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Mass Commemorating the
150th Anniversary of the Death of
Father Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, O.P.
Homily Preached by Guy Bedouelle, O.P.V
2 October 2011—Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Church of Our Lady of Peace
Sorèze, France

E ARLY in the year 1850, Father Henri-Dominique Lacordaire wrote
to one of his friends: “Why do you always return to this idea that ‘I
meddle in politics’ and that ‘I must stay out of it’?” “To the contrary,” he
continued, “my crime is that I do not engage in true politics, which
would be to remain outside of all parties and to tell everyone, as the occasion demands, the great social truths of the Gospel.”
Who is this Lacordaire? Who is this man whose 150th anniversary of
death we celebrate today in the very place where he is buried? Today he
may be little remembered by Catholics, but in the middle of the nineteenth century, Père Lacordaire was the most well-known Catholic priest
in France, one who attracted to himself both admirers and critics.
After the Revolution of July 1830, the young Lacordaire joined his
fellow cleric Félicité de Lamennais to found a daily newspaper, L’Avenir
(The Future), which boldly carried the motto: “God and Freedom.”
Within its pages, Lacordaire wrote in favor of the separation of Church
and State. This was at a time when neither the Church nor the State
desired such separation. Lacordaire also penned articles to defend the
rights of oppressed peoples. Since the Church signaled to Lacordaire
certain exaggerations in his manner of speech, he submitted to the
correction, though without renouncing his points of view. Some time
later, Lacordaire accepted the invitation of the Archbishop of Paris to
deliver a series of contemporary talks on the truths of the Catholic faith.
Nova et Vetera was saddened to hear of the death of Fr. Bedouelle on May 22, 2012.
Note from Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P., translator: This special Mass of commemoration was televised live on “Le Jour du Seigneur,” France’s leading Sunday morning
religious program. The original French of Fr. Bedouelle’s homily can be found at the
program’s website: www.lejourduseigneur.com.

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Guy Bedouelle, O.P.

Among the many Catholic students who urged the Archbishop to invite
Lacordaire was Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, who later founded the St.
Vincent de Paul Society. Thus began Lacordaire’s famous Conferences of
Notre-Dame, in which he developed at length his thoughts on the
Gospel and society.
After a period of retreat, Lacordaire undertook in France the reestablishing of the Dominican Order, which like other religious congregations
in France had been abolished at the time of the French Revolution.
Lacordaire did not intend to reclaim the social privileges enjoyed by clerics and religious during the ancien régime. Instead, he argued only that the
friars as simple citizens should enjoy the right of association. Lacordaire
spoke of his project; he wrote about it, and, when, in 1843, he opened his
first Dominican priory in Nancy, he realized his goal.
In February 1848, a moment arrived for Lacordaire that he considered
providential: another revolution in France led to another republic. The
result of a popular uprising, to be sure, this new republic however
pursued peace, loved justice, and above all held religion in respect.
Frenchmen everywhere planted “Liberty Trees,” which were blessed by
both bishops and parish priests alike.Without thinking much of it, Lacordaire let his friends add his name to the list of candidates for the future
National Assembly. The voters of Marseilles elected him. All of a sudden,
Lacordaire found himself, as was said, a “representative of the people”
from the Bouches-du-Rhône. Upon joining the Assembly, Lacordaire,
dressed in his Dominican habit, decided to take his seat among the
members of the extreme left! This strategic choice ill-suited someone
who wanted to remain above all partisan politics. After a band of insurgents broke into the chamber and tried to seize power—a show of
violence which in Lacordaire’s view produced the very negation of
democracy—Lacordaire made one of the many abrupt decisions that
marked his life: after serving just fourteen days in the National Assembly,
he resigned his seat. Lacordaire explained his decision to his constituents:
“In a political assembly, where impartiality condemns one to impotence
and isolation, one must choose sides. I could not bring myself to do so.”
He went on to clarify: “For me, politics means speaking the truth, the
most common truth, to the rich, to the poor, to believers, to non-believers.” And so, for Lacordaire, political activity coincides with promoting
Christian values, especially foundational moral truths. To his mind, political freedom corresponds with Gospel freedom.
Père Lacordaire was certainly a political idealist. He was incontestably
romantic. At the same time, he was anchored resolutely in modern society, which for him represented the social and political culture that issued

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from the Revolution of 1789. While Lacordaire of course rejected that
Revolution’s excesses, he looked at the society it created with both
Christian eyes and a Christian heart. He wanted to convert this modern
society. He wanted to inform its public opinion, which never adverted to
God. It was for this new evangelization that he wanted to form authentic Christians. To this end, Lacordaire dedicated the last seven years of his
life to the Abbey-School of Sorèze. This apostolic work confirmed him
in his vocation as an educator and a preacher, as well as that of a public
servant. While director of the Abbey-School, Lacordaire, true to form,
held a seat on the Sorèze city council!
“Brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever
is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there
is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about
these things.” We heard St. Paul address these words to the Philippians in
today’s second reading. This was certainly the posture with which Lacordaire approached his own time, and it is, I believe, the approach that is
demanded of each Christian generation. The Gospel of Jesus Christ
contains both a power and a grace. It both awakens and embraces the
desire for justice and truth latent in every heart. The priest whose
memory we honor today, Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, witnesses to this
service that the Christian religion still renders to civil society.
N&V

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649

Same-Sex Marriage?
A View from across the Atlantic
John Haldane
University of St. Andrews
St. Andrews, Scotland

I N Pride and Prejudice (1813) Jane Austen has one of the characters
receive a letter in which her sister writes: “I am going to Gretna Green.”
The expression required no further elaboration, for its meaning was
immediate: the writer had eloped to be married in Scotland. Gretna was
the first village across the border on the old coach route, and from the
middle of the eighteenth century, when a more restrictive marriage law
was introduced in England, it became the destination for teenage lovers
seeking to be married without parental consent. Today, sentiment rather
than necessity explains the five thousand or so weddings held in Gretna
every year, but it could again become a location for those looking for
more accommodating marriage law.
As the battle over same-sex marriage continues to flare in various U.S.
states, with the prospect of its eventually going to the Supreme Court, in
Britain matters are moving more rapidly to a uniform conclusion. In
2005 the Civil Partnership Act was passed, granting same-sex couples in
the U.K. the same rights and responsibilities as those in marriage. At the
time the Tony Blair government drew a distinction between civil partnership and marriage, largely with regard to legal wording, but the rights
to conduct partnership ceremonies in churches, or to incorporate religious elements into them, were withheld. Recently, however, David
Cameron’s Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition administration
passed an amendment allowing that, as of December 2011, same-sex
ceremonies can be held in places of worship.
This is an extended version of an essay that first appeared in First Things in April 2012
under the title “Against Erotic Entitlements”: www.firstthings.com/article/2012/04/
against-erotic-entitlement.

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John Haldane

The presumption is that this is an intermediate step towards replacing
civil partnership with full same-sex marriage, which Cameron favors.
Meanwhile in Scotland, the devolved administration has indicated that it
is “minded” to legalize homosexual and transgendered marriage in 2012
but is currently holding a public consultation. Thus far, opposition to the
plan has come principally from the Roman Catholic Bishops of Scotland, led by Cardinal O’Brien of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, Archbishop
Conti of Glasgow, and Bishop Tartaglia of Paisley, who is widely regarded
as the coming leader of Scottish Catholicism.
Senior members of the Episcopal Church have spoken in favor of gay
marriage, while the Church of Scotland is divided but through its Legal
Questions Committee has opposed a change of law without further
consultation. The traditionally more orthodox, Calvinist and evangelical,
Free Church of Scotland expressed its “deep dismay” and “implore[d] the
Scottish Government to reverse proposals to introduce same sex marriage
and return to Scotland’s greatest, tried and tested historic qualities which
are rooted in the Bible.” That was no great surprise, but what astonished
those who had knowledge of the historical antipathy of the Presbyterian
Free Church for Roman Catholicism was the concluding sentence: “In
this respect the Free Church Commission wishes also to applaud the
courage of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Glasgow and support
their clear statements in opposition to same sex marriage.”
Within an hour the Catholic Church had reciprocated with an official
statement: “The supportive comments offered by the Free Church, in
regards to the importance of defending marriage from arbitrary redefinition and the seriousness of family as the bedrock of society, are greatly
welcomed and appreciated by the Catholic Church.” This exchange is
likely to have significance long into the future. Traditionally, Scottish
Presbyterians have regarded the Church of Rome as the Anti-Christ. My
grandfather, half in jest, used to tell me as a young child that the reason
the Pope “wore long dresses was to cover his cloven hooves” (I was being
educated by the Jesuits at the time). With the Church of Scotland in visible collapse, and the Episcopal Church a tiny element (50,000 members)
at the liberal edge of Anglicanism, there is a real prospect of a realignment
of practicing Christians around orthodoxy in matters of faith and morals,
bringing together Presbyterian evangelicals and Roman Catholics. Lest
this seem an altogether unimagined alliance, consider the following from
a letter sent in 1791 by the great Scottish philosopher, and Kirk Minister, Thomas Reid to a Roman Catholic priest: “I give you the right hand
of Fellowship. Among the Wonders of our Day, let the pure Wine of
Rome & Geneva mix, leaving the dregs behind!”

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Returning to the present, there is consensus among the leadership of
the main political parties in England and in Scotland on the desirability
of introducing same-sex marriage. Far from the Conservative party offering resistance, it has become a principal advocate. Addressing his annual
Party Conference, Prime Minister David Cameron said: “I don’t support
gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage
because I’m a Conservative.”Then the following month, Ruth Davidson,
his preferred candidate, was elected to the leadership of the Scottish
Conservatives, nothwithstanding that she has less than six months experience as an elected politician. Davidson, who is an ex-territorial army
member, a former BBC journalist and producer, and a member of the
Church of Scotland, is openly lesbian.
What is to be made of all of this? And how is the case for traditional
marriage being argued? As for the former, readers may judge for themselves; regarding the latter, I would say the case has been very badly
presented. Opposition to same-sex marriage is standardly characterized as
“homophobic.” That description is lazy, and it commits the genetic
fallacy, by shifting from the rational grounds to the purported non-rational
causes and motives for opposition. Even so, I think that critics of homosexual unions overlook the extent to which our societies are addicted to
sexualization and sentimentality and are inclined to excuse these factors
in the case of heterosexuals.
There is a general form of reasoning, to which I shall give the name
argumentum ad consummationem, which runs as follows. Major premise: Sexual
attraction and love are determinants of human happiness and should be
consummated where sincerely felt. Minor premise: You cannot choose to
whom you are sexually attracted, and you cannot choose with whom you
fall in love. Conclusion:Whether or not they are chosen, attraction and love
should be consummated where sincerely felt. This simplistic syllogism
(uncritical in its use of choice, love, sentiment, and sincerity) constitutes
the rational foundation for a culture of unrestrained, promiscuous, and
unfaithful, yet indulgently sentimental coupling.
To speak out of and into such a culture, directing one’s attention solely
upon gays, lesbians, the trangendered, hermaphrodites, and whichever
other poor souls fail to be straightforwardly heterosexual, and calling
them to a standard of chastity that has long since been generally abandoned, is ridiculous and callous. It is not altogether uncommon to find
those who condemn gays for their sexual immorality also overlooking or
excusing heterosexual promiscuity, especially when it is validated by serial
“marriage” among the rich and the “conservative.” Yet the very foundation of popular sexual mores invites extension to the homosexual case;

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and that application is now being made aplenty, leaving opponents open
to the charge of hypocritical homophobia.
How then might one press the case against changes to the ancient legal
and cultural institution of marriage? The debate on whether to change
the meaning of marriage to include same-sex couples has mostly been
cast either in terms of citizens’ rights and equality, or in terms of religious
values and principles. The problem with the latter in post-Faith societies
(such as Britain) is evident, since religious denunciation and celebration
sound equally remote from most people’s concerns. Let me turn, therefore, to philosophy and to talk of equality and rights.This is a distinctively
modern way of approaching issues of morality and politics. Indeed, the
approach has come to prominence with the rise of liberal individualism
and its recent focus on entitlement. Opposition to such thinking comes
from those traditional conservatives who favor social duties over social
claims, and from those traditional socialists who see links between the
culture of rights and that of consumerism, each being stridently insistent
on entitlement, recognition, and self-fulfillment.
Indeed, the critique of liberalism as an expression of bourgeois privilege may be moving from theory to confirmation, as the common habit
of demanding more meets its consequences in credit collapse, rising
unemployment, and declining state provision. Happily, there is another
way of thinking about society, one that shaped the founding cultures of
Greece and Rome: namely, the morality and politics of the common
good. In this perspective, institutions such as education, law, and marriage
are grounded in human nature and focused on shared life. They are
rooted in what joins humans in natural communities, not what separates
them into sectional interest groups.
The case for education and law is not that children have an entitlement to schooling, or citizens a claim to personal rights. Rather, education is a necessity for society and a benefit to be shared within it.
Likewise, law is a form of ordered protection of natural human goods and
of the means of developing them. Similarly, marriage exists for the sake
of making and maintaining family life, the roots of which lie in natural
complementarities: in male and female of the species joining together
one-to-one, with the intention of creating another. That other, or others,
born of the fusion of their parents’ diverse identities thereby extend a
union of two, to a community of several.
Marriage recognizes, celebrates, and protects this basic source of
human society. It is not a commodity to be bought or an entitlement to
be claimed, and its meaning and value were understood long before the
idea of rights was ever conceived of, and the escalatory contest over them

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was ever begun. It is one thing, having created legal rights, to extend
them to all citizens, as was the rationale for civil partnerships. It is quite
another to redefine marriage. Once marriage is disconnected from the
union of one male and one female, there remains no principled reason to
restrict it to couples. If same-sex, what of multi-partner marriage in
hetero-, homo-, or bi-sexual combinations? And what of the emerging
claims of incestuous siblings for marriage rights?
Same-sex advocates are inclined to treat the latter questions as rhetorical absurdities, but grounds for posing them are not hard to find and they
generally conform to the argumentum ad consummationem pattern. The
Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association states that it “promotes legal, social,
government, and institutional acceptance and support of polyamory, and
advances the interests of the Canadian polyamorous community generally,” adding, “We’re here because we have a right to live with the people
we love.” Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Ian Stewart
“Convener, Atheist Scotland” has recently criticized the acceptance in
current debates of marriage as the union of two people:
If Scotland is to be considered as a modern country which values diversity, then alternative forms of marriage, such as polygamy, should also
be granted legal recognition. Polygamous marriages are illegal in Scotland and England, but those entered into overseas are not only recognised in Britain, but the social security system makes provision for their
maintenance. This is traditional British hypocrisy at its worst. Polygamy
should be brought into the mainstream with all people in Britain free
to engage in polygamous marriage with the same legal recognition and
social esteem as heterosexual, and soon to be, gay marriage.Women
who wish to engage in polyandry should also be free to enter into
polyandrous marriage with the same parity of esteem and legal recognition as other forms of marriage” (The Scotsman, 5 December 2011).

There is also the creeping advocacy of sibling marriage, particularly in
northern European countries and in North America, where it is an
increasingly common topic of online discussion within the GSA (genetic
sexual attraction) movement. More prominently, however, incest is beginning to be sympathetically discussed in mainstream publications. The two
main British liberal newspapers are the Guardian and the Independent. The
latter is a more recent and financially less secure institution, and perhaps
for these reasons it has been especially keen to nurture new generation
journalists. Its principal writer in that category has been an opinion
columnist, Johann Hari. Homosexual, wildly self-promotional, and selfconfessedly depressive, Hari delighted the bien pensant liberati with endless

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denunciations of the hypocrisy of social conservatives. In that vein he was
awarded the 2008 [George] Orwell prize for journalism, which, to quote
its own rubric, “is Britain’s most prestigious prize for political writing . . .
which comes closest to George Orwell’s ambition ‘to make political writing into an art.’ ”
Unfortunately it transpired that Hari’s contribution, like much else in
his oeuvre, was an exercise in the arts of fabrication and plagiarism, and
the prize was withdrawn. Hari’s response to his exposure was long
delayed and failed to engage all the charges against him, but in response
to an investigation by his newspaper, the Independent, he announced that
he was going to take an unpaid leave of absence until 2012, and at his
own expense undertake a program of journalism training. Meanwhile he
has continued to publish in other outlets, including the Huffington Post.
In 2002 Hari had published an article in the Guardian headed “Forbidden Love” and subtitled “Can sex between close relatives ever be acceptable?” that was subsequently reproduced on his blog (johannhari.com/
2002/01/09/forbidden-love). Hari’s answer is at best uncertain, and the
article ends with what appears to be a rhetorical question:
In any case, we must acknowledge that, with the rise of contraception,
we have succeeded in separating sex from reproduction. Another
unashamed participant in incest discovered in a chatroom, “daddysgirl”,
insisted: “We would never have a baby, it would be all screwed up and
wrong. I use the coil.” So has a window opened for “safe” incest? And
if so, is our visceral disgust just a remnant from a vanishing age?

So far, so narrowly heterosexual, perhaps because Hari is cognizant of
the fact that his liberal readership might not yet be ready for homosexuality plus incest. In the investigation of Hari’s plagiaristic and other journalistic felonies, however, it emerged that he had been operating on the
internet under the pseudonym “David Rose,” using an email address
incorporating this identity. From that address in 2006 a narrative was sent
by “David Rose” with the subject-heading “How my little brother
learned to be a Whore” in which one black teenager sodomizes and
pimps his younger brother. Hari was forced to acknowledge using the
pseudonym and has never countered the allegation that he authors gay
incest porn. As noted, however, much lauded for his liberal progressivism,
Hari, writing in a national newspaper, had also been inviting readers to
consider whether incest might be morally acceptable. And if desire and
love can take a man to his brother, or a woman to her sister, etc, then argumentum ad consummationem sets the foundation for incestuous marriage, as
it does for polyamorous unions.

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In the marketplace of sentimental and erotic entitlement, choice is
sovereign and is no respecter of nature or custom. The best case against
same-sex matrimony is the positive argument for marriage as the cultural
formulation of a natural union, a formulation that needs to be protected
from the twin distortions of shallow sentimentalism and animal lust. This
is an argument from natural law and so connects to significant strands of
both Scottish and American legal theory. As Viscount Stair, Scotland’s
greatest jurist, wrote in the Institutions of the Laws of Scotland (1681):
“Obligations arising from voluntary engagement take their rule and
substance from the will of man and may be framed and composed at his
pleasure; but [not so] marriage, wherein it is not in the power of the
parties, though of common consent to alter any substantial. . . . Marriage
arises from the law of nature and it is given as the very example of the
Natural law.” It is an irony, therefore, that Gretna Green stands only eighty
miles to the east of where Stair composed the Institutions, for it is in
Gretna that we may see the first wave of same-sex marriages in Britain,
kilts-a-swirling to the accompaniment of the bagpipes playing that old
uplifting favorite, “A Highland Wedding.”
N&V

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657

Necessary, Fitting, or Possible:
The Shape of Scholastic Christology
C OREY L. B ARNES
Oberlin College
Oberlin, OH

A NSELM ’ S preface to the Cur Deus homo announces that the work
“proves by necessary arguments that it is impossible for any human being
to be saved without [Christ].”1 Throughout his work, Anselm makes
claims for the Incarnation’s necessity while arguing that this necessity
involves no constraint upon God but rather flows from God’s freely
creative will and that the Passion’s necessity did not compromise its
voluntary character.2 Anselm wanted to present the Incarnation and the
Passion as reasonable, and he found arguing for their necessity the most
expedient strategy. Inadequate attention to Anselm’s preface and to his
1 Cur Deus homo, preface: “Quorum prior quidem infidelium Christianam fidem,

quia rationi putant illam repugnare, respuentium continet obiectiones et fidelium
responsiones. Ac tandem remoto Christo, quasi numqaum aliud fuerit de illo,
probat rationibus necessariis impossibile ullum hominem salvari sine illo.” Citations of the Cur Deus homo are from Opera omnia Anselmi, vol. 2, ed. F. S. Schmitt
(Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1946).
2 Cur Deus homo I. 25: “Aut enim per Christum, aut alio aliquo, aut nullo modo
poterit homo salvus esse. Quapropter si falsum est quia nullo aut alio aliquo
modo potest hoc esse, necesse est fieri per Christum.” Anselm qualifies statements
such as this with his repeated insistence that all necessity flows from God’s free
will. Cur Deus homo II. 17: “Iam diximus quia deus improprie dicitur aliquid non
posse aut necessitate facere. Omnis quippe necessitas et impossibilitas eius subiacet voluntati; illius autem voluntas nulli subditur necessitati aut impossibilitati.
Nihil enim est necessarium aut impossibile, nisi quia ipse ita vult; ipsum vero aut
velle aut nolle aliquid propter necessitatem aut impossibilitatem alienum est a
veritate. Quare quoniam omnia quae vult, et non nisi quae vult facit: sicut nulla
necessitas sive impossibilitas praecedit eius velle aut nolle, ita nec eius facere aut
non facere, quamvis multa velit immutabiliter et faciat.”

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sophisticated understanding of modal logic led some to misinterpret the
role of necessity in the Cur Deus homo.3 Regardless of what Anselm
intended, the Cur Deus homo raised questions for scholastic theologians
about the Incarnation’s necessity, fittingness, and possibility; those theologians in response shaped their presentations of Christology according to
the modal categories necessity, fittingness, and possibility. Anselm’s influence on scholastic Christologies was not limited to acceptance of a satisfaction theory of atonement and cannot be determined simply by
frequency of citation; his shaping of Christology through modal categories influenced thirteenth-century theologians even when they modified or rejected a satisfaction theory.4 Many thirteenth-century theologians
harbored a fear that Anselm’s arguments somehow, despite the great pains
3 Roscelin, for example, in a letter to Abelard interprets the Cur Deus homo to

constrain God: “Ait enim in libro quem Cur Deus homo intitulat, aliter Deum non
posse homines salvare, nisi sicut fecit, id est nisi homo fieret, et omnia illa quae
passus est pateretur. Ejus sententiam sanctorum doctorum, quorum doctrina
fulget Ecclesia, dicta vehementer impugnant” (Ep. 15, PL 178.362). Many interpreters lacked Anselm’s logical sophistication, much of which can be traced
through Boethius to Aristotle. For thorough examinations of necessity in the Cur
Deus homo, there are several articles in Cur Deus Homo: Atti del Congresso Anselmiano Internazionale: Roma, 21–23 maggio 1998, ed. P. Gilbert, H. Kohlenberger, and
E. Salmann (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo S. Anselmo, 1999). Of greatest interest are
the following: T. Holopainen, “Necessity in Early Medieval Thought: Peter
Damian and Anselm of Canterbury,” 221–34; M. M. Adams, “Elegant Necessity,
Prayerful Disputation: Method in Cur Deus Homo,” 367–96; R. Campbell, “The
Nature of Theological Necessity,” 421–35; J. Baker, “Must the God-Man Die?”
609–20; O. Rossi, “L’ ‘Aliquid Maius’ e la Riparazione,” 641–57; L. Peterson, “St.
Anselm on Justice, Retribution and the Divine Will,” 659–72; P. Gilbert,
“Violence et Liberté dans le Cur Deus Homo,” 673–95; A. Vanderjagt, “ ‘Propter
Utilitatem et Rationis Pulchritudinem Amabilis’: The Aesthetics of Anselm’s Cur
Deus Homo,” 717–30. See also B. Leftow, “Anselm on the Necessity of the Incarnation,” Religious Studies 31 (1995): 167–85; D. Brown, “ ‘Necessary’ and ‘Fitting’
Reasons in Christian Theology,” in The Rationality of Religious Belief: Essays in
Honour of Basil Mitchell, ed.W. Abraham and S. Holtzer (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1987), 211–30; E. Serene, “Anselm’s Modal Conceptions,” in Reforging the Great
Chain of Being: Studies in the History of Modal Theories, ed. S. Knuuttila (Boston: D.
Reidel Publishing Co., 1981), 117–62.
4 On Anselm’s satisfaction theory and its medieval reception, see. J. Patout Burns,
“The Concept of Satisfaction in Medieval Redemption Theory,” Theological
Studies 36 (1975): 285–304. See also R. Cessario, The Godly Image: Christ and
Salvation in Catholic Thought from Anselm to Aquinas (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s
Publications, 1990). Raymond of Lull (1232–1315/1316) even formulated a
series of proofs for the Incarnation’s necessity without reference to sin or human
redemption. See Raymond of Lull, Ars Mystica Theologiae et Philosophiae, in Opera
Latina 154–155: Opera Parisiensia, ed. H. Riedlinger (Palma de Maiorca, 1967).

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he took to avoid it, constrained God, but still they recognized the value
of describing the Incarnation and the Passion through modal categories
in order to present them as reasonable.
This presentation will examine the Summa halensis, Thomas Aquinas’s
Summa theologiae, and John Duns Scotus’s Lectura and Ordinatio. Drawing
out how Anselm’s Cur Deus homo shaped these texts is a task best accomplished by analyzing their uses of modal categories. The texts employ
modal categories to varying degrees in their assessments of the Incarnation and the Passion; each text uses (mainly) the same modal category in
its treatment of both doctrines. The Summa halensis translates Anselm’s
arguments into a formalized structure, affirming a limited necessity to the
Incarnation and the Passion, a necessity that leaves room for fittingness as
an expression of the divine freedom governing all necessity. By construing necessity in harmony with fittingness, the Summa halensis remains
close to the Cur Deus homo and funnels attention to atonement through
satisfaction. For Aquinas, fittingness is the modal category best suited to
presenting the Incarnation and the Passion as reasonable, because it indicates the logic, wisdom, and beauty of God’s providential plan without
implying any constraint, though Thomas does admit that in some sense
the Incarnation and the Passion were necessary for human salvation.
Aquinas’s emphasis on fittingness corresponds with his treatment of satisfaction as one of the many ways Christ’s Passion causes salvation. John
Duns Scotus focused on possibility rather than necessity or fittingness.
Granting pride of place to the Incarnation’s possibility was a common
scholastic practice, but Scotus’s novel formulation of modal categories,
highlighting contingency and divine freedom, altered that practice and
ruled out any necessity for the Incarnation and the Passion. The Summa
halensis, Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, and Scotus’s commentaries on the
Sentences thus represent three rather different responses to Anselm’s Cur
Deus homo, but they nonetheless represent roughly equivalent responses
insofar as they all frame Christological reflections through judicious use
of modal categories.
A few remarks orienting us to the modal categories used in scholastic
Christology will prove valuable.5 Scholastic theologians used various terms
to indicate a distinction between two classes of necessity. I will throughout
5 For useful introductions to medieval reflection on modal categories, see S.

Knuuttila, Modalities in Medieval Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1993), and
idem, “Time and Modality in Scholasticism,” in Reforging the Great Chain of
Being, 163–257. For an introduction to philosophical and theological considerations of necessity, see A. Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1974).

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refer to strong necessity and weak necessity, terms not used by the scholastics but which provide a common parlance for the basic distinction recognized by the scholastics. Strong necessity covers what could not be
otherwise or what is so from an irresistible force. Weak necessity follows
from something given and includes what diverse authors refer to as “conditional necessity,” “subsequent necessity,” “necessity of consequence,” or
“necessity of supposition.” The necessity of immutability, which relates to
the temporal unfolding of God’s eternal and unchanging will, also falls
under the broad heading of weak necessity. All the authors covered here
deny any coercion or compulsion to the Incarnation and to the Passion
but still grant some necessity to them. This general agreement can be
better captured through the terminology of strong and weak necessity.
Fittingness proves much more difficult to summarize, but let it suffice for
now to note that scholastic theologians generally used fittingness as a
means to describe the reasonableness, wisdom, or beauty of divine actions
that could have been otherwise. The vagueness of fittingness renders its
modal status obscure. There were two main ways of discussing possibility
in the thirteenth century, though Scotus codified the distinction by coining the expression possibile logicum (logical possibility).6 One was in terms
of ability or potency, both active and passive. The other way was through
logical possibility, defined mainly by the law of non-contradiction.
Consider the following statement: “it is possible for a standing man to sit.”
Taking possibility as ability, the statement seems true. Someone who
happens to be standing is able to sit down. Taking possibility in the sense
of logical possibility, the statement seems false. It is an impossibility for
someone both to sit and to stand at the same time.7 We will see that each
text offers many refinements to these basic understandings of necessity,
fittingness, and possibility.
Summa halensis
The Summa halensis (Summa fratris Alexandri) reflects the contributions of
several prominent theologians, most notably Alexander of Hales.8 Its third
6 See H. Deku, “ ‘Possibile logicum,’ ” Philosophisches Jarbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft

64 (1956): 1–21.
7 Aristotle distinguished the composite and divided senses of such statements. The

composite sense implied the actuality of predicates at the same time, while the
divided sense considered the actuality of the predicates at different times. In the
composite sense, it is not possible for a standing man to sit. In the divided sense,
it is possible. See Knuuttila, “Time and Modality in Scholasticism,” 167–68.
8 The history of debate on the authorship and dating of the Summa halensis is
presented in Summa theologica seu sic ab origine dicta “Summa fratri Alexandri”: Prolegomena, vol. 4, pt. 2 (Florence: Quaracchi, 1948). For an assessment of the process

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book was completed by 1245 and provides a clear example of a scholastic
Christology responding to Anselm.9 This response takes the form of a
complex parallel structure between the treatment of the Incarnation and
that of the Passion. The Summa halensis examines each through the category of necessity and then through the category of fittingness.10 The
progression in modal categories reads as a slight and subtle corrective to
any claim for the strong necessity of the Incarnation and the Passion. The
Summa halensis advocates a satisfaction theory while shifting the operative
modal category toward weak necessity and fittingness.
A cautious acceptance of Anselm’s approach is evident in the Summa
halensis’s discussion of the Incarnation itself. The modal lens is necessity, but
the question frames that necessity through a consideration of human nature
as fallen yet open to restoration. Anselm’s influence here is clear, as a contrast
with Peter Lombard’s Sentences shows. The Lombard’s initial Christological
questions, beginning in medias res, are why the Son became incarnate rather
than the Father or the Holy Spirit (Sent. III, d. 1, c. 1) and whether the
Father or the Holy Spirit could have become incarnate (Sent. III, d. 1, c. 2).11
followed by the Quaracchi editors, see I. Brady, “The ‘Summa Theologica’ of
Alexander of Hales (1924–1948),” Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 70 (1977):
437–47. The best treatment of the Christology of the Summa halensis is E. Gössmann, Metaphysik und Heilsgeschichte: Eine theologische Untersuchung der Summa
Halensis (Alexander von Hales) (Munich: Max Hueber Verlag, 1964).
9 Robson traces the influence of Anselm’s Cur Deus homo on Alexander of Hales,
who elevated the Cur Deus homo above Augustine’s De Trinitate in questions of
soteriology. This elevation is equally clear in the Summa halensis. “Alexander’s
concentration on Anselm’s teaching regarding satisfaction paves the way for a
similar, if not greater, concentration on the part of subsequent masters of the
Franciscan school. For instance, Anselm dominates the Summa Theologica’s examination of the question Utrum humana natura possit reparari sine satisfactione peccati
per quod lapsa est; where the hand of John de la Rochelle, the second master of
the Franciscan school in Paris, is visible” (M. Robson, “Anselm’s Influence on the
Soteriology of Alexander of Hales: The Cur Deus Homo in the Commentary on the
Sentences,” in Cur Deus Homo: Atti del Congresso Anselmiano Internazionale,
191–219, quoted from 206).
10 On the Incarnation’s necessity and fittingness in the Summa halensis, see Gössmann, Metaphysik und Heilsgeschichte, 70–79. On the Passion’s necessity and fittingness, see Gössmann, Metaphysik und Heilsgeschichte, 149–51. Gössmann attends to
Anselm’s deep and broad influence without neglecting other influences.
11 See Peter Lombard, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae, Tomus II (Rome: Collegii S.
Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1981). William of Auxerre’s Christology in the
Summa aurea similarly begins with the question “quare potius fuit Filius incarnatus
quam Pater vel Spiritus Sanctus” (III, c. 1) and then turns to the mode of union.
See William of Auxerre, Summa aurea, vol. 3, pt. 1 (Rome: Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1986).

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The Summa halensis follows Anselm in framing the Incarnation through a
specification of humanity as fallen from its original state yet reparable
through satisfaction; humanity’s falleness establishes the conditions for the
Incarnation’s necessity.
The Summa halensis affirms the necessity of humanity’s restoration but
quickly stipulates that it is not necessary in any strong sense, either on the
part of God or on the part of humanity. The only necessity applicable to
God as cause is the weak necessity of immutability, which depends upon
the inevitable unfolding of God’s constant will. The response also allows
a necessity of need (necessitas indigentiae), according to which restoration
“was rightly (bene) necessary from the part of fallen but reparable human
nature.”12 This might seem like a form of strong necessity, but that
appearance is a trick of perspective. One manner of determining strong
necessity is to examine the possibility of alternatives, and the Summa
halensis does so by considering possibility in terms of ability. It permits
the statement “human nature could not be restored without satisfaction”
because fallen human nature had no active potency for restoration by
other means.13 The necessity of need can only be a weak necessity determined by the inability of human beings to cause restoration otherwise.
The case is rather different with the statement “God cannot restore
human nature without satisfaction.”The Summa appeals to the distinction
between God’s absolute power (potentia absoluta) and ordained/ordered
power (potentia ordinata).14 God’s potentia ordinata can be ordered accord12 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 1, c. 3: “Quando ergo quaeritur utrum necesse

sit humanam naturam reparari, dicendum quod, si loquamur ex parte causae,
quae Deus est, quod ibi est necessitas immutabilitatis solum, licet non proprie
dicatur necessitas. Si vero loquamur ex parte causati, creaturae scilicet humanae,
neutra necessitas est ibi. Posset tamen dici quod sit tertia necessitas, scilicet indigentiae, et sic bene fuit necessitas ex parte naturae humanae lapsae et reparabilis.”
Citations are from Summa theologica seu sic ab origine dicta “Summa fratri Alexandri ,”
vol. 4, pt. 1.
13 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 1, c. 4: “Ad hoc est intelligendum quod indistincte potest concedi passiva, scilicet ‘humana natura non potest reparari sine satifactione.’ ”
14 See W. Courtenay, Capacity and Volition: A History of the Distinction of Absolute and
Ordained Power (Bergamo: Pierluigi Lubrina, 1990). Medieval considerations of
modality and divine power perhaps find their origin in Peter Damian’s De divina
ominpotentia. For a discussion of Damian’s thought on divine power, see I. R.
Resnick, Divine Power and Possibility in St. Peter Damian’s De Divina Omnipotentia (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992). For an analysis of the distinction between absolute and
ordained power in high scholasticism, see L. Moonan, Divine Power: The Medieval
Power Distinction up to Its Adoption by Albert, Bonaventure, and Aquinas (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1994). Of particular interest here is Moonan’s discussion of

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ing to justice and according to mercy. God’s absolute power can restore
humanity without satisfaction, and so the Incarnation is not necessary in
any strong sense and the necessity of need cannot be a strong necessity.15
If justice is taken as identical with the divine essence, then God’s ability
according to justice (posse de iustitia) is identical with God’s ability
according to power (posse de potentia).16 God’s power can accomplish
restoration of human nature otherwise, so satisfaction is not necessary.
Justice can also be taken retributively according to merit, in which case
God’s ability according to justice (posse de iustitia) is defined as God’s ability to act consistently or fittingly with merit (posse secundum congruentiam
meritum).17 Justice is not simply what God wills but what it is fitting for
God to will, given divinely established conditions for merit. As God’s
ability is ordered by divinely established conditions for merit, satisfaction
is the only possible means of human restoration and so is necessary for
that restoration.
The Summa halensis further argues that this satisfaction can be made
only by the Deus-homo, and it does so by demonstrating the impossibility
of alternatives based upon possibility as ability. No angel or mere creature
could make satisfaction, given the infinite debt of sin. The Summa halensis actually extends and fills out Anselm’s argument, when it addresses
three ways to consider the quantity of Adam’s sin: (1) in respect to the
Philip the Chancellor’s reflections on the Incarnation and modality when considering the necessity of propositions relating to the statement: “Christ’s going to be
made incarnate” (Moonan, Divine Power, 76–86).
15 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 1, c. 4: “Considerando divinam potentiam
absolute, cogitamus quamdam virtutem infinitam, et secundum hunc modum
non est determinare divinam potentiam, et conceditur hoc modo quod potest
reparare humanam naturam sine peccati satisfactione.”
16 Moonan discusses the de potentia/de iustitia distinction and its relation to the
distinction between potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata in William of Auxerre’s
Summa aurea. See Moonan, Divine Power, 66–76. Moonan’s remarks on William
are largely applicable to the Summa halensis as well.
17 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 1, c. 4: “Si autem loquamur de Dei potentia,
ut intelligitur ordinata secundum iustitiam et misericordiam, secundum quod
dicitur quod Deus potest de iustitia, distinguendum est, quia iustitia Dei idem est
quod divina essentia, et cum hoc per iustitiam, quae dicit respectum ad creaturam, connotatur retributio unicuique secundum meritum. Quando ergo quaeritur utrum Deus de iustitia possit dimittere peccatum impunitum, potest referri
‘posse de iustitia’ ad principale significatum, quod est divina essentia, et tunc
idem est posse de iustitia quod posse de potentia, et hoc modo potest. Si autem
referatur ad connotatum, dicit Anselmus quod tunc ‘posse de iustitia’ est posse
secundum congruentiam meritorum, et hoc modo dicit idem Anselmus: ‘Non
potest Deus peccatum impunitum sine satisfactione dimittere nec peccator ad
beatitudinem, qualem habiturus erat ante peccatum, poterit pervenire.’ ”

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Corey L. Barnes

one sinning; (2) in respect to the disorder of sin; and (3) in respect to the
one against whom one sins. In the first respect, Adam’s sin was necessarily finite, because a finite cause cannot produce an infinite effect. The
second respect admits a possible infinity, since sin disorders and renders
guilty humanity as a whole, which is possibly infinite. Greater weight
rests on the third respect, for which the following explanation is given:
“The quantity of sin ought to be counted through comparison to the
one against whom one sins. If someone offends a king and a soldier, he
offends more by offending the king than by offending the soldier, and so
the quantity of that offense is counted from the part of him against
whom one sins.”18 Adam sinned against the infinite good, rendering the
sin an infinite offense. It is worth quoting the Summa halensis at length:
Therefore, according to those two modes [respects 2 and 3] at least
Adam’s sin is infinite and transcends every human creature. If God
ought to exact in punishment something as great as the commission is
in fault, then [God] ought to exact an infinite punishment for Adam’s
sin. If God were to permit satisfaction, satisfaction ought to be made by
a person in whom there is an infinite good and from whom there is an
ordering of human nature as a whole. There is no such mere creature,
and so it did not accord with justice that such satisfaction could be
made through a mere creature.19

We notice several important points here.The Summa halensis makes explicit
the infinity of Adam’s sin and the need for infinite restitution based upon
the necessity of justice under God’s ordained power.The necessity of justice
drives the final conclusion of the question, that satisfaction must be made
“through God united to human nature.”20 This weak necessity does not
limit possibility but is determined by possibility understood as an ordered
ability or potency.
18 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 1, c. 6, a. 2, ad 1:“Et quod quantitas peccati debeat

attendi per comparationem ad illum in quem peccatur, patet, quoniam, si aliquis
offenderet regem et militem, plus offenderet offendendo regem quam offendendo
militem, et ita quantitas istius offensae attenditur ex parte in quem peccatur.”
19 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 1, c. 6, a. 2, ad 1: “ergo secundum istos duos
modos ad minus est peccatum Adae infinitum et transcendens omnem humanam
creaturam. Si ergo Deus debet exigere in poena quantum commissum est in
culpa, patet quod debet exigere poenam infinitam pro peccato Adae; aut si
admittat satisfactionem, debet fieri satisfactio a tali persona, in qua sit infinitum
bonum et a qua sit ordinatio totius humanae naturae; sed nulla pura creatura est
huiusmodi; et propter hoc de iustitia non fuit ut per puram creaturam fieret
huiusmodi satisfactio.”
20 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 1, c. 7:“Quod concedendum est, quod hanc satisfactionem requirit necessitas iustitiae, ut fiat per Deum unitum humanae naturae.”

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665

Up to this point, the Summa halensis has followed Anselm’s argument
while constantly whittling away at any strong necessity of the Incarnation. By ruling out strong necessity and by specifying that Anselm’s satisfaction theory operates with weak necessity, the Summa halensis carves
out space for fittingness. That is, whatever the modal status of fittingness,
it does not seem to be a modal category compatible with strong necessity; strong necessity must be eliminated to allow for fittingness. The
Summa complicates the matter by examining the fittingness of the Incarnation granting the fall and assuming (counter-factually) that humanity
had not fallen. Hypothetical or counter-factual questions are a hallmark
of the debt scholastic Christologies bear to Anselm and serve to clarify
the modal categories applicable to various aspects of the Incarnation.
The Summa halensis’s investigation of fittingness begins with the very
possibility of a union between divine nature and human nature. The
possibility of union establishes the conditions for the union’s fittingness
and depends upon a non-reciprocal and asymmetrical similitude of order
between human nature and divine nature.21 When the question shifts to
whether the divine nature can be united to human nature, the operative
category of possibility shifts from the logical possibility of similitude to
possibility as ability or potency. Divine perfection and simplicity rule out
any passive potency but do not rule out an active potency for union.22
The Summa halensis offers no justification for God’s active potency for
union and delays giving express defenses of the Incarnation’s fittingness
to the hypothetical consideration of the Incarnation apart from sin.
Hypothetical considerations help establish fittingness by showing that the
actual Incarnation, though possible, is not necessary. Showing that it
could have been otherwise magnifies God’s freedom. Hypothetical
considerations also clarify what is possible logically and what is possible
according to ability. These questions eliminate any strong necessity in the
21 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 2, d. 1: “alio modo attenditur haec similitudo

comparando unum ad alterum, ut si dicam ‘Deus est bonus, creatura est bona’,
bonitas increata est bonitas per essentiam, scilicet ipse Deus, et ad hanc ordinatur
bonitas creata. Hoc ergo quod dico ‘ordinari ad illam’, facit convenientiam et
similitudinem bonitatis creatae ad increatam. Non est tamen dicendum quod
bonitas increata sit similis bonitati creatae, sed e converso, quia nunquam determinatur similitudo respectu alicuius deterioris, sed respectu maioris vel aequalis.”
22 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 2, d. 2, m. 1, c. 1: “Si autem loquamur de
potentia activa, sic natura divina est unibilis humanae, quia in Deo est potentia
activa, ut sibi uniat naturam humanam. Unibile ergo dicitur de natura divina
secundum potentiam activam, scilicet quod possit sibi unire naturam creatam; de
natura vero humana dicitur secundum potentiam passivam, eo quod possit uniri.”

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Corey L. Barnes

actual form of the Incarnation. The possibility and non-necessity of the
Incarnation prompts an investigation of its fittingness.
Reflecting on the Incarnation of the Son instead of the Father or
Holy Spirit exercised the greatest of medieval minds. Recall that Peter
Lombard began his third book of the Sentences with just this topic. The
details of the Summa halensis’s reflections need not delay us here, but a few
remarks are in order. The Summa halensis argues that the Incarnation was
fitting to the Son both according to divine appropriations (according to
which the Son is associated with wisdom) and according to the filiation
proper to the Son.23 Having determined the fittingness of the Son’s
Incarnation, the Summa halensis inquires about the possibility of the
Father or Spirit being incarnate. The response hinges on a distinction
between absolute ability (posse absoluta) and ability according to fittingness (posse de congruentia), which amounts to an interesting formulation of
the distinction between potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata. When Peter
Lombard affirms the possibility of any divine person becoming incarnate
(Sent. III, d. 2, c. 2), he does so according to God’s posse absoluta. When
one considers God’s posse de congruentia, and Anselm is clearly in mind
here, becoming incarnate befits the Son alone.24 Here we see the Summa
halensis grappling with competing authorities and different understandings of possibility and the relationship of possibility to fittingness. The
Summa halensis affirms the essentials of Anselm’s argument and explicitly
limits the argument to the category of weak necessity. Weak necessity
admits alternate possibilities and so is compatible with fittingness. Fittingness arguments confirm the distinction between strong and weak necessity while providing some account for the reasonableness of the divine
decision to actualize one possibility rather than others.
The Summa halensis’s treatment of fittingness ends with two arguments
for the fittingness of the Incarnation had there been no fall. The first argument, from Bernard of Clairvaux, holds that the devil foresaw God’s
assumption of human nature and fell out of jealousy. The devil then
tempted humanity and promoted the fall so that sin might be a barrier to

23 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 2, d. 2, m. 1, c. 4, a. 1, ad 1–2: “Et ita, cum

sapientia approprietur Filio, magis adhuc secundum hanc comparationem
convenit Filio incarnari. Faciendo vero comparationem secundum propria, magis
convenit ipsi Filio incarnatio; nam Filio magis convenit esse Filium quam aliis.”
24 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 2, d. 2, m. 1, c. 4, a. 2: “Dicendum quod est
‘posse divinum’ dupliciter, scilicet posse absolute, et hoc modo dicitur, III Sententiarum, quod quaelibet persona potuit incarnari; et est posse de congruentia, et
hoc modo soli Filio convenit incarnari.”

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humanity’s aptitude for assumption and union.25 The argument highlights
the Incarnation as divinely willed prior to the fall and as equally fitting had
there been no sin, but it offers no justification for its fittingness in the first
place. A second argument, from the De anima et spiritu, fills this gap. It presents the Incarnation as a fitting means for the whole human being, body
and soul, to achieve beatitude. The intellect finds nourishment in contemplating God and the senses find nourishment in Christ’s flesh.26 This
fittingness stands quite separate from sin and its disordering effects. These
arguments work together to present the Incarnation as a fitting means, even
apart from the fall, for human beings to achieve their end in God. The
Incarnation’s fittingness does not depend on the fall, but its (weak) necessity does. The Summa halensis leaves no doubt that the Incarnation would
have been fitting apart from sin but does not use this principle of fittingness to affirm that God would have become incarnate apart from sin.
Discussions of the Passion involve the extra complication of balancing
any sense of necessity with Christ’s suffering as voluntary. The Summa
halensis practices this balancing act with a scheme for thinking about
necessity normally found in medieval discussions of possibility. The
scheme examines possibility in terms of inferior and superior causes.
Possibilities secundum causam inferiorem were possibilities according to
natural motion (secundum cursum naturae); possibilities secundum causam
superiorem were possibilities of the divine nature or of God’s providential
plan for creation.27 Necessity according to the inferior cause means
25 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 2, tit. 2: “Sine praeiudicio concedendum est

quod, etiamsi non fuisset humana natura lapsa, adhuc est convenientia ad incarnationem, secundum quod dicit B. Bernardus, super Ionam 1, 12: Propter me orta est
tempestas, exponens illud verbum de Filio Dei, dicens quod Lucifer praevidit rationalem creaturam assumendam in unitatem personae Filii Dei,‘vidit et invidit’. Unde
invidia fuit causa casus diaboli et movens ipsum ad tentandum hominem, cuius
felicitati invidebat, ut per peccatum demereretur humana natura assumptionem et
unibilitatem ad Deum. Ex quo patet quod Lucifer intellexit unionem ut impeditivum unionis, propter quod procuravit lapsum. Ex hoc ergo reliquitur quod,
circumscripto lapsu, adhuc est ponere convenientiam incarnationis.”
26 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 1, q. 2, tit. 2: “Praeterea, ad hoc idem est quod dicit
B. Augustinus, in libro De anima et spiritu: ‘Propterea Deus factus est homo, ut
totum hominem in se beatificaret, ut sive homo ingrederetur intus per intellectum, sive egrederetur extra per sensum, in Creatore suo pascua inveniret, pascua
intus in cognitione deitatis, pascua foris in carne Salvatoris’. Haec autem ratio
manet, etiam circumscripto lapsu humanae naturae.”
27 See Alain of Lille, Theologicae Regulae 56–58 (PL 210.648–49). Alain discusses the
logical relationship of possibility and impossibility according to the inferior and
superior causes, focusing upon questions of divine omnipotence but briefly
touching upon Christology.

