, merit, and subjection
to God.) The “effect” of iustitia is sanctificatio, which manifests itself in good
works (bona opera),74 and leads to the end of eternal life (vita aeterna)
“which is the end of all the just, who do everything that they do for the
sake of possessing eternal life.”75 Aquinas adds that “it is also the end of the
works themselves which, since they are performed out of obedience to
God and in imitation of God, merit eternal life.”76 As in the Philippians
commentary, so also in the commentary on Romans Aquinas presents us
with a just, rightly-ordered, obedient Christ who instantiates the true,
grace-filled Adamic humanity in which all the members of God’s New
Covenant family (that is, Christ’s mystical body) can participate.
Commentary on Hebrews: Obedience as Learning
In his commentary on Hebrews, Aquinas focuses on the idea of Christ’s
obedience as experiential.Aquinas begins by taking Hebrews 5:8—“And
whereas indeed he was the Son of God, he learned obedience by the
things which he suffered.”77 Because Christ is God he possesses fulness
of knowledge from the moment of his human conception, and so cannot
be said to learn in the ordinary sense as he is ignorant of nothing.78
However, Aquinas contrasts scientia . . . simplicis notitiae (which denotes
learning in the sense of moving from ignorance to knowledge) with the
scientia experientiae.79 According to the latter, Christ may be said to have
69 ST I–II, q. 106, a. 1.
70 ST I–II, q. 106, a. 1, ad 3.
71 ST I–II, q. 106, a. 2.
72 ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1, ad 2.The Old Law is the lex timoris.
73 ST I–II, q. 107, a. 1 (corpus).
74 Super Rom., cap. 6, lect. 4.
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.: “Et etiam ipsorum operum, quae cum ex obedientia Dei fiant et ad Dei

imitationem, vitam aeternam merentur.”
77 Aquinas, Super epistolam ad Hebraeos lectura, cap. 5, lect. 2.
78 Cf. ST III, q. 9, aa. 1–3.
79 Cf. ST III, q. 9, a. 4.

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learned obedience out of what he suffered ( passus) and experienced (expertus).80 This is a “voluntary” kind of learning, and, in accepting our weakness
voluntarily, he “learned obedience” inasmuch as he learned “how burdensome it is to obey, because he obeyed even in the most burdensome and
difficult matters, even unto death on the cross.”81 Aquinas explains that Paul
shows how difficult the good of obedience is, because those who have
not experienced obedience and have not learned it in difficult matters,
believe that obedience is very straightforward. But in order to know
what obedience is, it is necessary to learn to obey in difficult matters,
and whoever has not learned to subject himself by obeying does not
know how to rule others well. Therefore, although Christ knew by
simple recognition what obedience is, he nevertheless learned obedience by experiment from those difficult things which he suffered,
namely, through his sufferings and death: by suffering and dying: “By
the obedience of one many shall be made just” (Rom 5:19).82

In speaking of a voluntary and learned obedience, Aquinas brings
together the twin themes of Christ’s human will and human experiential
knowledge to emphasize the freedom of Christ’s obedience, and, one
might say, the stark reality of his bodily and psychological suffering.83
Christ learns the true nature of suffering and obedience from genuine
and bitter experience, and it is because he gives full recognition to the
magnitude and ultimacy of Christ’s passion that Aquinas is able to portray
Christ’s learned obedience to the Father as a true, free, human, meritorious, sacrificial subiectio.
Aquinas now moves on to Hebrews 5:9—“And being consummated,
he became, to all that obey him, the cause of eternal salvation.”84 He
begins by arguing that, in Christ’s own case, the fruit of his passion is
glorification.85 He was perfect from the moment of his conception, and
the consummation of this perfection is the glorification which he wins
in virtue of his passion. Because Christ was perfect, he was able to perfect
others, for “it is the nature of a perfect thing to be able to engender its
like.”86 As Aquinas explains in the Summa,
80 On Christ’s human knowledge, see the excellent survey in Matthew Levering,

Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, 31–33; 161–63.
81 Super Heb., cap. 5, lect. 2.
82 Super Heb., cap. 5, lect. 2.
83 Cf. ST III, q. 46, aa. 4–8.
84 Ibid.
85 As in the commentary on Philippians, this notion looks forward to ST III, q. 49,

a. 6.
86 Super Heb., cap. 5, lect. 2.

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grace was received by the soul of Christ in the highest way; and therefore from this pre-eminence of grace which he received, it is from him
that this grace is bestowed on others—and this belongs to the nature of
head. Hence the personal grace, whereby the soul of Christ is justified,
is essentially the same as his grace, as he is the head of the Church, and
justifies others.87

Christ arrived at that consummation of his perfection which consists in
glorification “by the merit of obedience” ( per meritum obedientiae ), and in
this regard Aquinas quotes one of his favourite texts on the subject of
Christ’s obedience from Proverbs 21:28: “[A]n obedient man shall speak
of victory” (vir obediens loquitur victorias ).88 In virtue of his learned (and
victorious) obedience, which is itself the consequence of his own
personal fullness of grace, Christ embodies the true, obedient, justified
Adamic humanity, meriting his own perfection, exaltation, and glorification, and communicating this perfection to others by meriting salvation
for the members of his mystical body and sharing with them his justifying grace.89
Commentary on John: Obedience as Love
The idea of Christ’s loving obedience which Aquinas explores in his
Romans commentary receives even more in-depth treatment in the
commentary on John. Commenting on John 14:31 (“But that the world
may know, that I love the Father: and as the Father hath given me
commandment, so do I”) he writes: “[I]n the first place the Lord shows
that it was not sin that was the cause of his death, and in the second place
he shows that the cause was the virtue of obedience and of charity.”90 He
adds that “two factors moved Christ to accepting death, namely love of
God and love of neighbour” (amor Dei et dilectio proximi ). The fact that
Christ obeys the Father’s commandments is a sign (indicium ) that he loves
him. He has already said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments,” and now he declares that he himself is going to his death precisely
in order that the world may know that he loves the Father, adding that
87 ST III, q. 8, a. 5.
88 Super Heb., cap. 5, lect. 2.
89 Daniel A. Keating, “Justification, Sanctification

and Divinization in Thomas
Aquinas,” 144, writes:“Aquinas understands justification in rather broad terms as
encompassing various aspects of the New Testament’s depiction of our incorporation into Christ.”
90 Aquinas, Super Evangelium S. Ioannis lectura, cap. 14, lect. 8:“primo ostendit dominus quod peccatum non fuit causa suae mortis; secundo quod eius causa fuit
virtus obedientiae et caritatis.”

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he is performing the commandment which his Father gave him. Aquinas
explains that “the Father moved him to accept death specifically by
obedience, which is caused by love.”91
Christ’s obedience is presented here as both a consequence and a
demonstration of his love for the Father.The Father gave this commandment to Christ not in so far as he is Son of God but in so far as he is Son
of Man, and, in order that the world might know that he obeys the Father
out of love, Christ bids the disciples rise and go with him “to the place
where I am to be handed over, so that you may see that it is not out of
necessity but out of charity and obedience [sed ex caritate et obedientia] that
I die.”92 Clearly this is not the obedience characteristic of the Old Law
which proceeds from fear, but the obedience of the New Law, the lex caritatis, which is written on hearts by the Holy Spirit and which is the fruit
of that grace which Christ in his human nature possesses fully and maximally. Romanus Cessario writes:
Christ the priest of the new alliance offers to God the perfect worship
of praise. Even so, it is not the sacrifice of his body on the altar of the
cross in which this perfect worship mainly consists, but his personal
offering of obedience and love. Since the divine will to which Christ
is obedient remains identical with the salvific will of God for man’s
salvation, Christ’s satisfactory offering opens the way up to salvation.
The charity of Christ, “obedient because of his love for the Father,”
inaugurates the new covenant of love.93

Analyzing John 15:10 (“If you keep my commandments, you shall
abide in my love; as I also have kept my Father’s commandments, and
abide in his love”), Aquinas explains that to remain in the Father’s love is
nothing other than to keep his commandments.94 He goes on to say that
Christ demonstrates this by his own exemplum, and that the disciples can
remain in his love by keeping his precepts. (These “precepts” could denote
the New Law itself—the grace of the Holy Spirit inscribed on hearts—
or else those written aspects of the New Law “that dispose us to receive
the grace of the Holy Spirit, and pertain to the use of that grace.”)95 He
adds that “the keeping of the commandments is an effect of the divine
love, not only of the love by which we love, but also of the love by which
91 Super Io., cap. 14, lect. 8: “pater movit eum ad mortem suscipiendam, scilicet

obedientia, quae ex amore causatur.”
92 Super Io., cap. 14, lect. 8.
93 Romanus Cessario, The Godly Image, 157.
94 Super Io., cap. 15, lect. 2.
95 ST I–II, q. 106, a. 1.

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he loves us.”96 Because God loves us, “he moves us and helps us to fulfill
his commandments, which cannot be fulfilled except through grace.”97
In regard to this last point Aquinas cites 1 John 4:10 to the effect that
“charity consists not in our having loved God, but in his having first loved
us.” He develops this idea further when he says that “just as the dilectio by
which the Father loves Christ is the exemplum of the dilectio by which
Christ himself loves us, so also Christ wishes that his own obedience should
be an example of ours.”98 Christ emphasizes that “he has remained in the
love of the Father because, through all things, he kept his commandments,”
even to the point of accepting death on a Cross (at this point Aquinas
quotes Philippians 2:8). Here Aquinas develops the idea that Christ’s obedience is nothing other than the logical expression of his love for the Father.
He presents remaining in the Father’s love through obedience as the goal
of Christ’s passion. Christ dies on the Cross out of obedience to the Father
specifically in order to remain in his love. Merit proceeds out of charity
(most especially, out of love for God inasmuch as he is our last end),99 and
tends towards a progressive growth in grace and charity whose term is eternal life.100 Christ’s loving obedience is (as we have seen) meritorious, and
merits (and exemplifies) on behalf of the members of his mystical body that
justifying grace which will enable them, too, to grow in grace and charity
and so merit for themselves the reward of eternal life.
Aquinas suggests that John 17:1 (“These things Jesus spoke, and lifting
up his eyes to heaven, he said ‘Father, the hour is come: glorify your Son,
that your Son may glorify you’ ”) is about Christ meriting that his petitions should be heard.101 “Glorify me, Father,” refers to the praemium —
the reward due to merit.102 The merit itself is twofold. Firstly, it is the
merit of doctrina, with regard to which Christ reminds the Father that “I
have glorified you,” making the Father known among men and manifesting him by his teaching.”103 Secondly, it is the merit of obedience, in
regard to which Christ declares “I have finished the work which you gave
96 Super Io., cap. 15, lect. 2: “Observatio enim mandatorum est effectus divinae

dilectionis, non solum eius qua nos diligimus, sed eius qua ipse diligit nos.”
97 Ibid: “movet nos et adiuvat ad implendum mandata eius, quae impleri non

possunt nisi per gratiam.”
98 Ibid: “Sicut enim dilectio, qua pater diligit eum, est exemplum dilectionis qua

ipse diligit nos; ita voluit quod obedientia sua sit exemplum obedientiae nostrae.”
99 ST I–II, q. 114, a. 4.
100 ST I–II, q. 114, a. 8.
101 Super Io., cap. 17, lect. 1.
102 Cf. ST I–II, q. 114, a. 1.
103 On Christ’s doctrina (ST III, q. 42), see J. Mark Armitage,“Why Didn’t Jesus Write

a Book? Aquinas on the Teaching of Christ,” New Blackfriars 89 (2008): 337–53.

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me to do” (17:4).Aquinas notes that Christ says “that you gave me” (quod
dedisti mihi ) rather than “that you ordered” (quod iussisti ), and explains
that “it is not enough for Christ and for ourselves to be commanded
divinely, for whatever Christ has inasmuch as he is human and whatever
we ourselves can do is by a gift of God” (ex dono Dei ).
The point being made here is that Christ himself, who, in virtue of
God’s sapiential ordinatio, possesses the perfection of grace and iustitia and
rectitudo ordinis, obeys the Eternal Law by grace. Of course, the Eternal Law
(as has been said) is itself identified with divine Wisdom—that is, with
God the Son—and hence with Christ’s own divine hypostasis,104 so
Christ’s loving obedience represents not only the obedience of subiectio to
his Father (which we have seen has a sapiential reference), but also the
iustitia and ordinatio of his human will being in perfect alignment and
harmony with his divine will (also a sapiential notion).105 God exalts
Christ because he has glorified him in his doctrina and because he has
lovingly and freely and spontaneously made himself obedient unto death.
Christ’s merit consists in his obedience and in his doctrine, and the reward
is (1) the glorification for which he asks in John 17:1 (the glorification of
his true Adamic humanity), and (2) the justifying grace which he shares
sacramentally with the members of the mystical body (God’s New
Covenant family) so that they also may merit eternal life through loving
and spontaneous obedience in virtue of the new Law—the grace of the
Spirit and the lex caritatis—which has been inscribed on their hearts.
ST III, q. 47, a. 2: Obedience as Fulfilment of Torah
In his discussion of “the efficient cause of Christ’s passion,” Aquinas asks,
“Whether Christ died out of obedience?” He begins his answer to this
question by invoking the argument from “fittingness,” stating that it was
very fitting (convenientissimum) that Christ should suffer out of obedience
(ex obedientia).106 For Aquinas, the concept of conveniens, like that of ordinatio, has a sapiential reference, and, as Joseph P. Wawrykow has shown,
“aims at making manifest the meaning and wisdom of the Christian
The idea of Christ’s doctrina as meritorious is not a feature of the discussion in
the Summa.
104 ST III, q. 3, a. 8: “the Word is a concept of the eternal Wisdom, from whom all
man’s wisdom is derived. And hence man is perfected in wisdom (which is his
proper perfection, as he is rational) by participating the Word of God, as the disciple is instructed by receiving the word of his master. . . . And hence for the
consummate perfection of man it was fitting that the very Word of God should
be personally united to human nature.”
105 ST III, q. 18, aa. 5–6.
106 ST III, q. 47, a. 2.

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dispensation.”107 In using the term “fitting” (conveniens), accordingly,
Aquinas understands that the events and circumstances of Christ’s life
reflect the wisdom of the divine ordinatio in dealing with the sin of Adam,
and render credible and comprehensible the truth about who he is (the
second Adam) and what he does (by his obedience instantiating the true
Adamic humanity and inaugurating the new creation).108 In the first
place, he says, it was fitting for human justification (conveniebat iustificationi
humanae) that Christ should die out of obedience, and in this regard he
quotes the key text from Romans 5:19—“as by the disobedience of one
man, many were made sinners; so also by the obedience of one, many shall
be made just.” In the second place, it was fitting for reconciling God with
human beings ( fuit conveniens reconciliationi Dei ad homines).109 Here
Aquinas juxtaposes three texts: “we were reconciled to God by the death
of his Son” (Rom 5:10); “Christ . . . has delivered himself for us, an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness” (Eph 5:2); and
“obedience is better than sacrifices” (1 Sam 15:22). On the basis of these
texts Aquinas argues (1) that “the death of Christ was a most acceptable
sacrifice to God”; (2) that “obedience is preferred to all sacrifices”; and (3)
that it was therefore fitting (conveniens) “that the sacrifice of Christ’s
Passion and death should proceed from obedience.” Finally, he draws on
Proverbs 21:28 (“An obedient man shall speak of victory”) to argue that
Christ’s dying out of obedience “was fitting (conveniens) to his victory
whereby he triumphed over death and its author; because a soldier cannot
conquer unless he obey his captain.” (The reference here is to Christ
defeating the devil and redeeming humanity from demonic captivity.110)
Aquinas concludes, “[S]o the Man-Christ secured the victory through
being obedient to God.”
The first of the objections reads: “[O]bedience is referred to a
command. But we do not read that Christ was commanded to suffer.
Therefore he did not suffer out of obedience.”111 Aquinas replies that
“Christ received a command from the Father to suffer,” and cites John
10:18 (“I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up
again. This commandment have I received of my Father”) in support of
the fact that the Father has given him a command “of laying down his
107 Joseph P.Wawrykow, The SCM Press A–Z of Thomas Aquinas, 57.
108 Cf. Paul Gondreau, “The Humanity of Christ, the Incarnate Word,” 258–60.
109 Aquinas speaks of reconciliatio in ST III, q. 49, a. 4, but employs the language of

merit, satisfaction, and sacrifice much more frequently when speaking of the
work of atonement.
110 Cf. ST III, q. 48, a. 4; q. 49, a. 2.
111 ST III, q. 47, a. 2, obj. 1.

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life and of resuming it again” ( ponendi animam et sumendi ).112 Aquinas
explains that “because the Old Law was ended by Christ’s death, according to his dying words, ‘It is consummated’ ( Jn 19:30), it may be understood that by his suffering he fulfilled all the precepts of the Old Law.”
Matthew Levering writes:
Aquinas understands Christ to mean that the Old Law has finally been
consummated in him. Aquinas then shows how Christ’s perfect act of
obedience, flowing from the supernatural grace that infused Christ’s
soul at the moment of the hypostatic union, simultaneously fulfills all
three aspects of the Old Law.113

Firstly,“he fulfilled those of the moral order which are founded on the
precepts of charity, inasmuch as he suffered both out of love of the Father
. . . and out of love of his neighbor.” Secondly, by his passion he “fulfilled the
ceremonial precepts of the Law, which are chiefly ordained for sacrifices and
oblations, in so far as all the ancient sacrifices were figures of that true sacrifice which the dying Christ offered for us.” Finally, he “fulfilled the judicial
precepts of the Law, which are chiefly ordained towards making satisfaction
(ad satisfaciendum) to those who have suffered injury, since . . . he paid that
which he took not away (Psalm 68:5), suffering himself to be fastened to a
tree on account of the apple which man had plucked from the tree against
God’s command.”114 In dying out of obedience to the Father, then, Christ
fulfills the moral precepts by obeying God out of charity, fulfills the ceremonial precepts by offering a sacrifice (as we have seen in the corpus, obedience is the highest form of sacrifice), and fulfills the judicial precepts by
making satisfactio to God for Adam’s disobedience in acting against God’s
commandment—thereby, as Matthew Levering demonstrates, enacting his
threefold office of prophet, priest, and king.115 In this he brings to perfection the precepts of the Old Law, which brought about a certain outward
subjection to God, but which was unable to effect that inward subjection
out of charity which is the consequence of justifying grace.116
The second objection reads as follows: “[A] man is said to do from
obedience what he does from necessity of precept. But Christ did not
suffer necessarily, but voluntarily [non ex necessitate, sed voluntarie passus
fuit ].Therefore he did not suffer out of obedience.”117 Aquinas answers,
112 ST III, q. 47, a. 2, ad 1.
113 Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, 53.
114 ST III, q. 47, a. 2, ad 1.
115 Ibid., 66–79.
116 Cf. ST I–II, q. 98, a. 1.
117 ST III, q. 47, a. 2, obj. 2.

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“Although obedience implies necessity with regard to the thing
commanded, nevertheless it implies free-will with regard to the fulfilling
of the precept.”118 In other words, in order for Christ to obey the Father
it is necessary for him to do what the Father has commanded, but the fact
that he chooses to obey comes not from necessity but from free
choice.119 Aquinas continues: “[A]lthough his passion and death, considered in themselves, were repugnant to the natural will, yet Christ resolved
to fulfill God’s will with respect to the same.” In this regard he quotes
Psalm 39:9 (“I have desired that I should do your will, O my God”) and
Matthew 26:42 (“If this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it,
your will be done”).120
The third objection states that “charity is a more excellent virtue than
obedience,” but Ephesians 5:2 (“Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us,
and delivered himself up for us”) shows that Christ suffered out of charity (ex caritate passus), from which it is clear that Christ’s passion ought to
be ascribed rather to charity than to obedience.121 Aquinas replies, “For
the same reason Christ suffered out of charity and out of obedience;
because he fulfilled even the precepts of charity out of obedience only;
and was obedient, out of love, to the Father’s command.”122 Here Aquinas
picks up on what he has previously said in the commentaries on Romans
and on John. Christ’s charity is the source of his obedience to the Father,
and also its expression, to the extent that his charity and obedience are, in
effect, two aspects of the same act of loving subiectio and “ordinateness.”
Christ’s caritas is nothing other than an act of willing obedience towards
his Father, and his obedience towards his Father is a corollary of his caritas. Each represents the fulfillment and perfection of the Old Law in the
lex caritatis. Each fulfills the moral, ceremonial, and judicial precepts of the
Old Law. Each flows from Christ’s plenitude of grace. Each is a determination of his iustitia and of his ordinatio conceived in sapiential terms both
as internal “ordinateness” (rectitudo ordinis) and as external “order” towards
his final end. Finally, each functions as merit (meriting glorification for
Christ himself and eternal life for the members of his mystical body, God’s
New Covenant family), as satisfaction (by his own obedience undoing the
118 ST III, q. 47, a. 2, ad 2.
119 Cf. ST III, q. 18, a. 6.
120 Matthew is quoting Psalm 39:9.The full verse reads:“I have desired that I should

do your will, O my God, and your law should be in the midst of my heart.” Christ
possesses the New Law inscribed on his heart by the grace of the Spirit.
121 ST III, q. 47, a. 2, obj. 3.
122 ST III, q. 47, a. 2, ad 3: “eadem ratione Christus passus est ex caritate, et obedientia, quia etiam praecepta caritatis nonnisi ex obedientia implevit; et obediens
fuit ex dilectione ad patrem praecipientem.”

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effects of Adam’s disobedience), and as sacrifice (a sensible sign of Christ’s
subjection to God whereby he instantiates the true Adamic humanity).
Christ’s Salvific Obedience
Aquinas presents Christ’s work of atonement as consisting in a freely
willed and spontaneous obedience to the will of the Father, which,
proceeding out of his fullness of grace, is nothing other than an expression of perfect love (reflecting lex caritatis as opposed to lex timoris ).
Grounded in humilitas, Christ merits glorification for himself and eternal
life for the members of his mystical body, makes satisfaction for sin, and
offers a sacrifice by which he acknowledges his subiectio —his servitium
sanctum —to the Father. Christ’s obedience undoes the effects of the
disobedience of Adam, reintroducing that ordinatio or rectitudo ordinis by
which is understood both the proper subordination of the lower parts of
the soul to reason and of reason to God (that is, the imago Dei; the true,
rightly-ordered, grace-filled Adamic humanity), and the ordering of
human beings to their last end in line with God’s sapiential ordinatio of
the universe (that is, the re-ordering of a cosmos disordered by Adam’s
sin by means of a new creation). Finally, his free, spontaneous, and loving
obedience to the Father represents the final fulfillment of the Old Law—
which is itself a determination of the Eternal Law, which Aquinas identifies with divine Wisdom. In obeying his Father “even unto death,”
Christ fulfills Torah, incarnates divine Wisdom, and undoes the inordinatio introduced by Adam’s disobedience, thus bringing to perfection God’s
sapiential plan for the restoration of the imago Dei and the redemption of
N&V
the cosmos.

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527

Faith and Reason: The Synthesis
of St. Thomas Aquinas*
L EO J. E LDERS, S.V.D.
Rolduc Seminary
Kerkrade,The Netherlands

I N a lecture delivered at the Sorbonne on November 27, 1999, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger argued that the victory of Christianity over the
pagan religions in the Roman Empire was made possible by its recourse
to reason, by its reasonableness as well as by its moral doctrine; Christianity, indeed, does not rely on imagination or unverifiable events, but
places itself at the junction of faith and reason. By its choice in favor of
the primacy of reason in human life it continues to present a rational
vision of the world and to encourage scientific research. In his encyclical
Fides et Ratio (1998) John Paul II, dealing more in extenso with this theme,
examines the relationship between faith and reason, the influence they
have exercised on each other, and assesses the current situation of the
relation between philosophy and theology. As the pope explains, our
reason is not imprisoned in the sensible world but, to a certain extent, it
is able to go beyond it. Reason is universal and extends also beyond what
is proper to particular cultures. On the other hand the rise and fall of
often dangerous and frightening secular ideologies have shown the limits
of reason, which can no longer pretend to master nature, science, and
progress by itself alone.1 The encyclical sketches some of the main events
of the long history of the coexistence and collaboration of faith and
reason in order to highlight the support and benefits each of them
* Previously published in Laudemus Viros Gloriosos: Essays in Honor of Armand Maurer

C.S.B., ed. R. E. Houser (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).
1 Cf. St.Thomas, In Colossianos 2, lectio 2, where he explains that secular philoso-

phy may lead into error for two reasons: the mistaken views it defends and its
faulty reasoning.

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Leo J. Elders

derived from it. In section 43 it describes the particular place St.Thomas
Aquinas occupies in this history, not only because of the high value of his
theology and philosophy, but also because of the dialogue he conducted
with medieval Arab and Jewish thought.
St. Thomas Aquinas on Faith and Reason
If we try to analyze the position of Aquinas, we must recall that Thomas
was the first theologian to distinguish with great clarity between theology and philosophy.Their difference, he writes, derives from their different sources, from the way they proceed, and from their respective subject
matters.2 Indeed, differences in the source of knowledge and the way of
knowing entail a diversity of disciplines.3 Sacred doctrine receives its
principles from divine revelation, namely, the fundamental truths of the
faith as expressed in the articles of the creed. Philosophy, on the other
hand, acquires its fundamental principles through evident insight into the
structure of reality. It proceeds by gathering knowledge through experience—by analyzing and drawing conclusions from what is based on
evidence. Sacred doctrine, on the other hand, proceeds in the twilight of
the faith, without possessing evident knowledge about the truths it
considers.While accepting the creed on divine authority, theologians use
concepts, principles, and insights of everyday life and sound philosophy
to penetrate further into the meaning of what has been revealed.
In addition to the source and basis of their respective sciences being
distinct, the subject matter of sacred theology and that of philosophy also
differ: philosophical disciplines study nature, man, and his actions in the
light of his end, as well as being qua being, whereas sacred theology
considers God insofar as he revealed himself and his design concerning
man’s supernatural salvation. Whatever God has revealed is the subject
matter of sacred doctrine.4 However, much of what has been revealed lies
beyond the reach of natural reason, since it concerns infinite and tran2 See Summa contra Gentiles I, chaps. 7–9.
3 ST I, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2:“Diversa ratio cognoscibilis diversitatem scientiarum inducit

. . . Unde nihil prohibet de eisden rebus, de quibus philosophicae disciplinae tractant secundum quod sunt cognoscibilia lumine naturalis rationis, et aliam scientiam tractare secundum quod cognoscuntur lumine divinae revelationis.”
4 Thomas writes “whatever may be an object of divine revelation” (omnia quae sunt
divinitus revelabilia) instead of “what has been revealed,” probably meaning whatever is somehow contained in what has been revealed, although not explicitly
stated, as for instance the convenientia of many facts of the history of salvation, such
as the time of the Incarnation of Christ. Reflections on the convenientia make up
a considerable part of the themes treated in the third part of the Summa theologiae.

Aquinas on Faith and Reason

529

scendent divine being, wisdom, and love,5 and God’s free decision, but
God may also reveal certain basic truths which as such are accessible to
reason, in order to make it easier for all to come to know them. As an
example one may point to the revelation of the main precepts of the
natural law in the Ten Commandments.6
But St.Thomas does not stop short at the distinction between sacred
doctrine and natural knowledge. He also insists on their harmony.There
can be no contradiction between true natural knowledge and the
doctrine of the faith, because both have their origin in God who, as the
creator of the world and of man, places the principles of our knowledge
in our minds, but has also given us revealed knowledge.7
Because of the patent incompatibility of certain positions of Averroistic Aristotelianism with the Christian faith (such as the theory of the
eternity of the world), some masters of the faculty of arts in thirteenthcentury Paris developed the theory of double truth: what is established
in sacred theology sometimes contradicts what is true in philosophy, so
that a Christian philosopher must accept simultaneously two conflicting
theses. However,Aquinas strongly opposes this view. Since all truth comes
from God, in whom there is no contradiction, such a position is impossible.8 Apparent contradictions originate from erroneous reasoning or
from false deductions from the doctrine of the faith.
Grace Builds on Nature and Fulfills It
Instead of opposition and conflict, Aquinas speaks of a harmonious
collaboration where the supernatural order presupposes the natural order
and fulfills it. In a considerable number of texts Aquinas confirms this
position: “The order in which divine providence proceeds does not take
away from things what is natural for them, but God takes care of each
thing according to its nature.”9 The order of grace is not even possible
5 ST I, q. 1, a. 5: “Ista scientia est principaliter de his quae sua altitudine rationem

transcendunt, aliae vero scientiae considerant ea tantum quae rationi subduntur.”
In this connection Thomas lists as lying beyond the range of reason the dogmas
about the divine Trinity, the Incarnation, grace, the sacramental order, the resurrection, glorification, and eternal beatitude (ScG IV, chap. 1).
6 Cf. ST I, q. 12, a. 12; q. 32, a. 1; ScG III, chap. 47.
7 Cf. In Boetii De Trinitate q. 2, a. 3: “Impossibile est quod ea quae sunt
philosophiae, sint contraria his quae sunt fidei.”
8 ScG I, chap. 7: “Impossibile est illis principiis quae ratio naturaliter cognoscit,
praedictam veritatem fidei contrariam esse . . . Quaecumque argumenta contra
fidei documenta ponantur, haec ex principiis primis natura inditis per se notis
non recte procedere . . . sed vel sunt rationes probabiles vel sophisticae.”
9 ScG III, chap. 85.

Leo J. Elders

530

without nature, since grace is a state or quality added to it. Thus the
divine law presupposes natural law,10 as faith presupposes man’s natural
knowledge.11 Indeed, grace is not meant to do away with human nature,
but to raise and perfect it.12 Grace renders nature more perfect. It does
so in agreement with nature’s basic characteristics. For this reason angels
received their beatitude immediately after their initial choice of God,
without having to go through the often long period of waiting in faith
and hope which makes up the life of Christians on earth.13 Likewise
grace does not take away imperfections which are inherent to human
nature itself, such as the fact that man is a creature.14 Since nature
proceeds from what is imperfect to greater fullness, grace was given first
in an imperfect way but later in abundance.15
Thomas also indicates the manner in which grace perfects nature,
namely, by assisting reason in controlling the intellect and the will as well
as those lower faculties of the soul which can be controlled by reason.16
“Since grace does not do away with nature but perfects it, natural reason
must be subservient to faith as the natural inclination of the will follows
charity.”17 This is so obvious for Aquinas that he even builds an argument
on it: from the fact that by his natural inclination man loves God more than
himself, it follows that supernatural charity also makes man love God above
himself.18 Sin, on the other hand, causes damage insofar as it obstructs the
help of grace and the government of natural reason over man’s faculties.19
What makes it possible for supernatural grace to bring about this effect
is the presence in man of a certain potency toward a fulfillment and
higher perfection, called the potentia obedientialis or potentia obedientiae.
This potency, as Thomas understands it, is man’s very nature insofar as it
lies open to God, who can bring about in it whatever he has decided.20
One might describe this potency as a creature’s nature being at the
10 ST I–II, q. 99, a. 2, ad 1.
11 ST I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1.
12 ST II–II, q. 10, a. 10: “Ius autem divinum, quod est ex gratia, non tollit ius

humanum, quod est ex naturali ratione.”
13 ST I, q. 62, a. 5.
14 In Sent. IV, d. 49.23 ad 3m.
15 In Sent. IV, d. 2.1.4B.
16 De malo, q. 2, a. 11:“Gratia naturam perficit et quantum ad intellectum et quan-

tum ad voluntatem et quantum ad inferiores animae partes obaudibiles rationi.”
17 ST I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2.
18 In Sent. III, d. 29.1.3.
19 ST II–II, q. 164, a. 4.
20 In Sent. IV, d. 8.2.3 ad 4m: “Creaturae inest obedientiae potentia, ut in ea fiat

quidquid creator disposuerit.”

Aquinas on Faith and Reason

531

disposal of divine omnipotence.21 Thomas states it even more explicitly:
“In all created things there is a certain potentia obedientialis insofar as all
created things obey God receiving whatever God has decided to give
them.”22 The concept of potentia obedientialis is used in the first place to
explain the occurrence of miracles. A miracle, such as the transformation
of water into wine at the wedding in Cana, is not in conflict with the
supreme law of physical nature according to which material things are
subservient to spiritual realities. This subordination of created things to
God’s power is called their potentia obedientiae. In a sense one might even
say with Augustine that the nature of things is precisely the use God
makes of them.23 The potency to receive grace is different insofar as
grace enhances nature and corresponds to man’s most profound desires,
whereas a miracle usually happens in discontinuity with the ordinary
inclinations of natural things:24 for example, a dangerous tumor normally
keeps growing and damages the organism and a blind person does not
suddenly recover his vision. St.Thomas has given a most remarkable illustration of how grace completes nature and is meant by God to fulfill our
every desire. He attaches much importance to this point: his use of
convincing arguments illustrates how reason can be an aid to theology
and how the Christian faith is in agreement with human nature.
The Supernatural Order as the Fulfillment
of our Deepest Natural Desires
Assuming that the core of man’s nature is reason, Aquinas argues in a
number of texts that our natural desire to know the causes of things and
events, and to reach ultimate explanations, can only be fulfilled by the
vision of God himself. Since a natural desire cannot be in vain, man must
have a certain capacity to be brought by God to this vision, as the Christian faith teaches.25 Man’s thirst to know the truth will be quenched
when he is admitted into God’s company.
Together with this desire, man seeks to exist forever and to avoid the
destruction of his bodily being. What the Christian religion promises is
precisely eternal life with God.To this may be added the following reflection: our soul exists by its nature in a body. It is against the soul’s nature
21 De potentia, q. 6, a. 1, ad 18:“potentia obedientiae secundum quod quaelibet crea-

tura Creatori obedit.”
22 De virtutibus, q. 1, a. 10, ad 3.
23 Cf. ST III, q. 1, a. 3, ad 3:“divinae potentiae cui omnis creatura obedit ad nutum.”
24 This point was stressed by L. B. Gillon, “Aux origines de la puissance obédien-

tielle,” Revue thomiste 47 (1947): 304ff.
25 Cf. ST I, q. 12, a. 1; ScG II, chap. 55.

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Leo J. Elders

to be without a body. But nothing which is against nature can last forever.
For this reason the soul must be united again to the body.26
A further natural desire disposes us to whatever we need to live rightly
and to fulfill our tasks.This is actually a desire that our life be directed by
right reason. In order to attain this goal one must possess the different
virtues. A life according to the virtues will find its fulfillment in eternity,
when right reason will direct our faculties.
Man desires to be understood by others and to have his merits
acknowledged. As to this point St. Thomas observes that the blessed
entering the glory of God will find complete satisfaction: their virtuous
lives will lie open to others.
Connected to this is the desire to possess and to find delight in things.
Now when we are united with God, we shall possess everything. Moreover,
our joy will be pre-dominantly spiritual and therefore much more intense
than bodily pleasures. In this way grace fulfills our fundamental longings.27
In this connection one may also mention the desire to live together
with other human beings. As Aquinas explains, the blessed in heaven
constitute one community, which will be filled with delight, because
everyone will have all goods together with all the blessed.28 One will love
others as oneself and therefore rejoice in the good of others as in that of
oneself. For this reason the delight and joy of each will increase to
become as great as the joy of all.29
St. Thomas’s Confidence in Nature and in Reason
Aquinas has great confidence in the rectitude of nature as it has come
from the hands of the Creator. Indeed, nature tends to what is fitting for
each thing. We see that man seeks by nature the sort of pleasure which
agrees with him. Since man is rational, the pleasure which is becoming
for him, is that which is in agreement with reason.Thomas uses this principle to argue that the virtue of temperance is not contrary to the inclination of our nature, but is only opposed to lower tendencies which do
not obey reason.30 When an act is performed according to a natural incli26 ScG IV, chap.79.
27 For this list of basic human desires see ScG III, chap. 63.
28 In Symbolum Apostolorum, art. 12: In the fourth place the communion of the saints

“consistit in omnium beatorum iucunda societate, quae societas erit maxime
delectabilis: quia quilibet habebit omnia bona cum omnibus beatis.”
29 Ibid.:“Diliget alium sicut seipsum; et ideo gaudebit de bono alterius sicut de suo.
Quo fit ut tantum augeatur laetitia et gaudium unius quantum est gaudium
omnium.”
30 ST II–II, q. 141, a. 1, ad 1.

Aquinas on Faith and Reason

533

nation and is directed to our end, it is morally right.31 Repeatedly
Thomas asserts that man must execute the acts to which his nature moves
him, but in conformity with right reason.32
This confidence in reason and the basic goodness of human nature gave
rise to the humanism of Aquinas.33 Man must live in accordance with what
is highest in him and integrate the various inclinations, so that they are
ordained to his true end. The different virtues bring about this harmony
with nature and make human behavior wise, humane, just, and kind to
others. Reason helps to establish rules for our conduct, in particular-where
faith does not go into details about our duties.34 Basing himself on the
need for relaxation, Thomas argues that one can set aside some of one’s
time for playing.35 It is even allowed, he writes, to devote oneself professionally to entertainment—within the limits of right reason—because of
the relaxation one procures for others.36 Reason has a positive role in
theology and is essential for determining our moral duties.
The Use of Reason in Theology
When we speak of the use of reason in theology we do not mean so
much the use of the concepts of natural knowledge—which is obvious
and necessary—as recourse to analysis, reasoning, deduction, and arrangement of the content of the doctrine of the faith. Our Christian faith is
based on the authority of God who revealed himself to the prophets and,
in the New Testament, revealed himself in Jesus Christ and then to the
apostles and their collaborators in the redaction of the writings of the
New Testament.We accept and believe the Christian message because of
their testimony
However, since this testimony is given to us by men, we must be
convinced of their reliability. As Aquinas explains, the miracles wrought
by Jesus and the apostles, as they surpass whatever nature can bring about,
guarantee the supernatural origin of the message.37 The greatest miracle
of all (maximum miraculum ) is that simple men were able to speak with so
much wisdom and force and that people were converted to believe in
31 ST I–II, q. 21, a. 1: “tunc servatur rectitudo in actu.”
32 ST II–II, q. 69, a. 4, ad 1.
33 See Leo Elders, “El humanismo cristiano de Santo Tomas de Aquino,” in Santo

Tomas de Aquino, Humanista cristiano (Buenos Aires: Sociedad Tomista Argentina,
1998), 9–22.
34 Cf. Leo Elders, “Bonum humanae animae est secundum rationem esse,” Rivista
Teologica di Lugano 4 (1999): 75–90.
35 ST II–II, q. 168, a. 2.
36 ST II–II, q. 168, a. 2: “ordinatur ad solatium hominibus exhibendum.”
37 ScG I, chap.6: “quae totius naturae superant facultatem.”

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what goes beyond human reason—disregarding temporal goods to gain
the eternal.
He adds that there are also arguments tending to make the mysteries
of the faith acceptable. But this kind of reasoning is weak and serves to
comfort the faithful and to keep their minds fixed on the dogmas rather
than to convince nonbelievers.
With regard to the use of philosophy in the elaboration of the science
of theology, such Christian authors of the second century as Justin,Tatian,
and Clement of Alexandria, who had received philosophical training,
resorted to philosophy to defend the Christian faith and Christians
against accusations such as atheism. But they knew that philosophers had
often mixed truth with falsehoods.Tertullian even called philosophy the
cradle of heresies and useless questions. He exclaimed:“Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis? Quid academiae et ecclesiae?”38 During the first
centuries, the Christian authors used above all elements of Stoic thought,
but always insisted on the distance which separated revealed doctrine
from human wisdom. In the following centuries, Platonism exercised a
strong influence. Plato’s philosophy in its original form and as elaborated
in middle and neo-Platonism constitutes a reservoir of philosophical theories which has accompanied Christian thought up to the Renaissance and
beyond. Platonism taught that things originate from a common, transcendent source and constitute a well-organized ensemble. The perfection of
the First Principle is distributed in the universe according to a certain
hierarchy. Furthermore, Platonism insisted on the immateriality of the
human soul and its kinship with God.The soul’s real home is with God,
and human life must be an effort to imitate God and to prepare for a new
existence. Christians, however, corrected Platonism on certain points,
such as the pronounced dualism of its doctrine of man, the theory of the
pre-existence of the human soul, and an overly pessimistic view of the
material world.
For various reasons, recourse to Aristotle was much more limited at
first.39 However, in the second half of the twelfth and in the thirteenth
century Aristotle’s writings attracted many theologians.This created some
difficulties at first because they contained erroneous theories of man, the
origin of the world, and moral life. At the University of Paris the use of
the libri naturales of Aristotle was forbidden for awhile, but later permitted, though with some restrictions at first. The chancellor Eudes of
38 De praescriptione haereticorum,VII.
39 See Leo Elders, “The Greek Christian Authors and Aristotle,” in Aristotle in Late

Antiquity, ed. Lawrence P. Schenk (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1994), 111–42.

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Chateauroux complained that certain theologians had sold themselves to
the sons of the Greeks and Robert Grosseteste admonished the masters
of the faculty of theology in Oxford to remain faithful to the traditional
way of teaching theology.40 As a matter of fact, some theologians
attempted to give theology a more scientific character and to arrange the
various themes in a systematic order.41 St. Thomas Aquinas was one of
the first masters to present a rigorous organization of sacred theology as
a science.42 He sets out from the Aristotelian position according to which
science is knowledge of what is necessary. In theology the different
themes and their causal connections must be considered from the point
of view of God’s knowledge.Thus creation as well as the Incarnation and
Redemption are studied as God knows them, rather than as willed by
God, for God’s will concerns the individual and contingent.43
The biblical commentaries of St. Thomas contain some interesting
remarks on the use of philosophy in the elaboration of theology. Philosophers distinguish themselves by their knowledge of the truth, even if the
minds of some of them are obscured occasionally.44 They have reached a
certain knowledge of the truth, although not all are of the same opinion.45
In an argument, based on social and juridical custom, used by St. Paul to
show that the New Law has not done away with the Promise,Thomas sees
proof that in matters of the faith one may use any truth from any science.46
Thomas also refers to St. Jerome who, in a letter to the grand speaker of
the city of Rome observed that all Christian doctors wrote in ornatu
philosophiae and enriched their works with the doctrine and wisdom of the
philosophers, so that one did not know what to admire more in them, their
profane knowledge or their acquaintance with the Scriptures.47 In his
systematic works and in several of the Quaestiones disputatae Aquinas
defends energetically the right of a theologian to make use of philosophy
40 See M.-D. Chenu, La théologie comme science au XIIe siècle (Paris: Vrin, 1969), 28ff.
41 On these attempts see L. Sileo, Teoria della scienza teologica: “Quaestio de scientia

theologica” di Odo Rigaldi ed altri testi inediti (1230–1250) (Rome: Pontificium
Athenaeum Aritonianium, 1984).
42 R. Heinzmann, “Der Plan der Summa theologiae des Thomas von Aquin in der
Tradition der frühscholastischen Systembildung,” in Thomas von Aquino: Interpretation und Rezeption, ed.W. P. Eckert (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1974), 455–69.
43 De veritate, q. 14, a. 8.
44 In Job, chap. 12.
45 In I Timotheum 3, lectio 3.
46 In epistolam ad Galatas 3, lectio 6: “Ex quo quidem habemus argumentum quod
ad conferendum de his quae sunt fidei possumus uti quacumque veritate cuiuscumque scientiae.”
47 In I Corinthos 1, lectio 3.

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in the elaboration of sacred doctrine, even if resorting to philosophy is not
without danger. The study of philosophy is legitimate and even praiseworthy because of the truth the philosophers have found, due to what God has
made them understand, but because some philosophers misused their
knowledge to attack the faith, the Apostle warns us:“Make sure that no one
traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some second-hand, empty,
rational philosophy, based on the principles of this world instead of on
Christ.”48 If in the writings of the philosophers one encounters statements
contrary to the faith, these are no longer philosophy but an abuse of philosophy.49 Elsewhere Thomas speaks of the vera philosophiae principia quae
consideravit Aristoteles.50
The Contribution of Philosophy
The subject matter of philosophy coincides partially with the themes
studied in theology. The faith presupposes and reason demonstrates that
there is one God who is the origin and cause of all things.51 Several rules
of conduct which ethics formulates also fall under theology as, for
instance, that fornication is a mortal sin. On the other hand, a good
number of questions belonging to faith are of the domain of the philosophy of nature (for example, the fact that the world is not eternal), or of
first philosophy (such as the doctrine that divine providence is concerned
with what people do).52 Aquinas is convinced that almost all of philosophy is ordained to the knowledge of divine things.53 It follows that certain
theories can be refuted both by theological arguments and by philosophical demonstration. For this reason, Aquinas writes repeatedly that certain
opinions which contradict the faith also contradict philosophy.54
However, this does not mean that the mysteries of the faith are subordinated to philosophical reasoning. It would be a sign of great recklessness
48 ST II–II, q. 167, a. 1, ad 3.The quotation is from Colossians 2:8. At In Colossenses

2, lectio 2,Thomas explains that the wisdom of this world may deceive us in two
ways: by incorrect philosophical theories and by sophistic arguments.
49 Expositio in Boetii De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 3: “hoc non est philosophiae, sed magis
philosophiae abusus ex defectu rationis. Et ideo possibile est ex principiis
philosophiae huiusmodi errorem refellere.”
50 De spiritualibus creaturis, a. 3.
51 In Sent. I, d. 2, q. 1, a.1.
52 In Sent. III, d. 23, q. 2, a. 4, qc. 2, arg. 3.
53 In Sent. III, d. 24, q. 1, a. 3, qc. 1:“cum fere tota philosophia ad cognitionem divinorum ordinetur.”
54 See De malo, q. 6, a.1: “non solum contrariatur fidei, sed subvertit omnia principia philosophiae”; In Sent. II, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1: “a dictis sanctorum discordat et
philosophiae non convenit”; ibid., d. 28, q. 1, a. 2: “nec fidei nec philosophiae
consonant”; In Sent. IV, d. 47, q. 2, a. 2, qc. 2: “repugnat enim et philosophiae”;

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if one would undertake to discuss these mysteries at the level of philosophy.55 Since grace perfects our faculties and presupposes nature, the Christian faith presupposes basic natural knowledge.56
In his Expositio in Boetii De Trinitate, St.Thomas develops his doctrine
of the role of philosophy in theology. First he shows that in theology one
may use arguments, that is, resort to the resources of reason. Next he deals
with the question of whether an authentic science about God and
revealed truth, based on revelation, is impossible. Finally, he raises the
question of whether in the doctrine of the faith which considers God,
one is allowed to use philosophical arguments and refer to authors of
acknowledged authority.57
With regard to the first point, some texts of the Church Fathers appear
to reject the use of philosophy in theology: “Do away with arguments,
when you want the faith”58; “Faith has no merit, if one lets reason make
its object known.”59 Aquinas answers that we must seek God with all our
powers and live according to what is best in us. Our mind must try to learn
more and more about God in conformity with its own way of proceeding.60 In the elaboration of theology reason does not provide strict demonstrations of the object of faith; but only presents some probable arguments.
In the second article of this question St.Thomas argues that the knowledge of God which we have received in faith can become a science.
Although its starting point is not evident (contrary to the first principles in
philosophy), its scientific character is warranted insofar as strict conclusions
are drawn from what has been revealed.The difficulty of non-evident first
principles is resolved by the subalternation of theology to divine science: the
articles of the faith function as do first principles in philosophy. Having
shown the scientific character of theology, Aquinas explains the role of
Quodlibet III, q. 5, a. 3:“contra rationem doctrinae evangelicae et contra rationem
philosophiae.”
55 De unitate intellectus, chap. 5.
56 In Sent. III, d. 24, q. 1, a. 3, qc. 1:“Fidei substernitur naturalis cognitio, quam fides
praesupponit, et ratio probare potest.”
57 Expositio in Boetii De Trinitate, q. 2, a.1–3.The text dates to the beginning of St.
Thomas’s lecturing as a master in sacred theology in Paris. He may have chosen
the first chapters of Boethius’s otherwise not very important treatise, to have the
possibility to develop an epistemology of theoretical sciences of unequaled
depth. For more details see Leo Elders, Faith and Science: An Introduction to St.
Thomas’ Expositio in Boethii De Trinitate (Rome: Herder, 1974).
58 St. Ambrose, De fide I, chap.13, 84 (PL 16:570D).
59 St. Gregory the Great, Homilia 26.1 (PL 76:1197C): “Fides non habet meritum
cui humana ratio praebet experimentum.”
60 Expositio in Boetii De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 1, ad 7.

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philosophy in theology.The third article begins by quoting some statements
against the use of philosophy. St. Paul reminds us that Christ did not send
him to preach according to “the wisdom of language” or “in the terms of
philosophy,” in which the Cross of Christ cannot be expressed.61 St.
Ambrose comments:“The mysteries of the faith are free from philosophical
arguments.”62 This denial of a role for philosophy finds support in the wellknown text of Letter XXII of St. Jerome. In a dream Jerome is reprimanded
by God for the fact that he has been an avid reader of Cicero, whose works
he promises never to touch again. St. Augustine in his turn observes that if
one finds errors in a publication, it loses its authority. The writings of the
philosophers are full of errors and must be discarded.63 One could also say
that a science must proceed from its own principles and that, for this reason,
theology has nothing to do with philosophy. On the other side, Aquinas
quotes a number of texts of St. Paul, Jerome, and Augustine which seem to
favor the use of philosophy in theology. In his solution to the question, he
argues that the gifts of grace do not destroy the light of natural reason which
God has given us.Therefore it is impossible that the truth which is communicated to us by God in the faith contradicts our natural knowledge. It is
true that the light of reason is imperfect, but even in what is imperfect there
is a certain imitation of what is perfect. In what reason proposes there is
some similarity with the knowledge given to us by faith. If philosophy tells
us something contrary to the faith, it is no longer true philosophy, but error,
and the result of defective reasoning.Thus it is possible to refute such errors
on the basis of philosophical principles.
When one uses philosophy in theology there are two ways in which
mistakes occur: (a) when one resorts to theories contrary to the faith; and
(b) when one measures theological doctrines with the yardstick of
philosophy. Rather, philosophy should be measured by the criteria of the
faith. It is obvious that the role of philosophy in theology is only a
secondary one. Divine Providence arranged things in such a way that at
the beginning of the Church, preaching was done in great simplicity, but
that later the wisdom of the world rallied to the cause of Christ. Those
who use philosophical statements in theology do not add water to the
wine, but transform the water of philosophy into wine.64 Thus theology
can avail itself of the different philosophical disciplines. It does not use
61 1 Cor 1:17.
62 In

reality the text is Peter Lombard’s, but a similar statement is found in
Ambrose’s De fide I, chap.13, 84 (PL 16:570D).
63 Epistola 28 ad Hieronymum, chap. 3, 5 (PL 33:413).
64 Expositio in Boetii De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 3 ad 5. Philosophical terms and insights used
in theology are transposed to the level of doctrina sacra and integrated into it.

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539

them because of the authority of the philosophers whose words are
quoted, but only because of the intrinsic merits of what they said.
The Triple Function of Philosophy in Theology
As Aquinas argues in the article we have just summarized, the things
studied in philosophy bear a certain likeness to the realities which are the
object of the faith and are sometimes a certain praeambulum to them, as
nature is to grace.65 Consequently the function of philosophy in theology is as follows:
a. To demonstrate the praeambula to the faith which every Christian
must know. Thomas means such truths as the existence of God, but
also theses on the nature of man, free will, divine providence, and
natural law. Judging according to what he does in the first books of
the Summa contra Gentiles, Thomas has a rather broad view of what
belongs to these preambles.
b. To provide a deeper knowledge of the dogmas of the faith by means
of certain analogies (similitudines ). This term includes such concepts
as being, person, nature, essence, goodness, truth, unity, father, son,
spirit, beatitude, virtue, love, law, etc. Philosophical reflection may
also provide certain comparisons concerning the Trinity, grace, the
Church, and the sacraments. In order to throw some light on many
doctrines one must necessarily refer to the natural order.66
In many questions recourse to a principle drawn from philosophy
helps to understand the solution. To show how proper the Incarnation is, St.Thomas uses the following principle of the natural order:
“What is proper to something agrees with its nature. Since God’s
nature is goodness itself, it is proper that he communicate himself.”67
Sanctifying grace and the infused virtues are explained by analogies
with the order of nature. To illustrate somewhat the eternal generation of the Son of God; Aquinas resorts to the following principle:
“The nobler a nature is, the more united to it is what proceeds from
it.”68 “With regard to the truth of the faith, which can only be
known by those who see the divine substance, human reason is in
65 Expositio

in Boetii De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 3: “Continent tamen [ea quae sunt
philosophiae] quasdam eorum [sc. quae sunt fidei] similitudines, et quaedam ad
ea praeambula, sicut natura praeambula est ad gratiam.”
66 ST I, q. 99, a. 1: “Unde in omnibus asserendis sequi debemus naturam rerum,
praeter ea quae auctoritate divina traduntur quae sunt supra naturam.”
67 ST III, q. 1, a. 1.
68 ScG IV, chap.11.

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540

such a position that it can approach it with the help of analogies. But
these are not sufficient to allow the intellect to understand the truth
of the faith by means of demonstration or directly by itself.” 69
c. To refute arguments and criticisms brought forward against the faith.
The Summa contra Gentiles is an admirable example of this task of
philosophy at the service of the theologian. In this work St.Thomas
wants to bring his readers to accept the presuppositions of the faith
and to present the supernatural mysteries so as to make them plausible. He also refutes countless errors.
A theologian who resorts to philosophy can err in two ways: by
using theories contrary to the faith or by subjecting the dogmas of
the faith to the limits and criteria of reason.70 Thomas vindicates the
autonomy of philosophy while in theology he uses without any hesitation many philosophical concepts, definitions, principles, and
analyses, which he recognizes as true. His certitude concerning their
truth is based on their intrinsic evidence and on their astonishing
harmony with the doctrine of faith. Thus he continues what such
Fathers of the Church as Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil, and
others had done before him. The great difference, however, is that
Aquinas made use of a complete and coherent philosophy.
St. Thomas and Aristotle
This takes us to our final question.To what extent did Aquinas use Aristotelian philosophy when elaborating the doctrine of faith? Could one
use a different philosophy in the study of theology?
Thomas’s attitude with regard to Aristotle is complex. Quite often he
follows him, but on several occasions he goes beyond what Aristotle says
or even corrects and refutes him. Until about the middle of the twentieth century most authors considered the identification of Aquinas’s
thought with Aristotle’s as evident. Certainly, Thomists acknowledged
that in certain fields Thomas had gone beyond Aristotle,71 but they were
convinced that he followed the tracks of Aristotle. Augustino Nifo (d. ca.
1538) even wrote: “Expositor Thomas raro aut numquam dissentit a
doctrina peripatetica; fuit enim totus peripateticus et omni studio peripateticus et numquam voluit nisi quod peripatetici.” (Thomas as a
69 ScG I, chap. 8.
70 Expositio in Boetii De Trinitate, q. 2, a. 3.
71 One may recall the ancient saying Aristotele aristotelior. In the following I make use

of my article “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et Aristote,” Revue thomiste 88 (1988): 255–76.
For an extensive treatment of this topic, see now my “The Aristotelian Commentaries of St.Thomas Aquinas,” The Review of Metaphysics 63 (2009): 29–53.

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541

commentator seldom or never disagrees with the doctrine of the Peripatetics, since he was in every way a Peripatetic, studied their thought
with great zeal and never wanted to teach differently from the Peripatetics.)72 However, in about the middle of the past century certain Thomists
began to draw attention to what they called Platonic elements in
Aquinas’s philosophy. In particular H.-A. Montagne, E. Gilson, and
Cornelio Fabro stressed that the doctrines of being and of participation
are alien to the theories of Aristotle.73 Carried along by his “discovery”
of Thomas’s theory of the act of being, Gilson even went so far as to write
that he felt inclined to think that the main obstacle for the diffusion of
Thomism was the influence of Aristotle.74 Gilson’s disciple Joseph
Owens believes that even the Aristotelian commentaries of Aquinas are
influenced by his own theory of being and “a theological concern”
which affects the interpretation of a good deal of Aristotle’s texts.75
When one considers this debate more closely, it appears that Aquinas
accepted a great number of basic positions of Aristotle, among which one
may cite the following: the object of the sciences is the universal and the
necessary, which is abstracted from concrete reality; real things and not a
priori objects of the mind are the basis of knowledge. In addition to this
realism,Aristotle proposed a division of the sciences and assigned the first
place to the speculative sciences. His epistemology helped Aquinas to
determine the nature of theology, while his logic provided the tools for
scientific work. Aristotle’s philosophy gives priority to knowledge rather
than to desire or feelings. Man’s happiness consists essentially in knowledge.The Stagirite is optimistic with regard to man’s capacity to acquire
real knowledge of things: there is finality in nature and things are, at least
to a certain extent, intelligible.The main task of philosophy is the study
of the causes of becoming. In this connection Aristotle developed his
doctrine of the four genera of causality. The gradual discovery of the
72 Quoted from Cornelio Fabro, Enciclopedia Cattolica 12:266.The quotation is from

the 13th dispute on Metaphysics VII.
73 Some early voices in this choir were C. Huit, “Les elements platoniciens de la

doctrine de saint Thomas,” Revue thomiste 19 (1911): 724–66, and P. Rousselot,
L’intellectualisme de saint Thomas (Paris: Beauchesne, 1924), with regard to the
doctrine of the angels. See also, more recently, R. J. Henle, Saint Thomas and
Platonism:A Study of Plato and Platonic Texts in the Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas
(The Hague: Nijhoff, 1956).
74 Etienne Gilson, “Cajetan et l’existence,” Tijdschrift voor Philosophie 15 (1953):
267–86, 284.
75 Joseph Owens,“Aquinas as an Aristotelian Commentator,” in St.Thomas Aquinas
on the Existence of God: Collected Papers of Joseph Owens, CSs.R., ed. J. R. Catan
(Albany: SUNY Press, 1980), 16.

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different causes by his predecessors provided him with a principle for the
organization of the history of philosophy. Furthermore, the Aristotelian
doctrine of act and potency became the key for deciphering the universe,
The Stagirite also developed the theory of first principles although he
failed to apply it to the moral order. Opposing Plato and the Academy he
taught the primacy of being with regard to the Good and the One and
defined first philosophy as the study of being qua being. In this way he
laid the groundwork for a theory of the transcendentals which, however,
he did not elaborate.While Plato attempted to reduce all of reality to two
contrary principles (the One and the Indeterminate Dyad), Aristotle
worked out the theory of the categories of being as so many modes of
being, irreducible to each other.This, in its turn, prepared the way for the
theory of the different senses of being and of analogy.
Substance is the core of reality.The other predicaments as determinations of substance are beings in being or of being. Instead of seeking real
being in a world of Platonic ideas, Aristotle asserts that substances, and
not the world of the ideas, are the focal points of reality. In the field of
the philosophy of nature, Aristotle combated atomism and monism. His
definition of nature, the discovery of first matter, the doctrine of hylomorphism, the analysis of movement, place, and time, and his theory of
generation and corruption are some of the highlights of his accomplishments. To this one may add the first steps on the road to a scientific
cosmology, the study of living beings and of the soul, his theory of sense
cognition and intellectual knowledge, and his biological work. Aristotle
also made a tentative start in the study of metaphysics and reached the
insight that all processes must be reduced to the First Unmoved Mover.
The originality and the lasting contributions of the Stagirite to ethics,
political philosophy, and aesthetics are no less important.
We need not dwell on the introduction of Aristotle’s complete writings
into the Latin West during the second part of the twelfth century.Thanks
to the efforts of such translators as James of Venice, Roland of Cremona,
and Michael Scot, Western academies were presented with an overwhelming mass of knowledge.76 A reaction set in against certain positions
of the Stagirite not in accordance with the doctrine of the faith.77 But his
writings offered so much insight and provoked such an admiration that
76 Roger Bacon writes: “Tempore Michael Scoti . . . magnificata est Aristotelis

philosophia apud Latinos.” Opus maius, 2.13, ed. J. H. Bridges (Oxford: 1897),
vol.1:55.
77 A council in Paris (1210) decreed: “Nee libri Aristotelis de naturali philosophia
nee commenta legantur Parisiis publice vel secrete.” In 1215 a legate of the Pope,
Robert de Courcon, extended this prohibition to the Metaphysics.

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they began to be used again with the somewhat restrictive approval of the
Holy See.After 1260 new problems arose due to the spreading of Averroism. St. Bonaventure, who, when commenting on the Sententiae, had been
quite sympathetic towards Aristotle, despite his erroneous view of the
eternity of the world,78 bitterly attacked this and similar errors in his
Collationes, addressed to the students in Paris between 1267 and 1273.79
In his Hexaemeron, Robert Grosseteste warned against recourse to the
Stagirite: “Non igitur se decipiant et frustra desudent, . . . ne mutuiter
tempus suum et vires ingenii sui consumant ut Aristotelem catholicum
faciendo, seipsos haereticos faciant.” (They should not deceive themselves
and drudge in vain, nor waste their time and use up their wits; when
trying to make a Catholic of Aristotle they turn themselves into heretics.)
Aquinas was well acquainted with these difficulties and saw the two
roads of philosophical speculation lying open before him, the way of
Plato80 and that of Aristotle, and he chose the latter.The main reason for
his choice is his certitude that Aristotle’s theories are basically correct and
his method valid. According to Thomas, Platonism consists essentially in
the theory of ideas, which places their essences outside things, and in the
second place in the doctrine of participation. Insofar as the Platonists
reduced individual things to a bundle of participated forms, their position is erroneous, but understood as expressing the dependence of all
beings upon God, it is true, as Aquinas stresses in several places.81 Even
in metaphysics,Aristotle followed a better road than Plato, one that allows
us to reach certitude with regard to the existence of immaterial beings.82
But Aquinas admits that despite the correct structure his philosophy Aristotle’s theories show a good number of defects.
The Platonists are mistaken because their reasoning starts from
concepts (ex rationibus intelligibilibus ) and considers man’s attributes as
78 See Leo Elders, “Les citations d’Aristote dans le Commentaire sur les Sentences de

saint Bonaventure,” in San Bonaventura, maestro di vita francescana e di sapienza cristiana (Rome: Pontificia facolta teologica san Bonaventura, 1976), 831–42.
79 On whether one can speak of a critical attitude toward Aristotelianism, see J. F.
Quinn, The Historical Constitution of St. Bonaventure’s Philosophy (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1973), 854–78.
80 See “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et le platonisme,” in Leo Elders, Au coeur de la philosophie de Saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2009), 7–32.
81 See the preface of the Expositio in librum beati Dionysii De divinis nominibus and
ST I, q. 6, a. 4: “Et quamvis haec opinio irrationabilis videatur quantum ad hoc
quod ponebat species rerum naturalium separatas per se subsistentes . . . tamen
hoc absolute verum est quod aliquid est primum, quod per suam essentiam est
ens et bonum, quod dicimus Deum.” Cf. De veritate, q. 21, a. 4: “Quidditates et
formae rerum insunt ipsis rebus particularibus.”
82 De substantiis separatis, art. 2.

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many distinct realities. Aristotle, on the other hand, argues from sensible
things and this position is correct.83 In anthropology St.Thomas sees an
irreducible opposition between Aristotle’s doctrine and Platonic dualism.
In metaphysics, however, he finds a broad convergence between the Plato
and Aristotle, even if he has to elaborate their views in order to show this
harmony. Both philosophers agree on the existence of a supreme principle upon which immaterial and material things depend; spiritual things
are devoid of matter but are composed of act and potency. He even writes
that both philosophers accept divine providence.84
Aquinas placed himself within Aristotelianism, but he did so entirely
freely. He penetrated Aristotle’s doctrine to its core and, using the Stagirite’s
basic principles, frequently went beyond the conclusions reached by Aristotle himself to establish a greater coherence between the different doctrines,
especially in anthropology, ethics, and metaphysics. The thousands of
quotations from the corpus aristotelicum, in particular from the Organon, the
Physics, the De anima, the Metaphysics, and the Nicomachean Ethics, are proof
of the importance he attached to the doctrine of Aristotle, as are his
commentaries on twelve of Aristotle’s major works.The purpose of these
commentaries is to present and to explain the doctrine of Aristotle, to
analyze the arguments he uses, to discard interpretations which disagree
with the letter of the text or the intention of the Stagirite, to draw attention to certain disagreements with the doctrine of the faith and, finally, to
construct a true philosophy of nature, metaphysics, and ethics, fit to be
used in the various institutions of learning.
Thomas places the text to be explained in the light of the principles
and the entire philosophy of Aristotle. We encounter quite often the
expression secundum intentionem Aristotelis, which signifies: the meaning of
a text as it appears to the attentive reader; but it can also denote a deeper
sense which one discovers by reflection and comparison.85 It can also
mean that Thomas assigns a sense to a text which is not found in it, but
83 De spiritualibus creaturis, chap. 3: “Harum autem duarum opinionum diversitas ex

hoc procedit quod quidam ad inquirendam veritatem de natura rerum,
processerunt ex rebus intelligibilibus, et hoc fuit proprium Platonicorum; quidam
vero ex rebus sensibilibus, et hoc fuit proprium philosophiae Aristotelis . . .
Consideraverunt Platonici . . . quod quidquid est abstractum in intellectu, sit
abstractum in re.” Cf. In Sent. II, d. 17, q. 1, a.1: reality does not consist in a
bundle of logical concepts.
84 De substantiis separatis, chap. 3: “In quo conveniant positiones Platonis et Aristotelis.” As he does elsewhere, Aquinas bases his assertion regarding Aristotle on
some scattered texts of the latter.
85 Cf. De substantiis separatis, chap. 14: “Patet igitur praedicta verba philosophi diligenter consideranti quod non est intentio eius.”

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which he takes from what Aristotle says elsewhere.86 Thomas discusses
those passages which seem to contradict the faith. Sometimes he shows
that when one reads them attentively, the opposition disappears, but in
other cases a particular tenet may be irreconcilable with the Christian
doctrine. Quite often Aquinas corrects or completes what the text says
by means of observations introduced by sciendum est autem, advertendum est
autem, or considerandum est autem.87 The trend of these commentaries is to
replace a neo-Platonic interpretation of Aristotle by a rigorous exegesis
based on the principles of Aristotle himself. On the other hand,Thomas
also rejects repeatedly the interpretations of Averroes in order to show
that the Commentator is not always trustworthy.88 Aristotle’s philosophy is
potentially open to what God has revealed.
Aquinas was keenly aware of the opposition of a good number of theologians and ecclesiastics to certain doctrines of Aristotle and a more or less
pronounced distrust of him.To refute these interpretations and preconceived
opinions, he mentions real or supposed disagreements and provides explanations. An example: In De caelo I Aristotle “demonstrates” the eternity of
the world. Having explained the arguments of Aristotle, Aquinas concludes
with the following remark:Aristotle does not show that the world does not
have a beginning; but he establishes only that the world did not begin to
exist in the way other philosophers had described. He does show that the
world did not begin by a process of generation and that it is not destined to
disappear.89 This is a benign interpretation, for the proof based on the circular movement of the celestial bodies aims at excluding any beginning.
Thomas apparently felt that a simple rejection of these arguments would also
have lost some valuable reasoning and might have brought with it the loss
of valuable philosophical views and shaken confidence in Aristotle.
Aquinas discards the theory of the divine nature of the first heavens.
He writes that in this respect Aristotle expresses himself in the manner
Plato did, who used the term “god” for several things,90 as if Aquinas
86 For example, in Metaphysics 12.9, Aristotle denies that the world is an object of

divine knowledge since it would make God dependent on what is outside him.
Thomas observes that this is not the case when God knows things in himself, which
is the case if he is their creator. Aristotle himself acknowledges this, for he writes
elsewhere that heaven and earth are dependent in their being on the First Mover.
87 Cf. In VI Metaphysicam, lectio 1, where Thomas contradicts the text by stating that
the subject matter of metaphysics comprises also material beings.
88 See Leo Elders,“St.Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the Physics of Aristotle,”
in Autour de saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Fac-éditions, 1983), 1: 28–35; idem,
“Averroes et saint Thomas d’Aquin,” in Doctor communis 45 (1992): 46–56.
89 In I De caelo et mundo, lectio 6, §61–64.
90 Ibid., lectio 7, §75.

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wanted to say: one might as well stay with Aristotle despite this error, for
Plato too was mistaken. In other texts as well, he associates Aristotle with
Plato in order to protect him against unilateral criticisms. For instance, he
writes that “Plato, Aristotle, and those who followed them arrived at the
consideration of the universal cause of all things, as Augustine says in the
City of God (VIII, 4).”91 Thomas makes Augustine guarantee the fact that
the principles of Aristotle’s philosophy lead us to accept the creation of
the world by God. When evaluating Thomas’s statements about the
Stagirite one must always keep in mind the addressees of a given treatise:
in order to defend Aristotelianism in the universities Thomas may go to
great lengths to justify a certain text or reconcile it with the faith.
On the first page of the Physics Aristotle writes that we must always seek
the first cause. Thomas uses this affirmation to note that we must indeed
continue our analysis until we reach the highest cause.This “adaptation” of
Aristotelian doctrine to a Christian philosophy is very remarkable in the
commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics. According to the Stagirite, man
himself is the cause of his happiness, a doctrine which will be condemned
by the bishop of Paris in 1277.Thomas notes that Aristotle is speaking of
the imperfect happiness of this life and adds that even according to him
happiness is a gift of the gods.92 In fact, one can read this remark at
1099b12, but Aristotle is perhaps making a concession to a popular way of
speaking. However, Aquinas quotes the sentence and, assuming that there
must be a perfect coherence between the various parts of Aristotle’s philosophy, uses it to justify an interpretation which goes against the grain of
some other texts. One finds several “corrections” of this type in the
commentaries on the Ethics and the Metaphysics. Thomas attempted to
remove as far as possible any appearance of opposition to the Christian
faith. To give another example, Aristotle wonders if there is a plurality of
first movers. Both in his preface and throughout his commentary Thomas
maintains the plural form ( primas causas rerum) and leaves the question of
the unity of the First Principle open, apparently for methodological
reasons. Only in his commentary on Metaphysics XII, chapter 8, does he
observe that a series of several movers is not necessary to explain the movements of the celestial bodies.93 He avoids any hasty corrections and respects
the need for a patient analysis, what has been called reverenter exponere.
In many places Aquinas goes beyond the text in order to reach a
higher synthesis. One example is in his preface to the commentary on
91 De potentia, q. 3, a. 5.
92 In I Ethica, lectio 14, §165–76.
93 See Leo Elders,“St.Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle,”

in Autour de saint Thomas d’Aquin, 1:134–38.

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the Metaphysics, when he brings Aristotle’s differing descriptions of the
nature of first philosophy into a higher unity: its subject is being qua
being, but it also studies the cause of being so that it extends its investigation to the first cause, God. Philosophical theology is part of metaphysics. Likewise Aquinas completes Aristotle’s sketch of analogy in
Metaphysics IV, chapter 2, and weakens the Stagirite’s stern condemnation
of the Platonic theory of participation. He elaborates the doctrine of the
real distinction between the act of being and the essence. He goes further
than Aristotle had done in pointing out that the original and first sense
of the verb “to be” is to be real in an absolute way.94
This “going beyond” Aristotle’s doctrine is very much noticeable in
anthropology: the soul of man, his substantial form, is immaterial,
although it constitutes the body. It is non totaliter immersa corpori and it is
aliquid subsistens. He also explains why the soul is united to the body and
defends the doctrine of afterlife, about which Aristotle voiced some
doubts.95 With regard to ethics, Aquinas stresses more than Aristotle the
scientific character of moral philosophy. Ethics is directed not only to
action but also to knowledge. The science of morals is not a form of
prudence but has its seat in the theoretical intellect (as it was for Aristotle). Moreover, he transposes the theory of the criteria of morality to
make them depend on the first principles of the practical intellect. But
like Aristotle’s ethics, Aquinas’s moral philosophy is aiming at man’s last
end, happiness or beatitude, and at the virtues required to reach and
secure this end.
A further question is whether these commentaries present Aristotle’s
philosophy faithfully or whether they express the thought of Aquinas
himself. A first observation is that for Thomas himself these commentaries were philosophical works: to the best of my knowledge there is not
a single passage where revelation provides directly an interpretation or
evaluation of what Aristotle wrote. There is nowhere any confusion
between philosophy and doctrina sacra. This does not mean that while
writing them Thomas was not guided by revelation.What is decisive for
our purpose is that his arguments remain at the level of natural reason.
The theological viewpoint remains present in the background and leads
Thomas to interpret certain statements of Aristotle in such a way as to
discover a certain openness toward the doctrine of the faith.
With the exception of a handful of short passages, the commentaries are
a faithful, learned, and excellent interpretation of what Aristotle wrote.
94 In Peri Hermeneias 1, lectio 5.
95 Cf. E. von Ivanka,“Aristotelische und thomistische Seelenlehre,” in Aristote et saint

Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Publications universitaires de Louvain, 1957), 221–28.

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Even Joseph Owens must recognize this fact.96 One could say that, from a
doctrinal point of view, they are the best commentaries extant on the text of
Aristotle.Aquinas succeeds as no one else in introducing us to the thought
of Aristotle. Although he did not have the instruments of contemporary
philology, his knowledge of the Corpus aristotelicum is without equal.
Thomas sometimes goes beyond the immediate context of a passage to
base his interpretation on other texts or to argue with the help of principles that Aristotle acknowledged. For instance, he places the agent intellect
within the individual soul of each person; he assumes that Aristotle accepts
the immortality of the individual soul; he draws a far-reaching inference
from such a statement as “the universe is suspended from the First Principle.”While Aristotle himself is not always consistent and scholars such as Sir
David Ross and Ingemar During speak of slightly diverging lines of
thought in Aristotle,Thomas wants to establish total consistency.
In fact,Thomas reads the texts of Aristotle in the light of his own philosophy of nature, metaphysics, and ethics. In many cases the influence of this
situation is minimal, because his philosophy is identical to that of the
Stagirite. This is especially the case with regard to the Physics, and the De
caelo. In anthropology, metaphysics; and ethics the influence of Thomas’s
own thought is more pervasive. Joseph Owens draws attention to Thomas’s
own view of being which determined certain passages of his commentaries.
Harry V. Jaffa mentions some principles which influenced the commentary
on the Nicomachean Ethics.97 Must we conclude that Thomas transformed
Aristotle? The central question is whether the framework in which Aquinas
interprets Aristotle is an alien framework, foreign to the thought of Aristotle,
as Owens claims.98 Is there a question of non-Aristotelian principles, as Jaffa
says? Our answer is a categorical “no.”Thomistic anthropology, metaphysics
of being, and ethics based on the natural inclinations of man are not developments which adulterate Aristotle’s thought. These doctrines are derived
from principles posited by Aristotle himself. Aquinas indicates this with
regard to the metaphysics of being: those who followed Plato and Aristotle
understood the dependence of all beings on God and the real composition
of the act of being and the essence in created things.99
96 Owens, “Aquinas as an Aristotelian Commentator,” 16.
97 H. V. Jaffa, Thomism and Aristotelianism: A Study of the Commentary by Thomas

Aquinas on the Nicomachean Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952),
101. Jaffa means principles such as “perfect happiness is impossible in this life,”
“man is immortal,” etc.
98 Owens, “Aquinas as an Aristotelian Commentator,” 10.
99 De potentia, q. 3, a. 5:“Plato,Aristoteles et eorum sequaces pervenerunt ad considerationem ipsius esse universalis et ideo ipsi soli posuerunt aliquam universalem

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St.Thomas does not restrict his comments to the interpretation of the
prout iacet, but he delves deeper into its very roots and so connects it to
the principles of Aristotle and the veritas rerum.The truth contained in a
passage appears in its full meaning through being brought into relationship with a more encompassing ensemble.100
Aristotle’s writings are intended to be a faithful reflection of our experience of reality and to avoid, as much as possible, subjective points of
view. Consequently they possess a high degree of truth and that is why
they lend themselves to the in-depth study which Aquinas carries out.
Aquinas has no equal in penetrating the meaning of the text and all its
implications. He accepts Aristotle’s conclusions insofar as they are based
on an exact analysis of reality. But he delves deeper into the intelligibility of things and uncovers structures which Aristotle has not discerned.
So he is able to present a more coherent doctrinal ensemble. The truth
present in the text is saved, but the doctrine is developed with the help
of Aristotle’s own principles.
Aristotle’s philosophy shows a surprising capacity for this kind of
systematization because of its basic conformity to reality. As John Henry
Newman wrote,“While the world lasts, will Aristotle’s doctrine on these
matters last, for he is the oracle of nature and truth. While we are men,
we cannot help, to a great extent, being Aristotelians, for the great Master
does but analyze the thoughts, feelings, views and opinions of
humankind. He has told us the meaning of our own words and ideas,
before we were born. In many subject matters, to think correctly, is to
think like Aristotle; and we are his disciples, whether we will or not,
though we may not know it.”101
Is the doctrine of the commentaries still that of Aristotle? In the vast
majority of those more than five thousand pages of comments, yes, we do
find Aristotle’s historical doctrine. In some passages, Thomas presents a
doctrine secundum intentionem Philosophi, an expression which may mean
causam rerum, a qua omnia alia in esse prodirent.” In the Summa theologiae he
restricts this breakthrough to a few later philosophers, excluding Plato and Aristotle (I, q. 44, a. 2):“Et ulterius aliqui erexerunt se ad considerandum ens inquantum est ens: et consideraverunt causam rerum, non solum secundum quod sunt
haec [Aristotle] vel talia [Plato], sed secundum quod sunt entia.”
100 Cf. W. Kluxen, Philosophische Ethik bei Thomas von Aquin (Hamburg: Meiner,
1980), 104, states this as follows: “Es kann nur wiederholt werden, dass Thomas
den Aristoteles nicht historisch, sondern in der wahrheitsgebenden Offenheit des
Verstehenshorizontes orten will, in dem erst die eigentliche Wahrheit seiner
Aussage hervortritt.”
101 John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (New York: Longmans, Green,
1947), 97.

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that we are dealing with conclusions drawn from Aristotle’s principles,
more or less removed from what is expressed in a particular text.
Can the commentaries be used as a source of St.Thomas’s own philosophy? The answer to this question is also affirmative, because Thomas
professes the same philosophy based on the veritas rerum.This applies above
all to those texts where the exposé is attributed to the Philosophus. An
analysis of a great number of texts where this title is used shows that
according to Aquinas, we are dealing with a philosophical truth which is
above individual opinion. On the other hand, when he writes secundum
opinionem Aristotelis or hic Aristoteles supponit, etc., he intimates that we are
dealing with a particular opinion one may disagree with. By the same
token, the numerous passages beginning with considerandum est autem, sciendum est autem or advertendum est autem contain critical remarks which
correct or complement the exposé of Aristotle himself. Finally, to find out
whether Aquinas subscribes to a certain point of doctrine, one must read
the entire commentary. For instance, to know what he thinks of a plurality of first movers, one has to consult the last part of the commentary on
the Metaphysics.This is not surprising, for one cannot consider a difficulty
raised at the beginning of an article of the Summa theologiae the definite
doctrine of Thomas himself. If one keeps these methodological principles
in mind, the Aristotelian commentaries become an inexhaustible deposit
of wisdom containing the treasures of Thomas’s own philosophy.
But what should we think of the mass of mistaken theories about
natural phenomena, in particular in physics and cosmology, which mar
the works of Aristotle and which Aquinas seems to accept without hesitation? Because of the presence of these theories,Aquinas’s philosophy of
nature has been depicted as totally antiquated and useless, with the
exception of a number of conceptual analyses, such as those of place and
time. As is known, in Aristotle’s treatises on nature, elements of what for
us is natural science go together with philosophical considerations and
are almost inextricably combined with them. However, a careful study of
the commentaries of Aquinas shows, at least in a number of cases, that
Thomas was well aware of a distinction between both and considered the
cosmological system of Aristotle a hypothesis which may be replaced by
a new one which explains the observed phenomena differently:“Although
the phenomena are accounted for with the help of these hypotheses, one
should not say that these assumptions are true, for one can perhaps
explain what is observed in the celestial bodies in a different way which
has not yet been conceived by man.”102 Aquinas writes that one may use
102 In II De caelo, lectio 17, §451. See also ST 1.32.1 ad 2m; In I De caelo, lectio 3, §28.

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these hypotheses as long as they do not run into difficulties.103 He even
felt the theory of the four elements to be an assumption, whereas the fact
that there must be elements is definitely true.The philosophy of nature,
however, aims at indubitable knowledge.The task ahead of us is to search
the commentaries for indications of this distinction between assumptions
based on insufficient observation and ascertained conclusions and of the
hypothetical character of certain theories.
Can One Use Just Any Philosophy in Elaborating Theology?
The explanations given above show that, contrary to an opinion fairly
widely held after the Second Vatican Council and advocated by Karl
Rahner, one cannot use just any philosophy in the study of theology. If a
main part of the task of a theologian consists in finding analogous structures in the natural order to explain and illustrate the mysteries of the
faith, it is obvious that the theologian should have a correct grasp of reality. By means of created things, as they come forth from God, he must try
to explain revealed truth, which has also been given to us by God. The
more subjective, time-bound, and partial philosophical thought becomes,
the less fit it is to function in theology. The history of theology shows
how time and again orthodox interpretations were abandoned because
theologians resorted to mistaken philosophical theories.104 This applies
also to the task of demonstrating the preambles of the faith and refuting
false interpretations of Christian doctrine. In his apostolic letter Lumen
Ecclesiae, Paul VI rejects the frequently proposed view according to which
theologians should incorporate contemporary philosophical trends into
theology, as Aquinas had done with Aristotle. Paul VI writes that this is
impossible because we are dealing with ways of thinking which cannot
be compared at all.105 In a remarkable discourse at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, on November 17, 1979, John Paul II
reminded his audience that many dissenting views in theology are caused
by a crisis of philosophical thought. He insisted that one cannot resort to
just any philosophy: some philosophies are so limited and closed that they
exclude the translation of revelation into human language.106

103 In I Meteor., lectio 11, §68.
104 See Leo Elders, “Le rôle de la philosophie en théologie: Aide nécessaire et abus.

L’influence de catégories philosophiques sur l’expression de la foi,” in Nova et
Vetera (1997): 34–68.
105 Lumen Ecclesiae (Città del Vaticano: Libreria editrice vaticana, 1974), §29.
106 Insegnamendi Giovanni Paolo II (Città del Vaticano: Libreria editrice vaticana,
1979), IV 2, 1418ff.

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In conclusion we can say that the respect St. Thomas had for reality,
the absence of personal views and preconceived ideas, and his concern to
grasp reality as it is make his philosophy the best and safest instrument to
N&V
develop and to construct the science of theology.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 8, No. 3 (2010): 553–92

553

The Natural Law Ordering of Human Sexuality
to (Heterosexual) Marriage: Towards a
Thomistic Philosophy of the Body 1
PAUL G ONDREAU
Providence College
Providence, Rhode Island

“Caught in a Net of Warring Duties”
N EAR the climax of J. R. R.Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, one reads
of the treason committed by a certain Beregond, guard of the Citadel of
the great City of Minas Tirith.2 The deed consists in Beregond’s abandoning his post without leave of Denethor, the Lord of the City, which
is forbidden by law, in order to save Faramir, captain of the White Tower
and son of Denethor. Having lost his mind to despair and under the
mistaken impression that Faramir is dead, Lord Denethor has given orders
to have Faramir and himself burned on a pyre. Thus Beregond finds
himself “caught in a net of warring duties,” to quote the text, as he must
“choose between orders and the life of Faramir.”What is more, in order
to save Faramir, Beregond must not only disobey the law of the City and
the Lord Denethor’s direct orders, but he must slay, in the very Hallows
of the Citadel, two men of the Guard who stand steadfast in their obedience to the Lord Denethor. Since it is forbidden to spill blood in the
Hallows, some among the Guard curse Beregond for this fell deed,“calling him outlaw and traitor,” and the Lord Denethor denounces him as
“renegade.” Confronted by Gandalf the Wizard, who joins Beregond’s
1 I wish to express my gratitude to Russell Hittinger, whose remarks on an earlier

draft of this essay have helped to improve its quality.
2 This is recounted in the third part of The Lord of the Rings (New York: Houghton

Mifflin, 1954), namely, The Return of the King, bk. 5, ch. 4, “The Siege of
Gondor,” and ch. 7, “The Pyre of Denethor.”

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side, Denethor steadfastly invokes his right “to command (his) own
servants” according to his own will. Gandalf replies that the Lord of the
City’s will may be contested when it has “turned to madness and evil.”
He notes that the Lord of the City does not enjoy the authority to
“murder (his) own kin [in order] to ease (his) own death.”
Few readers of The Lord of the Rings sympathize with the charge that
Beregond is an outlaw and traitor to the City of Minas Tirith. With
Gandalf, the reader knows that, “but for the treason of Beregond,” the
innocent Faramir would have burned on the pyre. And this leads us to
ask, what is the status of Beregond’s “treason” and of the “net of warring
duties” in which he finds himself? In this case of “warring duties,” which
duty is higher, his duty to obey the law of the City and the orders of his
Lord, or his duty to preserve the life of the innocent Captain of the White
Tower? Who is to decide which duty is higher, and on what grounds does
one determine which duty holds precedence over the other? Is the law
of the City so absolute that it requires obedience in all cases, no matter
the circumstances, and does Denethor’s right to “command his own
servants” demand similar absolutist compliance? Does the Lord of the
City’s own will determine the law as such, or is there a higher law to
which his and the City’s laws must conform? Can Beregond claim he is
obeying this “higher law” in his very act of breaking the law of the City?
It is impossible to answer these questions adequately, much less make
proper sense of this episode from The Lord of the Rings, without appeal to
what the Catholic moral tradition (to which Tolkien was deeply committed) terms the natural law.3 Beregond experiences “warring duties”: the
one to the law of his City and to his Lord, the other to another law he
knows in his conscience, namely, the law forbidding murder, or the law
requiring one to take reasonable measures to help others when their lives
are in danger (or as Leviticus 19:16 puts it, that “you shall not stand by
idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake”). And in his conscience he
knows, however intuitively, that this latter law takes precedence, since he
knows all people know it in their consciences as well.That is, he knows,
again however intuitively, that the law forbidding murder issues from a
3 Tolkien’s express commitment to the natural law is on open display in his poem

Mythopoeia, which constitutes his defense of mythology against those “who said
that myths were lies and therefore worthless” (from the dedication), in as much
as myth (or sub-creation, as he calls it) imitates the natural law: “Dis-graced he
[man] may be, yet is not dethroned, / and keeps the rags of lordship once he
owned , / his world-dominion by creative act: / . . .The right [to sub-create] has
not decayed. / We make still by the law in which we’re made.” J. R. R.Tolkien, Tree
and Leaf including the poem Mythopoeia, 2nd ed. (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988),
97–101, at 98–99; emphasis added.

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moral precept implanted in his mind because it is inscribed in the very
fabric of his being. It issues from a norm of moral action inscribed in the
nature he holds in common with all other men, and to which all men are
thereby bound and measured. Hence the name “natural law”: the measure, the rule, of human nature.
The Push to Redefine Marriage
This norm, this rule or measure of human nature, and the questions that
give rise to it, bear direct pertinence to the current cultural debate
swirling about the definition of marriage. We live at a time, of course,
where “nature,” often perceived as the tyrannical enemy of sexual expression, has become irrelevant in this debate. Seeking in fact to empty the
notion of nature of all real meaning, our modern culture dares us, in a
manner akin to Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, to “unsex” ourselves in
wholly unnatural ways through wholly unnatural acts.4 To this end, there
is nothing more or less natural, we are told, about the union of a man and
a woman, just as there is nothing more or less natural about the sexual
union of two men or two women (except, of course, for the homosexual persons themselves, for whom, biology notwithstanding, it is supposedly “natural” to feel sexually inclined to persons of the same sex, and
thus perfectly appropriate for said individuals to engage in what remain
objectively unnatural acts). With this in the backdrop, it is not uncommon to hear it asserted, for instance, that defenders of traditional
marriage simply “hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes,” as
no less an authority than the President of the United States, in the person
of Barack Obama (himself a lawyer), recently alleged when addressing a
gay-activist organization.5
Evermore citizens of this good land, like Beregond of The Lord of the
Rings, find themselves caught in their own “net of warring duties,” as they
must choose between honoring what the state decrees, usually arrived at
through some judicial redefinition of marriage, or honoring common
sense and their own consciences, wherein they know same-sex unions
are, at bottom, unnatural.And if the recent referenda on marriage in California and Maine (and in twenty-eight other states, as of this writing) are
4 Who can forget Lady Macbeth’s memorable prayer in Act 1 to the “spirits that

tend on mortal thoughts” that they “unsex” her and that “no compunctious visitings of nature shake [her] fell purpose”?
5 “Remarks by the President at Human Rights Campaign Dinner,” Oct. 10, 2009
(posted on whitehouse.gov; Oct. 11, 2009). President Obama then followed this
with the charge that those who defend traditional marriage seek to “enshrine
discrimination into our Constitution.”

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any indication, there are more than a few Beregond-like citizens among
us who will not abandon their consciences and who remain convinced
that the effort to spread the mantle of marriage to cover same-sex unions
is to grant legal sanction to pure “madness and evil.”
Lest one consider this last statement hyperbole, we need only bear in
mind the kind of untold “madness and evil” that the push to redefine
marriage has invited.Take, for instance, the polyamory movement, which
advocates the right to group marriage (marriage with multiple partners),
and which touts itself as the next generation of civil rights for sexual
preferences.6 There are more egregious examples, such as that found in
the field of artificial intelligence, where some researchers think western
society will one day legalize marriage between humans and robots.7 Put
simply, we must not be naïve—and many are not—to the plain reality
that if the authority of marriage is grounded not in nature but in human
opinion, then the principle is in place for human opinion, however it can
be swayed, to sanction a whole gamut of unions and call them all
“marriage.” Clearly we must appeal to an authority higher than that of
human judgment if we are to prevent such “madness and evil” from
taking western society over the cliff.
Yet in a land where tolerance is considered the highest virtue, where
“consent” (grounded in an autonomous view of freedom) and the principle that one often hears loosely formulated as “so long as no one gets
harmed” are looked upon as placing the only limits on sexual conduct,
where pleasure is seen as the greatest good that our sexuality targets, and
where it is assumed that one opposes gay marriage merely on grounds of
religious faith, the appeal to the higher authority of nature becomes an
extremely hard sell. Indeed, these cultural presuppositions, in addition to
the justice issue (namely, that denying legal recognition to same-sex
unions as equivalent to marriage constitutes an injustice), often intimidate defenders of traditional marriage into near total silence.
In the interests, then, of recovering a proper notion of “nature” in the
current debate on marriage, and building upon my previous essay in this
same journal on the procreative-unitive meaning of human sexuality, I
6 As reported by abcnews.com, June 18, 2009.
7 “My forecast is that around 2050,” says the artificial-intelligence researcher David

Levy of the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, “the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriage with robots” (as reported
by Fox News LiveScience [foxnews.com, October 15, 2007]). Levy continues:
“once you have a story like, ‘I had sex with a robot, and it was great!’ appear
someplace like Cosmo magazine, I’d expect many people to jump on the bandwagon. . . . Love and sex with robots are inevitable.”

Marriage and Human Sexuality

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would like, in this essay, to give brief reconsideration to the way the natural law orders our sexuality to heterosexual marriage.8 No matter the
strength of the aforementioned cultural presuppositions, which this essay
will keep squarely in view, the simple fact remains that the ordering of
our sexuality to heterosexual marriage belongs to the natural law. It
follows that the authority which the intended order of nature, issuing
from the Maker of our nature, holds over our sexuality trumps the
authority of autonomous freedom and consent. Nature, not consent, acts
as the ultimate arbiter of appropriate sexual conduct. Certainly, cultural
mores, if corrupt, can deeply impact our moral sensibilities, to the point
even of making us tone deaf to the natural law. But the aforesaid referenda have shown us that, when it concerns the commonly accepted
understanding of what type of sexual union constitutes marriage, this has
not happened to the majority of Americans—at least not yet—despite
the deafening clamor bellowing forth from the gay marriage camp.
“To All Men of Good Will”
Because inscribed in the common nature we all hold and because accessible to reason as such, the natural law has the benefit of addressing itself
to “all men of good will”—to quote the opening address of Pope Paul VI’s
encyclical letter Humanae Vitae—and not simply to those who profess the
Christian faith. Natural law boasts a powerful allure for the believer and
unbeliever alike, as it offers more substance to persons of faith by providing a philosophical foundation for what believers otherwise know
through God’s revealed word, at the same time that it culls a larger audience regardless of religious adherence. If it is true, in other words, that the
ordering of our sexuality to heterosexual marriage belongs to the natural
law, then we can insist that “all men of good will” are bound by it.We can
insist, for instance, that such a vision of sex is normative for those in the
secular professions for whom matters of human sexuality are of direct
concern, such as clinical psychologists, bioethical scientific researchers,
counselors, social workers, teachers, and reproductive health care professionals, as well as lawyers, judges, and legislators.
So while much current discussion in Catholic circles on the meaning
and purpose of human sexuality centers on Pope John Paul II’s theology
of the body, this school of thought remains for all its deserved accolades
just that: a theology of the body. Its insights are drawn from the Gospels
and from the Genesis creation narrative, and thus from the light of faith.
8 See my “The ‘Inseparable Connection’ between Procreation and Unitive Love

(Humanae Vitae, §12) and Thomistic Hylemorphic Anthropology,” Nova et Vetera
(English Edition) 6 (2008): 731–64.

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Such are the merits of the natural law, however, that we find in it a broader
philosophy of the body, knowable by human reason alone.
To be sure, the same Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical letter Veritatis
Splendor, issued the rather arresting directive that natural law should hold
a prominent place in the renewal of moral theology (§§35–53), and, more
particularly, that “one must consider carefully . . . the place of the human
body in questions of natural law” (§48, emphasis his). Later in his encyclical
letter Fides et Ratio, John Paul II echoed this same view with his more
general assertion that a “sound philosophical vision of human nature”
must underpin any moral theology worthy of its name (§68).
Pope Benedict XVI, for his part, has taken up his predecessor’s charge
and has been tireless in his endeavor to remind western thought of its
ancient and venerable tradition of natural law, and of human reason’s ability to grasp the intended order (law) of nature. Making the natural law
an unmistakable focal point of his early pontificate, Pope Benedict has
singled out the recovery of natural law as the antidote to the false understanding of human sexuality which abounds in western society today.9 In
honoring the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, Pope Benedict
appealed to the foundational role of the natural law in this encyclical’s
teaching on contraception, asserting that “[t]he transmission of life is
inscribed in nature, and its laws stand as an unwritten norm to which
everyone must defer.”10 Beyond human sexuality proper, Pope Benedict
9 This occurred, for instance, in his address to the Roman Rota on the integrity

of marriage on January 26, 2007, and in his annual address to the Vatican diplomatic corps a year later on January 7, 2008. In the latter, Pope Benedict appealed
to the natural law as the proper ground for the defense not only of human rights,
but also of “the integrity of the family, founded on the marriage of a man and a
woman” (as reported in “Pope’s ‘State of the World’Address: Natural Law Is Main
Theme,” Catholic World Report 18 [March, 2008], 5).Then in his weekly Wednesday audience on December 16, 2009, the Holy Father noted that there exists “an
objective and immutable truth, the origin of which is in God, a truth accessible
to human reason and which concerns practical and social activities. This is a
natural law from which human legislation, and political and religious authorities,
must draw inspiration in order to promote the common good.” He went on to
single out “laws that respect the dignity of marriage between a man and a
woman” as an example of truly “equitable” laws, that is, laws that respect “the
relationship between natural law and positive law” (as reported on the Vatican
website, www.vatican.va, December 16, 2009).
10 This came in Pope Benedict’s address on May 10, 2008, to a conference held by
the Pontifical Lateran University honoring the fortieth anniversary of Humanae
Vitae (as reported on cwnews.com, May 12, 2008). Benedict reiterated this at a
conference honoring the same on October 3, 2008, as reported on cwnews.com,
October 5, 2008.

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has made crucial appeals to the natural law, such as in his remarks at the
White House South Lawn inaugurating his apostolic visit to the United
States in April, 2008, and in his address to the United Nations General
Assembly during the same visit.11 And in a private audience with
members of the International Theological Commission, who recently
issued a document on the natural law in the effort at advancing its
retrieval, Pope Benedict reiterated the view that the natural law signifies
a norm of human conduct that “has its basis in human nature itself.”12
He gave particular emphasis to the same in his audience with members
of the Pontifical Academy for Life in February, 2010.13
St. Thomas as Guide
To serve as our guide in considering the natural law’s ordering of our sexuality to heterosexual marriage, this essay shall turn to that Catholic thinker
whose natural law doctrine has become part and parcel of the Church’s
“own teaching on morality,” to quote Veritatis Splendor (§44), namely, St.

11 At the White House South Lawn, Pope Benedict cited the Declaration of Inde-

pendence in his mentioning of “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” as
providing the foundation for the “moral order based on the dominion of God
the creator” (pulled from the website of the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops, www.nccbuscc.org). And in his UN address, Pope Benedict
maintained that only by firmly establishing human rights on “the natural law
inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations” can
we hope to escape the moral relativism that has otherwise usurped discourse on
human rights. This latter appeal to the natural law, while embedded in a
complexly developed argument, was so key that the Catholic World News
website (cwnews.com) opened its lead article on April 18, 2008, with the headline, “Pope Affirms Natural Law in UN Address.”
12 The Pope delivered these remarks on October 5, 2007, as reported by Catholic
World News (cwnews.com; Oct. 5, 2007). Published in 2009, the International
Theological Commission’s “The Search for Universal Ethics: A New Look at
Natural Law,” as of this writing, has been issued only in French and Italian.
Joseph Bolin, however, has posted an unofficial English translation of the text on
pathsoflove.com.
13 In this audience on February 13, 2010, Pope Benedict insisted that “human
dignity as an inalienable right has its first foundation in (the natural moral) law,”
with the result that “conjugating bioethics and natural moral law is the best way
to ensure the dignity that human life possesses from its first instant to its natural
end” (posted on Vatican Information Service; Feb. 13, 2010). Further, in his
message for the World Day of Peace, issued on December 8, 2009, Pope Benedict observed that “man’s relationship with the natural environment” demands
respect for “the natural moral law,” as well as “close contact with the beauty and
harmony of nature” (§§2,12–13).

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Thomas Aquinas.14 If the Church has so appropriated this element of
Aquinas’s thought, it is because, this author believes, his natural law doctrine
is a living one that yields not merely a penetrating account, but a true
account of “the place of the human body in questions of natural law,” to
cite again Veritatis Splendor (§48).15 Further, while Aquinas’s natural law
doctrine provides us with a philosophy of the body, this doctrine at the
same time points toward the theological, and thus toward a proper theology of the body.We see this amply confirmed in Thomas’s decision to place
his comprehensive treatise on natural law not only alongside his treatise on
the divinely revealed (Mosaic and Evangelical) law (Summa theologiae I–II,
qq. 94–114), but within a summa of theology, that is, within a comprehensive treatment of Christian theology as a whole.
We should note that Aquinas’s natural law doctrine, because imbedded
in a scholastic system of thought that is not always accessible to a contemporary audience, presents challenges to the current discussion on the
meaning and purpose of human sexuality, especially since the language of
Christian “personalism” dominates this discussion. To this end, this essay
shall draw upon the principles of Aquinas’s natural law thought, making
adaptations where necessary, so as to forge a vision of the nuptial meaning of our sexuality that can aptly engage this discussion.
Indeed, if we keep in mind Aquinas’s notion of law as teacher, that is,
that the principal purpose of law, any law, is to instruct us of our proper
14 In his The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World

(Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2003), Russell Hittinger rightly underscores the
fact that in Veritatis Splendor’s treatment of the “fundaments” or principles of
moral action (cf. the encyclical’s subtitle: De fundamentiis doctrinae moralis Ecclesiae ),“[n]atural law figures prominently” (xxxviii), and that even if the terminology of natural law in this document is somewhat novel,“the definitional scheme
[of its conception of natural law] is virtually the same as that of St.Thomas” (xl).
He goes on to observe that “natural law as a ‘fundament’ of moral theology” is
certainly to be found in the writings of Popes Leo XIII, Pius XI, Pius XII, and
John XXIII (xliii). For more on this, cf. idem,“Natural Law as ‘Law’: Reflections
on the Occasion of ‘Veritatis Splendor,’ ” and Romanus Cessario, “Moral
Absolutes in the Civilization of Love.” Both of these essays are reprinted in J. A.
DiNoia and Romanus Cessario, eds., Veritatis Splendor and the Renewal of Moral
Theology (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1999). We should also note that
Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae (§3), explicitly
grounds its view of religious liberty in Aquinas’s natural law doctrine.
15 For enlightening expositions of the natural law thought of Aquinas, besides
Russell Hittinger’s The First Grace, see, for instance, John Goyette, Mark S.
Latkovic, and Richard S. Myers, eds., St.Thomas Aquinas and the Natural Law Tradition: Contemporary Perspectives (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2004); and Fulvio Di Blasi, God and the Natural Law: A Rereading
of Thomas Aquinas (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 2003).

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good and end, and thus of what proper human flourishing consists in, the
natural law’s bearing on our sexuality will play an indispensable role in
instructing us of the true meaning and purpose of human sexuality.16 So
while the moral system of Aquinas, not without good reason, is often
denoted as virtue-oriented rather than as duty-oriented, we should not
take this to mean that duty, or law, plays an unimportant or purely ancillary
role in this system. At bottom law provides one of the necessary means by
which our lives attain their proper happiness and fulfillment, since legislation for the purpose of instruction about the true human good sums up
Aquinas’s doctrine of law.17 Proper human happiness and fulfillment in the
sexual arena will follow strictly, then, upon our living in close harmony
with what the natural law demands of human sexual comportment.
More specifically, the principal thrust of this essay shall center on the
role of the inclinations of nature in Thomas’s natural law doctrine, since
this is where we can see how the natural ordering to heterosexual
marriage is inscribed in the metaphysical fabric of our being. The
language of natural inclinations makes clear the fact that human sexuality targets not merely the good of sexual enjoyment or pleasure (as western culture would often have us believe), but the two higher co-essential
goods of procreation and unitive love-making (into which sexual pleasure is subsumed). And as nature intends these goods always to be united,
nature orders our sexuality, our sexed bodies, to heterosexual marriage
alone. More than this, God our Maker has implanted in our minds a
moral precept, known through the natural light of human reason, directing the use of our sexuality always and everywhere to marriage as its end.
The order of nature, inclusive of our sexuality, is imbibed with moral
meaning and purpose which our minds, imprinted with the moral
precepts of the natural law, can know and understand. This essay shall
close with brief consideration of related issues, such as how our natural
ordering to heterosexual marriage concerns our mental well-being and
16 In the prologue to his treatise on law in the Summa theologiae (hereafter cited as

ST) I–II, q. 90, Aquinas writes: “[T]he extrinsic principle moving [the human
being] to the good is God, who both instructs us by means of his law and assists
us by his grace.” Hence John A. Cuddeback’s insistence that, for Aquinas, law is
first and foremost an affair of reason as directing action to an end (“Ordered
Inclinations,” in Philosophical Virtue and Psychological Strength: Building the Bridge,
ed. Romanus Cessario, Craig Steven Titus, and Paul C. Vitz [Currently under
review by Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI]).
17 This point, among others, marks the principal thrust of John A. Cuddeback’s
essay, “Law, Pinckaers and the Definition of Christian Ethics,” Nova et Vetera 7:2
(2009): 301–25.

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happiness, and how it concerns discussion in the public square as well as
public and social policy-making.
One last preliminary observation. While nothing sounds quite so
foreign, or inimical, to modern ears than the idea that nature determines
normative guidelines for human action, we need not see the intended
order of nature as the supposed rival to the notion of “consent.” For, we
might ask, why must sex be consensual in order to be considered morally
good? On what grounds can one argue that sex must be consensual,
unless one implies a deeper ontological sense of what it means to be
human, and thus a deeper sense of the order of nature, of an objective
human nature? If most individuals, for instance, consider acts like bestiality or rape or sexual abuse of children as abhorrent and subhuman, is it
merely because such acts are non-consensual? Is it not ultimately because
these acts, as all know even if merely intuitively, are opposed to what is
appropriately human, that is, opposed to the inherent moral worth of our
common humanity? In short, appeals to the notion of consent imply a
deeper standard of measure, one that we could call the standard of acting
according to what is proper for a human being as a human being (that is,
as an individual endowed with a human nature) to act: namely, that to be
human is to be free, and that humanly appropriate sex must subsequently
be consensual sex. Hardly endowing us with the raw ability to choose
whatever we wish as a kind of end in itself, freedom (autonomy) instead
serves our nature by assisting us in becoming the creatures we were made
to be, to be what we are in truth.18
The Inclinations of Nature and the
Common Attraction of the Good
We turn, then, to the inclinations of nature. On Aquinas’s account, God
has designed us with a tri-partite package of natural inclinations in order
that our entire being might operate under the common attraction of the
good in a three-tiered fashion: first, we own an inclination to the preservation of our being at the lowest level, namely, at a level common to all
things (at the physical level, this inclination is assisted by the body’s inherent ability to heal and protect itself, such as in the way blood immediately clots when our skin suffers a cut, or when our hands instantaneously
recoil from a burning pan without any conscious choice or command on
our part); second, we enjoy an inclination to procreation and the rearing
of offspring at the animal or sentient level, to which our sexuality first
18 This, in short, sums up the principal thesis of Georges Cottier, theologian of the

pontifical household under Pope John Paul II, in Deviens ce que tu es (Paris: Parole
et Silence, 2003), which constitutes his commentary on Veritatis Splendor.

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and foremost belongs; and, third, we possess an inclination to knowing
the truth and to living in society, which is proper to us as rational beings.
The common attraction of the good unifies the three-tiered inclinations of nature in an organic, hierarchically ordered whole.19 Taken
together, the inclinations, which play an indispensable role in any sound
exposition of the natural law, signify the “charge” whereby God orders
us, in both physical and moral ways, to the good, indeed, whereby God
communicates his own wisdom and goodness to us, and in which our
freedom flourishes.20 They signify our sharing in the very power and
ability of God himself to order the world, since the inclinations of nature
endow us with the capability of bringing proper moral order to our lives.
Let us be clear: the inclinations of nature signify not mere “biological
processes,” as they are too often narrowly understood, as if imposing a kind
of physical constraint upon us. On this score, we should not be fooled by
the charge of “physicalism,” which critics often level against neo-scholastic
natural law doctrine. In reality, the charge of “physicalism” (in other words,
“too much biology,” or excessive importance placed upon biological
processes and ends, like procreation) is nothing more than a ruse camouflaging an underlying Cartesian bias against the physical, or biological,
19 “All the inclinations of human nature . . . are reduced to the one first precept

[namely, that good is to be done and pursued and evil is to be avoided].” ST I–II,
q. 94, a. 2, ad 2. Commenting on this, Romanus Cessario (Introduction to Moral
Theology [Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001],
87–88) explains:“The first directive or inclination of natural law, viz., that the good
must be sought and done, forms the ground for all other natural law inclinations.
. . . [This axiom] enshrines an actual direction by way of inclination toward proper
moral conduct. In other terms, the basic principle of natural law, ‘Good is to be
done and pursued and evil avoided,’ remains normative for every human act; it
forms the pattern of a complete and fulfilled human life.” For more on this, cf. Jean
Porter, Moral Action and Christian Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1995), 107–10. Cf. as well Servais Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans.
Mary T. Noble (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press,
1995), 432–34, 442–47; and Albert Plé, Chastity and the Affective Life, trans. MarieClaude Thompson (New York: Herder & Herder, 1966), 144–47.
20 As for the inclinations of nature ordering us ultimately to God, Lawrence Dewan
(“St. Thomas and the Divinity of the Common Good,” paper delivered at the
conference “Providence, Practical Reason, and the Common Good,” Providence
College, Providence, Rhode Island, April 26, 2008, p. 21) observes how “the first
level [of inclination] presents the natural inclination common to all substances
[emphasis his]. This is almost always read as though having reference merely to
the individual and its individual good. It surely should be read as relating to the
inclination which all substances have, viz. as including their love for God more
than for their own selves, each mode of substance in the mode of love appropriate to it [cf. ST I, q. 60, a. 5, ad 3].”

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order.21 Recognizing that God has, indeed, created us with bodies joined to
rational souls, the Thomist natural law proponent should not hesitate to
concede the charge of physicalism. If God should design us with a bodysoul composite nature, we should not be surprised that the law which God
writes into our nature, as exhibited in the natural inclinations, should have
both physical and spiritual dimensions to it. We should expect the law of
our nature to concern, because imbibed in, both our bodies and our souls
as in a composite whole, and thus to be deeply physicalist—though not
merely physicalist. While beginning in the physical order, the natural law is
finalized in the spiritual and moral spheres. Natural law thought will not
allow us to divorce the physical order of nature, inclusive of our bodies,
from our overall moral good.
The Love that Moves Us toward Our True Good
With the foregoing in mind, we can see how the inclinations of nature
provide the “metaphysical medium,” by which God the supreme Legislator measures or governs us.The inclinations represent the metaphysical
means by which we act under the governance of divine Providence. Indicating the way God has “hard wired” us to live, so to speak, they serve as
cues to proper moral conduct. And since the natural inclinations are
implanted in us in a three-tiered manner, we can speak of our being hard
21 “Given the directions of modern moral philosophy, there exists the temptation

to confuse the in-built structures of human nature with an inert physicalism, as
if the Christian view of the body were that of a Cartesian machine.” Romanus
Cessario, Introduction to Moral Theology, 73. One detects this Cartesian bias in the
following scholars who, in one form or another, make this charge of physicalism:
Richard McCormick, “The Consistent Ethic of Life: Is There a Historical Soft
Underbelly?” in The Critical Calling (Washington, DC: Georgetown University
Press, 1989), 211–32 (cited in R. Cessario, Introduction to Moral Theology, 72, n.
50), who criticizes Aquinas’s natural law theory for its treating “biological givenness as normative”; Philip S. Keane, Sexual Morality: A Catholic Perspective (New
York: Paulist Press, 1977), 46, who advocates a moral theory that goes “beyond
physicalism”; Daniel A. Helminiak, Sex and the Sacred: Gay Identity and Spiritual
Growth (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2006), 92, who alleges that “the
Catholic Church has co-opted the notion of natural law and uses it . . . to reduce
sex to a mere biological function and [to] turn human sexuality into a barnyardanimal affair”; and Charles Curran, “Natural Law,” in Directions in Fundamental
Moral Theology (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985). Even
John Grabowski veers towards this negative physicalist charge against natural law
in his Sex and Virtue: An Introduction to Sexual Ethics (Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 143–44 (additionally 81 and 129);
cf. as well his “Mutual Submission and Trinitarian Self-Giving,” Angelicum 74
(1997): 489–512, at 501, n. 30.

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wired from the ground up, as it were, namely, from what we share in
common with all material beings to what is unique to us as human.
Put in other terms, since by means of these inclinations our lives are
inscribed with profound moral meaning and purpose, they stand as
powerful testaments to God’s love for us. Just as the medieval poet Dante,
deeply influenced by Aquinas’s doctrine on the divine governance of the
world, closes his Divine Comedy with the declaration that it is God’s love
that “moves the sun and the other stars,” so does the natural law point to
the divine love which moves us toward our true good, toward our true
home.22 Pope Benedict XVI expressed this very point when, in his “State
of the World address” in 2010, he remarked that the moral meaning of
nature “expresses a plan of love and truth which is prior to us and which
comes from God.”23
Natural law proponents know it is unwise to consider nature as irrelevant to our moral actions, since nature orders us to and safeguards our
happiness. Natural law proponents see nature as given, dynamic, and goal
oriented. They recognize that, as with all beings, man receives a nature
with a kind of “hard wiring,” with a predetermined structure, regardless
of whether human nature has “evolved” to its present condition through
evolutionary natural selection (which God can easily employ as a secondary instrumental cause in his design). To be sure, even cognitive neuroscientists, albeit in their own language, lend support to the view that we
are endowed with natural inclinations: they commonly affirm, for
instance, that human beings are characterized by a given set of goaloriented dynamisms (they often use the term “mechanisms”).24 Goaloriented to the good, the inclinations of nature act as the metaphysical or
anthropological grounding for the entire moral life.
Contrary to the opinion, though widespread in the Anglo-American
world, that God takes little interest in our sexual lives, the integral role
that sexuality enjoys in our natural inclinations (namely, at the secondrung, animal-like dimension of our being), and thus in the natural law,
shows us just the opposite: God takes great interest, indeed he takes loving

22 For more on this, see Fulvio Di Blasi,“Natural Law as Inclination to God,” Nova

et Vetera 7 (2009): 327–60.
23 Pope Benedict XVI, annual address to the Vatican diplomatic corps, January 10,

2010 (posted on the Vatican Radio website [oecumene.radiovaticana.org; Jan. 11,
2010]).
24 See, for example, Richard D. Lane and Lynn Nadel, eds., Cognitive Neuroscience of
Emotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). I am grateful to Kenneth
Schmitz for bringing this point to my attention (in personal conversation).

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interest, in our sexual conduct.We shall see in a moment the specifics of
such “interest.”
Here we should clarify that mentioning God in reference to the natural law is to make not a theological or faith-based claim per se, but a
philosophical one. It is to affirm attributes of God which the human
mind on its own can know. Natural law doctrine understands that a
supreme Author, a supreme Lawgiver, must stand behind the order of
nature with its predetermined laws. Every law implies a lawgiver, the law
of nature included; every law presupposes a mind which has formulated
and promulgated it. Even the deist Thomas Jefferson, while a secularized
proponent of natural law but a proponent of natural law as “written
reason” nonetheless, understood this. When penning the Declaration of
Independence, Jefferson inserted into the opening lines the phrase “the
Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” in order to establish the foundation of such “unalienable Rights” as “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.”25 By asserting “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” in
the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was simply echoing the
philosopher John Locke’s view that the “Law of Nature” is but the handiwork of “one Omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker.”26
Furthermore, by seeing the natural inclinations as the metaphysical
“bridge” to the moral life, I am consciously distancing myself from the
so-called “new” natural law theory.27 Accusing an ethical theory that
25 Jefferson’s view of natural law as “written reason” can be found in Thomas Jeffer-

son, The Writings, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York, 1898), 9:480; 18:1 (“The
Batture at New Orleans”), 15:207; cited in Russell Hittinger, The First Grace, 64.
Hittinger goes on to note how “the constitutions and bills of rights of both the
United States government and the governments of the various states reflect a
commitment to the idea of fundamental rights. Most everyone knows, or should
know, that these rights were formulated in light of natural law theories of one sort
or another” (71). Again, Pope Benedict XVI reminded Americans of the Declaration of Independence’s appeal to the natural law at the White House South
Lawn when inaugurating his apostolic visit to the United States in April of 2008.
26 Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. Peter Laslett, New American Library
edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), n. 6.
27 Proponents of this new natural law theory, who appeal to St.Thomas for support,
would include, among others, Germain Grisez, John Finnis, Robert P. George,
Ronald Lawler, Joseph Boyle, and William E. May. The New York Times recently
showcased the influence of this new natural law theory with a lengthy profile of
Robert George (David D. Kirkpatrick, “The Conservative-Christian Big
Thinker,” December 16, 2009). Here the Times does not hesitate to call George,
professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, “(America’s) most influential
conservative Christian thinker,” who ranks “among the most-talked-about
thinkers in conservative legal circles” and who acts as the American Catholic
bishops’ “intellectual point man” and “pre-eminent Catholic intellectual.”