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Corey L. Barnes

necessity according to one of the four Aristotelian causes. The Summa
halensis rules out any necessity in the efficient, formal, or material cause
and only admits the Passion’s necessity according to the final cause. The
logic recalls Anselm: “there could not be redemption except though satisfaction, and there could not be satisfaction except through the Passion.
So, it was necessary for Christ to suffer according to the necessity of the
final cause.”28 Even this necessity of final causality is constrained by affirmation that whereas the Passion was necessary for satisfaction and
redemption, it was not logically necessary for liberation.29 The Passion
was necessary only within the context of God’s ordained power, and even
within that context it was necessary only in a weak sense.
The Summa halensis insists that the necessity of final causality does not
hinder the Passion’s voluntary character. Only the necessity of coercion
and compulsion removes freedom. Necessity in the material, formal, or
efficient causes implies coercion and compulsion, but final causality does
not. An end cannot coerce or compel its means. The Summa halensis also
rules out coercion in the superior cause, God. The Passion’s necessity
respecting the superior cause is only the necessity of immutability, a weak
necessity wholly dependent on God’s free will. Whatever God eternally
wills to happen inevitably happens (according to weak necessity) just as
God wills it. God eternally wills the Passion as a voluntary act, and its
inevitable unfolding does not remove its freedom.30
The Summa halensis questions the fittingness of the Passion as far as
God is concerned and as far as we are concerned. As far as God is
concerned, the Passion fit with divine justice, which never forgives sin
without restoring order through punishment. The echoes of Anselm are
loud and only grow louder. Divine justice alone would demand an eternal punishment for sin, but justice together with mercy only punishes sin
28 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 5, m. 3, c. 1: “Sed ista redemptio non potuit esse

nisi per satisfactionem, nec satisfactio nisi per passionem; ideo secundum necessitatem causae finalis fuit necessitas patiendi in Christo.” See Gössmann, Metaphysik und Heilsgeschichte, 149–50.
29 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 5, m. 3, c. 2: “Dicendum secundum Anselmum
quod de necessitate redemptionis passus est Christus. Tamen distinguendum est
inter liberationem et redemptionem. Redimere enim est rem suam iusto pretio
recuperare, et nisi esset passio, non esset per iustum pretium recuperatum quod
erat amissum; tamen si alio modo liberasset quam per passionem, esset liberatio,
non redemptio.”
30 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 5, m. 3, c. 3: “Secundum Anselmum, est necessitas
communiter dicta, sicut necessitas immutabilitatis, et est necessitas proprie dicta,
sicut coactionis vel prohibitionis. Prima est in Deo, secunda numquam. Si ergo
referatur necessitas passionis Christi ad coactionem vel prohibitionem, sic non
necessitate aliqua passus est.”

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temporally. The Passion satisfies this temporal punishment in a way that
no mere human being could. The Summa halensis paraphrases Anselm:
“Man could not make restitution but is obligated to; God could but is
not obligated. So, it is proper that the God-man pay the debt: man who
is obligated, God who could.”31 The Summa wants to preserve Anselm’s
conclusion without any risk of constraining God.
The separation of necessity and fittingness allows the Summa halensis to
follow Anselm’s basic logic but without the dangers of misinterpretation
lurking in the Cur Deus homo. The Summa halensis affirms the Passion’s
necessity but restricts it to the weak types of final causality and immutability, types meant to emphasize that the Passion’s necessity depends upon
God’s prior creative will. Restricting the Passion’s necessity creates space
to elaborate its fittingness. Once the strong necessity of the Passion is
eliminated, the Summa halensis presents the fittingness of bringing about
human salvation through the Passion.This fittingness depends upon divine
justice, divine mercy, and Christ’s free will to undergo the Passion for
human salvation. The Summa halensis thus adopts Anselm’s satisfaction
theory but complicates and guards it through the careful use of modal
categories. Necessity and fittingness function as the organizing modal
categories. Possibility, in its various senses, helps explain the differences
between strong and weak necessity and sets the conditions for the fittingness of the Incarnation and of the Passion. The Summa halensis takes its
basic modal shape from Anselm and represents a sophisticated interpretation of Anselm’s use of modal categories in the Cur Deus homo.
Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae
Thomas Aquinas’s Christology in the Summa theologiae owes much to the
Summa halensis but relies less on a satisfaction theory of atonement and on
the modal category of necessity.32 Instead of prioritizing the Incarnation’s
31 Summa halensis lib. 3, inq. 1, tr. 5, q. 1, m. 4, c. 1, a. 1: “Homo enim non poterat

reddere, sed debebat; Deus poterat, sed non debebat; oportuit ergo quod solveret
homo Deus: homo qui deberet, Deus qui posset.”
32 The Christological sections of the Summa theologiae’s Tertia pars were written in
1272. For discussions of the date and circumstances of the Summa theologiae, see
L. Boyle, “The Setting of the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas,” in Aquinas’s
Summa theologiae: Critical Essays, ed. B. Davies (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2006), 1–24; J.-P. Torrell, Aquinas’s Summa: Background, Structure,
and Reception, trans. B. Guevin (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of
America Press, 2005); Saint Thomas Aquinas:Vol. I, The Person and His Work, trans.
R. Royal (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996); J.
Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d’Aquino: His Life, Thought and Works (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1974).

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necessity, Aquinas examines the Incarnation primarily through the lens of
fittingness, following his teacher Albertus Magnus.33 Fittingness largely
defines Aquinas’s Christology and his use of other modal categories, which
are more sharply parsed than in the Summa halensis. Thomas distinguishes
internal and external senses of necessity, fittingness, and possibility, and this
distinction informs his two definitions of fittingness.34
Fittingness is the operative modal category throughout the Summa
theologiae’s Christology, so it is hardly surprising that its treatise on Christ
begins with a question on the Incarnation’s fittingness. Whatever corre33 See Albertus Magnus, Commentarii in III Sententiarum, Opera Omnia, vol. 28 (Paris:

Borgnet, 1894). Albert begins his commentary on Sentences III by questioning
whether it was fitting for God to become incarnate (an conveniebat Deum incarnari ) (Commentarii in III Sententiarum d. 1, q. 1, a. 1).
34 The most extensive treatment of fittingness in Aquinas is G. Narcisse, Les raisons
de Dieu: Argument de convenance et esthétique selon saint Thomas d’Aquin et Hans Urs
von Balthasar (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1997). Narcisse occasionally
approaches fittingness as reconciling necessity and contingency, arguing that
something fitting is a “realized possible” (Narcisse, Les raisons de Dieu, 137). This
definition builds upon the notion that contingent realities are necessary in so far
as they are actual. Narcisse stresses very different aspects of fittingness arguments
when investigating Aquinas’s Christology, including notions of ontological
fittingness, fittingness according to image, instrumental fittingness, and fittingness
as a necessity respecting an appropriate end. This final type of fittingness is most
important for the present analysis, as Aquinas makes much of it in ST III, q. 1, a.
2 and q. 46, a. 1. Narcisse also provides the general characterization of fittingness
as a “theological necessity” wisely suited to the human mind in relation to God
(Narcisse, Les raisons de Dieu, 146–47, 281, 292n.581, 318). See also J. Wawrykow,
“Wisdom in the Christology of Thomas Aquinas,” in Christ among the Medieval
Dominicans, ed. K. Emery and J. Wawrykow (Notre Dame, IN: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1998), 175–96. Gelber discusses internal and external senses
of necessity in Aquinas, defining necessity as what must be either by an intrinsic
principle or by an extrinsic principle. Necessity according to an intrinsic principle is further divided into what is materially and naturally necessary and what is
formally or abstractly necessary. Necessity according to an extrinsic principle
covers what is necessary by reason of an end and what is necessary by reason of
an agent. See H. Gelber, It Could Have Been Otherwise: Contingency and Necessity
in Dominican Theology at Oxford, 1300 –1350 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2004), 115–16.
See also E. Stump, Aquinas (New York: Routledge, 2003), 104–5, 122–27; S.
Knuuttila, “Nomic Necessities in Late Medieval Thought,” in Knowledge and the
Sciences in Medieval Philosophy: Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of
Medieval Philosophy, vol. 2, ed. S. Knuuttila, R. Työrinoja, and S. Ebbesen
(Helsinki: Publication of Luther-Agricola Society Series B 19, 1990), 222–30.
On the modal categories of necessity and contingency in Aquinas’s metaphysics,
see G. Jalbert, Nécessité et Contingence chez saint Thomas d’Aquin et chez ses
Prédécesseurs (Ottawa: Éditions de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1961).

The Shape of Scholastic Christology

671

sponds or agrees with the very nature of a thing is fitting to it.35 This is
Thomas’s definition of internal fittingness. The divine nature is the
supreme good, and it corresponds with the nature of the good to communicate itself. More specifically, it befits the supreme good to communicate
itself maximally. Aquinas infers from this that it corresponds with the
divine nature to communicate itself maximally to creatures and that the
Incarnation is thus fitting as God’s maximal self-communication to
creation.36 This argument appears straightforward enough, but it is worth
noting its curious twists and turns. Aquinas uses a purely internal definition of fittingness to explain the fittingness of God’s actions ad extra. More
specifically, Aquinas presents the divine nature itself as the cause of the
Incarnation’s fittingness, but this assumes the existence of created reality to
receive God’s self-communication. The Summa theologiae can here build
upon earlier presentations of creation, of humanity and its fall, and of
grace and the virtues to frame this internal fittingness ad extra.
The Summa halensis based fittingness on possibility. Aquinas takes a
more guarded approach, answering objections to the Incarnation’s possibility rather than attempting to demonstrate that possibility. He also
introduces a note of final causality in arguing that it befits God’s infinite
excellence to cause human salvation by becoming incarnate.37 Aquinas
certainly assumes humanity’s falleness and need for redemption, but he
does not discuss the problem of sin and human impotence at the beginning of his Christology. The decision to begin with fittingness is not
simply the preference for one modal category over another; it signals a
reserved engagement with Anselm’s satisfaction theory and a transformation of the strategies of the Summa halensis.
Aquinas asks a general question about fittingness and provides a general
answer to which he adds specifications. This process continues when he
35 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 1, a. 1: “Dicendum quod unicuique rei conveniens

est illud quod competit sibi secundum rationem propriae naturae; sicut homini
conveniens est ratiocinari, quia hoc convenit sibi inquantum est rationalis secundum naturam suam.” Citations are from Summa theologiae, vol. 4 (Ottawa:
Commissio Piana, 1941). Gössman presents a similar notion of fittingness in the
Summa halensis: “Soweit bis jetzt ersichtlich wurde, ist das Konveniente das mit
dem Gottesbegriff Vereinbare, wie er in seiner breiten inhaltlichen Fülle theologisch vorgegeben ist, und das Inkonveniente ist das mit ihm Unvereinbare”
(Gössmann, Metaphysik und Heilsgeschichte, 76).
36 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 1, a. 1: “Ipsa autem natura Dei est essentia bonitatis. . . .
Unde quidquid pertinet ad rationem boni, conveniens est Deo.—Pertinet autem ad
rationem boni ut se aliis communicet. . . . Unde ad rationem summi boni pertinet
quod summo modo se creaturae comminicet.”
37 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2: “Conveniens tamen fuit Deo secundum
infinitam excellentiam bonitatis eius, ut sibi eam uniret pro salute humana.”

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turns to the necessity of the Incarnation for the restoration of human
nature. Here we see a shift from internal modal categories to external.The
Incarnation’s necessity is questioned solely in terms of the external necessity of final causality. Aquinas notes there are two ways something can be
necessary for an end: (1) as a sine qua non for the end and (2) as a better
and more fitting means for achieving the end.38 He employs the same
division later in the Summa when discussing the necessity of the Passion
(ST III, q. 46, a. 1). The first type represents strong necessity, the second,
weak necessity. Both represent external necessity, in which the necessity
depends not upon something’s nature but on its relation to an external
reality. Divine omnipotence rules out the first and strong necessity, because
God could restore humanity apart from the Incarnation.39 When viewed
according to the second and weak necessity of fittingness, Thomas affirms
the necessity of the Incarnation for the restoration of the human race and
illustrates the point by presenting five ways the Incarnation promotes the
good and five ways it removes evil.40 In discussing the Passion, Aquinas
characterizes the most fitting mode as the one in which more things expedient to the end concur (ST III, q. 46, a. 3), a definition anticipated by his
consideration of the Incarnation’s fittingness. Thomas thus presents external necessity in terms of final causality, defines weak external necessity in
terms of fittingness, and explains fittingness as the fullest or richest way to
accomplish an end. It could have been otherwise, but the actual dispensation is best. Aquinas shares Anselm’s desire to trumpet the Incarnation’s
reasonableness but has found a different modal lens for doing so, preferring fittingness to necessity.
The hypothetical or counter-factual question, whether God would have
become incarnate had humanity not sinned, brings together aspects of
38 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 1, a. 2: “Dicendum quod ad finem aliquem dicitur

aliquid esse necessarium dupliciter: uno modo, sine quo aliquid esse non potest,
sicut cibus est necessarius ad conservationem humanae vitae; alio modo, per quod
melius et convenientius pervenitur ad finem, sicut equus necessarius est ad iter.”
He employs the same division later in the Summa when discussing the necessity
of the Passion (ST III, q. 46, a. 1). On fittingness and final causality, see Narcisse,
Les raisons de Dieu, 78, 108, 194, and E. Persson, “Le plan de la Somme théologique
et la rapport ‘Ratio-Revelatio’,” Revue Philosophique de Louvain 56 (1958): 542–72.
Persson focuses on the role of final causaltiy in the Prima pars.
39 “The possible coincides with God’s potentia absoluta. Contingent and necessary
being arise within the sphere of God’s potentia ordinata” (Gelber, It Could Have
Been Otherwise, 120).
40 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 1, a. 2: “Primo modo Deum incarnari non fuit necessarium ad reparationem humanae naturae; Deus enim per suam omnipotentem
virtutem poterat humanam naturam multis aliis modis reparare. Secundo autem
modo necessarium fuit Deum incarnari ad humanae naturae reparationem.”

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673

internal and external necessity. Some answer yes; others answer no. Aquinas
argues that, since Scripture presents the Incarnation as a remedy for sin, it
is better to answer in the negative.41 This foreshadows Aquinas’s discussion
of the Passion and the possibility of human liberation through other means;
other means for human salvation are possible absolutely or simply but
impossible given God’s decision to save humanity through the Incarnation
and the Passion. Affirming that God could have become incarnate had there
been no sin concerns possibility absolutely or simply, and Aquinas is very
comfortable with such an affirmation. The problem with affirming what
God would have done had there been no sin is that the affirmation concerns
possibility based upon a supposition (ex suppositione). Aquinas limits Christological speculation to possibility absolutely or simply and finds no
warrant for speculation concerning possibility and necessity ex suppositione.
These are matters dependent only on God’s will, which humanity knows
through revelation alone. Speculation promotes understanding only where
there is some reasonable foundation for the speculation.42 The appropriate
41 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 1, a. 3: “Dicendum quod aliqui circa hoc diversimode

opinantur. Quidam enim dicunt quod etiam si homo non peccasset, Dei Filius
incarnatus fuisset. Alii vero contrarium asserunt. Quorum assertioni magis assentiendum videtur. 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 nobis innotescit. Unde cum in Sacra Scriptura
ubique incarnationis ratio ex peccato primi hominis assignetur, convenientius dicitur incarnationis opus ordinatum esse a Deo in remedium contra peccatum, ita
quod peccato non existente, incarnatio non fuisset. Quamvis potentia Dei ad hoc
non limitetur; potuisset enim, etiam peccato non existente, Deus incarnari.”
42 Gelber offers the following conception of Aquinas on speculation. “Since the
Principle of Sufficient Reason fails in regard to God’s creative act, even though
there are many, even infinite, possibilities that God did not choose to create,
questions about such counterfactual possibilities are not of much point. Nor is
counterfactual speculation of much moment in regard to the contingent events
of the ordained system. Since all such events are part of God’s providential
design, the important focus for a theologian is on what is actually the case. What
is the case offers information about God’s purposes, whereas speculation about
what might have happened differently does not” (Gelber, It Could Have Been
Otherwise, 123). Knnuttila makes a similar point: “Like his forerunners, Thomas
thought that God’s possibilities were not all realized.This idea is, however, seldom
used in his discussions of philosophical problems. In most cases, Thomas seems
to be satisfied with the solutions achieved by supplying the statistical interpretation of modality. And even if God’s unrealized possibilities are needed in some
connections, e.g. in the definition of Divine Omnipotence, it is enough to know
that there are such possibilities. It is not important what they are” (Knnuttila,
“Time and Modality in Scholasticism,” 214–15). Aquinas’s approach to counterfactual speculation differs slightly in his Christology, where counterfactual speculation is designed to clarify God’s purposes and wisdom.

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modal category for concerns internal to God is fittingness, and fittingness
guides Aquinas’s approach to the modal categories of possibility and necessity. Presenting the Incarnation and the Passion as the most fitting means
for human salvation requires creating space for other possibilities absolutely
or simply, limiting necessity to the weak external necessity of fittingly
achieving an end, and detailing the Incarnation and the Passion as the most
fitting means to the end freely chosen by God. Thomas’s reasons for the
Incarnation’s fittingness seem equally applicable apart from sin, but he is
unwilling to reason from fittingness to what would have happened had
there been no sin.
The Summa’s discussion of the Passion begins with a consideration of
its necessity.43 Repeating much from the Summa halensis, Thomas distinguishes many types and subtypes of necessity. The strictest sense of necessity, a strong internal necessity, pertains when something by its nature
cannot be otherwise, and Aquinas summarily rejects the Passion’s necessity in this sense.44 This does not rule out external necessity. Thomas
follows the Summa halensis in discussing external necessity according to
the Aristotelian causes, though he contrasts only efficient and final causes.
Efficient causes produce necessity of coercion, a strong external necessity.
Aquinas denies that the Passion was necessary because of coercion.45 The
necessity of final causality depends upon the supposition of an end.
Thomas’s real contribution lurks in a further distinction within the
necessity of final causality. First, there is a necessity of final causality when
a certain end cannot be except through a specific means, and this is strong
43 For discussions of Thomas on soteriology and Christ’s Passion, see W. J. Bracken,

“Of What Benefit to Himself Was Christ’s Suffering? Merit in Aquinas’s Theology
of the Passion,” Thomist 65 (2001): 385–407; A. Patfoort, “Le vrai visage de la satisfaction du Christ selon saint Thomas: une étude de la Somme théologique,” in Ordo
sapientiae et amoris: image et message de saint Thomas d’Aquin à travers les récentes études
historiques, herméneutiques et doctrinales, ed. C.-J. Pinto de Oliveira (Fribourg:
Éditions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 1993), 247–65; A. Nichols, “St. Thomas
Aquinas on the Passion of Christ: A Reading of Summa Theologiae IIIa, q. 46,” Scottish Journal of Theology 43 (1990): 447–59. Patfoort is particularly helpful on the
many and diverse aspects of satisfaction within Aquinas’s soteriology.
44 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 46, a. 1: “Uno quidem modo quod secundum sui
naturam impossibile est aliter se habere. Et sic manifestum est quod non fuit
necessarium Christum pati, neque ex parte Dei, neque ex parte hominis.”
45 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 46, a. 1: “Alio modo dicitur aliquid necessarium ex
aliquo exteriori. Quod quidem si sit causa efficiens vel movens, facit necessitatem
coactionis, utpote cum aliquis non potest ire propter violentiam detinentis
ipsum.” ST III, q. 46, a. 1: “Non ergo fuit necessarium Christum pati necessitate
coactionis, neque ex parte Dei, quid Christum definivit pati; neque etiam ex
parte ipsius Christi, quid voluntarie passus est.”

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external necessity ex suppositione. Second, there is a necessity when a
specific means more fittingly brings about the end, and this is weak external necessity ex suppositione.46 The Passion was necessary by this second
type of necessity from three perspectives. First, human beings are freed
through the Passion, which fits with divine justice and mercy. Second,
Christ merited the exaltation of glory. Third, God’s determination for
Christ’s Passion was foreshadowed and announced in Scripture.47 This
last reason is particularly interesting.The necessity here is not about God’s
immutable will and what necessarily follows from that will. Rather, the
necessity follows from what God revealed, which Aquinas seems to regard
as its own type of weak external necessity ex suppositione inasmuch as
God’s will is known only through revelation. It is also worth stressing that
Aquinas gestures to an Anselmian satisfaction theory in the reply to the
third objection but certainly does not construct his consideration of the
Passion’s necessity around a satisfaction theory.48 The Summa halensis
explained the Passion’s necessity through the necessity of final causality
in order to preserve its freedom; Aquinas repeats this explanation with a

46 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 46, a. 1: “Si vero illud exterius quod necessitatem

inducit, sit finis, dicetur aliquid necessarium ex suppositione finis, quando scilicet finis aliquis aut nullo modo potest esse, aut non potest esse convenienter, nisi
tali fine praesupposito.” This recalls and specifies the two types of necessity
discussed in ST III, q. 1, a. 2.
47 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 46, a. 1: “Fuit autem necessarium necessitate finis.
Quid quidem potest tripliciter intelligi. Primo quidem ex parte nostra, qui per
eius passionem liberati sumus. . . . Secundo, ex parte ipsius Christi, qui per humilitatem passionis meruit gloriam exaltationis. . . .Tertio, ex parte Dei, cuius definitionem circa passionem Christi praenuntiatam in Scripturis et praefiguratam in
observantia veteris Testamenti oportebat impleri.”
48 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 46, a. 1, ad 3: “Dicendum quod hominem liberari per
passionem Christi, conveniens fuit et misericordiae et iustitae eius. Iustitiae
quidem, quia per passionem suam Christus satisfecit pro peccato humani generis,
et ita homo per iustitiam Christi liberatus est. Misericordiae vero, quia cum homo
per se satisfacere non posset pro peccato totius humanae naturae, ut supra habitum est, Deus ei satisfactorem dedit Filium suum.” Aquinas presents satisfaction as
one of several means for explaining the Passion’s efficacy, but his presentation
differs markedly from Anselm’s. ST III, q. 48, a. 2: “Dicendum quod ille proprie
satisfacit pro offensa qui exhibet offenso id quod aeque vel magis diligit quam
oderit offensam. Christus autem, ex caritate et obedientia patiendo, magis Deo
aliquid exhibuit quam exigeret recompensatio totius offensae humani generis.
Primo quidem propter magnitudinem caritatis ex qua patiebatur. Secundo,
propter dignitatem vitae suae, quam pro satisfactione ponebat, quae erat vita Dei
et hominis. Tertio, propter generalitatem passionis et magnitudinem doloris
assumpti.” Scotus presents a formulation of satisfaction similar in many respects.

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distinction of strong and weak forms of the necessity of final causality to
add a layer of further protection to the Passion’s freedom.
Aquinas follows this affirmation of weak necessity by questioning the
possibility of achieving human liberation without the Passion. Possibility,
unsurprisingly, admits of a distinction. Something can be possible or impossible absolutely and simply or from a supposition. Considered absolutely
and simply, achieving human liberation through other means was possible; considered from the supposition of divine providence and
immutability, it was impossible for Christ not to suffer or for humanity
to be liberated apart from Christ’s Passion.49 This amounts to a distinction between God’s absolute power and God’s ordained power. Possibility considered absolutely and simply falls under God’s absolute power.
Possibility considered ex suppositione falls under God’s ordained power.
God could have done otherwise, but God’s election to save humanity
through the Incarnation and the Passion restricts alternatives. This at first
appears little more than a minimal reworking of the Summa halensis and
its appeal to divine immutability. Aquinas is doing a bit more than that by
specifying the question in terms of human liberation rather than redemption. The Summa halensis argued that the Passion was necessary for satisfaction and thus for redemption but that humanity could be liberated
through other means. Aquinas takes this cue from the Summa halensis and
devotes all his attention to human liberation rather than narrowing the
focus to redemption and satisfaction. Thomas’s framing of the question
minimizes the importance and risks of reading the necessity of the
Passion only within the strictures of a satisfaction theory of atonement.
So, Aquinas “reduces” the Passion’s necessity to its fittingness for a
certain end and recognizes that other modes of human liberation are possible absolutely and simply but impossible granting God’s ordination to
liberate humanity through the Passion. This can also be formulated as the
Passion’s weak external necessity ex suppositione.Thomas questions whether
another mode of human liberation would have been more fitting. He stipulates the more fitting mode to be the one in which more things expedi-

49 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 46, a. 2: “Dicendum quod aliquid potest dici possi-

bile vel impossibile dupliciter: uno modo, simpliciter et abolute; alio modo, ex
suppositione. Simpliciter igitur et absolute loquendo, possible fuit Deo alio modo
hominem liberare quam per passionem Christi. . . . Sed ex aliqua suppositione
facta, fuit impossibile. Quia enim impossibile est Dei praescientiam falli et eius
voluntatem sive dispositionem cassari, supposita praescientia et praeordinatione
Dei de passione Christi, non erat simul possibile Christum non pati, vel
hominem alio modo quam per eius passionem liberari.”

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ent to the end concur.50 Evident here is a parallel between the Incarnation’s fittingness and the Passion’s fittingness; the parallel is less explicit than
in the Summa halensis but no less certain. Christ’s Passion frees humanity
from sin but also promotes human salvation (salutem hominis) in at least five
further ways: (1) it provides knowledge of God’s love; (2) it provides an
example of obedience, humility, etc.; (3) it merits for humanity justifying
grace and the glory of beatitude; (4) recognizing Christ’s suffering to free
humanity from sin introduces a greater need to preserve oneself from sin;
and (5) it magnifies human dignity.51 This list recalls the five ways the
Incarnation promotes humanity in the good (ST III, q. 1, a. 2).
Aquinas adopts a parallelism in exploring the Incarnation and the
Passion that owes much to the Summa halensis. At the same time, Aquinas
shifts the emphasis away from necessity and a satisfaction theory. The
Summa theologiae’s dominant modal category for the Incarnation and the
Passion is fittingness. The modal categories of necessity, fittingness, and
possibility can all be considered internally and externally.The Incarnation
is internally fitting to God as the maximally self-diffusive supreme good.
The Incarnation represents the richest, most expedient, and most efficacious means through which human beings might accomplish their
ordained end and so is externally fitting as well. The Summa theologiae
suggests that fittingness may also be described in terms of necessity, in
which case internal fittingness represents weak internal necessity and
external fittingness represents weak external necessity ex suppositione. In
the Summa theologiae, the repeated modal distinctions of strong and weak,
internal and external, absolute and ordained, efficient and final add up to
a modal framework within which to situate the modal status of the Incarnation and the Passion as the most fitting means for human redemption.
Aquinas is unwilling to affirm that God would have become Incarnate
50 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 46, a. 3: “Dicendum tanto aliquis modus convenien-

tior est ad assequendum finem, quanto per ipsum plura concurrunt quae sunt
expedientia fini.”
51 Thomas Aquinas, ST III, q. 46, a. 3: “Primo enim per hoc homo cognoscit quantum Deus hominem diligat, et per hoc provocatur ad eum diligendum, in quo
perfectio humanae salutis consistit. . . . Secundo, quia per hoc dedit nobis exemplum obedientiae, humilitatis, constantiae, iustitiae, et ceterarum virtutum in
passione Christi ostensarum; quae sunt necessariae ad humanam salutem. . . .
Tertio, quia Christus per passionem suam non solum hominem a peccato liberavit, sed etiam gratiam iustificantem et gloriam beatitudinis ei promeruit. . . .
Quarto, quia per hoc est homini inducta maior necessitas se immunem a peccato
conservandi, qui se sanguine Christi redemptum cogitat a peccato. . . . Quinto,
quia hoc ad maiorem dignitatem hominis cessit, ut sicut homo victus fuerat et
deceptus a diabolo, ita etiam homo esset qui diabolum vinceret.”

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had there been no sin, because such an affirmation confuses internal and
external as well as strong and weak modal categories. This amounts to a
transformation of the Summa halensis’s contention that the Incarnation
was fitting apart from the fall but was made weakly necessary by the fall.
John Duns Scotus’s Commentaries on the Sentences
John Duns Scotus is generally acknowledged to have introduced or
promoted developments in modal philosophy, including novel presentations of necessity, possibility, compossibility, and contingency.52 These
developments, together with an increasing use of the distinction between
potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata, inevitably shaped Scotus’s use of modal
categories in discussing the Incarnation and the Passion. Following a
convention of earlier commentaries on the Sentences, Scotus’s commentaries lead off their Christological investigations with a question on the
possibility of the Incarnation.53 Though Scotus follows a convention, he
52 For a brief orientation to Scotus’s life and the tangled issues of determining the

dates of composition of his various works, see.T.Williams, “Introduction:The Life
and Works of John Duns the Scot,” in The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus,
ed. T. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1–14. C.
Normore provides a useful introduction to and overview of Scotus’s use of modal
categories in “Duns Scotus’s Modal Theory,” in The Cambridge Companion to Duns
Scotus, 129–60. According to Knnuttila, the “new idea in Scotus’ modal theory is
to consider several alternative states of affairs at the same time and with respect to
the same time,” thereby breaking with the dominant statistical interpretation of
modality (Knnuttila, “Time and Modality in Scholasticism,” 227). Dumont shows
that Scotus’s views on synchronic contingency depend upon and develop Peter
Olivi’s understanding of the will as a potency for opposites. See S. Dumont, “The
Origin of Scotus’s Theory of Synchronic Contingency,” The Modern Schoolman 72
(1995): 149–67. Sylwanowicz argues that the statistical interpretation of modality
was never as dominant as Knuuttila suggests and that Knuuttila wrongly limits
Scotus’s view of modality to propositional content. Sylwanowicz counters that
Scotus granted ontological content to modality and that his contribution to
modal philosophy rests primarily in the notion of contingent causality as an ontological reality. See M. Sylwanowicz, Contingent Causality and the Foundations of
Duns Scotus’ Metaphysics (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996).
53 See, e.g., Bonaventure, Commentaria in tertium librum Sententiarum, Opera theologica selecta, vol. 3 (Quaracchi: Collegio S. Bonaventurae, 1961), d. 1, a. 1, q. 1;
Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, Bk. III, ed. M. F. Moos (Paris:
P. Lethielleux, 1933), d. 1, q. 1, a. 1; Peter of Tarentaise, In IV Libros Sententiarum
Commentaria, vol. 3 (Toulouse, 1652), d. 1, q. 1, a. 1; Peter Olivi, Quaestiones de
Incarnatione et Redemptione, Quaestiones de virtutibus, Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevi, vol. 24 (Grottaferrata: Collegio S. Bonaventura, 1981), q. 1.
Presenting the Incarnation in terms of possibility was done in conscious opposition to presenting it in terms of necessity. Something possible is, by definition,
not necessary.

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alters that convention by changing the meaning of possibility and contingency.54 The convention prior to Scotus, as seen in the Summa halensis, was
to use possibility as a foundation for demonstrations of fittingness. Scotus
devotes all attention to possibility itself rather than to possibility as a condition for something else.
Scotus’s reflections on the Incarnation’s possibility achieve several
ends.55 At the most basic level, Scotus argues that the Incarnation does
not entail a contradiction. A logical contradiction implies a logical impossibility, which does not fall under divine omnipotence. God’s absolute
power can accomplish whatever is logically possible, but not all logical
possibilities are compossible.56 There are various collections of logically
consistent possibilities, often referred to as possible worlds.57 God’s
knowledge encompasses all of these possible worlds, and from these
possible worlds God wills to create the actual world. To demonstrate the
Incarnation’s possibility, Scotus must argue that the Incarnation is logically possible within the realm of God’s absolute power and that the
Incarnation is compossible with created reality as it exists. This must be
born in mind when addressing Scotus’s views on Christ’s predestination,
what is often referred to as the primacy of Christ.58 Within possible
worlds, God’s knowledge and will begin with the end.
54 “Accordingly, Scotus says that the contingency does not mean what is not always

the case (as in the statistical interpretation of modality); a contingent event is one
the opposite of which could occur at the time when it is actual. This concept of
contingency is erroneous from the point of view of the statistical interpretation
of modal concepts. According to Scotus, it must, nevertheless, be accepted if one
wants to express that something does not happen necessarily” (Knuuttila, “Time
and Modality in Scholasticism,” 222).
55 For a discussion of Scotus’s understanding of the Incarnation, see R. Cross, The
Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 121–36.
56 See Knnuttila, “Time and Modality in Scholasticism,” 231–32.
57 Classic presentations of possible worlds can be found in K. J. J. Hintikka, “The
Modes of Modality,” in Proceedings of a Colloquium on Modal and Many-Valued
Logics, Helsinki 23–26 August 1962, Acta Philosophica Fennica XVI (1963),
65–81, and S. A. Kripke, “Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic,” in Proceedings of a Colloquium on Modal and Many-Valued Logics, 83–94. See also D.
Langston, “Scotus and Possible Worlds,” in Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval
Philosophy (see above, note 34), vol. 2, 240–47.
58 For a thorough treatment of Scotus on Christ’s predestination, see M. Burger,
Personalität im Horizont absoluter Prädestination: Untersuchungen zur Christologie des
Johannes Duns Scotus und ihrer Rezeption in Modernen Theologischen Ansätzen
(Münster: Aschendorff, 1994). On the primacy of Christ, see M. M. Adams, “The
Primacy of Christ,” Sewanee Theological Review 47 (2004): 164–80; I. Delio “Revisiting the Franciscan Doctrine of Christ,” Theological Studies 64 (2003): 3–23.

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Whereas earlier scholastics (and here Bonaventure again provides a fine
example) answered the question of the Incarnation’s possibility mainly by
eliminating objections, Scotus eliminates objections and proposes a model
for understanding the union of human nature to the Word. Eliminating
objections requires ruling out any repugnance to union in God or in
human nature. The greater difficulty rests with human nature having “an
alien supposit”; solving this difficulty leads Scotus to define personality
through the absence of actual and aptitudinal dependence.59 Scotus also
addresses general concerns, such as the seeming impossibility of the finite
and infinite existing simultaneously. Contraries cannot exist simultaneously
because of their mutual repugnance rather than because of their diversity.60
In the Incarnation, finite and infinite are diverse but not repugnant and so
can exist simultaneously. Scotus’s model for this simultaneous existence is
an accident’s dependence on its substance. This model is not perfect, but
Scotus admits he knows of no better name for the union.61 These few
59 Duns Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 1, q. 1, n. 46: “Licet ergo sola negatio dependentiae

‘actualis’ non sufficiat ad propositum, neque negatio dependentiae tertiae [scil.
‘possibilis’] posset poni in natura creata ad Verbum (nulla enim est natura vel entitas
creata, cui repugnet contradictorie dependere ad Verbum), tamen negatio dependentiae ‘aptitudinalis’ potest concedi in natura creata personata in se ad Verbum,
alioquin violenter quiesceret in natura creata (sicut lapis violenter quiescit
sursum). Et ita ista negatio, non dependentiae actualis sed aptitudinalis, talis,
complet rationem ‘personae’ in natura intellectuali et ‘suppositi’ in natura creata.”
Citations are from John Duns Scotus, Ordinatio III, Opera omnia, vol. 9 (Vatican City:
Typis Vaticanis, 2006). See also Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation, 297–309.
60 Duns Scotus, Lectura III, d. 1, q. 1, n. 51: “Ad tertium, cum arguitur quod contraria
non possunt esse simul sic, ita ergo nec finitum et infinitum, quae sunt magis diversa,
dicendum quod non sequitur. Nam album et linea sunt magis diversa quam album
et nigrum, et tamen haec possunt simul esse, non autem illa. Unde illa dicuntur
‘diversa’ quae minus conveniunt; sed haec non sunt opposita aut repugnantia, nam
opposita in pluribus conveniunt quam diversa; unde repugnantia non excludit qui
in aliquo possint convenire; ideo repugnantia est causa quare non sunt simul, non
autem diversitas.” Citations are from John Duns Scotus, Lectura III, Opera omnia, vol.
20 (Vatican City:Typis Vaticanis, 2003). In Ordinatio III, d. 1, q. 1, n. 65, Scotus presents contraries as ‘incompossible’ because they fit together in no way; he goes on
to argue that divine and human nature, though more diverse than contraries, are
less mutually repugnant than contraries because they fit together in some respects.
See also Normore, “Duns Scotus’s Modal Theory,” 146.
61 Duns Scotus, Lectura III, d. 1, q. 1, n. 22: “Et sic est in proposito, quod persona est
prior natura et terminat dependentiam naturae assumptae, non prioritate causae
efficientis vel materialis. Unde ‘naturam uniri personae alterius naturae’ est eam
dependere ad illam personam, non quidem dependentia causati ad causam, nec
dependentia causati posterioris ad causatum prius, sed dependentia simili dependentiae accidentis ad subiectum (in quantum subsistat accidenti, sed non in quantum accidens informat ipsum subiectum). Nec scio alio nomine eam nominare.”

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remarks certainly do not do justice to Scotus’s complex presentation of the
Incarnation’s possibility, but they suffice to serve as a point of contrast with
the Summa halensis and the Summa theologiae. To the extent that those texts
address the Incarnation’s possibility, they do so under the categories of
necessity or fittingness. Treating the Incarnation’s possibility on its own,
without reference before or immediately after to its necessity or fittingness,
gives the topic a remarkably different feel. It moves it squarely into the
realm of logical possibility, setting up discussion of its compossibility with
created reality and bracketing any connection with human salvation.
Scotus addresses topics similar to the Incarnation’s necessity and
fittingness when he investigates whether Christ was predestined to be the
Son of God.62 Predestination is primarily directed to glory and secondarily to the means to glory.63 The union of Christ’s human nature to the
Word was ordered to the highest glory as a fitting means, which suffices
to explain Christ’s predestination. The Summa halensis and the Summa
theologiae refer to this as the necessity of final causality. The more interesting point here is Scotus’s response to the many authorities who hold
that Christ would not have become incarnate had humanity not fallen.
Scotus employs the same basic logic as before but notes here that predestination to glory precedes not only grace as a means to glory but also
foreknowledge of sin and the damnation of some.64 The logical ordering
Scotus distinguishes two types of relationship between accidents and subjects,
“scilicet informantis ad informatum,” and “ut posterioris naturaliter ad prius”
(Ordinatio III, d. 1, q. 1, n. 15). This second type indicates no imperfection in the
subject and bears some similarities to the dependence of Christ’s human nature
on the divine person of the Word (Ordinatio III, d. 1, q. 1, n. 16). See M. M. Adams,
“The Metaphysics of the Incarnation in Some Fourteenth-Century Franciscans,”
in Essays Honoring Allan B. Wolter, ed. W. Frank and G. Etzkorn (St. Bonaventure,
NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1985), 21–57.
62 See R. Cross, Duns Scotus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 127–32.
63 Duns Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 7, q. 3, n. 58: “Cum ‘praedestinatio’ sit praeordinatio alicuius ad gloriam principaliter et ad alia in ordine ad gloriam, et huic naturae humanae in Christo praeordinata sit gloria et unio itsa in Verbo in ordine ad
gloriam, quia non tanta gloria fuisset sibi conferenda si non esset unita, sicut
modo collata est, - quemadmodum ergo merita cadunt sub praedestinatione, sine
quibus non ordinaretur de congruo quid ad tantum gloriam sicut cum eis, ita
videtur ista unio, quae ordinatur ad tantam gloriam de congruo, licet non
tamquam meritum, cecidisse sub praedestinatione; et ita sicut praedestinatum est
hanc naturam uniri Verbo, ita praedestinatum est Verbum esse hominem et ‘hunc
hominem’ esse Verbum.” See also Lectura III, d. 7, q. 3, n. 73.
64 Duns Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 7, q. 3, n. 61: “Sine praeiudicio potest dici quod cum
praedestinatio cuiuscumque ad gloriam praecedat ex parte obiecti naturaliter praescientiam peccati vel damnationis cuiuscumque . . . , multo magis est hoc verum
de praedestinatione illius animae quae praedestinabatur ad summam gloriam:

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in God’s providential creation begins with the ends, proceeds to the
means to those ends, and then considers the compossible circumstances
shaping or altering those means. The glory of Christ’s soul is the primary
end of creation, exhibiting logical priority over the glory of other souls
and so also over the circumstances of those souls with respect to sin and
grace. The many authorities who deny that Christ would have become
incarnate even had humanity not fallen can be reverentially interpreted
by noting that had humanity not fallen Christ would not have come as
redeemer.65 The fall is not the cause of the Incarnation itself but is
compossible with the Incarnation and shapes it. The relative absence of
modal language from Scotus’s discussion of Christ’s predestination is
striking. Scotus argues for the logical priority of Christ’s glorification as
end, but the contingency of this end rules out any strong necessity. Though
Scotus does not do so, Christ’s predestination to glory might well be categorized as fitting and the Incarnation as weakly and externally necessary
from the supposition of Christ’s predestination to glory.
The clearest engagement with necessity in Scotus’s Christology
regards the Passion, where he eliminates necessity by defending possible
alternatives.66 Scotus questions “whether it was necessary for the human
race to be restored through Christ’s Passion” and rehearses Anselm’s argument from the Cur Deus homo in four basic steps. The first point to note,
however, is that Scotus describes Anselm as “seeming” to present the
Incarnation as strongly necessary.67 This reading of Anselm, generally
rejected by modern interpreters, served as a foil for scholastic theologians
to present their own understanding of the Incarnation’s necessity or
fittingness. Following the descriptions of Matthew of Aquasparta and
Peter Olivi, Scotus presents Anselm’s argument in the following four
steps: (1) it was necessary for humanity to be redeemed; (2) humanity
universaliter enim, ordinate volens prius videtur velle hoc quod est fini propinquius, et ita, sicut prius vult gloriam alicui quam gratiam, ita etiam inter praedestinatos—quibus vult gloriam—ordinate prius videtur velle gloriam illi quem vult
esse proximum fini, et ita huic animae.”
65 Duns Scotus, Ordinatio III, d. 7, q. 3, n. 62; Lectura III, d. 7, q. 3, n. 76.
66 Scotus’s soteriology has been the subject of much debate. See A. Rosato, Duns
Scotus on the Redemptive Work of Christ (unpublished doctoral dissertation: University of Notre Dame, 2009); A.Yang, “Scotus’Voluntarist Approach to the Atonement Reconsidered,” Scottish Journal of Theology 62 (2009): 421–40; D. Langston,
“Scotus’ Departure from Anselm’s Theory of the Atonement,” Recherches de
théologie ancienne et médiévale 50 (1983): 227–41.
67 Duns Scotus, Lectura III, d. 20, q. 1, n. 10: “Sed contra est quod dicit Anselmus II
Cur Deus homo cap. 15 in fine. . . . videtur igitur hic expresse dicere quod necesse
erat hominem redimi per passionem Christi.”

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could not be redeemed without satisfaction; (3) satisfaction had to be
made by the Deus-homo; and (4) it was necessary for satisfaction to be
made through Christ’s Passion even though Christ had no obligation to
die.68 With respect to modal categories, the first and fourth steps address
necessity whereas the second and third address possibility.
Scotus finds doubtful any argument for the Incarnation’s strong necessity. First, he denies the necessity of human restoration.69 This might
seem strange, given Scotus’s views on the priority of predestination, but
what must be born in mind is that predestination, even given its logical
priority with respect to means and compossible circumstances, remains
contingent, and its contingency means that alternatives to predestination
remain genuine possibilities at the same time. From all the logically possible ends, God freely chose to predestine some to glory. There was no
necessity restricting the divine design to such predestination; it exists
within the realm of logical possibility (and thus within the realm of God’s
absolute power) but is not necessary.The only meaningful sense of necessity respecting logical possibility and God’s absolute power is strong internal necessity. So, predestination to glory is contingent, and no means to
that contingent end can themselves be strongly necessary. This might
appear to leave intact Anselm’s logic regarded from the point of subsequent necessity. Scotus disagrees. What follows from an antecedent takes
its contingency or necessity from that antecedent; what follows from a

68 Duns Scotus, Lectura III, d. 20, q. 1, n. 13: “De primo ostenditur, secundum Ansel-

mum, quod necesse fuit hominem redimi”; Lectura III, d. 20, q. 1, n. 14:
“Praeterea, pro secundo articulo, scilicet quod non potuit redimi sine satisfactione”; Lectura III, d. 20, q. 1, n. 19: “Tertio ostenditur quod satisfactio ista, quae
debetur, non potuit fieri ab homine puro”; Lectura III, d. 20, q. 1, n. 23: “Quantum ad quartum articulum, quod oportuit Christum satisfacere per mortem, non
tamen quia debitor mortis.” See Matthew of Aquasparta, Quaestiones disputata de
incarnatione, Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevi, vol. 2, qq. 6–7; Peter
Olivi, Quaestiones de incarnatione et redemptione, Quaestiones de virtutibus,
Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevi, vol. 24, q. 3.
69 Duns Scotus, Lectura III, d. 20, q. 1, n. 29: “Praeterea, nulla est necessitas quod
genus humanum repararetur; ergo nulla fuit necessitas quod Christus pateretur.
Consequentia patet de se.—Antecedens probatur, quia si sic, non esset nisi quia
homines praedestinati ad gloriam, et lapsi, non possunt intrare nisi per satisfactionem; sed praedestinatio hominis fuit contingens, non necessaria: sicut enim
Deus ab aeterno contingenter praedestinavit hominem, et nullo modo necessario, cum nihil necessario respectu aliquorum extra se ordinando illa ad bonum,
sic potuit non praedestinasse. Nec est inconveniens hominem frustrari a beatitudine nisi praesupposita praedestinatione hominis. Nulla igitur fuit necessitas
redemptionis eius absolute, sicut nec eius praedestinationis.”

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contingent antecedent is contingent as well.70 With these remarks, Scotus
counters the first point in Anselm’s logic. Removing the necessity of
human restoration effectively undermines the Incarnation’s necessity in
Scotus’s modal scheme.
Scotus finds problems with other aspects of Anselm’s arguments. Anselm
reasoned that satisfaction could be made only by the Deus-homo. Scotus
denies this: “satisfaction for the sin of the first human being did not have
to exceed creation as a whole in magnitude and perfection; offering to God
a greater good than the evil of [the first] human being sinning would
have sufficed.”71 This assertion depends on an understanding of sin—and
how to determine its magnitude—that differs from the understanding
supported by Anselm and by the Summa halensis. Scotus measures sin
according to the object favored rather than according to the honor stolen
or the dignity of the one against whom human beings sinned. The first
human beings sinned through love of a creature, and so satisfaction required
only offering a love greater than that creaturely object of illicit love. Loving
God solely on account of God fulfills this condition. Scotus argues “that
love objectively, as it terminates in God on account of God, exceeds to
infinity the love of a creature, just as God [exceeds to infinity] the creature.”72 Satisfaction requires God as the infinite object of love, but a finite
subject can offer that love and make satisfaction. Scotus further argues that
satisfaction can be made on behalf of another, which allows an angel or a
mere human being to make satisfaction. The only necessary condition for
a mere human being to make satisfaction is that the one making satisfaction be a human being conceived without sin. Scotus summarizes his views
as follows: “I say that all the things Christ did concerning our redemption
70 Gelber notes that for Scotus secondary causes cause in the same way they are

caused, so contingent secondary causes must have a contingent primary cause
(Gelber, It Could Have Been Otherwise, 128). Normore reminds us that, based upon
this principle, Scotus argues God’s causality of creation must be contingent in order
to allow for human freedom and contingency (Normore, “Duns Scotus’s Modal
Theory,” 141). See also Knnuttila, “Time and Modality in Scholasticism,” 218–23.
71 Duns Scotus, Lectura III, d. 20, q. 1, n. 31: “Credo quod, salva gratia sua, hoc non
est verum, quia non oportuit satisfactionem pro peccato primi hominis excedere
totam creaturam in magnitudine et perfectione: suffecisset enim obtulisse maius
bonum Deo quam fuit malum huius hominis peccantis tantum.”
72 Duns Scotus, Lectura III, d. 20, q. 1, n. 31: “Tunc igitur haec propositio est falsa,
quod ‘debuit offerre Deo maius omni illo pro quo peccare non debuerat’; sed
sicut pro amore creaturae, ut obiecti diligibilis, peccavit—cum non debuit
peccare—in Deum, ita satisfaciendo Deo debuit offerre aliquid maius objective
quam sit creatura, scilicet amorem attingentem Deum propter se; et iste amor
obiective, ut terminatur in Deum propter se, excedit amorem creaturae in infinitum, sicut Deus creaturam.”