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derives an “ought” from an “is” of committing the “naturalistic fallacy,”
the new natural law theorists seek to ground the natural law not in a
metaphysics of human nature, or in an objective human nature, nor ultimately in God. Rather, in a more Kantian than Thomist move, they
ground natural law in the human consciousness, namely, in the mind’s
pure intuition of a self-evident set of incommensurable goods that all can
recognize as requisite for integral human flourishing.28 But the natural
law, as Aquinas presents it, is hardly this. Presupposing and building on the
order of being, especially the body-soul unity in the human being, the
natural law burgeons forth from this order into human action.The natural law, truly, bridges the metaphysical order with the moral order.
We should also stress the hierarchical ordering among the three-tiered
inclinations, with the inclination to self-preservation occupying the
lowest rung and the natural inclinations proper to us as rational beings
standing at the top. The lower ones are subordinate to and finalized by
the higher rational ones; indeed, the lower are for the sake of the higher.
That the lower inclinations are not intended to give way to actions that
remain isolated in a sub-human, “centaur-like” sphere of activity, but
28 As Russell Hittinger, who provides the classic critique of this more Kantian than

Thomistic theory in his A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory (South Bend,
IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), has pointed out to me (in personal
conversation), deriving an “ought” from an “is” marks a commonplace fact of
life. Consider, for instance, the situation in which a person is injured and in need
of medical attention. If there is an individual on hand who “is” a doctor, who
would deny that this person “ought” to be the one to provide the requisite
medical attention? Further, in his review of Fulvio Di Blasi’s God and the Natural
Law: A Rereading of Thomas Aquinas in Nova et Vetera 5 (2007): 694–98, Steven
Jensen notes how “God as a final end of human life is essential to any Thomistic
ethics, especially on account of Thomas’s natural law, which demands God as the
lawgiver” (695). But as Jensen observes (ibid.), the Finnis, Grisez, et al. new natural law school of thought (of which Di Blasi is not a proponent) “leaves out the
divine lawgiver, thereby transforming the precepts of natural law into mere
counsels.” Jensen continues: “[The new natural law theorists] attempt to make
morality autonomous, that is, arising from some internal source, which for
(them) is our intuitive grasp of basic human goods. Unfortunately, this entirely
internal morality becomes a set of counsels given by ourselves, rather than a set
of commands that we must follow, for (this) view fails to recognize that the binding force of morality must arise from someone outside of ourselves, someone
who directs us to the end” (696).Agreeing, Russell Hittinger (The First Grace, xii)
notes what such a “free-floating” understanding of the natural law, which
detaches it from a higher divine authority or even from a deeper metaphysical
grounding, implies: “[N]atural law [comes] to mean the position of the human
mind just insofar as it is left to itself, prior to authority and law. Natural law
constitutes an authority-free zone.”

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ought to become integrated into the properly human we see in the
simple case of our drive to eat, a drive following upon our lowest inclination, that to self-preservation. Hardly a purely physical or animal activity, eating serves a profound human function, indeed, it becomes an art,
in as much as we prepare our meals with the highest of nutritional, gustatory and even aesthetic quality in mind, we observe proper etiquette
when consuming our food, and, typically the preferred occasion of shared
human fellowship, mealtime satisfies deep social (i.e., rational) needs.
Commensurate with the sensate or animal-like dimension of our nature,
the inclination to procreation and to the rearing of offspring becomes
properly human only when integrated into the rational dimension of our
lives, and thereby made to serve the higher inclinations.
Where conflict might arise between the various inclinations, the
rational (or properly human) ones, aiming more properly at the common
good, should “override” the lower ones.We see this illustrated in the case
of the soldier who dies defending his country. Here the inclination to the
common good of communal living, for whose conservation the soldier
dies, takes precedence over the inclination to the preservation of life (his
life), a private good. In the case of those select individuals called to
celibacy, the inclination to knowing the truth about God takes precedence (for them) over the inclination to procreation.29
The Natural Inclination to Marriage
With the foregoing in mind, we are now in a position of seeing how
(heterosexual) marriage, nuptiality, is inscribed in our very natural inclinations in an especially remarkable way. Let us briefly sketch this.
The natural inclination to procreation and to the rearing of children
ensues specifically upon our sexed bodies, which again is commensurate
with the sensate or animal-like dimension of our nature.Yet for the human
being, this inclination to sexual union remains incomplete, or in need of
finalization, since our animal-like inclination to procreation becomes
properly human only when integrated into human rationality, that is, only
29 “If a man refrains from bodily pleasures in order more freely to give himself to

the contemplation of truth, this is in accordance with right reason. Now holy
virginity [celibacy] refrains from all sexual pleasure in order more freely to have
leisure for divine contemplation.” ST II–II, q. 152, a. 2. In ad 1 of this article,
Thomas explains how the duty to obey the natural law precept of procreation
falls on the human race as a whole, not on every human individual.This is where
the new natural law theorists of the Finnis and Grisez school run into difficulty,
since for them the grounding of the natural law is not the inclinations of an
objective human nature, but the mind’s intuiting of basic goods that are “incommensurable,” that is, unable to be hierarchically ordered.

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when it is integrated into the human being’s ordering to knowledge and
love, to friendship (wherein knowledge and love are united).
This integration and finalization is achieved by the inclination to
living in society, one of the inclinations following upon our rationality.
And the only human society that can embrace the procreative inclination
to bodily sexual union is, obviously, marriage.To be sure, while the inclination to communal living orders us to many forms of social institutions,
that society which represents the bedrock of all other societies is what
Aquinas terms “the society of domestic fellowship” (domesticae conversationis consortium ), namely, marriage.30
In short, the inclination to living in community joins with the inclination to procreation and to the rearing of children in the way that form
(representative of human rationality) joins with matter (representative of
our animal-like bodies) in order to inscribe in the deepest fabric of our
being a most powerful inclination to marriage.31 This hylemorphic-styled
30 Summa contra Gentiles (hereafter cited as ScG) III, ch. 123. For more on the devel-

opment in Thomas’s views on marriage belonging to the natural law as found in
his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard and in his later work Summa
contra Gentiles, cf. Angela McKay, “Aquinas on the End of Marriage,” in Human
Fertility:Where Faith and Science Meet, eds. Richard J. Fehring and Theresa Notare
(Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2008), 53–70. Repeating a longheld Catholic teaching,Vatican Council II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church
in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, §12, affirms that marriage is the bedrock
of all social institutions. This view can also be found in Aristotle, Nicomachean
Ethics, bk. VIII, ch. 12 (1162a17–19); for Thomas’s commentary, Sententia Libri
Ethicorum, bk.VIII, lect. 12 (nn. 1719–23); trans. Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, by C. I. Litzinger (Notre Dame, IN: Dumb Ox Books, 1993).
31 This is essentially Thomas’s argument in ST Suppl., q. 41, a. 1 (pulled from his
commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, bk. IV, d. 26, q. 1, a. 1), where, in answer
to the question of “whether matrimony is of the natural law,” Aquinas replies in
the affirmative, as we are inclined by nature both to “the good of offspring” and to
“the society of marriage,” whereby the spouses render to each other “domestic
service” (mutuum obsequium . . . in rebus domesticis). Granted,Thomas considers the
first inclination the “principal end” ( principalem finem) of marriage and the second
inclination its “secondary end” (secundarium finem). But this is because he sees sexuality as owing first and foremost to our bodily distinction between male and
female, whereby we participate in the power to procreate enjoyed by the entire
animal kingdom. Furthermore, it would be a grave error to read “secondary end”
as signifying “accidental” or “non-essential.”The conjugal act has a per se ordering
both to procreation, its per se primary ordering, and to unitive love (or to what
Thomas calls the society of marriage), its per se secondary ordering.As the moralists John C. Ford and Gerald Kelly (Contemporary Moral Theology. Vol. 2: Marriage
Questions [Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1963], 76; emphasis theirs) put it:“the
secondary, personalist ends, while remaining essentially subordinate, are nevertheless truly essential ends of marriage, just as the primary ends are.” Analogously,

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inclination to marriage means our sexuality targets not merely the good
of sexual enjoyment or pleasure, but the two higher co-essential goods of
procreation and unitive love-making (or spousal friendship), into which
sensual pleasure is subsumed.And since nature targets these goods together,
it intends them always to be together, which only (heterosexual) marriage
accomplishes; nature orders our sexuality—expressive of our body-soul
composite nature—to heterosexual marriage alone.
Nuptiality, heterosexual marriage, operates, then, as a kind of intrinsic
measure of what constitutes proper sexual activity—for every human
individual. If the natural inclination to offspring builds on and imbibes
with moral direction the procreative dimension of our sexuality, which is
expressive of our sexed animal-like bodies, the inclination to living in
society builds on and gives moral aim to what today we call the unitive
or personalist dimension of our sexuality, which is expressive of our
rational souls. After all, the unitive or personalist dimension pertains to
nothing other than the friendship (or consortium, as Thomas calls it) shared
by husband and wife (thereby showing just how “personalist” a Thomist
natural law account of human sexuality truly is). As our bodies become
human only in their being informed by our rational souls, so does the
inclination to procreation and to the rearing of children become properly human only when it is informed by, that is, integrated into, our inclination to communal living. And as body and soul must always be found
together, so must the procreative and unitive dimensions always remain
united, accomplished in (heterosexual) marriage.32
consider the co-essential primary and secondary ends of a mother preparing a meal
for her family, where the secondary end of serving good-tasting food is no less
essential than, even if subordinate to, the primary end of providing wholesome
nutrition to her family. Thus the misleading observation of Marie Leblanc
(“Amour et procréation dans la théologie de saint Thomas,” Revue thomiste 92
[1992]: 433–59, at 434) when he writes:“The gift of life in view of human progeny stands out clearly and constantly in the works of St. Thomas as the primary
and essential end [of marriage]; on this point he does not modify his thought”
(translation my own). I read this as implying (wrongly) that, on Aquinas’s account,
procreation marks the only essential end of marriage. It is no doubt on account of
the confusion that the term “secondary” engenders that the 1983 Code of Canon
Law simply drops out all language of primary and secondary ends altogether when
holding in canon 1055 that marriage “is by its nature ordered to the good of the
spouses (ad bonum coniugum) and the procreation and education of offspring” (Code
of Canon Law. Latin-English Edition, trans. Canon Law Society of America [Washington, DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1984], 387).
32 For much more on this, see my previous essay, “The ‘Inseparable Connection’
between Procreation and Unitive Love (Humanae Vitae, §12) and Thomistic
Hylemorphic Anthropology,” Nova et Vetera 6 (2008): 731–64.

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The Spurious Appeal to Nature in the Marriage Debate
Thus the hijacked notion of “nature” by which homosexual persons
claim it is “natural” for them to feel sexually drawn or “inclined” to
members of the same sex.The problem here is that, without further ado,
such a line of reasoning could be used to justify any tendency as a “natural inclination” by the sheer fact that it is a tendency for the individual in
question.This would include adults who feel sexually drawn to children,
or, say, those who feel prone to setting fires.
Clearly, subjective tendencies or desires on their own do not rise to
the level of “natural inclination” in the way signified by natural law
theory. Only tendencies or inclinations that belong to our species as such
attain to this level. Hence Pope John Paul II’s insistence in Veritatis Splendor, §51, that one cannot separate individual freedoms (as acting upon
personal tendencies) from the nature we all have in common. Supposed
“natural” tendencies found within certain individuals must be weighed
against the objective goods which our common nature as such targets or
inclines us towards. And homosexual tendencies are opposed to the
objective goods to which our sexuality orders us, namely, the joint goods
of procreation and unitive love. With this opposition in mind, the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1986, with Cardinal
Ratzinger as prefect, famously observed that the homosexual tendency,
while “not a sin” in itself, nonetheless “must be seen as an objective disorder.”33 There is only one natural inclination of our sexuality, and it is to
heterosexual marriage.
To be sure, since human nature includes biology, nothing truly “natural” can be opposed to our physical, biological makeup as objectively
constituted. It is disingenuous, to say the least, then, for same-sex proponents to dismiss nature as irrelevant at the common level of our species,
inclusive of our biological design, but then, in the same breath, appeal to
nature as decisive at the level of the individual in the case of those persons
who, no matter our biological design, feel sexually inclined to members
of the same sex. At the risk of stating the obvious, one cannot ignore
biology and still lay claim to its being natural.
Furthermore, Aquinas’s use of the term consortium in reference to
marriage helps us see how deeply shallow and misleading it is to view
marriage as a mere “private agreement,” as is implied in most legal defenses
33 “Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is

a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil, and thus
the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.” Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons (Vatican
translation, 1986), §3.

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of gay marriage.While consortium is usually translated as “society” or “social
union,” the term carries a yet stronger sense. More than a communion or
friendship, and certainly much more than a private agreement, the consortium of marriage is an institution, that is, a social union that marks a permanent aspect of the social order and which is of interest to everyone in
society.34 Even if marriage fails to provide all the goods requisite for human
flourishing (which only a polity can do), it does unite knowledge and love
in a communion of persons as nowhere else. Marriage unites human
persons in the most intimate communion of body and soul possible.
Marriage unites man and woman in “highest friendship,” maxima amicitia,
to use Aquinas’s bold term in the Summa contra Gentiles.35 Little wonder the
Genesis creation narrative holds up the conjugal union as the most fulfilling of human friendships, in as much as God creates a woman, not a man
(!), to fulfill Adam’s longing for companionship.
Goods We Ought to Pursue
The natural inclinations extend to the realm of actual legislated precepts
because they are expressive of God’s hardwiring in us and thus of how
God our Maker intends us to live. Aquinas, in fact, observes that our
minds “naturally apprehend (the inclinations of nature) as being good,
and consequently as objects of pursuit.”36 The inclinations of nature
direct us to goods we ought to pursue. After all, every type of law, including the natural law, must legislate toward a predetermined end.
Existentially, we see this exhibited in the fact that all humans make
judgments on what they consider constitutes good and bad behavior, and
thus on how they should act, and that most persons agree along very
general lines on what good or bad behavior consists in. For all persons
34 These insights I owe to Russell Hittinger, both from personal conversation and

from his lecture “Social Justice: Devolution or Subsidiarity?” delivered at Providence College, Providence, Rhode Island, October 23, 2007.
35 ScG III, ch. 123.This qualification of marriage as maxima amicitia is all the more
significant in light of the fact that, as Charles J. Reid (Power over the Body, Equality
in the Family: Rights and Domestic Relations in Medieval Canon Law [Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 2004], 105) observes, canonists and lawyers since the twelfth
century had stressed “the sense of obligation (debitum) [rather than friendship] that
bound [married] parties together.” At the same time, Reid does explain how
“women and men were recognized [in twelfth- and thirteenth-century theology]
as spiritual equals, who benefited equally from Christ’s salvific acts. Men and
women alike and in equal measure have gained eternal life through Christ’s death
and resurrection” (99). For more on male and female equality in Aquinas, cf.
Michael Nolan, “The Aristotelian Background to Aquinas’s Denial that ‘Woman
is a Defective Male,’ ” The Thomist 64 (2000): 21–69.
36 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2.

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know, even if merely intuitively, that we should do the good and avoid the
bad (the first principle of all the natural law precepts), that we should take
care of our bodily life, that we should procreate and rear our children, that
we should be honest with each other, and that we flourish when we do
so. How could this be if we did not all possess a basic inclination (“hard
wiring”) to the good in the very core of our being?
Accordingly, Aquinas holds that the precepts of the natural law (what
the natural law commands us to do) follow the order of the natural inclinations.37 Further, that all persons possess an intuitive basic moral sense is
evidence for Aquinas that the natural law’s generalized precepts not only
work in tandem with our natural inclinations, but they also mark an
“imprint” (impressio) on our minds by God himself: “God instilled the
natural law into (our) minds,”Thomas famously writes,“so as to be known
by (us) naturally.”38 Thus Russell Hittinger observes that the natural law
signifies “the communication of moral necessities to a created intellect.”39
So while Thomas attaches the word “extrinsic” (exterius ) to the natural law to signify a divinely legislated or measured ordering to the good,
he would not want this to shield the fact that the natural law is at the
same time deeply interior. Not an external imposition, the natural law is
inscribed in the received fabric of our being, and this makes moral
compliance (as opposed to physically coerced compliance) with the natural law possible.
From this it follows that sexual intercourse and the rearing of
offspring, to which we are naturally inclined, are goods that we “naturally
know” as something we ought to pursue, as something that our very moral
flourishing hinges upon.This does not mean the natural law commands
us to pursue sexual intercourse without further ado—something akin to
mere beasts. Recall, again, that the three-tiered inclinations are hierarchically ordered; the lower is for the sake of the higher. The inclination to
37 “Since good has the nature of an end, and evil the nature of its contrary, 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 the natural inclinations is the order of the precepts of the natural law. Because in man
there is first of all an inclination to good in accordance with the nature which
he has in common with all substances.” ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2.
38 ST I–II, q. 90, a. 4, ad 1. In question 91, article 2, Aquinas writes:“[T]he light of
natural reason, by which we discern what is good and what is evil, which is the
function of the natural law, is nothing but the imprint (impressio ) of the divine
light on us.”We shall see in a moment what the precepts that God imprints upon
our minds are.
39 Hittinger, The First Grace, xxiii.

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procreation and to the rearing of offspring becomes properly human only
when integrated into the rational dimension of our lives, namely, when
integrated into the communion of marriage.
Innate Knowledge of Our Ordering
to Heterosexual Marriage
Since the natural law is “instilled into our minds so as to be naturally
known by us,” every human being, by virtue of the natural light of reason
and independent of religious faith, has the ability to grasp the nuptial
ordering of our sexuality. Every human individual can and should know
in his conscience that we have been endowed with the gift of sexuality
for the purpose of marriage.40
Even a generation ago most Americans would probably have affirmed
the fact that our sexuality owns a per se ordering to marriage. Still today,
though, countless aspects of our present culture, no matter what it might
otherwise trumpet, give tacit, unreflective witness to the simple truth
that, at bottom, the institution of indissoluble heterosexual marriage
stands as the rule and measure of sexual comportment.To take one simple
and seemingly trivial example, in the 2006 remake of the film Poseidon,
one of the main characters of the film, the former mayor of New York
City (played by Kurt Russell), is at one point caustically derided by
another character (a drinking gambler played by Kevin Dillon) for failing to make his marriage last. In a culture of unrestricted divorce and
remarriage, and where “consent” establishes the norm, such derision
makes little sense. If, on the other hand, heterosexual lifelong marriage is
the moral norm that we would all instinctively recognize, because
inscribed in our nature, if we were but honest with our consciences, then
poking fun at a man for his failed marriage does not seem so out of place.
Admittedly, to affirm the natural human ability to know the ordering of
our sexuality to marriage invites wider consideration of the notion of
synderesis, whereby our minds (the mind as ordered to action) know the
first principles of good moral action. And it is conscience that allows our
minds, through the judgments we reach about what to do in particular

40 From his theology-of-the-body perspective, Pope John Paul II calls this the “spousal

meaning [that every human person has] of his own body, of his own masculinity
and femininity.” Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans.
Michael Waldstein (Boston: Pauline Books, 2006), 200; from the general audience
of February 13, 1980.This spousal meaning, the late Pontiff continues in the same
passage,“is important and indispensable for knowing who man is and who he ought
to be, and therefore how he should shape his own activity.”

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instances, to apply the principles known through synderesis to concrete
acts. Such wider consideration, however, would take us too far afield.41
We might simply mention that knowledge of the first principles of
good moral action, and subsequently of the precepts of the natural law,
does not come “automatically,” as if detached from our own experiences
and moral development. Thomistic natural law precepts communicated
from God’s mind to ours are not the Kantian equivalent of a delineated
or clearly stipulated moral code (or “moral imperatives,” as Kant calls
them) which our reason somehow knows independently of or prior to
our experience.
Firstly, the content of this knowledge, on Aquinas’s account, does not
extend much beyond the most indeterminate of notions of doing the
good and avoiding the bad. God imprints a general moral “sense” upon
us, nothing more. The natural law precepts provide the “seeds” (semina )
of good moral conduct, as Thomas says in one suggestive passage, often
times requiring experience and instruction for their sprouting forth, such
as when a child, after having stolen candy from the local grocery store,
needs instruction from his parents in order to know clearly that stealing
is wrong.42 Thus the door remains easily ajar to our reaching erroneous
judgments on what constitutes morally appropriate conduct.
As for how these “seeds” of good moral conduct find formulation in
natural law precepts, Aquinas ranks them according to three successive
41 In a word, synderesis and conscience introduce the practical dimension of the

natural law, and thus sit over and above the ontological dimension of the natural
law, or the natural law qua inscribed or imprinted in us. The principal locus for
Aquinas’s discussion of synderesis and conscience is ST I, q. 79, a. 12 (for
synderesis, which Thomas calls a habitus of the mind and which he defines as “the
first practical principles bestowed on us by nature”) and a. 13 (for conscience,
which he sees as an act of the mind and defines as reflective moral judgment);
cf. as well ST I–II, q. 94, a. 1, ad 2 (“synderesis is a habit containing the precepts
of the natural law, which are the first principles of human actions”); De malo, q.
3, a. 12, ad 13; and De veritate, q. 17, aa. 1–2. For the confusion of conscience with
synderesis, cf. Romanus Cessario, Introduction to Moral Theology, 86–87. Cf. as well
Servais Pinckaers, “Conscience and Christian Tradition,” and “Conscience and
the Virtue of Prudence,” in The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology, ed. John Berkman and C. S. Titus [Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005], 321–55; the latter essay offers a response to the
attempt of Joseph Ratzinger (“Conscience and Truth,” in Catholic Conscience.
Foundation and Formation [Braintree, MA: The Pope John XXIII Center, 1999],
19) to supplant the term synderesis with anamnesis because of what Ratzinger
(before becoming pope) perceives as the drawbacks of the former term.
42 “[C]ertain seeds or first principles of acquired virtue [that is, of good moral
conduct] pre-exist in us by nature.” ST I–II, q. 63, a. 2, ad 3.

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“grades” ( gradus), from more generalized yet better known to more determinate (though still generalized) but not so easily known. At the most
generalized and fundamental level, we find the twofold moral duty which
requires no instruction from the wise to know, namely, that we should
“behave well towards the head of the community” and that we should
“behave well towards one’s fellow and partner in the community.”43 And
so the first-grade natural law precepts, which Thomas affirms are the only
truly “self evident [ones] to reason,” are that we should love God (the ultimate head of the community) wholly and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.44 The second-grade natural law precepts follow upon
these self-evident ones as more determinate applications or specifications
of the first-grade precepts.The Decalogue gives well-known expression to
these second-grade moral precepts (honoring God properly; respecting
each other’s lives, wives, and property; being honest in speech; etc.).45
Finally, the third-grade precepts give further specified application of the
second grade precepts, such as the duty to respect the aged, which is a
further application of the duty to respect one’s parents.These third-grade
precepts for the most part, Aquinas observes, almost always require experience and instruction from the wise in order to be known.46
For St.Thomas, though, “instruction from the wise” is a broad notion
and may include societal traditions, both past and present.We can learn a
great deal from the basic agreements human cultures have reached on
what constitutes morally right behavior (examples would include being
honest in our speech, safeguarding our lives, respecting each other’s property, and the like) and morally wrong behavior (such as lying, stealing,
murdering, etc.).47 What we learn, for instance, when we read in the
43 ST I–II, q. 100, a. 5.
44 “Loving God and other human beings is the ratio of natural law, and it is there-

fore the central truth that all people should understand by their reason if they
have to act righteously.” Fulvio Di Blasi, “Natural Law as Inclination to God,”
331. For the precepts of loving God and loving neighbor as the only natural law
precepts that are self-evident, see ST I–II, q. 100, a. 3, ad 1, and a. 4, ad 1.
45 See ST I–II, q. 100, a. 1 (cf. as well a. 3, ad 1, and a. 4, ad 1). One finds this view
already in the early Church Father St. Irenaeus, Adveresus Haereses, bk. IV, 15, 1
(Patrologia Graeca [ed. J. P. Migne]: 7/1, 1012).
46 ST I–II, q. 100, aa. 1 and 11.
47 I owe this point to John Cuddeback, “Ordered Inclinations,” who in turn cites
the following important passage from Jacques Maritain (Man and the State,
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951], 92: “Those inclinations were really
genuine which in the immensity of the human past have guided reason in becoming aware, little by little, of the regulations that have been most definitely and
most generally recognized by the human race, starting from the most ancient

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Babylonian List of Sins that it is evil to despise one’s father and mother,
in Exodus 20:12 that we should honor our father and our mother, in the
ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus that it is a moral duty to care for
one’s parents, in Hindu wisdom that our first duty is to honor our father
and mother, and in native American tradition that old men should be
taken care of, is that the duty to care for one’s parents, or, more generally,
for the aged, marks a moral precept binding on all because it is written
in the very fabric of our being.48
Returning, then, to our natural ordering to heterosexual marriage, we
might ask how this is stipulated in a natural law precept. Earlier it was
suggested that God has implanted in our minds a moral precept directing
the use of our sexuality always and everywhere to marriage as its end. If
we attend to Aquinas’s way of looking upon the Decalogue as offering
generalized or indeterminate natural law precepts which allow for further
correlative determinations (such as, again, how the duty to respect one’s
parents extends to the correlative duty to respect the aged), we will have
found our answer. Because it places us in an arena of moral precepts that
sum up “the first elements of law,” as Thomas calls them,49 or whole classes
of moral duties, the Decalogue offers two commandments, namely, the
sixth (“You shall not commit adultery”) and the ninth (“You shall not
covet your neighbor’s wife”), that encapsulate the natural law ordering of
our sexuality to the joint goods of procreation and unitive love, that is, to
heterosexual marriage.50 Thomas himself lists the prohibitions against
communities. For the knowledge of the primordial aspects of natural law was
first expressed in social patterns rather than in personal judgments: so that we
might say that that knowledge has developed within the double protecting tissue
of human inclinations and human society.”
48 C. S. Lewis compiles this list, as well as many other common moral and legal
directives spanning ancient Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Old Norse,
Hindu, Chinese,Anglo-Saxon, and native American cultures, which testify to the
universality of the natural law, in his The Abolition of Man (New York: Macmillan, 1947), “Appendix: Illustrations of the Tao,” 93–121, at 104–5.
49 ST I–II, q. 100, a. 5, ad 6.
50 For agreement, see Servais Pinckaers, Morality: The Catholic View, trans. Michael
Sherwin (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001), 104.We should note that
the Catechism of the Catholic Church does the same by outlining the Church’s vision
of the meaning and purpose of human sexuality under the heading of “The Sixth
Commandment” (§§2331–2400). We should also note that the Genesis creation
narrative makes clear the fact that our sexuality is ordered to marriage, in as much
as it encompasses the joint goods of procreation (Gen 1:27–28) and unitive love
(Gen 2:18–25). This creation account thereby establishes the proper moral and
anthropological foundation that sets in relief the Decalogue’s prohibition of adultery and the whole class of sexual sins associated with it.

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prostitution and the “unnatural sins” (he has in mind homosexual acts and
bestiality, but we could add incest, masturbation, contraceptive intercourse,
and the like) as examples of correlative duties following upon the prohibition against adultery.51
Veiled Knowledge of Natural Law Precepts
There is a second reason Aquinas gives for why knowledge of the first principles of good moral action does not come easily or with clarity. Moral
corruption—sin—has “obscured” (obscurata) the natural law precepts God
imprints upon our minds. Sin—both at the personal and at the larger
cultural level—makes us calloused to the innate moral sensibilities
implanted within us by the natural law, sometimes even to the point of
“blotting out” (deletur) these sensibilities, to use Thomas’s term.52 Such
corruption helps explain why we find natural law precepts reiterated in the
Decalogue, a law revealed by God to persons of faith, in as much as this law
“reminds” us of our moral duties which are imbedded within all of our
consciences, whether or not we are persons of confessional faith, but which
have become shrouded by sin.53 (Citing Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars,Aquinas
refers to the ancient Germans’ failure to consider theft wrong as an example of this shrouding.)54
Concretely, the dulling of our moral sensibilities happens, as St.Thomas
observes, by “concupiscence or some other passion,” by “bad influence”
(malas persuasiones), or by “perverse customs and corrupt habits” (such as
the just-mentioned German view on theft).55 Here Thomas’s words are
not far removed from our contemporary situation, where “perverse
customs and corrupt habits” abound, whether we are speaking of rampant
cohabitation and extra-marital sex, no-fault divorce, auto-sexual practices
including internet voyeurism, contraceptive intercourse, or homosexual
51 “[O]ther moral precepts which are added to the Decalogue are reducible to the

precepts of the Decalogue after the manner of so many corollaries ( per modum
cuiusdam additionis ad ipsa ). . . . Thus to the sixth commandment, which forbids
adultery, is added the prohibition against prostitution, according to Deuteronomy
23:17 . . . as well as the prohibition against unnatural sins, according to Leviticus
18:22–23.” ST I–II, q. 100, a. 11. Previously in article 4 of question 100, in fact,
Thomas relates the proscription against adultery “to the concupiscence of the
flesh,” and thus to all those sexual immoralities which stem from disordered
sexual desire. Cf. ScG III, ch. 122.
52 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 6.
53 “There was need for man to receive a precept about loving God and his neighbor, because in this respect the natural law had become obscured (obscurata ) on
account of sin.” ST I–II, q. 100, a. 5, ad 1.
54 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 4; and Julius Caesar, De bello Gallico,VI, 23.
55 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 6.

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unions. Indeed, it is impossible to underestimate the malas persuasiones, the
bad influence, which the widespread acceptance of the same-sex lifestyle,
to the point of its growing legal recognition, exerts on the ever increasing
denial of the ordering of our sexuality to heterosexual marriage.56
No matter the spreading influence of this denial, though, the obvious
merits of a natural law account stem from the fact that it proposes a
vision of human sexuality which targets the true human good, true or
ultimate human flourishing. Catholic moral teaching, rooted in a
Thomist account of natural law, invites us to embrace our teleological
ordering to ultimate happiness by respecting the nuptial meaning of our
sexuality, even if this respect demands of us a kind of self-mastery over
our sexual instincts which many today regard as “retrograde” or excessively repressive and dehumanizing.
So let the Catholic moralist operate with the conviction that the
Thomist vision of human sexuality, because grounded in the natural law,
resonates deep within the truest part of ourselves, in the deepest fabric of
our being. It targets a good that all ultimately yearn for, even if one’s
habits have succeeded in blotting out what otherwise marks the key to
genuine sexual freedom. Human sexuality is, first and last, symbolic of
man’s procreative-unitive ordering.
Natural Law and the Separation between Religion and Politics
While it is clear the natural law argument in this essay addresses itself to
all persons of good will because it stands on the authority of reason alone,
discourse in the public square today, especially in the United States, often
assumes that one opposes something like the same-sex lifestyle exclusively on the basis of religious faith. Not infrequently one hears the
56 A recent survey conducted by the Knights of Columbus and the Marish College

Institute for Public Opinion bears out such malas persuasiones among Catholic
millennials (Catholics between the ages of 18 and 29) in particular (see “New
Survey of Young Catholics Shows Promise and Challenges for the Catholic
Church,” posted on the Knights of Columbus website [kofc.org]; February 11,
2010).This survey found, for instance, that only 37% of this group of Catholics
think same-sex marriage is wrong, 35% think homosexual relations are immoral,
and only 20% think pre-marital sex is wrong.Yet, as Romanus Cessario (Introduction to Moral Theology, 98) points out, it is our relationships that suffer as a
result: “When a sexual partner is chosen outside of the stability that the permanent and exclusive commitment between husband and wife both generates and
demands, broken relationships and hearts give testimony to the raw destructive
power of intemperate passion. Such passion can lead both men and women to
act, even habitually, in a way that contravenes the principles of natural law. A
similar analysis can be made of persons who negate the inherent relational character of sexual relations by engaging in auto-sexual activities.”

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charge that opposition to same-sex unions threatens to compromise the
separation between church and state, or religion and politics. Such a
charge, which many Catholics themselves believe and even echo, grossly
misrepresents natural law teaching in general and the traditional Catholic
position in particular.
Even if it is true that many oppose gay marriage on the grounds of
strict religious faith, especially for those Christians who lack appreciation
of or familiarity with the natural law, this does not mean that arguments
against same-sex unions which appeal to the authority of reason alone
cannot be formulated.57 Discussion on the compatibility of homosexual
relations, or, for that matter, abortion, premarital sexual relations, the use
of artificial contraceptives, and the like, with the truths of faith does not
and should not de facto exclude discussion on the compatibility of these
acts with the truths of reason.
This holds especially for those democratic societies that stand upon
the bedrock principle of freedom of speech in the public square. It is
more than ironic to witness, at least in the United States, the ever increasing social trend to exclude opposition to same-sex unions, or more
generally to the homosexual lifestyle, from the public square. Generally
speaking, it is outright assumed that the same-sex lifestyle stands above
moral reproach and condemnation, and that no moral argument can be
made against this lifestyle. As a result, many same-sex advocates are
attempting to ban from the public square those voices that argue against
homosexual unions on the grounds that such arguments constitute
homophobic “hate speech.”
As all are aware, more and more this push by same-sex proponents is
securing judicial and legislative support, such as through the extension of
hate crimes laws—as occurred recently at the federal level in the United
States—to include those victimized on the basis of sexual orientation.58
57 While it has been standard since Karl Barth to hold that the Reformers’ view on

the corruption of human nature by sin leaves no room for the natural law—how,
after all, can a law of nature be followed if nature itself inclines to sin?—John
Witte in his magisterial The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights
in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) has
shown that, in fact, the idea of natural law and of natural rights was a vibrant and
integral element of early Reformation thought.
58 The United States Congress passed legislation (approved by the House of
Representatives on October 8, 2009, and by the Senate on October 22, 2009)
extending hate crimes to include crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation, which President Obama signed into law on October 28, 2009. However,
while most western European nations race toward the same goal, there are
exceptions, as Italy’s parliament voted down, also in October of 2009, an effort

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Indeed, fearful of “hate speech” lawsuits and of federal funding that
would be withdrawn as a result, and no matter the U.S. Constitution’s
protection of freedom of religion, some Catholic universities in America
are currently advising their faculty members not to “advocate” the view
that the homosexual lifestyle is inherently disordered. Certainly, it
remains to be seen whether hate crimes legislation covering sexual
orientation stands as a threat to religious freedom and whether opposing
homosexuality on religious or natural law grounds shall be seen as constituting criminal behavior. It is a telling commentary on a society that, on
the one hand, allows vocal public support for the same-sex lifestyle in the
name of “diversity” and “freedom of speech,” but then, on the other
hand, revokes that same right to diversity and freedom of speech (not to
mention freedom of religion in the case of Catholic institutions) when
opposition to the homosexual lifestyle is voiced.
Current reforms in the educational system, especially in the United
States, testify to the way in which the trend to exclude opposition to the
homosexual lifestyle is taking firm root in western society. Touted by
some as the embodiment of “tolerance and diversity” and as standing “at
the frontier of sex education in the United States,” some school systems
in America (and Britain), for example, are requiring health education
courses at the middle-school and high-school levels to offer lessons on
homosexuality.59 Others are imposing a pro-homosexual curriculum on
to introduce the equivalent of the American hate-crime legislation. As Catholic
World News (catholiccculture.org; October 14, 2009) reports: “Opponents [in
Italy] argued successfully that the legislation was unconstitutional insofar as it
gave unequal protection to favored groups. One prominent Catholic lawmaker,
Rocco Buttiglione, noted that homosexuals already enjoy full protection of law
against violent crime. ‘The legal protection exists, and it is the same protection
that the law accords to every other citizen,’ he said.”
59 This as reported by The New York Times on August 15, 2007, on its website
(nytimes.com) in particular reference to the situation in Montgomery County,
Maryland. Barring any last-minute court action, this school system was set to offer
lessons on homosexuality, including videos demonstrating how to put on
condoms, in its eighth- and tenth-grade health education courses. The New York
Times hails this as an example of “respect and acceptance of the many permutations of sexual identity.”As for the United Kingdom, the British Parliament’s Joint
Committee on Human Rights declared in its report on the implementation of
Sexual Orientation Regulations (February 26, 2007) that even religious schools
(Catholic or otherwise) cannot offer instruction in which “homosexual pupils are
subjected to teaching, as part of the religious education or other curriculum, that
their sexual orientation is sinful or morally wrong.” Then in 2009, the United
Kingdom’s General Teaching Council, a professional regulatory body, passed a
revised code of conduct which requires that teachers, even those at Catholic
schools, “proactively challenge discrimination” and “promote equality and value

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even lower educational levels, including kindergarten.60 In the name of
“tolerance,” the view that favors the same-sex lifestyle is being imposed
on western society, by legal force if need be, whether some members of
this society—perhaps even a majority—like it or not.
Mental Health, Clinical Therapy, and the Natural Law
Because the natural law orders our sexuality to the joint goods of procreation and unitive love, and thus to marriage, any sexual act that opposes
the nuptial meaning of human sexuality by opposing one or both of these
dimensions can be said to frustrate God’s wise providential ordering of
our sexual lives to the good. As such, they mark intrinsically disordered
acts and allow for no proportionalist-like exceptions.61 Inherently disordered acts are always morally bad for us and can never contribute to our
genuine happiness, no matter the circumstances.
The point to stress here is that the moral good, of which the natural
law instructs us, provides the whole foundation for human flourishing.
The fruits of living in accordance with the human moral good extend to
the whole of our lives, and are determinative of our emotional and
psychological well-being. This fact stands in contrast to the way our
culture encourages us to adopt a compartmentalized attitude toward our
moral lives, as if we could ignore or lay aside our moral duty as we would
lay aside a note from our parents, with little discernable impact on other
parts of our lives, namely, on the emotional or psychological dimensions
of our lives. But if the common human experience of casting aside the
moral good, particularly in the arena of human sexuality, can teach us
anything, it is that engaging in behavior contrary to God’s natural design
and intention leaves nothing but wreckages of human relationships and
broken lives in its wake. Sexual habits which thumb the natural law are

diversity in all their professional relationships and interactions” (as reported by the
Daily Mail Online, www.dailymail.co.uk, March 2, 2009).
60 This is the situation in Alameda, California, whose school board approved a “safe
schools curriculum” on May 26, 2009. This curriculum requires respect for the
homosexual lifestyle to be taught to kindergartners through fifth graders with no
right for students to opt out. The curriculum will include the book And Tango
Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Pornett, about two gay penguins
who raise a baby penguin.
61 Cf. ST I–II, q. 94, a. 5; and Ralph McInerny, Ethica Thomistica:The Moral Philosophy
of Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press,
1982), 61. To remind the reader, proportionalism, or consequentialism, holds that
there are no intrinsically evil acts; rather, an act is accounted good solely on the
grounds that its good effects outweigh, or are in greater proportion to, its bad effects.

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deleterious not only to our moral well-being, but also to our entire wellbeing as human persons, including our mental well-being.
In this respect, the field of clinical psychology would provide an
invaluable service to natural law teaching, as indeed to Catholic moral
thought, by conducting serious empirical research on the way sexual
habits and customs impact our mental health. Ideally, these studies would
target first the normative good of human sexuality, namely, fulfilling
heterosexual marriages, and from there move to maladaptive or aberrational sexual practices.
One finds a beginning attempt at this in the work of the positive
psychologist and former president of the American Psychological Association, Martin Seligman. Admittedly concerned not with problematic
marriages but with “solid” marriages in “good shape,” and equipped with
statistical evidence for support, Seligman sees marriage and family, understood in its traditional sense, as an important and necessary means to
happiness and fulfillment.62 This fits within Seligman’s larger project of
correcting what he views as a glaring weakness in the field of clinical
psychology, namely, its expertise in mental disease without a complementary expertise in what constitutes mental health (analogous, say, to the
moral theologian who knows mostly about sin and little about holiness
and virtue).The object of clinical research and therapy, in other words, is
more often than not the person of mental imbalance rather than the
person of mental health.
In addition to the pioneering work of the positive psychologists, there
are a few studies that exist which can help chart the course briefly
sketched here. For instance, there is the highly reputable New Zealand
study showing that abortion increases the risk of such mental health problems as depression, anxiety disorders, suicidal behavior, and drug and alcohol abuse (substance use disorders).63 There is also the Johns Hopkins
62 See, for instance, Seligman’s Authentic Happiness (Boston: Nicholas Brealey, 2002),

esp. ch. 11,“Love,” 185–207, and ch. 12,“Raising Children,” 208–46. Cf. as well
Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P. Seligman, eds., Character Strengths and
Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
For an even more serious beginning attempt at charting the course initiated by
Seligman, cf. Craig Steven Titus, ed., The Psychology of Character and Virtue (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009).
63 David M. Fergusson, L. John Horwood, and Elizabeth M. Ridder, “Abortion in
Young Women and Subsequent Mental Health,” Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry 47:1 (2006): 16–24.What is significant about this Christchurch Health
and Development Study, the largest of its kind internationally and funded mainly
by the New Zealand government, is that, according to Ruth Hill (“Abortion
Researcher Confounded by Study,” The New Zealand Herald, January 5, 2006),

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Hospital and University study which throws into serious question the
prevailing view among psychologists that sexual identity is more a matter
of social conditioning than of biological constitution; this study found
that, in general, sex-change operations performed in the 1970s (typically
with the blessing of psychologists) either for sexually confused adults or
for male infants born with malformed, sexually ambiguous genitalia
(hermaphrodites) succeeded only in causing further psychological harm.64
“[t]he researchers expected to find no evidence of harmful effects of abortion.
But they found the opposite.” Indeed, one of the researchers and authors of this
study, the psychologist and epidemiologist David Fergusson, supports unrestricted access to abortion and is a self-proclaimed “atheist, rationalist and prochoice [advocate]” (quoted by Julie Robotham, “Abortion Linked to Mental
Problems,” The Sydney Morning Herald, January 3, 2006). In this study, the
researchers tracked more than 500 women over a twenty-five year period. It is
telling that, whereas Fergusson and his team of researchers normally find little
difficulty in getting their work published, this study was sent to four different
journals before it was accepted for publication.
64 This study was conducted by Paul McHugh (“Surgical Sex,” First Things 147
[November 2004]: 34–38), who at the time was psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns
Hopkins Hospital and University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at
Johns Hopkins University. McHugh’s research, which challenges the “deep prejudice [amongst clinical psychologists] in favor of the idea that nature is totally
malleable,” was aided by other studies performed by the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jon Meyer and by the psychiatric services of the Clark Institute in Toronto.
In sum, McHugh’s study consisted of a systematic follow-up analysis of the individuals who received this sex-change surgery. In the case of the sexually confused
adults, McHugh found the patients “little changed in their psychological condition . . . [and that t]he hope that they would emerge now from their emotional
difficulties to flourish psychologically had not been fulfilled. . . . [From this] I
concluded that to provide surgical alteration to the body of these unfortunate
people was to collaborate with a mental disorder rather than to treat it.”The sexchange procedure for the male infants born with malformed, sexually ambiguous
genitalia that psychologists were sure would lead to sound female sexual identity
“if backed up by familial and cultural support” produced similar results.With the
help of his resident psychiatrist William G. Reiner, who published his own findings in the January 22, 2004 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, McHugh
discovered that “re-engineered males were almost never comfortable as females
once they became aware of themselves and the world. . . . The children transformed from their male constitution into female roles suffered prolonged distress
and misery as they sensed their natural attitudes.” McHugh’s final conclusion:“We
have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it.” There exists an almost identical study on a case where a boy,
after a botched circumcision, was transformed into a girl by castration, surgery,
hormonal treatment, and subsequent “feminized” nurturing, all with the blessing
of a Freudian psychologist. This resulted in a very maladjusted adolescent “girl”

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One could point to other studies as well: there is research that correlates advances in artificial contraceptives with the sharp rise in the
divorce rate, and thus with marital disorder. This same research reveals a
much lower divorce rate (around five percent) among married couples
who practice (the morally licit) natural method of birth control.65 Additionally, a sociological study out of Ohio State University found that
depressed people received a “greater psychological boost” from being
married.66 Research has also documented the deleterious effects of
pornography on marriage and family.67
who, upon learning the truth of “her” condition, opted for a surgical return to
manhood. For this study, see Milton Diamond and H. Keith Sigmundson, “Sex
Assignment at Birth: Long-Term Review and Clinical Implications,” Archives of
Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 151 (1997): 298–304. Choosing to ignore these
findings, Children’s Hospital of Boston has opted to offer the “Gender Management Service Clinic” in order to provide hormonal treatment for young people
seeking to change their gender identity, as reported by Catholic World News
(cwnews.com, May 5, 2008).
65 Cf. John F. Kippley, The Legacy of Margaret Sanger, the Foundress of Planned Parenthood (Couple to Couple League International, 1988). The natural family planning center Kippley has founded has tracked how the founding of the National
Birth Control League in 1913 (which in turn was succeeded by Planned Parenthood in 1939) in the United States sparked the widespread use of artificial
contraceptives in the 1920s, and along with it the American divorce rate rose 92
percent from one out of eleven marriages in 1910 to one out of 5.75 marriages
by 1930. The divorce rate continued to rise sharply, coinciding with the FDA’s
approval of the birth control pill in 1960, so that by 1977 the national divorce
rate had reached one out of every two marriages, marking a 470 percent increase
since 1910. While opining that “[t]he Catholic Church’s opposition to birth
control can be critiqued,” David P. Gushee (Getting Marriage Right: Realistic Counsel for Saving and Strengthening Relationships [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books,
2004], 28) nonetheless acknowledges that Catholic leaders “were right” in fearing that artificial birth control would “undermine the links between sex,
marriage, and procreation and [would] underwrite a cultural practice of casual
or marriage-free sex.”
66 This as reported by Melinda Wenner, “Study: Marriage Greatly Counters
Depression,” on the FoxNews LiveScience website, June 4, 2007.The study was
conducted by Adrianne Frech and Kristi Williams and is to be published in the
Journal of Health and Social Behavior.The findings surprised Frech, who “expected
the depressed to have worse marital quality and therefore benefit less from a transition into marriage.”
67 See the psychologist and researcher Patrick F. Fagan, “Pornography—and
Marriage,” The Catholic Thing online (nfiproofs.com); January 29, 2010; and “The
Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family and Community,” from
the Family Research Council website (frc.org); December 2, 2009). Among the
“documented effects [of pornography] on family life” that Fagan enumerates, one
finds: infidelity and divorce; a loss of interest and satisfaction in sexual intercourse

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There is also serious psychological research casting doubt upon the
permanence of the homosexual orientation, and thus upon the widespread view that the homosexual orientation enters unalterably into the
intrinsic part of a person’s identity. Studies show that clinical therapy,
alternatively called reparative or conversion or reorientation therapy, can
often modify the homosexual orientation to the point that persons with
this orientation can attain a satisfactory heterosexual lifestyle.68 In this
with one’s spouse; emotional distancing from and general dissatisfaction in one’s
spouse; the perception of infidelity by the other spouse (usually the wife), resulting in a sense of “betrayal, loss, mistrust, devastation, and anger,” as well as of sexual
inadequacy, if not in outright depression; a strong tendency by men who engage
in voyeurism to view women as “commodities or as ‘sex objects’ ”; etc.
68 See especially Robert L. Spitzer, “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change
Their Sexual Orientation? 200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 32:5 (October
2003): 403–17. A prominent psychiatrist from Columbia University, Spitzer, it
should be noted, was viewed as a champion of gay activism and was instrumental in the removal of homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association’s
list of psychosexual disorders in its 1973 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders. Spitzer notes that, while “complete” change in orientation was not common, most of the participants did report a change from a
predominantly or exclusively homosexual orientation before therapy to a
predominantly or exclusively heterosexual orientation after therapy. This leads
Spitzer to assert in his conclusion that “mental health professionals should stop
moving in the direction of banning therapy that has, as a goal, a change in sexual
orientation.” Spitzer’s study was confirmed and expanded upon by Elan Y. Karten’s
doctoral dissertation at Fordham University’s Department of Psychology. Spitzer’s
study was also confirmed by Stanton L. Jones and Mark A.Yarhouse, “Ex Gays?
An Extended Longitudinal Study of Attempted Religiously Mediated Change in
Sexual Orientation,” presented at the American Psychological Association’s
annual convention on August 9, 2009; consider, for instance, their conclusion:
“[T]he findings of this study would appear to contradict the commonly expressed
view of the mental health establishment that sexual orientation is not changeable
and that the attempt to change is highly likely to produce harm for those who
make such an attempt.” For other studies supporting the possibility of change in
homosexual orientation, see the website of the National Association for Research
and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) (narth.com). The founder of reparative therapy is the psychologist Joseph Nicolosi, who boasts over thirty years of
successful experience in offering reparative therapy; see his Reparative Therapy of
Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield,
2004); and idem, Healing Homosexuality: Case Stories of Reparative Therapy (Oxford:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), though Nicolosi does offer some failed cases in this
latter work in order to show that the success of this therapy is not guaranteed.
John C. Cahalan (“A Liberal Case Against Gay and Lesbian Rights,” New Oxford
Review 61:10 [1994]: 8–15) claims that the results of such studies show that
“[p]eople with a homosexual orientation [whether bisexual or exclusively homosexual] can achieve a happy heterosexual marriage.”

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respect, that the American Psychological Association (APA), in the face
of the contentious debate over whether there is a genetic predisposition
to homosexuality, came out in 2008 with the extraordinary statement
that “no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that
sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors” is
most significant.69 For, if there exists no “single” factor leading to homosexuality, then one cannot point to a so-called “gay gene” as the cause of
homosexuality. And if, as the APA goes on to affirm, every client owns
the autonomous “right to self-determination,” then this would, in principle, seem to open the door to the possibility of genuine therapeutic
change, particularly for those homosexual patients who desire heterosexual “self-determination.”70 With the current state of research indicating
that there exists no simple biological predisposition to homosexuality, the
APA, which does regard the homosexual orientation and lifestyle as
“normal aspects of human sexuality,” despite the disproportionate
number of persons who claim a homosexual orientation, has inadvertently given a not-so-gentle tug on the plug of “I was born gay and this
is who I am and why I can’t change.”71

69 American Psychological Association, “Answers to Your Questions for a Better

Understanding of Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality,” March 2008 (posted
on the APA’s website: apa.org). What is even more extraordinary is that this
document was produced with “editorial assistance from the APA Committee on
Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Concerns.” The APA also admits here that it is difficult at the adolescent stage to determine what a person’s ultimate outcome will
be relative to sexual attraction, sexual orientation, or sexual identity.
70 While this document by the APA offers a negative, though nuanced, assessment of
reparative or conversion or reorientation therapy—“To date, there has been no
scientifically adequate research to show that therapy (sometimes called reparative
or conversion therapy) is safe or effective”—it makes no mention of those studies,
noted above, which do corroborate the effectiveness of said therapy. (American
Psychological Association,“Answers to Your Questions for a Better Understanding
of Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality” [March 2008].) This omission leads the
psychologist Scott Hershberger (lifesitenews.com; May 13, 2009) to say this:“The
orderly, law-like pattern of changes in homosexual behavior, homosexual selfidentification, and homosexual attraction and fantasy observed in Spitzer’s study
[see above] is strong evidence that reparative therapy can assist individuals in
changing their homosexual orientation to a heterosexual one.”
71 “Both heterosexual behavior and homosexual behavior are normal aspects of
human sexuality. Both . . . these orientations represent normal forms of human
experience. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual relationships are normal forms of human
bonding.” APA, “A Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality” (2008).

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Adding to the debate is the body of research showing higher rates of
mental disorder among homosexuals.72 These findings might rekindle
debate over the American Psychiatric Association’s controversial and
rather extraordinary decision to remove, without any body of research,
homosexuality from its list of psychosexual disorders in its 1973 edition

72 According to the psychologist A. Dean Byrd (“APA’s New Pamphlet on Homo-

sexuality De-emphasizes the Biological Argument, Supports a Client’s Right to
Self-Determination,” narth.com; March 6, 2008), this research “clearly demonstrates that homosexuals are at greater risk for some forms of mental illness [such
as suicidality, depression, anxiety disorder, substance abuse].” Hence the remarkable assertion of the APA’s “A Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation &
Homosexuality” (2008), when, flatly ignoring such research, it writes:“Research
has found no inherent association between any of these sexual orientations
[lesbian, gay, and bisexual] and psychopathology.” Published research contradicting this claim and to which Byrd is referring would include the following: B.
Riess,“Psychological Tests in Homosexuality,” in Homosexual Behavior: A Modern
Appraisal, ed. J. Macmor (New York: Basic Books, 1980), 298–311, which used
the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory to show that homosexuals are
prone to “personal and emotional oversensitivity”; G. Remafedi, et al., “The
Relationship between Suicide Risk and Sexual Orientation: Results of a Population Based Study,” American Journal of Public Health 88 (1998): 57–60, which
found that homosexuals were six times more likely to attempt suicide; D. M.
Fergusson, et al.,“Is Sexual Orientation Related to Mental Health Problems and
Suicidality in Young People?” Archives of General Psychiatry 56 (1999): 876–80,
which showed a much higher rate of depression, anxiety disorder, substance
abuse, and suicidal attempts among active homosexuals; and T. G. M. Sandfort, et
al., “Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders,” Archives of General
Psychiatry 58 (2001): 85–91, which showed higher levels of mental health problems among homosexuals in the Netherlands (the authors were surprised at this,
given that tolerance of homosexuality in the Netherlands is perhaps greater than
anywhere else in the world). Even a recent issue of the Brown University
Medical School’s magazine, Brown Medicine (“The Doctor Is Out,” 12:1 [2007]:
33–38, at 37), acknowledges that homosexual persons suffer from a “higher incidence of substance use and mental illness, namely depression and eating disorders” and that “the rate of attempted suicide [is] three to seven times higher in
gay and lesbian youth.” Further, despite its goal of promoting positive exposure
to “Queer Med,” Brown University’s gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender medical
student organization, this article admits that “research has shown [that health
issues] are more prevalent among gays and lesbians, such as other sexually transmitted diseases, substance use, mental health issues, and certain types of cancer”
(36). Obviously, proponents of the same-sex lifestyle would argue that these
higher rates of mental disorders among homosexual persons result from the
stigma the homosexual lifestyle has traditionally suffered in western society. But
from a natural law perspective, such higher rates give evidence of the fact that
we are here dealing with an inherently disordered lifestyle, a malum in se.

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of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.73 While political correctness would have us believe same-sex attraction and activity
remain “normal aspects of human sexuality,” to quote again the APA, and
thus beyond moral and even medical reproach, natural law reasoning can
help us question the wisdom of such correctness. Natural law reasoning
can help us see that we should not always equate “normal” with “normative” behavior.
These studies stand at the tip of an immense iceberg.What the natural law tells us is requisite for moral, and thus psychological, health still
needs the backing of significantly more empirical psychological research.
If what has been outlined above on the natural law’s ordering of our
sexuality to our true good, to our true human flourishing, is correct, such
clinical research should only corroborate this.74

73 As is well known, whereas previous editions of the American Psychiatric Asso-

ciation’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classified homosexuality as a psychosexual disorder, the 1973 edition dropped this classification. Few
doubt that this omission was politically or socially, and not scientifically, motivated; Stephen Worchel and Wayne Shebilske (Psychology: Principles and Applications [Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1983], 406), for instance, plainly admit
that “the difference in the two classification systems is largely the result of greater
acceptance of homosexuality in today’s society as compared to the attitudes that
were common just a few years ago.” The end result is that now it is commonplace for therapists to suspend any moral or psychological judgment on the role
of homosexuality in mental health; cf., for example, Gender Identity Disorder and
Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents, by the psychiatrists Kenneth J.
Zucker and Susan J. Bradley, and in particular the chapter “Homosexuality in
Adolescence,” 339–53. For an analysis of the APA’s handling of this issue, cf.
Ronald Bayer, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry: The Politics of Diagnosis
(New York: Basic Books, 1981), esp. 179–95.
74 In his Mapping America project, which studies the volumes of data concerning
sexuality and family life, the psychologist and researcher Patrick F. Fagan (“The
Data that Do Not Fit,” The Catholic Thing [nfiproofs.com], March 9, 2010) does
not mince words as to what such data, no matter politically correct sensibilities,
clearly shows: “marriage (is) fundamental to individual well-being and to the
normal functioning of society . . . [Indeed, while] social scientists [might] often
disagree with the Church [in its vision of the true human good], their data do not
. . . In the social sciences, [then,] the abuse lies not in directly falsifying data (where
the punishment is also severe), but in deliberate avoidance or blocking of investigation of a host of ‘politically incorrect’ topics such as the effects of abortion, the
psychogenesis of homosexuality, or the consequences of contraception . . . [For] I
suspect investigation of the data may actually bolster traditional natural law . . . and
witnesses to the potential power of the social sciences to confirm natural law and
help the Church help man be true to himself.”