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685

were necessary only presupposing the divine ordination by which [God]
ordered them to be done. Christ’s suffering was necessary only by the
necessity of consequence (necessitas consequentiae). Nevertheless, the whole,
both antecedent and consequent, was contingent.”73 The only necessity
involves the causal relationship of two contingent realities, and this contingency means not only that things could have been otherwise but even that,
Deo volente, they may yet be otherwise.
Scotus changes the tone of reflection on the Incarnation and the
Passion by prioritizing the modal category of possibility and by highlighting the glorification of Christ’s soul as the logically prior end
according to which other ends and means are ordered.This all falls within
God’s ordained power and dismantles several steps in Anselm’s argument
for the necessity of the Incarnation and the Passion. Employing a newly
developing understanding of necessity, possibility, compossibility, and
contingency, Scotus stresses the contingent and also voluntary nature of
the Incarnation and the Passion. The Summa halensis and the Summa
theologiae express similar notions through the language of fittingness, but
Scotus seems not to regard fittingness as a proper modal category and so
largely ignores it.
Conclusions
Anselm’s influence on scholastic theology defies easy calculation or quantification; from intellectual dispositions to specific argumentative strategies, scholastic theologians harvested the fruits of Anselm’s labors,
occasionally in unexpected ways. In his endeavor to demonstrate the
reasonableness of the Incarnation and the Passion, Anselm employed the
modal categories of necessity and fittingness in his Cur Deus homo.
Though it is easy to read the Cur Deus homo solely in terms of a satisfaction theory of atonement, and though a satisfaction theory was vastly
important for scholastic soteriology, the most enduring legacy of the Cur
Deus homo in scholastic Christology could well be the use of modal categories for framing the Incarnation and the Passion. Even when scholastic Christologies disputed Anselm’s logic or conclusions, they did so
within an argumentative structure suffused with modal language. The
modal categories of necessity, fittingness, and possibility afforded a fineedged tool for examining the reasonableness of the Incarnation and the
73 Duns Scotus, Lectura III, d. 20, q. 1, n. 36: “Respondeo ergo ad quaestionem et

dico quod omnia haec quae facta sunt a Christo circa redemptionem nostram,
non fuerunt necessaria nisi praesupposita ordinatione divina qua sic ordinavit
facere; et tunc tantum necessitate consequentiae necessarium fuit Christum pati,
–sed tamen totum fuit contingens, et antecedens et consequens.”

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Passion, a tool put to extensive use in the Summa halensis, Thomas
Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, and John Duns Scotus’s commentaries on the
Sentences. In this sense, Anselm’s Cur Deus homo and its use of modal categories provided the shape for much of scholastic Christology.
Of the texts examined here, the Summa halensis keeps closest to
Anselm, quoting from the Cur Deus homo frequently and at great length.
More tellingly, the Summa halensis structures its presentation of the Incarnation and the Passion by considering in tandem necessity and fittingness, a structure that affirms Anselm’s basic logic while guarding against
making any claim to the strong necessity of the Incarnation or the
Passion. Ruling out strong necessity and advocating only a weak necessity allow the Summa halensis to focus on fittingness and the voluntary
character of Christ’s redemptive work. The Summa halensis accomplishes
different tasks with these different modal categories, using the category
of necessity to explore humanity as fallen yet reparable by the Deus-homo
and using the category of fittingness to explore the details of the actual
Incarnation and Passion. The fittingness of the actual Incarnation and
Passion emerges with greatest clarity against a backdrop of counterfactual
possibilities; possible alternatives eliminate the constraint associated with
strong necessity and create space for fittingness. Perhaps the clearest
example of this is when the Summa halensis argues the Incarnation would
still be fitting even if human beings had not sinned. This could be interpreted as an affirmation that God would have become incarnate had
there been no sin, but the Summa halensis does not go so far as to affirm
such a speculative view. Had there been no sin, the Incarnation still
would have been fitting. Since it is not necessary in any strong sense, this
fittingness cannot determine whether God would have become incarnate
apart from sin. The Summa halensis thus links the Incarnation’s fittingness
with human beatification and its weak necessity with sin, a strategy that
separates the strengths of Anselm’s approach from its weaknesses and
understands fittingness and weak necessity as distinct yet compatible
modal categories.
Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae concentrates more squarely on
fittingness as the appropriate modal category for discussing the Incarnation and the Passion. This might appear to be little more than a truncated
version of the Summa halensis’s approach, with the treatment of necessity
and human falleness simply lopped off. Such an appearance would
deceive. The Summa theologiae’s Tertia pars certainly assumes humanity’s
sinfulness and need for salvation, but Thomas shows far less interest than
did the Summa halensis in following the logical steps of Anselm’s argument. Aquinas also redefines the Summa halensis’s distinction between

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weak necessity and fittingness, identifying external fittingness with weak
external necessity ex suppositione, an identity that solidifies the modal
status of fittingness. Fittingness can also be considered internally as whatever corresponds or agrees with the very nature of a thing (ST III, q. 1,
a. 1). The Incarnation was fitting internally inasmuch as it corresponds
with the divine nature to communicate itself maximally and was fitting
externally inasmuch as it represents the most expedient and richest means
for ushering humanity to its divinely appointed end. God’s absolute
power could always accomplish human liberation otherwise. In so
restricting necessity and invoking God’s absolute power and its realm of
possibilities, Aquinas limits the weight of Anselm’s satisfaction theory.
Elevating fittingness as the primary modal category leads Aquinas to
specific and narrow speculations. Hypothetical and counterfactual questions are useful only when directed to modal categories considered externally and ex suppositione. Aquinas’s Christology takes a very cautious
approach to modal speculations dependent solely on what internally
befits God.
John Duns Scotus grants less value to Anselm’s satisfaction theory than
the Summa halensis or the Summa theologiae did. The Summa halensis
follows Anselm, though with a few substantial qualifications, and the
Summa theologiae presents satisfaction as one mode among many of the
Passion’s efficacy. Scotus dismantles the very logic of the satisfaction
theory, not just its claims to necessity. Affirmation of other possible means
for human salvation fits with Scotus’s general framing of the Incarnation
through the category of possibility. This framing was not novel, but
Scotus’s use of it was. His emphasis on the logical priority of the chief
end and the compossibility of other ends and means to this chief end
stresses the contingency of the Incarnation and the Passion and elevates
the importance of God’s will in human salvation.There should not be too
much made of the voluntarism and intellectualism division, but Scotus’s
voluntarist disposition certainly defines his soteriology, depends upon his
modal philosophy, and provides a further example of how modal categories shaped scholastic Christology.
Despite the differences among the Summa halensis, Aquinas’s Summa
theologiae, and Scotus’s Lectura and Ordinatio, the Christologies presented
in these texts all share a general modal shape dependent upon the
advances of Anselm’s Cur Deus homo.The dominance of a modal category
within each Christology correlates with its evaluation of a satisfaction
theory of atonement. Little scholarly attention has been paid to the use
of modal categories in scholastic Christology or to fittingness as a modal
category. Overlooking the use of modal categories ignores a prominent

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tendency of scholastic thought, a tendency that sheds light on the shape
of scholastic Christology and on the various uses of modal philosophy
within medieval theology. Following Anselm, the authors of the Summa
halensis, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus confronted the task of
demonstrating the reasonableness of the Incarnation and the Passion.
Though not all pursued that demonstration according to a satisfaction
theory of atonement, all pursued it armed with a keen sense of modal
categories as useful tools for exploring a mystery.
N&V

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Aquinas as Interpreter of Augustinian Illumination
in Light of Albertus Magnus
B ERNHARD B LANKENHORN, O.P.
University of Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland

T HOMAS AQUINAS interpreted Augustine’s doctrine of noetic
illumination in a way that manifests both the significant influence of the
early Albertus Magnus and Thomas’s originality. The young Albert set
clear precedents for one of the pillars of his student’s anthropology. Yet
the mature Aquinas also went beyond the framework set by his teacher
and thus attained a fuller historical awareness of the distance between his
own epistemology and that of Augustine.
Much work remains to be done on the relation between Albert and
Aquinas in the area of philosophical and theological anthropology.1
There has been a widespread assumption that these two Dominican friars
engaged in radically different projects. For example, Étienne Gilson
concluded that the early Albert’s teaching on the mind’s illumination
remained essentially Augustinian, so that Aquinas’s teaching presents a
break with his master.2 In our own day, important voices in the area of
Albert scholarship have identified Dietrich von Freiberg, Meister
Eckhart, and other medieval German Dominicans as the true successors
of Albert. These historians maintain that Aquinas essentially departed
from his teacher’s thought on central anthropological issues.3 I will
1 Henryk Anzulewicz, introduction

to Albertus Magnus, Über den Menschen,
Philosophische Bibliothek 531 (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2004), xliii.
2 Étienne Gilson, Pourquoi saint Thomas a critiqué saint Augustin,Vrin Reprise (Paris:
Vrin, 1986), 121.
3 See Kurt Flasch, Meister Eckhart: Die Geburt der ‘Deutschen Mystik’ aus dem Geist
der arabischen Philosophie (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2006), 67–89, 108; Alain de Libera,
Métaphysique et noétique: Albert le Grand (Paris: Vrin, 2006), 17.

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propose that Aquinas’s treatment of Augustinian illumination manifests a
significant debt to his mentor, while his doctrinal developments in this
area seem to continue key aspects of Albert’s project.
I will begin by setting the historical context for the early Albert and
Aquinas. Second, I will examine Aquinas’s treatment of illumination
during two periods of his career: (a) his Parisian sojourn as bachelor in
the early 1250s; and (b) his Roman regency in 1265–68.
Thomas Aquinas, Student of Albert
Aquinas resided with Albert at the Priory of Saint Jacques in Paris from
1246 until 1248.4 The young Italian had already been introduced to Aristotle in Naples, which prepared him well for Albert’s mentorship. Sometime before 1243, the latter had composed a heavily Aristotelian work, the
De homine. The bulk of the text consists of a philosophical treatise on the
soul, within which Albert offers an extensive synthesis of the Stagirite’s
philosophy.5 The work almost functions as a commentary on Aristotle’s De
anima.The philosophical study of the soul is followed by a very brief theological section on themes such as the imago Dei. Thomas would have had
ready access to a copy of the De homine at Saint Jacques.6 He would hardly
have ignored such an important study of Aristotelian philosophy. The De
homine was Albert’s most important anthropological treatise before his
Parisian commentary on the Lombard’s Sentences. At the very latest,
Aquinas’s second Parisian sojourn (1252–59) would have provided him
ample opportunity to ponder crucial questions in Aristotelian anthropology with the help of his teacher’s work. In the De homine, Albert manifests
4 Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1: The Person and His Work,

trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 1996), 6–8, 24; Ruedi Imbach and Adriano Oliva, O.P., La philosophie de
Thomas d’Aquin: Repères (Paris: Vrin, 2009), 16; James A. Weisheipl, O.P., “Albert
der Große: Leben und Werke,” in Albertus Magnus: Sein Leben und seine Bedeutung,
ed. Manfred Entrich, O.P. (Cologne: Styria, 1980), 21.
5 For the date, see Henryk Anzulewicz and Joachim R. Söder, preface to Albertus
Magnus, De homine, Cologne edition, vol. 27.2 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008), xv.
6 Manuscript P. For the date and manuscript locations of the De homine, see H.
Anzulewicz and J. R. Söder, preface to Albertus Magnus, De homine, xv, xix.
Anzulewicz points to the many similarities between the anthropologies of
Aquinas and Albert’s De homine. See his introduction to Albertus Magnus, Über
den Menschen, xliii–iv. The following comment by Anzulewicz is particularly
striking: “Nicht erforscht ist bisher der Einfluß der Albertinischen Anthropologie auf Thomas von Aquin. Erst mit der Erschließung von De homine zeigt sich,
daß Thomas von Aquin seinem Lehrer im wesentlichen gefolgt ist. Die Seelenlehre des Thomas . . . findet sich bei seinem Lehrer in De homine bereits systematisch entfaltet” (xliii).

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an evident enthusiasm for an Arabic-Aristotelian form of epistemology.
He also proposes a very reductive reading of Augustinian illumination.7
He essentially replaces Augustinian memory with a somewhat exalted
vision of the agent intellect. For example, in the De homine, Albert essentially ignores Augustinian memory as he develops a fairly complete philosophical doctrine of how we know the world and the soul. The theme of
memory is important, for in the thought of Augustine it is the site of the
mind’s illumination.8 I will return to the De homine treatment of illumination shortly.
Albert lectured on the Lombard’s Sentences sometime between 1243 and
1245, though he continued to edit the written version through the year
1249.9 In this work, Albert turns to a much more Augustinian type of epistemology, yet also fuses it with important elements of the Aristotelian tradition. For example, the German Dominican adopts Aristotle as a reliable
guide for how we understand material beings, but turns to Augustine to
explain how we know God and immaterial realities, including the human
soul. Albert clearly affirms Augustine’s principle that the very presence of
immaterial realities in the mind stretches the human subject’s cognitive
capacities, so that immaterial realities can be better known than corporeal
7 I follow the standard contemporary reading of noetic illumination in Augustine,

as expounded by (among others) Ronald H. Nash, The Light of the Mind: St.
Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (Lima, OH: Academic Renewal Press, 2003). For
other studies on Augustinian illumination, see the notes in my “How the Early
Albertus Magnus Transformed Augustinian Interiority,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für
Philosophie und Theologie 58 (2011): 351–54.
8 De homine, “De Intellectu Possibile,” 440–42 offers an essentially Aristotelian
treatment of memory and only cites Augustine for his teaching on the memory
of the imagination. However, Albert’s doctrine of the agent intellect is more
influenced by an Arabic Platonic reading of Aristotle than is the doctrine of
Thomas. See H. Anzulewicz, introduction to Albertus Magnus, Über den
Menschen, xliv. See also his recent study of Augustinian illumination in Albert,
which mostly complements my own reading of the Universal Doctor: “Rezeption und Reinterpretation: Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, die Peripatetiker und
die Umdeutung der augustinischen Illuminationslehre bei Albertus Magnus,” in
Kulturkontakte und Rezeptionsvorgänge in der Theologie des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts,
ed. Ulrich Köpf and Dieter R. Bauer, Archa Verbi: Subsidia 8 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2011), 109–17.
9 On the date of Albert’s commentary on the Sentences, see Walter Senner, O.P.,
Alberts des Großen Verständnis von Theologie und Philosophie, Lectio Albertina 9
(Münster: Aschendorff, 2009), 5–6, 14; Simon Tugwell, O.P., Albert and Thomas:
Selected Writings, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press,
1988), 3–11; James A. Weisheipl, O.P., Thomas d’Aquino and Albert His Teacher
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1980), 3–6, 11; idem, “Albert
der Große: Leben und Werke,” 18–26.

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realities, a doctrine that goes hand-in-hand with Augustinian illumination.
On the other hand, Albert’s overall stance on illumination in the commentary on the Sentences remains somewhat ambiguous. His preference for
Aristotle in the account of how we know the material world cannot be
fully reconciled with Augustine.10 Thomas periodically consulted his
teacher’s commentary on the Sentences while writing his own.11
From 1248 to 1251, Aquinas attended Albert’s Cologne lectures on the
whole corpus of the Pseudo-Dionysius. Thomas kept these course notes
for the rest of his life.12 The anthropological doctrine of Albert’s
commentaries on Dionysius marks a veritable theological turning point.
Albert essentially replaces a more or less Augustinian vision of the human
being that he had taught in his commentary on the Sentences with a much
more Dionysian and Platonized Aristotelian approach. He strongly
emphasizes that the human being’s natural place in the cosmos is as a
body-soul composite designed to ascend to God indirectly, through the
sensible mediations of creation and the Bible, in contrast to Augustine’s
much more internal, immediate path to God.13 Albert’s Dionysian
10 Albertus Magnus, Commentarii in I Sententiarum [henceforth In I Sent.], Borgnet

edition, vol. 25 (Paris, 1893), d. 2, a. 5, pp. 59b–60a; d. 17, a. 4c, p. 472.
11 Gilles Emery, O.P., La Trinité créatrice: Trinité et création dans les commentaires aux

Sentences de Thomas d’Aquin et de ses précurseurs Albert le Grand et Bonaventure,
Bibliothèque Thomiste 47 (Paris: Vrin, 1995), 30.
12 Maria Burger, “Thomas Aquinas’ Glosses on the Dionysius Commentaries of
Albert the Great in Codex 30 of the Cologne Cathedral Library,” in Via Alberti:
Texte—Quellen—Interpretationen, ed. Ludger Honnefelder, Hannes Möhle, and
Susana Bullido del Barrio, Subsidia Albertina 2 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2009),
572–74; Adriano Oliva, O.P., Les débuts de l’enseignement de Thomas d’Aquin et sa
conception de la ‘sacra doctrina’, avec l’édition du prologue de son Commentaire des
Sentences, Bibliothèque Thomiste 58 (Paris: Vrin, 2006), 218–20; J.-P. Torrell,
Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, 25.
13 In his commentaries on Dionysius, Albert endorses much of the Areopagite’s epistemology of mediation as he passes over the Augustinian alternative of direct interior noetic ascent to God. See Albertus Magnus, Super Dionysium De caelesti
hierarchia, Cologne edition, vol. 36.1, ed. Paul Simon and Wilhelm Kübel
(Münster: Aschendorff, 1993), ch. 1, pp. 7.40–42, 12.28–31, 12.66–73, 13.36–45;
ch. 2, pp. 16.74–17.3, 17.38–42, 22.67–72; idem, Super Dionysium De ecclesiastica
hierarchia, Cologne edition, vol. 36.2, ed. Maria Burger, Paul Simon and Wilhelm
Kübel (Münster: Aschendorff, 1999), ch. 4, p. 97.56–68. In his commentary on
Dionysius’s ninth letter, Albert notes that recourse to sense experience helps us to
grasp immaterial realities, even in the case of prophetic visions. This conclusion
stands in contrast to Albert’s In I Sent., d. 17, a. 4, where the body darkens or
obscures the soul’s knowledge of the immaterial realm. See Albertus Magnus,
Super Dionysii Mysticam theologiam et Epistulas, Cologne edition, vol. 37.2, ed. Paul
Simon (Münster: Aschendorff, 1972), Epistula 9, p. 539.3–13. On Albert’s rejection

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cosmology became central to the theology of Aquinas, even as early as
the Angelic Doctor’s commentary on the Sentences.
Illumination in Aquinas’s Commentary
on the Lombard’s Sentences
In Aquinas’s commentary on the Sentences, the key passage on Augustinian illumination is found in book 2, distinction 28, article 5. Thomas asks
whether any knowledge is possible without grace. He answers:
Some truths are proportioned to natural reason, whereas others exceed
it. Whatever [truth] cannot be reached through conclusions attained
from self-evident principles exceeds natural reason. . . . Such are the
things that pertain to faith, and future contingents. . . . But if we are
speaking about the truths which are proportioned to natural reason,
there is a twofold opinion about this. Some say that the agent intellect
is one for all human beings, that God is the agent intellect . . . thus, any
intelligible cannot be understood without a new emission of the spiritual ray, which is grace freely given (gratia gratis data). But this position
is not fitting, as was said above [in distinction 17] . . . yet even supposing this position [of one separate or divine intellect], a new infusion of
grace would not be necessary for any true cognition. For the infusion
and emanation of spiritual gifts is not successive, in the way of motion,
but rather fixed and permanent. Hence, by one spiritual outpouring,
the possible intellect is perfected to know all things proportioned to it.
Another opinion is that the agent intellect is a power of the soul. For
this position to stand, it cannot be rationally maintained that the cognition of truth about which we are speaking would require the infusion
of yet another light . . . unless the agent intellect were insufficient for
this [its operation of abstracting species]. Thus, human nature would be
less perfect than other natures and would not suffice to carry out its
own natural operations. Therefore, it must be said that these truths

of knowledge by (Augustinian) assimilation to an object’s properties in favor of
information (Aristotle and perhaps Dionysius), see Super Dionysium De caelesti hierarchia, ch. 2, pp. 16.74–17.3, 17.38–42. On Albert’s rejection of (Augustine’s)
knowledge by the interior presence of the known reality, see ch. 2, p. 18.7–11,
18.39–42, and especially Super Dionysii Mysticam theologiam, ch. 2, pp.
466.87–467.11 (cited and analyzed below). On the soul’s union with the body as
its natural place in the cosmic hierarchy, see Albertus Magnus, Super Dionysium De
divinis nominibus, Cologne edition, vol. 37.1, ed. Paul Simon (Münster: Aschendorff, 1972), ch. 4, p. 179.45–64. On our indirect and thus limited knowledge of
God in this life, see ch. 2, p. 81.27–38; ch. 7, p. 358.6–7. See also my essay “How
the Early Albertus Magnus Transformed Augustinian Interiority,” 351–86.

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[proportioned to human nature] can be known through the natural
light of the agent intellect, without any super-added light of grace.14

The article’s title considers grace as freely given, a category distinct
from sanctifying grace. Thomas begins his response by underscoring the
distinction between the realm of nature and the realm of grace. Whatever
conclusions can be attained by reasoning philosophically from first principles and the intrinsic, created capacity of the agent intellect pertain to
reason. Thomas invokes what may be the key theological principle without which his own epistemology would be impossible. That is, he places
14 Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, bk. II [henceforth In II Sent.]

(Paris: Sumptibus P. Lethielleux, 1929), d. 28, q. 1, a. 5c, pp. 731–32: “. . . verorum
quaedam sunt naturali ratione proportionata, quaedam naturalem rationem excedunt. Illa naturalem rationem excedunt quae non possunt concludi ex primis
principiis per se notis . . . Hujusmodi autem sunt ea quae fidei sunt, et futura
contingentia . . . Si autem loquamur de illis veris quae naturali rationi proportionata sunt, sciendum est quod circa hoc est duplex opinio. Quidam enim
dicunt, ut supra dictum est, quod intellectus agens est unus omnium, intellectum
agentem Deum esse dicentes . . . ita non possit intelligi aliquid intelligibile sine
nova emissione radii spiritualis, qui est gratia gratis data. Sed haec positio conveniens non est, ut supra dictum est [d. 17, q. 2, a. 1] . . . Nec tamen oportet, hac
positione supposita, ut semper nova infusio gratiae fieret in cujuslibet veri cognitione; eo quod infusio et emanatio spiritualium donorum non est successiva per
modum motus; sed est fixa et permanens; unde secundum unam irradiationem
spiritualem, intellectus possibilis ad omnia sibi proportionata cognoscenda perficeretur. Aliorum vero opinio est quod intellectus agens sit quaedam potentia
animae rationalis; et hanc sustinendo, non potest rationabiliter poni quod
oporteat ad cognitionem veri, talis de quo loquimur, aliquod aliud lumen superinfundi . . . nisi forte dicatur quod intellectus agens insufficiens est ad hoc; et ita
natura humana aliis imperfectior esset, quae non sibi sufficeret in naturalibus
operationibus. Et ideo dicendum est quod haec vera, sine omni lumine gratiae
superaddito, per lumen naturale intellectus agentis cognosci possunt.” All translations are my own. For Augustinian illumination in Aquinas, see Édouard Wéber,
O.P., Dialogue et dissensions entre saint Bonaventure et saint Thomas d’Aquin à Paris
(1252–1273), Bibliothèque Thomiste 41 (Paris:Vrin, 1974), 400–58; P. Faucon de
Boylesve, “Aspects augustiniens de la noétique thomiste,” in Tommaso d’Aquino
nel suo settimo centenario: Atti del Congresso Internazionale, vol. 1: Tommaso d’Aquino
nella storia del pensiero, 1: Le fonti del pensiero di S. Tommaso, ed. Pontificia Accademia Romana di San Tommaso d’Aquino (Naples: Edizioni Domenicane Italiane,
1975), 222–31; Pierre-Yves Maillard, La vision de Dieu chez Thomas d’Aquin,
Bibliothèque Thomiste 53 (Paris:Vrin, 2001), 118–21; Cruz González Ayesta, “El
intellecto agente en Santo Tomás: Lumen y Habito,” in Intellect et imagination dans
la Philosophie Médiévale, ed. Maria Cândida Pacheco and José Francisco Meirinhos, Actes du 9ième Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale, Rencontres de Philosophie Médiévale 11.3 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2006),
1405–16.

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the limited yet real autonomy of the human intellect with its own
permanent capacity to know some truth about God and the world
within the context of the grace/nature distinction. In God’s design, some
truths have been “proportioned to reason.” The grace/nature distinction
is one of the distinguishing marks of Aquinas’s thought. In the present
text, Aquinas implies that this distinction ultimately requires an epistemology other than Augustinian illumination.15
Aquinas seems to have found the connection between grace/nature
and the mind’s illumination in the works of Albert. In the De homine,
Albert develops an extensive philosophical epistemology on the basis of
Aristotle’s agent and possible intellects. In the long philosophical section
of the De homine, Albert’s arguments proceed on the basis of philosophical reasoning, while theological authorities are treated as debate partners
equal in authority to the non-Christian philosophers that Albert cites.16
Only when Albert turns to properly theological themes such as the imago
Dei does he grant theological authorities greater weight. The methodology of the entire De homine operates on a clear grace/nature distinction.
In the same work, Albert also explicitly proposes a connection
between grace/nature and illumination. He notes that some truths are
accessible to us only through God’s grace, which illumines the mind.
These truths are “above reason.” However, other things are understood
rationally, that is, through the natural power of the agent intellect without any special divine illumination.17 The similarity with Aquinas’s opening argument is striking.18
15 Hence, John Milbank’s attempt to blur or even erase the grace/nature distinction

in Aquinas by an appeal to the latter’s adoption of Augustinian illumination
misses the mark. See his “Truth and Vision,” in John Milbank and Catherine
Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas (New York: Routledge, 2001), 19–59, esp. 21.
16 Joachim R. Söder, “Die Erprobung der Vernunft: Vom Umgang mit Traditionen
in De homine,” in Albertus Magnus, Zum Gedenken nach 800 Jahren: Neue Zugänge,
Aspekte und Perspektiven, ed. Walter Senner, O.P., Quellen und Forschungen zur
Geschichte des Dominikanerordens 10 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001), 5, 8.
17 De homine, “De Intellectu Agente,” a. 2.2.3, ad 22, p. 415.30–36: “Ad ultimum
dicendum quod vis est in hoc quod dicit Apostolus: ‘Non quod sufficientes simus
cogitare aliquid ex nobis quasi a nobis’. In hoc innuit quod quaedam intelligibilia
non intelligimus nisi gratia dei illuminante, sicut ea quae sunt supra rationem;
quaedam autem rationabilia intelligimus a nobis, sed non quasi ex nobis, sed ex
virtute agentis intellectus, quae data est nobis a deo.” On the distinction between
faith and reason in Albert, see Édouard Wéber, O.P., “La relation de la philosophie
et de la théologie selon Albert le Grand,” Archives de Philosophie 43 (1980): 559–88.
18 In the Dionysian Commentaries, Albert also distinguishes between universal or
natural illumination and particular illumination through grace. See his Super
Dionysium De caelesti hierarchia, ch. 1, p. 7.40–42.

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Thomas then proceeds to refute the illumination theory of neoAugustinian theologians such as William of Auvergne and Roger Bacon,
who identified God with the agent intellect.19 Aquinas’s first argument
pertains to an excess of human passivity. Since he returns to it at the end
of the article’s corpus, I will treat this argument below. Second, Thomas
argues that, even if God were the cosmic agent intellect, the outpouring
of intelligible light is not an action that varies from one moment to
another. Rather, God’s action is “fixed and permanent.”
Aquinas follows Albert as he quietly replaces an Augustinian notion of
illumination with a Proclan-Dionysian notion, though the early Albert and
the early Aquinas considered Aristotle to be the author of the Liber de causis,
their main (indirect) source of Proclan thought. For Augustine, moral rectitude conditions even the light needed for philosophical insight. But in a
Proclan-Dionysian universe, noetic illumination consists of a permanent
cosmic gift that constitutes a fixed hierarchy of being wherein each
member enjoys relatively stable operational capacities. Augustine’s philosopher is a radically historical being who can ascend to great contemplative
heights, even to a partial direct vision of God in this life, yet can also
descend to the abyss of utter ignorance.The intellectual universe of Dionysius and the Liber de causis is far more stable. Here, the philosopher’s journey is less perilous but also more limited in its possibilities, precisely
because his intellectual capacity is a stable metaphysical gift from God.20
In his commentaries on the Areopagite, Albert endorses a Dionysian
universe of fixed hierarchies and natures, including its doctrine of light.
Dionysian light is both a permanent gift directly received from God and
a historical gift mediated by angels and sensible veils.These veils or mediations of divine light include creation, the Bible, and the liturgy. But
Augustinian light is especially encountered within, by turning away from

19 Christian Trottmann, La vision béatifique: Des disputes scolastiques à sa définition par

Benoît XII, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 248 (Rome:
École Française de Rome, 1995), 151; Édouard Wéber, O.P., La personne humaine
au XIIIe siècle, Bibliothèque Thomiste 46 (Paris:Vrin, 1991), 337–38.
20 Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 2nd ed., trans. E. R. Dodds (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1963), prop. 173, 177, 194–95. See also Dodds’s notes (299–300) in the
same work, as well as Lucas Siorvanes, Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy and Science
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996), 126, 141. For the Latin Liber de
causis, see the text printed in Thomas Aquinas, Super librum de causis expositio, rev.
ed., ed. Henri-Dominique Saffrey, O.P., Textes philosophiques du Moyen Âge 21
(Paris:Vrin, 2002). On this key difference between Augustine and Dionysius, see
Richard Schenk, O.P., “From Providence to Grace: Thomas Aquinas and the
Platonisms of the Mid-Thirteenth Century,” Nova et Vetera 3 (2005): 307–20.

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the sensible world. An entire cosmology stands behind Thomas’s phrase
“fixed and permanent light.” Aquinas’s response to the neo-Augustinians
proposes a pseudo-Aristotelian (but actually neo-Platonic) doctrine of
noetic light that is more structural than Augustine’s. Aquinas still employs
the language of light, but its meaning has shifted significantly. Albert
probably taught him to employ this strategy specifically for the theme of
noetic light, a claim to which I will return shortly.21
The closing argument of the corpus responds to the second type of
Augustinian illumination, which is reminiscent of Bonaventure.22 Here, the
human being possesses his or her own agent intellect but still needs the gift
of divine light in order to attain sure knowledge of truth. Thomas’s answer
brings us back to his first response to William of Auvergne and Roger
Bacon earlier in the corpus. These opponents’ doctrine leaves the human
person without an adequate capacity to carry out his or her own natural
operation, namely, the discovery of philosophical truth. The human being
would thus lack a basic created gift that is possessed by all other corporeal
creatures, namely, the ability to act according to one’s intrinsic form.
Thomas insists on locating the human being within an ordered hierarchy
of creatures, within a hierarchy of agents. A consideration of human knowledge must grant this cosmic perspective as much weight as our relation to
the divine cause and giver of light. The human being must always be
considered in this twofold context, never one without the other. Here, one
of Aquinas’s most fundamental theological convictions manifests itself. It is
more characteristically Dionysian than Augustinian. Thomas had observed
Albert’s systematic affirmation of the same principle in Cologne, in the
German Dominican’s lectures on Dionysius.
However, the insistence on the actualization of the creature’s intrinsic
operational capacity as its proper dignity and perfection is much more
noticeable in Aquinas than in the early Albert. The latter never seems to
employ this argument in his critique of Augustinian illumination, either in
the De homine or in the Dionysian commentaries. Aquinas returns to it
again and again. It exemplifies how Thomas brings argumentative depth
to Albert’s project of constructing an Aristotelian-Dionysian alternative to
Augustinian illumination and interiority. Thomas creatively synthesizes
two elements: (1) John Damascene’s principle that grants each creature its
proper activity; and (2) a Dionysian cosmic hierarchy in which each creature stands in relation to the whole of the universe.
21 At De homine, p. 415.25–29, which I consider at the end of this section.
22 Bonaventure, Commentarius in librum Secundum Sententiarum, in Opera Omnia, vol. 2

(Quaracchi: Ex Typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1885), d. 24, p. 1, a. 2, q. 4.

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The corpus of Aquinas’s commentary on the Sentences passage on illumination never mentions Augustine. Thomas’s primary opponents are
thirteenth-century neo-Augustinians. But he cannot avoid Augustine
altogether. The third objection invokes the doctrine of the De magistro
that God alone is the interior teacher. Thus, all learning seems to involve
some type of graced divine aid. Thomas responds:
. . . therefore, it is said that God alone teaches, because he contains and
causes the power of understanding in us.This does not mean that a new
light of grace is infused in any cognition of truth. God contains and
causes in diverse modes when angels and men are said to teach, as was
said above in distinction 9.23

Aquinas essentially replaces Augustinian illumination with the doctrine that
God is the creative, exclusive first cause of all knowing, a gift that the Creator
continues to pour out as he sustains human beings and all things in their
proper being. The appeal to God’s primary causality is a standard argument
that Aquinas employs throughout his career in relation to illumination.
The shift in meaning is daring. Thomas concludes the text by referring back to distinction 9 of book 2 in the commentary on the Sentences,
where he treats the same issue, namely, Augustine’s doctrine that God
alone is the true interior teacher. In distinction 9, the beginning of
Thomas’s response confirms its philosophical inspiration. He states that in
natural actions, lower beings have their efficacy of operation from the first
cause, which impresses its operation in the effect more intensely than
does the lower agent. Likewise, the human mind’s capacity to act is possible only through the power of the first cause that illuminates it. This is
why God is called the teacher of all. But God’s primary causality does not
exclude the activity of lower agents.24 Thomas’s philosophical inspiration
is clearly the Liber de causis (especially its first proposition), with its
ordered Proclan world of higher and lower causes, which also stands
23 Thomas Aquinas, In II Sent., d. 28, q. 1, a. 5, ad 3, pp. 732–33: “. . . ergo dicitur

ipse solus Deus docere, quia vim intelligendi in nobis continet et causat; non ex
hoc quod in qualibet cognitione veritatis novum lumen gratiae superinfundat.
Qualiter autem diversimode Deus, angeli et homo docere dicuntur, dictum est
supra, dist. IX.”
24 Thomas Aquinas, In II Sent., d. 9, q. 1, a. 2, ad 4, p. 231: “Ad quartum dicendum,
quod sicut in actionibus naturalibus inferius agens non habet efficaciam in
productione effectus nisi per virtutem agentis primi, quae vehementius imprimit
in effectum, ita etiam in intellectualibus inferior illuminans nihil potest efficere
nisi per virtutem primi illuminantis: et propter hoc ipse Deus est qui omnes
docet; nec tamen excluditur ab aliis illuminatio, sicut nec ab agentibus naturalibus naturalis actio.”

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behind Dionysius. The same philosophy underlies the discussion of the
fixed, permanent gift of light in the corpus of distinction 28. In the
response to objection 3, the reference back to distinction 9 signals that
Proclan light also replaces Augustinian light in Thomas’s analysis of the
De magistro.
Thomas probably did not yet recognize the immense doctrinal
distance between the historical Augustine and his own epistemology. Yet
Aquinas was hardly the first scholastic to interpret the Latin Father somewhat loosely. Albert had certainly done so, and for precisely the same
reason. In the De homine text that directly precedes the rejection of
special illumination mentioned above, Albert tackles the same excerpt
from Augustine’s De magistro. According to an objection, God alone
teaches; therefore, he imparts a new gift of light whenever we learn.
Albert responds that God enlightens every mind in that he is the first
cause, without whom we can do nothing, and that this is what Augustine
intends to teach in the De magistro. But, Albert continues, this does not
exclude the human being’s intrinsic capacity to understand, that is, to
know without special illumination.25 Albert’s response is virtually identical to that of Aquinas.
Let us note three important elements in Albert’s solution: (1) he reinterprets Augustine’s intention; (2) he invokes primary causality, a causality
that is creative and universal; and (3) he preserves the intrinsic operational
capacity of secondary causes. Here too, Proclan cosmology replaces
Augustine’s. It seems that Albert taught Aquinas how to reinterpret Augustine, namely, by changing the meaning of key terms such as illumination
and causality. A crucial scholastic shift from Augustinian to ProclanDionysian noetic light, from special illumination to secondary causality,
occurs in the early Albert, and Aquinas follows him.26 In the mid-1240s,
Albert proposes a daring reinterpretation of a key Augustinian doctrine
whereby he challenges the reigning neo-Augustinian noetics of the Paris
theologians. The significance of this doctrinal turn would hardly have
gone unnoticed by our young Italian student of Aristotelian anthropology.
25 De homine, “De Intellectu Agente,” a. 2.2.3, obj. 21, p. 411.29–33: “In idem vide-

tur incidere Augustinus in libro De magistro, ubi per totum probat nihil posse
hominem intelligere nisi deus doceat interius. Cum igitur omnis intellectus sit a
lumine intellectus agentis, videtur intellectus agens nihil aliud esse quam deus
instruens interius.” Ad 21, p. 415.25–29: “Ad aliud dicendum quod Augustinus in
libro De magistro intendit quod omne lumen nostri intellectus est a causa prima
et sine ipso nihil possumus facere; sed naturam illuminandi super intelligibilia
intellectus agens habet ab ipso et sub ipso.”
26 Might Albert have found this interpretation of Augustine in the works of another
scholastic philosopher or theologian?

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Aquinas’s Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis
on Illumination
Numerous works from the middle of Aquinas’s career contain little more
than brief discussions of noetic illumination. These texts mostly repeat
the teaching of the commentary on the Sentences. Not until the Quaestio
disputata de spiritualibus creaturis does Thomas again take up illumination
in any detail; this new focus is also found in the contemporary treatment
of epistemology in the Summa theologiae.27 Article 10 of the De spiritualibus creaturis deals with the individuality of the agent intellect, a topic that
often gives rise to a discussion of illumination. Aquinas does not mention
the Bishop of Hippo until the eighth objection. Here, Thomas raises one
of Augustine’s crucial epistemological claims, namely, that sense experience of a mutable, created world is not a sufficiently stable source for reliable truth judgments.28 Aquinas responds:
. . . In order to inquire more deeply into Augustine’s intention, and how
truth is attained here [in the power of judgment], it must be known that
some ancient philosophers, who did not propose [the existence of]
another cognitive power beyond the senses or [the existence of] beings
beyond sensibles, said that we cannot have any certain truth. [They said]
this for two reasons. First, some maintained that sensibles are always in
flux and that there is nothing stable in them. Second, diverse persons
judge differently in the same situations. . . . These are the two arguments
that Augustine touches upon. . . . Plato agreed with the ancient philosophers that sensibles are always in flux . . . [but] he posited, on the one
hand, that the species of things are separate from sensibles and [are]
immutable . . . on the other hand, he [Plato] posited a cognitive power in
the human being that is above the senses, namely the mind or intellect,
[which is] illumined by some superior intelligible light, just as sight is
illumined by the visible sun. But Augustine, who followed Plato as much
27 This work is contemporaneous with the prima pars of the Summa theologiae

(1266/1268). See J.-P. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, 173.
28 For the relation of sense experience and noetic certitude in Augustine, see his

explanation of why the soul has the capacity to remember at Retractationum libri
II, ed. Almut Mutzenbecher, CCSL 57 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1984), bk.
I, ch. 8.2, p. 22: “Fieri enim potest . . . quia natura intellegibilis est et conectitur
non solum intellegibilibus, uerum etiam immutabilibus rebus, eo ordine facta, ut
cum se ad eas res mouet quibus conexa est uel ad se ipsam, in quantum eas uidet,
in tantum de his uera respondeat.” See also his De Magistro, CCSL 29 (Turnhout,
Belgium: Brepols, 1984), bk. XIV, ch. 46; Robert Crouse, “Knowledge,” in Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald and John C. Cavadini (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 486–88; John Rist, Augustine:
Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 77–78.

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as the Catholic faith allowed him to, did not maintain that the species of
things subsist by themselves. Rather, in their place, he posited the ideas of
things in the divine mind, and that through them, by the [human] mind
illumined with divine light, we judge [the truth of] all things, not that we
see the ideas themselves, which would be impossible without seeing the
essence of God [in this life]. Rather, [we judge the truth of things] insofar as these supreme ideas are impressed in our minds.Thus, Plato posited
[the realization of] the knowledge of the separate species, not that the
species themselves are seen, but that insofar as our mind participates
them, it has knowledge of things. . . . But Aristotle proceeded by another
way. First, he shows in many ways that there is something stable in sensible beings. . . . Third, he shows that beyond the senses there is an intellectual power that judges about the truth, and not through some
intelligibles existing outside of it, but through the light of the agent intellect, which makes intelligibles. But he did not have much to say about
the intelligibles themselves participating God, or that the light making
intelligibles participates [in divine light].29

Thomas pursues a better understanding of Augustine’s intention regarding reliable or certain truth judgments. For this purpose, he explores the
29 Thomas Aquinas, Quaestio disputata de spiritualibus creaturis [henceforth SC], Leonine

edition, vol. 24.2, ed. J. Cos (Paris: Cerf, 2000), a. 10, ad 8, pp. 111–13: “Set tamen,
ut profundius intencionem Augustini scrutemur, et quomodo se habeat ueritas circa
hoc, sciendum est quod quidam antiqui philosophi, non ponentes aliam uim
cognoscitiuam preter sensum neque aliqua entia preter sensibilia, dixerunt quod
nulla certitudo de ueritate a nobis haberi potest. Et hoc propter duo: primo quidem
quia ponebant sensibilia semper esse in fluxu et nichil in rebus esse stabile; secundo,
quia inueniuntur circa idem aliqui diuersimode iudicantes . . . hee sunt due rationes
quas Augustinus tangit . . . Plato uero, discipulus eius, consentiens antiquis
philosophis quod sensibilia semper sint in fluxu . . . posuit quidem ex una parte
species rerum separatas a sensibilibus et immobiles . . . ex alia parte posuit in homine
uirtutem cognoscitiuam supra sensum scilicet mentem uel intellectum, illustratum
a quodam superiori sole intelligibili, sicut illustratur uisus a sole uisibili. Augustinus autem, Platonem secutus quantum fides catholica patiebatur, non posuit
species rerum per se subsistentes, sed loco earum posuit rationes rerum in mente
diuina, et quod per eas secundum intellectum illustratum a luce diuina de
omnibus iudicamus, non quidem sic quod ipsas rationes uideamus—hoc enim
esset impossibile nisi Dei essentiam uideremus -, set secundum quod ille
suppreme rationes imprimunt in mentes nostras: sic enim Plato posuit scientias de
speciebus separatis esse, non quod ipse uiderentur set, secundum quod eas mens
nostra participat, de rebus scientiam habet . . . Aristotiles autem per aliam uiam
perrexit: primo enim multipliciter ostendit in sensibilibus esse aliquid stabile . . .
tertio quod supra sensum est uirtus intellectiua, que iudicat de ueritate, non per
aliqua intelligibilia extra existentia, set per lumen intellectus agentis, quod facit
intelligibilia. Non multum autem refert dicere quod ipsa intelligibilia participentur a Deo uel quod lumen faciens intelligibilia.”

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historical background to the passage from the De diversis quaestionibus
octoginta tribus cited in the objection. With Plato, Augustine sought to
counter the ancient skeptics, who denied the possibility of truth. Plato
proposed a way out of the instability of the material cosmos via separate
forms or ideas and the mind’s illumination by a higher source of knowledge. Augustine modified Plato by placing the ideas into the divine mind.
At first, it is not clear that Thomas explains what Augustine understood by “the impression of ideas.” Aquinas immediately goes on to note
that for Plato, the “scientific” knowledge of species occurs insofar as the
mind participates in the ideas. He then turns to Aristotle, who offered
“another way.” Sensible beings are not so unstable after all. Thomas’s
unspoken premises are (1) that intrinsic forms are found in all material
substances and (2) that the agent intellect has the capacity to abstract
these forms. The mind’s power is such that it needs no extrinsic elevating
intellectual source on the natural plane, for the light of the individual
agent intellect (along with the intelligible forms of material beings)
suffices to enable certain knowledge about the world. In his conclusion,
Thomas admits that Aristotle has little to say on the mind participating
in divine light. But the corpus of the same article has already filled that
lacuna by invoking the now-standard explanation centered on primary
and secondary causality.
Thomas’s treatment of Augustine is striking in many ways. He identifies the Latin Father as a thorough-going Platonist: “he followed Plato as
much as the Catholic faith allowed him.” The early Aquinas refers to
Augustine’s Platonism once in the commentary on the Sentences and once
in the Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, but not in the context of noetic illumination.30 Perhaps Thomas does explain Augustine’s intention behind
the notion of ideas being impressed in the mind after all. Aquinas immediately refers to Plato, probably because he holds Augustine’s understanding of impressed ideas to be heavily Platonic. That is, the mind purified by
intellectual training and moral virtue can attain an obscure access to the
higher forms, the divine ideas that shine forth in the illumined memory.
Certain knowledge occurs through a direct participation in divine light,
even if noetic vision is not immediate but reserved to the saints in glory.
In fact, Thomas’s description of Plato is not far from the thought of the
30 I follow the editor’s notes on SC, a. 10, ad 8: Aquinas mentions Augustine’s

Platonism at In II Sent., d. 14, q. 1, a. 2c (in relation to the heavenly spheres) and
at Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, q. 21, a. 4, ad 3 (in relation to God’s goodness).
He discusses the Platonism of Augustine’s epistemology in the late works, such
as Summa theologiae [henceforth ST ] (Ottawa: Commissio Piana, 1953), I, q. 84,
a. 5c, to be analyzed below.

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historical Augustine. The passage closely connects key issues that were
central and intertwined for the historical Augustine: (1) the insufficiency
of the material world to arrive at intellectual certitude; (2) the immediate
interior presence of the divine ideas; and (3) exterior illumination.31 These
themes are also central to Bonaventure’s epistemology.32 Aquinas thus
simultaneously answers both Augustine and the most formidable thirteenth-century promoter of his epistemology.
Aquinas’s analysis in article 10 of the De spiritualibus creaturis alternates
between Plato and Augustine for the sake of making three points. First,
Thomas displays the historical contingency of Augustine’s epistemology,
who now speaks as a philosopher within one particular tradition, not as
a Church Father who bears a special theological authority which exceeds
that of most theologians (though it always falls well short of Scripture).
Second, as he situates Augustine in the context of the ancient skeptics,
Thomas explains to what extent he shares Augustine’s convictions. Material objects alone do not enable us to grasp certain truth unless they are
complemented by some type of intrinsic operational capacity or interior
light on the part of the knowing subject. Aquinas does not completely
oppose Augustine’s epistemology, which is why he insists on pursuing the
Latin Father’s “deeper intention.”33 In order to overcome radical skepticism, Augustine posited the mind’s direct contact with the divine intellect. For him, the divine ideas are the ultimate source of all knowledge.
Aquinas’s doctrine of God affirms the importance of the divine ideas, but
he differs with Augustine about the human mode of participation in
them.Yet for both thinkers some type of participation in the divine mind
is the ultimate answer to philosophical skepticism.34 Third, Aquinas
clearly distinguishes his position from that of Augustine. Thomas has an
Aristotelian epistemology crowned by a somewhat Proclan-Dionysian
doctrine of divine causality. Partly following Aristotle,Thomas also pursues
“another way.” In other words, he no longer presents a fully harmonious
synthesis of his own doctrine and Augustine’s. Thus, in the corpus and in
the answer to the first objection, where Thomas discusses the agent intellect as a participation in uncreated light, he does not identify his own
31 R. H. Nash, The Light of the Mind; idem, “Illumination, divine,” in Fitzgerald and

Cavadini, Augustine Through the Ages, 438–40; J. Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought
Baptized, 75–89.
32 É. Wéber, Dialogue et Dissensions, 80–85.
33 For intentio auctoris in Aquinas, see Mauricio Narváez, “Portée herméneutique de
la notion d’ ‘intentio’ chez Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Philosophique de Louvain 99
(2001): 201–19, esp. 206–9.
34 See Josef Pieper, The Silence of St. Thomas (New York: Pantheon Books, 1957),
47–67.

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teaching with Augustine’s intention. Aquinas thus distances himself from
his own commentary on the Sentences treatment of Augustinian illumination. He also simultaneously departs from Albert’s approach in the De
homine, where the latter identified Augustinian illumination with God’s
primary causality of the agent intellect’s intrinsic operating capacity.35
Aquinas also admits that there is a weakness in Aristotle’s psychology,
namely, the absence of a doctrine of participation. This conviction probably emerged from Thomas’s contemporaneous commentary on Aristotle’s
De anima and from his realization that the Stagirite was not the author of
the Liber de causis.36 The late Aquinas no longer follows Albert’s Proclan
reading of the Stagirite as found in the De homine. Rather, he arrives at the
realization that his own Aristotelianism is also a new philosophical
creation, a creative fusion of the Stagirite with important elements of nonAristotelian cosmology. Thomas’s new historical awareness was also probably stimulated by his mid-1960s commentary on the Areopagite’s Divine
35 In the 1920s, Martin Grabmann pointed out that Thomas attained a conscious-

ness of the distance between his own epistemology and Augustine’s. Grabmann
highlighted the importance of Thomas’s comments on Augustine’s Platonism in
SC 10 and in ST I, q. 84, a. 5 (to be discussed below). To my knowledge, no one
has followed up on his insight, nor has anyone shown the relation between
Thomas’s and Albert’s approaches to Augustine. See Grabmann’s Der göttlicher und
menschlicher Wahrheitserkenntnis nach Augustinus und Thomas von Aquin: Forschungen
über die augustinische Illuminationstheorie und ihre Beurteilung durch den hl. Thomas
von Aquin,Veröffentlichungen des katholischen Institutes für Philosophie, Albertus Magnus Akademie zu Köln, 1.4 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1924), 70–71. For
Themistius’s commentary on Aristotle’s De anima as another source for the
notion of the agent intellect as participated light, see Jean-Baptiste Brenet, introduction to Thomas Aquinas, Les créatures spirituelles, ed. Jean-Baptiste Brenet, Sic
et non (Paris: Vrin, 2010), 46.
36 Several of Thomas’s works from the 1250s refer to “the philosopher” (i.e., Aristotle) as the author of the Liber de causis, including Quaestiones de quodlibet IX, q.
3c; Super Boetium de Trinitate, pars 3, q. 6, a. 1, obj. 22. From the early 1260s on,
Aquinas stops making this identification (e.g., Summa contra Gentiles I, ch. 26). For
Aquinas’s discovery of the Proclan roots of the Liber de causis in 1272, see Vincent
A. Guagliardo, O.P., introduction to Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of
Causes, trans. Vincent A. Guagliardo, O.P., Charles R. Hess, O.P. and Richard C.
Taylor (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1990),
ix–xiii. Guagliardo notes that, in his Liber de causis et de processu universitatis
composed between 1265 and 1272, Albert identified a certain “David the Jew”
as the author of the Liber de causis, a medieval Spaniard who gathered and harmonized the teachings of Aristotle, Avicenna, Alfarabi, and Algazel. The German
Dominican seems to have worked independently of William of Moerbeke’s
translation of Proclus’s Elements of Theology and Aquinas’s Commentary on the Book
of Causes. Aquinas was probably unfamiliar with Albert’s Liber de causis et de
processu universitatis.