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What about Civil Law and the Natural Ordering
to Heterosexual Marriage?
Our ordering to heterosexual marriage via the natural law has obvious
implications for human jurisprudence and the just ordering of civil society.The simple reason for this, of course, is that in Thomas’s doctrine of
law the very purpose of civil law (or positive law, as he calls it) is to make
specific applications, in accordance with the particular determinations of
the societies in which we live, of the otherwise generalized precepts of
the natural law. Our natural law ordering to the good is merely generalized or indeterminate. Since we live in the concrete, in the here and now,
the natural law’s indeterminate ordering to the good must be made more
determinate and concrete if it is to serve us in our actions. And this is
what human man-made (positive) law accomplishes.
Thus Aquinas’s famous observation that civil law “enjoys the nature of
law in the very measure that it derives (derivatur ) from the natural law.”75
Not simply a reformulation of natural law precepts, civil law truly adds to
the natural law, and this because the natural law equips us with the necessary moral sensibilities by which our minds can render such adjudications.76 Not a “closed system,” the natural law, as intended by God, is
meant to be completed by the laws we pass. For Aquinas, civil law does not
“rival” the natural law; it complements it:“Human law is necessary,” writes
Russell Hittinger, “for the purpose of making, changing, and applying
rules left indeterminate by natural law.”77
With respect to our natural ordering to heterosexual marriage, then, civil
law completes or concretizes the natural law when our legislative bodies
pass laws upholding and safeguarding the institution of heterosexual
marriage, that is, when our societies codify the nuptial meaning of human
sexuality.78 Any civil law impinging upon our sexuality will enjoy the force
of law only to the extent that it enshrines the nuptial meaning of human
75 ST I–II, q. 95, a. 2.
76 “Having received a law, the human mind can go on to judge and command

according to that law.” Russell Hittinger, The First Grace, 97.
77 Hittinger, The First Grace, 102.
78 ScG III, ch. 123:“Since then there is in the human species a natural exigency for

the union of male and female to be one and indivisible, such unity and indissolubility must needs be ordained by human law. . . . [And] since all other factors in
human life should be subordinate to that which is the best thing in man, it
follows that the union of male and female must be regulated by law, not from the
mere point of view of procreation, as in other animals, but also with an eye to
good manners, or manners conformable to right reason, as well for man as an
individual, as also for man as a member of a household or family, or again as a
member of civil society.”

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sexuality, or the body-soul (procreative-unitive) symbolism of our sexuality.
Most fundamentally, this happens when societies ascribe the legal recognition of marriage exclusively to the union of one man and one woman, as
Pope Benedict has observed.79 But it also happens in less obvious ways, such
as in what the same Pontiff has called “family-friendly fiscal policies.”80
Examples would include extending tax benefits to married couples, or the
granting of a special family allowance to married couples with children, an
allowance that would increase with the birth of each successive child, as is
the current practice of some western European governments.81
Certainly, much more could be said on this point. But that would be
the subject of another essay.
Conclusion
In a world that has lost its bearings on the meaning of nature in its headlong rush to redefine marriage, Thomistic natural law theory offers a
sober return to reason and common sense. While the desire to extend
“tolerance” to alternative lifestyles is an understandable one, the order of
nature is not so fluid as to allow us to throw it to the prevailing cultural
winds no matter what we wish to accommodate.When, in an analogous
case, the Roman emperor Caligula notoriously sought to redefine, so to
speak, the office of Roman consul by attempting to appoint his horse
Incitatus to a consulship, this emperor, in his madness, resorted to pure
nominalist double speak. Caligula could say or believe whatever he
wished, but his imperial authority could not change the simple fact that
a horse lacks the requisite nature, and thus the intrinsic authority, to hold
the office of Roman consul.
79 As already seen, in his weekly Wednesday audience on December 16, 2009, Pope

Benedict pointed to laws that respect “the relationship between natural law and
positive law” as truly “equitable” laws, in as much as such laws attest to the fact
that there exists “an objective and immutable truth, the origin of which is in
God, a truth accessible to human reason and which concerns practical and social
activities. This is a natural law from which human legislation, and political and
religious authorities, must draw inspiration in order to promote the common
good” (as reported on the Vatican website, www.vatican.va, December 16, 2009).
80 In his talk to European family associations on May 16, 2008, Pope Benedict
promoted a “family-friendly fiscal policy” whereby governments would “examine taxes, fiscal policies and government programs from the perspective of how
they would affect family life,” as reported by Catholic World News
(cwnews.com, May 16, 2008).
81 The family allowance is also the practice of the small liberal arts school St.
Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Barbara, California. This college is to be
commended for faithfully implementing the demands of social justice as it
pertains to marriage and family.

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It holds the same for any judicial or legislative action seeking to confer
the title of marriage, and the civil rights attached to it, upon same-sex
unions.Thomistic natural law, appealing to the authority of reason alone,
makes clear the fact that our sexed nature is “hard wired” for heterosexual marriage, in that we enjoy a natural inclination to the joint goods of
procreation and the rearing of children and of unitive love.These goods
rank as the highest that our sexuality targets, and it targets them together.
Since they are not by nature ordained to procreation, nor to unitive love
(with no bodily complementarity, there can be no real bodily union),
same-sex unions lack the requisite nature, and thus the intrinsic authority, needed to enjoy the juridical status of marriage.They are opposed to
the true human good and can never contribute to genuine human flourN&V
ishing. Only heterosexual marriage can.

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Tight Neo-Platonist Henology and Slack
Christian Ontology: Christianity as
an Imperfect Neo-Platonism
G UY M ANSINI , O.S.B.
Saint Meinrad School of Theology
St. Meinrad, Indiana

Introduction
ROBERT S OKOLOWSKI says that it is more difficult for Christianity to come to terms with Plato and Platonism than with Aristotle,
precisely because Platonism seems closer. It is easy, he says, to distinguish
the Christian God from Aristotle’s first mover. The possibility of identifying God with the Good and the One beyond being, however, is seductive, and many Christian thinkers have borrowed Platonist expression to
articulate Christian belief. Sokolowski is nonetheless certain that what
Plato and Plotinus named the One is not the God of the Bible.1
I think Sokolowski is correct on both counts: the One is not the God
of the Bible, but it can be difficult to distinguish them.
I will be concerned in this essay with Platonism in its neo-Platonic
form, and with Christianity in the expression it finds in St.Thomas.
Many studies have picked out the relation between St.Thomas and the
Platonists, indicating identities and differences.2 I want to pick out the
1 Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theol-

ogy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), 50–51.
2 Foundational is Robert Henle, S.J., Saint Thomas and Platonism: A Study of the

“Plato” and “Platonici” texts in the Writings of Saint Thomas (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1956), for St. Thomas’s own view of his relation to Platonism, and on
such discrete topics as participation, human cognition, and the human soul. See
the important review of this book, however, by Norris Clarke, “St.Thomas and
Platonism,” Thought 32 (1958): 437–43. For the actual relation of St.Thomas to
Platonism, one can begin with Wayne Hankey, “Aquinas and the Platonists,” in

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difference at a point where St. Thomas seems most of all to be close to
neo-Platonism, and that is in St. Thomas’s adoption of the exitus-reditus
pattern for expressing the relation of God to what he produces. As Jean
Trouillard says, speaking of Christian and neo-Platonist transcendence,
“the same language can mask very different ideas.”3 While I do not
accept the still common thesis of M.-D. Chenu that this pattern structures the Summa theologiae as a whole, as does Wayne Hankey, I do accept
Hankey’s demonstration of exitus-reditus loops or circles within the
Summa, patterns the detail of which he shows for the prima pars in his
book God in Himself.4 The difference I want to draw attention to within
the loops has to do with the necessity with which they unfold. Hankey
himself has drawn attention to this, to be sure.5 My ambition in this essay
is to show how this difference is related to quite fundamental metaphysical and theological positions.
Exitus and Reditus in St. Thomas
Let us look at the circles. Hankey takes it that the Summa as a whole
describes “the Neoplatonic structure of remaining, exitus, and reditus, by
which all things except the One return upon their principle.”6 Within
the great circle, however, there are many smaller circles, those of St.
The Platonic Tradition in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period: A Lexicographic
Appoach, ed. Maarten J. F. M. Hoenen and Stephen Gersh (Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 2002), 279–324. See also Fran O’Rourke, “Aquinas and Platonism,” in
Contemplating Aquinas: On the Varieties of Interpretation, ed. Fergus Kerr, O.P.
(London: SCM Press, 2003), 247–79.
3 Jean Trouillard, L’Un et l’Âme selon Proclos (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1972), 5.
4 Wayne Hankey, God in Himself: Aquinas’ Doctrine of God as Expounded in the
Summa Theologiae (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); and cf., more recently
(2003), his “Aquinas’ Doctrine of God Between Ontology and Henology,” classics.dal.ca/Files/Dieu_Laval.doc. See also Jan Aertsen, Nature and Creature:
Thomas Aquinas’s Way of Thought (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988), 44–45, on “circulation” in St. Thomas. For Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., on the plan of the
Summa, see Toward Understanding St.Thomas (Chicago: Regnery, 1964). For criticism of Chenu’s position, see Michel Corbin, Le chemin de la théologie chez
Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974), 788–91, and more recently Rudi te
Velde, Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2006), 11–18.
5 Wayne Hankey, “Ab Uno Simplici Non Est Nisi Unum:The Place of Natural and
Necessary Emanation in Aquinas’s Doctrine of Creation,” in Divine Creation in
Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern Thought: Essays Presented to the Rev’d Dr. Robert
D. Crouse, ed.Willemien Otten,Walter Hannam, and Michael Treschow, Studies
in Intellectual History (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 309–33.
6 Hankey, “Aquinas’ Doctrine of God,” 3.

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Thomas’s treatment of the names of God, of the divine operations, of the
Trinity of persons, of creation as a whole, and finally, of salvation. Hankey
importantly observes that each circle is differentiated from the one before
by “more and more differentiated processions” as we go down the list.7
The unfolding of the prima pars is the unfolding of an increasingly
complex network of relations, rational and real, and of things and natures
as we proceed from the divine names to the operations, on to the distinction of persons, and of creatures.We want also, however, to follow things
back up, considering the kind of return that is envisaged for the rational
creature, and, adding the tertia, considering as well the concrete means by
which this is achieved. In the ascent, in other words, we have to consider
the supernatural character both of the end and therefore perforce of the
via by which human beings return to God, namely, the incarnate Word.
In each case, on each level, we need to focus on: (1) what things are being
distinguished on this level, and (2) by what principle or principles these
things are distinguished.
Questions 3–11: The Distinction of Names
The circle of the names, from question 3 to question 11, moves from the
divine simplicity, which is a denial of composition, through the discussion of the dispersal, as it were, of the divine essence present everywhere
(question 8) and every when (question 9), to the divine unity, which is a
positive appreciation of the uniqueness of God explicitly recalling this
circle’s point of departure in the divine simplicity.The distinct names we
have for God correspond to no real distinction in God. The names are
not synonymous, but the perfections they signify are one and united in
God.Thus they all signify one thing, but under diverse aspects, according
to different conceptions of the human intellect (q. 13, a. 4). The names,
human names for divine things, are of course distinct from one another;
“infinite” is not “omnipotent.” The things, the aspects, are also distinct
one from another in our mind insofar as our understanding of infinity is
not the same as our understanding of omnipotence, and so on. In God,
however, the realities so named and understood are not distinct at all: the
divine infinity is the divine omnipotence is the divine eternity is the
divine omnipresence. It is in virtue of one and the same divine perfection that all the names are suited to him; he is universally perfect, as
Thomas has it, and “he contains the whole perfection of being in
himself ” (q. 4, a. 2). So, one must say that the principle of the distinction
of names is, in one respect, the plenitude of the divine perfection, and, in
7 Ibid.

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another respect, the limitation of the human mind, which understands
one rich reality only under many penurious aspects.8
Questions 14–26: The Distinction of Operations
The discussion of the divine operations moves from understanding (question 14), the most immanent of operations, through will (question 19)
and providence (question 22), which are directed to reality ad extra, and
back to intellection, for beatitude consists in an act of understanding
(question 26).
The operations, like the names, are not really distinct, either from one
another or from the divine being. God’s understanding, his willing, his
loving, his providing for his creatures are all one with his being (q. 14, a.
4; q. 19, a. 1). However, as Hankey notes, the first two operations put God
in relation to himself, as the principal object of his knowledge and will.9
What is the nature of this relation? It is rational, not real, and in both
directions. In the very conception—our conception—of the operations
of intellect and will, we must understand a duality of operation and
object, even if they are not really distinct in God. That is, to think the
divine understanding, we must think it understanding something, even if
we assert in the next breath that the principal object of God’s understanding is himself, and that there is no distinction of his being and operation. God’s understanding is himself, and so object and operation turn
out to be really the same (q. 14, aa. 2 and 4). So also with his will.
Thomas considers here also the divine power—the divine operation
which by definition, as it were, refers to an external effect, an effect
composed of the created natures really distinct from the divine nature.10
Creation has already been anticipated, however, when it was asked
whether and how God knows and loves anything other than himself, or
even when it was asked how God is related to created duration and place.
He knows others in knowing how he can be imitated, and the divine
ideas are many only rationally (q. 15, a. 2). And he loves creatures as unto
an end in loving himself as the end. Just as when God is said to know and
love created things there is a real distinction between object and act, so it
8 Already in question 2, article 3, God is named according to the distinct ways in

which he can be the cause of created being. According to the fourth way, he is
“cause of being, and of goodness, and of whatever other perfection there is.”
Questions 3 through 11 can therefore be thought to be an elaboration of God
known in this way.
9 Hankey, God in Himself, 97–98, 109.
10 Power is said to bear on what the will commands at ST I, q. 25, a. 1, ad 4; it is
understood as referred to what is not God, therefore, and notwithstanding the
identity in re of potestas generandi and potestas creandi.

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is with the divine power.The distinction, however, is asymmetrical. In all
three cases, God, and his understanding, willing, and making, are rationally related to creatures; creatures are really related to God’s knowledge,
love, and power. The ground of the distinction between God and creatures as known and loved is the divine power, for there are no things
other than God for God to know and love unless he makes them.
The principle of the distinction of operations themselves is, as for the
divine names, the divine perfection: there is will in God because there is
knowledge (q. 19, a. 1), and there is knowledge in God because he is the
most immaterial of all things (q. 14, a. 1), and he is immaterial because
perfect (q. 4, a. 1).
Questions 27–43: The Distinction of Persons
The treatment of the Trinity begins with the processions (question 27),
finds one return in the notional acts (question 41), which are the processions considered as belonging to the persons, and another end in question
42, where we are returned to the unity of essence. Following Denys and
the Liber de causis and ultimately Proclus,Thomas distinguishes the essence,
powers, and operations of substances. Of a set purpose he has treated the
operations before the persons, contrary to the order of the Sentences,
because the principle of the processions is located in the operations.11 The
persons, to be sure, are really distinct. Paradoxically, however, the principles of the processions, which are the divine understanding and the divine
love, are not really distinct from one another. Accordingly, as speaking
proceeds from understanding, so does the Word proceed from the Father,
and in their mutual opposition of speaking-spoken, begetting-begotten,
Father and Son are really distinct from one another, but not, of course,
from the divine understanding and being. Again, in the way that the
beloved is in the lover, so the divine goodness is in the divine love, and in
their mutual opposition of “breathing” and “breathed,” Father and Son are
really distinct from the Spirit, and vice versa.
Questions 44–119: The Distinction of Creatures
The treatment of creatures begins with the procession of all things from
God (question 44), proceeds through the distinction of creatures angelic,
corporeal, and human, each considered distinctly, and ends in the unity
of the divine government of all things. On this level, we come at last to
a distinction of natures, of one created nature from another, and of each
from the divine nature. The principle of the distinction is the divine
11 Hankey, God in Himself, 27ff.

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wisdom (q. 47, a. 1), and the principle of the reality of the distinction is
the divine will and power.Accordingly, as the divine wisdom is expressed
in the Word, one can of course also say that the second Person is the principle of the distinction of creatures, and as the divine love proceeds in the
Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the principle of the production of creatures. It is to be remembered, however, that the love of God whence creatures proceed is free. One can say that there is a convenientia in the fact
that supreme Goodness shares itself with others, and this convenientia, as
well as the distinction of creatures, is an object of the divine wisdom.
Because creatures are no necessary means to God’s love and enjoyment
of himself, however, they are willed freely.
This freedom embraces both the fact of there being any thing distinct
from God, and the array of creatures the divine will chooses.12 The infinity of the divine being means that it is infinitely imitable and thus not
perfectly imitable by any one created and finite nature, however richly
endowed.There will therefore be many created natures in the world (q.
47, a. 1). A real world, however, must contain natures that are compossible, and must necessarily be finite as to both the kinds and numbers of
kind of creatures (see q. 7, aa. 2 and 4). So there is a choice of kinds.This
choice is not arbitrary, and cannot be, for in each case the creature, as an
imitation of divine goodness, is good.And that is a sufficient reason of its
being chosen (see q. 19, a. 2).
The Prima Secundae
Last, there is the circle of salvation. The nature and end of the divine
government of men is considered, beginning with the questions on man’s
end (questions 1–5 of the prima secundae ); passing through the consideration of human acts, their intrinsic principles, the divine and indeed
supernatural principles of law and grace that enable human acts to bear
on the end; and finishing with the merit by which the acts attain the end
(question 114).
The distinction of natures necessarily brings with it a distinction of
ends, since each nature moves to its own end, its own “happiness” as
suited to that end, to which end there is inscribed in each nature a natural desire. Nature, end or proportionate end, natural desire—all these are
strictly coordinate with one another.13 To say “proportionate end,”
however, bespeaks an end beyond the proportion of nature.To distinguish
between the proportionate end of human nature and the supernatural
12 See John H. Wright, S.J., The Order of the Universe in the Theology of St. Thomas

(Rome: Gregorian University, 1957), on the parts and order of the created world.
13 For texts, see Aertsen, Nature and Creature, 342–50.

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599

end of human nature is to report the fact of Christian hope over against
the world of Aristotelian nature, as its foil.Again, every nature is by itself,
“naturally,” in potency to its end, as to its characteristic (typical, specific,
determinate) end. This is played off against “obediential potency,” the
potency whereby a creature is in potency to a supernatural end, supposing God has so ordained things.14
The principle by which there can be distinguished a proportionate end
and a supernatural end for human beings and angels is not the natures
themselves just as such and insofar as they are distinct from God. Rather,
supposing the distinction of the natures from God, it resides in the divine
wisdom, goodness, and freedom as envisioning, loving, and choosing an
end for angels and men beyond the proportion of their nature.
The distinction of ends, natural and supernatural, is a greater distinction than that of the natures themselves. It presupposes the distinction of
natures, but then distinguishes ends in such a way that God is introduced
into the world in a way one could not predict or expect on the basis of
creation alone, when that means merely “something distinct from God.”
The Concrete Realization of Our End
The tertia pars lays out the conditions of the realization of our end, which
are Christ and the sacraments of Christ. De facto, the Incarnation is
presented as occurring on condition of sin; it depends on the logically
prior divine permission of sin.The distinction between the divine positive willing of the good and the divine permitting of evil is no real
distinction in God, although, should creatures sin, it entails a real distinction in creation between creatures as they should be and creatures as they
in fact are. That is, the realization of sin, the failure of created freedom,
introduces a distinction between fallen and sinful creation and creation as
willed by God. It is the only distinction that does not depend on God. It
depends on God only in that the creatures who sin depend on God. But
sin itself is not willed by God in any way, either directly, as an end or a
means, or indirectly (ST I, q. 19, a. 9, ad 3).Whatever is, of course, is good,
and so willed by God.That the distinction between fallen and originally
willed man can occur at all therefore depends strictly on the analysis of
moral evil as a privation. All other distinctions, distinctions involving
natural evil, and distinctions involving punishment and healing grace and
14 For texts and a brief account of the quarrel over the application of the notion of

obediential potency to man’s end, see Aertsen, 290–92, 364–66. For a defense of
the intelligibility and faithfulness to St.Thomas of Cardinal Cajetan’s use of the
notion, see Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According to St.
Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010), 101–65.

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forgiveness after sin, depend originally on the divine wisdom, goodness,
and freedom.
Observations
From the simplicity of God and the Trinity of Persons within the unity
of the divine nature, we come to many composite natures, to a more than
natural end for the rational nature, and to the strange condition under
which that end is achieved, the mission of the Son, according to which
we behold a created reality not only sustained by the divine power but a
created nature in which a divine person subsists.The actual complications
of reality go far beyond that of the distinction and multiplicity of creatures, given the supernatural character of man’s end, grace, the permission
of evil, and the Incarnation of the Son.
In the progression from names and perfections to operations and
thence to persons, the distinctions of divine persons are the first real
distinctions.They are presupposed to the subsequent distinction of creator
and creature, but unlike all other real distinctions, they do not depend in
some way on freedom, and they are the only real distinctions that are not
a function of choice, divine or angelic or human.15 That there be any
distinction of natures, on the other hand, is a function of the divine
choice.16 The distinction between good and evil moral actions, another
real distinction, depends on the angelic and human will. One may say that
the distinction between good and evil is a function of the divine wisdom
and goodness; it does not, however, distinguish anything real until there
exist evil actions, which, supposing the divine permission, are a function
of created will and in no way—directly or indirectly—of the divine will.17
Given the Incarnation, it can even be said that the will of a divine person
responds to created personal freedom.18 This is a novum, for even with the
reality of sin the divine will should not be said to “respond” to created,
personal will, so much as to have willed consequences to foreseen free
choices even when such choices are defective.“Before ever a word is on my
15 To be sure, the fact that the distinction of the divine persons is not an object of

divine choice does not render the distinction opposed to the divine will or mean
that the persons are a result of an “impersonal” nature. I thank Christopher
Malloy for this precision.
16 Recall that according to Summa theologiae I, q. 15, a. 2, corpus and ad 3, the divine
ideas are multiplied only according to the actual existence of creatures. Therefore, I say not simply that the distincta, but that the distinctions, are a function of
the divine choice.
17 See ST I, q. 19, a. 9.
18 See Robert Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure
(Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994), 75.

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tongue, you knew it through and through,” and “all my days were made
known to you before one of them came into being” (Ps 139). Given the
Incarnation, however, the human will of the Son of God freely responds to
the will of Mary and Joseph, of Peter, of Zacchaeus, of Pilate. The Son of
God responds, via his human will.The condition of the possibility of “theodrama” is the Incarnation, not the creation of finite freedom all by itself.
It is to be observed that the divine freedom plays a crucial role at five
places in the ever richer array of distinctions, aspects, persons, etc. in their
ordered descent and ascent: first, for the creation of anything whatsoever
that is really distinct from the divine nature; second, for the array of
created natures actually obtaining; third, for the call of man to a supernatural end, the vision of God; fourth, for the permission of sin; and fifth,
for the Incarnation of the Word.
The assertion of the first freedom is express and prominent in ST I, q.
19, aa. 3 and 4.The assertion of the second is implied at q. 47, a. 1, ad 2.
The assertion of the third is to be found by implication wherever the
gratuity of the end or superaddedness of grace and the gifts is asserted.19
The assertion of the fourth is deployed already in ST I, q. 19, a. 9, ad 3.20
The assertion of the fifth freedom is express at ST III, q. 1, a. 2.
Freedom and Necessity in the Exitus and Reditus
In the remainder of this essay I will concentrate mainly on the first and
third moments of the divine freedom, but they are all important ways in
which St.Thomas modifies neo-Platonism, and modifies it in order, as it
were, to Christianize it. Neo-Platonism unmodified and indeed insufficiently modified by Christianity has the following features. First, it is a
metaphysics in which the One necessarily overflows, in which the world
necessarily proceeds from the One. Plotinus:
The One has no such end [to which it moves], so we must not consider
that it moves. If anything comes into being after it, we must think that
it necessarily does so while the One remains continually turned toward
itself.21
19 ST I, q. 12, a. 4; q. 56, a. 3; q. 62, aa. 1 and 2; I–II, q. 62, a. 1; q. 68, a. 1; q. 106, a.

1, ad 2; q. 109, aa. 2 and 5; q. 112, a. 1; q. 114, a. 2.
20 The possibility that the angels may take such permission is asserted at ST I, q.

63, a. 1, and actuality of the angelic taking of the permission at ST I, q. 63, a. 3.
The possibility that man may take such permission is to be found in ST I–II, q.
18, aa. 1–4, and again at qq. 75–80; and the actuality of man’s taking the permission is found at ST I–II, qq. 81–83, where Adam’s sin is taken as a fact.
21 Plotinus, Enneads, trans. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1978–1988) V.1.6.ll.16–19. Numbers following chapter numbers in citations

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And:
[The second] must be a radiation from it [the One] while it remains
unchanged, like the bright light of the sun. . . . All things which exist,
as long as they remain in being, necessarily produce from their own
substances . . . a surrounding reality directed to what is outside them, a
kind of image of the archetypes from which it was produced.22

In the great treatise on the freedom of the One, Plotinus is concerned to
deny that the One is subject to coercion or some law extrinsic to it in
producing the world or that the world occurs by chance. Rather, in
choosing himself, the One chooses himself as the producer or, perhaps
better, the production of all things. But it is not to be thought that
another choice of himself could have been made; what is, is best and so
must be as it is.23 Proclus takes the same view of the necessity of the first
principle’s production.24 For Christian neo-Platonism, this view is an
invitation to say that God necessarily creates the world.
Second, in unmodified neo-Platonism, what emanates from the One
necessarily returns and returns perfectly to the One. Plotinus:
[T]his is the soul’s true end, to touch that light [of the One] and see it
by itself, not by another light, but by the light which is also its means
of seeing. It must see that light by which it is enlightened.25

For Christian neo-Platonism, this translates into the view that God must
call his rational and intellectual creatures to the divine beatitude of the
vision of God. Correlatively, this is the view that there is an innate, natural
desire in man for the vision of God, in the same way that Plotinus thinks
to the Enneads are to the line numbers (ll.) in Armstrong’s edition. I will use
Armstrong’s translation exclusively when citing the Enneads.
22 Ibid.,V.1.6.ll.29–34. In this passage, Plotinus denies that the second comes from
the One by “any inclination or act of will”; he means, by any act of will that
could be distinct from the One. In VI.8 he identifies the One with such an act.
23 See Ibid.,VI.8.13.ll.28–29:“[I]t is not possible to apprehend him [the One] without the will to be by his own agency what he is.”And ll.33–34:“For what could
he have wished to be except this which he is?”
24 Proclus, The Elements of Theology, trans. (with commentary) E. R. Dodds (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1933), 29–33, Propositions 25, 26, 27; idem, Commentary on
Plato’s Timaeus, in Proclus on the Causes of the Cosmos and its Creation, ed. and trans.
David T. Ruina and Michael Share, vol. 2, bk. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), at 29e1–2; 229, on the eternity of creation, and 230, the standard illustrations of sun and fire.
25 Plotinus, Enneads V.3.17.ll.34–37. See VI.8.15. For Proclus, see The Elements of
Theology, 35–37, Propositions 31, 32, 33; and Jean Trouillard, L’Un et l’Âme, 84ff.

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there is an innate, natural desire in man to return to the One.26 This issue,
to be sure, has been more prominent than the first; it is the issue of whether
Henri de Lubac’s Surnaturel is thinkable as a Christian dogmatic position.
It would seem that it is not; for if the desire is innate, it is unconditional,
and if it is unconditional, it proves the possibility of the vision of God.27
Third, in Plotinus and Proclus, what emanates from the One is a kind
of plenum, a “greater world than which cannot be thought,” for the
Good is ungrudging, and whatever it can produce it does produce.
Fourth, in Plotinus at any rate, if not in Proclus, it is a metaphysics where
evil is necessarily enacted by finite freedom. I return to this briefly in the
next section. Fifth, because the world is a plenum, because the world itself
is the fullest revelation of God possible, there can be no such thing as
“special revelation” or such revelation as is comprised in the Incarnation.
I have explored the third and fifth issue elsewhere. Here, I concentrate on
the freedom of creation and the distinct freedom of the rational and
intellectual creatures’ call to a supernatural end—the two moments of the
divine freedom that were embraced in the phrase “double gratuity.”
The second issue, that of our end, is perhaps easier to focus than the
first.An innate, natural desire for the vision of God really does destroy the
supernatural and un-owed character of the destiny we have been assigned
in the providence of God and the gratuity of grace which moves us to
the end, and so is contrary to Catholic teaching.That it denies the gratuity of grace is massively demonstrated by Lawrence Feingold. Its contrariety to Catholic doctrine finds expression in Pius XII’s Humani Generis.
Its existential or dramatic import is easy to see, too. To say I cannot be
happy unless I see God face to face, and this by my nature, paradoxically
destroys the quality of Christian final happiness, which depends precisely
on its unexpected character, its quality as a gift that need not be given
but that, beyond all that we could naturally hope for, has been given.28
The difficulty of the distinction of ends, natural and supernatural,
depends on two things. First, there is the fact that what is first given to the
Christian mind is the supernatural end. Second, there is the way in which
this fact is given to us.The full and perfect knowledge of our supernatural
26 Plotinus, Enneads VI.9.9.
27 See Lawrence Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God, xxiii–xxxvii.
28 I think de Lubac is correct that his formulation escapes the condemnation of

Humani Generis but only, as it were, on a technicality, in that he can say that while
God could create some intellectual creature not ordered to the vision of God, so
satisfying the letter of Pius XII, God has in fact created human beings such that
by their nature they are so ordered. His position nonetheless does not escape the
existential or dramatic consideration I allege.

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end is given only with Christ.The New Testament, furthermore, gives us
to say not only that its realization de facto is through Christ and by our
inclusion in Christ, but also that the presupposition of this end is creation in
Christ (Col 1:16).29 Because we are created in Christ, it cannot be that we
are not called to the supernatural end of conformation to Christ. If we are
created in and by and for Christ, if creation is so conceived as to make one
thing in fact with the order of redemption according to which our final
destiny is to be taken up into the Trinitarian relations as sons of God
conformed to Christ by the Spirit, it can seem that it is not possible to
think that the gift of creation is logically distinct from the gift of grace and
sonship. Only slowly do we come to understand that we do not see any
necessity connecting our end to Christ and our beginning to creation in
Christ.We see the “one thing” that being created, being created in Christ,
being redeemed by Christ, is. Only slowly do we see that, even so, being
called to intimacy with God is not necessarily given with the divine will
to create precisely as such.And given such an invitation, only slowly do we
see that Christ, the Incarnation of the Word, is no necessary way to the
attainment of our supernatural end, even under the condition of sin.
The Fathers, after all, do not discuss the gratuity of our end. It is implicitly asserted at the Second Council of Orange. For magisterial teaching
bearing on this issue clearly and distinctly focused, however, we must wait
for the condemnation of Baius and the teaching of modern times
contained in Dei Filius (First Vatican Council) and Humani Generis.30
Even so,“not seeing a necessity” is not enough. In itself it permits, but
does not require, the assertion of gratuity, double gratuity. The positive
assertion of gratuity requires a demonstration. Only when a consideration of man as having a nature meets man as created and called by God
does such a demonstration become possible. St. Augustine knows of the
gratuity of our end, but it does not occur to him expressly to measure it
against a natural end, because he does not think in terms of natures.31
29 I mean, of course, the incarnate Christ. See Pierre Benoît, O.P.,“Préexistence et

incarnation,” Revue Biblique 77 (1970): 5–29.
30 See Denzinger Schönmetzer (Enchiridion Symbolorum, 32nd ed.: hereafter DS)

3005 (Dei Filius ), DS 3891 (Humani Generis ). Second Orange (DS 337) and
Pelagius I (DS 443) make the beatitude of man depend on grace. Pius XI, in
Casti Connubii (DS 3714) has it that grace is the principle of supernatural life;
this is indirectly asserted at Second Orange (DS 373 and 377), where grace is
opposed to a purely natural principle.
31 Nor, of course, has the distinction between the natural and the supernatural orders
been worked out, the work of the first part of the thirteenth century. See Bernard
Lonergan, S.J., Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas
Aquinas, ed. J. Patout Burns (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), 13–19.

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The first issue, too, the gratuity of creation, is of crucial import. Denying the gratuity of creation changes the quality of the drama just as much
as does denying the second. The difference between neo-Platonism and
Christianity is sometimes downplayed in one fashion or another, but I
think wrongly. Notwithstanding Jean Trouillard, it is very difficult to
extricate Plotinian emanation from the necessity commonly associated
with it.32 Notwithstanding A. Hilary Armstrong, Christianity can by no
means be satisfied with holding that the only necessity we need be
concerned to deny is the necessity that depends on a principle extrinsic
to God.33 For his part, Eric Perl does not downplay the difference, but
rather thinks the ordinarily supposed Christian alternative to emanation
cannot be stated without contradiction.34
To think the difference small compromises the unconditionality of the
gift of being and destroys the astonishment the Christian experiences of
our being here at all, which cannot be elicited if it cannot be played off
against the possibility, really thinkable, that we had never been.The Christian character of the astonishment is parasitic on the apprehension that we
need not be here at all in any sense or under any aspect or description
whatsoever.To say we must be created, even when the necessity is said to
be a necessity of love, will therefore change the quality of our gratitude.
If I am in any sense necessary to God, then it seems strictly to follow that,
did I not exist, God would be other than he is. Plotinus denies this,35 but

32 Jean Trouillard, La Procession Plotinienne (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,

1955), 69–80. Trouillard thinks opposing the operation of nature to personal
initiative is “un peu facile” (76), and that we ought to think of emanation as
beyond necessity and contingence (80). See also his “Procession néoplatonicienne
et création judeo-chrétienne,” in Néoplatonisme: mélanges offerts à Jean Trouillard
Cahiers de Fontenay nos. 19–22 (Fontenay-les-Roses, 1981), 1–30, esp. at 10.
33 A. Hilary Armstrong, “Plotinus and Christianity,” in Platonism in Late Antiquity,
ed. Stephen Gersh and Charles Kannengiesser (Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1992), 115–30, at 121–22, where he thinks the alternative to
Plotinus is a “bare” and arbitrary act of will. See also his “Two Views of Freedom:
A Christian Objection in Plotinus, Enneads VI.8[39]7, 11–15?” in Studia Patristica, XVII, Part 1 (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), 397–406.
34 Eric D. Perl, Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2007), 49–51. For Perl, the One
should not be said to overflow so much as to be Overflowing; the One is not a
Producer so much as Production. And if we say the One overflows of necessity,
this should not be understood to mean that the One submits to some law distinct
from or extrinsic to itself. Perl undertakes in this book to show again and again
the identity of doctrine of Plotinus, Proclus, and Dionysius.
35 Plotinus, Enneads V.1.6.ll.23–27.

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one wonders with what coherence, if it be the case that the One produces
by choosing himself as the source of all that he produces.36
At the conclusion of this section, I wish to emphasize that the differences between Christian tradition and neo-Platonism on these two issues
are not, for the Catholic Christian, merely speculative, such that we can
incline to one or the other as we weigh the arguments. Rather, they are
doctrinal.The necessities included in the neo-Platonic view are contrary
to defined Catholic doctrine.This is easiest to see with regard to the freedom of creation. Irenaeus and Augustine provide very clear statements of
God’s freedom in creating.37 There is the implication of the condemnation of Pelagianism for the gratuity not only of grace but of our end.
Explicit magisterial assertions of the gratuities are, however, late.Why the
doctrines in question are articulated so late in Christian tradition is
another question, but in part, one suspects the role of neo-Platonism itself.
Henological Necessity and Ontological Freedom
It is now time to show how this difference between neo-Platonism and
Christianity, between Plotinus and St. Thomas, flows from certain basic
principles.
For the necessities in Plotinus, we can repair to an article by Leo
Sweeney,“Basic Principles in Plotinus’ Philosophy.”The principles are three.

36 Ibid.,VI.8.20.ll.14–19 and VI.8.14.ll.41–42. For the One as origin of all else by

first choosing itself to be such, see Trouillard, Procession, 80; John Rist, Plotinus:
The Road to Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 83; Georges
Leroux, “Human Freedom in the Thought of Plotinus,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Plotinus, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), 292–93; and Maria Luisa Gatti,“Plotinus:The Platonic Tradition and
the Foundation of Neoplatonism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, 30.
37 See The Teachings of the Church Fathers, ed. John R.Willis, S.J. (New York: Herder
and Herder, 1966), no. 84. There are not so many clear witnesses here as one
might expect. On the other hand, moreover, there is this from Gregory of
Nazianzen: “But since this movement of self-contemplation alone could not
satisfy Goodness, but Good must be poured out and go forth beyond Itself to
multiply the objects of Its beneficence, for this is essential to the highest Goodness, He first conceived the Heavenly and Angelic Powers” (Oration 38, On the
Theophany or Birthday of Christ, ix, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol.
7, ed. Philip Schaff [New York: The Christian Literature Co., 1984], 347). The
very nature of God as goodness requires the production of creatures, and this
seems as Plotinian as one could want. It is worthwhile to note that John Damascene’s paraphrase of this passage in the Orthodox Faith II, 2, removes any note of
necessity, and makes it rather a statement of suitability, of convenientia.

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First,“to be real is to be one.”38 This means that nothing distinct from the
One can be adequately distinct from it and still real.Accordingly, as distinctions are real, one proceeds into unreality.This means further that the principle of contradiction, a principle of being, after all, does not have universal
empire.What follows from the One both is and is not the One.39 Second,
“whatever is genuinely real must by that very fact cause subsequent realities,
which turn back to their source”40 in love and desire. The emanation of
being from the One cannot not happen, and the One is at once the Good,
“good to others by producing them automatically and necessarily, good for
others as the object of their seeking.”41 The return, further, is to the One
itself in itself.There is no end for creatures that is not “supernatural.”42 Third
and last, “whatever is prior is of greater reality than that which is subsequent.”43 And this gives us a universe not of two, but of many grades, at least
those four great grades of the One, Intellect, Soul, and nature.
The first principle is the most important.44 Here is a nice expression
of it:
Everything which is brought into being by something else is either in
that which made it or in another thing, if there is something after what
made it. . . .The last and lowest things, therefore, are in the last of those
before them, and these are in those prior to them, and one thing is in
another up to the First, which is the Principle.45

This first principle finds very clear expression, moreover, in Proclus’s
Elements, Proposition 30: “All that is immediately produced by any principle both remains in the producing cause and proceeds from it.” And
Proclus explains:
In so far . . . as it has an element of identity with the producer, the product remains in it; in so far as it differs, it proceeds from it. But being like
it, it is at once identical with it in some respects and different from it:

38 Leo Sweeney, “Basic Principles in Plotinus’ Philosophy,” in Divine Infinity in

Greek and Medieval Thought (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), 250. This article first
appeared in 1961 in the Gregorianum.
39 Ibid. For Proclus, see Jean Trouillard, L’Un et l’Âme, 8.
40 Sweeney, “Basic Principles,” 251.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid., 252.
44 Sweeney sends us to Enneads V.5.5.ll.11ff.,VI.6.1.ll.1ff and ll.19ff.,VI.9.1.ll.1ff.
45 Plotinus, Enneads V.5.9.ll.1ff. And see, toward the end of the chapter, ll.30ff.

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accordingly, it both remains and proceeds, and the two relations are
inseparable.46

Dodds comments:
It will be noticed that Pr[oclus] does not in the present passage attempt
to determine in what sense the lower is “in” the higher, and in what
sense outside it; but elsewhere (in Tim. I.210.2) he has the interesting
phrase heautois men proelêluthe, menei de tois theois [while they proceed to
themselves they remain in the gods]. If this be pressed, it must mean
that the separateness of the lower is an illusion resulting from a partial
point of view, and it follows that the sensible and the intelligible cosmos
are both of them appearance, and only the One fully real.This doctrine
was never accepted by the Neoplatonists, but they often seem to be on
the verge of falling into it.47

It may be added further that between the first and the second principles there is the tension of how the One, which as the Good necessarily
produces what is good, necessarily produces also what is bad because in
some way separate from—not one with—the One. In this sense, evil is
built in to the universe necessarily.The sin of the soul in descending and
completing the universe manifests in its ambiguity the original procession from the One itself.48
When we turn to St.Thomas, we see that it is true that he shares with
Plotinus the conviction that whatever wealth creatures have is already in
God.The creatures themselves, however, are not in God.The first principle of Plotinus that Sweeney picks out, by contrast, means that in some
way they are in God. “Every effect is distinct from and yet identified with
its cause.”49 This is a function of neo-Platonist henological commitment.
46 Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 35. See Proposition 35: “Every effect remains

in its cause, proceeds from it, and reverts upon it.”
47 Dodds, commentary on Prop. 30, in Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 217.
48 See for example Plotinus, Enneads IV.8.5.ll.17–18. See John M. Rist,“The Prob-

lem of ‘Otherness’ in the Enneads,” in idem, Platonism and Its Christian Heritage
(London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), VIII, which originally appeared in Le
Néoplatonisme. Colloque international du C.N.R.S, Royaumont, juin 1969 (Paris:
Editions du C.N.R.S., 1973), 77–87, at 84 (commenting on Enneads III.8.8):
“[H]e says that the One somehow desired to possess all things, and it would have
been better if this had not been the case. The only thing that this can mean, if
Plotinus’ consistency is to be saved, is that if things other than the One are to
exist, evil must ultimately exist.” Cf. St.Thomas, for whom there can be no naturally evil angel, ST I, q. 63, a. 4.
49 Leo Sweeney, “Doctrine of Creation in the Liber de Causis,” in Divine Infinity,
289–307, at 306. Sweeney is speaking of Proclus, but this is true of Plotinus too.

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St. Thomas, by contrast, must be described as an “ontologist.” For him,
the first name of God is “He Who Is.” Sweeney:
In a position where reality is coterminous with being, real distinction
is almost a law of reality: for A and B both to be real, A must have its
own being, and B, its own. If A is B, then one or the other loses its own
entity and is unreal.50

Here, the world is not God and God is not the world, both are (analogously) real, and they are adequately distinct.
The difference can be expressed in terms of otherness. Things are
other than the One, but the One is not other than the things; it is not
constituted by otherness.51 If the One were other than things, they and
the world of them could not exist. Neither is God constituted by otherness; that is, he does not need to be other than the world in order to be
himself in the way the world needs to be other than God in order to be
the world.52 In fact, however, not only is the world other than God, God
is other than the world.
For St. Thomas, ens et unum convertuntur, and there is no One beyond
being that can escape the law of non-contradiction. Real distinction
between the First and what proceeds from the First is therefore symmetrical.This means that distinction must be a function of principles wholly
within being, as it is not in neo-Platonism.53 Material individuals of the
same kind are distinct in virtue of primary matter, and kinds are distinct
in their essences or natures. The adequate distinction of natures within
the world that St.Thomas finds in Aristotle is adjusted to be able also to
express the difference between God and the world. God is beyond the
world, but not beyond being. The natures or essences of created things
are limits, measures, whereby one kind must in some way or ways not be
another kind in order to be itself, as God, whose essence is infinite, need
not be. Still, no created nature is the divine nature, and the divine nature
is not any created nature.
This has consequences. Let us take up Aristotle’s definition in the
Physics according to which nature is a principle of motion and rest in that
to which it belongs essentially and not accidentally,54 or, in the Latin St.
50 Sweeney, “Basic Principles,” 250.
51 Perl, Theophany, 25. See also Eric Perl, “ ‘The Power of All Things’: The One as

Pure Giving in Plotinus,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 71 (1997):
301–14, at 308; and Rist, “The Problem of ‘Otherness.’ ”
52 Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason, 33, 36.
53 Proclus, Elements, Prop. 92.
54 Aristotle, Physics, II.1; 192b22–23.

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Thomas worked with: principium motus et quietis in eo in quo est primo et per
se et non secundum accidens.55 Natures, in an ontology, will be specifically
adequately distinct. “Essentially and not accidentally”: that is, the nature
will be predicated of the individual according to the predicable relation
of species, composed of genus and difference, and not as an accident (for
instance, as “medical” is said of Peter). “Motion and rest”: for corporeal
natures, the motion and rest can be understood as materially conditioned;
more broadly, the nature is a principle of operations (motions), where
operations are defined by their objects, and where the possession of the
objects is the successful deployment of the operation (rest). Moreover, the
hierarchically ordered ensemble of operations delimits an end coordinate
and specific to the nature. It may be that, generically, the angelic and
human natures are ordered to a knowledge of the true, of being. Human
nature, however, is specifically ordered but to an analogical knowledge of
immaterial being, on the basis of the knowledge of its proper object, the
abstract quiddity of material objects.
What, then, of the divine production of the world? Is it part of the
divine nature to produce other natures? This is to ask whether it is the
nature of infinite will willing infinite good actually possessed to will finite
goods.And the answer is of course “No.”There can be no necessary reason
within the divine nature considered as an order unto its own end, the
possession of itself in knowledge and love, also to will what is absolutely
not required for the divine perfection and the divine felicity. So, if God
wills there to be finite natures, it is by freedom, it is by will, and it is for
the reasonable and suitable end of sharing his goodness with others.
Natura comes from nasci, to be born, as St. Thomas often reminds us.
A form may appear by generation or by art. By art, beds come from
carpenters. By generation, a man comes from a man—fit enim ex homine
homo.56 God does not birth the world. Creatures come from God as from
the divine practical wisdom. If we are in the image of God, we do not
have the divine form.
Distinct natures have distinct finalities, distinct ends. Determinate ends
are correlated to determinate intrinsic principles or natures.57 A created
nature, in an ontology, therefore, cannot just of itself have the same end as
55 St Thomas, In octo libros Physicorum Aristotetis Expositio, ed. P. M. Maggliòlo

(Rome: Marietti, 1954), book II, lect. 2, no. 145.
56 Ibid., bk. II, lect. 2, no. 154.
57 Ibid., bk. II, lect. 14, no. 267:“Haec enim dicuntur esse secundum naturam, quae-

cumque ab aliquo principio intrinseco moventur continue, quousque perveniant
ad aliquem finem; non in quodcumque contingens, neque a quocumque principio in quemcumque finem, sed a determinato principio in determinatum finem.”

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the divine nature. If it has the same end, it is the same nature, and there is
no creation.Yes, there is a procession from God within God and so within
the same nature according to which one really distinct from the Father has
the same end as the Father, and that is the procession of the Word. But if
human nature is to have the same end as the divine, a fact even whose possibility cannot be naturally known, it will be by superadded, supernatural gift.
The two issues of origin and end are intimately connected. Natural
desire necessarily calls for a perfect return to the One, or God. But natural desire for perfect enjoyment of divinity means that the nature itself is
divine. And this is to say that putatively created nature proceeds naturally,
and so necessarily, from God.We are consors naturae divinae by reason of our
substantial being, and not by reason of a superadded gift. In other words,
almost perfect neo-Platonists like Henri de Lubac and John Milbank, who
assert more or less clearly the necessity of the perfect return,58 cannot
coherently save their positions from the even more perfect—that is to say,
unmodified—neo-Platonism of Sergius Bulgakov and, at least in Eric
Perl’s presentation of him, Denys the Areopagite, who assert not only the
necessity of the return but the necessity of “creation” as well.59
The point, the necessity of the assertion of double gratuity, emerges.
To be sure, in one and the same act of will, which is the divine being,
God wills the world, and the supernatural end of man, and the Incarnation. But that man be called to a supernatural end cannot be contained
in the bare idea of man’s nature. Nothing except God naturally sees God.
Not even God can think up something really distinct from himself that
by its nature should aspire to the vision of God. So, while the creation of
man and his supernatural end may be willed in the same act of the one
divine willing, they cannot be willed as one object with one intelligibility. Just as alone by God’s freedom can there be another nature than his,
so alone by his freedom could that nature have its point of return in him
N&V
as he knows himself, in the way he possesses himself.
58 For Milbank, see his The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate concern-

ing the Supernatural (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 26, n. 10; 29, 102.
Milbank is very aware of the neo-Platonist character of his position; see 28,
50–55 (Pico della Mirandola), 101.
59 For Bulgakov, see his The Lamb of God, trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2008), 120–21 (necessity of creation), 169–70, 187 (necessity of a
supernatural end).The return is altogether necessary for the neo-Platonic way in
that, according to Perl, the difference between exitus and reditus is but perspectival; see Perl, Theophany, 38, 40. Bulgakov asserts the necessity of creation also in
The Bride of the Lamb, trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002),
44–46, where one also finds expression (200) of Plotinian and Proclan plenitude—the idea that the world exhausts the creative power of God.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 8, No. 3 (2010): 613–26

613

Unbelief and Sin in Thomas Aquinas
and the Thomistic Tradition
T HOMAS M. O SBORNE J R .
University of St.Thomas
Houston,Texas

D URING the last twenty years some theologians have supported their
understanding of how unbelievers might be saved by appealing to Thomas
Aquinas and the development of his thought by sixteenth-century Dominicans at Salamanca.1 These Salamancan Dominicans applied Thomas’s
thought in the context of the New World’s discovery.These recent theologians attribute two claims to this tradition: first, that not every unbeliever is
guilty of unbelief; and second, that unbelievers can perform good acts which
in some strong manner enable them to receive grace. I shall argue that
although the first claim about the culpability of unbelief is held by the
Thomist tradition, it has no historical or logical connection to the salvation
of unbelievers. I shall argue that the second claim was not held by the tradition and that the contemporary misinterpretation results from a confusion
over the relationship between moral goodness and merit.Whereas the first
claim is historically accurate but irrelevant to the contemporary views for
which it is invoked, the second claim is historically false if attributed to
Thomas Aquinas or the Dominican tradition at Salamanca.
Francis Sullivan and Thomas O’Meara argue that the first claim that
not every infidel is guilty of unbelief is connected with the view that
1 Thomas F. O’Meara, Thomas Aquinas:Theologian (Notre Dame, IN: University of

Notre Dame Press, 1997), 235–41; idem,“The School of Thomism at Salamanca
and the Presence of Grace in the Americas,” Angelicum 71 (1994): 321–70; Francis Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church:Tracing the History of the Catholic Response
(New York: Paulist Press, 1992), 47–62, 69–76. J. A. DiNoia focuses on Thomas
himself in his The Diversity of Religions: A Christian Perspective (Washington, DC:
The Catholic University of America Press, 1992), 94–103.

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Thomas M. Osborne Jr.

God wills to save all men.2 Neither Thomas nor any of the major commentators make this connection. It is hard to imagine what the connection
could be, unless the suggestion is that those who lack faith might be saved
if they are not guilty of unbelief. But Thomas and the commentators explicitly reject this view. On their view, although not every unbeliever has sinned
through unbelief, every unbeliever has committed mortal sin for which he
will be damned if he does not repent.
In the secunda secundae pars of the Summa theologiae, Thomas distinguishes between three ways in which someone can lack or could have
lacked explicit faith in Christ.3 There are those who deliberately reject
faith, those who lack faith and yet have not explicitly rejected it, and those
before Christ who lacked explicit faith but had implicit faith. The first
category includes those who have been exposed to preaching but have not
believed, whereas the second category includes those who have not been
exposed to preaching and also have not responded to grace. Such persons
must be distinguished from those who belong to the third category, which
covers those who have not been exposed to preaching but nevertheless
have responded to grace and made an act of implicit faith.4 These persons
who have implicit faith must explicitly believe in God and providence at
least. Unlike some later Thomists, Thomas apparently denies that it is
possible after the coming of Christ for someone to be saved with only an
implicit faith in Christ. Moreover, Thomas thinks that before Christ’s
coming there were many Gentiles to whom the Incarnation was revealed.5
Consequently, although only implicit faith in Christ was necessary for
many pre-Christian Gentiles, many others had explicit faith.
In his discussion of whether unbelief is a sin, Thomas focuses on the
distinction between the first two categories. The first kind of unbelief
belongs to those who explicitly reject the faith, whereas the second kind
of unbelief is purely negative.Thomas describes the latter unbelief, since
it is involuntary, as more of a punishment of sin rather than a sin.6 Although
2 O’Meara, “School of Thomism,” 363; Sullivan, Salvation, 70–76.
3 Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II–II, q. 2, aa. 7–8; q. 10, a. 1.
4 See also Thomas Aquinas, 1 Sent., d. 33, q. 1, a. 5 in Scriptum super libros senten-

tiarum, ed. Pierre Mandonnet and M. F. Moos, 4 vols. (Paris: Lethielleux,
1929–1947), vol. 1, 777; 3 Sent., d. 25, q. 2, a. 1, sol. 1–3 (Mandonnet, vol. 3,
796–98); De veritate, q. 14, aa. 11–12 (Thomas Aquinas, Opera Omnia, Leonine ed.
[Rome: Commissio Leonina, 1884–], vol. 22, 469–73); Super epistolam ad Hebraeos
lectura, cap. 11, lect. 2, n. 576, in Super epistolas S. Pauli lectura, 8th ed., ed. Raphael
Cai, 2 vols. (Turin: Marietti, 1953), vol. 2, 463.
5 “[D]icendum quod multis gentilium facta fuit revelatio de Christi.” ST II–II, q.
2, a. 7, ad 3.
6 Cf. ST II–II, q. 34, a. 3, ad 2.

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615

this purely negative unbelief is not sinful in itself,Thomas emphasizes that
those who die in such unbelief will be damned. Thomas states that no
one without faith can be saved. He writes,“But those who are unbelievers in this way are damned on account of other sins, since without faith
they are not able to be forgiven: but they are not damned on account of
the sin of unbelief.”7
If Thomas thinks that all unbelievers are damned, why does he distinguish between those who commit a sin of unbelief and those who are
unbelievers in a merely negative sense? The key issue here is over the
responsibility of the agent. He is not addressing the question of whether
every unbeliever is guilty of mortal sin, but rather whether every unbeliever is guilty of that particular mortal sin which is unbelief. Many of his
colleagues and predecessors at the University of Paris assumed that everyone is offered faith and concluded that every unbeliever has rejected faith.
This position was held by William of Auvergne (d. 1249), William of
Auxerre (d. 1231), the Summa Halesiana, and in a way even by Bonaventure (d. 1274).8 They argue that if someone has not been exposed to
Christian preaching then God will send someone to him or at least
instruct the individual interiorly. Since they hold that everyone is offered
faith, they also hold that there is no purely negative unbelief. In their
view, every unbeliever is guilty of the mortal sin of unbelief.
It is important to recognize that Thomas does not reject their view
that every unbeliever is in some way culpable. In some passages Thomas
even states that God would send a preacher to someone whom he
7 “Qui autem sic sunt infideles damnantur quidem propter alia peccata, quae sine

fide remitti non possunt: non autem damnantur propter infidelitatis peccatum.”
ST II–II, q. 10, a. 1.
8 William of Auvergne, De Fide, cap. 2, in Opera Omnia, 2 vols. (Paris: Pralard, 1674;
repr. Minerva: Frankfurt am Main, 1963), vol. 1, 7–13, but esp. 11–12; idem, De
Legibus, cap. 21, in Opera Omnia, vol. 1, 57–59;William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea,
lib. 3, tract. 7, cap. 7, q. 4, in Spicilegium Bonaventurianum, 16–20, 5 vols (Paris:
Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1980–1987), vol. 3.1,
229–31; Summa Halesiana, II–II, inq. 3, tract. 5, sect. 2, q. 2, n. 679 in Alexander
of Hales, Summa Theologica, 3 vols. (Quarrachi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae), vol.
3, 659–70; Bonaventure, 3 Sent., d. 25, a. 1, q. 2, ad 6, in Opera Omnia, 10 vols.
(Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1882–1902), vol. 3, 541; cf. idem, 3
Sent. d. 25, a.1, q. 3, ad 5 (vol. 3, 545).These are the best examples that I could
find. For a discussion and other references, see Francis Suarez, Commentaria in
Secundam Secundae, disp. 17, sect. 1, n. 2, in Opera Omnia, ed. M. André and C.
Berton, 28 vols. (Paris:Vivès, 1856–1878), vol. 12, 424; Dominic Bañez, In II–II,
q. 10, a. 1, in Scholastica commentaria in secundam secundae (Douai: Peter Borremans,
1615), vol. 3, p. 241, col. 2 D–E.

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Thomas M. Osborne Jr.

inspires with his grace to act well.9 In the secunda secundae Thomas states
that someone might not have been exposed to faith on account of merely
original sin.10 Nevertheless, he assumes that the individual in fact
commits a mortal sin. Anyone without faith has committed a mortal sin
even if it has not been a sin of unbelief. In addition,Thomas may suggest
that those who have not been baptized can respond to grace in their first
moral act in which they can choose or reject God at least implicitly as
their ultimate end.11 But this order to God would require some sort of
faith.12 The implication is that an agent could be justified and consequently receive all of the graces which belong to baptism, including faith,
in this first act. Nevertheless, even though someone who sins mortally in
this first act may not explicitly reject faith, he will still lack faith. He is
indirectly responsible for this lack of faith because he has committed
mortal sin and not been offered faith. But he is not responsible for a sin
of unbelief. Thomas resembles the other theologians in his belief that
every unbeliever has mortally sinned. He differs from the others in that
he does not think that every unbeliever has sinned against the virtue of
faith.The difference is not over whether unbelievers can be saved, but the
reasons for which unbelievers will be damned. Indeed, some theologians
9 “Si qui tamen eorum fecissent quod in se est, Dominus eis secundum suam

misericordiam providisset, mittendo eis praedicatorem fidei. . . . Sed tamen hoc
ipsum quod aliqui faciunt quod in se est, convertendo se scilicet ad Deum, ex
Deo est movente corda ipsorum ad bonum.” Aquinas, Super epistola ad Romanos
lectura, cap. 10, lect. 3, n. 849 (Marietti, vol. 1, 158). Thomas’s early writings are
less clear about the necessity of grace. See 2 Sent., d. 25, q. 2, a. 1, sol. 1 and ad
1; De veritate, q. 14, a. 11, ad 1. For a discussion, see Sullivan, Salvation, 52–55. For
the scholarship on the increasing Augustinianism of Thomas’s position, see Joseph
P.Warykow, God’s Grace and Human Action (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1995), 34–55.
10 “[T]alis ignorantia divinorum ex peccato primi parentis est consecuta.” ST II–II,
q. 10, a. 1. See also q. 4, a. 5, ad 1. Sullivan (Salvation, 54) suggests that this view
may be incompatible with Thomas’s statement that faith is given to the agent
who does what is in him ( faciens quod in se est ). I do not see why this would be
the case. For Thomas’s understanding of this dictum, see Santiago Ramirez, In
I–II, q. 112, a. 2, I, nn. 313–17, in De Gratia : In I–II Summae theologiae divi Thomae
expositio, in Opera Omnia (Salamanca: Editorial San Esteban, 1992), vol. 9,
822–26. He states (822–23): “[F]acienti quod in se est viribus gratiae actualis,
Deus non denegat gratiam habitualem seu homini se praeparanti ad gratiam
habitualem ex gratia actuali, Deus non denegat gratiam habitualem.” See also
Dominic Bañez, In I–II, q. 109, a. 6 in Comentarios a la Prima Secundae de Santo
Tomás, ed.Vincente Beltran de Heredia (Salamanca, 1932), vol. 3, 97–101.
11 ST I–II, q. 89, a. 4. For the use of this passage in the context of salvation outside
the Church, see Sullivan, Salvation, 61–62.
12 ST I–II, q. 62, a. 4; II–II, q. 4, a. 7; II–II, q. 17, aa. 7–8.