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Names. In the preface of that commentary, Aquinas identifies the close link
between Dionysius and Platonism.37 The cosmology of Dionysius, heavily laden with the metaphysics of participation, provides a crucial doctrinal background for the epistemology of Thomas.
However, despite Albert’s fusion of Aristotle and Proclus in the De
homine, the German Dominican’s subsequent Cologne lectures on Dionysius probably laid the doctrinal foundation for the late Thomas’s critical
stance toward the historical Augustine. On the banks of the Rhine, Albert
taught Thomas three key philosophical/theological principles (among
others): (1) the senses mediate all knowledge, especially, though not only,
natural knowledge (prophetic visions are one exception); (2) the soul’s
ontological union with the body is the best means to attain perfect knowledge; and (3) there are well-defined limits to human knowledge in this
life.38 All three principles clash with Augustine’s illumination. All three
principles are related to the intertwined themes of the fixed cosmic hierarchy and the necessity of symbolic-liturgical mediations of divine light
that dominate the works of Proclus and Dionysius.39 All three principles,
though interpreted somewhat differently, play a key doctrinal role in
Albert’s Dionysian commentaries, where the German Dominican quietly
moves away from the Augustinian anthropology of his own commentary
37 Thomas Aquinas, In librum Beati Dionysii De divinis nominibus expositio, ed. Ceslaus

Pera, O.P. (Rome and Turin: Marietti, 1950), Proemium: “. . . plerumque utitur
stilo et modo loquendi quo utebantur platonici. . . . Haec igitur Platonicorum
ratio fidei non consonat nec veritati, quantum ad hoc quod continet de speciebus
naturalibus separatis, sed quantum ad id quod dicebant de primo rerum Principio, verissima est eorum opinio et fidei christianae consona. Unde Dionysius
Deum nominat quandoque ipsum quidem bonum aut superbonum aut principale bonum aut bonitatem omnis boni.”
38 For the sensible mediation of natural and supernatural knowledge of God in
Aquinas, see ST I, q. 12, aa. 12–13; II–II, q. 180, a. 5, ad 2 (the last text invokes
Dionysius). For mediated (reflective) self-knowledge, see ST I, q. 87, a. 1. For the
soul-body union as being for the sake of the soul and human knowledge, see ST
I, q. 76, a. 5, which references Dionysius. The limits of human knowledge especially emerge in Thomas’s doctrine of divine knowledge and naming (ST I, qq.
12–13). See also É. Wéber, Dialogue et Dissensions, 148–65.
39 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol. 2: Studies
in Theological Style: Clerical Style (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1984), 154–61,
180; Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to
Denys (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 162–64; William Riordan, Divine Light:
The Theology of Denys the Areopagite (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 80–90,
100–105; Paul Rorem, Biblical and Liturgical Symbols within the Pseudo-Dionysian
Synthesis (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1984), 56; R. Schenk,
“From Providence to Grace,” 314–17.

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on the Sentences.40 In both his early and late periods, Aquinas takes up the
anthropological doctrines of the Cologne Albert. All three of Albert’s principles just mentioned can already be found in Thomas’s commentary on
the Sentences. However, the historical consciousness of the distance between a
more or less Dionysian-Aristotelian epistemology and an Augustinian path
emerges in the late Aquinas, who deliberately synthesizes Aristotle with a
non-Augustinian Platonic tradition. By 1272, Thomas’s identification of
Proclus as the true source of key doctrines in the Liber de causis would just
about complete the historical picture (even if he never realized the real
connection between the Areopagite and Proclus, though he recognized
their doctrinal proximity). Dionysian (and Proclan) participation becomes
one way to go beyond the metaphysical limits of the Stagirite, who has
“little to say” on participation. By the mid-1260s,Thomas reads both Aristotle’s and Augustine’s epistemologies with noticeably greater historical
nuance and accuracy than he did in his youth.
An irony emerges when we read Thomas’s epistemology against the
background of his German teacher. Albert often seems to have favored a
hermeneutic of harmonization, a hermeneutic also operative in the De
homine, as in the case of illumination. But in at least one text, the German
Dominican employs a very different interpretive approach to the Bishop of
Hippo, one that may have eventually inspired Aquinas’s work as a critical
historian of philosophy. In his 1250 commentary on the Areopagite’s Mystical Theology, lectured in the presence of the young Thomas, Albert directly
confronts the limits of Augustine’s epistemology. The context involves the
Dionysian language of knowing God by not-knowing or unknowing. An
objection states that the most noble form of noetic vision is the opposite
of not-knowing. Following Augustine, the objection notes that the object
of the intellect’s most noble vision is essentially present within the soul,
especially the “object” that is God himself. Albert responds:
The saying of Augustine is false (dictum Augustini habet calumniam). For in
order that something be known, it does not suffice that it be in the possible intellect, unless [intellect] is informed by its [the thing’s] form. . . .
Hence, the Philosopher says that the intellect understands itself as it
understands other things.41

Scholastic theologians do not usually reject a statement by the great Latin
Father as simply “false.” The strong language shows that the doctrine in
40 I argue for this evolution in the early Albert’s thought in my essay “How the

Early Albertus Magnus Transformed Augustinian Interiority.”
41 Albertus Magnus, Super Dionysii Mysticam theologiam, ch. 2, p. 467.4–11: “Scien-

dum tamen, quod dictum Augustini habet calumniam; non enim sufficit aliquid

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question is crucial for Albert. He makes explicit a doctrinal shift away
from Augustine that occurs quietly in many other parts of his Dionysian
commentaries. Albert firmly refuses Augustine’s notion of knowledge by
assimilation to an object’s properties (via the simple presence of the
noetic object) in favor of an epistemology centered on abstracted forms.
Such noetic assimilation goes hand-in-hand with Augustinian illumination. In other words, the text implicitly points to a major tension, if not
contradiction, between Augustinian epistemology (including illumination) and an Aristotelian epistemology of substantial form and abstraction. Albert’s Commentary on the Mystical Theology synthesizes the latter
noetics with Dionysian apophatism. At the very least, the German
Dominican alerted Thomas to the possibility that on some key epistemological issues, an Aristotelian-Dionysian vision may at times be radically opposed to that of the great Latin Church Father: dictum Augustini
habet calumniam! Thomas returned to his notes from Albert’s Dionysian
lectures in the mid-1260s, when he composed his own De divinis
nominibus, the very time period in which Thomas began to approach
Augustine’s illumination in a new way. Oddly, in the medieval Dominican reception of Augustine’s anthropology, Albert is almost certainly a
source of the early Aquinas’s hermeneutic of harmonization, yet perhaps
also an inspiration for the late Aquinas’s refusal of the same hermeneutic.
Aquinas’s Summa theologiae on Illumination
Thomas’s treatment of Augustinian illumination in the Summa theologiae
is essentially in harmony with the contemporaneous treatment in article
10 of the De spiritualibus creaturis. I will briefly highlight a few doctrinal
and historical elements that emerge in two passages in the prima pars of
the Summa theologiae: question 84, article 5 and question 88, article 3.
In the first text,Thomas asks whether we know all things by their eternal reasons, that is, the divine ideas. A major interlocutor here is probably
Bonaventure. The Franciscan had argued extensively that human beings
need some type of direct contact with the eternal forms in God’s mind
in order for them to attain any certain knowledge.42 Aquinas’s response
is very similar to his treatment of the matter in the De spiritualibus creaturis, article 10. Yet there are noteworthy differences as well.
esse in intellectu possibili ad hoc quod cognoscatur, nisi informetur forma eius
et sic fiat actu, sicut materia fit actu per formam agentis in ipsa et non per essentiam ipsius, etiam si in ea esset. Unde dicit Philosophus, quod intellectus intelligit se sicut et alia.”
42 É. Wéber, Dialogue et Dissensions, 62–74. Throughout this work, Wéber shows that
Aquinas engaged in an intense dialogue with Bonaventure and his anthropology.

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On the surface, question 84, article 5 of the prima pars seems to appropriate Augustine’s authority for Thomas’s own position, an apparent return
to the harmonizing hermeneutic of the commentary on the Sentences. For
example, the second half of the corpus offers an exposition of Thomas’s
doctrine interspersed with citations of Augustine. But a closer look suggests
that a different reading is closer to the author’s intention. In the beginning
of his response, Aquinas tells us that “whenever Augustine, who was imbued
with the doctrines of the Platonists, found in their teaching anything consistent with the faith, he adopted it: and those things which he found contrary
to the faith, he changed.”43 In other words, Augustine partially clung to
Platonic doctrines that clashed with Christian belief by transforming them
in such a way that the contradiction disappeared. This precision concerning
Augustine’s Platonism was missing in the De spiritualibus creaturis, article 10,
ad 8. These comments precede the rest of the corpus where Aquinas develops at some length his own understanding of how we know things by the
divine ideas. Since Thomas has completed dozens of articles on central epistemological questions in the preceding pages of the prima pars, his reader is
by now certainly aware that Aquinas’s approach is above all marked by Aristotle. In fact, Thomas has undertaken a kind of Aristotelian ressourcement, a
Stagirite read not so much through the Platonizing Gloss of the Arabic
commentators (a Gloss that Albert and numerous Parisian theologians
further developed), but a Stagirite much more rooted in the primary
sources.44 Consequently, the introduction to question 84, article 5 of the
prima pars probably signals that Aquinas may not always be in agreement
with Augustine, who was “imbued with the doctrines of the Platonists.”
Thomas seems to give the reader a hermeneutical key for his subsequent
citations of the Latin Father in the same article.
As in the De spiritualibus creaturis, Aquinas notes that Augustine modified Plato as he placed the separate forms or ideas into the divine mind.
According to the Bishop of Hippo, “the soul knows everything in these
eternal reasons.” Thomas then stops citing or discussing the Latin Father
until the end of the corpus. He introduces a twofold distinction for the
phrase “knowing in” (eternal reasons):
43 ST I, q. 84, a. 5c: “Et ideo Augustinus, qui doctrinis Platonicorum imbutus fuerat,

si qua invenit fidei accommoda in eorum dictis, assumpsit; quae vero invenit fidei
nostrae adversa, in melius commutavit.”
44 É. Gilson, Pourquoi saint Thomas a critiqué saint Augustin, 35–90, 113–27. For
Thomas’s Aristotelian ressourcement, see René-Antoine Gauthier, O.P., introduction to Anonymi Magistri Artium (c. 1245–50), Lectura in librum de anima a
quodam discipulo reportata, Spicilegium Bonaventurianum 24 (Grottaferrata:
Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae, 1985), 22.

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In one way, [something is known in another] as in an object [that is]
known; just as one may see in a mirror the images of things reflected
therein. In this way, the soul in the present state of life cannot see all
things in the eternal reasons; but the blessed who see God and all things
in him thus know all things in the eternal reasons. In another way, one
thing is said to be known in another just as in a principle of knowledge: thus we might say that we see in the sun the things which are
seen through the sun. And thus one has to say that the human soul
knows all things in the eternal reasons, by participation of which we
know all things. For the intellectual light itself which is in us is nothing other than a participated similitude of the uncreated light, in which
are contained the eternal reasons. Hence, in Psalm 4, it is said . . . “Lord,
the light of your face is signed upon us.”45

The second way of “knowing in” refers to God’s primary creative causality of the agent intellect’s intrinsic operational capacity. Thomas clearly
implies the doctrine already proposed in his commentary on the Sentences,
the one rooted in Albert’s reductionist reading of Augustinian illumination
in the De homine. The connection between this teaching and the divine
ideas is hardly evident. Indeed, Aquinas already begins to distance himself
from the historical Augustine’s epistemology.Thomas seems to realize this,
for he does not invoke the Latin Father’s authority for his twofold distinction, even though the second part of the distinction perfectly matches the
commentary on the Sentences doctrine that the young Thomas attributed
to Augustine’s intention. Instead, he quotes Psalm 4, a favorite biblical
verse on illumination.
Thomas presumes that he has adequately accounted for the role of the
eternal reasons in human knowledge. He thus proceeds to show that
participation in divine light as the principle of our cognitive operational
capacities does not suffice for knowledge, for we also need intelligible
45 ST I, q. 84, a. 5c: “Cum ergo quaeritur utrum anima humana in rationibus aeter-

nis omnia cognoscat, dicendum est quod aliquid in aliquo dicitur cognosci
dupliciter. Uno modo, sicut in obiecto cognito; sicut aliquis videt in speculo ea
quorum imagines in speculo resultant. Et hoc modo anima in statu praesentis
vitae non potest videre omnia in rationibus aeternis; sed sic in rationibus aeternis cognoscunt omnia beati, qui Deum vident et omnia in ipso. Alio modo dicitur aliquid cognosci in aliquo sicut in cognitionis principio; sicut si dicamus
quod in sole videntur ea quae videntur per solem. Et sic necesse est dicere quod
anima humana omnia cognoscat in rationibus aeternis, per quarum participationem omnia cognoscimus. Ipsum enim lumen intellectuale quod est in nobis,
nihil est aliud quam quaedam participata similitudo luminis increati, in quo
continentur rationes aeternae. Unde in Psalmo IV dicitur, ‘Multi dicunt: Quis
ostendit nobis bona?’ cui quaestioni Psalmista respondet dicens: ‘Signatum est
super nos lumen vultus tui, Domine.’ ”

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species. He attributes an epistemology by participation alone to “the
Platonists.” Thomas corrects their philosophy with a citation of Augustine’s De Trinitate: the Platonists contradict their own position when they
explain the different kinds and origins of animals in reference to sense
experience. In other words, Augustine agrees that sense experience is
indispensible to know the material world. Thomas immediately proceeds
to answer an objection within the corpus. The implied objection runs as
follows: did Augustine not posit a quasi-direct grasp of the eternal reasons
as essential for reliable knowledge? Thomas responds with a citation of
Augustine’s De diversis quaestionibus octoginta tribus. The Bishop of Hippo
did not intend to teach that we see the eternal reasons themselves, for
such a blessing is reserved to the saints in glory. Aquinas offered the same
explanation in the De spiritualibus creaturis, article 10, ad 8.46
We can read these closing passages of question 84, article 5 in at least
two ways: either as (1) a return to a hermeneutic of harmonization,
perhaps a typical scholastic approach to intentio auctoris that primarily
pursues the truth of the matter rather than the historical intent of the
author cited; or as (2) a carefully nuanced use of citations that remains
silent on lingering points of disagreement. The second interpretation
seems the more likely, though the article may be sufficiently ambiguous
to preclude certainty about this conclusion. According to the second
approach, Aquinas maintains that, for the Bishop of Hippo, some type of
sense experience is essential, even though Aquinas seems to realize that
he places greater weight on the value of sense experience than does
Augustine. Second, Augustine agrees that our grasp of the divine ideas is
not the same as in the beatific vision.Thomas says nothing about the type
of vision of the eternal reasons that Augustine considered possible in this
life. Aquinas’s discussion of participating God’s light earlier in the corpus
46 ST I, q. 84, a. 5c: “Quia tamen praeter lumen intellectuale in nobis exiguntur

species intelligibiles a rebus acceptae ad scientiam de rebus materialibus habendam; ideo non per solam participationem rationum aeternarum de rebus materialibus notitiam habemus, sicut Platonici posuerunt quod sola idearum
participatio sufficit ad scientiam habendam. Unde Augustinus dicit, in IV De
Trin.: ‘Numquid quia philosophi documentis certissimis persuadent aeternis
rationibus omnia temporalia fieri, propterea potuerunt in ipsis rationibus
perspicere, vel ex ipsis colligere quot sunt animalium genera, quae semina singulorum . . . ? Nonne ista omnia per locorum ac temporum historiam quaesierunt?’
Quod autem Augustinus non sic intellexerit omnia cognosci in rationibus aeternis, vel in incommutabili veritate, quasi ipsae rationes aeternae videantur, patet
per hoc quod ipse dicit in libro Octog. trium Quaest. quod ‘rationalis anima non
omnis et quaecumquae, sed quae sancta et pura fuerit, asseritur illi visioni’, scilicet rationum aeternarum, ‘esse idonea’; sicut sunt animae bonorum.”

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never mentions the Latin Father. In fact, Thomas never explains Augustine’s positive teaching behind the notion of knowing truth in the eternal reasons. All he mentions are the positions which the Bishop of Hippo
excludes, that is, precisely where Thomas does agree with the historical
Augustine. Both thinkers reject (1) the irrelevance of sense experience,
and (2) the direct, unmediated vision of the divine ideas here below.
Beyond that, we encounter silence on Augustine’s teaching. Article 10, ad
8 of the De spiritualibus creaturis and the opening comments of the present Summa theologiae article concerning Augustine’s Platonism both
strongly suggest that this silence is calculated. The former text contrasts
Plato’s and Augustine’s epistemologies to Aristotle’s “other way.” The first
of the two interpretations mentioned above would imply a harmonization of Thomas’s explicit reference to intelligible species and Augustine’s
affirmation of the need for sense experience, which would seem to clash
with article 10 of the De spiritualibus creaturis. Thomas’s intention behind
our present Summa theologiae text seems to gain greater clarity when read
in tandem with the parallel passage in the De spiritualibus creaturis.
A second text in the prima pars partly confirms my interpretation of
Aquinas’s approach to Augustinian noetics in the Summa theologiae. In
question 88, article 3, Aquinas asks whether we know God or creatures
first. The objections argue that God is the intellect’s first object. According to the first objection, Augustine’s teaching that we judge the truth of
all things in light of the first truth seems to entail the consequence that
God is first known. The third objection invokes Augustine’s imago Dei,
but seems less important for our purposes.The corpus offers a DionysianAristotelian response that partly echoes Albert’s commentaries on the
Areopagite: God is known through creatures, and material beings are the
intellect’s proper object. In other words, we are made to know God indirectly, through the sensible world. God has created us to know in an
embodied way, and thus to ascend to him through his effects.47 The
response to the first objection focuses on God as the first cause of knowledge, so that our capacity to make truth judgments is the result of an
“impression of the first truth,” referring back to question 84, article 5.
Aquinas makes no explicit claims concerning Augustine’s intention
47 ST I, q. 88, a. 3c: “Respondeo dicendum quod cum intellectus humanus secun-

dum statum praesentis vitae non possit intelligere substantias immateriales creatas,
ut dictum est, multo minus potest intelligere essentiam substantiae increatae. Unde
simpliciter dicendum est quod Deus non est primum quod a nobis cognoscitur;
sed magis per creaturas in Dei cognitionem pervenimus, secundum illud Apostoli
Ad Rom. I: ‘Invisibilia Dei per ea quae facta sunt, intellecta, conspiciuntur.’
Primum autem quod intelligitur a nobis secundum statum praesentis vitae, est

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behind the latter’s discussion of illumination. Instead, Thomas simply
offers an explanation of his own teaching: we thus come back to primary
and secondary causality.48
One would claim too much in saying that the prima pars unequivocally
manifests an Aquinas who approached the whole of Augustine’s epistemology with a more or less clear awareness of its distance from Aristotle’s
anthropology. Some prima pars passages still seem to tend toward a harmonizing hermeneutic, or perhaps take up a standard medieval pursuit of the
intentio auctoris, the truth sought both by the authority and by the
medieval commentator, an approach which need not exclude a nuanced
and critical reading of the authority being studied.49 Yet in at least two
texts, the late Thomas manifests an evident consciousness that at least
some key elements of Augustine’s noetics are heavily Platonic, and thus
in tension with Aristotle and Aquinas’s personal position.
Conclusion
The early Albert’s anthropology is rich and complicated, evolving significantly from one work to the other. Consequently, Albert’s disciples could
develop radically different doctrinal lines. Thomas appropriated key
insights on grace/nature and illumination from the De homine, as well as
much of Albert’s anthropology articulated in his Dionysian commentaries.
Other disciples such Dietrich von Freiberg appear to downplay Albert’s
Dionysianism. Dietrich and others seem to favor a much more Augustinquidditas rei materialis, quae est nostri intellectus obiectum, ut multoties supra
dictum est.”
48 ST I, q. 88, a. 3, ad 1: “Ad primum ergo dicendum quod in luce primae veritatis
omnia intelligimus et iudicamus, inquantum ipsum lumen intellectus nostri, sive
naturale sive gratuitum, nihil aliud est quam quaedam impressio veritatis primae,
ut supra dictum est [I, q. 12, a. 11, ad 3; q. 84, a. 5]. Unde cum ipsum lumen intellectus nostri non se habeat ad intellectum nostrum sicut quod intelligitur, sed
sicut quo intelligitur; multo minus Deus est id quod primo a nostro intellectu
intelligitur.”
49 E.g. ST I, q. 87, a. 1c: “Non ergo per essentiam suam, sed per actum suum se
cognoscit intellectus noster. Et hoc dupliciter. Uno quidem modo, particulariter,
secundum quod Socrates vel Plato percipit se habere animam intellectivam, ex
hoc quod percipit se intelligere. Alio modo, in universali, secundum quod naturam humanae mentis ex actu intellectus consideramus. Sed verum est quod iudicium et efficacia huius cognitionis per quam naturam animae cognoscimus,
competit nobis secundum derivationem luminis intellectus nostri a veritate
divina, in qua rationes omnium rerum continentur, sicut supra dictum est. Unde
Augustinus dicit in IX De Trin.: ‘Intuemur inviolabilem veritatem, ex qua
perfecte, quantum possumus, definimus non qualis sit uniuscuiusque hominis
mens, sed qualis esse sempiternis rationibus debeat.’ ”

Aquinas and Augustinian Illumination

713

ian and Arabic philosophical anthropology. They also integrate original
developments in the late Albert’s understanding of the agent intellect.50
The criteria for membership in the “Albert school” need to be highly
nuanced for at least two reasons. First, Albert’s thought is quite fluid from
one work to the next. Second, he looks to integrate multiple philosophical
and theological traditions whenever possible, which helps to create unresolved doctrinal tensions within Albert’s works. Since Aquinas continued
and refined Albert’s transformation of Augustinian illumination, it would
seem to make little sense to set up a stark contrast between their anthropologies. Such an opposition also cannot account for the fact that Albert and
Thomas shared other important doctrines, from the Aristotelian-Dionysian
mediation of knowledge to the grace/nature distinction.51
N&V

50 See Kurt Flasch, Dietrich von Freiberg: Philosophie,Theologie Naturforschung um 1300

(Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007), 215–37, 408.
51 In her study Divine Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of

Knowledge (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), Lydia Schumacher argues that
Aquinas was the greatest thirteenth-century champion of Augustine’s epistemology (179). She holds that Thomas faithfully translated that epistemology into the
language and concepts of the High Middle Ages. I find her reading of Augustine
and Aquinas problematic for several reasons. First, she offers a revisionist interpretation of illumination in Augustine that presumes little evolution in his
thought. This presupposition largely rests on one recent study (by Carol Harrison) (25–29). Schumacher takes a minority position in Augustinian studies, yet
she never directly confronts the scholarly literature that promotes the standard
reading of Augustine’s noetics. Second, she ignores the influence of Proclan and
Dionysian light metaphysics and primary/secondary causality on Thomas’s
anthropology. Third, her understanding of the grace/nature distinction in
Aquinas is largely shaped by her polemics against Neo-Thomism, so that
Thomas’s own grace/nature distinction and its tight relation with the theory of
illumination hardly emerges in her work (156–57, 163–65, 176–79). Fourth, she
says nothing on Aquinas’s comments concerning Augustine’s Platonism. Fifth, she
spends little time on the details of Aquinas’s key texts that discuss the mind’s illumination. She never even mentions the passages from the commentary on the
Sentences and the De spiritualibus creaturis. Sixth, she denies Aquinas’s reductive
reading of Augustine on memory. As previously noted, memory is the site of illumination for the Latin Father. Schumacher cites Gilles Emery’s important monograph, The Trinitarian Theology of Thomas Aquinas, trans. Francesca Aran Murphy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), to argue that Thomas’s doctrine of God
is consistent with Augustine’s (154). But she cannot explain why Emery says next
to nothing about memory in his exposition of Thomas’s theology of God the
Father and of the imago Dei. Elsewhere, I have pointed to the Albertian roots of
Thomas’s reductive approach to Augustinian memory (“How the Early Albertus
Magnus Transformed Augustinian Interiority,” 355–62).

Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2012): 715–30

715

The Diagonal and the Cross:
Faith as a Source of Wonder*
S TEPHEN L. B ROCK
Pontifical University of the Holy Cross
Rome, Italy

T HE IDEA for this essay owes its origin to a recent book by the Italian philosopher Enrico Berti. The volume, a fine introduction to ancient
philosophy, is entitled In principio era la meraviglia —“In the Beginning was
Wonder.”1 As Berti explains in the prologue, he is deliberately echoing
the first words of St. John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the Logos.”
Berti wants to contrast the starting-point of philosophy with that of the
Christian religion.
Christianity starts from the absolute beginning, the first principle of
reality—from God, whose Word created all things and became flesh in
order to reveal His saving truth to men.This of course is not where philosophy starts. It starts from the things themselves, the familiar, visible ones;
and more precisely, from the effect that these things have on the mind of
one who beholds them in a certain way. This effect is wonder. In the
Theaetetus, Plato has Socrates say that “it pertains to the philosopher . . . to
be full of wonder, and there is no other beginning of philosophy than
this.”2 And Aristotle, in the Metaphysics, tells us that “it is owing to their
wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.”3
* This is the English version, with modifications, of the 2009 Thomas Aquinas
Lecture at the School of Theology of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross,
Rome, published as “La diagonale e la Croce: la meraviglia all’interno della fede,”
Annales Theologici, vol. 23, fasc. II (2009): 389–402.
1 Enrico Berti, In principio era la meraviglia. Le grandi questioni della filosofia antica
(Rome: Laterza, 2007).
2 Plato, Theaetetus, 155d.
3 Aristotle, Metaphysics I 2, 982b12–13.

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Stephen L. Brock

Wonder is not the beginning of things. It only provokes the search for
the beginnings of things, their principles or causes. Moreover, at least
according to Aristotle, the first searches generated by wonder did not
concern the most fundamental causes. They had a more restricted and
particular scope. Later we shall see some examples. But only little by little
did there emerge truly philosophical wonder, the wonder that motivates
the search for wisdom. This concerns the very first causes, the principles
of all things—of being in its entirety, as being. And only toward the end
of the search does it become clear that the highest principle is something
divine. Thus, in a way, philosophy ends just where faith begins.
Berti is not Heidegger. He is not saying that this difference between
the origin of faith and the origin of philosophy makes them incompatible. A believer may very well philosophize.4 But the religious and the
philosophical motivations remain distinct. Religion is born of the desire
for salvation, especially salvation from death. Revelation shows the way
toward it. The wonder that is at the origin of philosophy, on the other
hand, is a pure desire to know. The philosopher, as such, finds the knowledge of the principles, especially the very first principles, to be desirable
in itself, for its own sake, not merely as a guide to salvation.
Now I have no real quarrel with any of this. It seems right to say that
the chief desire that religion aims to satisfy—both religion in general, and
the Christian religion in particular—is not the wonder that Berti is talking about. It is the desire for salvation. But what I wish to suggest here,
with the help of St. Thomas, is that nevertheless within religion—at least
the Christian religion—there is still a role, and a significant one, for such
wonder. In particular, I would like to propose that faith itself gives rise to
a wonder of this sort; in other words, that there is a wonder that only the
believer can experience. Even though it is based on faith, it is the same
type of mental attitude as philosophical wonder. To explain this, I shall
draw an analogy with an example of wonder furnished by Aristotle. As I
see it, this analogy is a further aspect of the comparison between theological faith and human belief, as sources of the search for truth, that John
Paul II explores in the encyclical Fides et Ratio.5
Wonder in General
First I need to identify the specific type of wonder that I am talking
about. As Berti observes, wonder is really a rather broad notion.6 To
wonder would be the translation of what Aristotle calls thaumazein. In
4 Berti, In principio era la meraviglia, vi.
5 See John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, especially nos. 32–33.
6 Berti, In principio era la meraviglia, viii.

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Aquinas the word is admirari; the substantive, admiratio. Mostly following
Aristotle, Thomas offers some fairly detailed accounts of the nature of
wonder and of its various kinds.7 I shall sum up what I think are his most
salient points.
Speaking generally, admiratio is a certain desire to know. Not everything that people want to know, however, is an object of admiratio. What
admiratio bears upon is the admirabile, the wonderful. The wonderful, as
such, is something that is desirable to know just for its own sake, not
merely for some further utility. For this reason, it is also pleasant to know.
And wonder itself, in all its forms, is also accompanied by a certain pleasure. Still, not even all the things that are pleasant to know are wonderful.
Sometimes we enjoy seeing or hearing about the most obvious and
familiar things, things that arouse no wonder at all.8 The wonderful is
something that somehow exceeds or surpasses the knower, something
that he does not entirely master, at least not without effort. For this
reason, in addition to pleasure, admiratio often involves an element of fear,
or at any rate some sort of insecurity, arising from one’s being faced with
something that is not obvious or banal or easily handled.9
The examples of wonder that Thomas offers cover a rather large variety
of emotions.10 What prompts admiratio may simply be something great or
high, something sublime, that we grasp only poorly or that far exceeds our
capacity. This sort of thing fascinates us. Similar to this is the sort of admiratio that results from having been freed from a great danger. We enjoy recalling, reliving, and hearing about such events. Then there is the admiratio
generated by what is new or unusual. Thomas observes that infants are full
of this sort of admiratio, because for them everything is new and unusual.11 Yet
another sort of admiratio regards representations. Even the representations of
things that in themselves are ugly or repugnant can attract our gaze, for the
pleasure of grasping the relation between the representation and what it
represents. Thomas explains that this is pleasant because the act of relating
one thing to another is proper and connatural to the power of reason. Of
7 The chief texts that I shall draw upon are Summa theologiae (ST ) I–II, q. 32, a. 8;

ST I–II, q. 41, a. 4; S.Thomae Aquinatis, In XII libros Metaphysicorum expositio (=In
Meta.), ed. M.-R. Cathala and R.-M. Spiazzi (Turin: Marietti, 1950), Lib. I, lect.
3, §§54–56, §§66–67. (Translations of Thomas in this essay are mine.) In Aristotle, in addition to the passages from the Metaphysics that I shall cite, see Rhetoric I 11, 1371a31–b11.
8 See ST I–II, q. 32, a. 8, ad 3.
9 See ST I, q. 41, a. 4; ST II–II, q. 180, a. 3, ad 3.
10 See ST I–II, q. 32, a. 8.
11 See S. Thomae Aquinatis, In Aristotelis librum De memoria et reminiscentia commentarium, ed. R.-M. Spiazzi (Turin: Marietti, 1949), Lib. un., lect. 3, §332.

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each of the types of admiratio mentioned so far, I think it would be easy
to find examples in the Christian life. Certainly the faith leads us to
consider and to admire highly sublime truths, divine truths, which
immeasurably transcend our understanding and our capacity. The Scriptures also tell the story of our liberation from the greatest of dangers. The
Gospel is certainly a novelty, unprecedented and unforeseen—the Good
News of the Kingdom of God, which one must accept as a child. And
the believer is pleased to discern the meaning of the many symbols and
representations of the things of the faith, even those whose immediate
objects have nothing attractive about them, such as the crucifix—though
of course what it represents has a further significance of its own, a highly
attractive one.
The Specificity of Philosophical Wonder
However, none of the aforementioned types of admiratio is the wonder
that Berti is talking about. The difference is very simple. In each of the
above cases, the object of admiratio is something already known. Its characteristics make it somehow fascinating. Knowing it makes one want to
continue looking at it, so as to lose oneself in its grandeur, or to rest in
the sense of security that it offers, or to be refreshed by its novel flavor,
or to appreciate its meaningfulness, as the case may be.12 But the object
of the wonder that Berti is talking about is something not yet known. It
is a matter for inquiry. The expression of this wonder is not an exclamation: how lovely! or what luck! or how extraordinary! It is rather a question:
how in the world . . . ? or why? or simply what is that? Of course there is
something known that gives rise to the question. But what one desires to
know, what one wonders about, is the thing’s cause, its explanation,
which is hidden. The knowledge that chiefly stimulates this wonder is in
fact the knowledge of one’s own ignorance.13 A high-ranking government official once quipped that there are things we know, things we
know that we do not know, and things we do not know that we do not
know. Philosophical wonder falls in the second category. The wonderer
desires to know something that he knows he does not know.
Thomas regards this sort of wonder as a very common feature of
human life. It is perhaps the most typical expression of that natural desire
12 On the sort of wonder that consists in a desire to continue looking, see Summa

contra Gentiles, ed. P. Marc, C. Pera, P. Caramello (Turin: Marietti, 1961–67), III,
c. 62, par. 9 (§2372).
13 According to Aristotle, the fact that what is desired is to overcome one’s ignorance shows that the knowledge sought is desired for its own sake and not merely
for some practical use: Metaphysics I 2, 982b19–22.

Faith as a Source of Wonder

719

that Aristotle speaks of in the first lines of the Metaphysics, the desire to
know. Of course not every desire to know is a desire for an explanation.
It may be only curiosity about some new fact. But our mind really comes
to rest only in the explanations of the facts, the knowledge of their
causes. When faced with a fact that we cannot explain, we are thrown off
balance. Our world is somehow destabilized.
We have all seen this sort of unrest—not very philosophical, perhaps, but
altogether spontaneous, natural—in children. Not long ago I was in an
airport lobby, seated near a lady and her young son. The boy was seven or
eight years old. He was a gush of questions. “Mom, why do we have to wait
so long? Mom, why is that man doing that? Mom, why is there so much
noise?” Mom answered with wonderful patience. But finally there came a
really impossible question (I forget what it was), and she replied, still very
patiently, “You must understand, Johnny, I don’t know all the answers.” To
which Johnny retorted, “Mom, why don’t you know all the answers?”
Here are some examples of wonder offered by Aristotle:
[A]ll begin, as we have said, by wondering that things should be as they
are, e.g. with regard to marionettes, or the solstices, or the incommensurability of the diagonal of a square; because it seems wonderful, to
everyone who has not yet perceived the cause, that a thing should not
be measurable by the smallest unit.14

The range of the examples is noteworthy. Wonder can regard artifacts,
such as marionettes; or natural phenomena, such as the solstices; or even
mathematical functions, such as the relation between the diagonal and
the side of a square. As we would say, this relation is an irrational number,
the square root of 2. It cannot be formulated in terms of natural numbers.
Thomas explains that this seems strange, because the two lines—the diagonal and the side—are continuous, and so infinitely divisible; how can it
be that there is simply no length, not even an extremely small one, that
can function as a unit to measure both of them exactly?15
Aristotle goes on to observe that when the knowledge that this sort of
wonder seeks is reached, the wonder is quenched. Indeed such wonder
seeks its own quenching. “But we must end in the contrary and . . . the
better state, as men do even in these cases when they understand them;
for a geometrician would wonder at nothing so much as if the diagonal
were to become measurable.”16 Berti puts the point more strongly.
14 Aristotle, Metaphysics I 2, 983a14–18 (trans. Tredennick).
15 In Meta., Lib. I, lect. 3, §§66–67.
16 Aristotle, Metaphysics I 2, 983a19–21.

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The Greeks had no taste for inquiry for its own sake; they sought in
order to find. Today people sometimes prefer to conceive of philosophy
as a pure or endless search. To search seems to be a rather noble, critical, refined attitude, arousing esteem and respect, whereas to find seems
banal, coarse and dogmatic. The truth is that a search is sincere, or
authentic, only if one seeks in order to find. He who seeks only for the
pleasure of seeking does not truly seek, but feigns seeking.17

This however does not mean that there is no such thing as the “pleasure of seeking.” That is, although this wonder cannot be solely for its
own sake, it still does bring pleasure with it. Thomas assigns it a twofold
pleasure.18 The first is in having apprehended the thing that arouses the
wonder, such as the incommensurability of the diagonal. The second,
which is the pleasure most proper to wonder, pertains to the hope of the
discovery of the cause of the thing.19 This hope, he says, is what distinguishes wonder from mere stupor; that is, from feeling stupid, unable to
know—which is hardly pleasant.20 But of course, when the desired
knowledge is reached, the hope of reaching it ceases. Hope regards what
is not yet had.
If this wonder is quenched when the desired knowledge is reached, is
the pleasure quenched too? The pleasure of the hope is quenched. But
there remains, or rather begins, the pleasure of possessing the knowledge—the pleasure that is the contrary of the pain of knowing oneself to
be ignorant.This however is no longer the pleasure of wonder, at least the
sort of wonder that prompted the search. The object wondered about
does not surpass the subject as it did previously. It is no longer hidden
from him. Thus, when one discovers the conjuror’s ruse, the fascination
ceases. At best there is the pleasure of being in on the secret.
If the object, once known, remains “wonderful,” it is with a different
sort of wonder. Aristotle certainly holds that the objects of theoretical
inquiry, such as those of mathematics or metaphysics, are wonderful,
fascinating, for anyone who succeeds in knowing them. In mathematics,
the wonder perhaps lies in the object’s definiteness and necessity. It is not
subject to the instability and confusion that characterize the things that
17 Berti, In principio era la meraviglia, x (my translation).
18 ST I–II, q. 32, a. 8, ad 1. Here, instead of talem esse quem non aestimabat, I propose

reading talem esse qualem non aestimabat.
19 Also interesting are ST I–II, q. 32, a. 8, ad 2 & ad 3: in some cases the search can

even be more pleasant than the knowledge attained, because the perception of
one’s ignorance stimulates a greater desire, and this renders the activity more
intense and therefore more pleasant.
20 See ST I–II, q. 41, a. 4.

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usually occupy us.There is pleasure in seeing that even if the whole world
should crumble, the diagonal will always remain incommensurable.
One other point in Aristotle’s discussion of wonder deserves mention.
He observes that those who first went beyond the common perceptions
of men, for example in discovering some art, were considered wise and
superior, and they too became objects of wonder to the others.21 What
sort of wonder is this? Aristotle does not say, but I do not think it is
merely the sort that provokes an exclamation. I would connect it with
what he says a few lines previously: one of the features that distinguish
the arts and sciences from mere sensation or experience is the fact that
he who possesses an art or a science can also teach it, explain it to
others.22 To say that the wise man is an object of wonder, then, may mean
that, just like the objects of his knowledge, he himself—qua knowing
them—is desirable to know. One wants to share in his wisdom, to learn
from him. In other words, the professor, qua professor, is something
wonderful (though perhaps only so long as he knows something that you
do not).23
Christianity and the Desire to Know
The mention of teaching serves as a bridge to the topic of faith. At least
in Thomas’s thought, the fact that faith or belief is something essential to
the Christian religion is closely tied to the fact that, in Christianity, one
relates to God as to a teacher. In revealing His Word, God is teaching us,
instructing us in the way to salvation. As Thomas says in the proemium to
the Tertia pars of the Summa theologiae, “our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ,
in order to ‘save His people from their sins,’ as the angel announced,
showed unto us in his own person the way of truth, whereby we may
attain to the bliss of eternal life by rising again.”
This bliss is of course something supernatural. There is no natural
“method” for reaching it. Still, Thomas judges the way in which God has
chosen to convey His teaching to be quite in keeping with our rational
nature. It is a discursive way.24 We do not learn the teaching all at once,
but gradually, step by step. And it is right here, in the rational and human
mode of this teaching, that Thomas locates the precise need for faith, for
believing certain supernatural truths, in order to reach salvation. He cites
21 Aristotle, Metaphysics I 1, 981b15.
22 Aristotle, Metaphysics I 1, 981b7–9.
23 According to Thomas, part of the task of the teacher is to provoke wonder in the

students. On this see the fine study by Marie I. George, “Mind Forming and
manuductio in Aquinas,” The Thomist 57 (1993): 201–13.
24 ST II–II, q. 2, a. 3.

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Aristotle: “he who is learning must believe.”25 It often happens in teaching that the teacher must say certain things that the students are not at
that moment capable of grasping fully. They will do so only later on,
toward the end of the course. But if they do not believe these things, if
they do not put faith in the teacher, they will not follow his teaching, and
they will never succeed in grasping them fully.
What I wish to underscore is the fact that, although the truths revealed
by God are supernatural, the need to believe them answers to a certain
natural modality, in the sense of a rational one, pertaining to revelation.
For Thomas revelation also possesses other “natural” dimensions. Some of
them are quite pertinent to the theme of wonder—the same sort of
wonder that philosophy involves, the wonder that consists in the desire
to know.
First of all, we should remember that in Thomas’s view, the knowledge
that God wants to teach us is not merely useful or practical knowledge.
It does not regard only the movement toward salvation or toward the bliss
of eternal life. Revelation also informs us that what beatitude consists in
is a kind of knowledge. “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the
one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” ( John 17:3). This
knowledge is not practical; it is theoretical, contemplative, for its own
sake. It is maximally delightful. Moreover, as is well known, for Thomas
not only happiness or bliss in general, but also that in which it most truly
consists—the vision of the divine essence—is in some way the object of
a natural desire of the mind (although it is attainable only with the help
of supernatural grace).26 The supernatural vision of God is the object of
a natural wonder.
There has been a great deal of discussion of the natural desire for the
vision of God and of its relation to grace in Thomas’s thought. Here I only
wish to stress the fact that for him this desire has the character of wonder.
There comes to mind what we are told of another boy, the young Thomas
himself.27 According to the account, he too was full of wonder. But there
was just one question that he would incessantly put to his tutor: quid est
Deus—what is God? Poor tutor. Later Thomas would realize that he had
not been asking the right person. But he would also insist that the ques25 ST II–II, q. 2, a. 3. The original runs: δεῖ γὰρ πιστεύειν τὸν μανθάνοντα: Aristotle,

Sophistical Refutations, ch. 2, 165b3.
26 See, inter alia, ST I, q. 12, a. 1; ST I–II, q. 3, a. 8; S. Thomae Aquinatis, Super evan-

gelium S. Matthaei lectura, ed. P. Raphaelis Cai, O.P. (Turin: Marietti, 1951),V.ii, §434.
27 See Petrus Calo, Vita S. Thomae Aquinatis, §3, in Fontes vitae S. Thomae Aquinatis

notis historicis et criticis illustrati, ed. D. M. Prümmer and M.-H. Laurent (Toulouse:
Saint Maximin, 1911–37 [originally six issues of the Revue Thomiste]), vol. 1, 19.

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tion is by no means out of bounds, a matter too high for such a poor creature as man. To say that the human mind is unable to know the divine
essence, he maintains, is contrary not only to the faith but also to reason
itself. This is because “in man there is a natural desire to know the cause,
once the effect is grasped; from this arises wonder in men. So if the intellect of the rational creature cannot attain the first cause of things, the natural desire will turn out to be in vain.”28 Human nature, a work of divine
wisdom, would be badly made, incoherent with itself.
Still, one might wonder whether the question about the divine essence
is really one that strictly natural reason is apt to pose. After all, the young
Thomas had already received the grace of faith. However, it is important
not to misunderstand the claim that the question is natural. This does not
mean that all men will actually pose it. What Thomas says is that, once
the effect is grasped, one naturally wants to know the cause. Once we
understand that there are things that could not exist if there were no
God—no supreme being, source of the rest and different from the rest—
then there stirs the desire to know what this God is. But at the same time,
this wonder will in a way be the most natural, because it concerns that
which is most truly a cause, the very first cause, cause of all other causes.
And I would suggest that we do find an example of this wonder in the
writings of a mere pagan—in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. It is not at the beginning, but toward the end, in the discussion of the first, unmoved mover
(which Thomas, at least, identifies with the one true God).
Aristotle declares that the God upon whom heaven and earth depend
is happy. He enjoys a supremely good life, that of the very best vital activity, the most pleasant one: the activity of the mind that contemplates what
is most excellent. And then Aristotle says, “If the God is always in that
good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if
in a better, this compels it yet more. And the God is in a better state.”29
Wonder. Is Aristotle simply uttering an exclamation? I think he means
that the essence of God’s activity—which on his view is identical with
the essence of God—surpasses us. He is always in a better state than we
ever are, even when we philosophize about Him. We know that this
essence exists, but not even at the end of our human search for wisdom
do we grasp what it is.
We might say, then, that the question “what is God?” both is and is not
a philosophical question. Philosophy succeeds in raising it, in showing
that it is a genuine question, by showing that what it is about exists; but
28 ST I, q. 12, a. 1; see ST I–II, q. 3, a. 8.
29 Aristotle, Metaphysics XII 7, 1072b24–27.

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not in answering it.30 However, if the question is truly an expression of
wonder, then on Thomas’s account, it must involve some hope of finding
the answer. I suppose we can only guess what sort of hope Aristotle
might have had. Perhaps only supernatural faith can ground an altogether
certain hope of reaching this knowledge. At any rate, it seems clear that,
even without faith, natural reason can appreciate this knowledge as
surpassingly good and desirable, maximally beatifying.
What I shall propose in the last part of this essay is that the Christian
faith “compels our wonder” about the divine nature—shows it to be
something wonderful, desirable to know—even more than philosophy
can. But first let me indicate one other sort of wonder that is connected
with the doctrine of the Christian faith, and that will turn out to be
pertinent to the later discussion. This too concerns a human, “natural”
dimension of the doctrine; but this time, not on the side of the disciple,
who insofar as he learns in a rational way must believe his teacher, but on
the side of the teacher himself—the Incarnate Word.
The wonder that I am referring to is not that which Jesus provoked in
others in order to incite their belief—that is, in order to obtain recognition as a teacher—by way of his miracles (his wonderful works) and his
wisdom-filled utterances. It is the wonder that Jesus himself experienced.
In the course of examining the characteristics that the Son of God
assumed in the Incarnation, Thomas asks whether He has a human intellect. Of course his answer is affirmative, but what is interesting is the
proof that he offers: the fact that Jesus wondered. The reference is to the
episode of the Roman centurion, at whose faith, Matthew tells us, Jesus
marveled (Matthew 8:10). Thomas explains: “Wonder cannot exist without reason”—that is, without a specifically human intellect—“because it
implies an act of relating an effect to its cause; to wit, when someone sees
an effect and is ignorant of its cause, he seeks to know it, as is said in the
beginning of the Metaphysics.”31
Further on, Thomas includes this wonder among the “defects” of
human nature that Jesus assumed. As we saw, such wonder implies ignorance. Thomas does hold that Jesus’ human intellect enjoyed the beatific
vision from the very beginning of its existence. Nevertheless, he maintains, this did not exclude the capacity for acquiring knowledge in the
normal human way, the way that starts from sense-experience. There
were things about which Jesus did not always have “experiential knowledge” (scientia experimentalis), things that he discovered and learned.
30 See Fides et Ratio, no. 33.
31 ST III, q. 5, a. 4. See also Compendium theologiae I, c. 205; Summa contra Gentiles IV,

c. 33, par. 5 (§3691); Super evangelium S. Matthaei lectura VIII.ii, §702.

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Thomas judges that Jesus assumed this wonder for our instruction, “so as
to teach us to wonder at what He Himself wondered at.”32 In the case of
the centurion, what we are taught to find wonderful is this gentile’s very
faith in Him. This is rather striking. It means that, in a way, Jesus was
wondering about Himself, as the object of this faith.
Mathematical Wonder Arising from Human Faith
Now I shall try to explain why I say that Christian faith, which is
wonderful in itself, is also a source of wonder, the same general sort of
wonder as that which prompts philosophical inquiry. In the text that I
have in mind, Thomas compares the apprehension (cognitio) of God that
is had through grace with that which can be had through natural reason.
Grace, he holds, gives a higher apprehension. One of the objections that
he takes into consideration is that in this life, no matter how perfectly one
is united to God, He remains entirely unknown, and that even by natural reason one can be united to Him in this way; so grace does not seem
to provide any higher apprehension. In the reply, Thomas grants that in
this life, not even the revelation of grace gives an understanding of what
God is, His essence, so that by it we are joined to Him as though to one
unknown (quasi ignoto). Nevertheless the apprehension that it gives is
higher than that of natural reason, in two ways. By grace, “we apprehend
Him more fully, according as many and more excellent of His effects are
shown to us, and according as by revelation we attribute to Him some
things which natural reason cannot reach, as, for instance, that God is
Three and One.”33
It is the first of these ways that is especially of interest to us: “according as many and more excellent of His effects are shown to us.” Here we
have the very structure of wonder. By grace, we grasp certain effects of
God that natural reason does not grasp.These effects are still not adequate
to show what the cause is—what God is—but they do make us grasp
Him in a fuller way.34 We grasp that He is even more transcendent, more
unknown, than reason can say He is. The revealed effects render God
even more wonderful.35
At the same time, we should not forget that these effects are grasped
by faith. This means that we do not see them. Faith bears on what is not
seen. Only God and the blessed see these effects. It may therefore seem
32 ST III, q. 15, a. 8.
33 ST I, q. 12, a. 13, ad 1.
34 See ST II–II, q. 2, a. 3, ad 3.
35 See ST II–II, q. 1, a. 1: by the effects of God that fall within the material object

of faith, man is helped to tend toward the enjoyment of God.

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odd to say that they can elicit our wonder, particularly if we have in mind
the connection between wonder and philosophy. It is common, I think,
to suppose that philosophical inquiry always starts from something seen
and takes nothing on faith. Especially since Descartes, the philosopher is
typically imagined to be one who doubts everything that he cannot see
clearly for himself or cannot prove definitively from what he sees. He is
not disposed to accept anything on the mere authority of another, even
of a teacher—not disposed to go to school. Descartes’ anti-scholastic
project might almost be summed up as an effort to set aside Aristotle’s
maxim, “he who would learn must believe.”36
Can Aristotelian wonder be aroused by something not seen, something merely believed? I think it can. In fact I think an example of this
has already been cited, that of the diagonal. This too is interesting in relation to Descartes, at least if it is true, as is often said, that he takes mathematics as the paradigm of knowledge. One might doubt whether his
conception of mathematical method is the same as Aristotle’s. But let us
concentrate on the diagonal.
The diagonal of a square, they say, is incommensurable with the side.
I imagine that most of us are ready to accept this. But do we really know
it? Or do we only believe it? How many of us can actually prove it, that
is, show why it is true? It is hardly something that one immediately sees.
Of course we do see something. We can see the square and the diagonal
traced inside it. There is no wonder here. But the incommensurability of
the diagonal with the side can be seen, or grasped with intellectual
“vision,” only by means of the proof.37 In other words, in this case one does
not first see the fact, and then inquire into its cause or its explanation. If
one does not see the explanation, neither does one see the fact. Without
the explanation, the fact can only be believed.
This is not the place to go into the proof of the incommensurability
of the diagonal. But in order to teach the proof, what would one need to
36 Perhaps it is no accident that Cartesian philosophy does not begin from wonder

at the things perceived by the senses. It does not begin as a search for the causes
of such things; it begins by putting the things themselves in doubt. It does not
accept the “authority” of the senses. According to Thomas, it is true that wonder
contains an element of doubt. But the doubt is not about the fact that gives rise
to the wonder. The fact is accepted as certain. What there is doubt or uncertainty
about is one’s own judgment of it (see ST I–II, q. 41, a. 4, ad 5). One doubts one’s
own capacity to explain and measure the fact, and one seeks the explanation. If
there is a teacher who can help to guide the search, all the better. By contrast, if
one doubts the fact itself, it makes no sense to seek its cause.
37 When one has scientific proof of some truth, the truth is “seen,” not immediately, but in light of the first premises. See ST I, q. 12, a. 13, ad 3; II–II, q. 1, a. 5.

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do? Would it suffice to declare its fundamental premise? Its fundamental
premise—I refer to the proof that Aristotle knew—is that the same
number cannot be both even and odd.38 In itself, this is a truth that we
all understand. But if we only say that it is the fundamental premise of
the proof, we have not yet explained anything. We have not yet shown
that the diagonal’s incommensurability follows from it. And so we have
simply not yet shown the diagonal’s incommensurability.
Elizabeth Anscombe, in a discussion of how one arrives at practical
truth, says that she once saw as the motto of a chapter in a textbook of
higher mathematics the line from St. James (1:22), “Be ye doers of the
word and not hearers only.” This was right, she says; “one does not learn
mathematics by learning that mathematical propositions are truths, but by
working out their proofs. . . . You have to do the mathematics; and the
teacher can get you to do it: that is what teaching mathematics is.”39
The teacher can get you to do mathematics. He can guide you through
the steps of the proof. But he can do so only if you are disposed to follow
him. Suppose I tell a boy who has done a bit of geometry, but not much,
“You know, there is no single unit, not even an extremely tiny one, with
which to measure both of these lines exactly.” It is rather likely that he will
not believe me. For indeed, at first hearing, the proposition does not seem
very credible. But if he does not believe me—or at least, if he does not to
some extent “suspend disbelief ”—then I cannot get him to see it. He will
not listen to me or follow me through the proof. He will think I am only
trying to trick him or to make him waste his time. Moreover, if he does
not believe me, he will not experience any wonder at the incommensurability of the diagonal, because he will not consider it a fact. He will
experience wonder only if he grants me at least some degree of mathematical authority, enough to give some degree of credit to my claim.Then
perhaps he will say, “Really? Show me why!” This is why I say that even
in mathematics, faith or belief can be a genuine source of wonder.
Christian Faith as a Source of Wonder
Is there anything analogous to this in the Christian faith? I imagine that there
are many things, but for now I wish to suggest just one: the Crucifixion.
Here too, as with the square and the diagonal, there is something visible: a man hanging from a cross. But who is that man, and what is he
38 See Aristotle, Prior Analytics I 23, 41a25–30; I 44, 50a37.
39 G. E. M. Anscombe, “Authority in Morals,” in Faith in a Hard Ground: Essays on

Religion, Philosophy and Ethics by G. E. M. Anscombe, ed. Mary Geach and Luke
Gormally, St. Andrews Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs (Exeter: Imprint
Academic, 2008), 95, 97.

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doing? According to his own account, he is the Son of God, and he is
saving the world. Do we see this? Of course not. One who lacks faith
does not accept it. This fact—the salvation of the world by the death of
the Son of God on a cross—is one of those effects of God that natural
reason cannot apprehend.
If an effect is not apprehended, one does not wonder at its cause—at
least, not as cause of that effect. Philosophy can know the existence of
God, as first cause of the world; and as we saw in Aristotle, it can wonder
at Him. But Aristotle did not wonder at God as cause of this effect, the
salvation of the world through Christ’s passion and death.
Revelation does tell us what it is about God that led Him to cause this
effect: His love, and more precisely, the magnitude of His love. At least in
Thomas’s view, the simple fact that God loves the world is something that
natural reason can know. But it cannot know that He loves it so much.
“God so loved the world that he gave His only-begotten Son, so that
whoever believes in him should not die, but should have eternal life”
( John 3:16). That Christ suffered and died for us is a sign of the magnitude of God’s love for us, and Thomas judges that one of the reasons why
it was especially fitting for Christ to suffer was precisely that man would
thereby apprehend how much God loves him.40 But all of this is a matter
of faith. We cannot see, we can only believe, that God’s love is what
moved Jesus to suffer and die. Nor can we see this love as it is in itself, in
its full magnitude. Rather, if we believe that Christ died for our salvation
and that His doing so was moved by God’s love for us, then we are led
to believe that this love is very great, and we may wonder at its greatness.
Only faith can give rise to this wonder.41
The wonder at God’s love that I am talking about is not simply a feeling of awe or amazement. It is also the desire to understand it, to see it
as it is in itself and not just to believe in it. God Himself wants us to
believe in His Son in order that, by believing, we may enter into eternal
40 ST III, q. 46, a. 3: through Christ’s passion, “homo cognoscit quantum Deus

hominem diligat, et per hoc provocatur ad eum diligendum, in quo perfectio
humanae salutis consistit. Unde apostolus dicit, Rom.V, commendat suam caritatem
Deus in nobis, quoniam, cum inimici essemus, Christus pro nobis mortuus est.”
41 I do not mean to suggest that God revealed the magnitude of His love for us
chiefly in order to elicit this wonder. As the quotations in the previous note indicate, the principal aim would be to provoke our own love for Him in return.
However, one of the consequences of loving Him is surely the desire to behold
Him and His love. (Thus ST I–II, q. 28, a. 2: “amans non est contentus superficiali apprehensione amati, sed nititur singula quae ad amatum pertinent intrinsecus disquirere, et sic ad interiora eius ingreditur.”) Wonder is not always an
“impersonal” attitude.

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life—that is, into the full knowledge of the one true God and of Jesus
Christ whom we believe He has sent on account of His great love for us.
Only in heaven will God’s love for us be seen in all its grandeur; and only
then will one see, rather than believe, the effect of this love, see that Jesus
is the Son of God and that His death on the Cross has saved us. “And in
that day you shall not ask me anything” ( John 16:23).42
The analogy with mathematics can be taken further. Reaching eternal
life depends on believing, but this is only the beginning of the process. To
believe means to accept Jesus as one’s teacher, to be his disciple ( μαθητὴς).
As a true teacher, however, Jesus not only tells us what we have to believe,
in order to know the truth that He knows—that He is—but also presents
us with a way to follow (μέθοδος). He is the way (ὁδός: John 14:6). And it
is not enough to listen to him.There are assignments to be carried out.The
word must be put into practice. One must take up one’s own cross and
follow Him, step by step.
To say the least, the steps along this way are rather different from those
of the proof of the diagonal’s incommensurability. Among other things, it is
not a matter of simply drawing conclusions from already accepted premises.
On the other hand, neither is it solely a matter of performing external
deeds.The science of the Cross is first and foremost an interior purification.
Those who will see God are the pure in heart.The heart has to become able
to respond to His love and worthy to enter into the light and the joy of His
truth.43 The process inevitably involves effort and pain. But insofar as it is
moved by hope of the goal, it also brings a certain foretaste of that joy. And
an excellent way to cultivate the hope is to renew one’s wonder at the
Master. In the words of a famous sixteenth-century Dominican:
[D]elight accompanies wonder, when he who wonders hopes to reach
the knowledge of what he wonders at. Now, there is nothing more
wonderful than a God made man and crucified for men. Hence, when
the Christian contemplates this, with the firm hope of reaching the
vision of such a great reality, he takes so much delight that nothing can
be more delightful to him.44

42 This is not to say that in heaven there will not be other kinds of wonder, such

as the sheer awe at God’s grandeur and sublimity. This, Thomas judges, will be
more intense than ever. See ST II–II, q. 19, a. 11.
43 See Super evangelium S. Matthaei lectura, V.ii, §§434–35.
44 “[A]dmirationem sequitur delectatio, quando qui admiratur sperat ad cognitionem eius de quo miratur pervenire. Nihil autem est mirabilius quam Deum
factum hominem et pro hominibus crucifixum. Cum ergo Christianus hoc
contemplatur, cum spe firma perveniendi ad visionem tantae rei, adeo delectatur

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But Thomas does not merely recommend this wonder to us. In a
remarkable passage in his commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew, he
suggests that the first to experience wonder at the Cross was none other
than Jesus himself—during the very Crucifixion. Thomas is glossing the
words of Matthew 27:46, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken
me?”—Deus, Deus meus, ut quid dereliquisti me? First he explains in what
sense God “forsook” Jesus: not with respect to Jesus’ very union with
God, nor with respect to His grace, but with respect to the human goods
that he was deprived of in His passion—for we have these goods from
God. Thomas then focuses on the words ut quid—“why?”
And he says “why?” not as though out of weariness, but perhaps as indicating compassion toward the Jews; thus he does not say it until after it
grew dark, so that he would mean, “why have you willed that I be
handed over to suffer, and that these be left in darkness?” And it also
indicates wonder, for thus the charity of God is wonderful; as it says in
Romans 5:8, “God commends His charity toward us, because when as
yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died for us.”45

Here Thomas is recognizing that although “why?” has the form of a
question, it is sometimes uttered only as the expression of certain
emotional states, not as a request for knowledge. Although Jesus would
not be showing weariness, He may simply be showing compassion. But
then Thomas suggests that He may also be asking a real question. He
would be expressing the desire to know the magnitude of the love that
has prompted the Father to give His only-begotten Son. Once again, in
a way Jesus would be wondering about Himself, as to His suffering and
dying on account of this love; and He would be doing so for our instruction, “so as to teach us to wonder at what He Himself wondered at.” I am
in no position to judge how plausible this interpretation of Jesus’ utterance is. But it certainly does indicate that, for St. Thomas, the place of
wonder in Christian life is anything but marginal.
N&V

ut nihil ei possit esse delectabilius.” Girolamo Savonarola, De simplicitate christianae
vitae, ed. Pier Giorgio Ricci (Rome: Angelo Belardetti Editore, 1959), Liber V,
Conclusio XV, 120 (my translation).
45 “Et dicit ut quid? Non quasi ex taedio, sed potest designare compassionem ad Iudaeos
unde non dixit nisi postquam tenebrae essent; unde vult dicere: quare voluisti ut passioni
traderer, et isti obtenebrarentur? Item signat admirationem, unde admirabilis est Dei caritas. Ad Rom. V, 8: commendat Deus caritatem suam in nobis, quoniam cum adhuc peccatores essemus, secundum tempus Christus pro nobis mortuus est”: Super evangelium S.
Matthaei lectura, XXVII.ii, §2383.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2012): 731–56

731

The Existence of God: Can It Be Demonstrated?
L AWRENCE D EWAN, O.P.
Dominican University College
Ottawa, Canada

The Position of the Magisterium
O NE MIGHT raise the question, first of all, as to the position of the
Catholic Church’s Magisterium. One thinks, of course, of the decree of
Vatican I. If I were to answer the question with a “no,” would I be anathema? The Twentieth Ecumenical Council, Vatican I, voted the following
definition and corresponding canon on April 24, 1870:
. . . holy mother Church holds and teaches that God, the origin and
goal of all things, can be known with certainty through created things
by the natural light of human reason; for “ever since the creation of the
world his invisible nature . . . has been clearly perceived, known through
the things that have been made.”1

The canon has:

1 Cf. Constitutio dogmatica “Dei Filius” de fide catholica, Conc. (oecum. XX) Vati-

canum I, Sessio III, 24 Apr. 1870, cap. 2. De revelatione: in H. Denzinger and A.
Schönmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum (36th ed.) (Barcinone-Friburgi BrisgoviaeRomae: Herder, 1976), no. 3004: “ . . . sancta mater Ecclesia tenet et docet,
Deum, rerum omnium principium et finem, naturali humanae rationis lumine a
rebus creatis certo cognosci posse; ‘invisibilia enim ipsius, a creatura mundi, per
ea quae facta sunt, intellecta, conspiciuntur’ [Romans 1:20].”
[Much of the material in this opening section on the Magisterium is taken
from the appendix to my “Communion with the Tradition: For the Believer
Who Is a Philosopher,” ch. 25 of my book Wisdom, Law, and Virtue (New York:
Fordham University Press, 2008), 397–99.]

Lawrence Dewan, O.P.

732

If someone has said that the one true God, our creator and Lord, cannot
be known by the natural light of human reason with certainty through
those things that have been made, let him be anathema.2

In fact, they did not use the word “demonstrated.” They explicitly
chose not to do so in their deliberations. In presenting, on March 14,
1869, the Schema to the Fathers of the Council for their vote, Msgr.
Gasser [bishop of Brixen, Tyrol, Italy], representing the Deputation
concerning the Faith, read the document: “Observations attached to the
Schema prepared by the Deputation concerning the Faith and distributed to the Fathers.” In it, concerning our text, we read:
This definition: “God through created things can be known with
certainty by the light of reason,” and the canon corresponding to it,
were seen as necessary, not merely because of traditionalism,3 but also

because of the error widely spreading, that the existence of God is proved
by no firm arguments, nor hence is it known with certainty by reason.
[My italics]4

After explaining how this touches traditionalism, a statement is added
about the word “Creator” used concerning God in the text of the canon;
we are told:
Though in the canon one reads the word “creator,” there is not on that
account a definition that creation, properly so called, can be demonstrated
by reason; rather, we are retaining the word which Scripture uses in revealing this truth, while adding nothing meant to determine its meaning.5

2 Ibid., Canones 2. De revelatione (ed. cit., no. 3026): “Si quis dixerit, Deum unum

et verum, creatorem et Dominum nostrum, per ea quae facta sunt, naturali rationis humanae lumine certo cognosci non posse: anathema sit.”
3 Dom Cuthbert Butler, The Vatican Council (The Story Told from Inside in Bishop
Ullathorne’s Letters), 2 vols. (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1930); vol. 1,
275–76, tells us that the point concerning natural reason was especially against
the Traditionalists, such as Lamennais, who “held that the human reason is unable
of itself to attain to a knowledge of God, but depends on a primitive revelation
to our First Parents, handed on to mankind through the ages.”
4 “Definitio haec, Deum per res creatas rationis lumine certo cognosci posse, et
canon ei respondens necessaria visa sunt, non solum propter traditionalismum
sed etiam propter errorem late serpentem, Dei existentiam nullis fermis argumentis probari nec proinde ratione certo cognosci.”
5 “Etsi in canone legatur vocabulum creator; non ideo definitur, creationem proprie
dictam ratione demonstrari posse; sed retinetur vocabulum, quo Scriptura hanc veritatem revelans utitur, nihil ad eius sensum determinandum adiecto” (my italics).

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Here the note refers us to Wisdom 13:5: “A magnitudine enim speciei et
creaturae cognoscibiliter poterit creator horum videri.” I notice that while
the Ecumenical Edition of the Revised Standard Verson6 translates the
passage as follows: “For from the greatness and beauty of created things
comes a corresponding perception of their Creator,” Ronald Knox has:
“Such great beauty even creatures have, reason is well able to contemplate the Source from which these perfections came.”7
The Council was asked to vote on a proposed emendation reading in
part: “. . . naturali rationis lumine certo cognosci et demonstrari posse”
[. . . can be certainly known and demonstrated by the natural light of
reason]. Commenting on this, the Deputation concerning the Faith, the
commission responsible for the formulation of the doctrine, made it clear
that they meant to speak in favor of the viability of philosophical proofs.
Nevertheless, they deliberately chose the words “certain knowledge”
rather than “demonstration.” We read:
The [proposed] . . . emendation, which has in its second part: “. . . can
be certainly known and demonstrated by the natural light of reason,”
on the one hand is deficient and on the other is excessive. In one
respect it is deficient, because the natural means by which man can naturally know God are not indicated; but in another respect it goes too far,
because it does not merely say “God can be certainly known by the
natural light,” but also that this existence of God “can be certainly proved
or demonstrated.” Now, while “know certainly” and “demonstrate” are to
some extent one and the same, nevertheless the Deputation concerning the Faith opted to select the milder expression rather than the stronger one.
[My italics]8
6 The

Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Ecumenical Edition (New York:
Collins, 1973); the copyright for the Apocrypha is dated 1957.
7 The Holy Bible: A Translation from the Latin Vulgate in the Light of the Hebrew and
Greek Originals, school ed. (London: Burns and Oates, 1957). This translation by
Monsignor Ronald Knox in its Old Testament part was first published in 1949.
For the particular passage, he notes a variant: “Some manuscripts of the Greek
read ‘such greatness and beauty’.”
8 “. . . emendatio, quae habetur in secunda parte: naturali rationis lumine certo
cognosci et demonstrari posse, ex una parte deficit, et ex altera abundat. Deficit
ex una parte, quia media naturalia, quibus homo posset naturaliter cognoscere
Deum, non indicantur: excedit ex altera parte, quia non solummodo edicit,
Deum naturali lumine certo cognosci posse; sed etiam hanc Dei existentiam
certo probari posse, seu demonstrari posse. Quamvis aliquatenus certo
cognoscere et demonstrare sit unum idemque, tamen phrasim mitiorem Deputatio de fide sibi eligendam censuit, et non istam duriorem.”
For these texts and much else in my remarks concerning Vatican I, I am
indebted to Jean-Michel-Alfred Vacant, Études théologiques sur les constitutions du

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Lawrence Dewan, O.P.

The Council voted to reject the proposed emendation and thus ultimately affirmed the milder language proposed by the Deputation
(though, of course, also including the mention of the knowledge being
had “through the things that have been made,” i.e. the natural means.)
In fact, that rejected emendation was more complex, proposing two
different possible versions. It read:
The same holy mother the Church holds and teaches that God, the
beginning and end of things, can be known certainly and demonstrated
by the natural light of human reason, that is, by metaphysical, cosmological, and moral arguments.—Or, simply: can be certainly known and
demonstrated by the natural light of human reason.9

Speaking for the Deputation concerning the Faith, Msgr. Gasser asked
that this emendation (in either form) be rejected, and it was. Here is what
he said:
What is suggested by this emendation can hardly be approved, the
reason being a false supposition of this emendation. The reverend
emendator in expressing it is of the opinion that our teaching is
opposed to the best known arguments, or at least opposed to the metaphysical argument. But this supposition is altogether false: our teaching
is in favour of these arguments and not against these arguments. For, if
we say that God can be known by the natural light through creatures,
that is, through the vestiges which are impressed on all creatures, much
less do we exclude the image which is impressed on the immortal soul
of man: hence, the metaphysical argument is certainly not excluded.
Who amongst us, when he shall have confirmed by his vote this
doctrine which has been proposed by us, who indeed will think that
he has condemned the celebrated ontological argument of St. Anselm,
whatever he may think of that argument?10
Concile du Vatican: tome I: La Constitution Dei Filius, ed. Delhomme et Briguet:
prologue, ch. 1 and 2 (Paris/Lyon, 1895); cf. p. 658.
9 “Eadem sancta mater Ecclesia tenet et docet, Deum, rerum omnium principium
et finem, naturali humanae rationis lumine, id est, argumentis metaphysicis,
cosmologicis et moralibus, certo cognosci et demonstrari posse. - Aut simpliciter:
Naturali rationis lumine certo cognosci et demonstrari posse” [quoted at Vacant,
Études théologiques, 646, documents printed and distributed March 31 to the
Council Fathers].
10 “Quod hanc emendationem attinet, ea approbari vix poterit, et quidem ideo,
quia falsum est suppositum huius emendationis. Rmus emendator enim in ea est
sententia quod nostra doctrina sit contra argumenta notissima, vel saltem contra
argumentum metaphysicum. Sed haec suppositio omnino falsa est: nostra doctrina
est pro istis argumentis, et non contra ista argumenta. Nam si dicimus, Deum cognosci

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This latter assurance, that St. Anselm’s Proslogion argument is viewed as
surely complying with the judgment of the Council, is of interest, since
that argument is clearly viewed by St. Thomas Aquinas (who rejects it)11
as pertaining rather to the position that the existence of God is “known
by virtue of itself,” i.e. stands in no need of “demonstration,” indeed, is
too well known to be a demonstrable conclusion.
In the present essay, then, my question pertains to “demonstration” as
understood and affirmed by St. Thomas.
Our Question in This Present Discussion
Unlike the Vatican I Fathers, we have explicitly before us the word
“demonstrated.” As we shall see, St. Thomas Aquinas certainly teaches the
possibility of such demonstration.12 It is my intention to follow him
through his step-by-step approach. However, while he actually tackles the
task in ST I, q. 2, he has already had something important to say to us on
the matter in his very first discussion, viz. ST I, q. 1, a. 1.
The first article of the ST affirms our need for a teaching that transcends the teaching of the philosophers. The primary reason for such a
teaching is the revealed truth that God has given to the human being a
goal that surpasses his natural knowing powers, whereas the human
being, as a kind of thing, is meant to seek known goals: thus, it was necessary that God make known to us, reveal to us, the goal he has decided
upon. Our benefiting from that revelation must be through an act of
supernatural faith.
Still, there is more to the situation than that. As Thomas continues in
the same first article, even as regards the truths concerning God that the
human mind can know by its natural powers, there is need for a revelation, and so for faith. While there are things about God which human
naturali rationis lumine per creaturas, idest per vestigia quae creaturis omnibus impressa
sunt: multo minus excludimus imaginem, quae animae hominis immortali impressa est:
proinde argumentum metaphysicum certe non excluditur. Quis enim nostrum, cum hanc
doctrinam, quae a nobis proponitur, suo suffragio confirmaverit, quis putat ea damnare
argumentum illud celeberrimum ontologicum s. Anselmi, quidquid hoc de argumento
sentiat?” (Vacant, Études théologiques, 658; my italics). This passage continues with
the discussion of the proposed emendation quoted in note 8 above.
One should note carefully the employment in the above of the distinction
between “vestige” and “image,” classical in theological considerations of the likeness of creatures to God: cf. ST I, q. 93, a. 6.
11 Cf. ST I, q. 2, a. 1, obj. 2. Wherever it seems helpful, I will pinpoint texts citing
page, column, and line of the Ottawa edition of Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae [henceforth “ST ”], viz. ed. Commissio Piana, Ottawa, 1941: Collège dominicain [1953 emended edition].
12 ST I, q. 2, a. 2.

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reason can discover, that sort of human knowledge is known only to a
few people, and only after a long time spent in investigation, and with an
admixture of error. Thomas notes this in order to conclude that even as
regards such truth, truth about God that is within the range of human
reason, it was necessary to have a divine revelation! As he says:
. . . On knowledge of this truth [ philosophical truth!] depends the entire
salvation of the human being, which consists in God. Thus, therefore,
that salvation might come about for human beings both more suitably
and more certainly, it was necessary that they be instructed concerning
divine things through divine revelation.13

This caution of Thomas, a line of discussion he found in the writings of
the twelfth-century Jewish theologian Moses Maimonides,14 is quite in
accord with the stress that Aristotle put on the difficulty of metaphysical
knowledge, the philosophical knowledge that attains to some truths
about God. It is the knowledge that is most difficult for the human being.
It is “divine” knowledge, because God alone can have it, says Aristotle, or
God above all others.15
13 ST I, q. 1, a. 1: “. . . a cuius tamen veritatis cognitione dependet tota hominis salus,

quae in Deo est. Ut igitur salus hominibus et convenientius et certius proveniat,
necessarium fuit quod de divinis per divinam revelationem instruantur.”
14 Cf. Thomas, Expositio super librum Boetii De trinitate, q. 3, a. 1, where Thomas
explicitly refers to five reasons given by Rabbi Moses why faith is needed even
for things which some can demonstrate concerning God.
15 About the difficulties of metaphysics, Aristotle tells us that “these things, the most
universal, are on the whole the hardest for men to know; for they are farthest from
the senses” [Metaphysics I 2 (982a23–25)(Oxford trans.)]. Again, in the same place
[Metaph. I 2 (982b25–32)], it having been argued that wisdom is non-utilitary but
rather sought for its own intrinsic worth, the suggestion is made that it is perhaps
not a suitable pursuit for human beings, whose nature is servile, i.e. must in large
part be absorbed in the pursuit of the useful. Aristotle rejects this view, but he goes
on to admit that one of the reasons wisdom should be regarded as “most divine”
is that “God alone can have it, or God above all others” [Metaph. I 2 (983a9–10),
(Oxford trans.)].
In the Nicomachean Ethics, in the discussion of human happiness, the life of
contemplation of truth is proposed as the most appropriate candidate to qualify
as human happiness. An objection is raised, precisely on the grounds that “such
a life would be too high for man; for it is not insofar as he is man that he will
live so, but insofar as something divine is present in him” [Eth. Nic. X 7
(1177b25–27) (Oxford trans.)]. To this, it is countered that we “must, so far as we
can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with
the best thing in us” [Eth. Nic. X 7 (1177b35)]. But Aristotle does not leave the
matter there. He goes on: “. . . This would seem, too, to be each man himself,
since it is the authoritative and better part of him. It would be strange, then, if

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Still, I have actually met people who thought that Thomas did not
mean to include among the needed revealed truths the truth of the very
existence of a God. Surely, they thought, he means other further philosophical points. I accordingly stress that when discussing later in detail the
range of supernatural faith,Thomas explicitly speaks of the need to believe
by supernatural faith the truth that God exists; this is the case until one
truly understands the power of the philosophical demonstration.
We read:
It is necessary for the human being to accept at the level of faith not only
those things which are above reason, but also those which can be
known by reason. And this for three reasons, the first of which is so that
the human being come more quickly to a knowledge of the divine
truth: for the science to which it pertains to prove that God exists, and
other such things about God, is proposed lastly to be learned by the
human being, many other sciences being presupposed. And thus the
human being would come only after much of his lifetime to a knowledge of God. . . .16
he were to choose not the life of his self but that of something else . . . for man,
the life according to reason is best and pleasantest, since reason more than
anything else is man” Eth. Nic. X 7 (1178a2–8) (Oxford trans.). I.e., in this argument, human nature itself is seen as something akin to divine nature. Still, and
this is my constant point, the activity in question is viewed as requiring extraordinary effort. It is not presented as easy.
Nor should it be thought that Aristotle’s gods care nothing for the human
being, or that the human being’s happiness involves no social relation to the gods.
Thus, in the same Nicomachean Ethics context, we are told: “He who exercises his
reason and cultivates it seems to be both in the best state of mind and most dear
to the gods. For if the gods have any care for human affairs, as they are thought
to have, it would be reasonable both that they should delight in that which was
best and most akin to them (i.e. reason) and that they should reward those who
love and honour this most, as caring for the things that are dear to them and
acting both rightly and nobly. And that all these attributes belong most of all to
the philosopher is manifest. He therefore is the dearest to the gods. And he who
is that will presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy” [Eth. Nic. X 8 (1179a22–33)]. It should
be added that in the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle is not going into such matters
in the deepest way possible, but only inasmuch as is needed for practical agreement. Cf. e.g. Eth. Nic. X 8 (1178a20–24).
16 ST II–II, q. 2, a. 4 (ed. Ottawa 1416b45–1417a2): “. . . necessarium est homini
accipere per modum fidei non solum ea quae sunt supra rationem, sed etiam ea
quae per rationem cognosci possunt. Et hoc propter tria. Primo quidem, ut citius
homo ad veritatis divinae cognitionem perveniat. Scientia enim ad quam
pertinet probare deum esse et alia huiusmodi de deo, ultimo hominibus addiscenda proponitur, praesuppositis multis aliis scientiis. Et sic non nisi post multum

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Thomas’s Three-Step Pathway: [1] Is the Proposition:
“a god exists” Known by Virtue of Itself ?17
Notice that I have stated the proposition as “a god exists”; i.e. I have
omitted the uppercase letter “G,” and I have inserted an indefinite article: “a god.” This brings out the fact that the word “god” is the name of
a nature.18 The Christian has such familiarity with the deity that we tend
to use the word “God” as a personal name, so that the question becomes:
“Does the individual known as ‘God’ exist?” The sense of St. Thomas’s
question is rather: “Is there such a thing as a god?” It is only subsequently,
after having reached an affirmative conclusion, that Thomas further
demonstrates that there can be only one such being.19
While I might have used the familiar expression “self-evident,” the
expression used by Thomas is “per se notum,” literally “known through
itself,” which I have put in the translation as “known by virtue of itself.”
The expression is important for a proper appreciation of the meaning of
the doctrine. Since we commonly use light and ocular vision to express
truths about intellectual cognition, as for example when I say “I see” for
“I understand,” we can imagine a proposition “known by virtue of itself ”
on the model of a light. Some objects are visible only through others, i.e.
the things on which we must “throw light”; other things are intrinsically
and by themselves visible, i.e. lights. Thus, the necessary truth of some
propositions reveals itself directly to the “eye” of the mind, such as “a
whole is greater than its part” (such are sometimes called “axioms”),
whereas the necessary truth of some propositions becomes “visible” only
when they are seen in the “light” of axioms; thus, we demonstrate the
necessary truth of the proposition “the angles opposed to one another,
made by intersecting straight lines, are equal”;20 we demonstrate this by
viewing it in the light of axioms.
The discussion begins with the presentation of what constitutes a
“proposition known by virtue of itself,” that the predicate belongs to the
notion (or idea, or intelligibility, or definition) of the subject. The examtempus vitae suae homo ad dei cognitionem perveniret” (my italics). All three
reasons are relevant, but I omit the other two for the sake of brevity.
Note also that in ST II–II, q. 2, a. 10, ad 1, Thomas uses “the existence of
God” as the example of a preamble to faith one can first believe and may subsequently demonstrate.
17 Cf. ST I, q. 2, a. 1.
18 Cf. ST I, q. 13, a. 8.
19 Cf. ST I, q. 11, a. 3.
20 Cf. Euclid, Elements, bk. I, prop. 15. Cf. Euclid’s Elements, ed. Isaac Todhunter,
Everyman’s Library, no. 891 (London and New York: J. M. Dent, 1933), 19–20: “If
two straight lines cut one another, the vertical, or opposite, angles shall be equal.”

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ple is “a man is an animal”; “animal” is found within the very definition
of “man”: man is “a rational animal.” This, then, is the sort of proposition
that we are here generally discussing.21
Next, we begin to make a distinction between two sorts of such
propositions. If one has such a proposition, and, moreover, it is known to
all concerning the predicate and the subject “what it is,” i.e. if we possess
the definitions of predicate and subject, and understand how they stand
one to another, then that proposition will be known by virtue of itself,
both in its own intrinsic character and to all minds. This can be seen to be
the case with the first principles of all demonstration, i.e. of all scientific
reasoning; the terms of these propositions bear upon features found
throughout experienced reality, “common things,” i.e. such features as “a
being” and “not a being” (which figure in the principle: “the same thing
cannot both be and not be”), “whole” and “part” (as in “a whole is greater
than its part”). No one is ignorant of such things. Such propositions are
known by virtue of themselves, in themselves and to everyone.
However, if the definitions of subject and predicate are such as are not
known to some minds, then the proposition, since it has the proper intelligible structure, will be known by virtue of itself in itself, yet will not
have that character for those who remain in ignorance of the things being
spoken of. The sort of proposition which illustrates this has been pointed
out in a work of Boethius, and is this: “incorporeal things are not in a
place.” The very existence of incorporeal beings, Thomas points out elsewhere, was unknown even to some philosophers.22 So also, what exactly
is meant by “place” is not easy to grasp.23 Such a proposition, then, which
requires a knowledge of the relation between “place” and “corporeity,” as
also some conception of incorporeal being, can be known by virtue of
itself to a restricted group, the learned in such matters, and yet remain
unknown to the uneducated.
The distinction between the two ways that a proposition can be
known by virtue of itself now being clear, the doctrine can be applied to
the matter at hand.The proposition “a god is,” just in itself, is indeed known
by virtue of itself. It has the intelligible structure proper to such propositions, because, not merely is the predicate included in the notion of the
subject, but subject and predicate are altogether identical. As Thomas will
21 It might be as well to recall that a demonstrable conclusion is merely a conclu-

sion and not an axiom, precisely because, while its predicate belongs necessarily
to its subject, a third term, a “middle term,” is needed to reveal to the mind that
necessary connection.
22 See ST I, q. 44, a. 2 (280b27–29); I, q. 75, a. 1, ad 1 (440a1–2).
23 See the discussion in Aristotle, Physics IV 1–5.

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740

eventually demonstrate, there is a god, and in the case of such a being,
there is an identity between the essential nature, signified by the term “a
god,” and the actual being of that nature, signified by the term “is.”24
Nevertheless, the proposition is not known by virtue of itself to us human
beings. The reason is that we do not have the sort of knowledge of a god
that would qualify as knowing “what it is.” Hence, the proposition “a god
is” needs to be demonstrated, making use, in order to do so, of our
knowledge of things which are better known to us, even though they
have a grade of being which is intrinsically less intelligibly luminous (i.e.
they are less known, we would say more naturally “less knowable,” as
regards their intrinsic nature). Those things are effects of a god.
What is to be noticed is that, while in our introduction to the idea of
“known by virtue of itself but not to us,” the “us” was a certain group of
human beings, the uneducated, as compared with the learned, here in the
application to our problem about a god, the “us” has to do with the entire
human race: the nature of the human mind is being viewed, and presented as
too weak to know the divine nature, as regards what the divine nature is.This
very point is itself the subject of an eventual proof.25
Here (article 1 of question 2) we are being asked to consider the
human mind and the sort of access it has to reality. What are the sources
of our difficulties in learning the truth about things? This is not a minor
question in the domain of metaphysics.26 We are confronting the different judgments of great philosophers, Plato and Aristotle.
One sees this later in the prima pars, where Thomas is presenting the
nature of human intellection. Question 88 considers the extent to which
incorporeal substances superior to the human mind itself can be known
to us in this present life (i.e., this side of the grave). The general answer is
that we cannot know such natures.
What St. Thomas says in ST I, q. 2, a. 1 is best considered in the light
of the view that what has more of the nature of a cause is intrinsically
more knowable than what has the nature of an effect.27 When a thing has
a cause, we do not think we understand it completely until we see it in
the light of the cause. A cause throws light on its effect. In the mystery story,
the poisoning of the aunt (an effect) “makes sense” once it is known that
the nephew, her heir, is a person who needs money (the cause).
24 This is demonstrated at ST I, q. 3, a. 4.
25 See ST I, q. 88, a. 3.
26 Cf. Aristotle, Metaph. II 1 (993a30–b11); St. Thomas, In Metaph. II, lect. 1 (ed.

Cathala, 273–86).
27 Cf. Aristotle, Metaph. I 2 (982b1–4); cf. Thomas, In Metaph. I, lect. 2 (49).

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Thus, God, the highest cause, is the most intrinsically intelligible being,
the very source of all intelligible light (the notion of wisdom, i.e. things
seen in the light of the highest cause, derives from this).28
Accordingly, in ST I, q. 2, a. 1, there is a twofold answer. The proposition “God exists” expresses a truth known by virtue of itself, in itself, but
not to the human mind. The mind that knows the very essence of God, i.e.
has that being as its own proper intelligible object, knows that truth at the
level of what is “known by virtue of itself;” but that is the unique vantage
point of the divine mind: only God so knows himself by his very nature.
The human intellect can demonstrate that God exists, starting from his
effects, as we shall discuss in a moment, and can go on to demonstrate
that God’s essence and his act of being must be identical; in so doing, as
Thomas notes in ST I, q. 2, a. 1, one sees the point that, though the
proposition “God exists” is not known by virtue of itself to the human
mind, it is so known for the divine mind.29
This is a huge issue, since one must consider the nature of the human
intellect, as contrasted with the divine intellect. There is a certain
awkwardness, because the discussion is and should be presented at the
beginning of the Summa theologiae, a work whose very subject of discussion is God.30 Eventually in the ST there will be detailed discussion of
the human being.This is because (1) God is known through his works, and
among the variety of creatures he produces, there is that one called “the
human being” (thus, we have ST I, questions 75–102, all presenting the
nature and original production of the human being); and (2) God is
known through considering his image (and thus we have the secunda pars,
in its entirety, where the human being as having mastery over its own
actions is seen as being in the image of God ).31
In the detailed presentation of the nature of the human being (in the
prima pars), the focus of the theologian is primarily on the soul as principle of intellectual operation.32 We learn that its level of intellectuality
points it (1) first of all toward natural, material things; and only through
28 Cf. ScG I, ch. 94, par. 2 (ed. Pera, no. 792), with reference to Aristotle, Metaph. I

2 (982b9–10), and Thomas, In Metaph. I, lect. 2 (51).
29 One sees the general point that the divine essence is very differently placed as an

object for the divine mind and for created minds beautifully presented in ST I,
q. 12, a. 4, which asks whether any created intellect, by virtue of its natural
wherewithal, can see the divine essence (answering, of course, in the negative).
30 Cf. ST I, q. 1, a. 7.
31 Cf. ST I–II, prologue.
32 Thomas simply states (in ST I, q. 75, prologue) the appropriateness for the
theologian of this focus on the soul; it occurred to me that such considerations
as we see in ST I, q. 97, a. 3, on the ultimate spiritual life encompassing even the

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such intellection does it (2) reflect on its own self, a spiritual principle; and
only by a still further step does it consider (3) things more noble than
itself; it is then, in ST I, q. 88, a. 3, that we have an article with the precise
topic: “whether God is that which is firstly known by us?” In that question 88 we see that Thomas’s just-noted approach to human understanding—which starts first with intellectual knowledge as focused on corporeal
things (qq. 84–86), and moves next to our knowledge of our own incorporeal intellect (q. 87), and finally to our knowledge of things above our intellect (q. 88)—relates to his judgment that Aristotle’s doctrine is more
faithful to human experience than is Plato’s. As we read in q. 88, a. 1:
. . . according to the opinion of Plato immaterial substances are not only
understood by us, but are even the primary things understood by us. . . .
But according to the judgment of Aristotle, which we rather experience, our
intellect, according to the state of the present life has a natural relation to
the natures of material things: hence, it understands nothing save by turning itself towards the images in the imagination, as is clear from things
already said.33 And thus it is clear that immaterial substances, which do
not fall within the field of sense and imagination, cannot be understood
by us firstly and through themselves, according to the mode of knowledge
that we experience.34 (My italics)

It is worth recalling that Aristotle himself regarded his difference with
Plato in this respect as the greatest problem in metaphysics.35
Thomas accordingly, in ST I, question 88, goes on to teach that while we
are able to grasp the essential nature of the human intellective soul, immaterial substance though it indeed is, since we have access to its own proper
body, might help see that point. For the theologian, all roads lead to the situation
of beatitude. Cf. ST II–II, q. 2, a. 4, ad 3.
33 Cf. ST I, q. 84, a. 7.
34 ST I, q. 88, a. 1 (545a44–b17, in part).
35 Cf. Aristotle, Metaph. III 4 (999a24–26); concerning which St. Thomas says, In
Metaph. III, lect. 9 (443): “Concerning this problem he [Aristotle] speaks thus:
firstly, that it ‘is had,’ i.e. that it stands in sequence with the preceding: because,
as has already been said, on it depends the consideration of the preceding question. For, if the universals are not separate, they are not principles; but if they are
separate, they are principles.—Secondly, he says about it, THAT IT IS THE MOST
DIFFICULT OF ALL THE PROBLEMS OF THIS SCIENCE . Which is shown from
this, that the most eminent philosophers judged diversely about it. For the Platonists
held that the universals are separate, with the other philosophers holding the
contrary.—Thirdly, he says about it, that it is most necessary to consider, because
ON IT DEPENDS THE ENTIRE KNOWLEDGE OF SUBSTANCES, SENSIBLE AS
WELL AS IMMATERIAL ” (caps added).

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act, still we cannot grasp the nature of higher immaterial substances.36 It is
not, then, surprising that he begins his lesson on our knowledge of God
with this statement:
. . . since the human intellect, according to the state of the present life,
cannot understand created immaterial substances, as has been said, much
less can it understand the essence of uncreated substance. Hence, it is to
be said, unqualifiedly, that God is not the first object that is known by
us; rather, we arrive at a knowledge of God through creatures, in accordance with the words of the Apostle [Paul], in Romans 1.20 . . .

One should consider as background to ST I, q. 2, a. 1 not only ST I, q.
88 but also ST I, q. 14, a. 1.This is the discussion of God’s own knowledge.
Is it right to attribute knowledge [Latin: “scientia”] to God? We are given a
short resumé of epistemology, with modes or measures of knowledge based
on modes of immateriality. Sense is cognitive, but intellect is more cognitive because more immaterial; and so God, at the height of immateriality,
is at the height of cognition. Indeed, his knowledge is primarily of himself
as supremely intelligible object, and he thoroughly comprehends himself.37
Thus, we are in a position to cope with the twofold answer given in
ST I, q. 2, a. 1: the model of a proposition, a truth, “known by virtue of
itself ” is that its predicate be included in the very notion of its subject. If
the notion of the predicate and subject are known to all, it will be
“known by virtue of itself ” to all. Thus, we can see why the proposition
“God exists” is known by virtue of itself in itself, but not to us (where the
“us” includes all human beings!). God’s very notion includes existence,
but we humans do not know his essence that way and must approach
God through his effects.
The lesson is based on the differences between the divine and human
minds, and thus supposes some study of such differences.
Furthermore, the lesson is based on the conclusion, not only that
God’s existence can be demonstrated (otherwise what would we be talking about in ST I, q. 3, a. 4?), but that it can be demonstrated that in the
case of God, there must be identity of essence and act of being (the
conclusion of ST I, q. 3, a. 4).
My point is simply how much metaphysics is at work in the article ST
I, q. 2, a. 1, that God’s existence is known by virtue of itself in itself, but
36 Cf. ST I, q. 88, a .2, especially ad 3. Thomas is speaking of the immaterial

substances below the first principle, spoken of by Aristotle, as well as the angels
such as Thomas has presented them.
37 Cf. ST I, q. 14, a. 3.

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not to us human beings. And this is what separates St. Thomas, not only
from St. Anselm (though he is not named here),38 but also from so
prominent a contemporary of Thomas as St. Bonaventure.39
Thomas’s Three-Step Pathway: [2] Is the Proposition
“a god exists” a Demonstrable Conclusion?40
Here we have two points to consider: first, the two modes of demonstration, and secondly, the approach to something whose mere existence requires
demonstration (where the meaning of the name of the thing becomes crucial).
The idea of demonstration is familiar enough to anyone who has
learned some elementary Euclidian geometry. By the same token, what I
am calling its “first mode” is clear, i.e. arriving at the certain knowledge
of a thing’s properties from the nature of the thing itself: e.g. from the
nature of a triangle as such, one is led to the certain knowledge that the
angle made by extending one side is necessarily equal to the sum of the
interior and opposite angles, and that the three interior angles of any

38 Anselm is named and rejected clearly in the recently published work: Thomas

Aquinas, Lectura romana in primum Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, ed. †Leonard E.
Boyle and John F. Boyle (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies,
2006), 3.1.1, lines 13–18 and 45–50. This work is dated 1265–66, according to
John Boyle’s introduction (p. 3).
In Thomas’s In I Sent. d. 3, q. 1, a. 2, ad 4 (Mandonnet ed., p. 95), Thomas
names Anselm, but chooses to understand his position as already presupposing
the existence of a God—a rather benevolent gloss; so also, in his Expositio super
librum Boethii de trinitate, q. 1, a. 3, ad 6, Thomas interprets Anselm as speaking
merely of the proposition “God exists” as being per se notum in itself.
39 See my paper “St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and the Need to Prove the Existence
of God,” in Philosophie et culture (Actes du XVIIe Congrès mondial de philosophie),
ed. Venant Cauchy, vol. 3 (Montréal: Editions Montmorency, 1988), 841–44. I
there discuss Bonaventure’s De mysterio trinitatis, a quaestio disputata. This to be
found in his Opera Omnia, Quaracchi ed. (ex typographia Collegii S. Bonaventurae), vol. V, 45A–B. There is an English translation: Disputed Questions on the
Mystery of the Trinity (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1979), introduction and translation by Zachary Hayes, O.F.M. [Works of St. Bonaventure, edited
by George Marcil, O.F.M., vol. 3]. Hayes dates this work 1253–57 (p. 26), just
before Bonaventure’s academic career ended (he became General of the Franciscan Order). However, the translations used below are my own. The work begins
with two discussions of “preambular” character. The first Bonaventure calls “the
foundation of all certitudinal knowledge ( fundamentum omnis cognitionis certitudinalis), and this is the doctrine that “God exists” is an unquestionable truth: “Deum
esse sit verum indubitabile.” The second he calls “the foundation of all faith-knowledge” ( fundamentum omnis cognitionis fidelis): God as a trinity as a truth of faith.
40 Cf. ST I, q. 2, a. 2.