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617

are unclear on this point because they do not make such a distinction. It
is clear that on their view every unbeliever is culpable, but they are not
clear whether this culpability involves an explicit rejection of faith.13
Although Thomas’s view eventually became the common view by the
end of the sixteenth century, it had many opponents in the late Middle
Ages.14 For example, John Gerson (d. 1429), Gabriel Biel (d. 1495), and
Hadrian Dedel—later to become Pope Hadrian VI (d. 1523)—argued
that all unbelief is culpable as unbelief.15 These figures were not
concerned about salvation in the New World. Later Thomists such as
Vitoria (d. 1546) and Bañez (d. 1604) explicitly refer to this earlier tradition.16 Consequently, their defense of purely negative unbelief is a
response to an earlier medieval debate and not some new development
which opens the possibility that unbelievers in the New World might be
saved without faith.
Vitoria does make the point about purely negative unbelief in the
context of the debate over whether the Native Americans can be
conquered because they are unbelievers. Nevertheless, he refuses to make a
connection between purely negative unbelief and the salvation of the
Native Americans.17 Indeed, he explicitly states that his opponents erroneously draw this conclusion in their attempt to refute the Thomist distinction with a reductio ad absurdum: “But in this these teachers are deceived,
13 Although many Thomists cite Hugh of St.Victor as holding the rejected view

that every unbeliever is guilty of unbelief, it seems to me that Suarez’s interpretation is more accurate (In Secundam Secundae, disp. 17, sect. 1, n. 2, in Opera
Omnia, vol. 12, 424): “[S]i attente legatur, solum dicit hos infideles non salvari,
non vero dicit propter proprium et speciale peccatum infidelitatis condemnari.”
See Hugh of St.Victor, De sacramentiis, lib. 1, p. 7, cap. 32 (PL 176, col. 302). It is
hard to tell if Suarez is discussing this chapter.
14 “Nihilominus contraria sententia communis est hodie, et fere ab omnibus
recepta.” Suarez, In Secundam Secundae, disp. 17, sect. 1, n. 2, in Opera Omnia, vol.
12, 424.
15 Jean Gerson, De vita spirituali animae, lectio secunda (in principio) and lectio 4,
corr. 3, in Oeuvres complètes, ed. Palemon Glorieux, 8 vols. (Paris: Desclée, 1962),
vol. 3, 128–33, 159–60; Gabriel Biel, 2 Sent., d. 22, q. 2, a. 3, dub.1 in Collectorium circa quattuor libros sententiarum, ed. U. Hofman, W. Wilbeck, et al., 4 vols
(Mohr: Tübingen, 1973–1984), vol. 2, 460–61; Hadrian VI, Quod 4, q. 1, in
Quaestiones quodlibeticae (Venice, 1522; repr. Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press, 1964),
20r–23r, esp. 21v–22r.
16 Francis de Vitoria, De Indis II, 2, 12, in Relectio de Indis, Corpus Hispanorum de
Pace, 5, ed. L. Perena and J. M. Perez Prendes (Madrid: Consejo Superior De
Investigaciones Cientificas, 1967), 57–59. For Bañez, see In II–II, q. 10, a. 1, in
Scholastica commentaria in secundam secundae, vol. 3, p. 241, col. 2 D–E.
17 Vitoria (De Indis II, 2, 12 [Perna and Perez, 57]) cites Thomas, ST II–II, q. 10, a. 1:
“dammatur quidem propter alia peccata, sed non propter peccatum infidelitatis.”

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Thomas M. Osborne Jr.

because they think that if we hold that there is invincible ignorance
concerning baptism or faith in Christ, it follows that someone is able to
be saved without baptism or faith in Christ; but it does not follow.”18
Other theologians reject the Thomistic view because they think that it
leads to the view that Native Americans can be saved without faith.Vitoria is in total agreement concerning the absurdity of the position that
unbelievers can be saved.Vitoria differs from the others in denying that
this position is a consequence of the Thomistic view that there can be
purely negative unbelief among the Native Americans. His point has
nothing to do with the salvation of the Native Americans, but is more
narrowly about whether they are guilty of the sin of unbelief. If other
theologians could show that the Thomistic distinction between kinds of
unbelief leads to the conclusion that unbelievers can be saved, then the
Thomistic distinction would be proven false.
Vitoria’s understanding of this issue does not depart significantly from
that of Thomas or other Thomists. An exception to this approach might
be Domingo Soto (d. 1560), who at one time in his life did argue that
someone who is not exposed to the faith might be saved without eliciting any supernatural act of faith.19 But he very quickly and in print
corrected this view precisely because it is incompatible with the wider
Christian tradition. Bañez regarded it as heretical or close to heresy. It is
important that on this point Soto briefly departed not only from those
who think that all unbelief is itself a sin but also from Thomas, other
Thomists, and the Catholic tradition. With this brief exception of Soto,
the disagreement between Thomists and others is not over the salvation
of unbelievers, but over who is offered faith.All sides to this debate think
that God gives faith to everyone who does what is in them. But the
Thomists deny that God offers faith to everyone.
It is important to recognize that for Thomists it is impossible to have
charity without faith, and that the distinction between the sin of unbe18 “Sed in hoc decipiuntur isti doctores, quia putant quod si ponamus ignorantiam

invincibelem de baptismo aut fide Christi, quod statim consequitur quod possit
aliquis salvari sine baptismo aut fide Christi; quod tamen non sequitur.”Vitoria,
De Indis I, 2, 14, p. 61.
19 “Haec sententia profecto aut haeresis est, aut haeresi proxima: quamuis eam sequutus fuerit Magister Sotus lib. 2, de natura et gratia, c. 11, in impressione facta
Venetiis. Postea tamen illam retractauit ut patet in impressione facta Salmanticae
in fine quarti Sententiarum.” Dominic Bañez, In II–II, q. 2, a. 8, in Scholastica
commentaria in secundum secundae, vol. 3, p. 187, col. 2 D–E. For the change in the
Paris edition, see Dominic Soto, De natura et gratia, lib. 2, cap. 11 (Paris: Foucher,
1549; repr. Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg, 1965), 143. See O’Meara, “School,” 347–49,
esp. 348, n. 55.

Sin and Unbelief

619

lief and purely negative unbelief makes no difference with respect to the
lack of charity. Consequently, unbelievers of either stripe are equally
unable to perform meritorious acts even though they are capable of
performing good acts. The unbeliever’s good act is both truly good and
yet, strictly speaking, irrelevant to his salvation. J. A. DiNoia confuses
goodness and merit when he writes:
The choice of the particular, real human good (for Aquinas, the choice
of the moral good) is always a confirmation of the human orientation
toward enjoyment of the fullness of goodness in God. In the concrete
order of salvation, there is no such thing as moral goodness—or moral
defect, for that matter—as an ingredient of a purely natural order of
things apart from grace.20

He is not far from holding that for Thomas every morally good act,
including those of unbelievers, is in some way meritorious. O’Meara is
similarly confused when discussing the Dominican Salamancans on the
salvation of unbelievers.21 Following Thomas and most of the Catholic
tradition, the Dominicans at Salamanca do insist that unbelievers can
perform morally good acts. Following Thomas as opposed to some other
traditions, these Dominicans hold that such good acts in no way merit
eternal life.
Thomas’s distinction between goodness and merit merely reflects a
common medieval position that whereas believers can perform meritorious acts, unbelievers can perform acts which are good but not meritorious.Thomas differs from some of his contemporaries in his denial that any
particular human act can be indifferent to moral goodness or badness.22
Nevertheless, he does not depart from their position that some acts can be
indifferent to merit or demerit. For Thomas, the only such acts are the
good acts of someone who does not have charity. Since faith is required
20 DiNoia, Diversity, 97. See

also Sullivan, Salvation, 61–62; O’Meara, Thomas
Aquinas, 239.
21 O’Meara, “School,” 360, 363–65, 367.
22 ST II–II, q. 10, a. 4.The Quaestiones disputatae de malo, q. 2, a. 5, ad 7 focuses on
someone who lacks charity. I use the Leonine edition as reprinted in Richard
Regan and Brian Davies, The De Malo of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001), 168. For a discussion of Thomas’s position in its historical context, see my forthcoming “Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus on
Individual Acts and the Ultimate End,” in Philosophy and Theology in the Long
Middle Ages:A Tribute to Stephen F. Brown, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte
des Mittelalters (Leiden: Brill). For the Thomistic development, see my “The
Threefold Referral of Acts to the Ultimate End in Thomas Aquinas and His
Commentators,” Angelicum 85 (2008): 715–36.

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Thomas M. Osborne Jr.

for charity, all of an unbeliever’s good acts would fall into this category.
Thomas repeatedly makes this point throughout his writings.23
It is important in this discussion to be clear on the distinction between
moral goodness and merit. In general, evil is the privation of a due good,
and, in particular, moral evil is a privation of the due order in a voluntary act.The primary measure of moral goodness is the rule of reason, or
God’s eternal law.24 Moral goodness belongs to a voluntary act in which
nothing is lacking with respect to the order of reason in its object, end,
and circumstances.25 Any defect with respect to object, end, or circumstances takes away from the act’s goodness.26 A morally evil act lacks
something that is due to the act itself. In contrast, a morally good act that
lacks merit does not lack a due good, but merely something superadded
to it. Thomas illustrates this point by using an example from the nonmoral order.27 A horse that lacks sight or legs is defective since it lacks
what a horse should have. However, a horse that lacks rationality is not
defective, since rationality does not belong to a horse by nature. Similarly,
a naturally good act that lacks merit is not defective in the natural order,
since merit is not due to it. It lacks only the extra goodness of merit
which God would give to it if the agent possessed charity. Moral evil is
a privation in the act itself, whereas the lack of merit is only a deficiency
in the goodness which the act could have in the supernatural order that
God has freely established. A morally good but not meritorious act
implies a disorder in the agent who lacks charity.
Whereas moral goodness belongs to the act, merit requires an order to
another through justice, whether it be in the context of the political
community or in respect to God.28 For theologians, “merit” strictly
23 Aquinas, 2 Sent., d. 40, q. 1, a. 5, sol. (Mandonnet, vol. 2, 1026); 2 Sent., d. 41, q.

1, a. 1, sol. (vol. 2, 1038). See also 4 Sent., d. 39, a. 2, ad 5 (Parma, vol. 7.2, 1025);
2 Sent., d. 41, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2 (Mandonnet, vol. 2, 1039); Super epistolam ad Romanos
lectura, cap. 14, lect. 3, n. 1141 (Marietti, vol. 1, 213); Super epistolam ad Titum
lectura, cap. 1, lect. 4, n. 43 (Marietti, vol. 2, 310).
24 ST I–II, q. 21, a. 1. David M. Gallagher,“Aquinas on Goodness and Moral Goodness,” in Thomas Aquinas and His Legacy, ed. David M. Gallagher, Studies in
Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, 28 (Washington, DC: The Catholic
University of America Press), 37–60, esp. 55.
25 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 5. See also De malo, q. 2, a. 4, corp. (Regan/Davies, 152–54)
26 ST I–II, q. 18, a. 5, ad 3.
27 “[E]t ideo non oportet quod omnis eorum actus sit malus, sed solum quod deficientis bonitatis; sicut quamvis equus deficiat a rationalitate quam homo habet,
non tamen ideo malus est, sed habet bonitatem deficientem a bonitate hominis.”
Aquinas, 2 Sent., d. 41, q. 2, a. 1, sol. (Mandonnet, vol. 2, 1038). See my “Threefold Referral,” 721–23.
28 ST I–II, q. 23, a. 3.

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621

speaking refers to that merit which is in reference to eternal life or
punishment.29 An act must be morally good in order to be meritorious
with respect to God, but moral goodness is not sufficient. Strictly speaking, we cannot merit anything from God, since God cannot be in debt
to us.30 Nevertheless, for those who have charity, there is a kind of merit
and proportion.This possibility of merit is a result of God’s free decision
and is not owed to humans. Someone who has charity performs acts
which proceed not merely from his own intellect and will, but also from
the work of the Holy Spirit within him. Consequently, the morally good
acts of someone in charity can be considered in two ways.31 First, insofar as the act comes from the agent’s own free choice, the act has a
congruous merit (meritorium ex congruite ). Second, insofar as the act is a
work of the Holy Spirit, the act has a stricter condign merit (meritorium
ex condigno ). Both kinds of merit belong to one and the same act, and
differ insofar as the one act proceeds from the two distinct principles.The
first kind of merit is based loosely on a certain congruous proportion by
which God rewards the agent, whereas the second kind of merit is based
on the way in which someone with charity has been made a sharer of the
divine nature.The Holy Spirit himself acts through the agent.
Denis Janz suggests that although Cajetan (d. 1534), in his earlier
commentary on Thomas’s Summa theologiae, emphasizes that merely natural good works are not meritorious in any sense, in his later polemic
against Luther, Cajetan seems to say that they are meritorious de
congruo.32 It seems to me that although Cajetan does say that some such
acts are useful (utile ), he is not talking about merit or even about the
moral value of all good acts. In addition to other good works, Cajetan’s
examples include prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, which are acts by which
a sinner traditionally obtains mercy.33 In general,Thomists have held that
29 “Sed quia justitia reddit unicuique quod ei debetur et in bonis et in malis; bona

autem simpliciter sunt ea quae ad vitam aeternam pertinent, et mala simpliciter
ea quae ad miseriam aeternam; inde est quod secundum theologos meritum
proprie dicitur respectu horum.”Thomas Aquinas, 3 Sent., d. 18, a. 2 (Mandonnet, vol. 3, 559).
30 ST I–II, q. 114, a. 1.
31 ST I–II, q. 114, a. 3.
32 Denis R. Janz, Luther and Late Medieval Thomism:A Study in Theological Anthropology (Waterloo, Ont.:Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1983), 146–51.
33 “Vere benignissimus erga nos est Deus, providendo, ut quam in statu peccati,
mereri non possumus, remissionem peccatorum, impetrare oratione, ieiunio,
eleemosynis, aliisque bonis operibus valeamus.”Thomas de Vio Cajetan, Tractatus
undecimus de fide et operibus adversus Lutheranos, 10, in Opuscula Omnia Thomae de
Vio Caietani (Lyons, 1581; repr. Zurich: Hildesheim, 1995), 291.

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Thomas M. Osborne Jr.

merely naturally good acts can contribute in some way to obtaining
grace, but they differ about and can be unclear concerning the exact
nature of this contribution.34 Nevertheless, both Thomas and the
Thomistic tradition are clear that the good acts of unbelievers and even
sinners generally do not have even de congruo merit.
The only problematic passage for this interpretation of Thomas is in the
ST I–II, q. 21, a. 4, in which he discusses the meritoriousness of good
actions without a special reference to grace. How does this passage fit in
with Thomas’s many statements that merit requires grace? There are at
least two ways of addressing this issue. First, Cajetan points out that this
article is concerned with the act itself and not the disposition of the
agent.35 The acts which are described in this passage as meritorious are
those acts which would be meritorious if the agent were in the state of
grace. Cajetan finds support for this interpretation in the article itself, in
which Thomas states that he is discussing merit “insofar as it is from the
nature of the act.”36 I would also add that Thomas makes a similar distinction between the act and the agent in his Sentences commentary, and states
that those good acts which are performed without charity can be said to
merit only in a loose sense (improprie).37 Consequently, Cajetan rightly
suggests that Thomas is using a wider notion of “merit” here, one which
is less proper and refers to the act apart from the agent’s possession of charity. Second, Joseph Wawyrkow writes,“[T]hese articles cannot be read on
their own and they do not constitute Thomas’s major discussion of merit;
this discussion is found in 114, 1–10.”38 In this later discussion Thomas
denies the view that moral goodness is sufficient for merit.
Although Catholics denied that salvation is possible without faith,
some non-Thomistic theologians were in certain respects closer to one
view which O’Meara, Sullivan, and DiNoia attribute to Thomas and/or
34 The necessity of some sort of actual grace as a preparation for habitual grace is

made by Thomas. In such a case, there can be acts which have some sort of
salfivic value even if they are not meritorious. See Ramirez, In I–II, q. 109, a. 6,
nn. 362–89 (vol. 9, 363–78); q. 114, a. 5, nn. 606–15 (vol. 9, 1016–22).
35 Cajetan, In I–II, q. 21, a. 4 (Leonine, vol. 6, 167)
36 “[Q]uantum est ex ipsa ratione actus.” ST I–II, q. 32, a. 4, ad 3.
37 “Actio autem proportionata ad vitam aeternam est actio ex caritate facta; et ideo
per ipsam ex condigno meretur quis ea quae ad vitam aeternam pertinent. Opera
autem bona quae non sunt ex caritate facta, deficiunt ab ista proportione; et ideo
per ea ex condigno non meretur quis vitam aeternam, sed improprie his dicitur
aliquis mereri, secundum quod habent similititudinem aliquam cum operatione
informata caritate.”Thomas Aquinas, 3 Sent., d. 18, a. 2 (Mandonnet, vol. 3, 559).
38 Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Human Action, 163, n. 32.Wawrykow also argues that
there is considerable development between the early Sentences commentary and
Summa theologiae.

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the Thomistic tradition, which is that merely natural good works in some
sense merit or make salvation possible. Many theologians, especially those
who belonged to the Franciscan tradition, held that although good acts
without charity do not have condign merit, they do have a certain
congruous merit.39 This congruous merit should not be confused with
the congruous merit of the Thomist position, which results from the free
choice of someone who already has charity. Instead, they regard it as a
kind of merit which prepares the way for charity.This Thomistic emphasis should be disconcerting to those theologians who attribute to Thomas
the position that unbelievers can contribute to their salvation through
good works. Gabriel Biel, a fifteenth-century theologian who was not a
Franciscan even though he was influenced by this tradition, provides a
good example of this alternative approach. He suggests that someone
who performs certain naturally good acts will be given grace by God by
which he can be justified.40 On this view, the congruous merit in the
present order leads to the reception of charity. It is hard to find a starker
contrast with Thomas and the Thomistic tradition.41 But this view does
not entail the further position, which is incompatible with the Catholic
tradition, that salvation is possible without implicit or explicit faith.
The Dominicans at Salamanca are conspicuously notable for their
rejection of the view that the good acts of unbelievers require grace.
Although John Capreolus (d. 1444) may not have held the view that grace
is necessary for any morally good act, Francis Vitoria and Bañez interpret
him as in some way holding this view.42 But they explicitly reject this
interpretation.Thomas O’Meara writes that according to Bañez,“Human
actions based on the moral law would be, however, in their realizations
influenced by grace.”43 But Bañez himself considers and rejects this position when he states: “Whether he is a believer or an unbeliever, a sinner
39 Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1998), 109–19.
40 Gabriel Biel, Collectorium 3, dist. 27, q. 1, a. 2 (vol. 2, 517–18) and dub. 4 (vol. 2,

523–24). See Heiko Obermann, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and
late Medieval Nominalism, 3rd ed. (Durham, NC: The Labyrinth Press, 1983),
166–90.
41 See Ramirez, In II–II, q. 14, a. 5, nn. 605–21 (vol. 9, 1014–23). For the contrast
between Biel and Thomas on this point, see especially John Farthing, Thomas
Aquinas and Gabriel Biel: Intepretations of St.Thomas Aquinas in German Nominalism on the Eve of the Reformation, Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance
Studies, 19 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988), 150–80.
42 Vitoria, In II–II, q. 10, a. 4, nn. 4 and 6, in Comentarios a la Secunda Secundae de Santo
Tomás, ed.Vincente Beltran de Heredia (Salamanca, 1932), vol. 2, 172–73, 174–75;
Bañez, In I–II, q. 109, a. 1, n. 4 (vol. 3, 23); art. 10, n. 7 (vol. 3, 120).
43 O’Meara, “School,” 360.

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can do many morally good works without any supernatural help.”44 It is
hard to see how O’Meara could arrive at his interpretation. O’Meara does
cite a passage in which Bañez is considering the importance of the first
moral act in which someone who arrives at the age of reason accepts or
rejects grace. It is true that for Bañez, and indeed many Thomists, someone who makes such a good choice will have at least implicit faith. But
this point has no implications for the good actions of unbelievers.
The important point is that merit belongs to the supernatural order,
whereas moral goodness does not. Bañez writes,“Therefore with only the
general help of God, the author of nature, which is always presupposed, a
man is able to work some good which is proportionate to rational
nature.”45 Just as Thomas does, Bañez preserves the distinction between
nature and gratuitous merit. Bañez does not think that difficult good acts
can be performed consistently over a long period without God’s special
help, but he does think that at least some such acts are possible.46 Moreover, Bañez rejects the view of those theologians who hold that some
sinners can merit charity through acts which are meritorious in a condign
sense: “And the reason is because even congruous merit presupposes
friendship, or at least excludes enmity with God himself . . . no aspect
(ratio) of congruity can be received on the side of the rational creature
which is in sin, so that God could pay him a reward belonging to a supernatural order, such as is grace, which is the root of eternal life.”47
Some of the confusion over the significance of an unbeliever’s good
acts may rest in a confusion over the scope of the previously mentioned
discussion in the prima secundae, q. 89, art. 6, in which Thomas discusses
an agent’s first moral act in the context of whether it is possible for someone to have merely venial sin along with original sin.Thomas argues that
an agent’s original sin is remitted if through grace he orders himself to
God through this first act. Both O’Meara and DiNoia interpret this
44 “Peccator sive fidelis sive infidelis potest multa opera moraliter bona facere absque

auxilio supernaturali.” Bañez, In I–II, q. 109, In Scholastica commentaria in secundum
secundae, vol. 3, p. 59, a. 2, n. 49 (Beltran, vol. 3, 59). See also In II–II, q. 10, a. 4
(Douai, 256–58).
45 “Ergo cum solo generali auxilio Dei auctoris naturae, quod semper praesupponitur, poterit homo bonum aliquod naturae rationali propotionatum operari.”
Bañez, In I–II, q. 109, a. 2, n. 49 (Beltran, vol. 3, 60).
46 Bañez, In I–II, q. 109, a. 4, nn. 9–12 (Beltran, vol. 3, 90–96).
47 Bañez, In I–II, q. 114, a. 5, n. 12 (vol. 3, 332):“Et ratio est quia meritum etiam de
congruo praesupponit amicitiam, vel saltem excludit inimicitiam ipsius Dei . . .
nulla ratio congruitatis potest accipi ex parte creaturae rationalis quae est in
peccato, ad hoc quod Deus reddat illi praemium ordinis supernaturalis, qualis est
gratia, quae radix est vitae aeternae.”

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passage as stating that the reception or rejection of grace in an individual’s first moral act is also a discussion of an unbeliever’s every act.48 But
the text makes no such claim, and such an interpretation conflicts with
Thomas’s many statements that there are good acts which are indifferent
to merit, and that the unbeliever’s good acts belong to this group.
Their interpretation might seem to have some support in a position
commonly attributed to Capreolus, namely that grace is required for
every moral act. But aside from the question of whether Capreolus holds
such a position, Capreolus himself says that the unbeliever’s good act has
no merit and is irrelevant to the agent’s salvation.49 Indeed, whether we
describe God’s assistance in such acts as “grace” or not, such assistance has
merely a causal role in the action and is entirely different either from the
assistance which is given to a meritorious act or that assistance which is
given to an act which prepares the agent for justification.
Although the Franciscan understanding of merit and Biel’s understanding of salvation could be invoked in support of O’Meara, Sullivan,
and DiNoia, such views are foreign to both Thomas and the later
Thomist tradition, including that of the Dominicans at Salamanca.They
are most probably mistaken in attributing to Thomas the view that all
good actions require grace, and those who attribute this view to Bañez
and Vitoria are certainly mistaken. Moreover, even if Thomas held such a
view, it would not have the implications which contemporary theologians would wish.
For Thomists, the distinction between unbelief as a sin and unbelief as
purely negative does not affect the statement that faith is necessary for
charity and merit. Only those with explicit or implicit faith can perform
48 O’Meara, Thomas Aquinas, 239; DiNoia, Diversity, 97. For a discussion of the

issues involved in the interpretation of this text, see Lawrence Dewan, “Natural
Law and the First Act of Freedom: Maritain Revisited,” Études Maritainiennes/
Maritain Studies 12 (1996): 3–32.
49 “Illa tamen non fiunt sine speciali Dei auxilio, non quidem habituali, sed se
habente per modum motionis, et cujusdam passionis. Et hoc sufficit ad salvandum mentem Augustini.” Capreolus, 2 Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 3, n. 2, ad 14 (vol. 4,
307). Janz understands Capreolus to hold that every morally good act requires an
auxilium divinum, which is grace. Nevertheless, Capreolus writes “[H]umana
natura, in statu praesenti, per peccatum non est totaliter corrupta. Igitur potest in
aliquod bonum opus sibi proportionatum, sine superadditione novae formae; tale
autem velle vel agere est actus virtutis acquisitae.” 2 Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 1 (vol. 4,
284).This issue does not seem to bear directly on the question of whether there
can be morally good acts without referral to the natural and supernatural ultimate end. For the different interpretations and uses of the auxilium divinum in
Thomas, see Janz, Luther, 46–48. For my somewhat different account of Capreolus, see “Threefold Referral,” 724–27.

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meritorious actions, although even unbelievers can perform good
actions. This distinction is important in itself and historically because it
explains why some unbelievers have not committed mortal sins of unbelief or referred sins to the end of unbelief. Vitoria describes average
sixteenth-century Native Americans as belonging to this category, since
the faith was not adequately preached to them. Just as other unbelievers,
they can perform good but not meritorious acts.Their lack of faith indicates that they have mortally sinned. Vitoria’s position, along with the
other developments, has no clear implication for the salvation of unbelievers. Contemporary attempts to apply his views to this end are historN&V
ically mistaken and conceptually confused.

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627

The Natural Desire to See God 1
S ERVAIS P INCKAERS, O.P.

The Merit of the Question
I S THERE any merit in once again raising the question of the natural
desire to see God? Is there really anything more that can be said on the
subject? Have not theologians already rehearsed all the imaginable arguments, raised them from every conceivable angle, and still failed to reach
any agreement until, finally, the fighting has ceased, not because it has
yielded to the force of any particular argument, but simply has exhausted
itself by weariness? Some say that the question is too bound up with
scholasticism, and so has therefore been superseded by more progressive
developments in theology, centered on man, his liberty, and human
nature already touched by grace and the supernatural.
The underlying reality of the question, however, is that of the relation
of God and man, and so it lies unavoidably at the heart of Christian life
and does not yield to the vagaries and intricacies of opinions and theological fashions.The problem of the relation of God and man lies beyond
books and ideas, and so demands the attention of the theologian who
wishes to follow the thread of truth rather than the current of fashion.
But the new theology that takes man, nature, or science as its principle
axis, will it not in the end result in the practical elimination of the supernatural under the guise of a general reinterpretation? When this new
theology declares that the question of natural desire has been superceded,
does it not at this point betray a secret fear of the resurgence of the problem of the supernatural? Is it not at this point subject to the reproach of
having rejected an essential aspect of the Christian mystery, and so of
revising the ground upon which the Christian mystery is founded? If
there exists in the heart of man a desire for God rooted in his very
1 Originally “Le désir natural de voir Dieu,” Nova et Vetera 4 (1976): 255–73. Here

translated by Aaron Riches.

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nature—a distant desire, different from all other desires and needs, capable
of getting the upper hand over them—then are not both the theologian
and the philosopher compelled to take account of this desire and to
accord it special attention, even if the existence of this desire might
disrupt the anthropologist of the day?
The question of the natural desire for God in man is born with the
creation of man according to the image of God and receives new vigor
in light of the Christian revelation of the call of all men to the vision of
God.This desire for God is not subject to either the silence or variations
of theological opinion, rather it is present and active in the heart of every
man and every Christian. It falls therefore to the theologian to express
this desire in his own manner, to elucidate it with clarity, candor, and
humility, and even courage.
In order to treat the problem of the natural desire to see God, we must
begin with the terms in which it was classically elaborated.Thus, insofar
as the limits of a brief article allow, we will retrace the contours of the
classical elaboration of the natural desire to see God in order to propose
a fresh response to this great difficulty, which involves the topic of natural desire as it is related to the supernatural and gratuitous character of
the vision of God.After the great Augustinian intuition, the famous inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat te, St.Thomas Aquinas is the principle
theologian of the natural desire of man to see God, and he expressed this
theme with the rigor of the language of scholasticism. It is St. Thomas
who forged with precision the apparatus that came to provide later
theologians with the essential terms of discussing the natural desire to see
God. It is thus to St.Thomas that this exposition is dedicated.
Part One: The Question of Natural Desire According
to St. Thomas and His Posterity
The Importance of the Natural Desire to See God
according to St. Thomas
When we read the texts of St.Thomas that treat the natural desire to see
God and which demonstrate the possibility of the vision of God (which
is the only true beatitude of man), when we follow his reasoning without prejudice or fear for the difficulties that may follow from his reasoning, it becomes clear that the natural desire to see God constitutes an
essential aspect of Thomistic theology and its dogmatic orientation to the
vision of God. More, theological knowledge of this natural desire to see
God is an integral preparation and moral orientation, which disposes man
toward the bliss of the loving vision of God that is his ultimate end.

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At the beginning of the prima pars, q. 12, a. 1, answering the arguments
of Arab and Jewish philosophers who, anxious to safeguard divine transcendence, deny that any creature could ever attain the vision of God, St.
Thomas proposes the natural desire that animates the spiritual faculties of
man (intellect and will) to demonstrate (according to reason itself, he
says) the radical possibility of man seeing God in his very essence.
“Therefore some who considered this, held that no created intellect can
see the essence of God. . . . But this opinion is against reason [as well as
faith]. For there resides in every man a natural desire to know the cause
of any effect which he sees; and thence arises wonder in men. But if the
intellect of the rational creature could not reach so far as to the first cause
of things, the natural desire would remain void. Hence it must be
absolutely granted that the blessed see the essence of God” [Summa
theologiae I, q. 12, a. 1].
Here we should note two things. First, the natural desire in question is
that which draws the mind toward the truth and the will toward the good
by love.This is not a desire superadded. It is a desire constitutive of our spiritual faculties, natural to them in the strongest sense of the word. Secondly,
the argument proposes the radical possibility of vision of God by man—
vision of God is not impossible, as it was for the Arab philosophers. If the
natural desire which drives man toward the true and the good ran up
against the impossibility of seeing God, nature would do something in vain
and we would have to admit a contradiction in the work of God, who
would thus have ordered human nature to an impossibility. This radical
possibility can be called a passive capacity to see God: a capacity to receive
a vision unique to spiritual beings. This is not to claim that the vision of
God is an active possibility, a power man possesses in himself by which he
could attain this end of himself.The vision depends on God. Nevertheless,
the argument takes on a special force in light of divine revelation, by which
man is called to vision and given the promise of grace. No argument of
reason can set aside the possibility of this vision of God; on the contrary,
the movement of intellect and will yearning by the force of natural desire
suggests the positive ordinance of man to the vision of God.
The natural desire of man forms the basis of the argument found in the
treatise on beatitude at the beginning of the secunda pars, where an investigation into the true happiness of man entails a transition from man to God,
proving that the full happiness of man cannot reside in anything whatever
save God alone. In question 2, which inquires about the multiple objects
which correspond to the desires of man (riches, honors, glory, power, bodily
goods, pleasures, spiritual goods), proving that St.Thomas applies himself to
the universal dimension of the desire of the will in order to demonstrate

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that none of these goods can fully satisfy man, that only the universal
good—that is, God—can constitute the perfect beatitude of man.
In question 3, responding to the question from the point of view of
the human subject and the nature of happiness that is formed in him,
after having shown that beatitude consists in an activity of our spiritual
faculties—intellect and will, with priority given to intellect—St.Thomas
distinguishes every knowledge of the creature between that of science
and that of angelic knowledge, and this in order to support natural desire,
the fact that man cannot be fully happy apart from the vision of the
essence of God.“If therefore the human intellect, knowing the essence of
some created effect, knows no more of God than ‘that He is,’ the perfection of that intellect does not yet reach simply the First Cause, but there
remains in it the natural desire to seek the cause.Wherefore it is not yet
perfectly happy” (ST I, q. 3, a. 8).
The whole investigation of the treatise on beatitude converges on the
natural desire to see God inscribed in our spiritual faculties, in our inclination to the true and the good, and to love.
The importance, therefore, of the natural desire to see God for St.
Thomas cannot be overstated, especially since, at least on my reading, the
treatise on beatitude lays the groundwork for his moral theology and is,
in fact, the backbone of the structure of his thought on the matter. For
St.Thomas, as for all of antiquity, the question of morality is preeminently
the question of what is the true happiness of man.The moral life is nothing but a response to this question.The natural desire to see God is thus
brought to bear by St. Thomas on the final answer to this question of
happiness, which underpins the desire for happiness, and so the whole
realm of moral action. Later, in the seventeenth century, the question of
morality became first and centrally that of moral obligation dissociated
from the treatise on beatitude, severing consideration of man’s natural
desire for God from his fundamental morality. Thus was the advent of a
new conception of morality.
The Originality of the Thomist Argument Concerning Natural Desire
We should also note how the conceptualization of natural desire according to St. Thomas was an original contribution he made, a formulation
proper to him. In his first work, the commentary on the Sentences, in
book IV, distinction 49, at the place where Peter Lombard offers his own
theological exposition of final beatitude, here St. Thomas does not yet
raise the issue of natural desire. This is noteworthy especially because at
this juncture it would have served St.Thomas well, since he is forced here
to address the argument of the impossibility of seeing God, as held by

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certain Arab philosophers among others (IV Sent., d. 49, q. 2, a. 1: Utrum
intellectus humanus possit prevenire ad videndum Deum per essentiam). Nevertheless, at this early stage, St.Thomas had not yet formulated his conception of natural desire.
St.Thomas’s argument concerning natural desire does not in fact appear
until the third book of the Summa contra Gentiles, where, even in this first
formulation, it comes already to occupy a central position in the long and
extensive discourse on human happiness, which is a first draft of the treatise on beatitude and occupies chapters 1 to 63, and principally chapters
48 to 50. In chapter 48 we read:“[I]t is impossible for natural desire to be
unfulfilled, since ‘nature does nothing in vain.’ Now, natural desire would
be in vain if it could never be fulfilled. Therefore, man’s natural desire is
capable of fulfillment, but not in this life, as we have shown. So, it must be
fulfilled after this life. Therefore, man’s ultimate felicity comes after this
life.” And, recurring like a refrain after each argument in chapter 50 is the
phrase “ex hac cognitione non quiescit desiderium naturale,”2 or similar
such expressions.
The argument concerning the desire natural to see God, along with
the role it plays in the question of the happiness of man, is a discovery of
the genius of St. Thomas. Moreover, it plays an essential role within his
overall theological system.
The Personal Character of the Desire for God
according to St. Thomas
A long and deep familiarity with the work of St. Thomas is needed to
pierce beneath the shell of the technical tone of his language and thereby
apprehend the sensibility underpinning the logical rigor of the author.
Thus we come to see how the desire to know God in himself is in fact
a very precise expression of the soul St.Thomas himself, of his own love
of the truth joined with the desire for happiness that animated his life and
directed his theological trajectory. Have we not heard it said of him that
he began earlier than others to seek after God? St.Thomas expresses this
theme with incomparable discretion, as a personal experience at once
theological and mystical, which for him is one. The soul of St. Thomas
himself and all of his theology is related to the natural desire to see God,
which is the cornerstone of his system.
The question of the vision of God has for St.Thomas a double aspect:
(1) There exists in man, in his spiritual faculties, a natural desire which
cannot be fulfilled except in the vision of God’s essence.There is thus a
2 Our natural desire is not satisfied by this knowledge.

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passive capacity to see God inscribed in man, which differentiates him
from creatures that lack reason.3 (2) On the other hand, it is impossible
for man, as for any creature, to attain to the vision of God by his own
natural power; he requires a special divine assistance, the “light of glory,”
which is entirely gratuitous and supernatural, as is the grace by which he
proceeds toward that vision (cf. ST I–II, q. 5, a. 5).
The vision of God is thus supernatural because no creature can attain
it by his own natural power, nor does any creature possess an active
capacity for it.This desire is nevertheless natural to spiritual beings insofar as it is inscribed in them as a passive capacity to receive from God this
vision. Such is the clear and explicit position of St.Thomas. He does not
appear to be the least bit anxious about the coordination of this natural
desire with the gratuity and transcendence of the vision of God, which
is grace.
The Problem of Natural Desire in the Sixteenth Century
Changes in Thinking Between the Thirteenth
and the Sixteenth Centuries
The problem of natural desire as we now understand it was not explicitly raised until the sixteenth century. By this time, intellectual inquiry
and the context of theological reflection had changed from what it had
been in the thirteenth century.Thus, even while they adopted the Summa
of St. Thomas as the basis of their theological instruction, nevertheless
they interpreted him through the ideas and problems of their own age.
In particular, the thirteenth century, and St. Thomas primarily,
constructed a theology characterized by a harmony established between
God and man, faith and reason, grace and freedom, supernatural gifts and
human nature. This theology originated first of all in the divine truth
communicated by faith and derived from reason.As a result of the advent of
nominalism, however, a new vision of man and his relation to God, to wider
society, and to other created natures was elaborated. Characteristic of this
new vision was the imposition of a radical tension between these elements
(God, society, and nature) on the one hand, and human freedom on the
other. The new perspective is particularly manifest in the question of the
relation between grace and nature, which lies at the root of the Lutheran
crisis and the cause, later on, of the fissures between the different schools of
3 This passive capacity needs to be distinguished from the simple obediential

potency we find in every creature, cf. ST I–II, q. 114, a. 10; II–II, q. 2, a. 3; III, q.
4, a. 1; q. 9, a. 2, ad 3. See also L. Charlier, “Puissance passive et désir naturel,” in
Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 7 (1930): 5–28, 639–62.

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theology—Jesuits, Jansenists, Dominicans, etc. If we begin from a notion of
human freedom as absolutely self-determining in its choice between good
and evil, between yes and no with regard to grace, a freedom of indifference,
then we are led to conceive of human nature as radically self-sufficing.Thus
the problem of the relation of nature with the supernatural becomes critical. And the problem of the relation is raised in a particular way by the
notion of the natural desire for the vision of God as it was articulated by St.
Thomas, who became the dominant theological authority. If human nature
is self-sufficing—at least according to the principle of a freedom to act—
then how do we conceive a desire for God that is really natural but yet
concerns the vision of God, which is evidently supernatural?
This problem is rendered more acute by the separation that has developed between speculative theology, with its technical precision taught in
universities, on the one hand, and mysticism and spirituality, which tend
to be expressed in the more common language of the experience of the
relation of God and man in the life of faith, on the other.Thus the desire
for God, bound up with the experience of humanity and of Christianity,
is reduced in theology to a “concept” and is treated in terms abstracted
from the contours of experience.
If we wish to remain faithful to St.Thomas—who evidently maintains
in man a natural desire to see God—we must interpret and discover
explications of this desire which correspond to the problems of his age.
The Status of the Problem of Natural Desire
Reflecting on natural desire, theologians of a certain period tended to
make the hypothesis of a state of pure nature their starting point—
whether they admitted that the first man was placed by God in a state
preceding the gift of grace or refused this interpretation of the book of
Genesis, they nevertheless made pure human nature a starting point from
which to reason about human nature.This hypothesis, we should note, is
not unrelated to the philosophical penchant among modern philosophers
to posit a state of nature for man anterior to the formation of society.
Thus the problematic of natural desire was taken according to this
dilemma:
• Either we allow that there exists in human nature a real desire for the
vision of God, prior to the intervention of grace.The beatific vision
thus becomes the sole ultimate end of man, and the link between the
order of nature and that of the supernatural is strongly established.
But in this case, we are forced to presume a certain requirement of
human nature toward the beatific vision according to the principle of

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St. Thomas that a natural desire cannot be in vain. God would be
unjust to human nature, it seems, if he did not respond to this natural desire, leaving it unaccomplished. In this way we compromise the
purely gratuitous character of the vision of God, of grace and of the
supernatural order, and thus it becomes difficult to safeguard the
transcendence of supernatural and divine action.
• Or we affirm before all else the supernatural character, gratuitous and
transcendent, of the beatific vision and the order of grace, such that
we are led to reduce to the extreme—if not to cancel all together—
the natural desire in man to see God, forced to posit for him an ultimate end and natural beatitude that is different from this vision.Thus,
if we do not wish to abandon the doctrine of St.Thomas concerning natural desire, we must reinterpret it.The risk in this case is that
we will begin to see the natural and supernatural orders as independent from one another, as two parallel worlds without any need
of being reciprocally related.This position inevitably becomes detrimental to the supernatural order, while, on the other hand, man can
now do anything without any detriment to his nature.
In conclusion we restate our question: Can there be a natural desire
for the supernatural? It seems one is forced to choose between either the
transcendence of the grace of the vision of God on the one hand, or the
existence in man of a natural desire to see God on the other.
The Principle Answers Given to the Problem of Natural Desire
The principal answers given to the modern problem of natural desire are
as follows. We shall reduce them to their essential points. We seek here,
not to rehearse the history of opinions on the subject, but rather to
outline their most characteristic aspects. The authors themselves interest
us less than the elements of thought they occasion.
As we have already suggested, these theologians all generally presuppose a hypothesis, at least theoretical, concerning the existence of man in
a state of pure nature.
1. Cajetan (1469–1534), the great commentator on St. Thomas,
construes the difficulty of natural desire in the work of St.Thomas in
a rather simple manner: the Angelic Doctor, he thinks, speaks of
natural desire in the context of human nature as it exists historically,
which is now effectively called to grace and the beatific vision. The
natural desire for this vision is thus already a work of grace in man
and consists therefore in the order of the supernatural. According to

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this hypothesis, which is not posited by St.Thomas, the state of pure
nature would have been merely an obediential potency toward the
supernatural, the disposition in every creature to be a recipient of the
effect of any divine action, as for example in the case of miracles.
2. Suarez (1548–1617) rigorously expressed the spirit of his epoch. He
begins from an idea of man as a creature who possesses a nature that
entails a normative end that can be completed within the limits of
that nature, according to the Aristotelian principle that all natural
beings have an end proportionate to their nature. By virtue of his
creation, man is therefore made for a beatitude, the essence of which
conforms to his nature and so is natural. Supposing man finds himself
called to a higher end, this higher end will necessarily involve a
superaddition to his nature, a superaddition that cannot enter into
our definition of man.With regards to the natural desire for a supernatural beatitude, Suarez rejects categorically this possibility, in
conformity with the principle of Aristotle according to which natural appetites follow the power of nature.
3. The Salamancans of the seventeenth century sought to undermine
the reality of natural desire, which they supposed St. Thomas never
to have spoken of as ‘real’ desire. On their view, St.Thomas was not
concerned with a substantial or innate desire, but rather with an
elicited desire, optional and freely given, a desire ineffective and
conditional on God’s call to vision, mere velleity of nature insofar as
it conforms to nature.
4. Other theologians, for example Père Descoqs, S.J., have more recently
tried to discern a purely natural end that orientates the natural desire
to see God. On this view, the vision of the divine essence is to be
distinguished from the supernatural vision of the persons of the Trinity—knowledge of God is part of God’s work.
5. Père Henri de Lubac, S.J., in his work Surnaturel (1946), reignited the
debate concerning natural desire that had raged between the two
world wars. De Lubac sought to retrieve the patristic tradition, Greek
and particularly Augustinian, which conceived man as the image of
God and thus as essentially directed to God by his spiritual nature as
to its model and archetype. Père de Lubac vigorously attacked the
system of pure nature, with its self-sufficient and natural end independent of the supernatural. He argued that there was not—nor
could there ever be—any but one end of human nature, of the
human spirit: the supernatural end. For Père de Lubac, the vision of

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God is the object of natural desire, the real desire of man, concrete
and absolute and not conditional.
To the objection that this scheme places in man a necessarily entitlement to the vision of God, Père de Lubac responds:
What we desire necessarily, what we desire with an absolute desire,
in general we can say we desire this with exigency. Provisionally
this can even be said of our desire for God. But we must immediately add: we do not have this exigency because it pleases us to
have it, rather this exigency is the reality that we cannot not desire
God. Far from being dominated by this exigency, the object of our
desire rather imposes itself upon us, even when our conscience
ignores it, even when our freedom turns away from it. The
exigency of our desire is such that we cannot be without it.Therefore if we have an exigency for God, it is that he first demands this
exigency of us; and by the same means, he transforms our nature.
The necessity of desire is a harsh law: it is received by the spirit, not
dictated by it. . . .This exigency is therefore an essential exigency,
an exigency in nature, which—though it is natural—is in reality
no more natural in its source of desire than in its object of desire.4

Further, Père de Lubac considered St.Thomas a transitional author
in whose system there is both a patristic notion of man ordained to
the vision of God coupled with the Aristotelian conception of
human nature as closed in on itself. On Père de Lubac’s view, these
two conceptions were not fully harmonized in St.Thomas.
As we perceive the discourse of these different opinions and interpretations, the problem of natural desire is concentrated on the exigency of this
desire regarding the vision of God, which appears to compromise the character of the supernatural. It is on this critical point that we make our specific
reflection. Here lies the nettle of our problem.
Part Two: A Response to the Problem of Natural Desire
The Spiritual Nature of the Desire to See God
We have already noted above how theology during the Renaissance
suffered from a separation from spirituality and mysticism, from the
expression of the Christian experience of the relation of God and man.
Separated thus, theology became overly speculative, abstract, and rational.
The consequence of this orientation was an excessive diminishing of
4 Henri de Lubac, S.J., Surnaturel: Études historiques, Théologie 8 (Paris: Aubier,

1946), 490.

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theological matters to the plane of concepts, ideas, and rational propositions. Under this condition, the natural desire for God becomes a merely
theoretical notion, the more abstract, the more it is associated with a state
of pure nature in which, in any case, man no longer actually exists, and
of which there can be no question he no longer has any experience of.
Theologians who reason from this natural desire will do so without any
sense of how it confronts actual experience. They will not think to
analyze the desire, but rather will accept it as a primary datum, a primitive tendency of the appetite found in all beings, even unreasonable
beings.This natural desire of which we speak will thus be the blind desire
of all beings toward the good. In this way, we will imagine this desire in
the same manner as any other natural desire we find in man, like hunger,
thirst, or sexual appetite, the kind of desire that is exercised before the
intervention of reason and will. In this case, it will be clear that if this
natural desire remains in vain, with no opportunity to attain its object,
leaving man in a state of hunger, we could then justly reproach to the
creator for the defectiveness of his work. For this kind of desire bears
within it an exigency directed toward its satisfaction, or at least the possibility of its accomplishment. Every appetite is ordered from within
toward its satisfaction as to its own natural end, and therefore involves a
natural exigency to be able to achieve this end.
This manner of approach is defective in that it is grounded in a very
particular kind of desire, one that proceeds from the sensitive nature of man,
to which a universal dimension is conferred, thanks to its natural characteristic.What is neglected by this approach is that which is proper and unique
to the spiritual nature of man, the desire that arises spontaneously from the
will of man in the light of his intellect brought before God. It is essential
here to bring an analogical conceptuality to bear, a conceptuality of both
likeness and difference—this analogical conceptuality must be allowed to
affect the nature and property of desire, where we pass from the sensitive to
the spiritual plane, when we study man in comparison with irrational beings
or with irrational aspects of his own being.
Building on the Spiritual Experience of the Desire for God
In order to discern the movements and properties of the spiritual nature
of man, it is necessary to refer to the spiritual experience of the desire for
God as it is expressed by the best authors, the Fathers of the Church and
the mystics—the experience of a theologian as much as any Christian can
be an experience of his life of faith. This desire, like every reality of the
order of the will or the affective dimension of man—love, hope, etc.—is
best understood when it is grasped from the inside, thanks to some

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concrete experience. One of the merits of the work of Père de Lubac was
precisely to have reintroduced into the discourse of theology the testimony of the Fathers of the Church concerning the desire for God in man.
Doubtless an objection along the lines of Cajetan will here be raised
against us; it will be argued that there cannot be a purely natural experience
of desire for God because the Christian is a man who works by grace, the
subject of theological virtues and of the action of the Holy Spirit. But what
prevents us from taking the Christian experience of the desire for God as
that desire flourishes under the action of the Holy Spirit, in order to ask
ourselves whether and to what extent this desire corresponds to the nature
of man himself, especially his higher faculties? Hereby the essential problem
is raised: how can there be a correspondence between the vision of God,
the action of grace, the desire and striving it excites in us on the one hand,
and human nature on the other.And yet to approach this problem of natural desire we have no need of the hypothesis of a state of pure nature, which
in fact escapes our grasp and takes us away from real experience.The problem here is the problem that concerns the whole of theology: the link
between vision, grace, God, revelation, and human nature.The question of
natural desire is therefore an expression of this difficult point of theology.
But to truly study this natural desire do we not need a notion of this desire
as it has reached maturity and thereby become sensible, as opposed to imagining the seeds of this desire as it may exist in an inaccessible state?
In this way, St. Thomas treats the natural desire to see God as part of
the experience of Christian faith conjoined to reason. But the superior
light of faith is not an obstacle to our perception of what is merely natural—to the contrary. For St.Thomas, as for St. Augustine, the more man
submits to the light of faith and to the action of grace, the more he comes
to know his own true nature.We do not find any trace in St.Thomas of
the common modern presupposition according to which the intervention of faith and grace disrupts necessarily, as a foreign element, the activity of reason, liberty, and human nature.
Here however it is important to note how St.Thomas’s conception of
human nature is not quite the same as the one presented by Père de
Lubac. St.Thomas’s use of Aristotle does not entail a self-sufficient human
nature, as it does with Suarez and others of his time. Rather human
nature for St. Thomas is open to God and his grace. This openness of
human nature to God works precisely within St.Thomas’s theory of the
natural desire to see God in man, ordering him to the beatific vision as
to his final and true end. St. Thomas is thus not at all the transitional
figure Père de Lubac discerns, one who couples positions that nevertheless poorly harmonize. On the contrary, St. Thomas seems rather, to us,

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to be more the summit of the equilibrium of theology, even while the
equilibrium he achieved was unfortunately all too quickly lost.
The Connection of Desire with Love and Hope
We can directly approach the major problem of the thesis of natural desire
by indicating the apparent exigency this desire brings to bear upon God,
vision, and grace. Our response to this problem of exigency begins with
an analysis of desire in its relation with other movements of the will, given
that the will—for us as for St.Thomas—is not only a power of a conscious
pressure of the self for the self, as it was defined by Mounier, but is above all
the source of the spontaneous movements of love, desire, and hope, etc.
In his treatise on the passions, a study which extends into the realm of
spiritual theology, St. Thomas conceives desire in such a way that it is
clearly not an act or feeling of man, neither does it exist alone. Its origin
and cause, in effect, is love, from which it is normatively deployed in the
hope of achieving joy. In the movement of the will, therefore, love, desire,
joy, and hope form a concrete continuum. Thus, treating the movement
of free will in the work of justice, St.Thomas writes in De veritate (q. 28, a.
4): “Primus autem motus affectus in aliquid est motus amoris . . . ; qui
quidem motus in desiderio includitur sicut causa in effectu; desideratur
enim aliquid quasi amatum. Ipsa vero spes desiderium quoddam importat
cum quadam animi erectione, quasi in quoddam arduum tendens.”5
The desire for God in us must therefore be understood in terms
tightly bound to its relation, principally, to love, which is the cause, along
with hope, in which the desire for God is developed.
Love of Friendship as the Root of the Natural Desire for God
The decisive point for our question lies in the causal connection that links
love and desire.The first movement of the “appetite,” which is at the origin
of all other movements and remains constantly present in them, is love,
which we can define as a direct and simple delight in the object perceived
and known as good (this object and its good can obviously be a person, as
when one says: this or this person gives me joy, intrigues me, touches me,
etc). Different species of love correspond with different species of desire.
The two species of love are: (1) love of friendship and (2) concupiscent love (ST I–II, q. 26, a. 4). Love of friendship consists in loving someone for himself—this is love in the proper and full sense of the term, such
5 “The first motion of the affections toward anything is the motion of love . . . ;

this motion is included in desire as a cause in an effect; for something is desired
as loved. Hope, moreover, implies desire accompanied by the rousing of one’s
spirit as tending to something arduous.”

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love desires the good of the other. This is how we love a friend. The
intention and the desire that directs it are both related to the friend and
remain with him. Concupiscent love, on the other hand, is related to a
good that appears and affects us, but it is related to someone, ourselves or
another, to whom the object is pleasant or useful.Thus we love wine, an
animal, a car, or a collaborator, or a pleasant companion. In the case of
concupiscent love, the intention that animates love and drives desire
supersedes its object and is thus ordained to an end other than the object.
The object of desire is not loved for itself, but rather in view of something else, profit or pleasure usually.
Here is an example of this distinction.With money we can buy all the
goods we want or need, including companions who will share our interest
and joy. But we cannot attach a price tag on friendship, on the true love
according to which we are a friend both in poverty and in abundance. Such
love, that of friendship, is of another kind and of another order.
Desire born of concupiscence is fixedly interested in utility and satisfaction; while the desire that proceeds from friendship is disinterested to
the extent, not that it will exclude utility and satisfaction altogether, but
to the extent that utility and satisfaction will be subordinated to the principle intention determined by the relation of friendship between persons.
Why Natural Desire Does Not Impose any Demand on God
The decisive point of our inquiry is to understand and show how the
love of friendship confers on desire a quality that engenders it such that
we will be able to remove the bind of exigency that imposes a demand
on what it loves and desires. Our thesis is as follows: when man loves God
with friendship—that is, with true love—the desire which proceeds and
drives man toward God (as toward beatitude) contains in itself, in its
source from man’s side, a decisive refusal to impose any exigency on God
under the pretext of a demand for the satisfaction of this desire. Such an
exigency would evidently contradict both the love of friendship, which
is the source of this desire, and God who is its object.
To clarify this point, we take as an example the relation of friends who
open themselves in love of friendship to one another in maturity.This is
a profound desire and one that is natural in man, who desires to have
friends, to love and to be loved. Aristotle justly esteemed that we cannot
be happy without friends.This desire nourishes us and fortifies us in our
exchanges with friends, who love nothing more than to be together, to
speak, live, and work together.This desire, however, bears on all the desires
that are interested in the other’s wellbeing; thus friends voluntarily consent
to sacrifice for each other and to put in common what they possess.

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The experience of friendship quickly shows that the greatest danger
to friendship is that one would impose a demand of service or affection
on the other, thus using the auspices of friendship to impose a selfish
claim. Such a exigency of desire is directly opposed to the heart of
friendship and in fact signals its destruction. The true law of friendship
lies in liberality and gratuity, in respect and in the love of the freedom of
the other as one’s own freedom.A true friend would refuse, following the
spontaneous movement of his sentiments, to make a demand a pretext of
his friendship. Indeed a true friend would be prepared to deprive himself
of his friend’s presence, even for a long time, if that was what was needed
for the good of the friendship.The most important thing for a true friend
is to know of his friend’s happiness, from which he draws his highest joy.
We have here an example drawn from the common experience of
natural desire which, in powerfully and profoundly human terms, displays
an internal refusal to exert any exigency upon the object of desire in the
name of liberality and gratuity.This constitutes what we can call a natural
law of friendship from which this desire proceeds.This is the paradox of
friendship as true love: the cause of the most powerful and natural human
desire is wholly opposed to the imposition of any exigency on its object.
Such is the love that serves for St.Thomas as the basis of his definition of
charity and establishes the connection of charity with the natural desire
for the good, which forms the foundation of St.Thomas’s moral theology.
If we proceed now to the relation between God and man, we discover
an intensification of this natural paradox of love.To the extent that man
discovers God as the source of all truth and goodness, he comes spontaneously to love him as the most desirous object of his love. From this love
of friendship toward God proceeds a natural desire to know God in
himself and to attain him as the cause of goodness and truth. Such is the
natural desire to know the truth of God which St.Thomas places in the
law of nature and as the ground of theological and philosophical exploration (cf. ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2).
However, and at the same time, such a love, because it seeks to love
God for himself, refrains from every demand of desire that would seek to
grasp God, which would attempt to place a restriction on God’s liberality, on the gratuity of his giving, and especially on God’s revelation of his
intimate life. Is not the most significant betrayal of friendship to demand
that one’s friend reveal his personal secrets? The most serious sin of the
spiritual life will likewise be to demand of God that he reveal and give
himself—such would be an inconsiderate desire that would betray the
friendship of God.

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The Natural Love for God More than Self
In the case of desire for God, the refusal of exigency is stronger than in
the case of normal friendship since, following St. Thomas, man naturally
loves God more than himself (at least when his will is not corrupted by
sin). St. Thomas writes: “Ideo etiam amore amicitiae naturaliter Deus ab
homine plus seipso diligitur. Et quia caritas naturam perficit, ideo etiam
secundum caritatem Deum supra seipsum homo diligit, et super omnia
alia particularia bona.”6 When man knows God as the source of all truth
and goodness, and when he recognizes this as something received from
God through the creation of his being and the faculties of understanding
and love, where he experiences himself before God as a part before the
whole—as a being drawn from him, taken hold of by him, and ordered by
him—then he is spontaneously inclined to love this divine whole more
than himself (cf. ST I–II, q. 109, a. 3). Charity contributes to this natural
love a direct participation in the love and beatitude of God himself, without changing the relation implied by this natural love. Hereby, natural love
is renewed in the sinful heart of man, where it is fortified and developed
by its proper virtue, that of hope. The imposition of demands and the
hoarding of divine gifts will thus be counted among the most sever transgressions contrary to the right intention and spontaneity of charity.
In conclusion, the natural desire to see God—which is rooted in the
natural love of friendship for God and is fulfilled in the beatific vision of
God in supernatural terms—is proper to the nature of spiritual beings.
Because this desire proceeds from the intellect (which seeks to know God
in himself, in all truth) and from the will (which tends already to love God
in himself in all purity) this desire naturally contains within itself a refusal
to assert an exigency by which it could itself reach God.Within the natural desire to see God, therefore, there is inscribed a refusal to breach the
liberality, gratuity, and supernatural character of the gifts of God.
The Hypothesis of Pure Nature
Now if we insist on considering man in a hypothetical state in which he
is placed in the world by God in a state of pure nature, where he is not
accorded the promise of vision, then we must say that whatever happiness man could find would be imperfect yet real. In this state man’s
knowledge and love of God would be developed according to his natural powers. Happiness for man in this state would have been composed
of the orientation of man’s being and his faculties toward God, as he is
6 III Sent., d. 29, q. 1, a. 3:“By love of friendship man also naturally loves God more

than himself. And since charity perfects nature, therefore by charity also man
loves God more than himself and all other particular goods.”

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known through creation as the source of perfection, truth, goodness, and
happiness beyond all things. In this state God would be loved with a love
that reverently respected his divine superiority, balancing the desire to
know with an indiscretion that would avoid the imposition of any claim
or demand.Thus man would love God as a friend who finds his true joy
in beholding the superiority of this friend without any jealousy.
Is not this desire, which is full of a reverent respect, precisely what
theology calls filial fear?—that which subsists at the heart of charity?
We can add that his reverent respect is rooted in love of friendship, and
so is also the surest way of evoking the freedom of the divine initiative.
In any case, this is the appropriate disposition of man as he stands before
the grace of God.This is, in fact, the nub of the ongoing debate concerning natural desire: the attitude of man must be conformed to his true
nature before the divine initiative.
Natural Desire and Hope
When desire forms the basis of love it tends to be transformed into hope.
This passage from desire to hope raises a particular question. St.Thomas
expresses the difference between desire and hope in terms of their object.
Desire has for its object bonum futurum, a future good that attracts us
simply because it appears as a good and brings pleasure. Hope has for its
object bonum arduum, an arduous good that is difficult to attain. The
object of hope is one from which we are separated by a great distance, a
distance which makes us simultaneously afraid that we will not be able to
achieve it, while at the same time spurring us on with the effort required
to achieve it. In other words, hope adds to desire a judgment on the
possibility of attaining a good desired, according to the means and
strength that we have at our disposal to attain to it. Desire is broader than
hope, for we can desire many things that we do not hope to achieve;
desires are often thwarted because we do not recognize any possibility of
achieving a particular object. For a long time men desired to voyage to
the moon, for example, but they did not hope to go there until man
discovered the means of rocketing into space, opening up the possibility
of realizing this ancient dream.Then the desire, molded by hope, became
active, directing the research and efforts of scientists and technicians.
At the same time, between natural desire and the hope of seeing God
there arises the issue of the active possibility of man’s attainment.This is
the question: Utrum homo per sua naturalia possit acquirere beatitudinem perfectam? Can man by his natural powers attain perfect happiness? (cf. ST I–II,
q. 5, a. 5). St.Thomas responds in conformity with all of Christian theology that neither can man nor any creature attain, by his own natural

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power, the fullness of the blessedness that resides in the vision of God.
Only a special help, of a unique kind—the grace we call the “light of
glory” in the hereafter—permits the beatific vision.This is why the vision
and the whole order of grace, with the virtues and gifts that accompany
them, can be properly called supernatural.
The natural desire for God does not therefore become a hope until
man has received a positive response to the question of attaining that
vision, a response that can come from God alone: the promises revealed
in the divine initiative of the call of man to this vision and the means of
achieving this by the access granted through faith.This is why, each time
God speaks to man, from Abraham to Jesus, he begins with a promise that
awakens hope. More precisely, the promises of God are promises of
happiness that correspond to the desires of man: the desire to have a son,
to be the father of many nations, etc. Wherever these promises are
revealed, they are revealed by a certain infinite and eternal dimension
(descendents more numerous than the stars of the sky, a blessing to all
nations, forever . . . ), indicating that they exceed man and all that he can
accomplish, and thus they can only be accomplished by the power of
God through the faith and hope that is in man.
When a desire is for something impossible, it withdraws into itself and
becomes merely latent (unless, perhaps, it is redirected to another object).
Apart from the promises of God, the desire to see God in man would
become atrophied by awareness of the abyss that separates the creature from
the creator, an abyss man cannot cross by his own power. But if God has
made himself manifest in his works and is thus understood by man, then
we must say that he has manifested himself at once as the most “arduous”
of all things to attain, the most distant and beyond the reach of man and all
of his faculties; while at the same time, God’s manifestation of himself
entails the revelation that this great obstacle to man’s desire is not to be
experienced by man as a misfortune or injustice (at least not in the state of
primitive righteousness).Within man this desire for God refrains itself from
exigency, retaining a spontaneous and reverent respect for God rooted in
the natural love with which we are made to love God as the God who is
beyond us, who is an inaccessible mystery. At this point of demurring
before God we experience a very pure joy that could, in principle, constitute a real bliss, though imperfect compared to the vision of God.
What we have said here applies just as much to the present economy
of man as it does to the apparent state of pure nature (which of course
never existed). Every Christian can discover such a movement and feeling in himself: there, where charity gives us impetus and power, the ability to both desire and hope.

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Conclusion
This then is the answer I propose to the question as to whether there is
in man a natural desire to see God. How does this desire in man not entail
the imposition of a demand upon God? How does it not compromise the
supernatural gratuity of the vision of God? On our view, this desire, which
proceeds from the spiritual nature of man, must be studied in terms of
what is proper to it, and thus in terms different from those of other natural desires such as hunger, thirst, etc. Primarily this desire is related to the
love that causes it and to the hope that is born of it. The decisive point,
therefore, is to show how love of friendship—which is proper to the spiritual nature of man and is itself deepened in friendship and in love—
occurs within a desire of reverent respect for God, which tends toward
God as toward a higher good, but also as toward a friend.Thus this desire
for God entails a spontaneous self-denial and refusal to place any claim on
God in the form of a demand that would diminish God’s freedom in the
gift of vision—just as a friend loves and respects the freedom and intimate
life of his friend. Such is the natural desire for God which serves as the
basis of the action of grace and which is perfected through the arousal of
hope by means of the promises of God who calls the faithful to vision and
guarantees the spiritual help necessary to attain that vision. This natural
desire does not disappear when the theological virtues are formed in us;
on the contrary, it unfolds, is strengthened, and is enlivened to the extent
that the supernatural virtues come to invade the conscience and dominate
the other desires of nature—though the manner of this dominion is gentle
and discreet, and respectful of the freedom granted to us.
A certain sensitivity to experiences both Christian and human seems
therefore necessary to arrive at the association and complementarity integral to the natural desire for God, which is at once born of the love of
friendship we have for God and born of the charity into which we are
caught up by God. There is therefore a double movement of complementarity within natural desire—a complementarity that will of course
seem contradictory to the logic of abstract reason: the more vigorous the
desire for happiness, the more it refuses to impose itself in the form of an
exigency on God, who is the object of this desire. In this way, man’s natural desire to see God is more natural in its origin (in the sense that “natural” signifies above all for St.Thomas spontaneity and harmony), while at
the same time it is more supernatural in its object. The gratuity of the
divine gift is guaranteed not only from the side of God by his transcendence, but also from the side of man, by his “friendly” nature, his capacity to love God in and for himself.

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Response to a Last Objection
We will perhaps be reproached for having made as the basis of our
response a domain that could be described as “psychological,” or that
yields to the order of affectivity and feelings, or again, for rooting our
response in terms that are moral.Theologians, it is supposed, ought rather
to seek to ground their observations in the order of metaphysics (or
whatever takes the place of metaphysics in the thought of their time).
This criticism is, however, in our view, too much influenced by a
rationalism that would separate metaphysics (the order of reason), from
affectivity, morality, etc. If, following the scholastic adage, agere sequitur
esse, then the being of man reveals itself in his acts as the tree is known
by its fruit. But the principle of action is constituted in us by the interior
acts of love, desire, hope, knowledge, etc., which are not feelings, but
rather manifestations of the commitments of our innermost being. So it
is in moral action, jointly governed by knowledge and affectivity, that we
see at work and discern what might be called the metaphysics of man,
the spiritual nature proper to him.
In particular, it is advisable to take into account the new sense of
friendship that is operative as a key theme of philosophy and theology
from the time of the Greeks to St.Thomas.This new sense of friendship
was unfortunately neglected by subsequent modern theologians. Friendship, taken as a superior form of love, reveals the proper nature of man:
his capacity to know and love the other as himself and for himself, and
so to establish between himself and the other an equilibrium, a union of
mutual reciprocity of desire and sentiment, which cannot be found elsewhere.This leads us to define man as a being capable of friendship (which
equally makes him capable of enmity and hatred). This is also, beneath
and beyond desire, the primordial sentiment that unites man with God
and makes him a being capable of entering into friendship with God,
N&V
thus giving charity its natural foundation.

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647

When Understanding Seeks Faith:
Does Religion Offer Resources for the Renewal
of Contemporary Rationality?
A NSELM R AMELOW, O.P.
Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
Berkeley, California

I
C AN FAITH be reasonable? Can reason be faith-full? The question of
faith and reason and how they are related is a question that is fundamental to Christianity throughout its history. It emerges within each epoch
in new forms and shapes. One could write an entire history of Christianity merely along these lines.
A prominent debate in our own times illustrates this well: the debate
between evolutionary theory on the one hand,1 and the various theories
of intelligent design2 or “creationism” on the other. Secular reason in the
form of modern science seems at odds with Christian faith with regard
to the origin of the world, especially within the realm of biology, but also
within anthropology, that is, in the understanding of our very selves, our
bodies, brains, and behaviors. It remains to be seen whether both sides are
mortal enemies or whether bridges can be built. Where the fight is
fiercest, we can hear the age-old themes of the irreconcilability of faith
and reason re-emerge: there is the secularist rejection of faith by reason
as “superstition,” as well as the fundamentalist rejection of reason by faith
as “work of the devil.” Most Christians, though, might have settled for the
1 Prominently and polemically represented by the “new atheism” of Richard

Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), and Daniel
Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York:Viking
Press, 2006).
2 For intelligent design, cf. especially Michael J. Behe, The Edge of Evolution (New
York: Free Press, 2007).

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idea of “double truth”: one thing as true within science, the contrary as
true within faith.This kind of schizophrenia or compartmentalization is
itself irrational, a form of thoughtlessness. It is only plausible until we
reflect on the relationship between these two allegedly separate realms of
truth and acknowledge that we cannot rationally understand how they
can coexist.
How, then, do we understand their relationship? In the reflections that
follow, I would like to suggest a brief answer to this problem, for I believe
that understanding the relationship between faith and reason can also
provide us with a deeper understanding of reason itself and how it is
intrinsically open to faith.
Generally speaking, the debate between evolutionary theory and intelligent design is framed by the question of whether there are features
within the world of biology that cannot be the work of chance, but must
be the outcome of an intelligent source that has intentionally designed
them.There seem to be cases in which a process of random mutation and
survival of the fittest could not possibly account for the arrangement of
features in certain organisms. But evolutionary theory appeals to a course
of development that is completed only over a long period of time
(millions of years), a time in which any necessary mutations could plausibly occur. In addition, proponents of a pure evolution theory rightly
object that intelligent design can never be proven, for tomorrow science
may discover unexpected mechanisms responsible for these features.3
Framed in this way, the debate can indeed lead nowhere, since it would
depend on empirical research that is potentially never ending.
This picture changes if we widen its frame to include the hidden
presupposition on both sides of the issue: evolution theory as well as
intelligent design theory focus almost exclusively on the laws of biology,
yet biological laws presuppose those of physics. The laws of physics, like
those of gravity, of the acceleration of objects in a free fall, or even of the
merely statistical probabilities in quantum mechanics, are universal laws
that are applicable everywhere in the universe at all times; they can be
formulated with mathematical certainty and allow for the prediction of
certain events. When evolutionary biology speaks about random mutations, characterizing biological features as the outcome of mere chance,
they do not intend to question the laws of physics in the name of chance
3 We might say with Cardinal Avery Dulles (“God and Evolution,” First Things,

October 2007: 19–24):“As a matter of policy, it is imprudent to build one’s case
for faith on what science has not yet explained, because tomorrow it may be able
to explain what it cannot explain today. History teaches us that the ‘God of the
gaps’ often proves to be an illusion.”

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as well. Even the purportedly random mutations in the genome are the
result of physical causalities. To question the laws of physics would be
considered unscientific and irrational by virtually anyone. They are the
most advanced expression of secular rationality we have; our modern
technology is based on them.
But where do these laws come from? Laws, including physical laws, are
forms of order and regularity.They render reality intelligible and rationally comprehensible rather than irrational and chaotic.While theories of
intelligent design claim to see the hand of God in certain biological
features, these theories commonly miss the fact that the much more
unquestioned feature of physical regularity needs an explanation as well.
This explanation cannot also be the outcome of randomness or chance.
Regularity must be presupposed by chance; chance as such is possible
only on the background of a regularity which it interrupts, otherwise the
very term “chance” would be meaningless.4 We are left, then, with a
pressing question:Who told nature to behave this way? Why does nature
“obey” the laws of physics? Is not this the primary feature that cries out
for an intelligent designer? Order itself cannot be the outcome of chance,
for chance requires order, and order requires a cause, while chance and
chaos do not, since they are just the absence of order.5
We all know this instinctively. Let us consider a simple example:
Imagine you are hiking somewhere in the mountains.At some point, you
see to the right of the trail two bottles of beer, three cigarette butts, and an
old suitcase. Your first reaction would likely be: “How disgusting! Who
would litter this beautiful mountainside!” But you continue on your hike.
A mile later, you come across a similar scene: two bottles of beer, three cigarette butts, and an old suitcase. At this point, you might say:“What a coincidence that the same kinds of things should appear again in the same
configuration! What are the chances of that?” Another mile later, you look
to the right, and—lo and behold!—once again there are two bottles of beer,
three cigarette butts, and an old suitcase. By now you are likely to think,
“This cannot be an accident! Someone must be doing this intentionally!”
So you progress from disgust to a sense of wonderment over mere
chance to an assumption of intentional arrangement.And this assumption
4 Chance is the privation of regularity. Exceptions as such prove the rule. Further-

more, chance is not a positive reality in its own right, hence it does not cause
anything. Chance can be a “cause” only in the sense that other causalities intersect “by chance” (which is itself a metaphorical expression). But for there to be
chance, there must already be intelligible structures of causality having a certain
regularity, which make possible the intersection of causes occurring “by chance.”
5 Nothing can come from nothing; but nothing (absence) can come from nothing.

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of intentional arrangement will increase with every time you come across
the scenario.Why? Because there is increasing regularity, and we instinctively know that regularity requires a cause.We do not, for instance, look
for a cause for the way trees are arranged along the trail on the mountainside, precisely because they are standing there irregularly; it would not
occur to us to ask for a cause in such a case, since irregularity and chaos
do not require a cause; they indicate, rather, the absence of a cause. But
if there were trees standing in a perfect row, we would naturally assume
that someone arranged them.
If we take this to the level of a regularity that applies to the whole of
reality, the entire cosmos, then the cause of this regularity cannot again
be in the cosmos. It cannot be just one cause among others, since such a
cause orders all inner-worldly causes among one another. Only an ultimate cause could account for the regularity among causes, and that is
what we call God.6
If this is so, then it is precisely the science that, since the time of
Galileo, seemed to undermine faith with its mathematical laws of nature,
which implies a God who orders the universe. Without God, science
would lose its subject matter: an intelligible structure of the universe that
can be investigated through observation and experiment. Without God
there would be nothing to know, no laws to discover, no cosmos, only
chaos.The early physicists understood this. Newton, Leibniz, Kepler, and
almost every other physicist of note in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries believed in intelligent design in this sense. Even many modernday physicists, unlike many biologists, still marvel at the order of the
universe, even though they might not ask further questions about the
ultimate origin of this order. Without intelligent design, therefore, there
is no intelligibility to reality. It is something that can merely be assumed,
but without any reasonable foundation.
Another assumption surrounding modern science is that the simplest
and most economical explanation of nature is the best. When Galileo
6 This argument does not reproduce “Paley’s watch.” It does not argue from

purposivity but from regularity, albeit any kind of regularity may ultimately
imply purposivity, as Thomas Aquinas holds in his Fifth Way. In this strong sense,
even efficient causality would not be intelligible without final causality. Similarly,
E. Stein and E. Husserl find mechanical causality intelligible only as an abstraction from motivation, from which it would remain derivative (for example, R.
Bernet/I. Kern/E. Marbach, Edmund Husserl [Hamburg: Meiner, 1996], 153).
Hobbes, Spinoza, and others had proposed inertia as a non-teleological principle, but also as a form of self-preservation (which is a teleological principle). See
Hobbes, De Corpore,VIII, 19 and Leviathan, II.

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proposed his new system, for instance, it promised to explain the movements of the heavens by laws that were simpler than those of the old
Ptolemaic system used during the middle ages. The old explanation
seemed outdated, because it was uneconomic. But why should economy
be an argument for or against a scientific theory? The old Aristotelian
system accounted for the movements of the heavens just as much as the
new one did. It made reasonably accurate predictions. Why would we
assume that the simpler explanation is the truer or better one? This is
merely an assumption, as Immanuel Kant acknowledged.7 But this
assumption is rooted in the idea of an intelligent design in the universe.We
instinctively believe that there is not only someone who designed the
universe, but also one who is supremely knowing and wise, arranging
things in the best possible and most efficient manner. As we have said,
philosophers and scientists in the seventeenth century still actively held
this belief and explained Newton’s laws of mechanics accordingly.8 It is
only on the basis of such a belief that the assumption that the simpler
explanation is the better, that is, truer, explanation can be justified.9
In fact, the very idea that the universe is governed by a universal set of
physical laws in its entirety is also an assumption. Newton did not intend
7 Cf. Kant on the regulative use of the ideas of pure reason (Vernunft) in the Critique

of Pure Reason, B670/A642–B696/A668. For “Ockham’s razor” cf. B680/A652;
teleological principles and the systematic unity of the whole of reality are also
discussed in B704/A676–B732/A704. Similarly, R. Swinburne has pointed out
that this is a metaphysical presupposition of science; cf. R. Swinburne, Simplicity
as Evidence of Truth (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1997).
8 For example, N. Malebranche, Recherches de la Verité, Eclaircissement sur chap. IV de
la 2e partie de la Méthode. Cf. also L. Scheffczyk, Schöpfung und Vorsehung (= Handbuch der Dogmengeschichte III, 2a) (Freiburg: Herder, 1963), 190.
9 This argument does not apply to those scientists who actually deny that there is
any order in the universe. Nietzsche had done so, indicating (as Rorty would later
do) that the belief in the intelligibility of the universe presupposes the existence
of God (which was indeed the way Descartes had argued for the intelligibility of
the universe, as we will see), rather than the other way around, thus making the
same point in reverse. If there is no intelligible structure to reality, however, then
scientists would not explore and discover an order to the universe, only impose one
on it; in such a case, the use of simpler hypotheses could be justified only for pragmatic reasons (that is, they are easier to manipulate). My argument here is not with
this position. It should be noted, however, that this pragmatist approach cannot
explain the success of some hypotheses and the failure of others. In fact, all
hypotheses are errors, some being useful and others not—why is this the case? An
unorganized reality would have no structure that could agree or disagree with a
scientist’s construction. Purely pragmatic premises could support no intelligible
notion of truth as agreement of theory and reality. After all, the very notion of a
mind-independent reality, a “thing in itself ” (even if unknowable) or a “true

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his laws to explain only what might occur in London, or in Europe, or
even on the earth as a whole, but the movement of all the stars (including those stars that cannot even be seen), that is, to account for movement universally. But how could one ever prove a theory’s universal
applicability? We might say, of course, that we now know that everything
began with the big bang. Since everything comes from one source, everything must behave uniformly. But how can we be sure of that? If the big
bang is true, it is something we know of only because we have already
presupposed that everything behaves uniformly and in the same way, in
obedience to the same set of physical laws (for instance, that there is a
constant rate of expansion of the universe away from a central point in
an intelligible pattern), so that we are able to extrapolate back to this big
bang.This is the only possible access we have to such an event.
But more fundamentally, any claim that reality is governed by universal laws of motion must remain simply a claim. No laboratory experiment can prove it; no empirical observation of reality can provide
evidence for it. As a matter of principle, experiment and observation only
provide samples of reality, never reality as a whole. A leap from examples
to universal laws remains to be made. It is a leap of faith.
It is evident, then, that secular reason and science depend on a faith of
some sort.This faith need not be of a revealed sort, nor a faith in God’s
self-communication through Jesus of Nazareth, nor a faith in the divine
inspiration of the Bible. But there must be some kind of faith in the
source of the universe as intelligent, almighty, and eternally reliable.
Richard Dawkins and the new atheists will cringe at this. But there can
be no escape from the conclusion.
Even if scientific inquiry entails a kind of faith, it is a faith reason can
discover on its own; no special revelation is required, for it is implicated in
reason’s own procedures.This discovery, in fact, is tantamount to a liberation of reason from the limits imposed by modern secularist ideology.
Modern distortions of reason have their root particularly in the eighteenthworld,” presupposes or anticipates a view from nowhere, that is, God’s view.The
purely logical consequence of this view is solipsism. It is no coincidence that
Hume not only denies strict laws of nature, but claims that “we really never
advance a step beyond ourselves.” A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge
(Oxford: 1987), bk. I, part II, sect.VI. Conversely, Descartes must prove the existence of God in order to show that there is something more than the cogito; the
very thought of ourselves as finite is only intelligible against the horizon of the
infinite (that is, solipsism cannot even be thought without God).These arguments
have been developed especially by R. Spaemann; cf., for example, R. Spaemann,
“Gottesbeweise nach Nietzsche,” in Das unsterbliche Gerücht (Stuttgart: KlettCotta, 2007), 37–53.

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century Enlightenment, which denied that the world beyond the senses
was open to rational investigation.Though it was possible to formulate laws
for observable nature, no meaningful inquiry could be made into their
origin or the reason for their applicability to the material world.This use
of reason was driven in many ways by polemics against the Church or
revealed religion of any kind. Belief in revealed religion was often caricatured as fanaticism or superstition (not unlike today); political consequences during this time (that is, during the French Revolution) therefore
included not only the king and aristocracy being sent to the block, but
clergy and religious as well.10
What becomes evident politically is the oppressive aspect of this
severely limited Enlightenment reasoning, that is, its one-sidedness. Other
cultural expressions of the time (for example, the rebellion of the darkness within the human subconscious) witness to this: Francisco Goya’s
drawings of the Dream of Reason Which Gives Birth to Monsters or his drawings from the terrors of the war in Spain, or Sarastro’s relationship with
the “Queen of the Night” in Mozart’s Magic Flute.11 In excluding its
other half, Enlightenment reason itself becomes irrational. Adorno and
Horkheimer see this as the very logic of totalitarianism, which they have
called the “Dialectic of the Enlightenment”: Enlightenment reason, in its
attempt to subject nature to human control and thereby liberate the
human person, becomes a merely instrumental reason. Such reason is
driven by the very powers of nature it attempted to subject, namely fear,
power, and the anxiety over prospects for survival. Progress thus becomes
destructive and oppressive of its very subject.12
The one-sidedness of enlightenment reason is revealed not only in the
political exclusion of certain segments of the population, or of contributions of certain “non-rational” parts of the human psyche in human life,
but above all in the exclusion of faith from the realm of reason—as if it
were an enemy rather than an ally.
As a further consequence, faith is consistently seen as irrational. In this
light, conversion seems arbitrary. As Alasdair MacIntyre tells it, St. Edith
Stein hoped that her philosopher colleagues would understand that her
10 The development of this form of thought has been described in Jonathan Israel’s

Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650–1750 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2002).
11 Robert Spaemann once suggested that the best resolution to the Magic Flute
would be for Sarastro to marry the Queen of the Night. Cf. R. Spaemann,“Ende
der Modernität?” in Philosophische Essays (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1994), 259–60.
12 M. Horkheimer and T. W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (1947) (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

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conversion to Catholicism was not a move toward the irrational.13
Embracing God’s revelation in Jesus Christ is certainly an act of faith.The
content of faith cannot be deduced from reason, that is, demonstrated like
2 + 2 = 4, but involves the decision or free assent of a believer. It also
involves a freely given grace, which reason cannot presume to receive,
and a revelation which God freely chooses to give, for on its own reason
could never have predicted that God would take up our human nature
in the Incarnation.14 God’s free decision to do so could not have been
deduced or predicted by reason.These three decisions, God’s decision to
reveal himself and save us, his decision to give us the grace to believe in
this revelation, and our decision to assent to this grace of faith, are beyond
human rationality’s ability to foresee.
But this does not make conversion irrational. Such a position would
necessarily imply that any manifestation of free will would be essentially
irrational and unreasonable. Stein was able to point out that faith,
although it cannot be deduced from reason, is not outside the boundaries
of reason, nor contrary to it. Faith itself can and should be a philosophical topic. Reason in fact would be unreasonable if it should exclude
anything from possible consideration. “If faith makes accessible truth
unattainable by any other means, philosophy . . . cannot forego them
without renouncing its universal claim to truth.”15 As rational, philosophy is universal and all-encompassing. It is the form of thought that
explores the ultimate and universal intelligibility of all reality. But faith,
too, is an exploration of reality’s intelligibility, for faith likewise proposes
an explanation of the ultimate ground of all reality, for example, when it
speaks of the creation of the cosmos. It gives an account of the intelligibility of the world, even of rationality itself! Without replacing reason’s
principles, it suggests to reason something about its own origins. How
could philosophy remain true to itself while ignoring what faith has to
say? And how could reason exclude faith if it is part of the reality it
proposes to explain?
Edith Stein has made the astute observation that Enlightenment
reason commits itself to a paradox if, with Kant, it seeks to determine its
13 Alasdair MacIntyre, Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue: 1913–1922 (Lanham,

MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), 179–81.
the Incarnation would have happened even without Adam’s sin
depends on God’s will, and therefore can be known only by revelation:“Ea enim
quae ex sola Dei voluntate proveniunt, supra omne debitum creaturae, nobis
innotescere non possunt nisi quatenus in sacra Scriptura traduntur, per quam
divina voluntas innotescit.”Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 1, a. 3.
15 MacIntyre, Edith Stein, 180 (MacIntyre quoting Stein).
14 Whether

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own limitations a priori. In order to know a limit, we must already be on
both sides of a boundary; that is, we must have already exceeded it.
Reason transgresses its own limits in the very act of determining them.
Though this had already been argued by Hegel, Stein’s counterargument
is not a Hegelian absolutizing of reason, but the suggestion that reason
needs an Other with which it can dialogue.This is faith. Only in the light
of faith can reason know its limits, since it is, at the same time, being
elevated to further horizons.16
Our considerations of intelligent design have shown how reason
becomes narrow, superficial, and ultimately unreasonable if it is isolated
from questions of faith. Nothing in evolutionary theory as such need
exclude the idea of an intelligent ordering of the world; in fact, this
theory must presuppose such an order, at least on the physical level.
Biological thinking, then, is intrinsically susceptible to a religious interpretation insofar as it is concerned with articulating an order within reality, an order that does not rule out chance occurrence on the biological
level. Scientific reason is by its own nature geared towards these questions. Reason itself demands liberation from the self-imposed shackles of
the Enlightenment. The struggle, therefore, is not between faith and
reason, but between two understandings of reason: one that is open to
faith, and another which has narrowed itself so as to become hostile to
faith. Such narrowness ultimately makes reason irrational, since it lacks
any understanding of its own nature.
II
Obviously, a rationalistic opposition to faith will not only have problems
with Christianity, but with any kind of faith. It excludes the possibility of
any rational discussion about God, should he exist at all. Nations and
secular institutions based on this exclusion will naturally have difficulty
finding a place for the faiths and religions espoused by members of their
own populations. God and religion would necessarily be relegated to a
purely private sphere or the sacristy. If reason does not apply to matters
of religion, then religion must be merely a matter of sentiment or a
matter of the heart.And it had better stay there, and not venture to shape
speech or action. Reason, after all, is the sphere of universality, of public
discourse, and something common to all human beings, while feelings are
private and particular, like personal taste. And, as we know, it is useless to
argue about taste—whether spinach tastes good or not, for example. So
likewise religion has to be kept out of the realm of public reasoning.Were
16 Ibid., 179.

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faith to really answer to such a description, it would either evaporate into
nothing, or it would indeed be a blind, emotionally-driven fanaticism.
This, the Enlightenment’s understanding of faith, produces a split
between the modern secular state and religion, giving rise to an antagonism marked by persecution and terrorism. The culmination of such
thinking is the violent, anti-clerical acts of the French Revolution, or the
modern secularist tendency to eliminate all trace of religion from the
public sphere. It will in turn push religions out of the sphere of public
reasoning that would allow them to develop an appropriate reasonable
self-understanding, thus provoking non-rational reactions of violence.
Since more substantial commitments fall outside of its field of vision,
the only common denominator for this narrow kind of reason is modern
technology. As Carl Schmitt put it at the beginning of the 1920s, Lenin
and the capitalist actually have a common goal: the electrification of the
planet.17 They can both agree on technology.What was true then is true
now: Al Qaeda and the C.I.A. can both agree on the importance of
computer technology. It is the lowest common denominator, the means
to mutually assured destruction.18
But just as purely secularist reason is not neutral, but itself a position
among others (that is, a particular form of one-sided reason or ideology),
so too the expulsion of religion from the public sphere is not a neutral
position. Allowing no hint of God in the public sphere is tantamount to
declaring God dead. An atheist faith is proclaimed through silence and
absence. If, on the other hand, God exists, it would be shown by the lives
of believing peoples. Atheism is not a neutral position, nor is religious
fanaticism the only alternative; rather, a public square is needed in which
religious discourse and symbolism are permitted, so that belief might be
tested and purified by reason and dialogue.19 As it is, however, the
modern secular West has no way of speaking with the great religious
17 Without endorsing C. Schmitt’s later political aberrations, one can appreciate this

insight in his earlier work, Römischer Katholizismus und politische Form (1925)
(Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1984), 22.
18 I am using the “C.I.A.” as a chiffre for the military power of the secular West. It
is meant to highlight a constellation of issues, not to morally evaluate what
otherwise might be a legitimate set of concerns and strategies.
19 Here Habermas’s demand that religion should translate its beliefs into the public
realm of reason is legitimate, closely paralleling the emphasis that J. Ratzinger has
placed on the inherent rationality of Christianity. Cf. J. Ratzinger and J. Habermas, The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 2006).The limit to this translation would be the “life-worldly” roots of faith
(Habermas) and the contingent premises of faith-statements which, although not
contra rationem, remain supra rationem.

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traditions or of facilitating their conversations among each other. But if
there is no rational way of communicating about what most deeply
moves us, then relationships among different communities of belief will
increasingly move from questions of truth to questions of power, to mere
rhetoric and, ultimately, violence.20 Only a form of reason that has not
degenerated into mere technological thinking can help to prevent this.
III
This, however, is not just a challenge to the secularist West, but also to the
world’s great religions, Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike. If religions
refuse to engage the state and each other in rational dialogue, then they
are as responsible for the developing disaster as purely secularist distortions of reason.
Whether Muslims are ready to participate in thoughtful dialogue,
however, is a controversial question. Pope Benedict XVI was attacked for
referring to the dialogue between the Emperor Emmanuel and a Muslim
from the fourteenth century, and for quoting a French Islamologist who
presented Islam as a belief in a God who is beyond rationality and even free
from obligations to his own promises.21 That the Holy Father had also
pointed to similar developments within Christianity (not just in modern day
fundamentalism, but much earlier, within the Catholic Christianity of the
late medieval period) had been lost on most of his listeners.These developments actually preceded the emergence of modern secularist thought: before
reason excluded faith from itself in the period of the Enlightenment, faith
had excluded reason from itself in late medieval Nominalism.
Fourteenth-century thinkers like Duns Scotus or William of Ockham
limited reason’s access to God, deriving human knowledge of God increasingly from revealed matters of faith alone. Though there is still a rational
knowledge of God for Scotus, it is severely limited: by reason alone we
cannot know God’s omnipresence, justice, omnipotence, or providence.22
Ockham denied that reason could really manifest God in any genuine
sense. As a Nominalist, he denied the existence of universal structures that
make reality intelligible and indicate an intelligent designer; there are no
ideas in God to correspond to what he has created.There is no teleological principle in the structure of the cosmos to reveal God as its ultimate
goal;23 not even the principle of causality can give the world any
20 Nietzsche said it first and perhaps most clearly; modern versions, such as Rorty’s,

are less forceful and do not acknowledge the inherent potential for violence.
21 Cf. Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg address.
22 Cf., for example, Scotus, De primo principio 4, 86.
23 Ockham, Quodlibet IV, 1 and 2.

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predictability or general order.24 God only creates individual things, and his
omnipotence and choice are only limited by the principle of non-contradiction—which, in Ockham’s analyses, is not much of a limitation at all.
Everything is viewed by Ockham through the lens of God’s omnipotence;
and curiously, even this omnipotence can be known only by faith, not by
unaided reason.25 Thus human reason cannot reach God, but can only
know what is found empirically before it. By its factual existence, we know
that the world was made by God in this particular and contingent way, but
this alone tells us nothing about God himself. Our only access to God is
through faith, not reason, since reason is limited to factual observance of
particular individuals as God has made them. In this respect the Enlightenment’s position (in the form that Kant gave it, for instance) existed long
before the Enlightenment.The position of the late medieval Nominalists,
however, was not motivated by a secularist rejection of faith, but by a pious
theological consideration: God is completely free and omnipotent, able to
create and change the order of all that exists as he wishes.
This includes not only the laws of nature, but also the laws of morality. For Scotus, for instance, everything other than God is good only
because God has willed it so, and not vice versa.26 In his potentia absoluta
God could have made the second tablet of the Decalogue entirely different, although he could not change the first tablet that commands us to
love him.27 For Ockham, however, God could even have written a moral
law into our hearts that commands us to hate him—and could still do so
today.28 He is not bound by his own commandments, promises, or
covenants. This position indeed resembles that kind of Islamic theology
that has been quoted by Pope Benedict XVI in his Regensburg address.
Thus, whatever we encounter in observable reality—or even in our
hearts—could have been otherwise. It therefore can reveal nothing to us
24 Ockham, II Quaestiones in librum secundum sententiarum, qq. 4 and 5.The articles of

faith will appear false especially to people of wisdom: “[A]rticuli fidei nec sunt
principia demonstrationis nec conclusiones, nec sunt probabiles, quia omnibus uel
pluribus uel maxime sapientibus apparent falsi. Et hoc accipiendo sapientes pro
sapientibus mundi et praecise innitentibus rationi naturali, quia illo modo accipitur ‘sapiens’ in descriptione probabilis.” Summa Logicae, 3–1.01 De divisionibus et
definitionibus syllogismorum. For Ockham, even the unicity of God, his infinity, eternity, his power to create creatio ex nihilo, and his knowledge of things other than
himself are mere matters of faith, not knowledge and reason.
25 Ockham, II Quaestiones in librum secundum sententiarum, d. 1, q. 4 and Quodlibet. I,
1;VI, 6.
26 Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 19, q. un. n. 7.
27 Scotus, Ordinatio I, d. 44, n. 6 and Reportatio IV, d. 46, q. 4.
28 Ockham, IV Quaestiones in librum secundum sententiarum, d. 1, qq. 10–11 and 16.

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about God himself, except that he has decided that things should be thus
and so. It shows us God’s decision, but not God himself. God becomes a
Deus absconditus, a hidden God who disappears behind purely arbitrary
decisions.29 God begins to resemble an absolutist ruler or tyrant who
does not appear in public, whose unpredictable or arbitrary whims paralyze his subjects with fear and trembling.30
This kind of thinking is still active in the seventeenth-century philosophy of René Descartes and, with him, all of early modern science and
secular humanism.31 For Descartes, mathematical models of nature
correspond to God’s arbitrary choice of this particular order for nature
and for reason itself. God could have wired our minds and ordered nature
in a completely different way.32 He could have made it possible for us to
think 2 + 2 = 5 clearly and distinctly, that is, in such a way that it would
be true.33 For Descartes, as for Ockham, nature and reason cannot tell us
29 While early Christianity had understood itself as vera philosophia, displaying an

optimistic understanding of the use of reason, it has now arrived at the very
opposite end of the spectrum; both sides, however, can claim roots in the very
essence of Christianity.
30 Not untypically these kinds of theologies tend to unite with authoritarian forms
of government.
31 Cf. A. Ramelow, “Truth Makers: On Robert Miner’s Genealogy of the Genealogists,” Nova et Vetera 5:3 (2007): 647–706, esp. 658–62 and 682–89. If the Protestant Reformation is skeptical about the use of philosophy and human reason,
then this may stem from the same late medieval roots. While these roots are
controverted (cf., for example,Thomas M. Osborne, “Faith, Philosophy, and the
Nominalist Background to Luther’s Defense of the Real Presence,” The Journal
of the History of Ideas 63 [2002]: 63–82), it might be possible to show that modern
day fundamentalism’s creationism and the science that it is rejecting share the
same Nominalist roots.
32 Generally speaking, God’s will is immutable (this might not be the case for
Ockham), God choosing once and for all from eternity. He is, however,
completely indifferent regarding what he chooses. (Cf. C. Cunning, “Descartes
on the Immutability of the Divine Will,” Religious Studies 39:1 [2003]: 79–92).
“And even if God has willed that some truths should be necessary, this does not
mean that he willed them necessarily; for it is one thing to will that they be
necessary, and quite another to will this necessarily, or to be necessitated to will
it.” Descartes, letter to Mesland, 2 May 1644, in Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Ch.
Adam and P.Tannery (Paris: J.Vrin, 1904), 4:118–19; The Philosophical Writings of
Descartes, trans. J. Cottingham, ed. R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), 235.
33 “You ask me by what kind of causality God established the eternal truths. I reply:
by the same kind of causality as he created all things, that is to say, as their efficient and total cause.” Descartes, letter to Mersenne, 27 May 1630, Oeuvres 1:152,
Philosophical Writings, 25. “You ask what necessitated God to create these truths;
and I reply that he was free to make it not true that all the radii of the circle are

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much about God. At the most, we know only the infinite perfection of a
God who is not a deceiver ( genius malignus).This knowledge, of course,
depends on our having “clear and distinct ideas,” while the truth of these
ideas is derived from God’s decisions. This is sufficient for Descartes’s
purposes, however, for in his philosophy God’s only role is to bridge the
gap between subject and object: he guarantees that we are wired with the
same mathematical ideas as those which truly apply to actual objects in
nature.34 But neither kind of “wiring” tells us anything more about God
than that he chose this particular “program.” Our reasoning is shut off
from God, who is then given no further thought.
In other words, a God who is an arbitrary tyrant eliminates himself
from the picture. Nevertheless, as soon as this kind of reasoning grasps its
full implications and its own operative motives, it will become aware that
at the root of its thought is this deep seated belief: God is an arbitrary
tyrant, not a trustworthy father. This way of thinking, in the words of
Descartes (although he himself does not want this to be his last word on
God), holds God to be something like a genius malignus, an evil spirit, and
that this is the truth about reality at large. We are, therefore, and will
always be like slaves who do not know what their master is doing, rather
than children in communion with their loving father. This distorted
image is the deepest root of an underlying despair in our age.35 It motiequal—just as free as he was not to create the world. And it is certain that these
truths are no more necessarily attached to his essence than are other created
things.” Ibid. “God cannot have been determined to make it true that contradictories cannot be true together, and therefore . . . he could have done the opposite.”
Descartes, letter to Mesland, 2 May 1644, Oeuvres 4:118, Philosophical Writings, 235.
“I do not think that we should ever say of anything that it cannot be brought about
by God. For since every basis of truth and goodness depends on his omnipotence,
I would not dare to say that God cannot make a mountain without a valley, or
bring it about that 1 and 2 are not 3.” Descartes, letter to Arnauld, 29 July 1648,
Oeuvres 5:224, Philosophical Writings, 358–59. Cf. also M. Osler,“Eternal Truths and
the Laws of Nature: The Theological Foundations of Descartes’ Philosophy of
Nature,” The Journal of the History of Ideas 46 (1985): 349–62.
34 This is the function of the proof for the existence of God, which then guarantees (in a somewhat circular fashion) that our clear and distinct ideas correspond
to reality. The paradigm for these ideas is the innate ideas of mathematics and
geometry, which is our “hard wiring” as well as the form of modern science. Cf.
Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, esp. Meditations 3–5.
35 A similar observation has been made by the psychologist Horst Eberhard
Richter; the subsequent emphasis on the root of religion in a feeling of “absolute
dependency” (Schleiermacher) might then appear to be an overcompensation of
this outlook; cf. M. Frank, Der kommende Gott:Vorlesungen über die neue Mythologie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1982), 45–72.

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661

vates the technologies designed to control all the contingencies of life,
making reliance on God unnecessary; it takes the preservation and direction of life into our own hands alone, and precisely because God seems
absent. This is behind all attempts at “playing God” in the creation and
preservation of human life. It underlies a life dominated by the conatus sese
preservandi,36 willing not only to shed moral scruples and sanctify any
means to its desired end, but also to lose such ends themselves for the sake
of the technological means.The more ultimate ends of human existence
will narrow to the mere satisfaction of sensual needs, aggravated by an
underlying lack of trust fostering anger and greed.37 J. Pieper has hinted
at this hidden connection between intemperance and despair.38 Without
a genuine understanding of the despair over a “hidden God” an understanding of the contemporary ethical and cultural problems will fail to
rise above the level of mere moralistic complaints.
But we do not have to believe in this kind of God. Faith in this kind
of God is itself a choice.39 It is a belief in its own right, but not a good
one. To make God into a demon is itself demonic. Christianity is, by
contrast, a faith in God as Logos, Reason itself, a Reason that has assumed
our own human nature in Jesus Christ.While the three monotheistic religions believe that God is supremely free in his decision making (rather
than being ruled by necessity or fate), he is, for Christians, also the God
who is Love. Hegel understood this better, when he argued against
certain agnostic theologians of his time: he emphasized that Plato and
Aristotle had already insisted that God cannot be envious, that is, that he
is not a God who would begrudge us a share in his divine knowledge.
How much more should this be true for the Christian God who is just
36 Spinoza, Ethics III, 6, 7.
37 In the domination of ends by means, even sensual ends are often secondary:

means and products for their satisfaction are often developed before there is a
need to satisfy. It is the raison d’être of advertisement, for instance, to produce the
needs and the market for such means.
38 J. Pieper, Zucht und Maß (Munich: Kösel, 1949), 110f. Cf. also Aquinas, ST II–II,
q. 153, a. 4, obj. 3: “Praeterea, luxuria causatur ex desperatione, secundum illud
Ephes. IV, qui, desperantes, seipsos tradiderunt impudicitiae.” And the response:
“[D]icendum quod a delectationibus luxuriae praecipue aliqui abstinent propter
spem futurae gloriae, quam desperatio subtrahit. Et ideo causat luxuriam sicut
removens prohibens, non sicut per se causa . . .” (ibid., ad 3). For an account of
nihilism as the fruit of this development of mistrust, see John Paul II, Fides et ratio,
§§45–47. What he says about knowledge, trust, and faith in human friendship
(§§31–33) also applies to friendship with God.
39 As we have seen, Ockham himself says that the omnipotence of God, to which
he constantly appeals, is a matter of sola fide.To believe in this kind of God, therefore, is itself an arbitrary choice, not an insight of reason or a matter of wisdom.

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this: self-communication.40 Without following Hegel into the extreme
conclusion of dissolving faith into reason, this observation should
resonate with any faith in the self-revelation of a divine Logos.
IV
This last understanding of the relationship between faith and reason is
better captured in other forms of medieval thought, which offer attractive alternatives to Ockham and Scotus. In the thought of St. Thomas
Aquinas, the relationship between faith and reason, philosophy and theology, and reason and free will is carefully balanced. For St. Thomas, faith
and reason cannot contradict each other, because both proceed from
God.41 God is not only the one who reveals himself in the light and
content of faith; he is also perceptible to us in the very principles of
reason we find in ourselves.42 These principles are a communication of
God’s own wisdom. St.Thomas likens God to a wise teacher: if a teacher
were to teach a student something contrary to or different from what he
knew to be true, that is, his own knowledge, he would be a deceiver or
liar. If God therefore equips human nature with principles of rationality
that are not his own, he would be subject to this charge. To assume this
about God is tantamount to blasphemy, St.Thomas says.43
Nevertheless, it is certainly true that some things do proceed not only
from God’s wisdom, but also from his free will, a sovereign will that,
although it is based in his wisdom, is still supremely free to choose.This
choice concerns creation and revelation. That is why we cannot, by
40 Hegel makes this point repeatedly; cf., for example, G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen

über die Philosophie der Religion, vol. 3 (Hamburg: Meiner, 1983), 279; he seems to
have Plato’s Timaeus, 29 through 30, in mind here.
41 For example, Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles I, c. 7. Thomas’s position was
confirmed by the Church at the First Vatican Council: “Even if faith is superior
to reason there can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since
the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also
placed in the human spirit the light of reason.This God could not deny himself,
nor could the truth ever contradict the truth.” Dogmatic Constitution on the
Catholic Faith, Dei Filius, §4, DS 3017. Cf. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio (§§9, 53,
and 43), who sees their union confirmed by biblical Wisdom literature, which
draws from pagan sources (ibid., §16).
42 “Principiorum autem naturaliter notorum cognitio nobis divinitus est indita:
cum ipse Deus sit nostrae auctor naturae. Haec ergo principia etiam divina sapientia continet. Quicquid igitur principiis huiusmodi contrarium est, divinae
sapientiae contrariatur. Non igitur a Deo esse potest.” Aquinas, ScG I, c. 7.
43 Cf. Aquinas, ScG I, c. 7: “Illud idem quod inducitur in animam discipuli a
docente, doctoris scientia continet: nisi doceat ficte, quod de Deo nefas est
dicere.”This might amount to a strong indictment of Descartes.

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reason alone, arrive at the contents of faith.44 These contents are acts of
God’s love, acts which, though not irrational, are a free, unforced communication by God. Reason and faith, therefore, have two different sources:
the principles of reason (logic, mathematics, and the like, originating in
God’s wisdom) on the one hand, and God’s free choices as they are
revealed to us, on the other. Some things, such as the Incarnation, we
know by revelation alone, while other things we can know simply
through the use of reason, like biology and mathematics. (There is, consequently, no Catholic mathematics.) And then there are those things we
know from both sources, such as the existence of God. In those cases, faith
helps the weakness of our reason to arrive more safely at conclusions that
we could have reached by reason alone. But faith never replaces reason.
Rather, reason is the source of understanding faith, that is, of making
intelligible what otherwise might remain opaque or inapplicable in our
life. Without an understanding of faith by reason, revelation would not
enter our hearts; it would not really be revelation at all.We cannot simply
accept the contents of faith by an act of the will, but must appropriate
them by the use of our reason as well. Only then can we grasp what our
will is assenting to and what the consequences of this assent will be.
A proper understanding of the correlation between faith and reason
will likewise make possible a relationship between the Church built on
faith and a secular state based on reason; they are not mutually exclusive
or essentially antagonistic, but open to one another. Furthermore, a
proper sense of the relation between faith and reason will allow conversations between religious traditions to take place. Most religions share a
belief in a God who can be known by reason. Reason can discern that
he must be omnipotent, free, reasonable, wise, and good. Although what
44 “There exists a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only as regards their

source, but also as regards their object. With regard to the source, because we
know one by natural reason, the other by divine faith.With regard to the object,
because besides those things which natural reason can attain, there are proposed
for our belief mysteries hidden in God which, unless they are divinely revealed,
cannot be known.” Dei Filius, §3, DS 3008, and §4, DS 3015; cf. also Gaudium et
Spes, §59. Aquinas gives as a further reason why this is actually helpful: “Alia
etiam utilitas inde provenit, scilicet praesumptionis repressio, quae est mater
erroris. Sunt enim quidam tantum de suo ingenio praesumentes ut totam rerum
naturam se reputent suo intellectu posse metiri, aestimantes scilicet totum esse
verum quod eis videtur et falsum quod eis non videtur. Ut ergo ab hac praesumptione humanus animus liberatus ad modestam inquisitionem veritatis
perveniat, necessarium fuit homini proponi quaedam divinitus quae omnino
intellectum eius excederent.” ScG I, c. 5, n. 4.Trying to argue for revealed truths
with unbelievers, however, opens us up to ridicule, since they might think that
we believe because of such arguments (ibid. I, c. 9).

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he has decided on the basis of his freedom, that is, revelation, may be
something upon which we do not agree, even these decisions are not
outside the reach of reason, and can enter into the conversation as well.
This is the perennial wisdom of the Catholic tradition. It should be our
task to appeal to similar traditions in the Islamic world, as well as to seek
to liberate the secular West from the narrowness of its self-imposed limitations on rationality. Against these limitations we have to rediscover an
understanding of reason which is not arbitrarily curtailed, but reflective of
its own nature and use, ultimately grounded in God himself. It is, in other
N&V
words, our task to rediscover a reason which seeks faith.45

45 I would like to thank Br. Justin Gable, O.P. for his helpful editing of this essay.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 8, No. 3 (2010): 665–81

665

The Application of Christ’s One Oblation:
Charles Journet on the Mass, the Real Presence,
and the Sacrifice of the Cross
ROGER N UTT
Ave Maria University
Ave Maria, Florida

I N the concluding remarks of a programmatic essay on the theology of
the Sacraments in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum
Concilium, of the Second Vatican Council, Fr. Romanus Cessario offers “a
brief survey of the present state of sacramental theology.”1 One of
Cessario’s observations is that “[i]n the middle of the first decade of the
twenty-first century, the study of sacramental theology remains almost
exclusively subordinated to the programs in liturgical studies.”2 The effect
that this has had on students of theology, especially seminarians, in
Cessario’s assessment is manifest, not so much in what is learned within
the context of liturgical studies, but rather in what is no longer treated.
As a result of this shift in focus from sacramental to liturgical theology,
“the majority of the seminarians enrolled in programs of formation in
the United States are able to air views on sacramental symbolism,”
Cessario admits, but nevertheless “very few [seminarians or students of
theology] are trained to give accounts of sacramental causality or even
efficacy.”3 As a response to these challenges, Cessario recommends “a new
kind of ressourcement, one that draws heavily on the tertia pars of St.
Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae and the commentatorial tradition
1 Romanus Cessario, O.P.,“The Sacraments of the Church,” in Vatican II: Renewal

Within Tradition, ed. Matthew Lamb and Matthew Levering (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2008), 129–46, 140.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.

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Roger Nutt

(including the authors of the Baroque period) that follows upon it.”4
Enter Charles Journet. It is difficult to imagine a single volume that meets
Cessario’s call for “a new kind of ressourcement” in spirit or material
execution more forcefully than Journet’s La Messe—Présence du Sacrifice de
la Croix. Thanks to the translator, Victor Szczurek, O. Praem., and St.
Augustine’s Press, La Messe is now available for the first time in English
under the title The Mass: The Presence of the Sacrifice of the Cross (2008).
Originally published in French a half-century ago, this book mines the
biblical and patristic sources advocated by the Council, the architectonic
wisdom of Aquinas (also commended by the Council), and, as longed for
by Cessario, the contributions of the most noteworthy of the Thomist
Commentators.5 Like all of Journet’s writings, The Mass is animated by a
prayerfully attuned reading of Aquinas such that it is as vital and relevant
today as when it was first penned.
The primary purpose of this essay is to present the contents of The
Mass for the sake of setting into relief the many insights to be reaped from
its appearance in English. First, however, by way of contextualization, a
brief introduction to Charles Journet and his work is provided.
The Life and Legacy of Charles Journet6
Charles Journet was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1891. He was
ordained to the priesthood in 1917. Fr. Journet spent his entire fifty-six
year academic career teaching dogmatic theology at the major seminary
of the Diocese of Fribourg in Switzerland, while also sustaining a prodigious diet of writing and pastoral work.Theology in the English language
has been somewhat slow in recognizing the significance of Journet’s
accomplishments.7 During his life Journet held the respect and friend4 Ibid., 141.
5 The list of Thomist commentators and Baroque thinkers that Journet treats, some

of whose insights are dealt with repeatedly and at length, includes John of St.
Thomas, Cajetan, Bellarmine, Suarez, Bossuet, and Cano. Journet also draws
heavily on noted twentieth-century thinkers like Vonier, Lepin, GarrigouLagrange, Gilson, de la Taille, Gardeil, and Maritain.
6 For a thorough biography (600+ pages) on the life of Journet, see Guy Boissard,
Charles Journet: 1891–1975 (Paris: Salvator, 2008).
7 To cite just two examples, which could be greatly multiplied, Alister McGrath,
in his Christian Theology: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997)
provides a broad sketch of the history of Christian theology including the most
distinguished thinkers of each period of Church history. In his presentation of
the major Roman Catholic theologians of the twentieth century, McGrath
includes de Lubac, Congar, Küng, Schoonenberg, Schillebeeckx, von Balthasar,
and Rahner. Similarly and more recently, in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians: From Neoscholasticism to Nuptial Mysticism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,

Charles Journet on the Mass

667

ship of many of the greatest Catholic figures, including an intimate
rapport with Jacques and Raïssa Maritain.The staggering five volumes of
letters covering over 4000 pages now published as Journet-Maritain Correspondance document the intimate friendship and vivacious exchange of
ideas between Journet and Maritain from 1920 to 1964.8
Journet wrote on a wide variety of theological topics including booklength treatments of the Church, evil, the Eucharist, grace, Mary, and the
nature of dogma, to name just a few. Among these, his multi-volume
tome in ecclesiology, L’Église du Verbe incarné (The Church of the Word Incarnate ), is considered his most significant work; indeed, L’Église du Verbe
incarné was once described by Yves Congar, O.P. as the greatest ecclesiological work of the first half of the twentieth century.
Journet’s theological accomplishments gained such a degree of recognition that Pope Paul VI elevated him to the episcopacy and College of
Cardinals in February of 1965. Cardinal Journet then took an active role
in the final session of the Second Vatican Council, making important
contributions to the Council’s treatment of religious freedom, the indissoluble character of the Sacrament of Matrimony that is elaborated in the
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, and
the nature of the priesthood treated in the Decree on the Life and
Ministry of Priests, Presbyterum Ordinis.9
A generation has now passed since Journet’s death at the age of 84 in
1975 and uniquely, as time goes by, appreciation and recognition of his
work and legacy continue to increase.A number of his books, sometimes
fifty years after their original appearance in French, such as The Mass, are

2007), Fergus Kerr devotes chapters to all of the theologians treated by McGrath
less Schoonenberg, and additionally (and justifiably) treats Chenu, Ratzinger,
Lonergan, and Wojtyla—but not Journet. It would of course be unfair to criticize either McGrath or Kerr simply on the material grounds that Journet, among
many others who could ostensibly have been included in a discussion about
twentieth-century Catholic theology, was not. Nevertheless, the absence of
discussion about Journet does demonstrate a wider failure within the Anglophone world to appreciate the degree to which Journet was recognized by his
own twentieth-century contemporaries as a unique and influential figure.
8 The volumes are jointly published with the permission of the Foundation du Cardinal Journet by Éditions Universitaires (Fribourg) and Éditions Saint-Paul (Paris).
9 For a detailed presentation—perhaps the only one of its kind—of Journet’s presence and interventions at the Council in 1965 see Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P.,
“Présence de Journet à Vatican II,” in Charles Journet (1891–1975): Un Théologien
en son siècle; Actes du Colloque de Genéve 1991, 2nd ed., ed. Philippe Chenaux
(Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 1994), 41–68.