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triangle are equal to two right angles.41 To so proceed from the definitional characteristics of a thing to its necessary derivatives is to see those
derivative situations in the light of their cause.
It is the second mode of demonstration that rather pertains to the
discussion of the existence of a God. Such demonstration begins with
effects and seeks to know their cause. This is the sort of inquiry we often
see in detective stories. The death of the elderly lady is determined to be
caused by arsenic in her food. The question is raised: who is the agent
that has poisoned her meal? We consider those with the opportunity, and
ultimately learn that her nephew is the only one. We know reasonably
well that he did it, but do not yet know why.
To move from the effect to the cause provides a knowledge of the
cause, that it is the cause, but not the why of the cause.
This is what Thomas tells us about any demonstration of the existence of
a God, viz. that we will acquire only knowledge “that,” not knowledge “why.”
In presenting these two modes or grades of demonstration, Thomas is
not yet limiting the discussion to the particular problem of proving that
something or other exists. He is speaking about movements in our cognitive life generally. We are in a position, let us say, to observe the effects of
a cause, and the more we can gather about those effects, the more we will
get to know about the cause.
Next, he now takes up the case of demonstrating that something exists: “. . .
But from any effect it can be demonstrated ‘that its proper cause exists,’
if, of course, its effects are more known to us.” I.e. taking it for granted
that we have knowledge of the effect (and even minimal knowledge of a
thing is knowledge of its existence —cf. the article’s sed contra),42 if we are
in ignorance of the cause as to its existence, we can come to a knowledge
of the existence of the cause.
This is itself a universal affirmative assertion. From any effect, the existence of its cause can be demonstrated. This is itself proved, concluded to,
argued, on the basis of the metaphysical status of effects relative to causes.
Since an effect depends on its cause, if the effect is posited, the cause must
exist-by-priority. I use hyphens here so as to call to the reader’s attention
41 Euclid, Elements, bk. I, prop. 32 [ed. cit., p. 35]: “If a side of any triangle be

produced, the exterior angle is equal to the two interior and opposite angles; and
the three interior angles of every triangle are together equal to two right angles.”
42 ST I, q. 2, a. 2, sed contra: “. . . there is what the Apostle says, To the Romans 1.20:
‘The invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood through the
things that have been made.’ But this would not be, were it not that through the
things that have been made one could demonstrate that God is; for the first thing
one must understand about something is whether it is” (my italics).

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Thomas’s use of a single word: “praeexistere,” “pre-exist.” To explore this
doctrine, let us note that “depend” here means that an effect’s existence is
seen as flowing from another, i.e. that without the cause the effect cannot be.43
It should be noted here that the image of cause and effect is of things given
together, i.e. simultaneously. Often we hear people include in the idea of a
cause its being temporally before, earlier than, its effect: like parents before
children.44 It can be the case that a cause exists before its effect, and in
some causal situations it must be the case.45 However, what is absolutely
essential for causality is that the cause exist when the effect exists (either
in the same mode of duration or in a higher mode of duration).46 What
we mean here by “an effect” is a thing as actually depending on something else.
So taken, a house, for example, depends on the housebuilder while it is
43 The very word “depends,” in the proposition “an effect depends on its cause,”

supposes as already understood the effect-to-cause relationship of the beings we
know. One can see this in St. Thomas’s In Metaph. V, lect. 13, where he is
commenting on Aristotle’s presentation of the notions of priority and posteriority. Thus, in para. 950, the first way in which something is prior to another “in
being” [in essendo] involves the notion of dependence [. . . ratione . . . dependentiae]; and he says: “. . . those things are called ‘prior’ which can be without others
and those [others] cannot be without them.” And in para. 953, all modes of priority and posteriority are said to be reducible to that first one. The reason for this
reducibility: “. . . For it is clear that the prior does not depend on the posterior,
the way the converse is true. Hence, all prior things can in some way be without
the posterior things, and not conversely” (my italics).
44 This is seen in the “definition of cause” presented by David Hume in An Inquiry
Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Charles W. Hendel, Section VII, part 2 (Indianapolis: The Liberal Arts Press, 1955), 87. He says: “. . . an object followed by
another, and whose appearance always conveys the thought of that other.”
45 Cf. ST I, q. 46, a. 2, ad 1 (297b12–24): “. . . an efficient cause which is effective
through motion necessarily precedes its effect temporally; because the effect is not,
save only at the conclusion of the action, whereas every agent must be the origin
of the action. But if the action is instantaneous, and not successive, it is not necessary that the maker be prior in duration to the thing made, as is clear in the case
of illumination. Hence, they [i.e. some philosophers] say that it does not follow
of necessity, if God is the efficient cause of the world, that he is prior in duration
to the world; because creation, by which he produced the world, is not a successive change.” Thomas took illumination to be an instantaneous event, since that
is how it sensibly appears, and so it furnished him with a suitable example. Not
having this available as an illustration, I generally use one thing maintaining
another in a state of rest (my hand holding up a book), in order to present simultaneity of effect and cause.
46 I add this qualifier because of the difference between time and eternity. God and
his effects exist “simultaneously,” but God’s sort of duration, eternity, is of an
incomparably higher order than the creature’s sort of duration. See ST I, q. 10,
a. 4, obj. 1 and ad 1; also I, q. 10, a. 5.

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under construction. Once the house is finished, the dependence on the
builder has ceased. He is not the cause of the house’s being, only of its
coming to be. While it was coming into being, his contribution was necessary.
Once the process of construction has been completed, it is the support of
the ground underneath, the pressure of the atmosphere, etc., which maintain the house in being. These are causes of the being of the house.47
I usually use, as my example of cause-effect relationship, my hand held
up high, itself holding a book. The onlooker sees the hand and the book
on high as a unity. Furthermore, he knows that the book is not the hand.
Both have the perfection called “being up high,” but the onlooker knows
by experience that “being up high” belongs to the book only insofar as it
derives from the “being up high” of my hand. The book has derivative-beingup-high, while my hand has a being-up-high-by-priority. “Being” is something we find in things according to priority and posteriority, and so we speak
of “cause and effect.”
47 See ST I, q. 104, a. 1; and see my paper “St. Thomas, Joseph Owens, and Exis-

tence,” The New Scholasticism 56 (1982): 421–41.
Concerning the proposition: “An effect depends on its cause,” used here in
ST I, q. 2, a. 2, and which is thus the foundation for all of the Five Ways, see my
paper “St. Thomas and the Principle of Causality,” in Jacques Maritain: philosophe
dans la cité/A Philosopher in the World, ed. J.-L. Allard (Ottawa: University of
Ottawa Press, 1985), 53–71; concerning the position of Hume, see especially
70–71, n. 68. (This is reprinted in my book Form and Being [Washington, DC:
The Catholic University of America Press, 2006], 61–80, at 80.)
The simultaneity of cause and effect is presented by Aristotle, Physics II 3
(195b16–26); see Thomas, In Phys. II, lect. 6 (ed. Maggiolo, no. 195 [9]). Thomas
says: “. . . between actual causes and potential causes there is this difference, that
causes actually in operation are and are not simultaneously with those things of
which they are the actual causes, in this way, however, viz. that one take the
causes in their singularity, i.e. the proper causes; for example, this healing person
simultaneously is and is not with this person being healed, and this building
person with this structure being built. But if the proper causes are not taken, even
though they be taken as actual [or in operation], what is claimed is not true. For
the one who is building is not [found] simultaneously to be and not to be relative to that which is built: for one can be actually building, and yet this building
is not being built, but some other [building]. But if we take the builder building
this building, and this building according as it is being built, it is necessary that
the one being posited the other is posited, and the one being removed the other
is removed. But this does not always occur with causes which are potential: for
the house and the man who built it do not simultaneously cease to be.
“Hence, one can gather that just as lower agents, which are causes of things
as regards their coming to be, must be simultaneously with those things which
are brought into being, while they are brought into being, so also the divine
agent, which is the cause of existing actually [causa existendi in actu] is simultaneous with the being actually of the thing [esse rei in actu].”

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We should stress also Thomas’s use of the word “proper.” “From any
effect, it can be demonstrated that its proper cause is.” This is to say that
the character of the effect demands the possession by the cause of a suitable grade of perfection, such as is sufficient to account for the effect. If
I find that the piece of cheese I left on the table is missing, I may not be
sure whether a mouse or a human being or a cat took it. Still, I may rule
out, usually, the wind. However, if what I left is a ten-dollar bill, the wind
might suffice (if the window were open).
Notice also that even if the effect is such that it shows it could only have
been the work of one person, e.g. a letter written with such details as could
only have come from my elder brother, still the letter does not tell us everything about my elder brother. A cause may be the only cause from which
such an effect could come, and yet be capable of many other effects of
other sorts. The power of the cause need not be fully revealed in this or
that of its proper effects. This is the lesson taught more explicitly in the
answer to the third objection of ST I, q. 2, a. 2: the God’s effects may reveal
the God’s existence, but not the full perfection of his essential nature.
There is one other point that must be clear: we are speaking of knowing the effect as an effect, i.e. such that the thing reveals its dependence. It is
no accident that the first of Thomas’s Five Ways, presented in ST I, q. 2,
a. 3, takes its start from change. As Thomas has said elsewhere:
. . . it is to be observed that we were first able to infer the origin of one
thing from another because of change [Latin: ex motu], for, given that
some thing was taken away from its disposition by change, it was clear
that this came about through some cause.48

The work done in the First Way is mainly to make apparent the derivative
character of change as such.
Thomas now simply concludes that, in accordance with what he has
said about knowledge of effects, and demonstrating the existence of their
proper cause, the proposition “a god is,” inasmuch as it is not known by
virtue of itself to us, is demonstrable by means of effects known to us. This
provides us with a general idea of what Thomas is about to undertake. Its
truth can only be judged by what happens in article 3.
However, we have not finished with the analysis of demonstrations of
the existence of something. A most essential point is made in Thomas’s
ST I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2. The objection runs as follows:
48 ST I, q. 41, a. 1, ad 2: “. . . primo coniicere potuimus originem alicuius ab alio,

ex motu: quod enim aliqua res a sua dispositione removeretur per motum, manifestum fuit hoc ab aliqua causa accidere.”

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The means of demonstration is the what-it-is. But concerning a god
we cannot know what it is, but only what it is not, as Damascene says.49
Therefore, we cannot demonstrate [the proposition] “a god is.”

And Thomas replies:
It is to be said that when the cause is demonstrated through the effect,
it is necessary to use the effect in place of the definition of the cause in
order to prove that “the cause is;” and this occurs most of all in [the case
of] a god. Because, in order to prove that “something is,” it is necessary to take
for the means [of demonstration] what the word signifies, not the “what it is,”
because the question: “what is it?” follows upon the question: “is it?” But
the words [used] of a god are conferred from [its] effects, as will later be shown.
Hence, in demonstrating “a god is” through an effect, we can take as
means [of demonstration] what this word “a god” signifies.50 (My italics)

This turns our attention to the meaning of the word “a god,” which is
to serve as the means, i.e. the middle term, in any demonstration of a god’s
existence: in the case of anything whose very existence is questionable,
all that is really known at the outset is the item as “talked about,” i.e. the
meaning of the word.
The scientific “question of existence” is not about the existence of
contingent individuals, but about the existence of a kind of thing (a
“sort”).That is why one uses the expression: “Is there any such thing?”The
human being exists. Many types of spider exist. Does “a god” exist?
Before asking: “is there only one or are there many?” we must ask: “is it
a sort-of-thing to be found in reality?”

49 Cf. St. John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa (versions of Burgundio and Cerbanus),

ed. Eligius M. Buytaert, O.F.M. (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1955),
ch. 4, par. 4, pp. 20–21. We read: “. . . These [viz. such terms as ‘incorruptible’ and
‘inalterable’] signify, not what [God] is, but what he is not. But someone who
wishes to present a substance, must say what it is, not what it is not. However, in
[the case of] God, it is impossible to say what he is, as to [his very] substance; one
comes closer building a notion by negating everything. For he is none of those
things which are; not [as though] he were not a being, but as a being which is
above all, and a being which is above being itself [super ipsum esse ens].”
50 ST I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2: “Ad secundum dicendum quod cum demonstratur causa per
effectum, necesse est uti effectu loco definitionis causae, ad probandum ‘causam esse,’
et hoc maxime contingit in deo. Quia ad probandum ‘aliquid esse,’ necesse est accipere
pro medio quid significet nomen, non autem ‘quod quid est,’ quia quaestio ‘quid est?’
sequitur ad quaestionem ‘an est?’ Nomina autem dei imponuntur ab effectibus, ut postea
ostendetur; unde, demonstrando ‘deum esse’ per effectum, accipere possumus pro
medio quid significet hoc nomen ‘deus’ ” (my italics).

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We can supply meanings for the word “god” and then on that basis seek
evidence of the real existence of the named item. Thomas is here, in ST
I, q. 2, a. 2, once again introducing into the discussion something he will
speak more about later, viz. the words we use concerning a god. ST I,
q. 13 is a comparatively lengthy ST question, containing as it does twelve
articles. The general topic is the application of human speech to the God
who has revealed himself and whose existence has also been demonstrated in the previous questions. Articles 8–10 are about the particular
word “god” and its usage. Here in q. 2, a. 2 the point made is that the
words, the names, we use concerning a god are taken from the effects
attributed to such a being.
One could ask: why is there a word at all? If we do not know of a
thing’s existence, how does it get into the discussion? Furthermore, how
do we judge of the meaning of words?
A teaching of Aristotle featured on occasion by Thomas is that “the
usage of the multitude is to be followed” as to the meaning of words.51
Furthermore, I would say that the very existence of the word “a god”
suggests a line of thinking among human beings, such as is referred to by
St. Thomas in ST II–II, q. 85, a. 1 (the query being: whether it pertains
to natural law that one should offer sacrifice?). This ST II–II teaching is
closely linked to our experience of our own imperfection. We read:
. . . natural reason [naturalis ratio] declares forcefully [dictat] to man that
he is placed under some superior [being], because of the defects which
he experiences in himself, with regard to which he needs to be aided
and directed by some superior. And whatever that [superior] is, this it
is which among all [men] is called “a god”. But just as, in natural things,
the lower are naturally placed under the higher, so also natural reason
strongly declares to man, seconded by natural inclination [naturalis ratio
dictat homini secundum naturalem inclinationem], that he [should] exhibit,
in a way in keeping with his own self, submission and honour to that
which is above man.52 (My italics)

51 Cf. ScG I, ch. 1 (ed. Pera, para. 2): “The usage of the multitude, which according

to the Philosopher is to be followed in giving names to things, has commonly
held that they are to be called ‘wise’ who order things rightly and govern them
well” (trans. A. C. Pegis). The reference is to Aristotle, Topics II 1 (109a27–29).
52 ST II–II, q. 85, a. 1 (1861b48–1862a6): “. . . naturalis ratio dictat homini quod alicui
superiori subdatur, propter defectus quos in seipso sentit, in quibus ab aliquo superiori eget adiuvari et dirigi. Et quidquid illud sit, hoc est quod apud omnes dicitur ‘deus.’
Sicut autem in rebus naturalibus naturaliter inferiora superioribus subduntur, ita
etiam naturalis ratio dictat homini secundum naturalem inclinationem ut ei quod
est supra hominem subiectionem et honorem exhibeat secundum suum modum.”

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Here the resulting precept of natural law, our duty to offer sacrifice,
pertains to the virtue of religion, the highest form of justice.53 However,
what interests us at present is the nature of the knowledge of God that is
involved, the fruit of natural reasoning. And it is seen as universal, i.e. pertaining to man by his very nature.54
I would relate this rather universal “sizing up of our situation” on the
part of human beings to Thomas’s teaching concerning “what is right
among the peoples” [ius gentium]55 and see it as source of our having such
a word as “a god.” The meaning of the name is prior to the name itself
and is expressed in the argument for such a being. Notice how Thomas
works the name into the passage at II–II, q. 85, a. 1 as a kind of conclusion. This all call a god.
We have seen enough of the general description of a demonstration of
the existence of a god.
Thomas’s Three-Step Pathway: [3] whether a god exists?
Thomas, having first of all rejected the view of those who hold that the
existence of a god is known by virtue of itself to the human mind, and
secondly rejected the position that the existence of a god is not demonstrable by human reason, now presents us with an article displaying five
avenues, five pathways, in humanly experienced reality that conclude to the
existence of a god. I have elsewhere on more than one occasion indicated
what I take to be the careful order of discussion in this article.56 Here I will
only mention that I see the last two, the fourth and fifth ways, as most satisfying, in which Thomas concludes with the “we” form:“this we call a god.”
The god presented by the fourth way is “something which for all beings is
the cause of being and goodness and of every perfection.” We are surely
presented with a being, described as “maximally a being,” which is a creative
53 Cf. ST II–II, q. 122, a. 1.
54 I am here quoting a paragraph from my review article “Kevin Flannery, S.J., Acts

Amid Precepts: The Aristotelian Logical Structure of Thomas Aquinas’s Moral Theory
(Washington, DC: CUA Press, 2001),” Nova et Vetera 5, no. 2 (2007): 431–44, at
433–37. There I present a similar doctrine of our natural reasoning to a god, as
taught by St. Thomas in his Super psalmos, commentary on Psalm 8.
55 ST II–II, q. 57, a. 3; cf. my paper “The Foundations of Human Rights,” in Science
et Esprit 62, fasc. 2–3 (May–Dec. 2010): 227–36.
56 I first proposed this reading on the Ways and their order in “Number and Order
of St. Thomas’s Five Ways,” Downside Review 92 (1974): 1–18. Most recently I
have gone over it in “St. Thomas Aquinas as an Example of the Importance of
the Hellenistic Legacy,” in Doctor Communis, fasc. 1–2 (2008): 88–118. (The
volume is the Proceedings of the Seventh Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, Vatican City, 22–24 June 2007.)

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source.57 The god, as presented in the fifth way, is seen as the intelligence at
the origin of all nature, thus definitely a personal sort of being.
St.Thomas distinguishes between the very universal reasoning to a god
that he sees throughout humanity and the carefully controlled judgments
of the philosophers. In the last part of this essay I will simply indicate
some current interest in his demonstrations and the field of battle that
they occupy. In the end of all, one will either hold the existence of God
by the certitude of supernatural faith, or by philosophical demonstration,
or by more “homespun” reasoning. Otherwise one will find oneself
among the atheists or the doubters or the uncertain.58
Among the Five Ways for proving the existence of a God proposed by
Thomas Aquinas in the Summa theologiae, the Fifth has a special status. It
is true that the First Way is designated as “more manifest” [manifestior via]
among the five.59 Nevertheless, in other places we see a certain primacy
accorded to the sort of argument given in the Fifth Way. Thus, when
commenting on the Gospel according to St. John (commentary dated
1269–72, thus later than the 1266–68 ST I), and undertaking to characterize the nobility of St. John’s wisdom, Thomas reviews the modes of
knowing God that the ancient philosophers had developed.The very first
relates to the Fifth Way. We read:
. . . some came to a knowledge of God through his authority [per auctoritatem]; and this is the most efficacious pathway [via efficacissima].
For we see that those [things] which are among natural things act
for the sake of a goal, and attain to useful and definite goals; and since
they lack intellect, they cannot direct themselves, unless they be
directed and moved by something directed through intellect. And
hence it is that the very movement itself of natural things to a definite
goal indicates that there is something higher by which natural things
are directed to a goal and governed. And therefore, since the whole
course of nature proceeds and is directed in an orderly way towards a
goal, of necessity we must posit something higher which directs them
and governs them as a Lord: and this is God.60
57 Cf. my paper “St. Thomas, the Fourth Way, and Creation,” The Thomist 59 (1995):

371–78.
58 The following several paragraphs, up to and including the 1997 quotation from

Michael Behe partially reproduce material from the prologue (pp. 47–48) to my
paper “St. Thomas’s ‘Fifth Way’ Revisited,” Universitas [Taipei] 31, no. 3 (March
2004): 47–67.
59 ST I, q. 2, a. 3 (13b39–42): “. . . the first and more manifest way is that which is
taken from the aspect of change [ex parte motus].”
60 Super evangelium s. Ioannis lectura, prologus s.Thomae, ed. R. Kai, O.P. (Turin: Marietti, 1952), no. 3. The passage continues: “And this governing authority [present]

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Thomas here designates the Fifth Way line of reasoning as “most efficacious.” True, the above is somewhat fuller than the Fifth Way itself, since
it takes the trouble to formulate a premise concerning the entire universe.
The Fifth Way itself could not be more Spartan in its presentation.61
Again, when preaching to the people in Naples in Lent of 1273, and
using only one line of argument for the existence of a God,Thomas presents the atheist as one who views the universe as a result of chance, and
the theist as convinced of a cosmic providence.62
I am certainly satisfied with the line of thinking of the Fifth Way.
However, it is a long way from the knowledge of a god’s existence, to the
in the Word of God is demonstrated when he is called ‘Lord’; hence in Psalm
88.10 it is said: ‘You lord it over the power of the sea; you calm the movement of
its waves: so to say:You are the Lord and you govern the universe.’
“John shows that he has this knowledge concerning the Word when he says:
‘He came unto his own,’ i.e. into the world; because the whole world is his own.”
61 It is true that the passage in Thomas’s prologue to the Gospel of St. John is not
a presentation of ways to prove the existence of a God. It is a presentation of four
modes of intellectually approaching God. The first way given, which I have
reported, and the third include most formally proofs of existence. The others
concern (2) immutability and eternity, (3) the divine dignity or nobility, and (4)
the incomprehensibility of the divine truth. One might suggest that the adjective “most efficacious” compares the first of these approaches to the other three.
Another place we might note is Thomas’s Commentary on the Psalms,
composed at Naples during the period 1272–73. It speaks of cosmic order and
the need for an intelligent cause. See above, note 54.
62 In Symbolum Apostolorum Expositio, a. 1 (in Opuscula Theologica, ed. Spiazzi, vol. 2
[Turin: Marietti, 1954], no. 869): “Among all those things which the faithful
ought to believe, this is the first which they ought to believe, viz. that there is
one God. Now, one must consider what this word ‘God’ signifies, which is nothing else but a governor and provider of all things. Therefore, that person believes
that there is a God who believes that all the things of this world are governed
and provided for by him.
“But someone who believes that all arise by chance does not believe that
there is a God. But none is found to be so stupid as not to believe that natural
things are governed, provided for, and disposed, since they proceed in a particular order and at certain times: for we see that the sun and the moon and the stars,
and other natural things, all preserve a determinate course; which would not
happen if they were by chance. Hence, if there were someone who did not
believe there is a God, he would be stupid. Psalms 13.1 ‘The fool has said in his
heart: “there is no God.” ’ ”
Thomas goes on, however, to note those who admit such a governor for the
natural world, but not for human affairs. He also finds it necessary to argue
further that there is only one God.
For the date and occasion of this work, I am following James A. Weisheipl,
O.P., Friar Thomas d’Aquino (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), 401. Weisheipl
uses the title “Collationes super Credo in Deum.”

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truth of Christian revelation. The latter is a much richer vision of reality,
one had only through supernatural faith.
Each of the ways involves a world of discussion, a world of discussion
that takes place among human beings. Often they have impressive
credentials. I will say something about the current interest in the Fifth
Way, the source of finality, intelligibility, in nature.
From the beginning of our history, we have people attempting to
derive such natural finality from chance. To attempt to conceive of the
origins of the variety of living things in the mere random assemblages of
distinct items is to attempt “to generate all things from night” or from
what is merely potentially something, as did the theologians and natural
scientists criticized by Aristotle.63
Still, as I have often remarked, the Presocratics, like the poor, are always
with us! There is much argument about the validity of the Fifth Way type
of proof. We might juxtapose statements of two interested present-day
scientists, particle physicist Stephen Weinberg and molecular biologist
Michael Behe. Nobel Laureate Weinberg tells us:
One of the greatest moments in the history of human thought was the
discovery by Darwin and Wallace in the nineteenth century that no
“life force” is needed to explain the evolution of species. Life is not
governed by independent fundamental biological laws—it can be
described as the effects of physics and chemistry worked out over
billions of years of accidents. It is not so long ago that many people’s
religious beliefs were based on the argument from design, the argument
that the wonderful characteristics of living things could not possibly
arise without a divine plan. Lytton Strachey tells how Cardinal
Manning came to his faith in just this way. Now that we understand
how evolution can occur through the natural selection of random
mutations, the argument from design has lost its force for anyone with
a reasonable understanding of biological science.64

On the other hand, Behe, the biologist, tells us:
The sterility of Darwinism indicates that it is the wrong framework for
understanding the basis of life. As I argue in my book, an alternative
hypothesis is both natural and obvious: systems such as the flagellum [of
the e. coli bacterium] were intentionally designed by an intelligent
agent. Just as in the everyday world we immediately conclude design
when we see a complex, interactive system such as a mousetrap, there
63 Aristotle, Metaph. XII 6 (1071b22–31);Thomas, In Metaph. XII, lect. 6 (2501–2503).
64 Steven Weinberg, “The Future of Science, and the Universe,” The New York

Review of Books, November 15, 2001.

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is no reason to withhold the same conclusion from interactive molecular systems. This conclusion may have theological implications that
make some people uncomfortable; nonetheless it is the job of science
to follow the data wherever they lead, no matter how disturbing.65

More recently we have the case of Antony Flew, a British philosopher
who had published throughout his career as a decided atheist, and who
recently (2004) announced that he now concluded to the existence of a
God. As a result he came in for criticism from Richard Dawkins in a
hugely popular book, The God Delusion. In reply Flew noted the failure
of Dawkins to mention to his readers the view of Albert Einstein “that
there must be a Divine Intelligence behind the physical world.” And Flew
remarked: “I myself think it obvious that if this argument is applicable to
the world of physics then it must be hugely more powerful if it is applied
to the immeasurably more complicated world of biology.” Flew stresses
that he is a Deist, i.e. that he recognizes no divine revelation.66
I refer to such discussions merely to recall that there is a battlefield in
such matters. I encourage the reader to persevere in the study of the Five
Ways of Summa theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3. I am a witness that it is well worth
their while.
As I wrote in my paper “Truth and Happiness,” speaking of the turmoil
of human philosophical discussion on proofs of the existence of a god:
And if we ask whence comes that turmoil, we cannot fail to notice that
revelation presents us with human nature as a wounded nature. The
natural inclinations of the human being are still present, but in a weakened condition. Intellectual judgment is affected, especially in the
moral order.67 We should not be surprised if there is deep division
among philosophers, as to questions about the purpose of human life.
65 Michael J. Behe, “The Sterility of Darwinism,” Boston Review (February/March

1997). Behe is referring in the quotation to his book Darwin’s Black Box: The
Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (New York: The Free Press, 1996). See also his
more recent book The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism
(New York: Free Press, 2007), in which, at page 4, we read: “As a theory-of-everything, Darwinism is usually presented as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Either
accept the whole theory or decide that evolution is all hype, and throw out the
baby with the bath water. Both are mistakes. In dealing with an often-menacing
nature, we can’t afford the luxury of elevating anybody’s dogmas over data. The
purpose of this book is to cut through the fog, to offer a sober appraisal of what
Darwinian processes can and cannot do, to find what I call the edge of evolution.”
66 My information and quotation from Professor Flew is from “A Reply to Richard
Dawkins,” by Antony Flew, First Things (December 2008).
67 ST I–II, q. 85, a. 3 (1178b5–6): “. . . through sin, reason is rendered superficial,
especially regarding the domain of action.”

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Moreover, moral issues dividing philosophers will cast their spell on
the contemplative mind itself. As . . . [ Étienne] Gilson pointed out in
The Unity of Philosophical Experience, very often our problems in speculative philosophy have their real roots in moral questions.68 The idea is
that, were it not for our inclinations, we might be readier to recognize
theoretical principles more spontaneously. This was long ago maintained by St. Augustine, speaking of the Manicheans concerning the
metaphysics of good and evil. Augustine remarked that what he was
saying hardly needed the support of argument, so evident was it—had
it not been an issue which touched upon human conduct—morals—
N&V
thus spawning controversy.69

68 Étienne Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience (New York: Scribners, 1937),

61: “There is an ethical problem at the root of our philosophical difficulties; for
men are most anxious to find truth, but very reluctant to accept it.”
69 Augustine, De moribus Manichaeorum IV.6 (in Oeuvres de saint Augustin, vol. 1 of
Bibliothèque Augustinienne [Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1949], 262). The previous two paragraphs are taken from “Truth and Happiness,” ch. 4 of my book
Wisdom, Law, and Virtue (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), at 69–70.

Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2012): 757–74

757

A Philosopher for Our Time:
Aquinas and Critical Reason
F IONA LYNCH
St. Killian’s College
County Antrim, Ireland

I T IS a commonplace observation that the many tomes of the Summa
Theologica yield little of the personality of their writer, who breathed the
bracing air of impersonal things; they are perhaps unlikely to quicken the
pulse of the reader in search of spiritual thrills. Behind St. Thomas’s
dispassionate language of analysis, the clear, hard lines of his thought,
there must have lain, however, an immense and pulsating excitement: no
doubt he erased himself from his work because, like Socrates, he loved
wisdom more than the thought of himself as wisdom’s possessor. Like all
truly great people, he was devoid of self-importance: a teacher and, like
Aristotle, “master of those who know,” but, before that, a slave of the truth
and servant of God.
What remains arresting about Aquinas today is his conviction, now so
dubiously held among believers themselves, that it is intelligent to be a
believer: the bold assertion that the proper conduct of man’s intellectual
endeavor to make sense of the world leads of necessity to faith, viewed
not as a substitute for reason but as the climax of reason’s work. This is
not, of course, to assert that the existence of God is self-evident; Thomas
himself, in repudiating the ontological argument of Anselm, famously
denied that this is the case, and there are, perhaps, few people more irritating than religious believers who speak as though it were. Aquinas
writes always within an awareness of the difficulties of our fallen state: as
The author wishes to dedicate this article to the memory of Rev. Professor James
McEvoy, who read it in draft form. It was from him that she learned her metaphysics,
and she would like to pay him the highest academic and personal tribute. “Those
who have instructed many in virtue will shine like stars for all eternity” (Dn 12:3).

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a consequence of the Fall, man has lost what he might have had,1 the
intuitive knowledge of God enjoyed by the angels,2 and has to proceed
to the truth by the wavering light of a reason that is flawed and subject
to error. The Quinquae Viae are cosmological “ways,” showing how the
intelligible structure of being proves it to require the existence of God.
Nor is it to overlook the fact that any attempt to rehabilitate the intellectual enterprise of St.Thomas in our time must take account of what has
happened since, in the history of thought and the history of Western society. Those who think today think after the epistemological critique of
Descartes and Kant, after existentialists, logical positivists, nuclear physicists,
and molecular biologists. They also think after several savage centuries,
when the humane dream of reason seems so many times to have crumbled
into dust. All I can hope to do here is to suggest some ways in which the
perennial philosophy, and St. Thomas himself, might continue to speak in
our time and, in some ways, provide a corrective to it. I should like to draw
attention, firstly, to his vigorous belief in the power of the human mind to
lay hold upon reality; secondly, to the idea that the mind “lays hold” upon
God when thought is pushed to its limits; and, finally, to the continuity
between the intellectual and the spiritual life, philosophy and mysticism,
suggested by this. But, especially, I should like to draw attention to a person
from whom there is much to be learned and in whom there came together
such grandeur of intellect and humility before God.
The Priority of Being to Thought
In trying to imagine the stance Aquinas might take today, one sees him,
firstly, as summoning the modern world to thought, to the centrality of
the intellect. For him, intelligence is, of all forms of life, the most perfect;
1 In treating of the question “whether the first man saw God in his essence,”

Aquinas argues that even in its prelapsarian state humanity did not see God “face
to face,” since this would have made human freedom purely theoretical: “ . . .
nobody who sees God in his essence can wilfully and deliberately turn away
from God, which is what sin is. And for this reason, all who see God in his
essence are so solidly established in the love of God that never can they sin. Since
then Adam did sin, it is obvious that he never used to see God in his essence”
(see Summa theologiae I, q. 91, a. 1).
(All quotations from the Summa, henceforth referred to as ST, are from the
Latin text and English translation by the Dominican Fathers, Blackfriars, in
conjunction with Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, and McGraw-Hill Book
Company, New York, 1964ff.)
2 “There is this difference between men and angels, according to Dionysius: an
angel perceives truth by simple apprehension, but a man comes finally to gaze
upon simple truth only by progressive steps” (ST II–II, q. 180, a. 3).

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for human beings, all true vitality comes from the mind, from the free
intercourse of the intelligence with the intelligible, the intellect with
being. The problem with Aquinas today, which is our problem and not
his, is that modern thought has blocked this free access of the mind to
being, leading, Cartesian-style, to the endless, sickening return of
consciousness upon itself, ultimately, as in Feuerbach (then Freud),
acknowledging no reality higher than the human mind, of which God is
a wayward and regrettable invention.
Aquinas took the priority of being to knowledge and, therefore, a
correspondence theory of truth, simply as given, an indemonstrable first
principle—although this is not to suggest that he was, any more than
Plato, unaware of our incurable tendency to breed false and falsifying
images of reality, “shadows of shadows.” (One might ask, however,
whence our obscure recognition of them as false and our desire to realign them with what is true.) For him, the spacious abstractions of being,
totality, and eternity are not abstractions only, Kantian unifying ideas or
regulative principles self-generated by a mind busily tidying up the
phenomenal world, but constitutive features of reality, the really real,
which lies beyond manipulation and possession and, as we shall see, even
for Aquinas, beyond thought itself.
This epistemological optimism (so different from the famous optimism
of the Enlightenment) is the fruit of Aquinas’s happy marriage of Greek
thought with the creationist metaphysics of Christianity. When he moves
from (in Scholastic terminology) ens, the particular, derivative being of
existing things, to ens in genere, the being in which they are held, without
which they could not be, to Ipsum Esse Subsistens, the Self-subsistent
Source of being, he is affirming the dependent relation of the material
world to the creator-God of Genesis. The philosophical underpinning of
this connection comes from the whole, marvellous Greek philosophical
enterprise of identifying what is real and permanent (the two being
largely synonymous in Greek thought) in a changing world, the Heraclitean flux of generation and corruption; notionally separating (in Plato’s
Forms or Aristotle’s Separate Substances) what is real and permanent from
that world; and establishing the relation of what is real and permanent to
the world as a condition of the world’s reality and intelligibility.
In a curious paradox, which retains its place in Christian thought,
those things which the senses most readily affirm as real have a derivative
reality only;3 their being provides for the intellect only a temporary quies;
3 “Just as the eyes of owls are to the light of day, so is our soul’s intellective power

to those things which are by nature the most evident of all.” Thomas Aquinas’s
commentary on Metaphysics II, lect. 1, §149.

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they frame a question. This is true not only of sensory objects and the
complex causal relations among them but, less obviously, of the universe
itself and of the “higher” realities of human experience, the higher
sources of truth and value: beauty in art and nature, even relationship and
love. In themselves, these also provide only a temporary quies; these also
frame a question (whence? why? whither?)—for the unbeliever who will
not turn away from it, a bleakly unanswerable question to be faced with
despairing courage in a meaningless universe; for the believer, a question
shepherding him toward the affirmation of God. In Plato’s famous allegory, the infatuated prisoners gaze only upon images, but the enlightened
philosophic mind takes flight from the sensible to the intellectual world
and ultimately to the Form of the Good, whence flow all reality and
intelligibility. Aristotle’s philosopher, in the careful, painstaking process
traced out in the Metaphysics, recognizes actuality as the form of sensible
substance and extends this concept of form-as-act to the realm of the
Separate Substances, so that the final resting place of knowledge is the
Actus Purus, the Pure Actuality, eternal and supremely intelligible, of the
Mover. For Aquinas, likewise, “from consideration of the ordered universe
we ascend in ordered degrees, so far as we are able by our intellect, to
God who is above all.”4
Our problem is that the critical reason of the Enlightenment throws up
an impediment to this smooth transition from ens to Ipsum Esse Subsistens
and so precludes from the outset the affirmation of God. Space and time
are, for Kant, conditions of the possibility of all our knowing; yet God is,
by definition, outside the spatio-temporal world of his creation. Faith is
sundered from knowledge, as Kant admits, famously declaring that he has
denied knowledge in order to make room for faith.5
How do I know that I know? For all rational agents, this stern, selfcorrecting question, reflexive and reflective, is legitimate and necessary.
Within a realist epistemology, I can be said truly to know when my
knowledge is adequate to a reality that precedes, measures, and exists
independently of it. So far, so much in agreement with the principles of
scientific investigation, which is impossible without the presupposition,
at least as a working hypothesis, of a correspondence theory of truth, the
belief in an objective, intelligible reality against which conclusions are
tested. This presupposition, dubbed “empirical realism” by the French
4 Commentary on ‘De Divinis Nominibus’ vii, 4. (Henceforth referred to as Super De

Div. Nom.)
5 Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, 2d ed., trans. Norman Kemp Smith

(London: Macmillan, 1929, 1976), 29

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philosopher and physicist Bernard D’Espagnat, undermines the view that
esse est percipi. D’Espagnat notes that
in physics, it often happens that fully consistent and beautifully rational
theories are falsified by experiment. They have, in too many domains,
verifiable consequences that turn out to be at variance with what is
actually observed. Something says “no.” This something cannot just be
“us.” There must therefore be something else than just “us.”6

As Dr. Johnson remarked, I know that the pavement exists when I stub
my toe against it.
According to the verifiability principle, then, my conclusion is true
when the hypothesis fits the facts: adaequatio rei et intellectus,7 one might
say. In both German Idealism and British Empiricism, however, this
presupposition of the intelligibility of being carries us no further than the
limits of the empirical world and, even as applied to that world, is heavily qualified by Kantian agnosticism about noumenal reality or (as in
British Empiricism) the distinction between primary and secondary
qualities. “How do I know that I know?”: within a critical epistemology,
there is no way out of the impasse that question ultimately engenders. As
Tolstoy remarks, we have lost the vision of a reality outside ourselves.
Correspondence gives way to coherence, and there is no longer any
room for a science of God, in the full, medieval sense. After the Enlightenment, the physical sciences are the most objective thing we have—
though, three centuries later, when scientific certainties have slipped and
slid into probabilities only, we are increasingly aware of the multiple ways
in which science has failed us.
Despite their commitment to rational enquiry, many scientists work
within the truncated Enlightenment view of reason, whether they know
it or not. Yet the mechanistic Newtonian model of a universe governed
by regular physical laws that are in principle exhaustively knowable has
long since been superseded by science itself: modern physics would seem
to be in search of a philosophy that will provide a better “fit” for the
world of quantum mechanics, and will better accommodate such recent
discoveries as nonseparability and decoherence, than do Empiricism and
Idealism. How exciting if it were the perennial philosophy!
In his enormously interesting work On Physics and Philosophy, D’Espagnat finds support in contemporary quantum theory for a primacy of
6 Bernard D’Espagnat, On Physics and Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-

sity Press, 2006), 240.
7 De veritate, q. 1, a. 2.

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existence to thought that goes much further than the “empirical realism”
espoused by some (the others being radical neo-Kantian Idealists) of
those whom he calls “the sages” of developed societies and who “impart
to the word ‘reality’ merely the sense of a sort of synthesis of all of what,
in the field of (probabilistically [sic ]) predictable phenomena, may be
metaphorically represented by means of a descriptive language.”8 Initially,
he suggests that the resistance of Kant’s noumenon to descriptive
language (the “unreachability” of the noumenon) may be the philosophical counterpart to contemporary physics. The noumenon is, after all, a
necessary concept which, nonetheless, may not be conceptualized: a
“ground of being” or “necessary reality.”Yet he turns away from Kant to
assert that
it is in no way necessary to side with him in thinking of reality-in-itself
. . . as being a “pure x”, in other words, a mere, uninteresting, “limiting
concept.” Now if it is not a “pure x”, it may count in our eyes. But at
the same time, being veiled, it is not accessible to discursive knowledge.
This being the very definition of mystery, it follows that these views
imply that mystery exists.9

The similarity of this line of argument and this kind of language to
traditional religious metaphysics is striking indeed: “ground of being”;
“mystery”; “veiled Reality.” “Veiled Reality” might describe all the “manifestations” of God in Judaeo-Christian thought: the Deus absconditus of
Israel, the “veiled” divinity of Jesus, the latens deitas of the Eucharist. It also
describes the mystery we sense in other people and in ourselves, the elusive
“self ” behind the busy, interactive Freudian ego. “Would’st pluck out my
mystery?” Hamlet asks. (Interestingly, the scientist, cross and impatient with
that which cannot be conceptualized, forever seeking, to borrow Marcel’s
distinction, to turn mystery into problem, must, for D’Espagnat, ultimately
give way to the poet, characteristically more tolerant of a reality that can
be glimpsed, intuited, affirmed, but not fully understood.)10
Not all physicists, of course, would agree with D’Espagnat. Yet it
remains the case that science as we now conceive of it can neither answer
nor fully articulate the questions of the origins of being. Physics may
investigate the origins of life and so provide us with a description of the
universe; the requirement for an explanation of the universe in its totality remains a metaphysical one. Since God is not an object within the
material world, the question of God will always pertain to a different
8 D’Espagnat, On Physics and Philosophy, 450.
9 Ibid., 430
10 Ibid., 456

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order from that of the physicist. In its replacement of real metaphysical
enquiry with a particularly self-defeating and narrow epistemology, the
Enlightenment thinkers arbitrarily set limits to the scope within which
reason might operate. Perhaps it is the task of education to make students
aware of this particular prejudice of our time, to enable them to think
outside the Enlightenment. If that task were successfully accomplished,
they might become aware that no multiplication of universes to infinity
can answer, or even pose, the fundamental metaphysical question, “Why
is there being rather than nothing?”; they might be reluctant to accept
the defeat of reason in the absurd hypothesis of the self-generation of
being out of nothing. Classical metaphysics cannot be superseded by
modern physics; no advance in science can challenge the statement “If
there is ens, then there is Esse.” To admit this is to open a line of enquiry
that, of course, leads very far back in the history of thought: to the affirmation of Pure Act, Ipsum Esse Subsistens, which requires no explanation
beyond itself, but is the explanation of all other things. Perhaps the
“dialogue–partner” of modern physics is, after all, not Kant, but Aquinas.
Analogy
To stress the importance of “metaphysical” thought in Aquinas’s work is, of
course, to pull it out of shape a little. For him, the value of the act of understanding derives not from that act itself, but from the object understood.
The value of thought is specified by its object. The final object of thought,
indeed the implicit object of all thought, is God: “All cognitive agents
know God implicitly in everything they know.”11 Again we are conscious
of pulling things a little out of shape: we exist and think at all because we
are, firstly, the objects of God’s creative thought; he has thought us into
being. But in saying that the final object of thought is God, what one is
saying is that the final object of thought is that which cannot be thought.
And here we come close to the center of Aquinas’s work.
Pseudo-Dionysius, in his De Divinis Nominibus, upon which Aquinas
wrote an extensive commentary, can be said to have taken up the ringing
question of Aeschylus, which resonates, even to Feuerbach and Freud, even
to our own day, throughout the history of Western philosophy: “Let good
prevail!/So be it! Yet what is good? And who is God?/How name him, and
speak true?” How can finite mind “name” infinite being, the being which,
in the neo-Platonic tradition, is above all being and knowledge? St.Thomas
addresses this question most fully, and, therefore, the question of God most
centrally, in his treatment of the concept of analogy, a concept in which his
11 De veritate, q. 22, a. 2, ad 1.

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own rich notion of “critical reason,” operating freely within a metaphysics
of finite and infinite, stands revealed.
For Aquinas, the knowledge of God to which the human mind can lay
claim is an analogical knowledge only. He asserts in the Contra Gentiles
that because “the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect
reaches . . . we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we
are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not.”12 This
outlines the context in which his treatment of analogy must be situated.
Creation is the distance between God and man: “created things are darkness insofar as they proceed from nothing.”13 The created intellect’s first
object is inescapably the semi-darkness of created things, which Thomas
calls the “phantasms”; yet this composite or created being which is
proportionate to the intellect is non-being relative to God, who is uncreated or transcendent source of being. How, then, do we get from our
knowledge of the phantasms to knowledge of God?
The first move in the complicated game must be, as it were, to protect
God from the imperfections that our intellects might impose upon him,
and so the paradoxical via negativa begins to tell us what God is by telling
us what he is not, begins a process of notionally discarding all that pertains
to material being qua material (and, therefore, relative to God, qua nonbeing) and locating the residue within the Actus Purus of the divine
perfection, where it exists in a transcendent and uncircumscribed mode.
The reply to the twelfth article of the twelfth question of the Summa
enshrines the near-paradox alleged to lie at the heart of analogy and
expressed in the De Divinis Nominibus upon which Aquinas comments so
approvingly: the paradox that whereas God’s “Wisdom in its depths . . . is
unsearchable,” it is “yet to be known in all things.”14 For
the knowledge that is natural to us has its source in the senses and
extends just as far as it can be led by sensible things; from these, however,
our understanding cannot reach to the divine essence. Sensible things
are effects of God which are less than typical of the power of their cause,
so knowing them does not lead us to understand the whole power of
God and thus we do not see his essence. They are nevertheless effects
depending upon a cause, and so at least we can be led from them to

12 Summa contra Gentiles (henceforth referred to as ScG ), ch. 1, par. 14. All quota-

tions from the Contra Gentiles are taken from the translation On the Truth of the
Catholic Faith (New York: Doubleday Image Books, 1955).
13 De veritate, q. 18, a. 2, ad 5
14 Super De Div. Nom., vii, 4.

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know of God that he exists and that he has whatever must belong to the
first cause of all things, which is beyond all that is caused.15

The two modes of cognition—affirmative and negative—that emerge
from this passage illustrate its continuity with the whole Thomist system.
Since God is sovereign cause of being and first truth, reality can be
understood only with reference to him and must therefore bear a causal
relation to him (hence affirmation). However, since the whole inaccessible reality of things is hidden within the divine mind—which, as Actus
Purus, lies far beyond our materially oriented cognitive powers—God’s
essence can never be circumscribed by any attribute carried over from
created to uncreated being (even though, in virtue of his simplicity, every
such attribute exists in God co-extensively with his being). All that can
be known about him is gleaned, not from intuition of his essence, but
from that scrutiny of his effects which will yield, through affirmative and
negative cognition, the via eminentiae: “The entirety of creatures is set
before us by God that thereby we may know him: for the ordered
universe has some likeness and faint resemblance to the divine nature
which is its pattern and archetype.”16
By the via negativa, “we esteem nothing of what we see to be God or
worthy of God”; it is also the way of remotion, of the notional removal
of all the imperfections that accrue to material being from the divine
essence, in order to arrive at a “proper,” if incomplete, knowledge of what
God is:
Thus if we say that God is not an accident, we thereby distinguish him
from all accidents . . . and thus in gradation he will be differentiated by
suchlike negations from all besides himself; and then when he is known
as distinct from all things, we shall arrive at a proper consideration of
him. It will not, however, be perfect, because we shall not know what
he is in himself.17

By the ways of affirmation and transcendence are invoked both (positively)
the principles of causality and participation and (negatively) the cognitive
inaccessibility of Actus Purus to composite being, of infinite to finite.
Affirmation attests to the positivity of creation, the presence within it
of the vestigia Dei, which are the condition of analogy’s possibility. God is
first cause and pure act; since being and goodness are co-extensive, he is
subsistent goodness, and the communication of being or actuality is
15 ST I, q. 12, a. 12.
16 Super De Div. Nom., vii, 4.
17 ScG I, ch. 14, par. 3.

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therefore the communication of goodness, so that whatever is, is good.
The englobing analogy of being is also the analogy of goodness, and
creation, approximating to God in its varying degrees of perfection,
becomes, in virtue of its participation in his subsistent perfection, radically good: “. . . no created substance is its own being. Whereof, if a thing
is good insofar as it is, and nothing is its own being, none is its own goodness, but each one is good by having a share of good even as, by having
a share of being, it is a being.”18 Attributes that do not entail any imperfection—and foremost among these are the transcendentals—may thus,
by the affirmative way, be located in God as the first cause of created
being and, therefore, of the perfections found in creatures.
But Thomas has still to deal with the diversity of modes in which they
are found in God and in which they are specified by creatures, for, since
the first cause is also supreme being and pure act, God possesses such
attributes in a real and transcendently perfect mode, formaliter-eminenter.
The way of pre-eminence, which leads to the heart of analogy, asserts that
he possesses them in a simplicity and fullness of perfection inconceivable
by the human intellect in statu viae.
For, by exploring the modes of human knowledge in order to uncover
the relation between the predicates found in human experience and the
perfections that subsist in the source of perfection, the twelfth and thirteenth questions raise the whole issue of the appropriateness of human
experience, reflected in language, as a vehicle for discourse about the interior life of a god who is one, simple, and transcendent. Again, the questions proceed in a negative manner, searching out the limitations imposed
by finitude upon the transcendental perfections, seeking to purify them of
accidental and material specifications and then to consider whether the
residue is recognizable by human cognitive powers, operating from within
experience. Their rootedness within Aquinas’s whole metaphysical
doctrine of creation is indicated by their oscillation between the assertion
of a radical discontinuity between the orders of infinite and finite being
and the simultaneous assertion of all the intelligibility that flows from the
ordered declension of being from being’s first source and center of attribution. Analogy, he says, is “a way of using words . . . which lies somewhere
between pure equivocation and simple univocity . . . that is in accordance
within a certain order between [God and creatures].”19
The idea of order dominates the primary, most simple type of analogy,
which is attribution, whereby “the several senses of a word used analog18 ScG III, ch. 20, par. 2.
19 ST I, q. 13, a. 5.