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being translated into English for the first time.10 The important journal
that Journet co-founded in 1926, Nova et Vetera, still flourishes today as
well, including this English edition, whose first printed volume was
released in 2003.
The Eucharist and the Redemptive Plan of God
Similar to all of his major theological writings, Journet does not begin
this book by isolating his topic and narrowing his focus. Rather, sensitive
to the sapiential and contemplative nature of sacred theology—especially
in the Thomist tradition—Journet first situates his topic in relation to the
other major revealed doctrines that are organically connected to the one
under consideration. As the title of this book betrays, Journet here treats
the Mass from the two inter-related Eucharistic perspectives of the Real
Presence and sacrifice. In the first chapter, he highlights how, as a result
of the Fall, man actually lives in a universe that is in need of redemption,
and not, as the Enlightenment proposed, a universe of radical autonomy.
Journet welcomes the fact that many of the Enlightenment’s discoveries
contain some true data, yet he also warns that such a vision left to itself
“would never cease to err . . . nor would it ever obtain its proper significance or become truly instructive, until it is transposed into a far more
mysterious vision of the origins of humanity” (8).“In place of the idea of
the universe of nature, which would have been possible,” Journet argues,
“one must substitute the idea of a universe of redemption, it alone being real
and existential” (8).
The reason, and it is an important reason, that Journet offers this set of
reflections on the existential state of man and the universe at the beginning of his book on the Eucharist is because following divine revelation,
especially the teaching of St. Paul, “the concrete and existential state of
humanity in no way represents a natural and normal state, but rather a
catastrophe of a privileged state, where man had been in grace and
outside the reaches of death” (9). God could have, hypothetically, saved
(or not) the human race in any number of ways. Journet concedes that
God “could have . . . pretended to forget the offense of sin” (12). Such
forgetfulness would indeed be a form of salvation. Had God saved man
in this way, “it would have been forever true that the insult rendered to
God by His creation was on a whole greater than the love He received
10 Besides The Mass, a new, first time translation is available of The Church (San Fran-

cisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), and republications of What is Dogma? (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press),The Meaning of Evil (Leesburg,VA:Alethes Press, forthcoming), and
The Meaning of Grace (New York: Scepter Publishers, 1997) are also in print.

Charles Journet on the Mass

669

from it” (12). Christians, though, do not believe that the world is merely
saved: salvation in Christ is salvation by way of redemption.The redemptive nature of God’s plan to become man explains and makes sense out
of Christ’s incomprehensible sufferings and death, which he offered to
God as a priestly sacrifice to redeem man and the fallen world. For Journet, the sacrificial, and hence redemptive, aspect of Christ’s work, is the
foundation and key for understanding the sacrificial (and soteriological)
nature of the Christian liturgy, especially the Mass. Christ’s death was not
only a cultic sacrifice on his part, but the very foundation of the efficacy
and meaning of the Christian cult. By becoming incarnate and offering
himself to God, Christ, Journet explains, “would then be able to raise
from the earth toward heaven an adoration and a love . . . of extraordinary intensity” (12). It is the intensity of this human love and adoration,
united to the Person of the Word, that infuses Christ’s life, death, and
suffering with a redemptive character—“an honor,” Journet explains,
“incomparably greater than the offense it caused” (12).
Equally important and foundational, moreover, for understanding how
Journet views the Mass in relation to Christ’s work, is the reason why his
death was received by God as sacrificially efficacious.The reason is not, as
some would assume, that God in the order of justice needed to exact a
sinful “pound of flesh” from humanity to assuage his anger over sin.“The
Passion of Christ which saved the world—lost as it was since the first
sin—that same Passion which also established a universe of redemption, is
indissolubly a sacrifice and an act of love,” Journet explains (19).This indissoluble relation between sacrifice and love reveals why the Cross is liturgical-sacramental, and therefore the foundation of the inner meaning of
the Mass as well.The Cross “is a sacrifice, an exterior cultic act, a liturgy,”
Journet teaches,“but insofar as it envelops the purest and most intense love
which would ever come forth from a human heart. It is an act of love, but
insofar as it is enveloped in a voluntary sacrifice, an exterior cultic act, a
liturgy” (19).This correspondence between the external cultic act and the
internal love that animated it enables Christ’s death to accomplish all of
the ends that man needs (and hopes) to obtain through sacrifice—hence
its redemptive value. Christ’s death is (1) a perfect form of worship; (2) it
is propitiatory, thus atoning for all of man’s sins; (3) it is a perfect “act of
thanksgiving”; (4) it is “impetratory. . . . It is the greatest supplication, a
supreme appeal to the largess of the divine goodness” (21–22).
In his theology of the Eucharist, Journet does not back away or hide
from the clear biblical affirmation, underscored several times in the Letter
to the Hebrews (cf. Heb 8:12, 9:26, 9:27, 10:12, and 10:14), that Christ’s
sacrificial death is a “once and for all” offering. It is, in fact, the historical

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singularity and unrepeatability of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross that gives
the Eucharist its sacrificial import and intensity. “There is not another
oblation for sin,” Journet professes,“but a presence, an application, an actualization of that one oblation. In such a way is proclaimed the death of the
Lord, until He comes again” (23).
The Last Supper, the Cross, and the Eucharist
Here is the point at which Journet’s understanding of Christ’s work on
the Cross intersects with his presentation of the Eucharist as a Sacrament
of the New Law. The “universe of redemption,” the fallen universe, not
simply saved, but redeemed, redeemed by means of Christ’s sacrificial
death on the Cross, is the backdrop and foundation for Journet’s explication of the Sacrifice of the Mass.As the last quote in the above paragraph
hints at, Journet understands the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, to
provide the participatory connection between the singular “once and for
all” historical reality of Christ’s life and death and the on-going mission
of the Church throughout the ages.The idea that the Eucharist links the
Church with Christ’s offering is derived from the bond that Christ
himself establishes between the rite that he institutes at the Last Supper
and the offering that he makes on the Cross. Journet spells this relationship out very clearly: “The sacrifice of the Cross is a unique event; the
sacrifice of the Last Supper is a permanent institution” (29). He then
rhetorically asks, “Is it necessary to choose between the Cross and the
Last Supper, between the event and the institution?” (29) Journet thus carefully weaves together two important biblical tenets: (1) that Christ’s sacrificial death is not repeatable, on the one hand; and, on the other, (2) that
Christ commands the Church to continue offering the rite that he instituted at the Last Supper.The distinction between the “once and for all”
event and the command to continue celebrating the Eucharistic rite is
precisely the distinction that Journet develops to explain the sacrificial
aspect of the Mass. There is a reciprocal and hermeneutical relationship
between the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper and the event
of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. Journet underscores this by demonstrating how Christ joins together the Last Supper and the Cross in the
very language of the Eucharist’s institution.The Last Supper itself, Journet notes, “is a sacrifice: it contains under a sacramental and unbloody
envelopment Christ insofar as He is actually offered and immolated. And it is
as such that it is necessary to reproduce it” (30). Following the words of the
Lukan-Pauline institution narrative, “Do this in memory of me,” especially the word “do,” Journet points out:“In memory of Jesus, then, something must not only be said, but done” (30). The sacramental insight

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operative here is that Christ gives the Apostles a rite to perform, a rite
which renders something present. It is worth quoting Journet’s summary
of this point at length:
Therefore, in memory of Christ and in commemoration of Him, the
disciples would have to render present in the Eucharist His Body insofar as it was given for us, His Blood insofar as it was poured out for many. St.
Matthew adds here that this Blood is poured out for the remission of sins,
which accentuates all the more the sacrificial and propitiatory character of the Last Supper. In short, they would have to render present in
the Eucharist Christ insofar as He offers Himself and immolates Himself for
the remission of sins. (31)

Journet is very aware of the ecumenical tensions over this issue and
takes great pains to articulate, from within St.Thomas’s theology and the
teaching of the Council of Trent, why Martin Luther’s objections in The
Babylonian Captivity of the Church and John Calvin’s objections in book IV
of the Institutes of the Christian Religion, chapter 18,“On the Popish Mass,”
do not follow. Journet rightly recognizes the fact that the Reformers and
subsequent Lutheran and Reformed theologians, in objecting to the sacrificial character of the Mass are not, as they assume, simply defending the
unique dignity of Christ’s “once and for all” death from a Catholic denial
of this central truth; instead, they are making a serious and unnecessary
sacramental error. Following the Catholic tradition, the late Swiss theologian is wholly committed to protecting the irreplaceable nature of Christ’s
death on the Cross. However, in virtue of the relationship between the rite
instituted by Christ at the Last Supper and the unique event of the Cross,
Journet is able to distinguish the repetition of one, without compromising the singularity of the other. “There would be multiplied, then,” Journet recognizes,“according to the will of Christ, sacramental and unbloody
offerings and immolations, unbloody sacrifices, containing the one bloody
sacrifice” (31).As a result,“This would happen certainly not by the impossible reiteration of the unique sacrifice, but by the reiteration of the presence of the unique sacrifice under the unbloody rite” (31). This
distinction, between the sacrament as a sign, and the reality itself that is
signified in its proper and singular nature, is what leads Catholic theology
to affirm both the sacrificial nature of the Mass and the singular uniqueness and import of the Cross—indeed, this distinction is precisely what
makes the Mass itself a necessary and integral part of the life of the
Church. “We do not choose,” Journet adds, “between the sacrifice of the
Cross and that of the Last Supper, between the sacrifice event and the sacrifice institution; we preserve all of Scripture” (32).As a result, the Sacrifice of

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the Mass, “does not multiply the sacrifice-event; it multiplies the real presences of the sacrifice-event” (32).The Protestant error, as Journet explains it,
is the “juxtaposition” of the Last Supper and the Cross, such that they
“rival” each other in a way that one is forced “to choose between the
bloody sacrifice and the unbloody sacrifices” (33).
The Catholic Church indeed affirms that both the Mass and the Cross
are true sacrificial offerings. Nevertheless, the Catholic position on the
Mass does not fall prey to the Protestant objection because, like the Last
Supper,“the Mass is not another sacrifice than that of the Cross.The sacrifice, in both cases, is substantially identical; the Victim is identical. It
differs only accidentally, modally, that is with respect to the mode of presentation” (35–36).This modal difference, the difference between Christ’s
“once and for all” sacrifice and the continued celebration of the Last
Supper by the Church in offering the Eucharist, thus perpetuates and
applies the benefits of the “once and for all” offering to successive generations. “It is impossible,” Journet proclaims, “for the sacrifice of the Mass
to be in rivalry with the Cross; for the entire work of the Mass represents
to us, makes present to us the bloody sacrifice, and applies its saving
power for the remission of sins which we commit each day” (36).And so
the Eucharist, as a sacrament, as an unbloody offering, representing the
bloody offering, is the means by which “the fruits of the bloody oblation
are abundantly received” (36).
Journet then compliments these observations with further reflections
on how the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is related to the
sacramental rite.“At the moment when the bread and wine are changed
into the Body and Blood of Christ through transubstantiation,” he
argues,“that is to say through a change affecting not Christ but only the
substance of bread and wine . . . it is not Christ who is made two but
rather the presence of Christ” (48).The Real Presence, therefore, understood as the substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist, by way of
transubstantiation, is and always remains sacramental. There is a distinction between the sacramental mode of presence and the non-sacramental, or proper, mode. Discussing the one Christ, present in heaven
according to the proper mode and in the Eucharist sacramentally, Journet speaks of “two distinct presences of the same unique Christ: on the
one hand there is the natural presence under its proper and normal
appearances; on the other hand there is the sacramental presence under
its foreign and borrowed or assumed appearances” (48).
This same sacramental logic applies as well to the sacrificial aspect of the
Mass. “There are not two sacrifices juxtaposed at the Last Supper,” Journet
clarifies, “but two distinct presences of one unique sacrifice” (48).The two

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modes of presence constitute not two diverse sacrifices, but two presences
of a sacrifice that is “numerically one” (48). It is not the offering or sacrifice that is diverse, but the mode of its presence.“To speak formally,” Journet declares, “the notion of presence is analogous: first a natural presence,
then a sacramental presence of the one sacrifice; the notion of Christ’s sacrifice is not analogous but rather univocal” (49).As a result, Journet concludes:
“We ought to speak of the Mass as we do of the Last Supper: it is a true
and proper sacrifice if it is a real presence of Christ and his one sacrifice”
(49). As such, then, the notions of Real Presence and sacrifice walk handin-hand. If the body and blood that Christ offered are really, truly, and
substantially present in the Eucharist and Christ commanded that they
continue to be offered in his memory, the sacramental rite instituted at the
Last Supper and the “once and for all” offering of the Cross make up two
analogous presences of one univocal offering.
Sacramental Soteriology
Journet is not content with simply explaining how the Eucharist multiplies the presences of Christ’s sacrifice without multiplying the sacrifice
itself. Following a key insight developed by Aquinas in the tertia pars of
the Summa theologiae, Journet sees the theology of the Eucharist as an
extension of the redemptive work of Christ’s priesthood. Journet identifies two key insights provided by Aquinas about the Mass: firstly, that it
represents Christ’s passion; and, secondly, that it applies to us the fruits of
Christ’s passion. Just as Christ’s historical presence on earth, especially his
sacrifice on the Cross, worked operatively or efficiently in the order of
salvation, so too the Eucharist, by means of the Real Presence of Christ’s
sacrifice, operates effectively. Along with the Real Presence of Christ,
“there is under the same appearances,” Journet adds,“the efficient, operative
presence of His one redemptive sacrifice” (61). Indeed, the Risen Christ
is present substantially by the power of transubstantiation.“But He signifies to us,” Journet adds,
by the sacramental appearances of His Body given and His Blood
poured out, that He comes only by means of His Cross to touch us and
to apply to us the very power of His bloody sacrifice, as He did to the
Apostles at the Last Supper. Such that at each Mass He brings to us,
really and truly, under the unbloody species, the substantial presence of the
glorious Christ and the efficient presence of His bloody sacrifice. (71)

The Mass (and all the sacraments), then, is appropriated by God as an
extension of the instrumental efficiency of Christ’s human nature united
to the Word making present the power of his sacrifice throughout the

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ages. Sensitive to the ecumenical significance of this issue as well, Journet
again raises the question about exactly what the Catholic Church believes
regarding the Mass as a sacrifice. Carefully interpreting Aquinas’s position,
Journet argues that “Christ is sacrificed at the Mass because the Mass
brings us the effects of his Passion; it actualizes for us his passion; it makes
us partakers of the fruits of his passion; it accomplishes each time the work
of our redemption” (80).This position is deeply connected with the relation that the Mass has to the doctrine of the Real Presence. “Where
Christ’s Passion is really present,” Journet explains, “Christ’s sacrifice is
really present” (81). And therefore, since the Mass makes Christ’s passion
present, it “is the vehicle of the remission of sins brought about by Christ
on the Cross; it brings us this remission and no other” (86).
Nevertheless, it could be asked: were not the sins of the whole world
remitted at the time of Christ’s death? The answer, of course, is yes. But
affirming that Christ’s death is indeed the cause of the remission of sin
does not explain how that remission is applied to people throughout the
ages. “The Passion of Christ brings the remission of sins in the manner
of a universal cause, ut causa quaedam universalis remissionis peccatorum.This
universal cause of salvation, however, must be applied to each individual
person for the destruction of his own sins” (117). In support of this position, Journet presents Aquinas’s argument which identifies a two-fold
application to individual believers of the New Law and saving work of
Christ.The first application of salvation in Christ comes “through living
faith, vivified by charity” (117). The second form of application, which
perfects the first, is “through the sacraments of the New Law” (117).This
second application by means of the Sacraments is the way that the
Church participates in the saving benefits of Christ’s sacrifice and extends
his mediation through time.“[I]f each new Mass is a new presence among
us of the unique sacrifice of the Cross,” then, Journet explains,
it would be necessary to speak of the Mass as one speaks of the Cross,
and to say that in the lines of ascending and descending mediation, the
power of the Mass is infinite, but that it is participated in by the Church only
in a finite manner, according to the intensity of her love at a given
moment in time, and that it is applied to each generation through the
mediation of faith and the sacraments—in the present case through the
sacrament of the Eucharist, instituted by Christ for this end. Such, in
fact, is the teaching of St.Thomas. (118)

Journet spends a great deal of time parsing out the differences between
the universal efficiency of the Cross and the finite participation of the
Church in Christ’s sacrifice, carefully explaining the differences between

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the ex opere operato efficacy of the sacraments and the finite ex opere operantis participation of any particular individual. Nevertheless, his central
point is clear: The conclusions made about the redemptive value of
Christ’s work have analogous applications to the salvific and mediatorial
value of the sacramental life of the Church—especially the Mass.
Transubstantiation
It would indeed be futile to speak about the multiplication and application of Christ’s one sacrifice through the Eucharist without offering an
argument as to how that presence is possible. The doctrine of transubstantiation provides the answer; Journet offers an exposition of this
doctrine that knows of few rivals in recent history. He begins his treatment by commenting thoroughly on the Bread of Life discourse in John
6 and the Synoptic-Pauline presentations of the Institution Narrative.
From the primary biblical sources Journet identifies the core tenets of the
Church’s “Eucharistic faith” and then works through an analysis of how
the doctrine of the Real Presence has developed through the ages. Pressing toward the formal definition of transubstantiation in 1215 at Lateran
IV, Aquinas’s insights, and the teaching of Trent, Journet pauses to gather
the insights of Ignatius of Antioch, Justin, Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, and
Cyril of Alexandria, and takes longer accounts of the Eucharistic doctrine
of Ambrose and Augustine. For the sake of brevity, this treatment will
only examine Journet’s systematic presentation of the doctrine.
Well aware of the philosophical challenges to transubstantiation posed
by post-Cartesian philosophy, especially regarding the idea of substance,
Journet dives headlong into the debate over the proper meaning of this
tenet of faith.“When the physicist speaks of matter (or mass) and energy
and declares that matter can be transformed into energy and vice versa,”
Journet argues (citing the words of his friend Jacques Maritain),“he is in
no way thinking of what the philosopher calls the substance of material
things—this substance, considered in itself (abstracted from its accidents)
is purely intelligible and cannot be known by sense or any means of
observation and measurement” (157). Physicists treat individual material
substances from the perspective of what the Western philosophico-theological tradition terms “proper accidents” such as quantity. According to
their proper accidents, therefore, Journet explains (still following Maritain) that material substances possess a “certain organization in space” as
well as “a specific activity” (157). Accordingly, as a real change in the material order, transubstantiation bears several unique and miraculous characteristics.The first of these, unique among things that change, is that Christ
“preexists transubstantiation and is unchanged by it” (159). The change

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terminates in the substance of the sacramental signs, the bread and wine,
while the species, or accidents (for example, the quantity, mass, and sensibly verifiable aspects) of those substances remain after the change. “The
entire change,” Journet notes, “of the bread and wine will take place by
Him without affecting Him in any way” (159).This means, additionally,
that besides the unique fact that transubstantiation brings about a sacramental presence of a preexisting reality (Christ), the remaining species of
bread and wine continue in existence without existing in the substances
of bread and wine, which are changed into the Body of Christ. Journet
unpacks this aspect of transubstantiation accordingly: “The substance of
bread being totally changed and converted, disappearing into the
substance of the Savior’s Body, has left the accidents without the subject
of inherence which they had, and the most fundamental of which is
expanse” (160). These remaining accidents are no longer sustained in
reality by the substance of bread, nor do they become the accidents of
Christ’s body. Rather, after the change, the accidents of bread and wine
are sustained in existence “immediately” by the “divine power.”
Describing transubstantiation as the change of the substance of bread
into the substance of Christ’s body does not resolve the further issue of just
how Christ is present in the Eucharist after the change takes place. The
difficulty stems from the obvious fact that the dimensional accidents of a
single host containing Christ are not proportionate to the dimensions of
his body. How then is Christ said, with any level of real intelligibility, to be
present in the Eucharist? This question is the contemplative apex of
Eucharistic theology, and Journet explains the mode of Christ’s presence
with rare clarity and acumen. Journet unveils the profundity and rational
cogency for transubstantiation and the manner of Christ’s presence by
drawing on the distinction between substance and accidents, especially
measurable and locative accidents such as quantity and place, as well as the
distinction between the proper mode of presence and the sacramental
mode. Christ, Journet argues, “becomes present where He was not, without changing locally, without losing His proper quantity, and yet not by the
mediation of this quantity, but by a pure change of the substance of bread
into the substance of His Body” (161).The new presence of Christ resulting from this unique change, the sacramental presence, is “not local but
sacramental, not by way of quantity and according to quality, but by way of
substance and according to substance” (161).There are, therefore, two presences of Christ: The first, whether on earth or as he is now in heaven, is
according to “nature, by mode of quantity.”The second is “under the sacramental species, according to transubstantiation, by mode of substance.
There is no other case of such a corporal but non-local substance” (161).

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Journet is careful to point out that such distinctions are not the result
of external impositions onto the reality of the Eucharist by theologians
with overzealous philosophical aspirations. Rather, such distinctions,
developed over time, are contained implicitly in the Lord’s own words at
the Last Supper and are the logical conclusions of those words.The words
“This is my Body,” Journet emphasizes, already require the belief in two
forms of presence, the one by which Christ himself sits at the table
according to his proper species, and the other being the mode by which
he gives himself to those gathered at table with him under the forms of
bread and wine declared to be his very Body and Blood.“This, that is to
say the thing, the existing substance, which before the act was bread, is
now, after the action, a Body, the Body of Christ,” Journet comments.
On this matter yet again, Journet takes up a number of important
ecumenical points. He challenges, for example, the objections of Zwingli
and Calvin, which oppose the doctrine of the Real Presence on the
grounds that it requires a local presence of Christ, and Luther’s argument
that the substance of bread remains unchanged while Christ’s body is
joined to its location. “We must add also,” Journet notes in his response
to the objections,“that, if Christ is present under the dimensions of the host,
it is assuredly not this local presence that we know and according to
which each part of a body is co-extensive with each part of the place it
occupies” (162). Because the substance of bread is changed into the
preexisting substance of Christ’s body, the dimensional accidents of the
bread that remain “contain” and “circumscribe” Christ’s presence, but the
object adored and received by Catholics in the Eucharist is Christ, and
only Christ, present according to the mode of his substance. Following
St.Thomas’s exposition closely, Journet plumbs this profound doctrine in
the following lengthy quotation:
After the consecration the substance of the Body of Christ, along with
the Word who is united to it personally, is contained under the species
or appearances of bread in an essentially different manner. Now it no
longer sustains these appearances and thus enters into direct contact
with the place; but rather, it assumes the veil of these borrowed appearances in order to enter thus into indirect contact with the place—now
no longer by manner of place, of dimension, of co-extension of each of
the parts of its proper expanse with the corresponding part of the
surrounding body, but in a more secret manner, the entire undivided
Body of Christ (and consequently Christ Himself, the Word made
Flesh) being present under each divided piece of species or appearance,
and each divided piece of species or appearance containing the entire
undivided Body of Christ. (163–64)

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The distinction made here by Journet is crucial for an integral understanding of the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. Transubstantiation
does not hinge solely on the traditional distinction between substance
and the accident of quantity, in contrast to the conflation of those two
modes of being in modern science and philosophy. The Catholic
doctrine maintains that the whole Christ is present. The quantity of a
thing, of a body, locates it or situates it in a place—hence Journet’s use of
the term “co-extension” in the above quotation. This means that the
distinction between quantity and place, or location, is also very important
for understanding how Christ can be wholly present in the Eucharist.
Transubstantiation does not, Journet underscores, separate Christ’s Body
“from its proper dimensions” (165). Drawing on the doctrine of
concomitance, Journet further adds that in the sacrament “these dimensions of Christ’s Body are not able to enter into contact with the place
where the sacrament is primarily, directly, and immediately and according to their proper mode and the mode which they have in heaven; but
only secondarily, indirectly, mediately and according to the mode which
is proper to the substance” (165). To say that Jesus is not present in the
Eucharist according to place is not to say that he does not have contact
with the place in which the Eucharist is located. He does, for his presence is real. Jesus is not, therefore, present in the Eucharist by bi-location
or ubiquity; he is present in multiple places according to the diverse
modes. One mode is immediate and proper according to the location of
his quantitative dimensions inhering in his substance, while the other
mode gives him contact with many places without affecting his proper
location. Here Journet is at his speculative best:“[T]o enter into contact with
the place affects one only extrinsically : it is not contradictory for some
thing, endowed with its own proper dimensions, to have simultaneously
different contacts with different places” (166).The doctrine of a real presence of Christ in the Eucharist together with the affirmation that Christ
is “seated at the right hand of the Father” would only be contradictory if
it maintained that he was present in both places locally.The doctrine of
Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist makes no such claim, for Christ’s
presence in the Eucharist is always as a sacrament and according to the
mode of substance, and not by way of his localizing accidents.
The Eucharist, Communion, and the Church
Immediately following his formidable exposition of the sacrificial nature
of the Eucharist, the doctrine of the Real Presence, and transubstantiation, Journet ponders the effects communicated by the Blessed Sacrament.The Eucharistic title “Communion” entered into Christian theology

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through St. Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 10. Paul asks rhetorically
about the cup and the bread: are they not communion (koinonia ) with
the body and blood of Christ? Communion is an effect of the sacrifice
of Christ’s blood and his body.“The blood of Christ is a unifier. It grants
us, who enter into communion with Him, to enter into communion
with each other,” Journet explains (185). Resisting the temptation of
numerous contemporary theologians who posit Eucharistic communion
as an effect of the assembly gathered together, Journet clearly sees the
order properly:“The sacramental Body of Christ is the cause of the unity
of Christ’s Mystical Body” (185). Drawing on the classical distinction
between the sacramentum tantum, the res et sacramentum, and res tantum,
Journet articulates how Christ’s presence par excellence, namely his
Eucharistic presence, brings about the unity of the Church.“[T]he sacramental Body of Christ,” he teaches, “creates around Him the Mystical
Body or ecclesial Body of Christ” (186). As a result, the fallen universe is
reclaimed and reunited in the one sacrifice of his body contained and
offered in the Eucharist by the Church in the Mass. Even though Christians are all buried with Christ in Baptism, Journet is quick to point out
that Baptism was not meant to stand alone.“What Baptism begins,” Journet illustrates,“the Eucharist seeks to consummate; what has been planted
tends of itself toward full blossom. The Eucharist is a new moment
destined to make one enter more into the Savior’s Passion, to incorporate one more intimately into His redemptive sacrifice” (193).
Moreover, the unity or communion caused by the presence of Christ
and his sacrifice in the Eucharist reveals the eschatological nature of the
Church and her sacraments. The Eucharistic bread, Christ teaches, gives
life to the world, and he will raise up on the last day those who receive
it: “The eschatological character of our sacraments culminates in the
Eucharist,” Journet declares (193). He further notes,“The first Christians
spontaneously saw in the Eucharistic presence of the glorious Christ an
anticipation of His appearance at the end of time” (193).
The Mass and Liturgical Studies
Mirroring the order of Aquinas’s treatment of the Eucharist in the tertia
pars of the Summa theologiae, Journet does not treat the Rite of the Mass
as such until the final chapter, “The Settings of the Mass,” after the full
nature of the Sacrament has been thoroughly investigated. Journet’s speculative-sapiential approach to theology does not allow liturgical theology,
as distinct from formal sacramental theology, to dictate the ordo of his
treatment of the Eucharist. This methodological decision offers the
contemporary reader an important, though under-appreciated, insight:

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there is not a stand-alone liturgical theology in Journet’s approach to the
Eucharist. Rather, his presentation of the Rite of the Mass, its history and
parts, and the forms of worship that accompany the Eucharist are natural outgrowths of the nature of the Sacrament. Journet does not study
liturgy as an end in itself distinct from sacramental theology, but thoroughly studies the Sacrament, from whence comes an integral understanding of its liturgical form.This is not to say that Journet turns a blind
eye to formal liturgical studies: he is conversant and appreciative of the
major contributors to the liturgical renewal of the twentieth century,
such as J.A. Jungmann and Dom Odo Casel, but always in a balanced way
that gives primacy to the nature of the Sacrament. For example, Journet
quotes Jungmann’s argument in favor of understanding the Eucharist as
the sacrifice of the Church, as opposed to Christ’s sacrifice.The primary
evidence that Jungmann provides in his argument is the ecclesialcommunal language in the Canon of the Mass. Jungmann deems the
evidence to be so clear on the point that his interpretation can be given
“pride of place” (93, n. 2). Journet introduces his quotation of Jungmann’s
argument with the following words: “It is from a purely external and
non-theological point of view which Joseph-André Jungmann writes,”
and he follows up the quotation with this: “We respond by saying that
this is blatantly contrary to the words of consecration.” And so we come
full circle with the topic of the introduction: namely, Fr. Cessario’s longing for a renewal of sacramental theology proper, aided by the insights
and distinctions of St.Thomas and his commentators.
Conclusion
There is much more to be learned from The Mass than what these brief
reflections hint at, reflections which hope only to give a small sample of
the flavor of the whole. Charles Journet’s The Mass: The Presence of the
Sacrifice of the Cross is a special book of timeless value. Not because it is
old, reflecting the glory and theological style of days gone by; rather, it is
special because Journet, master teacher that he was, was able to grasp and
communicate the speculative treasures of the Catholic understanding of
the Eucharist as the Real Presence of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. In
some ways this book could be said to be a prolonged meditation on what
the Eucharist qua sacrament is (and is not): how it causes its effects, what
its purpose is within God’s plan of salvation, and what its relationship is
to Christ and his Cross. And yet, like Journet’s whole body of work, it is
more than a prolonged meditation on the sacramentality of the
Eucharist. This book, along with the many other recent publications
mentioned above, may be an indication of the arrival of a renaissance of

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interest in the work of Charles Cardinal Journet—hopefully. Journet
would be quick to point out, though, that his books (like the Eucharist)
are meant to lead us into participation with the topics that he treats, not
their noble author.To that end, the publication of this book initiates more
than just another opportunity for theologians to enjoy Journet’s warm
insights; it opens another avenue for us to come to know and love the
Lord in the Eucharist, the same Lord whom Journet spent his life servN&V
ing and contemplating—and for that we can be glad indeed.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 8, No. 3 (2010): 683–702

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Predestination in America
E DWARD T. OAKES, S.J.
Mundelein Seminary
Mundelein, Illinois

I
F ROM its first emergence in colonial Massachusetts, American civilization has been massively affected—indeed, irrevocably determined—by
the Christian doctrine of predestination.As Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel
The Scarlet Letter so brilliantly illustrates, American culture can never be
understood unless one first takes into account the determining influence
that Puritanism has had on the American psyche (which would include,
of course, the rejection of Puritanism by so many in later generations).
And Puritanism means predestination. For, as an offshoot of Calvinism, it
defined itself against other Protestant denominations by its adoption of
Calvin’s strict and unsparing version of predestination.
Hawthorne’s novel recounts the sad tale of a Puritan pastor in seventeenth-century Boston, the aptly named Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale,
who collapses at the end of the story from guilt at having committed
adultery. On the day of his death, he preaches his most effective sermon
ever on the predestining grace of God, to the great edification of his
congregation. But then on leaving church he climbs a different pulpit, the
town scaffold.There, attended by the adulterous Hester Prynne and their
daughter Pearl, he confesses his sin to the townsfolk while exposing the
Scarlet A psychosomatically seared into his chest by his gnawing guilt,
and falls dead just after Pearl kisses him.
From the distance of two centuries, Hawthorne made his novel a
mordant commentary on Dimmesdale’s theology of predestination as the
source of his torment. As a “five-point Calvinist,” this clergyman
subscribed to five core doctrines of strict Calvinism, usefully captured in
the famous acronym TULIP: Total depravity, Unmerited election,

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Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints.
Because Dimmesdale had failed to persevere, he recognizes that, despite
his zeal for winning Boston souls, he had never been numbered among
the elect to begin with, and therefore Christ had never atoned for his sins,
only for the elect. Doom was thus his foreordained end, decided in the
eternal counsels of God, even before he had committed any sins, indeed
before creation itself.
Among its other implications, the universally recognized status of The
Scarlet Letter as a classic of American literature shows that we have long
needed an account of the career of the doctrine of predestination in America, a gap now amply and brilliantly filled in Peter Thuesen’s monograph
Predestination:The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine.1 Oddly, though,
Thuesen does not mention Hawthorne’s novel, although he makes good
use of John Updike and Flannery O’Connor, both keen students of American Protestantism (and, not incidentally, of Hawthorne). At all events,
Thuesen’s monograph on its own terms almost reads like a novel, so fascinating is the history he tells.
The story of course begins with St.Augustine, whose battles against the
Pelagian doctrine of man’s moral self-sufficiency forced him to the logic
of predestination, his account of which would prove so determinative for
all of later Western theology. In his summary of Augustine’s theology,
however,Thuesen, I think, goes too far. For example, he holds—without
any supporting evidence from Augustine’s own writings—that the bishop
of Hippo held to a theory of double predestination, that is, that God
determined whom to redeem and whom to damn even before the fall of
Adam. (The technical name for this position is called supralapsarianism,
but that distinction did not arise until the Reformation.) More startling,
Thuesen claims that Augustine thought that even some baptized infants
would be damned if they were not already counted among the predestined elect, even if they died with baptismal grace on their souls before
reaching the age of reason, a bizarre position that again the author does
not back up with any passage from Augustine’s pen.
Aside from these flaws,Thuesen has a sharp eye for recurring patterns in
the history of this somber doctrine. In his telling, debates about predestination have a habit of beginning with a theologian’s innocent-seeming prayer
asking for God’s help, which some contemporary will hear as implying that
God might command something that the Christian could not fulfill using
1 Peter J.Thuesen, Predestination:The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine (New

York: Oxford University Press, 2009).To avoid excessive clutter, page numbers for
all quotations from this book will be given in the body of the text.

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685

his own power of free will.At this point, the first theologian will feel called
upon to defend the need for grace; and as the debate gets ever more elaborate, a full doctrine of predestination emerges fully developed.
Thus in book X of the Confessions Augustine prayed to God (uncontroversially enough, it would seem): “Give what you command, and
command what you will.”2 When he read that prayer, however, the
British lay monk Pelagius objected on the grounds that God would never
command something antecedently incapable of being obeyed, and therefore our ability to fulfill divine commands must have remained intact,
even after the sin of Adam.
Not so, said Augustine, and the ensuing debate would last the rest of
his life, bequeathing to Western Christianity his doctrine of predestination, which says this: Since we are saved without any merit on our part
but only by grace, then that grace must be freely given independently of
merit, as St. Paul clearly teaches: “For it is by grace that you have been
saved; through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph 2:8–9).Thus there is nothing we can really do to “earn” our salvation. Yet that same grace of
election is simultaneously required in order to be able to obey the moral
law, which remains a command quite apart from the grace given to fulfill
it, as again Paul clearly teaches:
God “will give to each person according to what he has done” [Ps
62:12; Prov 24:12]. To those who by persistence in doing good seek
glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those
who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will
be wrath and anger. (Rom 2:6–8).

And given the wide variance in the human race between those who
strive to do good and those who throw themselves into evil deeds, God
therefore not only foresaw but predetermined who would receive this
grace gratuitously and who would not: “For we are to God the aroma of
Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.To
the one we are the stench of death; to the other, the fragrance of life” (2
Cor 2:15–16). For if God only foresaw moral conduct and on that basis
chose his elect, then he would not only be choosing the elect based on
2 Augustine, Confessions, bk. X, chap. 37: “da quod jubes et jube quod vis.” This

prayer of course is a direct outcome of Augustine’s psychology of sin: “Where I
am able not to sin, I don’t want to avoid it; and where I want not to sin, I can’t
help but sin, and am miserable in both conditions” (“hic esse valeo nec volo, illic
volo nec valeo, miser utrubique”) (bk. X, chap. 40).

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their merit but would also be determined by a future event, which Augustine held to be an impossibility. On the contrary, as Paul says: “Therefore
God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom
he wants to harden” (Rom 9:18).
So too with John Calvin, the same pattern occurs as with Augustine
earlier: first an aside confessing utter reliance on grace, followed by
contemporary objections, and finally leading to a full doctrine of predestination. As is well known, Calvin spoke of predestination only twice in
the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, and then only in
passing. Inevitably, objections were raised about the fairness of God and
the meaning of human free will, which prompted Calvin to expand on
the matter in later editions until Calvinism and predestination became
almost synonymous terms. After his death the controversy lived on (no
surprise there), in the course of which one second-generation Calvinist,
Jacob Arminius, attributed an independent power of man to accept or
reject grace outside of the offer of that grace. His opponents saw this
position as contradicting Augustine’s view that the prayer for grace itself
comes from grace, just as the decision to believe is itself the outcome of
God’s grace. The debate raged on and remained unresolved until the
famous Synod of Dort in the Netherlands (1619), which insisted on what
became known thereafter as the acronymic TULIP rule,“an appropriately
Dutch flower” for this synod that met in Holland,Thuesen drolly notes.
To bring the story now to America, Jonathan Edwards, whom Thuesen rightly calls the last great theologian in the American Puritan tradition, preached a fiercely uncompromising version of predestination
during the Great Awakening revival of 1734–1735, prompting one upset
listener, the elderly Bernard Bartlett, to call Edwards “as great an instrument as the devil had on this side of hell to bring souls to hell,” an accusation that Augustine also had to face from his fellow-bishop Julian of
Eclanum because of Augustine’s conclusion that infants who die before
baptism will suffer in hellfire eternally, which Julian saw as the greatest
weak spot in Augustine’s theology, and subsequent history would prove
him right.
Since the Bible teaches that Satan prowls the world “seeking whom he
may devour” (1 Pet 5:8), so Julian reasoned, nothing would please the
devil more than to get to keep all these dead babies for his own kingdom. Eternal destiny to hell in effect means, said the bishop of Eclanum,
that God already concedes to Satan what has been predetermined to be
his from the beginning, the very same conclusion of the dualist
Manicheans, who also left good and evil equipoised. Augustine had
supposedly abandoned the Manichaeism of his youth, but, Julian claimed,

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687

it lingered on in his theology of predestination and an infantile hell.3
Edwards, too, found himself caught in this same bind in his ever-more
elaborate defense of predestination against Bartlett; for, in his ringing
defense of the servility of human will and its need for God’s predestined
grace, Edwards, authentic son of Calvin that he was, spoke of predestination applying to infants no less than to adults.4
Although Calvinists did not have as strong a view on the efficacy of
infant baptism as did Augustine, their Westminster Confession (1647)
nonetheless spoke openly of elect infants (X.3), leaving open the question
of their number.When it was conceded, in essential harmony with Augustine, that the number of elect infants was finite, one Arminian theologian
with a taste for sarcasm charged these “hard-shell Calvinists” with advocating the eschatology of “Fried Baby.” (Similarly, when Augustinians in
the Middle Ages objected to the Thomist hypothesis of a painless limbo
for unbaptized infants, Thomists in turn called these Augustinians tortores
infantium, baby-torturers, an objection that has put all predestinarians in
the Augustinian tradition in the acutest rhetorical bind.)
Such patterns, as we have seen, played themselves out on both continents, Europe and America. In Thuesen’s account, though, two aspects of
the debate on predestination hit Americans with special force: the suicidal torment the doctrine caused to some sensitive souls and the divisive
effect it had on American denominationalism.
First of all, predestination in the Calvinist rubric often brought on
genuine emotional distress in some parishioners’ lives, so often in fact that
the syndrome soon earned its own moniker: tentatio praedestinationis, the
temptation to despair at one’s future salvation (think Dimmesdale again).
“Hell was, of course, a person’s default destination under the Augustinian
doctrine of original sin,” Thuesen notes (61). Nor was this position
uniquely Reformed, for Augustine was the common touchstone for both
sides of the Reformation debate. Thus Catholic theologians like the
medieval Thomas Aquinas and the counter-Reformation Jesuit Robert
3 On this point see further Paul Rhodes Eddy, “Can a leopard change its spots?

Augustine and the crypto-Manichaeism question,” Scottish Journal of Theology 62
(2009): 316–46.
4 Despite Edwards’s reputation for fire-and-brimstone sermons, Michael Allen
argues that Edwards was, at best, a cautious supralapsarian; see Michael Allen,
“Jonathan Edwards and the lapsarian debate,” Scottish Journal of Theology 62
(2009): 299–315. However, since Edwards clearly countenanced the idea of
infant reprobation, and since infants can hardly be said to have any choice in
their early death, the conclusion of supralapsarian logic seems unavoidable in
Edwards, even if he was diffident in expressing it, given its essential grimness.

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Cardinal Bellarmine freely admitted that the number of the saved would
be few in comparison to the damned.
Not a very hopeful doctrine for anyone, to be sure. But Puritan divines
seemed to have been especially concerned with the latent despair many of
their flock drew from the doctrine. One not terribly helpful strategy would
be to say, as one Puritan theologian actually did, that “[i]f among a thousand capital offenders, it were published that one of them should have a
pardon, would not everyone hope to be the man?”5 Obviously that ploy
can only offer the hope of desperation. Anyone with the slightest sense of
unworthiness, or even a delicate conscience, would easily assume he
belonged among the vast number of the reprobate.
So it could hardly have come as much of a surprise when Increase
Mather (the Puritan clergyman involved in the Salem witch trials)
announced, in a sermon specifically devoted to his congregation’s collective temptation to suicide, that “within the space of but five weeks, there
had been five self-murders” in his own congregation.6 Thus a doctrine
that Calvin had meant to give hope to his persecuted followers in fact
became the occasion for their despair.
This ironic outcome brings up the second feature of the doctrine of
predestination that played such a prominent role in the history of American Protestantism: its inherent divisiveness inside congregations. Usually
those denominations that took their identity from their rejection of the
TULIP rule, such as John Wesley’s Methodism, never felt tempted to
return to a strict Calvinist understanding of predestination. Wesley, for
example, when he arrived in the American colonies, excised fifteen of the
Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England in which he had been
raised that treated of justification by faith alone and the condemnation of
works-righteousness. Obviously, a Methodist stress on the need for good
works must equally imply a robust free will, hence Wesley’s hostility to
Calvinism. As Susanna Wesley wrote to her brother John in 1725: “The
doctrine of predestination, as maintained by the rigid Calvinists, is very
shocking and ought utterly to be abhorred, because it charges the most
holy God with being the author of sin.”7
But whenever a congregation or denomination adopted either five-point
Calvinism or its equivalent, such a doctrinal subscription to strict predesti5 Samuel Willard, Compleat Body of Divinity in Two Hundred and Fifty Expository

Lectures on the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism (Boston, 1726), 248–49; cited in Thuesen, Predestination, 60.
6 Increase Mather, A Call to the Tempted:A Sermon on the Horrid Crime of Self-Murder
(Boston, 1724), 1; cited in Thuesen, Predestination, 65.
7 Cited in Thuesen, Predestination, 73.

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689

nationism invariably served as a catalyst for internal dissent from the
doctrine—and a breakup of that denomination into another church formation.The reason why predestination proved so perennially discordant stems,
not surprisingly, from the very tentatio praedestinationis that so dominated the
lives of the devout in Puritan New England, as Thuesen explains here:
First, [anxiety over one’s predestined salvation] entailed something of a
Catch-22. If you were not anxious about your eternal election, you
were obviously not elect. But continuous (or at least cyclical) anxiety
about election denied you the very comfort that predestination was
supposed to bring. Comfort, in other words, could be notoriously
elusive in this system. Predestinarian anxiety . . . all too easily passed
from salutary struggle to genuine distress.The second problem . . . was
its sheer intensity. . . . Not everyone was a spiritual marathon runner like
Edwards or an accomplished soliloquist like Hamlet. Many Americans,
including many Puritan laypeople, were happy simply muddling
through.They looked to religion for the sort of automatic and tangible
comforts that medieval laypeople once sought in merely watching the
Mass. But such a view of the sacrament was the very thing Puritan clerics were bent on dispelling. (69)

Such paradoxes abound in the world where predestination is seen as
operative, paradoxical both on its own doctrinal terms and in its historical effects on Christianity. After all, the doctrine must affirm human free
will, lest predestination turn into outright fatalism or philosophical determinism.Yet the doctrine must also assume as one of its basic premises the
servility of the will and its inability to carry out God’s commands without efficacious grace.The juxtaposition of these two seemingly irreconcilable principles can lead to the impression that while one is free to
choose evil (and thus responsible before the bars of justice for that evil),
yet whatever good one does is not one’s own doing but must be credited
to God—in other words, “damned if you do [evil], damned if you don’t
[have grace].” Such a position prompted much predictable scoffing both
from anti-Calvinist Christians and from those Enlightened skeptics who
scorned the Christian religion in its entirety.To believe in predestination
while still maintaining that reprobates sin of their own accord, one sociologist quips, “is almost like saying that a man who finds himself falling
from a tree will decide on the way down that this is what he really
planned to do anyway.”8 Ludwig Wittgenstein says something similar in
his posthumously published notebooks:
8 Kai T. Erikson, Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance (New York:

Wiley, 1966), 191.

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Edward T. Oakes, S.J.
[The Calvinist axiom] “Out of his goodness he has chosen them and
he will punish you” makes no sense.The two halves of the proposition
belong to different ways of looking at things.The second is ethical, the
first not. And taken together with the first, the second is absurd.9

The Catholic poet Alexander Pope said something similar in his 1734
poem Essay on Man:
But still this world (so fitted for the knave)
Contents us not. A better shall we have?
A kingdom of the Just then let it be:
But first consider how those Just agree.
The good must merit God’s peculiar care!
But who but God can tell us who they are?
One thinks, on Calvin Heaven’s own spirit fell,
Another deems him instrument of hell;
If Calvin feel Heaven’s blessing, or its rod,
This cries there is, and that, there is no God.
What shocks one part will edify the rest,
Nor with one system can they all be blest.10

These painful implications are part of what should properly be called
the dogmatic paradox of predestination. But there are other, more historical paradoxes too. For example, predestination as a doctrine has been on
the defensive in America from its first enunciation in Edwards’s own
time, through the Declaration of Independence (hardly a Calvinist document with its solemn claim that all men are created equal), and down to
the present day.Yet the only two American theologians who can plausibly claim first rank with the theologians of Europe (in any age) are
Jonathan Edwards and Reinhold Niebuhr, both Augustinians (albeit each
in his own fashion of course). Niebuhr even managed to make Augustine’s thought sound sensible to, of all people, secularists. (One recalls here
the informal club called “Atheists for Niebuhr.”)
On the other hand, and to compound the paradoxes, a convincing case
can be made that without Calvinism there would be no Declaration of
Independence. True, Thomas Jefferson wrote to his close friend John
9 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, trans. Peter Winch (Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1980), 81e: “ ‘Er hat sie, in seiner Güte, erwählt und er wird
Dich strafen’ hat ja keinen Sinn. Die beiden Hälften gehören zu verschiedenen
Betrachtungen. Die zweite Hälfte ist ethisch und die erste ist es nicht. Und mit
der ersten zusammen ist die zweite absurd” (81).
10 Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle IV.5 in Alexander Pope, Essay on Man and
Other Poems, ed. Stanley Appelbaum (New York: Dover, 1994), 72–73.

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691

Adams decrying Calvin as the real atheist:“If ever man worshipped a false
god, he did.The being described in his five points is not the God whom
you and I acknowledge and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor
of the world; but a demon of malignant spirit.” Adams clearly agreed, for
he expressed the same sentiment to his son, John Quincy Adams: “The
Calvinist and the Atheists differ in nothing but this; the former believe in
eternal misery; the latter not.”11
Nonetheless, the Calvinist version of predestination had a role (an
ironic one, to be sure) in promoting democracy because, unlike Augustine’s version, it downplayed the efficacy and meaning of the sacraments,
thereby undermining an ordained hierarchy as well. This democracypromoting effect can be seen in the negative case, in those who opposed
Calvinist doctrine, as Thuesen ably explains here:
Despite their rhetoric about human freedom, Anglicans at their core
believed in absolute obedience to God, king, lords, and bishops—a
traditional hierarchy they regarded as the only divinely instituted safeguard of social stability. The seventeenth-century Puritan revolution
had upset that order and had revived a strong predestinarianism that
theoretically transcended all class distinctions. As historian John
Woolverton has aptly put it, “anyone could call himself God’s chosen
vessel and persevere in endless and stubborn independence.” From an
Anglican perspective, an overemphasis on predestination threatened to
undermine the laity’s patriotic allegiance to the royal heads of state and
church. (79–80)

Another historical paradox comes from Max Weber’s famous thesis in
his controversial book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
(1903), which claimed that Puritan anxiety over salvation and its correlative denial of works-righteousness found relief through hard work. Even
on its own terms, this thesis is, in the words of one critic,“just as hard to
demolish . . . as to substantiate.”12 Then there are counterexamples, such
as Mormonism, which denies the doctrine of original sin entirely, to no
apparent detriment to Mormons’ industriousness.
Yet there are counterexamples to the counterexamples. Take the case
of Abraham Lincoln, whose parents were raised in a hard-shell sect (called
11 Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 11 April 1823, and John Adams, letter to

John Quincy Adams, 6 June 1816, in The Founders on Religion: A Book of Quotations, ed. James H. Hutson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 117;
cited in Thuesen, Predestination, 106.
12 Alastair Hamilton, “Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” in
The Cambridge Companion to Max Weber, ed. Stephen Turner (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000), 169.

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Edward T. Oakes, S.J.

Primitive Baptists) so extreme that it denied the efficacy of revivals or any
missionary effort whatever, since altar calls and even conversions presuppose a response on the part of the potential convert. Although Lincoln
never joined a church himself, based on his early realization of discrepancies in the Bible (something that caused considerable difficulties for
him at the outset of his political career),“his early exposure to ‘hard-shell’
Calvinism contributed to his lifelong belief in fate and necessity,”Thuesen notes (197). Yet such a worldview, so redolent of the fatalism of
Marcus Aurelius, did nothing to keep him from vigorously prosecuting
the Civil War, at least to the extent that his feckless generals would allow.
Lincoln’s own unchurched status points out another feature of the
predestinarian debate in America: strict views on predestination by no
means go hand in hand with fundamentalism, as can be seen in Thuesen’s
penultimate chapter on the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1979 the
Convention elected an inerrantist party to its governing board, which
resulted in the ouster of about eighty percent of the faculty at the Convention’s six seminaries, all of whom belonged to the so-called moderate wing.
Fascinatingly, however, such a victory of the inerrantist party only exposed
how a simple appeal to Scripture could not resolve the debate over predestination, resulting in what Thuesen calls a pyrrhic victory for the fundamentalists: “In making the SBC safe for inerrancy, conservatives exposed
seemingly irreconcilable differences within their own ranks. The new
struggle was not between fundamentalists and moderates (as the two parties
of 1979 have been styled) but between an outspoken cadre of five-point
Calvinists and their equally resolute non-Calvinist opponents” (201).
This heated intra-Baptist debate played itself out in Dallas between the
pastors of two megachurches, W. A. Criswell and John R. Rice. Upon
assuming the pastorate at the First Baptist Church of Dallas in 1944,
Criswell announced he would preach through the entire Bible, a project
that took seventeen years. When he got to the verse in which God
proclaims through Isaiah “I will do all my pleasure” (Is 46:11), Criswell
declared:“That’s what you call predestination.That’s Calvinism.And I am
a Calvinist.”Take away predestination, he said, and “there would be nothing left of the Bible.”13
Rice, though, was having none of that. Most well known for his
fiercely anti-secular and anti-ecumenical newsletter Sword of the Lord,
Rice also penned a less famous work with the openly defiant title Predestined for Hell? No!—in which he compared five-point Calvinism to the
fatalism he claimed was the essence of Islam. Above all, he said, Calvin13 Cited in Thuesen, Predestination, 206. Criswell’s sermons are available online at

the Criswell Sermon Library, www.wacriswell.org.

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693

ists were wrong in teaching God’s absolute sovereignty:“God is love and
love limits absolute sovereignty.”14 Thus God’s saving promises in the
Bible actually prevented God from preemptively damning sinners to hell
apart from any consideration of their conduct. Rice even notoriously
criticized Billy Graham in 1957, mostly because of his nondenominational altar-calls (pure syncretistic modernism to Rice) but also because
Graham had been reared in a strict Calvinist Presbyterian church before
becoming a Southern Baptist, and he, Rice claimed, still harbored
crypto-predestinarian views. The charge “could not have been more
ironic,” Thuesen notes, since “Graham was in reality the forerunner of
contemporary figures such as Rick Warren, for whom doctrinal specificity gets in the way of winning souls for Christ” (203).
This fudging infuriates the hard core on either side, abetted by internet blogsites and chatrooms with accusations from the anti-predestinarians of a “Calvinist jihad” being waged by the followers of Criswell, to
which the hard-shell Calvinists reply with accusations of a relapse into
works-righteousness in the soft-shell party. To which Thuesen adds this
outsider’s friendly observation:“One might fault Rick Warren for doctrinal fuzziness but one can hardly blame him for steering clear of such
poisonous rhetoric” (216).
Not that Warren’s own theology is without its problems. Thuesen
concludes his book with an account of a visit he paid (as an historian, not
as a prospective convert) to Warren’s Saddleback Church in northern
California, where he had the opportunity to listen to one of Warren’s
sermons. “As I listened to his sermon, though,” observes Thuesen, “I
could not shake the feeling that I was looking at Jonathan Edwards in the
guise of a huggable, high school coach of a man” (211).
Although he was denied an interview with Warren himself, Thuesen
cannot help noting that Warren’s hugely popular book The Purpose-Driven
Life (which has by now sold over 30 million copies) relies on key predestinarian themes. Indeed the epigram on the dedication page comes from one
of only six verses in the New Testament that uses the verb usually translated
“predestinate” or “predestine,” all, not surprisingly, from Paul: “In him
[Christ] we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan
of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his
will” (Eph 1:11). Tellingly, though, Warren used a paraphrase translation15
which fudges the issue by speaking only of God’s “designs on us.”
14 John R. Rice, Predestined to Hell? No! (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord,

1958), 81; cited in Thuesen, Predestination, 202.
15 Eugene Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress; New Testament

edition, 1997).

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694

But the message inside Warren’s book certainly sounds predestinarian
enough: “Nothing in your life is arbitrary,”Warren says. “God prescribed
every single detail of your body. He deliberately chose your race, your
hair, and every other feature.”16 Taken in isolation, these passages (and
others like them) reflect the wider Christian doctrine of God’s providence (not to be isomorphically identified, strictly speaking, with divine
predestination). But in a gloss on the most famous proof text for predestination in the whole New Testament, Romans 8:29 (“For those God
foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his
Son”), Warren says that the promise of salvation is “only for God’s children,”17 which seems to get as close to classical predestinarian doctrine
as he is willing to go.
Lacking a chance to interview Warren himself,Thuesen did manage to
interview another pastor at Saddleback,Tom Holladay,Warren’s brotherin-law.When pressed on where Saddleback stood in the ongoing conflict
in the SBC (Warren’s church is Southern Baptist, although it does not
advertise itself as such), Holladay said this:
When Calvinism gets to that point where I don’t have this urge to share
my faith with somebody else, that’s clearly outside the bounds of the
Bible” [Holladay said]. . . . He added that Saddleback’s pastors were in
general agreement that “both Arminianism and Calvinism are true [he
continued]. It’s not that truth is in the middle.They just both have truth
in them. . . . God’s foreknowledge and election do not prohibit our
choice, nor does our choice inhibit God’s election. Now I know that’s
doublespeak. I’ve wrestled with it for years and years. But to me that’s
the best way to honor the choice that God has given us while we live
on this earth. (213–14)

Thuesen is a historian, and his method is rigorously descriptive,
although he concludes the book with the wider (and specifically theological) claim that excessive obsession with predestination robs Christianity
of its deeply mysterious revelation when it tries to figure out God’s ultimate intentions for the world; and he quotes both Martin Luther and
Flannery O’Connor in support of this contention. In a remark from his
Table-Talk Luther said: “I have been baptized. I believe in Jesus Christ. I
have received the sacraments.What do I care if I have been predestined or
not?” And Thuesen interprets O’Connor’s short story “Parker’s Back” as
an allegory on the folly of seeking assurance of one’s salvation in God’s
16 Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (Grand

Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 22–23.
17 Ibid., 196.

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foreordained decrees.The story recounts the attempts of one O. E. Parker
to please his Puritan wife by having a stern-looking image of Christ
tattooed on his back. When he finally reveals the tattoo to his wife, she
beats him senseless with a broom handle, “leaving him broken, like the
scourged Christ of the passion,” says Thuesen (218). As O’Connor herself
said in a letter written in 1959, “Dogma is the guardian of mystery. The
doctrines are spiritually significant in ways that we cannot fathom.”18
II
Thuesen’s book of course will be of interest not just to historians of
American religion but to theologians, on account of which I feel bound
to make a few remarks as a member of that latter guild. For Christian
theology has in fact made noticeable strides, from both the Catholic and
Protestant side, to move away from the presuppositions that led both to
Augustine’s infantile hell and to the Puritans’ inability to offer true hope
and consolation in their reliance on five-point Calvinism.
On the Catholic side, the key word missing from the debate on
predestination from Augustine up to today is solidarity. In his book
Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Mankind, the Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac shows how deep go the roots of the concept of solidarity in both the Bible and in patristic literature. He opens this
influential, indeed epochal, book with an approving citation from a
French author who insists,“My joy will not be lasting unless it is the joy
of all.”19
As presumably everyone knows, Pope Benedict XVI draws on de
Lubac’s book in his 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi and makes his own its
conclusion:“Against this [individualism], drawing upon the vast range of
patristic theology, de Lubac was able to demonstrate that salvation has
always been considered a ‘social’ reality” (§14).Which of course prompts
the inevitable question from the pope: “How could the idea have developed that Jesus’ message is narrowly individualistic and aimed only at
each person singly?” (§16) A large portion of the encyclical is devoted to
a genealogical account of this declension from solidarity to individualism, but in terms of predestination the genealogy is not as important as
18 Flannery O’Connor, letter to Cecil Dawkins, 23 December 1959, in The Habit of

Being: The Letters of Flannery O’Connor, ed. Sally Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1979), 365.
19 Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Mankind, forward
by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, trans. Lancelot C. Sheppard and Sister Elizabeth
Englund, O.C.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 13, quoting Jean Giono,
Les vrais richesses.