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ically signify different relations to some one subject,”20 in this case, God,
who, as universal cause, possesses the attribute virtualiter, so that “whatever
is said both of God and creatures is said in virtue of the order that creatures have to God as to their source and cause.”21 Since no agent can
communicate an attribute that it does not itself possess, such predicates
pre-exist pre-eminently in God; but they do not pre-exist formaliter, since
to say that “God is the cause of bodies” cannot mean that “God is a body.”
Attribution, then, does not say that all attributes are located in God
substantialiter ; it says nothing about what he is in himself but primarily
explains his efficient causality of those attributes which cannot exist per
se in him since they would be inconsistent with his nature as Actus Purus.
The crux of the analogy problem is to find words, necessarily drawn
from human, finite experience, which will in some way transcend the limits
of their finitude, or the range of their finite applicability, to say something
about the inaccessible God “in the category of substance,” as he is in
himself. St. Thomas accomplishes this by the subtle, sometimes elusive, and
absolutely crucial distinction between substantialiter or fomaliter, and “quidditatively,” a distinction that amounts to saying that, although such attributes really exist in the divine essence and are co-extensive with it, they do
so transcendently and eminently, so that, as it were, whereas they are in
God, God is not in them. In affirming that such attributes “fail to represent
adequately what he is,” Aquinas points out that although they are co-extensive with God’s being in its simplicity (“when we use the word we do not
intend to signify something distinct from his essence, power or existence”),
they are inadequate in the mode of human perception, since their essence
quoad nos is conditioned by the finite imperfections from which they are
inseparable in human cognition, grounded as it is in the empirical world.
The mind (a defective image of God) cannot conceive of such perfections
without the limitations of their created analogues and hence “words like
‘good’ and ‘wise’, when used of God, do signify something that God really
is, but they signify it imperfectly, because creatures represent God imperfectly”;22 but the essence of the transcendental attributes (those without
intrinsic imperfection) is not bound by the conditions imposed by finitude
and so, in a humanly inconceivable, uncircumscriptive mode, may be
formaliter-eminenter located in God:
We have to consider two things, therefore, in the words we use to
attribute perfections to God, firstly, the perfections themselves which
20 ST I, q. 13, a. 5.
21 ST I, q. 13, a. 5.
22 ST I, q. 13, a. 2.

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are signified . . . and, secondly, the way in which they are signified. So
far as the perfections are concerned, the words are used literally of God
and, in fact, more appropriately than they are used of creatures, for these
perfections belong primarily to God and only secondarily to others.
But so far as the way of signifying these perfections is concerned, the
words are used inappropriately, for they have a way of signifying that is
appropriate to creatures.23

This pervasive distinction between the significatum and the modus significandi protects the divine essence from deformation by a ratiocinative,
empirically oriented intellect; and it governs the most important type of
analogy, analogy of proportionality, which also leaves the veil on God’s
face. Proportionality operates within Aquinas’s assertion of “a certain order
between God and creatures.” It asserts two parallel horizontal movements
between subject and predicate (although these categories belong only to
human discourse about God, not to God as he is in himself) in the community of being, and so allows the relation between God and attribute to be
compared to (and, since they belong to different orders, implicitly distinguished from) the relation between creature and attribute.
This may be a metaphoric, indirect predication which, when it says,
for example, “God is my fortress,” means “God is to me as is a fortress.”
Such metaphoric predication is distinguished by the inseparability of the
sense of the attribute from its created imperfection: “all words used
metaphorically of God apply primarily to creatures and secondarily to
God . . . the meaning of such a word as applied to God depends on and
is secondary to the meaning it has when used of creatures.”24
Transcendental attributes and the pure perfections, however, are
limited only quoad nos, according to human perception. Containing no
intrinsic imperfection or material limitation, they soar beyond the finite
context from which they are inseparable for us, to the infinite essence,
inaccessible to reason, wherein they exist in a mode that is unknown,
although the perfection is per se identical:
There are other words, however, that simply mean certain perfections
without any indication of how these perfections are possessed—words, for
example, like “being”,“good”,“living” and so on.These words can be used
literally of God.The reason why Dionysius says that such words are better
denied of God is that what they signify does not belong to God in the
way they signify it, but in a higher way; thus in the same passage, he says

23 ST I, q. 13, a. 3.
24 ST I, q. 13, a. 6.

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that God is “beyond all substance and life”. These words have a bodily
context, not in what they mean, but in the way in which they signify it.25

The mode, then, in which goodness, for example, subsists in God is specified by infinite being, in whom it is primarily ( formaliter-eminenter) located:
From the point of view of what the word means it is used primarily of
God and derivatively of creatures, for what the word means—the
perfection it signifies—flows from God to the creature. But from the
point of view of our use of the word, we apply it first to creatures
because we know them first.26

The attribute exists inevitably for us in the modification of finite being;
man cannot know the mode in which it subsists in God. But he may know
that the intrinsic perfection that the attribute brings to the finite being by
which it will be modified is identifiable per se with the perfection that
incomprehensibly subsists in God, however dim may be the reflection.
The passage from essence to existence, which characterizes the whole
Thomist doctrine of analogy makes it singularly appropriate that the
penultimate article of this question should consider whether Qui Est is
the most fitting name for God. Analogy begins and ends with the judgment that God exists: in analogy’s beginning (the assertion of a created
order of being) is its end (the affirmation of a transcendent source of
being and excellence). And in its end is its beginning: its purpose is a
judgment of existence rather than any conceptualization of knowledge
about the divine essence: “we do not know what God is; yet, although
what he is remains unknown, we do know that he is.” Analogy considers
the individuality of things, not in their essence27 but in their actuality
within being, and it traces that being and actuality to the Actus omnium
actuum, which takes flight with its uncircumscribed perfection from all
our circumscribed knowledge. Knowledge of God’s existence, in the
transcendent richness and plenitude of his being, attains to an indirect,
diminished, and imperfect apprehension of his essence—and that only
insofar as every judgment that supreme being is asserts that such being is
good in its “excess of positivity.”28
It is the divine perfection that grounds both participation and analogy,
for God’s perfection is not superadded to his being, since other than his
being nothing is. God’s perfection is the perfection of his own existence:
25 ST I, q. 13, a. 3.
26 ST I, q. 13, a. 6.
27 ST I, q. 12, a. 11.
28 The phrase is Étienne Gilson’s.

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“Now although things which exist and live are more perfect than those
which only exist, yet God, who is not distinct from his own existence, is
universally perfect being. And by universally perfect I mean that he lacks
not the excellence of any genus. . . . God, who is his own being . . . has
being according to the whole possibility of being itself: and consequently
he cannot lack any excellence that belongs to any thing.”29 The mind
that knows this finds itself eating at God’s table because, being refreshed
by the goodness of God, it is refreshed with that with which he is
refreshed and so participates in his very life: “What is it to eat at the table
of God? It is to delight in and to be refreshed by that with which God is
refreshed. And what is that with which God is refreshed? It is his goodness.When you are refreshed by the goodness of God, then you are eating
at the table of God, and that is the blessedness of the saints.”30
Aquinas and Critical Reason
Is analogy just a language-game? Certainly, as we have seen, language
about God must be rigorously purified, even to the point where “what
God is” and “what he is not” seem almost, but not quite, to cancel one
another out. Yet at that indivisible point of “almost, but not quite”, God
is; and because God is, words, despite the imperfections of human
discourse, “refer through thought to things.”31 We are taught how to name
God and “speak true” in the curiously agnostic knowledge yielded by
analogy: “agnostic” because it leaves intact the inaccessibility of the divine
essence, “knowledge” because, simultaneously, it affirms the participation
of finite in infinite being, attests to the intelligibility that flows to human
words from the creative Logos, rescues the created universe from absurdity, obscurity, and meaninglessness. And in this careful, delicate, advanceand-retreat movement, it attains to one of the perfections of rational life:
the ability of reason reflexively to judge its own judgment. God knows his
own knowledge: “the last perfection of life belongs to God, for whom to
know and to be are equivalent.”32 Man also knows his own knowledge.
Now God’s knowledge is without limitation or extent; man, however,
knows the limitations of his own knowledge, knows it by its limitations.
The supreme dignity of his mind is to know its inadequacy to being: “By
the fact that, in itself, the godhead remains unknown, there is a greater
29 ScG I, ch. 28, par. 2.
30 “Sermon for the Feast of All Saints,” in Selected Writings by Saint Thomas Aquinas,

ed. Martin D’Arcy (London: Dent, 1967 [1939]), 21.
31 ST I, q. 13, a. 1.
32 ScG IV, ch. 11, par. 1.

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knowledge than ever of God even as he is.”33 In recognizing its own limitations, the mind implicitly projects itself beyond those limitations and
finds itself inexpressibly within being. It sees its own place within the
order of the world; it sees itself justly, “as if through the eye of God.”
And here we come to a teasing question about Aquinas’s relationship
to the Enlightenment. If “critical” (that is, self-critical) reason is so
actively at the center of his science of God, are Aquinas and Kant then
simply saying much the same thing, that God cannot be understood? Or
is the resemblance a superficial one only?
It is true that, in his teaching on analogy, St. Thomas has reason critically turn back to survey its own operations, to define (that is, to limit)
its modus operandi. It is true that the mind must be continually purifying
its own images, so that ultimately, as in apophatic mysticism, the idea of
God must always be left, in a sense, empty (although, for the believer, this
“emptiness” of the idea of God remains in dialectical tension with the
belief that it is “filled” in historical form by Christ, in whom, unsurpassably, we see our God made visible and so are caught up in love of the
God we cannot see).34 It is in this context that T. S. Eliot writes when he
counsels his soul to “be still, and wait without hope/For hope would be
hope for the wrong thing; wait without love/For love would be love of
the wrong thing.”35 The ideas of eternity, perfection, Ipsum Esse Subsistens baffle and defeat Aquinas as they do us: the only mastery he gains
over them is his ability, as it were, to comprehend why we cannot
comprehend them. Because all knowledge begins with the senses,
because we are creatures of space and time, our knowledge comes to rest
at the threshold of infinity; we cannot imaginatively move into it. Blessed
are those who cannot imagine, yet believe.
Yet there is a huge, qualitative difference between the gap, in Kant,
between phenomenon and noumenon and the gap, in Aquinas, between
ens and Esse. For both, knowledge must ascend from the material world.
But, for Aquinas, the ascent of the knowing mind to highest being is
made possible by the prior declension of being from Ipsum Esse Subsistens through all the orders of reality; for Kant, on the other hand, critical
reason remains tethered in agnosticism about the objective order of
things, the noumenal world whose real existence is for him only a postulate, a “pure x.” It is what I have called Aquinas’s epistemological optimism, his belief in the possibility of the mind’s access to the extra-mental
33 Commentary on the “De Trinitate” of Boethius, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2.
34 See the Roman Missal for the First Solemn Preface of the Nativity.
35 T. S. Eliot, “East Coker” in Collected Poems 1909–1962 (London: Faber and Faber,

1963), 200.

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world, the objectively existing order of things, that enables him to argue
that although God cannot be understood (quid est), his existence (quia est)
may be affirmed, not just by faith but by the intellect, as the self-subsistent
reality on which all other realities depend; intelligence and the intelligible ens are enfolded in esse, and to understand the fullness of truth and
intelligibility that reside in esse is to understand how indissociable are
intelligibility and being for Aquinas. For to apprehend anything at all, to
say that anything, however circumscribed and finite, is, is to catch at the
coat-tails of the perfect and infinite. Being—ens—is an instantiation of
being—esse; ens announces by its mere existence and cognitive accessibility the whole possibility of being, and when this existence is affirmed
by the judging mind, then such a possibility becomes necessary. “Our
intellect in knowing anything is extended to infinity. . . . There must be
an infinite object of thought for this infinite demand”;36 ens perforce
initiates intelligence into a hierarchy of reality and intelligibility, at the
summit of which is posited an act of utter positivity from which is
excluded nothing of what is—a full, total manifestation, self-realization of
the whole possibility of being, which act is God.
The surging optimism and freedom within being for the Thomistic
mind are, of course, a “given”; without them, it is ultimately impossible
to show that God is anything other than a construct of the human mind,
even when the mind is performing the clever intellectual somersault of
acknowledging that he is always going to be different from our every idea
of him. For the believer, God is precisely not an idea (which is presumably why Meister Eckhart prays “to God to rid me of God”)37 but the
reality which grounds yet transcends all ideas. Only thought gives access
to that which is ontologically prior to thought, and which is the condition of thought’s possibility: this is, admittedly, a difficult, if exhilarating
notion, but it is not an incoherent one. The real incoherence lies in the
absurd (and Absurd) alternative of a reason doomed to ask unanswerable
questions of an irrational universe. In which case, whence reason?
In a certain sense, God is always going to be coterminous with my idea
of him, just as the world, for me, is limited to my experience of the world.
How could it be otherwise? Creation is the distance between God and
man.Yet the acceptance of this particular “given” is rationally defensible,
if not rationally demonstrable according to the arbitrary criteria of scientism, since, without it, we are left in an ultimately inexplicable universe,
a hypothesis at which reason balks, or recoils into something like the
36 ScG I, ch. 63, par. 10.
37 From the sermon “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit” in Raymond Bernard Blakney,

Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation (New York: Harper and Row, 1941), 231.

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metaphysical horror of Nietzsche. God is “under the world’s splendour
and wonder”38 and, unless “critical” reason be rehabilitated within
Thomistic metaphysics, we are left with the tragic, if noble (and perhaps
faintly ridiculous) figure of existentialist man (a direct descendant of
Kant) forever spinning out of his own entrails meaning within a meaningless world. Aquinas and Kant both look into the dark; for Aquinas, but
not for Kant, the dark is full of meaning. “The faith and the love and the
hope are all in the waiting”:39 in this Christian act of waiting for what
has yet to be revealed, God exists, and he does not play tricks upon the
creatures he has loved into being from all eternity.
Philosophy and Mysticism
Faith for Aquinas, then, is belief in what is real but unimaginable—in statu
viae, as he was fond of saying, in this present, pilgrim’s state of our life.
Therefore, we do not know what God is, but only what he is not; we
know God best when we know that we do not know him—that is,
“possess” him cognitively, as we might possess lesser objects of thought.
Rather, it is he who possesses us. God has exhaustive knowledge of us,
not we of him, since the lower cannot, by definition, contain the higher.
But, says St. Thomas, who spent his life in pursuit of it, an imperfect
knowledge of what is perfect is worth infinitely more than perfect
knowledge of an imperfect thing. The little knowledge of God that we
can attain to in this life is immeasurably better than all knowledge of
lesser things.The point is well made by the story that,40 when St.Thomas
had completed some writings on the Blessed Sacrament, Christ appeared
to him, saying, “You have written well on this sacrament of my body.
What would you ask of me?” In the huge simplicity of the answer, “Non
nisi te” (nothing except thyself), philosophy passes into mysticism. This
was Thomas’s summit-realization: nothing except thyself. Apart from
God, nothing is to be desired or enjoyed, since apart from him—nothing. In him is the fullness of life; without him, nothing is.
The “negative theology” of Aquinas has, then, a clear counterpart in
mysticism. A French mystic of the Middle Ages, Marguerite Porete,41
38 Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Wreck of the Deutschland,” in The Poems of

Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. W. H. Gardner and N. H. Mackenzie, 4th ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1979), 53.
39 T. S. Eliot, “East Coker,” in Collected Poems 1909–1962, p. 200.
40 The legend is recounted by William of Tocco. See Kenelm Foster, O.P., The Life
of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Biographical Documents (London: Longmans, 1959), 42.
41 Marguerite Porete’s sad story is told in Anne Carson’s Decreation (London:
Jonathan Cape, 2006). See p. 176.

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before she was burned at the stake for writing her Mirror of Simple Souls,
coined, in Old French, her own “divine name”: God is, for her, “le Loingpres,” the FarNear. Negative theology preserves our distance from God,
prevents our reducing him to an aspect of ourselves: a safeguard against
projection, it will not allow us to assimilate him to merely human “categories.” And so, in this life, we pray into the dark unimaginable, always
running, as it were, to catch up with someone who constantly eludes us:
our Deus absconditus.That is the negative side. It could provide a rich spirituality for our time, whereby belief is seen not as stopping short of unbelief, but as somehow taking unbelief into itself: the unbelief of existentialist
man, the unbelief of our despairing century, the unbelief of believer and
unbeliever alike.
The positive correlative is the beatitude that awaits those who stay
with the darkness here and for whom, when they are delivered from their
bondage to space and time, God will stand still for them—or, as the
mystic would have it, they will at last learn to stand still before him. What
they now see as in a glass darkly they will then see face to face. Thought
and the object of thought will be one, and in that union eternal vitality
and love.
But that is for later. For now, there is the Veiled Reality—and the sentiments expressed in the Office for the Feast of Corpus Christi, composed
by St. Thomas Aquinas. The final verse of the beautiful, impassioned
hymn “Adoro Te devote,” where the mind’s search for truth is seen under
its other aspect, the soul’s desire for God, is a distillation of the philosophy and of the philosopher:
The veil is on thy face; I cannot see.
I cry to thee for grace
That that may come to pass for which I thirst,
That I may see thee with thy face unveiled
And in that vision rest.42

N&V

42 Helen Waddell’s translation in her More Latin Lyrics from Virgil to Milton (London:

Victor Gollancz, 1976), 309.

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775

How to Read a Sermon by Thomas Aquinas
R ANDALL B. S MITH
University of St. Thomas
Houston, TX

I T IS strange to think that Thomas Aquinas’s sermons have garnered so
little attention over the years, given that he was a prominent member of
a self-identified Order of Preachers, a group that identified itself precisely
by its members’ aptitude for preaching. Moreover as a Master of the Sacred
Page at Paris, one of Thomas’s official duties, along with lecturing on the
Bible and engaging in disputation, was preaching, whereas all his
commentaries on the texts of Aristotle were largely products of his spare
time. Even so, it is only now, some 133 years since the creation of the
Leonine Commission,1 that a modern critical edition of all of Thomas’s
extant sermons, done by the late Fr. Louis Bataillon, O.P., is finally (we
hope) nearing publication.2 In the meantime, however, we thankfully
1 In his letter Iampridem Considerando of October 15, 1879, Pope Leo XIII indi-

cated his desire that a new edition of the complete works of St. Thomas might
be made available “so that the wisdom of the Angelic Doctor might propagate
and be spread as widely as possible.” Iampridem Considerando was clearly intended
to help put into effect the recommendations of Leo’s earlier encyclical Aeterni
Patris, promulgated just two months before, on the 4th of August, 1879, in which
Leo had called the Church to a return to the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas.Within
weeks of the publication of Iampridem Considerando, the Vicar General of the
Order of Preachers, Father Giovanni Maria Sanvito, circulated a letter to the
entire Order pledging them, in obedience to the initiative of Leo XIII, to publish
a new edition of the complete works of St. Thomas.
2 The author has no knowledge as to an exact date of publication, however.
Indeed, much of the original research for this article was done over ten years ago
and was presented first at the International Medieval Conference at Western
Michigan University in 2001. At that time, the word was out that Fr. Bataillon’s
critical edition of the sermons would soon be forthcoming. So I put the work
aside at that time, thinking I would check my Latin against the critical edition as

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now have in print an English translation of all of the extant sermons by
Prof. Mark-Robin Hoogland, C.P., appearing in The Catholic University
of America Press series The Fathers of Church: Mediaeval Continuation.3
Indeed, if the reader does nothing more at this point than stop and order
that volume without reading further, the author will be satisfied he has
at least provided one invaluable service.
On the Oddity of Thomas’s Sermon Style:
Is He Guilty of Eisegesis?
And yet, let the reader be forewarned: Even the devoted fan of Aquinas
may find the sermons something of an odd read. So, for example, each of
Thomas’s sermons is identified by the first few words of the biblical verse
on which they are based. Thus, when the eager reader opens up Prof.
Hoogland’s wonderful volume and turns to “Sermon 1,” for example, he
or she will find that the title of the sermon, Veniet desideratus, has been
taken from the first two Latin words of the verse in Haggai 2:8 on which
the sermon is based: Veniet desideratus cunctis gentibus et implebit domum
istam gloria (“The desired things of all the nations will come, and I will
fill this house with glory”).4 When this same eager reader turns to the
soon as it appeared. It is now 2012, Fr. Bataillon has long since passed on to his
eternal reward, and there is still no sign of the Leonine edition of the sermons.
Seeing Prof. Hoogland’s new translation of the sermons, however, has stirred me
into action. Since the appearance of an English translation often means more
people will read a previously untranslated text, it seemed to me that now would
be a good time to publish my findings. Whether I should have continued to wait
for the critical edition, only time will tell. When the critical Leonine edition
finally does arrive (God willing), I will, in fact, check what I have set forth here
against the official Latin text. Readers who access this article after the appearance of the critical Leonine edition should be aware that I did not have the
Leonine text available to me to work from. In most cases, I have made use of the
texts available in the 1980 edition by Roberto Busa, S.J.: S. Thomae Aquinatis
Opera Omnia ut sunt in indice thomistico, ed. Roberto Busa (Stuttgart-Bad
Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1980), vol. 6. Not all of the extant sermons of
St. Thomas are available on-line in Latin, but those that are can be found at that
invaluable on-line resource: www.corpusthomisticum.org.
3 Thomas Aquinas: The Academic Sermons, trans. Mark-Robin Hoogland, C.P., The
Fathers of the Church: Mediaeval Continuation (Washington, DC: The Catholic
University of America Press, 2010). I have in most cases been guided by Prof.
Hoogland’s fine translation during the course of preparing this article, although
I have in every case checked his English translations against the original Latin
text, resulting in my taking the liberty of making several minor emendations to
the English where I thought appropriate.
4 As many readers will know, the practice of using the first several words of a text as
the title is merely a vestige of an old tradition among Latin paleographers of listing

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text of Thomas’s sermon, however, he or she may be disappointed to find
that Thomas is not really going to “preach” on that text in the sense of
“explicate it” in any of the usual senses in which we understand that
term. Indeed, although in his biblical commentaries Thomas is noteworthy for his devotion to the literal sense of the text, in his sermons he will
often garner all sorts of different interpretations, some of them rather
odd, from just one or two words in the biblical text.
Thus in Sermon 5 (Ecce rex), for example—a text we will be analyzing in more detail below—it would appear from the opening biblical
verse that Thomas intends to preach on the first words on the passage
from Matthew 21:5 that reads: Ecce rex tuus venit tibi mansuetus (“Behold,
your king comes to you, meek, and riding on a donkey”). The sermon
itself was delivered, we know, on the first Sunday of Advent, probably in
the year 1271, and so in accord with the season, we find Thomas distinguishing in the body of the sermon the four ways in which we can speak
of the coming (the advent) of Christ: the first is the way in which He
comes in the flesh in the Incarnation; the second is the way in which He
enters the mind of believers; the third is the way in which He comes to
the just after death; and the fourth is the way in which He comes to
judge all things at the end of time—a fourfold distinction that seems
perfectly appropriate in a sermon for the first Sunday of Advent, but
which may stretch the reader’s credulity when it is discovered that
Thomas found all four of these senses of Christ’s “coming” in the single
Latin word Ecce (“Behold”). One might have thought that Thomas would
have made this comment about the four different ways in which Christ
“comes” while he was commenting upon the word venit (“he comes”),
but no, he has other plans for that word. Rather Thomas reads venit
together with the next word in the sentence, tibi (“he comes for you”),
and tells us that these words speak about “the benefits of His [Christ’s]
coming” (that is to say, the benefits of His coming for you), which Thomas
lists as: first, to make the divine majesty known; second, to reconcile us
to God; third, to free us from sin; and fourth, to give us eternal life. As
before with his comments on Ecce, so too here, the theological content is
certainly appropriate, indeed fairly standard; what strains credulity is the
notion that all of this content is somehow contained within or communicated
by the two small, simple Latin words: venit tibi (“he comes for you”).
And even if we could defend finding all four of the senses in which
Christ “comes” in the single word Ecce (“Behold”) or all four of the
the incipit (“it begins”) for each catalogued manuscript. Indeed, Catholics still adhere
to the tradition of referring to official Vatican documents by their first several words
in Latin, such as Gaudium et Spes, Evangelium Vitae, or Veritatis Splendor.

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benefits of His coming in the two words venit tibit (“he comes for you”),
Thomas will certainly stretch our credulity beyond the breaking point
when we find him, in Sermon 16 (Inveni David ), beginning with the
passage from Psalm 88:21 that reads, “I have found David my servant;
with my holy oil I have anointed him; my hand will assist him and my
arm will make him firm,” and then making the following claim:
From these words we can learn four praiseworthy things of the holy
bishop St. Nicholas: (1) first, his wondrous election; (2) second, his
unique consecration; (3) third, the effective execution of his task; and (4)
fourth, his immovable and firm stability. His wondrous election is shown
in the words: I have found David, my servant. His special consecration is
shown where it says: I have anointed him with my sacred oil. The effective
execution of his task is shown in the words: My hand will help him. And
his stable firmness is shown where it says: and my arm will make him firm.

What Thomas seems to be suggesting here, in other words, is that the
Psalmist, whoever he was, a writer who lived roughly a thousand years
before the birth of Christ, is referring in this Psalm neither to David (even
though the Psalm says literally “I have found David, my servant”), nor
even to Christ (by means of an allegorical understanding of “David”), but
rather to the fourth-century A.D. saint, Nicholas of Myra, a man who lived
some 1400 years after the Psalmist’s death. At this point, even the most
devoted fan of Aquinas may worry that Thomas may be guilty of “eisegesis” rather than “exegesis”—that is, of transporting meanings into the text
rather than digging meaning out of it. Modern biblical exegetes, one hardly
need add, would certainly be inclined to draw that conclusion.
Let me suggest, however, that such a judgment would be not only
hasty but the result of what philosophers sometimes call a “category
mistake”—that is to say, it is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding of the purposes served by the biblical epigraphs that preface Thomas’s
sermons. What a diligent reading of Thomas’s sermons will show in fact
is that the biblical verses that appear at the beginning of the sermons are
not the texts to be explicated in the sermon; rather they are structuring aids
that serve as mnemonic devices, a memory aid, allowing the listeners to
remember more easily the material preached in the sermon.
On Reading the Opening Biblical Verse
of the Sermon as a Verbal Mnemonic
Let me repeat: The opening biblical verse that prefaces each of Thomas’s
sermons is not to be taken as the text he is preaching on (in the sense of
doing some sort of explication of the text); it is, rather, a structured verbal

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mnemonic-device systematically keyed to the material in the sermon.
Allow me to illustrate with an example.
If we turn once again to the sermon Ecce rex (listed in Hoogland’s
translation as “Sermon 5”), we find, as noted earlier, that the sermon is
prefaced with the Latin verse Ecce rex tuus venit tibi mansuetus (“Behold,
your king comes to you, meek” [and riding on a donkey]),5 a passage
from the prophet Zechariah quoted in Matthew’s Gospel during Jesus’
entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (see Mt 21:6, cf. Zec 9:9). The
casual reader might be tempted to think: here we have a verse that deals
with Jesus’ coming into Jerusalem; the sermon is supposed to deal with
Jesus’ coming at Advent; so clearly (we assume) the sermon will take its
theme from, and perhaps be a commentary on, this biblical verse. Just as
Jesus came triumphantly into Jerusalem (we expect Thomas to say), so
also will He come triumphantly at the end of time. Indeed, those with
some acquaintance with patristic or early medieval biblical commentaries
might even be anticipating allegories on, for example, the palm branches,
the donkey, the city of Jerusalem as a figure of the heavenly Jerusalem,
and the like. But that’s not what Thomas does at all.
Rather, after a brief introduction (in Latin, a prothema), Thomas repeats
the opening epigraph, “Behold your king comes to you, meek,” and then
tells his listeners: “In these words, the coming of Christ is clearly foretold
to us,” and we his readers imagine that he is referring to Zechariah’s words
in the Old Testament “foretelling” the coming of Christ into Jerusalem. But
contrary to our expectations, rather than talking about Christ’s coming
into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Thomas does something unexpected: he
tells us that there are four different “advents” of Christ: the one in which
He came in the flesh in the Incarnation; the one by which He comes into
our minds; the one in which He comes at the death of the just; and the
one in which He will come at the end of time in the final judgment—
none of which, it should be noted, involves the coming of Christ into
Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the obvious literal referent of the text in question. So where does Thomas “find” these four advents of Christ in this
simple text about the coming of Christ into Jerusalem? The answer is, he
begins by distinguishing four different senses of the word “behold” and
then associating with each of them a different “advent” of Christ.
Notice how ingeniously this mnemonic device works. We use the
word “behold,” says Thomas, in a number of different situations. First, for
5 For more on this particular sermon, see the article by Jean Leclerq, “Un sermon

inédit de Saint Thomas sur la royauté du Christ,” Revue Thomiste 46 (1946):
152–66. The Latin text appears as Ecce rex tuus, in S. Thomae Aquinatis Opera
Omnia, ed. Busa, vol. 6, 45–46.

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example, we might be asserting something of which we are certain, as
when it says in the Gospel of Luke: “Behold, I bring you tidings of great
joy, which shall be to all people, for unto you is born this day in the city
of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2:10–11). “Just as people
doubt in some manner concerning the second coming of Christ,” says
Thomas, “so also some doubted His first coming.” But in Habakkuk we
read that the Lord “will appear at the end, and He shall not lie; if He
delays, expect Him because the One coming will come, and He will not
delay” (Hab 2:3). And in the Psalms, it assures us: “Surely the Lord will
come” (Ps 96:13). Thus, for those who fear that the soul will not survive
death, the Prophet Zechariah says to assure them of Christ’s coming:
“Behold, your king comes to you.”
Next, when we use the word “behold,” we might be indicating a
determination of time, as when Jesus says: “Behold, my hour is come.” So
although Christ’s coming at the final judgment is not known to us, says
Thomas, because God wished for us always to be vigilant in good works,
“yet His coming in the flesh was at a determined time, and thus it [the
epigraph from Zechariah] says behold.”
In the third place, when we say “behold” we can be indicating the
manifestation of a thing, as for example, when John the Baptist points at
Jesus and says: “Behold the Lamb of God” ( Jn 1:29). So too, although the
coming of Christ into the mind is hidden, says Thomas, yet His coming
in the flesh was manifest and visible. So the verse says: “Behold, your king
comes to you.”
And finally, when we use the word “behold,” we can be using it for
the strengthening of men, and this in two circumstances: first, when they
have won victory over their enemies, as when it says in 1 Samuel 24:4:
“Behold, the day has come which I desire: . . . my enemies appear before
me”; and second, when they have attained the good, as when it says in
Psalm 34:8: “Behold, how good the Lord is.” Now since we have obtained
both of these things in the coming of Christ—namely, we have peace and
victory over the enemy, and we have joy from the hope obtained of
future goods—so the prophet says “Behold.”
In this way,Thomas systematically associates each of the four different ways
in which Christ “comes” with the four different uses of the word “behold.”
1. We say “behold” when there is something of which we are certain
(“Behold, it is true”); so too we are certain that Christ will come to
us after death.
2. We say “behold” to indicate a determinate time (“Behold, the time
has come”); so too the Incarnation happens at a determinate time.

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3. We say “behold” when we point out something we wish people to see
(“Behold the Lamb of God”); so too although the coming of Christ
into the mind is hidden, yet His coming in the flesh was visible.
4. And finally, we say “behold” when we’ve won victory over our
enemies (“Behold, the day has come”) and when we obtain something good “(Behold how good the Lord is”); so too with the
coming of Christ we have victory over the enemy and hope for
future good.
There is no doubt in each case about what drives the process: not the particular senses of “behold,” but rather the points Thomas wants to make about
the four different “advents” of Christ. The word “behold” is used merely as
a mnemonic device to help lend structure to his analysis. Such will also be
the case with each word that follows in the opening biblical verse.
Hence after discussing the different “advents” of Christ in association
with the first word in the epigraph, “behold,” Thomas turns next to the
words in the sentence that immediately follow, in this case rex tuus (“your
king”), about which he says that they “show the condition of Christ’s
coming.” Now a person’s coming is awaited with solemnity for two
reasons, says Thomas: either because of his greatness, if for example he is
a king; or because of a special love we have for the person, if for example
he is an intimate friend of ours, which is suggested by the next word in
the verse, tuus (“your”). And since Christ was coming as both king and
friend, thus we find the combination: “your king.”
And so on. Thomas’s practice should be fairly clear by now. He will
run through each word in the opening biblical verse in order, associating
it or different uses of it with the various themes he intends to treat in his
sermon. Since Thomas’s Latin text has rex tuus, whereas in English we
reverse the order and say “your king,” Thomas focuses next on the things
that follow from Christ being a “king” (rex) and then subsequently takes
up the things that follow from Christ being our “friend” (which follows
from the word tuus, “your”).
What follows from Christ being a “king”? First, a king suggests unity;
second, a king has fullness of power; third, a king has an abundant jurisdiction; and fourth, a king brings equity of justice. As is his custom,
Thomas takes up each of these in turn.
With regard to the first, there must be unity for there to be kingship;
otherwise, if there were many, dominion would not pertain to any one of
them. “Thus we must reject Arius,” says Thomas, “who was positing many
gods, saying that the Son was other than the Father.”

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Second, Christ is king in that he has fullness of power. Thus laws are
not imposed on Him, rather He has authority over the law, which is why
He can say in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt 6): “You have heard it
said of old . . . but I say to you,” as if to say, “I am the true king who can
establish the law for you.”
Third, Christ has an abundance to His jurisdiction, in that, whereas
other kings have dominion over this town or those cities, all creatures have
been made subject to Christ.
Fourth, Christ brings equity of justice. Whereas tyrants submit all
things under their authority for the sake of their own utility, Christ selflessly orders all things to their common good.
Notice that all four of these theological points are associated with the
single word “king.”
And with this, the sermon ends—or at least seems to. But if we have been
paying attention, we know that Thomas has not yet finished “explicating”
(if that is what we can call it) his opening verse: Ecce rex tuus venit tibi mansuetus (“Behold, your king comes to you, meek”). He has only finished “explicating,” according to his original plan, the words Ecce and rex, whereas he
still needs to “unpack” (as it were) tuus, venit tibi, and mansuetus. And indeed,
since this is a university sermon, and preachers giving university sermons at
the University of Paris in the thirteenth century were required by statute to
give a collatio at vespers later that same night, if we look at the collatio that
comes after this sermon (which in Prof. Hoogland’s volume is included with
the sermon itself under the heading “Part 3: Collatio in sero,” or “Collation
at the Late Hour”), we will find that Thomas repeats the same biblical
epigraph from Zechariah with which he began his sermon earlier that
morning (Ecce rex tuus venit tibi mansuetus), and, after giving a brief summary
of the points he made earlier in that morning’s sermon in association with
the words Ecce and rex, Thomas picks up right where he left off without
missing a beat with tuus: “your king.” Notice that Thomas is able to pick up
“right where he left off without missing a beat” precisely because his
mnemonic device allows him to locate his exact position in the original
biblical epigraph and then proceed on with his collatio according to his original plan, starting with the next word in the sentence: tuus.
Now I haven’t space here to recount in detail the rest of Thomas’s
parsing of the verse, but very briefly, Christ is said to be “our” king (rex
tuus) because of the similitude of image between Him and man; because
of His special love for man; because of His solicitude and singular care for
man; and because of His conformity or society with our human nature.
He is said to “come for you” (venit tibi ) because He manifests to us His
divine majesty; reconciles us to God from whom through sin we were

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estranged as enemies; liberates us from servitude to sin; and gives us grace
in the present and glory in the future. Finally, his “meekness” is shown in
the meekness of His conversation; in His gentle correction of others; in
His gracious acceptance of men (not only the just, but also sinners); and
in His passion, to which He was led as a lamb. And all that content,
Thomas is able to map onto just a few key words.
Now granted, if we mistakenly thought that what Thomas was doing
here was attempting an exegesis of the biblical verse “Behold, your king
comes for you, meek and riding on a donkey,” then we would rightly be
a bit skeptical that he could have found all that theological content in just
this one sentence. We might even be tempted to accuse Thomas of reading the meanings into the biblical text that he wants to find there, rather
than, as he should be, deriving literal meaning from them.
But when we come to understand that the opening biblical verse is
really an ingenious verbal mnemonic, our perspective changes.Think about
how much we can recollect just by remembering one sentence. Behold
reminds us of the four manifestations of Christ’s coming: in the flesh; into
the mind of each person; to the just at the time of their death; and as judge
at the end of time. Your king reminds us of the condition of His coming:
His unity with God the Father; that He has fullness of power; that He has
dominion over all; and that He brings equity of justice.The word your additionally reminds us of the similitude of image between Him and man; His
special love for man; His solicitude and singular care for man; and His
conformity with our human nature. The words for you remind us of the
utility of His coming: to manifest to us His divine majesty; to reconcile us
to God from whom through sin we were estranged as enemies; to liberate
us from servitude to sin; and to give us grace in the present and glory in
the future. And the word meek reminds us of the manner of his coming: He
showed “meekness” in His conversation, in His gentle correction of others,
in His gracious acceptance of men (not only the just, but also sinners), and
in His passion, to which He was led meekly as a lamb. Each word in the
sentence is a verbal cue meant to help bring to mind the content Thomas
wishes to teach. To recollect the content, one need only bring to mind the
one sentence, and the rest will spill out naturally.
On Memory and Recollection
Being able to bring instantly to mind one sentence is a function of
“memory”; having the rest “spill out naturally” (as I described it loosely
above) is a function of what Thomas, following Aristotle, calls “reminiscence” (reminiscentia), or what in English we often call “recollection.” An
excellent text to help us clarify this distinction between “memory” and the

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process of “recollection” is Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s
De memoria et reminiscentia (in a wonderful English translation by Ed
Macierowski),6 in which Thomas distinguishes “remembering,” which he
describes as “merely keeping in good condition the things that have once
been received,” from “recollecting,” which is “a sort of re-discovery of things
that were previously accepted but no longer preserved.”7 “Recollecting,”
however, is very different from merely “re-learning”; Thomas describes the
difference between the two thus:
He who is recollecting has the power somehow to be moved to something that is consequent upon a starting-point that has somehow been
retained in the memory (for instance, when someone remembers that
such and such a thing was said to him but has forgotten who has told
him). One therefore uses what he has in the memory to recollect what
he has forgotten. But when ones does not arrive at the recovery of a
lost notion through a starting-point that has been retained in the
memory but through something else that is newly handed on to him
by a teacher, that is not memory or recollection but new learning.8

Recollection can happen naturally, as for example when one hears a tune
or smells an aroma that brings back a whole flood of recollections from
one’s youth; or recollections can be created artificially by means of a
purposeful association of ideas or images, one to another.
The key to the whole process is having the right sort of starting point
from which things not currently available to one’s immediate memory can
be recalled. “Just as he who searches through demonstration proceeds from
something prior, which is known, from which he is made to come to
something posterior, which was unknown,” says Thomas, “so too the one
who recollects proceeds from something prior, which he remembers, to
rediscover what had fallen from his memory.”9 Thus “recollections come
about in the quickest and best manner when one begins meditating from
the starting point (a principio) of the whole business.”10 It is important,
moreover (as we shall see), that whatever one is using as a “starting point”
(the principium) be “well-ordered.” The reason for this, says Thomas, is that
6 For the English text, see Thomas Aquinas, Commentaries on Aristotle’s “On Sense

and What Is Sensed ” and “On Memory and Recollection,” trans. Kevin White and
Edward Macierowski (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2005).
7 On Memory and Recollection, ch. 1 (449b4), p. 185.
8 On Memory and Recollection, ch. 6 (452a4), pp. 217–18.
9 On Memory and Recollection, ch. 5 (451b16), p. 212.
10 On Memory and Recollection, ch. 5 (451b31), p. 214.

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“it is according to the order in which the things follow each other that their
motions are engendered in the soul with this order.”11
Thomas is able to provide four pieces of advice in the De memoria for
those who want to want to remember or recollect a large amount of
information: the first is “to strive to reduce what one wants to retain into
some order”; the second is “to set one’s mind upon them deeply and
intently”; (and by “set one’s mind upon them” here I take it that Thomas
is referring to the shorter, ordered list to which the original group of
items has been “reduced”); the third piece of advice is to meditate
frequently on the list “in order” (secundum ordinem); and the fourth is that
one should “begin to recollect from the starting point” (incipiat reminisci
a principio).12
This advice from Thomas’s commentary on Aristotle’s De memoria et
reminiscentia helps to illuminate his practice in the sermons. Thomas wants
his listeners to be able to call to mind what he is teaching them, but he
knows that there is likely too much information, too many individual
points, for most of the people in his audience to hold it all in their immediate memory. So he provides for them a starting point—a mnemonic cue—
which is both well-ordered (such as the order of words in a sentence) as
well as something likely to be meditated upon frequently (such as taking
a sentence from the Holy Scriptures). As long as the listeners can call to
mind the starting point—such as the single sentence from Zechariah with
which Thomas prefaces Sermon 5 (Ecce rex)—then with a little training
they will be able to recall the rest of what was contained in the sermon.
In this regard, we might fruitfully compare what Thomas has to say in his
commentary on Aristotle’s De memoria et reminiscentia with what he says elsewhere, in ST II–II, q. 49, a. 1, ad 2, where he suggests that “there are four
means whereby a man advances in remembering well.” The first of these is
that “he should get hold of some fitting but somewhat unusual likenesses
(similitudines), since we marvel more at the unusual and thus the mind is
more intensely preoccupied with them.” Second, “a man must set out in an
orderly fashion in his consideration the things he wants to remember, so that
he may easily advance from one object of memory (ex uno memorato) to
another.” Third, “a man must care about and attach his affections to (sollicitudinem apponat et affectum adhibeat) the things he wants to remember, since
the more something has been impressed on the spirit, the less it slips away.
Hence as Cicero says in his Rhetoric (ad Her. 3.4): ‘care (sollicitudo) keeps the
shapes of the images whole’ (conservat integras simulacrorum figuras).” And
finally, “one must meditate frequently on the things we want to remember
11 Ibid.
12 On Memory and Recollection, ch. 5 (451b31), p. 215.

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. . . this is why we quickly recollect things that we often think about, as
though advancing in a natural order from one item to another.”
Let me draw the reader’s attention to the first and third of these points
in particular: that one should seek out “fitting but unusual” similitudes with
which to associate what one wants to be able to recall, and that one must
“care about and attach his affections to the things he wants to remember.”
By associating the content of his sermon with a single, memorable passage
from the sacred Scriptures, a book guaranteed to call forth from his listeners the deepest affection as well as the most profound respect, both of
which can then be transferred to the material to be recalled, Thomas is
helping to make the process of recollection more lively and thus more
likely. So too, although the associations Thomas makes between the biblical text and the various points in his sermons may seem rather odd or
strange to us—such as associating the Incarnation of Christ with the word
“behold” or the unity of the Godhead with the word “king”—if Thomas
is right, then the very oddness can help make the associations more memorable. The trick, on this view—or perhaps it would be better to call it the
“art”—is to find just the right phrase wherein the images suggested by the
words are “fitting” (that is, they are somewhat similar to the theme you wish
to convey) and yet still a bit “unusual” (such as when the single word
“behold” is used to remind us of the Incarnation).The other trick of course
is to find just the right phrase with words in just the right order to fit the
subject matter you wish to cover. It helps, naturally, to have large sections
of the Bible memorized. But there’s simply no getting around the fact that
being able to recall just the right phrase to lend structure to a very particular sermon is a tall order. It is a testament to Thomas’s remarkable memory
and his truly astounding ability to recall just the right text to fit a very
particular situation that he so often showed himself up to the task. Indeed,
it was a skill he would manifest repeatedly and to similar good effect in his
endlessly remarkable Summa of Theology.
It is worthwhile noting, moreover, that in choosing the particular
method of preaching he has, Thomas has managed not to confuse his
various roles as a Master of the Sacred Page: he has not mistaken praedicare (“preaching”) with legere (“reading”), nor has he mistaken either of
these with disputare (“disputation”).13 When engaged in legere, the magister attempts to teach by giving the students a good first “reading” of the
13 The three duties of a magister in sacra pagina were “preaching” ( praedicare), “disputa-

tion” (disputare), and “reading” (legere). “Reading” involved reading and commenting upon the Scriptures in class. “Disputation” is what he did regularly during the
periods called Quaestiones Disputatae or Quaestiones Quodlibetales. And “preaching” is
what he did regularly at Mass or Vespers.

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biblical text. When engaged in praedicare, on the other hand, the magister
seeks to teach by imparting knowledge to the congregation in a manner
suited to their abilities to recollect it when the need arises. What they
retain in their memory for immediate recall is merely a passage from Scripture, which, if they are monks or friars, they should be committing to
memory anyway. When they call to mind the particular biblical text with
which Thomas opens his sermon, then they can more easily recollect the
entire content of the what was preached in proper order. The “order” in
this case, however, is not the rational, demonstrative order of a disputatio,
a disputed question; it is, rather, an order of the mind, particularly of
memory, directed toward the listener’s retention of the material being
taught. Indeed, as recent studies have shown, the medievals knew quite a
lot about the arts of memory, valued them highly, and spent a great deal
of time perfecting them.
On the Importance of Memory in Medieval Culture
Mary Carruthers suggests in her excellent study, The Book of Memory: A
Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, that “medieval culture was fundamentally memorial, to the same profound degree that modern culture in the
West is documentary.”14 Indeed, medieval scholars prized mnemonic
devices to the same degree that modern scholars prize a thorough index, a
good annotated bibliography, or a complete analytical concordance.
(Modern Thomists have along these lines the Ottawa edition of the Summa
Theologiae, that invaluable resource with all its amazing cross-references to
other primary texts, made possible by scholars whose knowledge of
Thomas’s corpus of work was as vast as their ability to recall it was astounding: a reference tool made necessary by those of us whose knowledge of
Thomas’s work is not so vast and ability to recall it not so astounding.)15
According to Ms. Carruthers: “Ancient and medieval people reserved their
awe for memory. Their greatest geniuses they describe as people of superior memories, they boast unashamedly of their prowess in that faculty, and
they regard it as a mark of superior moral character as well as intellect.”
“They would not,” moreover, she insists, “have understood our separation
of ‘memory’ from ‘learning.’16 In their understanding of the matter, it was
memory that made knowledge into useful experience, and memory that
14 Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture

(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 1.
15 See S. Thomae de Aquino Summa Theologiae, Institut d’études médiévales (Ottawa,

Canada: Commissio Piana, 1941–45), 5 vols.
16 Although, as we have seen, Thomas does distinguish both memory and recollection

from new learning. See the text for n. 12 above. To say that Thomas distinguishes

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combined these pieces of information-become-experience into what we
call ‘ideas,’ what they were more likely to call ‘judgments.’”17
Indeed, one of the most renowned and paradigmatic exemplars of this
memory culture in the Middle Ages was, as Carruthers notes, Thomas
Aquinas, of whom Bernardo Gui wrote at Thomas’s canonization hearing:
His memory was extremely rich and retentive: whatever he had once
read and grasped he never forgot; it was as if the knowledge were ever
increasing in his soul as page is added to page in the writing of a book.
Consider, for example that admirable compilation of Patristic texts on
the four Gospels which he made for Pope Urban and which, for the
most part, he seems to have put together from texts that he had read
and committed to memory from time to time while staying in various
religious houses. Still stronger is the testimony of Reginald, his socius,
and of his pupils and of those who wrote to his dictation, who all
declare that he used to dictate in his cell to three secretaries, and even
occasionally to four, on different subjects at the same time.18

What is particularly noteworthy about this passage for our purposes is the
degree to which it was Thomas’s memory that so impressed his contemporaries. Even his famous ability to dictate to several scribes at once,
which we might be tempted to ascribe to his powers of creative genius,
was ascribed in his own day to his remarkable powers of memory.
In her book, Carruthers compares Thomas’s ability to dictate to several
scribes at once with a memory device developed by Hugh of St. Victor
to help novices learn several Psalms at once in such a way as to be able
to move back and forth easily from any one place in one psalm to any
place in any of the others. “The fundamental principle,” she says, “is to
‘divide’ the material to be remembered into pieces short enough to be
recalled in single units and to key these into some sort of rigid, easily
reconstructable order.”19 Romans during Cicero’s time used a similar
practice to memorize long speeches, associating objects they would see
while strolling around their house with the various parts of their speech.
The sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci would later
suggest a similar technique to the Chinese (the so-called “Memory
the two, however, is not the same as saying he would have separated them as we
do, thinking that somehow “learning” could take place without any memorization. So even though Thomas distinguishes the two, I take it that Ms. Carruthers’s
point still stands and is indeed well-taken.
17 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 1.
18 Quoted from Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 3.
19 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 11.