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Edward T. Oakes, S.J.

the dogmatic conclusion reached by this magisterial document:“No one
lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone” (§48).20
From this conclusion comes the correlate entailment (enunciated two
paragraphs earlier), one that marks the final official, magisterial break
with Augustine’s thesis of the massa damnata: “For the great majority of
people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an
ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God” (§46). True, for
Benedict these depths are occluded with the dross of sin, which must first
be purged and burned away, by a fire which he suggests is Christ himself:
Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both
burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Savior.The encounter
with him is the decisive act of judgment. Before his gaze all falsehood
melts away.This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees
us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our
lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses.Yet in the
pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives
become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his
heart, heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as
through fire.” But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his

20 Ironically, there are abundant resources in Augustine’s own thought that could

have led him in that same direction, but for his polemic against the Pelagians:
“Consider our species, our human race. . . . One man begot us to sin and to death,
and yet as one race. . . . One man [Christ] came against one man [Adam]: against
the one man who scattered came one who gathered. In the same way, against one
man who killed came one man who made alive. For ‘just as in Adam all die, so in
Christ shall all be made alive’ [1 Cor 15:22].” St. Augustine, Sermon 90.7, in The
Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, part 3: Sermons, vol. 3:
Sermons 51–94, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991),
452; emphases added.Augustine even more strongly emphasizes Adam’s representative role standing in for all humanity in his Commentary on Psalm 94: “Now
Adam’s name, as I have said more than once, means in Greek the whole world.
For there are four letters in his name A, D,A, and M; and with the Greeks the four
quarters of the world have these initial letters. . . .Adam is thus scattered throughout the globe. Set in one place, he fell and, as it were, now broken small, he has
filled the whole world. But the Divine Mercy gathered up the fragments from
every side, forged them in the fire of love and welded into one what had been
broken.That was a work which this Artist knew how to do! Let no one therefore
give way to despair! An immense task it was indeed! But think who the Artist was!
He who remade [us] was himself the Maker. He who refashioned [us] was himself
the Fashioner.” Cited in Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common
Destiny of Mankind, 376. How ironic that Augustine’s counsel not to despair later
became the occasion for so much despair from the neglect of this motif of solidarity in Augustine’s own thought!

Predestination in America

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love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally
ourselves and thus totally of God. (§47)21

In another recent work, his book Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict advances the
idea, also advocated most famously by Hans Urs von Balthasar, that Christ
can be that purging and saving fire precisely because he has first endured
that same fire in his atoning love during his descent into hell.22 Drawing on
21 Benedict is of course no Origenist, anticipating an Eschaton in which all will be

reconciled. That said, he seems to envision a kind of Bell’s Curve operating
before the end of time, with roughly equal (but small) numbers of souls going
straight to heaven or, as the case may be, to hell, with the vast majority having
some form of purgatory to endure:“With death, our life-choice becomes definitive—our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an
entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be
people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love,
people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred
and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but
alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history.
In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would
be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell. On the other hand there
can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus
fully open to their neighbors—people for whom communion with God even
now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey toward God only
brings to fulfillment what they already are.Yet we know from experience that
neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may
suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is
covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but
the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base
and remains present in the soul. . . . [Thus] it is . . . evident that our salvation can
take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in
order to be saved we personally have to pass through ‘fire’ so as to become fully
open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal
marriage-feast” (Spe Salvi, §46–47, emphasis added).
22 Ratzinger’s debt to Balthasar’s eschatology began early in his career, as can be
seen in this review written in 1961, of two early volumes of Balthasar’s Explorations in Theology : “In several places Balthasar expresses the opinion that the
closed brackets of predestination, which had been firmly shut with Augustine,
and by which he had set an absolute limit to the Church’s capacity for carrying
sinners to redemption, are today ever so gradually and slowly starting to open up
again. Not of course that Balthasar, the great scholar and translator of Origen,
wants to align himself with Origenism in the sense of a doctrine of inevitable
universal redemption. He fully realizes the danger entailed in the sense of election, in whatever guise, and decisively rejects ‘a certain exhilaration at feeling part
of the elect of God, which is just as extreme as was the correlative Reformed
despondency resulting from an obsession with guilt.’ But he also teaches us even
more clearly that what belongs to God we should leave to God and not fix the

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a patristic motif that sees Jesus’ descent into the River Jordan at his baptism
as an anticipation of his descent into hell after his death, Benedict explains
the saving effects of this descent to the underworld this way:
Jesus’ Baptism, then, is understood as a repetition of the whole of
history, which both recapitulates the past and anticipates the future. His
entering into the sin of others is a descent into the “inferno.” But he
does not descend merely in the role of a spectator, as in Dante’s Inferno.
Rather, he goes down in the role of one whose suffering-with-others is a transforming suffering that turns the underworld around, knocking down and flinging open the gates of the abyss. His Baptism is a descent into the house of
the evil one, combat with the “strong man” (cf. Lk 11:22) who holds
men captive (and the truth is that we are all very much captive to
powers that anonymously manipulate us!). Throughout all its history,
the world is powerless to defeat the “strong man”: he is overcome and
bound by one yet stronger, who, because of his equality with God, can
take upon himself all the sin of the world and then suffers it through to
the end—omitting nothing on the downward path into identity with the fallen.
This struggle is the “conversion” of being that brings it into a new
condition, that prepares a new heaven and a new earth. Looked at from
this angle, the sacrament of Baptism appears as the gift of participation
in Jesus’ world-transforming struggle in the conversion of life that took
place in his descent and ascent.23

This motif has long been a part of Joseph Ratzinger’s theology: among
its other implications, the doctrine of Christ’s descent into hell means
solidarity. As he said in his last book before becoming archbishop of

decision ahead of time in either direction—either toward the Origenist or the
extreme Augustinian side. Above all he reminds us that when Holy Scripture
narrates God’s historical acts of reprobation and election—when, for example, it
recounts God’s election of Isaac over Ishmael, of Jacob over Esau, of Moses over
Pharaoh, and finally of Israel as a whole—it is not speaking of eternal salvation
and damnation but instead, and unambiguously, of God’s historical dealings with
mankind in world history and salvation-history.” Joseph Ratzinger,“Christlicher
Universalismus: Zum Aufsatzwerk Hans Urs v. Balthasars,” Hochland 54 (1961):
68–76, here 72, my translation. The internal quotation comes from Balthasar’s
essay “Christian Universalism,” Explorations in Theology, vol. 1: The Word Made
Flesh, trans. A. V. Littledale with Alexander Dru (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
1989): 241–54, here 250.
23 Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the
Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J.Walker (New York: Doubleday, 2007),
20, emphasis added. At a minimum, this passage undercuts the idea that baptism
is of relevance to the individual alone but is in fact a plunge into the Body of
Christ, his Church, as Paul so clearly teaches (Rom 6:3).

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Munich, Eschatology, Christ becomes Judge of sinners by first enacting his
solidarity with them in the realm of the dead:
While the real quality of evil and its consequences become quite palpable here, the question also arises . . . whether in this event we are not in
touch with a divine response able to draw freedom precisely as freedom
to itself.The answer lies hidden in Jesus’ descent into Sheol, in the night
of the soul which he suffered, a night which no one can observe except
by entering this darkness in suffering faith.Thus, in the history of holiness which hagiology offers us, and notable in the course of recent
centuries, in John of the Cross, in Carmelite piety in general, and in that
of Thérèse of Lisieux in particular,“Hell” has taken on a completely new
meaning and form. For the saints, “Hell” is not so much a threat to be
hurled at other people but a challenge to oneself. It is a challenge to
suffer in the dark night of faith, to experience communion with Christ
in solidarity with his descent into the Night. One draws near to the
Lord’s radiance by sharing his darkness. One serves the salvation of the
world by leaving one’s own salvation behind for the sake of others.24

This mention of Thérèse of Lisieux was no mere gesture in her direction by this future pope, for this too was a motif in her own writings.
Indeed, there are passages in the writings of this most recently named
Doctor of the Church which capture this theologoumenon of Christ’s
solidarity with sinners in the underworld with astonishing force. In one
of the most remarkable and daring statements ever penned from the writings of the saints,Thérèse writes in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul :
One night, not knowing how to tell Jesus that I loved Him and how
much I desired that He be everywhere loved and glorified, I was thinking with sorrow that He could never receive in hell a single act of love.
So I told God that to please Him I would willingly consent to find
myself plunged into hell, so that He might be eternally loved in that
place of blasphemy.25

The foregoing passages might seem to speak only to Catholics; or at least
five-point Calvinists would probably find them unimpressive. After all, the
24 Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, trans. Michael Waldstein, 2nd

ed. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988/2007),
217–18.
25 Thérèse de Lisieux, The Story of a Soul, trans. Robert J. Edmonson (Brewster,
MA: Paraclete Press, 2006), 122. For those unsettled by this daring (but entirely
evangelical ) “folly,” her generous gesture has ample biblical warrant: “For I could
wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my
brethren, those of my own race, the people of Israel” (Rom 9:3–4a).

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Edward T. Oakes, S.J.

L of TULIP means Limited atonement, which would seem to undercut any
appeal to solidarity, especially one made by a pope influenced by Balthasar
or by a pious, bourgeois adolescent who had been raised in the hothouse
atmosphere of nineteenth-century French Catholicism. But Protestant
theology, too, has moved beyond Calvin, especially in that most famous
Calvinist theologian of the twentieth century, Karl Barth.
Ironically, Barth is so Calvinist that he even affirms supralapsarianism,
the doctrine that says God determined the outcome of salvation prior to
Adam’s sin, prior even to creation. But basing himself on Paul’s line that
“no matter how many promises God has made, they are Yes in Christ”
(2 Cor 1:20), Barth sees Christ as the primal object of God’s predestination. Again, his reinterpretation of supralapsarianism is based on Paul,
who says that “all things were created through him and for him” (Col
1:16b). Giving these passages their proper due, Barth can then quite
transform Calvin’s (and, a fortiori, Augustine’s) version of predestination:
The truth which must now occupy us, the truth of the doctrine of
predestination, is first and last and in all circumstances the sum of the
Gospel, no matter how it may be understood in detail, no matter what
apparently contradictory aspects or moments it may present to us. . . .
It is not a mixed message of joy and terror, salvation and damnation.
Originally and finally it is not dialectical but non-dialectical. It does not
proclaim in the same breath both good and evil, both help and destruction, both life and death. It does, of course, throw a shadow.We cannot
overlook or ignore this aspect of the matter. In itself, however, it is light
and not darkness.We cannot, therefore, speak of the latter aspect in the
same breath. In any case, even under this aspect, the final word is never
that of warning, of judgment, of punishment, of a barrier erected, of a
grave opened. We cannot speak of it without mention of all these
things.The Yes cannot be heard unless the No is also heard. But the No
is said for the sake of the Yes and not for its own sake. In substance,
therefore, the first and last word is Yes and not No.26

The outworkings of this vivid passage will occupy all of the 806 pages of
this volume (II.2) of the Church Dogmatics, obviously too long to summarize here. Fortunately, the central thesis of this large tome has been neatly
summarized in Balthasar’s seminal work on Barth, a book that did so much
to bring these insights into Catholic theology, not least Pope Benedict’s:
The source and beginning of all election, behind and over which there
is no earlier, no higher, and next to which there is no other election, is
26 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, II.2: The Doctrine of God, trans. G. W. Bromiley et

al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 13.

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Jesus Christ alone. In him God chooses himself, but in the form of a
creature. On him, the gracious Mediator and Redeemer, all creation is
founded “from before the foundation of the world.” He alone is the
primal object of the Father’s election. It is in him that the family of man
is summoned to election. And the individual is summoned to his own
personal and private relationship with God only as a part of this family.
This primal election of Christ is the foundation for the whole epic of
divine providence, so that the doctrine of providence must be unconditionally regarded as part of the more comprehensive doctrine of election, but not the reverse.27

Balthasar will of course want to ask the same question posed in Spe
Salvi : how did these obviously biblical perspectives get occluded by later
history? But again, that genealogical question recedes, and almost dissipates, once the Bible’s own Christocentrism is made the governing principle of predestination:
The flaw in most of the previous doctrines of election was a failure to
contextualize election as part of God’s relationship to Christ. Previous
theories misconstrued the christological basis that is so clearly
witnessed to in the Bible. Instead, they regarded election as a purely
individual happening between an abstract (and therefore terrifying)
absolute God and the isolated creature viewed atomistically. But it is the
Son of God who is the object of God’s election from all eternity. He is
the one who has been elected and chosen to lead the as-yet uncreated
world back to God. He will stand up for it and plead its case, take its
guilt upon his shoulders, atoning for this guilt in place of all those who
are to become sinners; and thus he will become in this sense the object
of divine “reprobation” and rejection.28

The perspective opened up by this move, one that sees the doctrine of
predestination as the Father’s decision to create the world both through
and for his Son, solves, in a stroke, the problem of the tentatio praedestinationis bequeathed to the Church by Augustine and Calvin. Finally, the
believer finds true grounds for trust and sees why Paul could say that
nothing in creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ
27 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation,

trans. Edward T. Oakes, S.J. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 175.This passage
occurs in the chapter called “Praedestinatio Gemina” (“double predestination”),
which again shows how Barth can take accepted Calvinist motifs and revolutionize them by centering them on Christ.
28 Ibid., 175–76. It should be stressed that this passage comes from the “exposition”
part of Balthasar’s Barth book; for his own Catholic interpretation of Christ as
simultaneously elect and “reprobate,” see 326–78.

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Edward T. Oakes, S.J.

(Rom 8:39). For now God, through Christ, no longer sees the necessity of
condemning mankind to hell.The traditional understanding of supralapsarianism had insisted that the decree of predestination meant inevitable
and unavoidable doom or redemption, all depending on God’s decree
prior to creation; but Barth’s version of supralapsarianism upends that
conclusion, as he explains in this powerful passage:
It is a serious matter to be threatened by hell, sentenced to hell, worthy
of hell, and already on the road to hell. On the other hand, we must not
minimize the fact that we actually know of only one certain triumph
of hell—the handing-over of Jesus—and that this triumph of hell took
place in order that it would never again be able to triumph over
anyone. We must not deny that Jesus gave Himself up into the depths
of hell not only with many others but on their behalf, in the place of
all who believe in Him.29

As Wittgenstein, himself an acute critic of the philosophical incoherence
of predestination as traditionally understood, put it so well:“Within Christianity, it’s as though God says to men: Don’t act out a tragedy, don’t enact
N&V
heaven and hell on earth. Heaven and hell are my affair.”30 Exactly.

29 Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2, 496.
30 Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, 14e:“Im Christentum sagt der liebe Gott gleich-

sam zu den Menschen: Spielt nicht Tragödie, das heißt Himmel auf Erden.
Himmel und Hölle habe ich mir vorbehalten.”

Nova et Vetera, English Edition,Vol. 8, No. 3 (2010): 703–22

703

Book Reviews
Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation by James K.A. Smith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 238 pp.
A RE C HRISTIAN Universities distinct enough from their secular counterparts? What would it take for Christian education to be distinctive as
Christian? These two questions are the central concerns of this book,
which is the first volume of a planned three-volume series entitled
“Cultural Liturgies.” The author, James K. A. Smith, is a professor of
philosophy at Calvin College, and is well known in evangelical circles for
his popular-level writing on postmodernism and the “Radical Orthodoxy” movement. Recently he has turned to thinking about the relationship between liturgy and philosophy.This book is one of the fruits of
this project, and is written to explore the link between liturgical formation and Christian education.
The book is written more for pastors and general educators than as
part of a theological debate, but there are extensive footnotes that point
to sources of an extended academic conversation behind Smith’s book.
Smith draws together a Reformed theology of worship, recent work on
“practices” in contemporary philosophy and theological ethics, and ideas
of “liturgical anthropology” found in Orthodox figures like Alexander
Schmemann. This material is presented in a very clear and introductory
way, giving this book a wide potential readership. Overall the book is
very reader-friendly, employing diagrams and boxes with talking points
set off from the regular text. One “side box” for instance asks, “what
cultural practices and institutions are bent on forming in you sinful
desires that draw you from the love of God?”The structure of the book
itself mirrors Smith’s concern to connect academic life with lived Christian faith.
There are also several short subsections in Smith’s chapters that engage
with a particular literary work or film.These add an extra dimension to
Smith’s presentation and come from a wide range of sources from Walker
Percy’s Love in the Ruins to Baz Luhrmann’s movie Moulin Rouge. Smith’s

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Book Reviews

reading of the configuration of “embodiment” in Tom Wolfe’s I am Charlotte Simmons is the standout example of this for the way it connects to
Smith’s ideas about education and the formation of desire.
The driving concern of the book is the observation that Christian
education today emphasizes the teaching of a particular “worldview”
rather than the shaping of desire towards the worship of God. Smith uses
the word “liturgy” beyond its usual ecclesial sense to describe a set of
practices that form people into desiring or loving certain things. The
book proposes that Christian colleges and universities are allowing their
students to be formed by “secular liturgies,” enacted in places like the
shopping mall, rather than being shaped by Christian worship. Are places
of Christian education merely giving students ideas, in the form of a
particular worldview, rather than forming them to be disciples?
The presentation of this question and the offer of a solution form
roughly the two halves of the book. The first shows how “liturgies” and
practices form human behavior, and the second shows how Christian
worship can fit into this context for the formation of students. In the first
part Smith brings together philosophical and theological reasons for calling human beings “liturgical animals.” Drawing on Augustine through the
lens of Heidegger (pointing to some of Smith’s previous academic work),
Smith notes that humans are defined and shaped, for good or for bad, by
what they love (50). He helpfully describes practices as “love’s formation,”
and shows concern that university students are being shaped by practices
that may be inimical to the Gospel. In other words, university students are
being formed in various good and bad ways by “secular liturgies.”
University life from freshman initiation rituals to academic testing is a
powerful “liturgical” setting that shapes lives in particular ways. Smith
laments that Christian schools, even of a conservative kind, tend to form
students “liturgically” in essentially the same ways as secular schools.
Smith asks not only what vision of the “good life” a Christian university
teaches, but also “what rituals and practices are present in the university
to teach students to desire this vision?” He places a special focus on
student life, noting that the “information” taught at even Christian
schools is “not nearly as potent as the formation we’ve received in the
dorm and frat house, or the stadium and dance club” (117). Christian
educators or ministers must learn how these “secular liturgies” shape
people.Two concrete examples Smith gives are Victoria’s Secret stores at
the mall (they know how to form desire) and the saying of the Pledge of
Allegiance in elementary schools. Both of these examples “liturgically”
form persons into having particular desires or identities.The idea is that
the people composing “secular liturgies,” such as the layout of a shopping

Book Reviews

705

mall or the cadence of patriotic events, know how to form human wants
and desires better than Christian educators do. They know humans are
embodied.They know how ritual and repeated “practice” cause habits or
desires. They know how to play on the affective dimension of human
choice and cognition. Those who try to intellectually form Christian
students into a particular “Christian worldview” while neglecting affective and liturgical formation have missed the point. Smith diagnoses
Christian universities and colleges with a lingering Cartesianism that
separates the teaching of Christian convictions from their embodiment
in Christian worship and ritual practice.
The second half of the book is a “practical” reading of Christian
worship itself. Mirroring his anthropological work on practice, liturgy,
and love in the first half, he places a special focus on symbolic and ritualistic aspects of Christian worship. For example, he describes the impression made on his young children by the use of darkness at a Good Friday
service, children who could otherwise understand very little in terms of
theological ideas (137). He uses examples like a Tenebrae service not only
to shore up his point on education, but also as part of a more general
concern of the book to further convince Protestants of the importance
of these aspects of worship. Smith rightly notes that the Protestant
emphasis on message, cognition, and worldview in their worship services
tends to pass over children and mentally challenged adults. It is interesting to think with Smith that a thicker, more “sacramental” worship may
be a significant part of the effort by churches to make themselves accessible for those with cognitive disabilities.
To provide some further concreteness to his idea that liturgy forms our
love, Smith reads each of the various practices in a worship service through
this lens. Smith goes through all the various parts of a worship service from
greeting, to prayer, to confession, scripture reading, baptism and Eucharist,
up to even giving a rather profound account of the taking up of offering.
His account of the worship service deals more explicitly with Christian
theological concepts than previous chapters, and lays out some of the
theology that has been in the background of the book. Smith’s account of
the Image of God is particularly important.The Image of God in human
beings means that humans are God’s representatives and agents in the
world, and the word that best summarizes this agency and representation is
“culture” (163).“Culture” here is meant to connote both “cultivation” and
“cultic” worship. Gathering for worship is a fulfillment of this Image and a
participation in Jesus’ work of reconciling the world to himself.
Smith says that Christian universities should not only focus more on
the wealth within Christian ritual and liturgy, but additionally calls for

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creative thinking on how to imagine how to enact the “social imaginaries” contained in Christian worship practices beyond Sunday. He gives a
few examples of this, like noonday communion offered by urban
churches, or his own weekly gathering with Christian friends as a kind
of “shadow” extension of the Lord’s Supper. He mentions university
chapel briefly but wants to more strongly emphasize students being a part
of a local church. It seems to me that some creative thinking involving
ways a university chapel could be more involved in university life would
be a useful “practical” addition to the book.
There are things in the book theologians from different confessional
perspectives may quibble with (like Smith’s understanding of “Sacramentality,” 141–43), but these may be tempered upon recognizing Smith’s own
understanding of Desiring the Kingdom as a “précis” or “abstract” to a longer
project (12). One could indeed read this book as, among other things, an
engagement in Evangelical-Catholic dialogue specifically on issues of
liturgy and the Church-world relationship.Although he nowhere cites this
text, Smith’s reading of “secular” and “Christian” liturgies and his focus on
embodiment finds a clear parallel in one of Aquinas’s arguments for the
necessity of the Sacraments, in which he says that the Sacraments were
necessary in order that human beings might be offered “bodily exercise”
whereby they might be “trained to avoid superstitious practices, consisting
in the worship of demons, and all manner of harmful action, consisting in
sinful deeds” (Summa theologiae, III, q. 61, a. 1).
While the book is mostly written for those involved in education,
Smith’s reflections on the power of “secular liturgies” to shape desire
would make useful bible study or sermon material. His recommendation
of a more “embodied” and “sacramental” pattern of worship also may be
useful to Pastors and others wanting to think about how to live out the
things they do and say in worship “beyond Sunday.” Smith’s book
successfully forces the question of Christian education outside the box of
the “worldview model.”The first half of the book suggests that this model
is failing to form students as disciples of Jesus Christ.The second half of
the book provides enough theological material and concrete examples to
start several conversations about how Christian educators or parish workers can better form students to be worshippers of God and witnesses to
the Kingdom.
N&V
Matthew Archer
University of Dayton
Dayton, Ohio

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The Specification of Human Actions in St Thomas Aquinas by
Joseph Pilsner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006 ), xi + 273 pp.
AQUINAS ’ S account of the specification of human actions, what it is that
makes this particular action an action of this kind rather than of some other
kind, is notoriously confusing and yet indispensible for all of his later claims
about the good and bad actions of human life.We have good reason, then,
to be grateful for Joseph Pilsner’s fine new study of specification in Aquinas,
whose purpose is to show that, “in spite of apparent difficulties, Thomas’s
teaching on how end, object, circumstance, matter, and motive contribute
to a human action’s specification possesses a fundamental coherence” (6).
This is a careful and thorough study, and Fr. Pilsner draws on Thomas’s
entire corpus to present the reader with all the various puzzles and difficulties that face those of us who wish to draw a coherent account of
specification out of Aquinas. Fr. Pilsner eschews all controversy over
anything but strict interpretative questions, commenting only that if he
succeeds in his study, this will bring some “clarity” to the debate between
proportionalism and Thomism.
After an introductory chapter, chapter two gives an overview of
Aquinas’s moral theory, and chapter three some background into two
related types of specification, that of natural corporeal beings and of natural actions.Then chapters four through eight take up the five elements of
specification in turn: end, object, matter, circumstance, and motive. Chapter nine returns to a problem about proximate versus remote ends, and
the concluding chapter draws things together. I will focus here on the
most important elements of specification: end, object, and matter.
Chapter four opens with a persistent trope in Aquinas’s writings:“Moral
acts properly receive their species from ends” (47). In the case of natural
corporeal creatures, their substantial form determines what they are—if
they are to be anything at all, they must possess a particular form which
places them in a particular species. Likewise, “unless people conceive of
some end—to run, to pray, to embezzle, or something—and bestir themselves to pursue this end, they will do nothing at all. Consequently, the very
existence and character of every action depends on that end which the
agent determines” (51). So the role of (substantial) form with respect to a
corporeal species is analogous to the role of end with respect to a human
action, and the end is as it were the (substantial) form of human action.
Fr. Pilsner returns to ends in chapter nine with a puzzle about proximate and remote ends. “On some occasions, Aquinas seems to contend
that the proximate end is crucial for specification, while the remote end is
inconsequential. On other occasions, however, he appears to assert just the

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opposite: he holds not only that a remote end gives a species to a human
action, but also that this species has greater formal influence than the
species from a proximate end” (218–19). If ends as such specify actions,
and any one action is typically performed for more than one end, which
end specifies?
Fr. Pilsner’s solution is that we can consider what happens from two
perspectives.When we consider an action in itself, in abstraction from the
concrete circumstances of a lived human life, we consider it “secumdem suam
speciem” (234) and as such we do not consider its relationship to any remote
ends or other circumstances of the agent. So what I am doing now is an
act of purgation, simply speaking, or an act of picking up a straw, or
borrowing, and so on. But in every human life, every particular action is in
fact linked together with a series of remote ends that eventually leads to
one’s final end. For this reason, the end of charity “endows [the] proximate
end with a certain formal quality” (237). What I am doing, when I purge,
is in part “making possible my charitable activity,” and so when we take the
larger perspective of the agent, remote ends can specify insofar as they are
joined with the proximate end in an overall unified pursuit of the final end.
I suspect there’s less of a difficulty here than Fr. Pilsner seems to think.
He works to solve the puzzle of how one action can possess two specifying
forms (one from the proximate end and one from the remote end), but I see
no reason not to admit that there are two actions here: an act of purging,
specified by the end of purging and taking as its matter the various tools,
body parts, and activities required for purging, and an act of charity, specified by the end of union with God and taking as its matter, among other
things, the intentional action of purging. A remote end as such never specifies; it can specify only insofar as it imparts its own formal character to what
I am up to, and as such it becomes a proximate end and form of a new
action that includes in its matter the previous action (or series of actions).
So “purging” is considered formal in one sense but material in another.
But if Aquinas often refers to the specifying role of the “end,” he even
more frequently refers to the specifying role of the “object” (and does so
more often and in more of his writings than any other single moral determinant [71]). The “object” of an action is that thing towards which the
power of acting is directed, as the object of sight is “a colored thing.”With
respect to sight, we can consider two aspects of its object: there is a material aspect, the “something” which is colored, and a formal aspect, the
color. It is the formal aspect, the color, that most properly specifies “sight.”
Sight is what it is because it is directed towards color. Likewise, a will act,
like an act of seeing, is specified most properly by the formal aspect of its
object; the will is directed towards the rational good, and so the “formal

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aspect” (Fr. Pilsner’s translation of ratio) of an activity is the activity’s relation to right reason.The formal aspect, and therefore what specifies, of the
act of intercourse with this woman is that she is “not one’s own wife”
(104); this specifies the act as one of adultery. So “object” specifies what I
am doing by picking out the formal aspect of the end for which I am
acting, the end I am related to as an intentionally acting agent.
The treatment of “end” and “object” both emphasized the formal aspect
of our action, but sometimes Aquinas also claims that matter specifies.The
matter of an action that specifies is either the “matter about which” (materia circa quam), or else “due” or “undue matter” (debita or indebita materia).
Both the end and the object of an action have both formal and material
aspects; the formal aspect is the ratio, but the material aspect is the materia
circa quam,“that reality to which an action is specially related” (147). Just as
the object of sight is a colored thing, which requires the formal aspect of
color and the material contribution of something that can be colored, so
any particular action has both a formal character and matter that can bear
that character. So the materia circa quam of fire burning is the wood, and that
of “buying and selling” is “one’s own thing,” or “a spiritual thing,” or
“someone else’s thing,” and the like. Aquinas sometimes refers to this very
same material reality as due or undue matter when he means to “suggest
that a certain kind of matter is ‘suitable’ or ‘unsuitable’ . . . for a certain kind
of action from a moral point of view” (152). So the combination of
“buying and selling” with the undue matter of “a spiritual thing” results in
an act immoral in its species: simony. But since both the formal and material elements of a thing, abstractly considered, determine species (so the
species “man” is determined both by “rational soul” and “flesh and bones”),
Aquinas can say, as he frequently does, that the materia circa quam or the
debita or indebita materia specifies an act.We know what kind of act we have
when, already knowing that it is an act of buying or selling, we discover
that it was an act of buying or selling a spiritual thing.
Of circumstances, Aquinas says both that “a circumstance, as such, does
not give the species to a moral act” and that “every circumstance is capable of changing the species of sin” (173). Fr. Pilsner’s explanation of this is
surely the only way out:“Thomas, on some occasions, speaks about properties of actions strictly and, on other occasions, loosely.When he is speaking strictly, circumstances do not specify human actions. . . . But when
Aquinas is speaking loosely, however, circumstances can (after a fashion) be
said to specify. Certain properties which are circumstances when actions are
considered apart from reason provide critical differences when this
comparison is engaged” (197). Likewise, although Aquinas remarks that
“wherever a different motive for sinning is present, there is another species

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of sin” (199),“motive,” as specifying, refers to the final cause of the action,
which is the end, and so motive specifies an action as its end; a “motive” is
what “moves,” and in voluntary action, it is the end that moves. So when
the glutton eats too quickly, consuming his food with “inordinate intensity” (209), he acts from the too intense desire for food, and in doing so
reveals that his end is “consuming this food as quickly as possible.”
I have tried above to bring things together in the simplest possible fashion, but it is no idle remark that specification in Aquinas is confusing. I am
not altogether sure that Fr. Pilsner’s own final account draws things
together as I have done, and I waited in vain for a helpful picture relating
the various elements. Nevertheless, here is the picture that seems right:

Ratio
(End and Object
formally considered)

Circumstances
(On the steps of the church)
These do not specify as such

Agent

Action
(Simony)

{ {
Buying or selling
a spiritual thing
(Form)

Motives
(”inordinate intensity” in the case of
gluttony; it is not clear which motives
might specify in other cases)
These merely clarify the
end of our action

A plenary
indulgence
(Matter)

End (Proximate End)
and
Object

Remote End
(Becoming wealthy)
This does not
specify as such

Materia circa quam and
Debita/Indebita materia
(End and Object
materially considered)

I have little to add in the way of criticism besides the obligatory
nitpicking. The complexity of the subject matter is sometimes further
burdened by cumbersome language; why not simply “Aquinas’s approach
is more cogent and defensible than at first appears,” instead of “Aquinas’s
approach can be shown to be more cogent and defensible than may first
appear to be the case” (7)? The introductory account of human action is
straightforward, but includes some odd claims that are surely false; he
reminds us that for Aquinas intentio consists in “the willing of an end as
acquired by means,” but then concludes from this that “an end cannot be
intended unless a means has been found. . . . Intention can only begin,

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711

then, once a viable means has first been found” (12). But certainly I can
form the intention this instant to throw a party, even if I haven’t yet
thought about ways to do it; what is required is a reasonable belief that a
means can indeed be found (I cannot intend the impossible), and that I
know how to look for the means, not that I have already found one.To
intend in this way is to aim at something knowing that it must be achieved
by means of something else without necessarily having deliberated yet
about the something else.
But I have not done justice to Fr. Pilsner’s patient work in thinking
through Aquinas on the problem of specification. The Specification of
Human Actions in St Thomas Aquinas will be an excellent resource for some
time to come, and for that we must indeed be grateful.
N&V
Raymond Hain
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC

Sacred Attunement:A Jewish Theology by Michael Fishbane (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2008), xiv + 238 pp.
M ICHAEL F ISHBANE ’ S Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology is a personal
memoir of what theology and life might mean in the face of the onrushing current of everlasting annihilation. Fishbane, now in his late sixties,
describes the book as his effort to pass on a “spiritual testament” to his
descendants:“A certain urgency has now claimed me: to make my thoughts
clear to myself, for honesty’s sake in due season; and to provide my family
with a spiritual testament of my values and worldview” (211).
In his preface, Fishbane depicts modern Jewish theology as a Kafkaesque
nightmare:“Like Kafka, we prowl aimlessly around the debris of old Sinais,
in a wasteland of thought. The tablets of despair are strewn everywhere.
Old beginnings do not work; they are a dead end” (ix). In the midst of this
spiritual darkness, however, Fishbane thinks that he has discovered in
“natality” (a term he adapts from Hannah Arendt) the “route to transcendence—to the many forms of otherness, ever present and ever beckoning,
all around” (x). What is natality? It is awareness of “the spring of beginnings,” awakening to the beauty, fragility, vastness, and mystery of existence
(ix). Attunement to this “spring” enables us to glimpse the transcendent
through the immanent.The task of theology is to attune us in this fashion.
Like the world, the Bible should be interpreted with the goal of attaining such glimpses.When one reads biblical stories as “paradigms of perennial matters bearing on divine presence,” their transcendent truth can be
unveiled (xi). Similarly, modes of biblical interpretation should be evaluated

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not primarily for how they retrieve information but for how they attune to
reader to attend to transcendent truth:“Textual study thus becomes a discipline of ethical and spiritual self-cultivation” (xii). It is not the text itself, but
the experience that becomes possible through practicing attunement via the
text, that is primary. Our reading of the text and of the world must be
performed in alertness and attentiveness to the inbreaking of transcendence.
Fishbane comments: “The call of God (through all expressions of reality)
may everywhere break the veil of our daily stupor, and then natality overcomes mortality.This is an ecstatic transcendence of mortality in a (specific)
fullness of time, without denying the finality of death and dying” (xiii).
On this view, the fact that death ends human existence does not give
death the power to stamp out “transcendence of mortality.” On the
contrary, we transcend mortality in our experiences of natality, which we
can cultivate by means of attunement or “vigilant attentiveness” to the
transcendent resonances that pierce through the immanent realm (xiii).
The key is continually re-fashioning the self so as to find, in oneself, the
self-transcendence figured by Sinai. Fishbane describes his blending of
interiority and exteriority by noting that in our moments of natality or
self-transcendence through attunement to the source, “Sinai is reborn in
the mind, and one must humble oneself to oneself—all ears” (xiv).
In humbling oneself to oneself so as to listen for transcendence, can one
rely upon any tradition-formulated truth? For Fishbane, the answer is no.
The formulations that we receive from others cannot meet our needs,
because reality is new at every moment. Indebted to Friedrich Schleiermacher, Fishbane holds that we have to break through the temptation to
rely upon others’ words. Instead we must focus on our own experience or
lack thereof, at the present moment, of “God” (2).Yet this does not mean
that we simply get rid of old texts. On the contrary, adapting them to our
purpose and our experience, we bridge opposed discourses (such as Greek
philosophy, or medieval Kabbalah or Kant, and Scripture) and build a
living theology by “the alembic of hermeneutics” (6).
Yet the modern Jewish theologian faces the difficulty of what contemporary discourse to bridge with Scripture, as well as why to privilege
Scripture. If truth is simply a cultural construction, why choose one
contemporary discourse rather than another? And why privilege Scripture, when most humans today do not live in a biblically formed worldview? Moreover, why bother to do “theology” at all?
As noted above, Fishbane’s answer lies in the quest for self-transcendence; theology at its best attunes us the moments when the veil of ordinary life is ruptured and “the pervasive superflux of existence” is revealed
(19). Such theology is prefigured by the impact of the natural world and

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713

by the creations of the aesthetic imagination, and indeed theology integrates the two in search of “the numinous qualities of unsayable origin
inhering in every moment of existence” (34). This “unsayable origin” is
what Fishbane means by “God.” God is “the heart and breath of all existence”; the theological life is attuned at all times to this primordial reality beneath the real, transcending everything (35). Every existent
manifests and actualizes God, and the human person’s task is “to become
a fit vessel for modes of God’s realizations on earth” (38).
Engaging both words and persons, theology promotes this task by an
ever-new attunement to natality in the present moment and by a corresponding reinterpretation of past tradition in ways that enable self-transcendence.This work is redemptive to the degree that it attunes us to the
“effectivity” of God and expands the experience of others (43). Jewish
theology does this work by particularly engaging Jewish traditions, sacred
writings, and practices, which means attending to God through the
hermeneutical lens of Sinai, approached via the various senses of Scripture—peshet, derash, remez, and sod—which Fishbane treats at length.
Fishbane finds particularly significant the name that God gives to
Moses in Exodus 3:14, which he renders as “I shall be as I shall be,” an
indication of God’s transcendence of every name. He goes on to describe
“God’s Absolute Transcendence” (53–55). Here the de-personalization of
Israel’s God becomes particularly noticeable.Throughout the book Fishbane scatters references to God that suggest an impersonal divine agency:
“God, the ultimate effectivity of all world-being and a modality of its
actualization” (98); “the pulsations of God throughout world-being”
(113); “The divine pulse of giving and care is the eternal truth of Sinai”
(129); “this Torah [torah kelulah] bespeaks God’s absolute gift and giving
of world-reality” (158); “The divine ‘Let there Be’ is the vital impulse in
all existent Being” (159); “Everywhere, it seems, there is a coming forth
of Godly presence—a vast and voluminous advent of color, and texture,
and sound, and rhythm” (200); “the vast Mystery of Being, which shatters every pretension to a transcendent human comprehension” (202). A
properly awakened “God-consciousness” (97) will both find God in
everything and refuse to reduce God to any finite thing.
It is clearly one thing to be the Creator, and quite another to be an
“effectivity” or a “modality.” It is one thing to be the covenantal God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose glorious deeds liberate Israel from
Egyptian slavery, and quite another thing to be a “pulse” or an “impulse.”
Despite Fishbane’s effort to insist upon radical divine transcendence, his
“God” appears to be circumscribed by immanence, as a pulsation is
circumscribed by that in which it pulses.

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It does not come as a surprise, then, to find Fishbane depicting
covenant theology as “a heroic theology” that has more to do with
confronting the void than with a living, personal, covenanting God (175).
Covenant theology “strives to transcend the amoral vastness” (175);
covenant theology is a way of overcoming, in our lives, the “howling
emptiness all around” (173). On this view, Jewish theological experience
is lived out within this howling emptiness and amoral vastness—east of
Eden—despite the pulsing of God’s presence in the world. God gives the
Torah “in the desert—in a place where darkness and the demonic
predominate, where emptiness and terror prevail” (175). Fishbane identifies home, synagogue, and homeland as forms of building up precarious
areas of safety within the howling emptiness, but his lack of personal
names for God makes these realities, good as they are, seem hardly up to
the task.
On the one hand, Fishbane affirms that “[w]hat fills the world is God’s
Glory, in all its infinite world-being” (193).Yet on the other hand, when
he describes how we live in the world, there seems to be little space for
God’s providential and redemptive activity. Rather, he emphasizes the
ways in which “moral space is humanly constructed: it is a realized or
transfigured space, rising up out of the primariness of human settlement,
threat, or sustenance” (190). When he describes the prophetic “word of
shalom,” for example, he mentions human activity but not God’s.
Does Fishbane hold out any hope for life after death? Given his
portrait of God as a life-force rather than as a free Creator and
Redeemer, Fishbane has few resources for envisioning death as anything
but annihilation. The diminishment of God’s ability to act personally in
our lives is reflected in Fishbane’s view that “death cannot be overcome”
(204). Love neither diminishes nor erases death; no human can evade the
permanent grip of death, “not now; not ever” (204). When we die, we
simply replenish the earth by our bodily decay.
Fishbane does propose, however, that our “souls” in some sense live
after us, or “ascend” as “memorials of values achieved through spiritual
travail” (191). Thus we live on in the memories of others and in the
impact we have had on others. For Fishbane, our “spiritual travail”
consists preeminently in an imitation of God’s giving: we must “become
a giver in every sense” (197). Our attainment of values requires that we
give help rather than ask for God’s help. Fishbane carefully delimits any
appeal to a redemptive God: “One must not call upon God’s aid and
mercy, but must oneself be merciful and kind” (198).
Fishbane attempts to recognize death as inextricable from the beauty
of life, like the autumn leaves. Indeed he goes so far as to praise death as

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“the truth of each breath and silence, of each disruption and break, and
the completion of each act of joy and love” (198). If death is linked with
truth, joy, and love, is everlasting death a good? Fishbane deeply grieves
the death of others (see 212), and he has a strong sense of the futility and
emptiness that seem to go hand-in-hand with everlasting death. Yet he
calls upon us to recognize in the “final caesura” of death the presence of
the divine pulsation of Being, which requires the giving and the taking
of life, and which demands our praise (204).Although death may seem to
be linked with futility and emptiness, Fishbane suggests that closer
inspection reveals death’s unity with life. Only the combination of life
and death expresses finitude’s participation in infinity.As Fishbane puts it,
“Life and death are one—dual portions of God’s truth” (204).When we
recognize this, we attune ourselves to God’s truth and thereby “effectuate divine reality” by “bringing God to a human presence through
ourselves, just here in the midst of the vastness” (209).
Fishbane argues that those practiced in attuning themselves to the
mystery of being that underlies ordinary experience can attain Godconsciousness or God-mindedness in the here and now, and that this
attunement to Being’s pulse suffices. Two problems seem particularly
difficult for Fishbane’s position. First, although Fishbane associates God
with giving and he calls upon us to imitate God by giving, God’s giving
here is the “giving” of a force of nature rather than a covenantal, historical, and personal God. If we were to give to other persons in this way,
we would seem callous. It is no wonder that we cannot petition this
impersonal deity for help (by contrast to our friends, whose help we
often request). Could such a God truly be loved by us? The only personal
being who receives significant attention in Fishbane’s narrative is the self.
Second, Fishbane’s argument regarding the ultimate unity of life and
death presses too far his point about covenantal theology being “heroic.”
Fishbane is deeply aware of what he calls “the vapors of futility” or “the
dissonances which rupture our sense of significance” (xiii). In his effort
to affirm the significance of human life, he argues that we take part in
making God present in the world when we attune ourselves to the
unfathomable gift that all existence is. Such mystical experience enables
us to live not only without despair, but indeed with real appreciation for
the mystery in which our lives participate. Theology—and the religious
texts, traditions, and practices upon which it relies—helps us to give
particular voice, in our cultural space and time, to the wonder of existence (which transcends finite expressions). When we experience this
wonder, we experience attunement to God. Yet as he recognizes, the
pattern or pulsation of existence includes not only life but death. It

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follows that he has to valorize death. But can the annihilation of persons
actually be the “completion” of love? An impersonal God, whose pulsation includes life and death, tends toward the depersonalization of the
human as well. Love for particular persons is replaced by love for a deperN&V
sonalizing cosmic rhythm.
Matthew Levering
University of Dayton
Dayton, Ohio

Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship by Eric Gregory (Chicago, IL: The University of
Chicago Press, 2008 ), 417 pp.
L ET ME BEGIN in the most hackneyed way possible, in a way bound to
depress many: A book on Christian ethics and politics that makes no
mention of, never mind stakes a position on, abortion can be neither terribly interesting nor helpful. I know many would rather talk about other
things, and some get frustrated that this topic keeps getting raised, but I
raise it, here, because I’m just not sure what this book is about at all.This
volume is super wordy yet refuses to take a position of anything of significance. Gregory is fascinated with making distinctions, trying to show
how his position doesn’t collapse into that of John Milbank or isn’t quite
the same as John Rawls, or Nussbaum, yet avoids making substantive
claims that would really enable us to know this. Of course, Politics and the
Order of Love is a thoroughly professional book: Rich in footnotes and
talking about a lot of contemporary contributors to questions in liberalism and theology, the book is a genuine product of the modern academy.
It really is a significant shortcoming of the book that no real moral and
political positions are staked out. Gregory wants to show skeptics on both
left and right that a rigorous theology can play an affirmational role in
liberal politics. He wants to convince people on the left that Augustine can
be a stern friend of liberalism. Augustine’s theory of love will provide a
soul craft about which liberalism is all too often indifferent (believing that
social peace rests on an aloof proceduralism) and also provide a social
justice sensibility that will help liberalism foster its goals of greater equality, respect for difference, and personal autonomy. Most basically then,
Gregory wants to chide liberalism a little and convince liberals that theology is “safe” by saving Augustine from his reputation as illiberal, and isolating him from contemporary illiberal readings by people like Milbank. Of
course, what everyone wants to know on this account is: To what am I
committing myself? Liberals will want to know what they have to give

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up—e.g. unlimited rights to abortion?—and conservatives want to know
what they have to swallow—e.g. an affirmation of gay marriage in public
education? No indications are given on any such topics because no clear
theoretical commitments are made. If a book about ethics and politics is
not about these sorts of things then what is its point?
If the book is not about ethics and politics, perhaps its interest lies in
its theology? Though literally dozens upon dozens of thinkers are
mentioned in the book, some not mentioned tell us much. Liberalism
needs theology, we are assured, and while someone like Thomas Aquinas
is not suitable, Augustine’s probing of subjectivity and his realism about
sin but affirmation of love and hope suits the liberal mood, troubled as it
is by anyone overly dogmatic, institutional or bureaucratic, judgmental or
harsh, normative or law-bound. Appealing to Augustine, therefore, does
not mean appealing to the rich Augustinian tradition. Giles of Rome’s
scholasticism, Malebranche’s radical passivity, Pascal’s subtle abrasiveness,
Scheler’s objective value hierarchy, Kolnai’s accusation that liberalism is
totalitarian in origin and ambition, this tradition of Augustinianism is
nowhere discussed, and these intellectual giants nowhere contended
with. Gregory wants to rely on an already American version of Augustine,
one deferential to Niebuhr, and even Rawls. It is a curiosity of the book
that there is no real engagement with the European tradition of philosophy, theology, or political theory. True, early Arendt plays a role, and
perhaps an odd Continental name amongst the many dozens of Americans is mentioned here and there, but just as the great intellectuals of the
Augustinian tradition are avoided so too the giant European critics of
liberalism. In fact, liberalism itself is presented as a monolith.There is no
discussion of diverse strains of liberalism in Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu,
Rousseau, and Adam Smith—all of whom commit you to very different
polities—never mind critics who have never been answered, the likes of
Carl Schmitt, for instance.
I do not introduce all these strands of thought never mentioned in the
book by way of simply saying more should have been done. Rather, their
absence raises the question of what is the quality of the argument: How
good a quality could it be if the giants of the Augustinian, liberal, and
counter-liberal traditions are not seriously engaged?
The book wants to convince Christians that although not all is well
inside modern liberalism, much good remains. This, of course, is Maritain’s argument and I am not sure Gregory takes us any further conceptually than Maritain. At times Gregory is aware that a lot of convincing
needs to be done, at other times not. Like Maritain, he thinks we all sort
of agree that human rights and the extension of rights thinking and

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language in law over the last half century is a good thing (384). Why
would he say this? He mentions Bob Kraynak, Milbank, and MacIntyre,
yet they could not have made their position more clear as to the matter
of rights. It is for sure true that the greats of the Augustinian tradition
never thought in terms of social order and rights, nor do the most interesting and speculative writers in theology today, people like Milbank and
Rowland.Thus he is dismayed that John Milbank actually wonders aloud
that liberalism is totalitarian (369, n. 14). Milbank’s position is mentioned
in a footnote and no reply is offered; Milbank, we are meant to believe,
I suppose, is just obviously wrong. Gregory is right that Christianity can
tolerate liberalism. Of course. But, as Bob Kraynak points out, it can
tolerate illiberal regimes, as well.There is no sense in Gregory at all that
Christianity might look on the passing of empires, even liberalism, as
events worthy of note but not utterly demanding of attention. Again, no
effort is made to argue with Kraynak about whether this is an accurate
Christian sensibility.
These arguments are never engaged and thus we must conclude that
Gregory sees Christianity as a mild corrective of certain shortcomings in
liberalism which at its core is perfectly healthy. Any Christian theologian
must explain how this can be true given liberalism’s encouragement of
abortion. I actually happen to share Gregory’s sense that the illiberal critics of liberalism are somewhat churlish in their blanket criticism of liberalism. His project is not a senseless one. Something similar is attempted in
the tradition of Catholic social thought but nowhere are any of the documents of this tradition mentioned: and it would be another churlishness
to deny that this tradition is the most sustained, complex Christian reflection on the contemporary political order. Gregory is obviously a talented
reader of texts and my basic concern is that Gregory is too diffident, theoretically and politically. Like a John Milbank, he should come out of his
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corner, state his case, and let the chips fall where they may.
G. J. McAleer
Loyola University Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland

The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the
Theological Interpretation of Scripture by J. Todd Billings (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010 ), ix + 235 pp.
M OST ADVOCATES for the theological interpretation of Scripture understand that if this vision of biblical interpretation remains only a topic of
academic inquiry without actually becoming embodied within churches,

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the enterprise undermines its own basic conviction that scriptural interpretation is fundamentally an ecclesial practice. J.Todd Billings’s The Word
of God for the People of God helps ensure that this is not the case.This book
is best understood as providing access for pastors and students into the
technical discussion surrounding theological interpretation, ultimately in
hopes that such interpretation will take root in church practice. In Billings’s
own words, he seeks to wed “theory and practice, biblical studies and theology, critical methods and practices of prayer and worship.” This is not an
introduction into secondary literature, like Daniel Treier’s excellent Introducing Theological Interpretation. The term “entryway” in the subtitle is
important, for Billings actually practices theological interpretation and
makes claims about God and Scripture throughout his work.
In chapter 1, Billings reflects on why so many Christians yearn to hear
a word from God in an environment where the Bible is readily available.
The reason, he writes, is that there is more required for encountering God’s
word than “cognitive understanding of written or spoken words.” Rather,
God the Spirit is needed for the word to bear its transformative fruit, and
the Bible is God’s instrument of transformation. Billings sets forth on a
transformative, participatory journey of reading the Bible, situating his
approach between the “blueprint–building block” approach, in which the
reader understands particular scriptural passages as self-contained propositions (i.e., building blocks) that are then organized into a particular system
(i.e., a blueprint), and the “smorgasbord” approach, in which there is no
order to Scripture—tradition thus “hides” the real meaning by providing a
“map” of interpretation—and everyone is welcome to “help themselves”
to whatever meets the “appetites, questions, and needs” of the reader.
Billings’s transformative-participatory approach uses a theological
hermeneutic in which interpretation is understood as being transformed
into the image of Christ as the interpreter participates in Christ the living
Teacher through the Spirit. But, Billings rhetorically asks, what are we to
make of a theological hermeneutic? Shouldn’t we simply derive our theology from the Bible rather than bringing theological assumptions to the
Bible? Billings counters this assumption, that “nontheological” readings
more accurately engage Scripture, by arguing that there is no such thing as
a “nontheological” reading. This is demonstrated not only by what one
intellectually holds to be true, although theological reasoning is foundational, but also one’s “functional theology,” that is, how one lives in practice. The real question is: which theology should be determinative for
reading Scripture? Billings’s guide for his “Trinitarian-shaped journey” is
the “rule of faith,” which Billings explores in the face of the principle of
sola scriptura and the authoritarian nature of a “rule.”

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Book Reviews

But if the focus of reading Scripture is theocentric—and Trinitarian at
that—is the proper approach to Scripture wholly unique from non-theological accounts of reading texts? In chapter 2, Billings engages general
hermeneutics and biblical criticism, arguing that general hermeneutics
must necessarily become theological in character, that is, understood as the
special Trinitarian hermeneutic of God’s redeeming work through Scripture.The Bible, then, cannot be read like any other book, and those who
use only a general hermeneutic will not be able to see the Bible as truly
one book with a unified message of God’s work in Christ. But Billings
does draw from general hermeneutics based on the broad conviction that
“all truth is God’s truth,” so that the legitimate insights of non-Christians
can be assimilated by Christians when reading Christian texts. Christians
must be careful to use general hermeneutics in an “ad-hoc” fashion.
Billings explores the proper hermeneutics for reading Scripture by drawing on the specialized notions of “understanding” and “explanation” in the
work of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur.With regard to biblical
criticism, Billings believes that it, too, can also play a positive role in understanding the Bible, but only if “critical methods [are] recontextualized
within a theological framework: that is, they need to be evaluated and used
according to terms that refuse to treat the Bible as nothing more than an
object of historical inquiry.” Billings is especially helpful when he attempts
to “overcome” the Enlightenment prejudice against preunderstandings
while at the same time highlighting the role that tradition plays in supposedly “no tradition allowed” interpretive locations such as the “conservative” dispensationalism and the “liberal” Jesus seminar, both of whom
consider themselves as going “straight to the Bible.”
If the Bible is the word of God, Billings believes that theological judgments must be made that will have import into the practice of scriptural
interpretation. In chapter 3, Billings addresses these theological judgments
but in a way that seeks to avoid “collapsing” different approaches to God’s
word into a “boring, shoulder-shrugging act of saying, ‘I guess we come
from different backgrounds.’ ” Instead, Billings posits two sets of
“either/or’s” that are “unavoidable”: (1) a grounding of revelation either in
inherent, universal human capacities or in the particularity of God’s actions
with Israel and in Jesus Christ; (2) a hermeneutic that is either Deistic or
Trinitarian. The first either/or, which draws heavily on Kierkegaard and
Barth, turns out not to be as dichotomous as it may seem, since Billings
grants the plausibility of a “natural theology.”What Billings wants to avoid,
however, is a purely natural religion, one in which the totality of Christian
truth is rooted in universal, natural reason along the lines of Kant and Lessing. Instead, individuals need, in the words of Jonathan Edwards, the “sixth

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sense” of faith to apprehend knowledge of God in the particularities of
God’s interaction with Israel and in Jesus Christ. God’s triune involvement
with humanity further necessitates the rejection of a Deistic hermeneutic,
which accounts for the inspiration and canonization of Scripture in purely
immanent terms of self-projection and power, while a Trinitarian
hermeneutic understands inspiration and canonization as God’s noncompetitive salvific involvement within human activity; inspiration and canon
are ultimately theological, not anthropocentric questions.
In chapter 4, Billings addresses the contextual nature of interpretation
and strives to maintain the tension between recognizing and celebrating
the variegated embodiment of God’s teaching within different contexts
without necessarily affirming the validity of all interpretations. Important
to Billings’s account is the Spirit’s role in the “conversion” of cultures,
since all cultures embody the marks of human sin.The Spirit both indigenizes Scripture within different cultures as well as transforms those
cultures into the “bounded truth” that is in Christ. Billings presents
different ways to “spiritually discern” whether scriptural interpretation is
indigenizing and transforming or has bowed to its “cultural idols,” including the insufficiency of direct appeals to experience, the role of communal interpretation, and suspicion toward one’s own cultural situation.
Billings concludes, however, that Scripture itself acts as the ultimate point
of authority for discerning the Spirit’s work within a particular context.
In the libraries of many modern pastors, one can regularly find commentaries from the NICOT, NICNT, Pillar, or Word commentary series, but
more rarely does one find commentaries from Augustine, Chrysostom,
Aquinas, or Calvin. Billings believes, however, that premodern exegesis
should have a place in the modern pulpit. In chapter 5, Billings seeks to
recover premodern “instincts” toward the Bible as Scripture, while also
appropriating “in a discerning manner” premodern insights into particular
biblical texts. Against the notion that premodern interpretation is esoteric
and irrelevant, Billings argues, drawing on John Webster, that if Scripture is
understood as God’s word for the church, “modern critical commentaries
may be more likely to be esoteric than premodern commentaries are.”
Billings then draws on Matthew Levering to get to the heart of uniting
premodern with modern readings of Scripture: a proper understanding of
history as participatory in God. Billings seeks to move beyond attempting
either to construct a history accessible outside or “behind” the text that is
then used to judge the text or to approach the text as but a projection of
theological ideas that have no referent to a linear history outside the text;
the key to avoiding these pitfalls is to understand Jesus Christ as the meaning of all history. How one understands Christ’s salvific work, moreover,

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Book Reviews

affects one’s reading of Scripture: whether one thinks of salvation as “getting
to heaven” or becoming an ethical person or deification (Billings’s preference), one’s reading of Scripture will reflect this soteriology. Billings
concludes his book in chapter 6 with a synthesis of the previous chapters
and further reflection on concrete reading practices in the church.
In setting forth his approach to theological interpretation, Billings
displays a unique sensitivity to ecclesial life (e.g., his example of a small
group bible study spiritually reading Genesis 12:1) that illuminates the fact
that theological interpretation is the ongoing practice for many Christians,
even if they cannot articulate the technical language and theory. Billings’s
sensitivity also enables him to posit and answer questions unique to the
minds of pastors and students. By ending each chapter with a concrete
example, Billings helps clarify the theory presented within the chapter,
resulting in numerous “aha” moments for the reader. I do wish, however,
in light of Billings’s emphasis on “functional theology,” that more were said
regarding the role of speculative theology in biblical interpretation, which
could fit well either in Billings’s section addressing the value of “preunderstanding” or the role of tradition. What does Billings make of Calvin’s
vision of the Institutes as preparation for reading Scripture? In general, what
is the role of speculative knowledge for being transformed in Christ? Is
there a place for the contemplative pastor? With regard to the role of tradition in interpretation, it seems significant that, for example, Baptist and
Presbyterian traditions lead to different interpretations of Scripture on
infant baptism and church structure. Since Billings wants to avoid a “to
each his own” interpretive mentality, do we need to say one tradition is
right and one is wrong, and if so how do we decide? Billings’s section
explicitly addressing traditions seems only to highlight (importantly) that
each denomination has them and they affect interpretation, and his use of
the “rule of faith” is too broad to address these sorts of questions. These
caveats aside, Billings provides a tremendous service to pastors and future
pastors who practice theological interpretation but may not know they do
it and, on that account, likely do it haphazardly. By addressing such a wide
range of topics, Billings provides a thorough account of theological interpretation that enables these individuals to be more intentional, and more
accurate and edifying, with their theological interpretation. I hope this
book finds its way into the hands of many teachers and future teachers of
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the Body of Christ.
Charles Raith II
Baylor University
Waco,Texas