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Palace”) in his famous “Treatise on the Mnemonic Arts.” The use of such
memory devices, as Carruthers thoroughly documents in her book, had
become second nature by the time of Aquinas; indeed, by that time, their
use had become a standard part of the basic medieval pedagogy in the
language arts. It is against the background of this mnemonic culture and
the practices that supported it, I suggest, that we must understand the use
Thomas makes of his opening biblical epigraphs. Given the intellectual
culture in which he lived, Thomas’s method of preaching likely would
not have struck his audience as oddly as it does many of us today.
On Several Minor Deviations
from a Rigorous Observance of the Practice
Of the twenty extant sermons of Thomas Aquinas deemed authentic by
Fr. Bataillon, nearly all of them follow the same pattern we’ve seen above:
an opening biblical verse serves as a structuring device for the material
within the sermon. Sometimes, however, the associations between the
opening biblical epigraph and the content of the sermon are a bit more
straightforward than those we’ve examined so far. In Sermon 8 (Puer
Jesus), for example, where the opening biblical verse is: “The boy Jesus
advanced in age and wisdom and grace before God and men,” Thomas
deals in order with the four ways in which Christ is said to have
“advanced”: namely, first, in “age” with respect to the body; second, in
“wisdom” with respect to the intellect; third, in “grace” before God; and
fourth, in “grace” before men (in the sense of “living together with”
them). So too in Sermon 9 (Exiit qui seminat), which begins with the verse
from from the Parable of the Sower (Lk 8:5) that says: “He who was
sowing went out to sow his seed,” Thomas considers, in turn: first, what
the seed is (the word of God); second, who the sower is (Christ above all,
but also earthly preachers of the word), and “his” (namely the earthly
preacher’s) three ways of “going out” (from the state of guilt, from the
worldliness of his youth, and from hidden inner contemplation to the
public field of preaching); and third, the nature of the sowing (namely,
what hinders the sowing, and what is the fruit of the sowing). In these
instances, the opening biblical verse still serves as a structuring device for
the sermon, and it has an important mnemonic role as well, but the associations between the individual words of the opening biblical verse and
the content of the sermon is not as unusual or odd as some of the ones
we examined earlier. One imagines in retrospect that the decision about
whether to use these somewhat odd associations would have depended to
a large extent either on the nature of the text or the nature of the occasion for which Thomas was speaking.

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Take Sermon 13 (Homo quidam fecit ), for example, where it was likely
the nature of the text that suggested a different handling of the imagery.
The sermon begins with the opening verse from the Parable of the
Banquet in Luke 14:16: “A certain man made a great supper, and he
invited many,” about which Thomas says: “Just as the body cannot be
maintained without physical refreshment, so also the soul is in need of
spiritual refreshment for its maintenance.” “Thus in this passage,” says
Thomas, “we can discern two things”: first, the preparation of this
refreshment, where it says, A certain man made a great dinner; and second,
the announcement of the feast after it was prepared, where it says, and he
invited many. The first of these sets up the topic for the morning sermon,
in which Thomas comments that, “with regard to the preparation of the
supper, there are three aspects to be considered”: first, who the man is
who made the dinner; second, what kind of dinner it is; and third, how
big it is. During his collatio at vespers later in the day, Thomas takes up the
second phrase, and he invited many, in order to discuss: who the servants
are who are called; how they are called; and why they decline the invitation. Those acquainted with patristic or early medieval biblical commentaries will recognize that Thomas’s interpretation here resembles a fairly
standard typological or figurative sort of exegesis characteristic of the early
Church. Who is the man? (Christ.) What is the dinner? (The Eucharist.)
Whom has he invited? (Sinners.) Why don’t they come? (They can’t
approach the Table of the Lord because mortal sin prevents them.)
Perhaps because Thomas is dealing here with a parable, he may be less
interested in creating his own noteworthy similitudes and associations
than in getting as much meaning as possible out of the various images in
the parable itself. Perhaps precisely because it is a parable, and parables
already have a layer of similitude at work, its images are already memorable enough.
What we’ve been examining so far, however, are only what I would
call “minor variations” from the practice. Of all the sermons, there is only
one that diverges in any serious way from the sort of order and structure
we’ve been discussing so far, and that variation is to be found in Sermon
17 (Lux orta). It may have been the nature of the occasion that demanded
a slightly different approach toward the opening epigraph, the sermon
having been preached on one of Mary’s feast days; or it may be that the
text as we now have it was slightly garbled somewhere in transmission
(we must await the critical edition and its scholarly apparatus to make any
final judgment on this question); or granted, it may be that in this one
instance Thomas simply allowed himself a rather substantial digression
from his original order. But whether it is one or the other, since this

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sermon is the only one that diverges in any serious way from the pattern
I’ve been describing, the only responsible thing to do is to bring this
potential counterexample to the attention of my reader.
In this sermon, preached on the Feast of the Birth of the Virgin Mary,
the opening biblical verse is from Psalm 97(96):11: “A light is risen for the
just, and joy for the upright of heart.” According to Thomas, two things in
particular are brought to our attention by means of this verse: “first, the
rising of the Virgin’s glory, where it says, A light is risen for the just; and
second, the fruits of her birth, where it says: and joy for the upright of heart.
And as we might be expecting by now, the first part of the verse (“A light
is risen for the just”) provides the structure for the sermon in the morning, while the second part (“and joy for the upright of heart”) provides the
occasion for the collatio in the evening. Indeed, the evening’s collatio begins,
as usual, with a repetition of the opening verse: “A light is risen for the just,
and joy for the upright of heart,” after which Thomas reviews what he had
accomplished earlier in the day, saying “Today we talked about the way in
which the Blessed Virgin in her rising is a brilliant light,” followed by what
he intends to do in the coming collatio: “It remains for us to see in what
way she is joy for upright people.” This much is all according to plan.
And yet there is an odd, unmistakable break in the order of the sermon
right near the beginning. After a brief prothema, Thomas, as usual, repeats
the first part of the opening biblical verse: “A light is risen for the just,”
and then says: “This is a short saying, but it holds a manifold meaning.”
But rather than proceeding immediately to discuss the ways in which
“the Virgin’s glory” is suggested by the words “A light is risen for the
just,” as we might expect, instead Thomas goes off on a rather substantial
digression to explain that “the birth of the Blessed Virgin was shown
beforehand [before her birth] in many figures in the Old Testament”—
three, in particular: the ascent of the dawn (which prefigures the sanctification she brings); the rising of the morning star (which prefigures the
purity of her virginity); and the sprouting of a twig from the root (which
prefigures her contemplation: as the twig is raised up toward heaven, so
the heart of the Virgin Mary was lifted up to the things that are above).
Now of course all three points make perfect sense in a sermon about
Mary; what’s odd is their placement. What happened, we wonder, to
Thomas’s discussion about the ways “the Virgin’s glory” can be associated
with or suggested by the words “A light is risen for the just,” the first
words in his opening epigraph? The best we can say at this point is that
perhaps “dawn” and “morning star” and the twig “rising up to the sun”
were all suggested by the word “light,” although this connection is not
made explicitly anywhere in the sermon as we now have it.

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In fact, it is not until Thomas has finished his explication of the image
of the sprouting twig that he returns to his explication of the opening
epigraph, with the result that Thomas is a full two pages into the sermon
before he finally says, without introduction or transition: “Now two
things in particular are brought to our attention in this verse.” It’s only
made clear by what follows that by “this verse” he means the opening
epigraph, because he suggests that the first thing “made clear” is “the
rising of the Virgin’s glory, when it says: A light is risen for the just; and the
second, the fruits of her birth, where it says and joy for the upright of heart.”
Read in a certain way, it looks as though Thomas had forgotten that he
already discussed this distinction earlier in the first lines of the sermon.
He’s well into the sermon before he repeats the opening epigraph and
begins laying out the points he intends to make in relation to its various
parts. Why the delay? The answer is not entirely clear. It’s possible the
original reportatio may have been confused—the scribe may have missed
the verbal connection Thomas made in his sermon—or the manuscript
as we now have it may have become corrupted in transmission over the
years. Or, to be quite honest, it may simply be that Thomas, moved by the
joy and spirit of Mary’s feast day, took the liberty of making an interesting and worthwhile digression. We cannot make any final judgment on
this score, however, until we see Fr. Bataillon’s critical edition—although
perhaps even then the matter will not be entirely resolved.
And yet if it turns out upon examination that the text of Sermon 17
(Lux orta) has in fact been somewhat garbled in transmission (something
I’ll leave for others to decide), then our survey of Thomas’s usual method
of proceeding offers a possible way of sorting through the confusions of
the text. It might be possible to use the structuring principle offered by
the opening epigraph to sort out which sections likely belong to the
sermon and which don’t, or at least to identify which sections seem likely
to be out of their proper order.
Let me make clear, however, that Thomas is not always as precise and
detailed in working out the structure of his sermons as in the examples
I’ve given above. While the opening biblical verse always serves as a
mnemonic device around which Thomas structures his sermon, sometimes he is more painstaking and meticulous in making associations with
each and every word in the biblical verse, sometimes less so. So, for example, whereas in Sermon 5 (Ecce rex), Thomas divides the parts of his
sermon by commenting in turn on each of the words in the opening
biblical verse (ecce, then rex, then tuus, then venit tibi, and finally mansuetus),
in Sermon 17 (Lux orta), by contrast, he does not comment on each of the
words in the opening biblical verse (lux orta est iusto et rectis corde laetitia; “a

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light is risen for the just, and joy for the upright of heart”) but rather
divides the verse into its two constituent clauses (“a light is risen for the
just,” on the one hand, and “joy for the upright of heart,” on the other)
and structures the two parts of his sermon according to each of these. In
the latter case, the individual words are not irrelevant—the association
between the Virgin Mary and “light” is not unimportant, for example; it’s
simply that Thomas does not always labor intensively, making multiple
associations for each and every word in the biblical verse. The mnemonic
association can be made either with a single word or with a clause.
On Reading the Prologues to Thomas’s Biblical Commentaries
There is another added benefit to noticing the way Thomas structures his
sermons: namely, it teaches us how to read the prologues to his biblical
commentaries as well. Consider, for example, the prologue to Thomas’s
Commentary on the Psalms. This prologue has been treated at length by
A. J. Minnis in his book The Medieval Theory of Authorship, where he
suggests that the development in the thirteenth century of a more sophisticated understanding of the literal sense of biblical texts was due in large
part to the creation of what he calls a new sort of “Aristotelian prologue”
structured around the four Aristotelian causes—the efficient cause or
author of the work, the material cause or subject matter of the work, the
formal cause or form of the work, and the final cause or purpose of the
work—which gradually came to replace the more complicated prologues
that had been popular in the twelfth century.20 What Professor Minnis
fails to take note of in his otherwise fine study, however, is precisely the
mnemonic function of the biblical epigraph with which Thomas begins
each of his prologues.
While it is true that Thomas’s prologue to his Psalm commentary is
based in part on the four Aristotelian causes, the four causes are themselves keyed to the parts of the biblical verse that introduces the prologue
as a whole. Thomas uses as an epigraph for the text of his prologue the
following passage from Ecclesiasticus 47:9: “In his every work, he gave
confession to the holy one and the most high, with a word of glory” (In
omni opere suo dedit confessionem sancto et excelso in verbo gloriae).21 There are
two reasons, it would seem, for quoting this particular verse from Ecclesiasticus at the beginning of a prologue to the Psalms: first, the passage is
20 Alistair J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the

Later Middle Ages (London: Scolar Press, 1984), 75f.
21 In what follows, I will be quoting from the Latin version in the Busa edition; all

English translations are my own. See Postilla super Psalmos, in S. Thomae Aquinatis
Opera Omnia, ed. Busa, vol. 6, 48–130.

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about David, who was thought to be the author of all the Psalms; and
second, because each part of the epigraph is keyed as a mnemonic structuring device to a different section of Thomas’s prologue, as was the case
in Thomas’s sermons.
Thus the phrase In his every work suggests the materia (or what we
might call the subject matter) of the Psalms. “The matter of the work is
clear,” says Thomas, “because it concerns every work of the Lord.” Moreover the work of God is fourfold: it involves creation, governance, reparation, and glorification. All four are covered in the Psalms. Not only are
there psalms praising the works of creation, there also many dealing with
God’s governance because, says Thomas, “all the stories of the Old Testament are treated in this book.” The Psalms also deal with God’s work of
reparation, because they speak of Christ and all the effects of grace. Indeed,
according to Thomas, “all the things which pertain to the faith of the
Incarnation are so clearly treated in this book that it seems almost a
gospel, and not prophecy.” Finally, the Psalms treat of God’s work of glorification because “through it, he invites us to glory.” And this is the reason
why the Psalter is the most frequently used book in the Church, says
Thomas: “because it contains the whole of the Scriptures.”
The mode or the form of the work, then, is suggested by the next phrase
in the epigraph: he gave confession. There are a number of different literary
modes used in Scripture: the narrative mode, which is found in the historical books; the admonitory, the exhortatory, and the imperative modes,
which are found in the law, the prophets, and the wisdom books; the disputative mode, which is found in the book of Job; and finally, the beseeching
or laudatory mode, which is the mode found in the Psalms. Indeed, according to Thomas, “whatever is said in the other books in the aforementioned
modes, is found [in the Psalms] in the mode of praise and prayer.” The
“beseeching” mode is suggested to Thomas by the phrase he gave confession.
Next, the final cause or purpose of the Psalms is clearly prayer, says
Thomas, which is the elevation of the mind to God—something which
is suggested by the phrase to the holy one and the most high. But the soul is
elevated to God for four reasons: for admiring the loftiness of His power,
which is the elevation of faith, and for tending toward the excellence of
eternal beatitude, which is the elevation of hope, both of which are
suggested by the phrase to the most high. The soul is elevated, moreover,
for clinging to divine goodness and sanctity, which is the elevation of
charity, and then for imitating divine justice in work, which is the elevation of justice. And these two are suggested by the phrase to the holy one.
The purpose of the Psalms, therefore, says Thomas, “is that the soul may
be conjoined with God, as to the holy one and the most high.”

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Finally, the author or efficient cause of the work, is signified by the last part
of the epigraph: (In his every work/he gave confession/to the holy one and
most high) in a word of glory. Why are the Psalms a “word of glory”?
Because, says Thomas, whereas the other sciences are written by means of
human reason, the sacred Scriptures are written by means of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They are, therefore, the “word of the Lord”—that
is, “the word of glory.” The Book of Psalms is called the “word of glory,”
moreover, for four reasons: first, with regard to the cause from which it
flows, because its teaching emanates from the glorious work of God;
second, with regard to its contents, because in this book is contained the
glory of God, which it announces; third, with regard to the mode in which
it is expressed, for “glory,” says Thomas “is the same as clarity,” and whereas
other prophets utilized images, figures, or dreams, “this one taught unveiled
concerning the truth,” and thus “the revelation of this prophet was glorious, because laid open (aperta).” And finally, the Psalms are called the “word
of glory” because through them “God invites us to glory.”
Now all of this, though it might seem more than just a little strange to
a modern audience, makes more sense when the various elements are
understood to be parts of an elaborate mnemonic device. And in that
regard, consider this: how many prologues of books that you’ve read do
you remember? Now think back to Thomas’s prologue and its epigraph.
In his every work: The Psalms deal with every work of the Lord: creation,
governance, reparation, and glorification. He gave confession: The style of
the Psalms is that of prayer or praise. To the holy one and the most high: The
purpose of the work is that we might be elevated and joined together
with God, “the holy one and the most high.” In a word of glory:The author
of the Psalms is the Holy Spirit Himself, and through them God invites
us to glory. You might even be able to remember some of the details
related to the phrase “the holy one and the most high” (when you think
of holy, it suggests God, and when you think of most high, it suggests
“elevation”: thus “elevation of the soul to God”) or that, as Thomas says,
“glory is the same as clarity,” and thus the Psalms don’t prophesy “using
images or dreams,” but speak plainly and “openly,” so much so that “they
almost seem to be a Gospel rather than prophecy.” One can recollect much
of the content of the sermon as long as one can remember the opening
epigraph and then let it help call to mind the various associations.
In none of the other of Thomas’s biblical commentary prologues will
we find what Prof. Minnis calls the new “Aristotelian-type” prologue,
structured as it is here around the four Aristotelian “causes.”What we will
find, however, in nearly every case is an opening biblical epigraph that
serves as an organizing device and verbal mnemonic, just as we did in all

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of Thomas’s extant sermons—the exceptions being Thomas’s commentary on the book of Job and his early commentaries on Isaiah, Lamentations, and Jeremiah. The latter three were likely completed when Thomas
was only a bachelor biblicus, and in them Thomas, following the standard
practice of his day, especially among the bachelors, borrowed a prologue
from St. Jerome and then commented on it, rather than audaciously
daring as a mere bachelor to compose one entirely of his own.
As Thomas honed his preaching skills, he may have come to realize
how effective the mnemonic epigraph was for structuring his material
and helping his audience remember large amounts of information and so
adopted the method for use in the prologues to his biblical commentaries
as well, in preference to the old style that involved merely commenting
on one of St. Jerome’s prologues.We might think of these later prologues,
then, as a kind of mini-sermon introducing the book of the Bible on
which Thomas intends to comment.
On the Theological Justification for This Textual Practice:
Thomas’s Christocentric Understanding of the Biblical Texts
So far, we have been discussing a textual practice. Pointing out a textual
practice is one thing; providing an underlying philosophical or theological justification for it is quite another, especially a practice whose use of
the semiotic potential of a sentence is so striking and largely so foreign
to us. One sort of justification for the practice has to do with the nature
of human memory: we human beings tend to prefer interesting and
evocative similitudes arranged in a sensible order to help us recollect
things when we have a lot to remember. Using biblical verses as a verbal
mnemonic just made sense, then, because if Thomas’s audience had not
already committed the Bible to memory, it was at the very least a book
they revered and whose words they cared about, making it more likely
something they would be able to recall.
Underlying this mnemonic use of the opening biblical verse, however,
is something else as well.What makes this sort of cross-textual “mapping”
conceptually possible in the first place is, I would suggest, a profoundly
Christocentric view of the sacred Scriptures. There is not sufficient space
here to go into this matter in detail for each of the sermons, so allow me
to illustrate what I mean using two examples from sermons we’ve already
touched upon above: the first, from Sermon 5 (Ecce rex), the other from
Sermon 16 (Inveni David ).
In Sermon 5 (Ecce rex), as the reader will recall, Thomas opens with
the verse from Zechariah 9:9 quoted in the Gospel of Matthew upon
Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem:

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As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount
of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village
ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her
colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything
to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right
away.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
“Say to the Daughter of Zion,
‘See, your king comes to you,
meek and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” (Mt 21:1–5; cf. Zec 9:9)

Now if you take the trouble to look up this verse from Zechariah 9:9 in
its original context, you will find that it comes at the end of a prophecy
of judgment against the enemies of Judah and in the midst of a series of
promises that God will bless Jerusalem. In Zechariah 8, for example, we
read of the promised restoration of the city of Jerusalem after the Israelites’
long captivity in Babylon, when all the people will be gathered from exile,
and the old as well as the young will live in peace as God’s people:
This is what the Lord says: “I will return to Zion and dwell in
Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth, and the
mountain of the Lord Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.”
This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Once again men and women of
ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with cane in hand
because of his age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls
playing there.” . . . This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I will save my
people from the countries of the east and the west. I will bring them
back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful
and righteous to them as their God.” (Zec 8:1–7)

This theme of peace dominates the passages after the verse in Zechariah
9:9 as well. Once “the king” returns, there will be no more need of war:
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zec 9:10)

Modern biblical commentators will no doubt insist, with more than a
little justification, that these passages refer (in the mind of the writer, at least)
to a hoped-for restoration of the Davidic monarchy over an undivided

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kingdom, with worship at the Temple of Jerusalem at its heart. Whatever
truth there may be in such theories, and whether or not this was the
original intent of the human author, we can say in retrospect that, as far
as the establishment of a political monarchy and a lasting earthly peace
goes, sadly it didn’t happen.
And yet, whatever the prophet Zechariah himself may have had in
mind when he wrote these words, when the New Testament author
applied this text to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, he offered a new perspective and a new possibility: that perhaps the Holy Spirit had inspired the
writing of words the full realization of which would surpass what
Zechariah could have imagined or even hoped for when he uttered
them. Whatever fulfillment Zechariah might have had in mind when he
spoke these words to his fellow Jews returning from exile, the New Testament authors believed that the fullest and final realization of what they
promised had occurred only with the coming of Christ, especially with
His sacrificial death on a cross in Jerusalem that revealed a new, very
different sort of kingship: one based not on power and conquest, but on
love, forgiveness, and service to those in need.
There are other evocative remarks, especially in the second half of
Zechariah, that would have had a very different significance for the New
Testament authors reading them than they would have had for the original writer and his audience. It sometimes seems as though the prophet
himself was aware that the full significance of his words was not apparent
even to him.There is, for example, the strange parable in Zechariah 10:12
concerning the good shepherd who takes over the flock and gets rid of
the evil shepherds who have been selling the sheep for slaughter. And yet,
rather than the good shepherd being welcomed by the sheep whom he
has saved, he is rejected by them. So the shepherd takes his staff called
“Favor” and breaks it in their midst, revoking his covenant with them and
saying: “If you think it best, give me my pay, but if not, keep it,” after
which we hear the fateful words that will later in the New Testament be
applied to Judas Iscariot: “So they paid me thirty pieces of silver” (Zec
11:12; cf. Mt 27:9). Since the shepherd in Zechariah knows that taking
the money is not right, however, he inquires of the Lord what he should
do with it, to which the Lord replies: “Throw it to the potter.” And so,
says Zechariah: “I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the
house of the Lord to the potter” (Zec 11:13). It is of course Judas Iscariot in the New Testament who throws the thirty pieces of silver back into
the Temple, whereupon the members of the Sanhedrin, having concluded
that it is blood money and cannot be put back into the Temple coffers,
buy the “potter’s field.”

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So too in Zechariah 12:10, we find a prophecy about the one who
will be the deliverer of Israel being “pierced” by those whom he has been
sent to deliver: “And I will pour out on the house of David and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look
on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one
mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for
a firstborn son” (Zec 12:10). What the Gospel writers and theologians of
the early Church believed is that these words, beyond whatever else they
might signify, signify Christ. Whether or not Zechariah understood the
full significance of these words, whether or not he could have known
who it was whose side would be pierced by that spear, whether or not
he could have known whose “only son” it would be, the Holy Spirit,
who writes figuratively with the events of history, did know. Whatever
Zechariah had in mind and to whomever he was referring in his own
time, this, they believed, would have its ultimate fulfillment in the person
of Christ. What the authors of the New Testament and the early Fathers
of the Church came to believe, moreover, is that God can prefigure not
only in words—this much even human authors can do—but in the actual
events of history. And since metaphysically and historically God could use
the realities discussed in the Old Testament to prefigure those in the New,
so too textually, many of the things that “lay hidden” in figures in the Old
Testament were “made manifest” in the words of the New.22
It is to this particular understanding of the relationship between the two
testaments that we must look ultimately, I would suggest, to explain why
Thomas thinks he can take a verse from the Old Testament and apply it to
a sermon on Christ; and why by extension, he considers it fitting to use an
Old Testament verse from Zechariah 9:9,“Behold, your king comes to you,
meek, and riding on a donkey,” in a sermon on the advent of Christ: it is
because he believes that, whoever the king is to whom Zechariah is referring, he is a prefiguration of the “king of kings” who is to come. Thomas
has scriptural warrant for this belief, moreover, because he finds Matthew
using this text from Zechariah in a similar way in his Gospel: “the king”
who enters Jerusalem is not merely a human king like others, he is the
incarnate King, the One who is truly “the holy one” and “the most high,”
the one who will finally and truly bring peace and justice.
Such is the case also, for example, in Sermon 1 (Veniet desideratus),
where, after quoting the passage from the book of the prophet Haggai that
says, “He who is desired by all the nations together will come, and he will
fill this house with glory” (Hg 2:8), Thomas adds the comment:
22 For this oft-quoted comment of St. Augustine’s, see his Questions on the Hepta-

teuch [the First Seven Books of the Bible], 2.73.

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Randall B. Smith
the Prophet shows three things [in this sentence], in this order: (1) first,
he shows it is God’s Son himself who is coming down from the heavens: he will come;23 (2) second, he shows He is the one who mercifully
fulfills the desires of the Patriarchs: who is desired by all the nations together;
(3) third, he shows He is the one who freely bestows his pleasing benefit [upon us]: and he will fill this house with glory.

Thomas can make this series of associations (even though the prophet
Haggai himself clearly did not know that the one who “will come”
would be the Son of God incarnate, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ)
because Thomas shares with the New Testament writers a Christocentric
understanding of the relationship between the two testaments.
It is important to remember that Thomas lived in an intellectual and
spiritual culture where the words of the Psalms were chanted several
times a day, and these words were always understood to refer ultimately
to Christ. Thomas makes clear that he shares this perspective in the
prologue to his own Psalm commentary, insisting that “all the things
which pertain to the faith of the Incarnation are so clearly treated in this
book [the Psalms] that it seems almost a gospel, and not prophecy.” So
even with a text that says “I have found David, my servant; with my holy
oil I have anointed him,” David is understood to be a prefiguration of
Christ; that is to say, the fullest and most complete realization of the
promises made to David arrive only with the coming of Christ, who is
most truly God’s servant and most truly God’s “anointed one”: the
Messiah. This is the truth of the matter metaphysically.
The relationship between David and Christ can also be understood
analogically and pedagogically. First analogically: Just as we first know our own
human fathers, and then apply the word “father” to God, only later to realize that the word “Father” is predicated more truly of God than of our
human fathers (since God is the one who created us out of nothing and
who loves us without fail everlastingly), so too we first become acquainted
with David and learn pedagogically from the Old Testament descriptions of
him something about what it means to be God’s “anointed one,” only later
to realize that the order of our learning is the reverse of the order of reality, and that the title God’s “anointed one” is predicated more truly of
Christ than of David. Christ is the Anointed One; David prefigures the One
who is to come by revealing, in a way that we can more easily understand,
23 Notice that the first word in Latin is Veniet, which means “he will come,” so

Thomas is justified in saying that the Prophet deals with this “first.”To render the
whole in English translation, however, we have been forced to put “will come”
later in the sentence, after “who is desired by all the nations,” even though the
word veniet actually comes first in the Latin sentence.

How to Read Aquinas’s Sermons

801

one of the categories we will need to comprehend if we are to appreciate
who Christ is when He comes. Such categories, limited as they are, having
primarily a pedagogical role in preparing us for a reality that goes beyond
them, both reveal as well as conceal the reality they prefigure. The prefiguring figures are always utterly surpassed, and the limited concepts they
entail must all be ultimately broken open when we enter the presence of
their Ultimate Referent: the One whom “no eye has seen, no ear has
heard, no mind has conceived.”
So too, once we have understood how a passage that begins “I have
found David, my servant” can apply to Christ, then by extension we can
also come to understand how Thomas can use the same passage to refer
to one of the saints. Take, for example, Thomas’s striking use of the
passage from Psalm 88:21 (“I have found David my servant; with my holy
oil I have anointed him; my hand will assist him and my arm will make
him firm”) to refer to St. Nicholas in Sermon 16 (Inveni David ), a peculiarity I had occasion to mention near the beginning of this essay. The
sermon was delivered on December 6, the Feast of St. Nicholas, and
Thomas’s mnemonic “unpacking” of this line goes something like this:
From these words we can learn four praiseworthy things of this holy
bishop St. Nicholas: (1) first, his wondrous election; (2) second, his
unique consecration; (3) third, the effective execution of his task; and
(4) fourth, his immovable and firm stability. His wondrous election is
shown in the words: “I have found David, my servant.” His special
consecration is shown where it says: “I have anointed him with my
sacred oil.” The effective execution of his task is shown in the words:
“My hand will help him.” His stable firmness is shown where it says:
“and my arm will make him firm.”

One difficulty in interpreting these lines comes from imagining that
Thomas thinks that these words from a tenth-century B.C. psalm refer
literally to St. Nicholas, a fourth-century A.D. Christian bishop, when in
fact Thomas is simply using this passage from the Psalms as a mnemonic
device to help structure his sermon on Nicholas. And yet there is something more going on here as well. To the extent that St. Nicholas
succeeded in getting his false, sinful self out of the way—thereby allowing rather his true self, the self he was meant to be as he was made by
God, to shine forth—to that extent he had become, as the Church
Fathers used to say, alter Christus (“another Christ”). As such, Nicholas
became the visible symbol of Christ’s presence, especially for the other
members of his diocese. He had, as Paul says, “put off his sinful self,” and
by “putting on Christ” had become a new man for them. It is for these

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reasons that passages that are interpreted Christocentrically can be
applied, by extension, even to the saints, such as St. Nicholas. Since St.
Nicholas is one who had very clearly “put on Christ,” so by extension we
can apply the Scriptures that apply to Christ to St. Nicholas as well.
It is, to sum up, Thomas’s Christocentric understanding of the biblical
texts that provided the theological justification for what might otherwise
seem a rather odd or illicit use of Old Testament texts as epigraphs for his
sermons. Just as it is not unimportant for readers to see how Thomas uses
his biblical epigraphs as a mnemonic device around which to organize his
sermons, so too it would not do for readers to imagine that what Thomas
was doing amounted to nothing more than fiddling around with words.
The words, it is important to note, offer themselves up for this use
because they are understood to witness ultimately to the Word Himself,
the Incarnate God, Creator and Source of all things. Just as the things of
creation point to their Creator who is their origin and end and thus their
ultimate fulfillment which gives them their ultimate meaning, so too the
words of Scripture point us to the Word who is their origin and end and
thus their ultimate fulfillment which gives them their ultimate meaning.
On “Mixing Memory and Desire”:
A New Pattern for Preaching
I have mentioned “Mixing Memory and Desire” in the title of this final
section because, for one thing, it is part of a famous line from the beginning of T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land,24 a reference that I thought
might make the title more memorable for some modern readers. But I
have used it also because I believe there is something Thomas understands
about delivering sermons that many who preach tend to forget: namely,
that to have a lasting impact on the life of the listener, the substance of
the sermon must be remembered past the moment when the sermon is
delivered. Many can dazzle with displays of rhetorical fury; few can
preach in such a way as to impress the thoughts in a lasting way on the
mind of the listener, like a seal imprinted into soft wax, as Plato describes
it in the Theaetetus.25
Dom Jean LeClerq entitled his famous book on monastic culture The
Love of Learning and the Desire for God.26 It has often been said of the biblical sermons of St. Bernard that they were excellent at enkindling in
listeners the “desire for God.” St. Thomas’s way of preaching is different,
24 T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, II. 2–3 in “The Burial of the Dead.”
25 Cf. Plato, Theaetetus 190e5–196c6.
26 Jean Leclerq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture,

trans. Catharine Misrahi, 3rd ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1948).

How to Read Aquinas’s Sermons

803

no doubt, but no less biblical. And as examples of how to mix learning
and the desire for God, his sermons are, I would suggest, no less effective.
Friar Thomas pioneered a new rhetoric: a rhetoric of the mind—a rhetoric attuned not so much to the rhythms and cadences that stir the
passions as to the patterns and structures that inform the memory. The
result was a profound, and profoundly Dominican, way of mixing memory
and desire.
N&V

Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2012): 805–32

805

The Causality of the Unmoved Mover in
Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on Metaphysics XII
S TEPHEN L. B ROCK
Pontifical University of the Holy Cross
Rome, Italy

F OR SOME TIME now, Enrico Berti has been raising serious doubts
about what he calls the “traditional” interpretation of the causality of the
unmoved mover in Book XII of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.1 Berti includes
Thomas Aquinas within this tradition, and, at least with respect to the
central point at issue, he seems to be quite right in doing so. Like virtually
all of the previous interpreters,Thomas attributes to the unmoved mover the
1 The original version of this essay, like those of Enrico Berti and Kevin Flannery

appearing in this same issue of Nova et Vetera, was delivered in Italian at the
conference Fine del Dio di Aristotele, organized by the Pontifical Theological
Faculty of Sardinia, held May 5, 2009 in Cagliari. The conference proceedings
have been published in Humanitas 66.4 (2011). Given the presence both of Berti’s
own essay and of the fine summary of Berti’s position on the “traditional” interpretation that Flannery offers at the beginning of his, I have deemed it unnecessary to provide yet another summary. Here, however, are the pertinent writings
by Berti that I have been able to take into consideration: Enrico Berti, “Da chi
è amato il motore immobile? Su Aristotele, Metaph. XII.6–7,” Méthexis 10 (1997):
59–82; “De qui est fin le moteur immobile?” in Essais sur la théologie d’Aristote,
ed. M. Bastit and J. Follon (Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters, 1998), 5–28; “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” in La filosofia in età imperiale, ed. A.
Brancacci (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2000), 227–43; “La causalità del motore immobile secondo Aristotele,” Gregorianum 83.4 (2002): 637–54; “Prefazione,” in
Enrico Berti, Nuovi Studi Aristotelici, vol. 2 (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2005), 7–12;
Struttura e significato della Metafisica di Aristotele (Rome: Edusc, 2006), 135–59;
“Ancora sulla causalità del Motore immobile,” Méthexis 20 (2007): 7–28. Also
pertinent would be “The Unmoved Mover as Efficient Cause in Aristotle’s
Metaph. XII,” in Aristotle on Metaphysics, ed. T. Pentzopoulou-Valalas (Thessaloniki: Aristotle University, 1999), 73–81.

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function of a final cause, and more precisely, final cause of the things that he
moves.2 Berti has strong reservations about this attribution. At the same
time, as Berti himself has observed, Thomas’s account of it proves to be
somewhat original.3 His reading therefore invites separate consideration.
In this paper I shall mostly concentrate on three passages from
Thomas’s commentary on Metaphysics XII.4 In addition to their intrinsic
interest, they have an obvious bearing on some of the problems raised by
Berti concerning the traditional way of understanding the unmoved
mover’s final causality—especially his charges that this interpretation
seems almost to neutralize or to set aside the efficient causality of the
unmoved mover, and that it seems to depend upon certain notions of
Platonic origin, such as imitation or participation, that do not fit well
with Aristotle’s views. However, I wish to stress that my immediate aim
is simply to understand what Thomas’s interpretation of the unmoved
mover’s causality is. I shall make a few remarks as to its correctness, but
without offering any final judgment on this score.
I. The First Mover as Efficient Cause
of the Motion of the First Celestial Sphere
The three passages that I propose to consider in detail all belong to the
seventh lectio of Thomas’s commentary on Metaphysics XII. First,
however, I wish to signal a point that comes out in the fifth lectio, which
concerns the first half of chapter 6 of Metaphysics XII. It is here that Aristotle begins to treat of the first mover, offering an argument for the
mover’s existence. In expounding this argument, Thomas is very clear
about its being a question of a mover that moves in the manner of an efficient cause.
On Thomas’s reading, the argument starts from the thesis, defended at
length in the Physics and recapitulated here, that time and motion are
2 Throughout this essay I use personal pronouns to refer to the first mover. As we

will see, Thomas identifies the first mover with God. Berti, too, regards the first
mover as a personal being, an individual substance and agent endowed with
intellect and will. See Berti, Struttura e significato della Metafisica, 154; “Da chi è
amato il motore immobile?” 72, 77–79.
3 Berti, “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” 241–43. On Berti’s
reading of Thomas, see below, nn. 54 and 65.
4 Thomas Aquinas, In XII libros Metaphysicorum expositio (=In Meta.), ed. M.-R.
Cathala and R. M. Spiazzi (Turin: Marietti, 1950). There is general agreement
that the commentary was written between 1270 and 1272; see Jean-Pierre
Torrell, Initiation à saint Thomas d’Aquin (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires de
Fribourg, 2003), 338–40. (Throughout this essay I rely on Torrell for the dating
of Thomas’s works.)

The Causality of the Unmoved Mover

807

continuous and everlasting, without beginning or end.5 Of course not every
motion is such. What is continuous and everlasting is circular local motion.
(Later it becomes clear that he is referring to the rotation of the first celestial sphere.) Then,Thomas explains, Aristotle shows that in order to “sustain
the everlastingness of motion,” there must be “an everlasting substance that
is motive and effective” (substantia motiva et effectiva sempiterna).6 This
substance is not merely capable ( potens) of moving and effecting motion; it
must also be “always moving and acting in act” (moventem et agentem in actu
semper). Indeed its essence must be solely act (actus tantum).7 Thus Thomas
repeatedly describes the first mover in terms that signify an efficient cause.
In the course of this discussion, Aristotle remarks that it is useless to
posit everlasting substances such as the “forms”—in Thomas’s text, species—
or any others that have no principle with power to effect change. Thomas
sees here a reference to Platonic Ideas.8 The reason why the Ideas have no
principle of change and are of no use in accounting for the everlastingness of motion, Thomas suggests, is that they are nothing but separate
universals. Universals, as such, move nothing. Every active principle is an
individual, as Aristotle had explained earlier.9 It is clear that Thomas is
thinking of a mover that moves in the manner of an efficient cause or an
5 At the end of the lectio Thomas adds a reflection of his own concerning this thesis

(In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 5, §2496–99). From this procedure, he says, it is clear that
here Aristotle firmly held and believed it necessary that motion and time be
everlasting. He then declares that the reasons given by Aristotle for this position,
here and in the Physics, are not demonstrative. Presumably he has in mind the
doctrine of the creation of the world in a beginning of time. Here, however,
without mentioning that doctrine, he goes on to observe that even if the argument’s starting point is not necessary, nonetheless the conclusion as to the existence of a first, everlasting immaterial substance follows necessarily. If in fact the
world is not everlasting, Thomas argues, then necessarily it was “produced in
being” by something pre-existing; and since there cannot be an infinite series of
produced producers, as is shown in Book II of the Metaphysics (ch. 2, 994a1–b8),
there must be an everlasting substance that contains no potency, and that is therefore immaterial.
6 In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 5, §2492. Translations of Thomas in this essay are mine.
7 Ibid., §2494. For this reason, the substance must also be immaterial, since matter
is in potency: ibid., §2495. Later we are told that its being solely act also entails
its being unmoved and immobile: lect. 6, §2518.
8 In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 5, §2493. Thomas adds that it would be equally useless to
posit separate mathematical substances, because mathematical things, as such, are
not principles of motion either.
9 I suppose he is referring to the discussion in XII.5, where Aristotle says that Achilles’
principle is Peleus, and yours is your father: Metaphysics, XII.5, 1071a18–24. See In
Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 4, §2482.

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agent, because on his view a universal can in fact move as a final cause.10
The unmoved mover’s status as agent is thus further underscored.
There are also other places in Thomas’s commentary on Metaphysics
XII 6 where it is plain that he considers Aristotle’s first mover to be an
efficient cause.11 But now let us turn to the commentary’s seventh lectio,
which concerns Metaphysics XII 7, 1072a27–b15. In this lectio Thomas
offers the principal elements of his understanding of the first mover’s final
causality. This is the main target of Berti’s criticism of the “traditional”
interpretation of the doctrine of the first mover in Metaphysics XII.
II. A Proximate Mover to Which the First Unmoved Mover
Is Related as Something Desirable
As Thomas reads it, at XII 7, 1072a27, Aristotle begins to investigate the
“condition” of the first mover and, first of all, the mover’s “perfection.”
To determine this, Aristotle focuses on how the mover moves: without
being moved. He says that this is how objects of desire and understanding move. Thomas takes him to mean that the first mover moves in just
this way, as something desirable and intelligible. Only the desirable and
the intelligible, Thomas insists, are found to move without being
moved.12 Still, nothing that he says here indicates that he has abandoned
the idea that the first mover is an agent or an efficient cause.13 He is only
10 See ST I–II, q. 13, a. 5, ad 1. On this point, see the important study by David

Twetten, Aquinas and the Prime Mover of Aristotle: A Study of the Medieval Demonstration of God’s Existence from Motion, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto
(Toronto, 1993), 225.
11 See Twetten, Aquinas and the Prime Mover of Aristotle, 244–46. Perhaps it should
be noted that in other writings Thomas makes it clear that in his judgment, Aristotle conceives the first, unmoved mover as the efficient cause not only of the
world’s motion, but also of its very existence. See, e.g., In Meta., Lib. II, lect. 2,
§295; In Meta. Lib. VI, lect. 1, §1164; Thomas Aquinas, In VIII libros Physicorum
expositio, ed. P. M. Maggiòlo (Turin: Marietti, 1965), Lib. VIII, lect. 3, §996 [6];
Thomas Aquinas, In libros Aristotelis De caelo et mundo expositio (=In De caelo), ed.
R. M. Spiazzi (Turin: Marietti, 1952), I, lect. 8, §91 [14]. (The commentary on
the Physics was probably written shortly before the commentary on the Metaphysics, and that on the De caelo, shortly after.) Thomas alludes to this conception
twice in the commentary on Book XII (In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 7, §2534; lect. 8,
§2550). However, he does not dwell on it or seem to find any real argument for
it there, and his reading of the mover’s causality with respect to the celestial
motion—which is my concern here—does not seem to depend upon it, at least
not directly.
12 “Haec enim sola, scilicet desiderabile et intelligibile, inveniuntur movere non
mota”: In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 7, §2519.
13 On the fact that for Thomas the unmoved mover is both efficient and final cause,
see Twetten, Aquinas and the Prime Mover of Aristotle, 272–79.

The Causality of the Unmoved Mover

809

saying that what moves without being moved must move as an object of
desire and understanding. There is no suggestion that moving in this way
excludes moving as an agent.
A little further on appears the first passage that I want to look at in detail.
The first mover is said to move as something desirable, because the
celestial motion is on account of him as on account of an end, being
caused by some proximate mover that moves on account of the first
unmoved mover, so as to assimilate itself to him in causing, and so as to
unfold in act that which exists virtually in the first mover. For the celestial motion is not for the sake of the generation and corruption of
lower things, as for an end, since an end is nobler than what is for the
end. Thus, therefore, the first mover moves as something desirable.14

Here is it clear that, for Thomas, that to which the first mover is related
as something desirable, and of whose action he is the end, is something
other than himself. It is that “proximate mover.” Considerably later in the
commentary, Thomas will assert that the first mover is also his own end, or
in other words, that he acts and moves things for his own sake.15 But here
his final causality is in relation to something else, the proximate mover.16
14 “Dicitur autem primum movens movere sicut appetibile, quia motus caeli est

propter ipsum, sicut propter finem, causatus ab aliquo proximo movente quod
movet propter primum movens immobile, ut assimilet se ei in causando, et
explicet in actum id quod est virtute in primo movente. Non enim est motus
caeli propter generationem et corruptionem inferiorum sicut propter finem,
cum finis sit nobilior eo quod est ad finem. Sic igitur primum movens movet
sicut appetibile”: In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 7, §2521.
15 See below, at note 74.
16 The thesis that the first mover is desired or loved by another, not just by himself,
is the chief element of the “traditional” interpretation that Berti calls into question. With respect to it there is an interesting passage in the Summa theologiae that
plainly echoes the discussion in Metaphysics XII 7. The question is whether God
can move bodies immediately. An objection says He cannot, because “Deus est
movens non motum. Tale autem est appetibile apprehensum. Movet igitur Deus
sicut desideratum et apprehensum. Sed non apprehenditur nisi ab intellectu, qui
non est corpus, nec virtus corporis. Ergo Deus non potest movere aliquod
corpus immediate.” Thomas replies, “movet Deus sicut desideratum et intellectum. Sed non oportet quod semper moveat sicut desideratum et intellectum ab
eo quod movetur; sed sicut desideratum et notum a seipso; quia omnia operatur
propter suam bonitatem”: ST I, q. 105, a. 2, obj. 2 & ad 2. In other words, the
immobility of the first unmoved mover does not strictly require that everything
that he moves desire and know him. What it requires is that he desire and know
himself and that he move things for his own sake. Otherwise he would be
moved, by some desirable object distinct from himself. Why then does Thomas
judge that in Metaphysics XII 7, the unmoved mover’s finality or desirability is

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What is this proximate mover? Here Thomas does not say, but later he
explains: “. . . if the first mover moves as the first thing understood and
desired, it is necessary that the first mobile desire and understand him.
And this is indeed true according to Aristotle’s opinion, inasmuch as he
maintains that the heaven is animated by an intelligent and desiring
soul.”17 The proximate mover would be the soul of the heaven.
Now, as a matter of fact, in Metaphysics XII Aristotle never mentions a
celestial soul, nor indeed any intermediate mover between the heaven
and the first mover. Nevertheless, as Berti points out, a good number of
other interpreters, both before and after Thomas, have also had recourse
to the soul in explaining how the unmoved mover moves as something
desirable and intelligible.18 What I want to try to understand is how, for
Thomas, the reference to the soul serves to explain the first mover’s final
causality with respect to the celestial motion.
To this end, I find it illuminating to compare the above passage from
the seventh lectio of the commentary with a text from another work of
Thomas’s, written a few years previously—the disputed questions De
potentia.19 In the fifth article of the fifth quaestio,Thomas asks whether the
motion of the heavens will eventually cease. Here obviously his aim is not
to interpret the Philosopher. In fact his final answer is strictly theological: the celestial motion will cease when the foreseen number of the souls

with respect to another, not to himself? One reason might be that, up to this
point in Book XII, it has not yet been shown that the unmoved mover has
understanding and will, so as to be able to be the object of his own knowledge
and desire. Also, Thomas elsewhere assigns a special status to the celestial motion.
Its nature is such as to indicate a proximate intelligent mover that is distinct from
God and that moves the heaven for God’s sake; on this point, see below, nn. 22
and 30.
17 “Hic philosophus comparat primum quod movet sicut intelligibile et desiderabile, ad id quod intelligit et desiderat ipsum: necesse est enim, si primum
movens movet sicut primum intellectum et desideratum, quod primum mobile
desideret et intelligat ipsum. Et hoc quidem verum est secundum opinionem
Aristotelis, inquantum caelum ponitur animatum anima intelligente et desiderante”: In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 8, §2536. On the animation of the heaven in Aristotle, see De caelo II 2, 285a29; II 12, 292a20, 292b1. On the expression “the
heaven,” see the translator’s note to the essay by Enrico Berti in this issue.
18 See Berti, “Da chi è amato il motore immobile?” 66–75.
19 Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae De potentia, ed. P. M. Pession (Turin:
Marietti, 1965), q. 5, a. 5, corp. The body of the article is quite long; for brevity’s
sake I will simply paraphrase or summarize the pertinent portions. The De potentia probably dates from 1265/66.

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of the elect is reached.20 Nevertheless the discussion abounds with Aristotelian ideas, and part of it is very pertinent to the passage from the
commentary on the Metaphysics, because it concerns the question of the
purpose, the end, of the celestial motion. On this question the De potentia treatment is in some ways similar to that of the above passage from the
commentary, while in other ways it is in significant contrast.
In the De potentia article, the inquiry into the purpose of the circular
celestial motion starts from the claim that the motion does not arise from
the very nature of the heavenly body. This is because a naturally originated motion always tends toward a definite place and ceases when the
place is reached. The heavenly body has a natural passive aptitude for the
circular motion, so in a sense the motion can be called natural; but its
active source is some separate mover.21 This mover must be either God
himself or else an intelligence or a soul; Thomas says that here it does not
matter which.22 But since every agent acts for an end, it is necessary, in
20 The celestial motion would serve to “dispose the matter” for these souls. On

Thomas’s view, the human soul begins to exist only at the end of the process of
generation: see ST I, q. 76, a. 1, ad 1; q. 90, a. 4.
21 See In De caelo I, lect. 3, §22 [4]. On the celestial motion’s being in a way natural, see In De caelo I, lect. 3, §6 [38]. That he calls the mover “separate” in the De
potentia does not exclude its being called a “soul,” as is clear from the ensuing
remark that it might be God or an intelligence or a soul. Thomas accepts Averroes’ view that the celestial “soul” of the De caelo is separate in substance from
the heavenly body, united to it not as its form, but only as its proportionate
mover; see David Twetten, Aquinas and the Prime Mover of Aristotle, 368.
22 Elsewhere, however, in a work dated 1267/68 (and so between the De potentia
and the commentary on the Metaphysics), he takes the celestial motion’s qualified
“naturalness” (see above, n. 21) to imply that the immediate mover is not God
but a created incorporeal substance, one whose active power is confined or
determined to moving the heavenly body: “substantia spiritualis quae movet
caelum, habet virtutem naturalem determinatam ad talis corporis motum. Et
similiter corpus caeli habet naturalem aptitudinem ut tali motu moveatur. Et per
hoc motus caeli est naturalis, licet sit a substantia intelligente”: Thomas Aquinas,
Quaestio disputata De spiritualibus creaturis, ed. M. Calcaterra and T. S. Centi (Turin:
Marietti, 1965), a. 6, ad 7. In general, according to Thomas, to any natural passive
potency, such as that of the heavenly body for the circular motion, there corresponds a proportionate natural active power. Thomas affirms this principle in
many places, once with reference to Physics III. 1 (the place would be 201a10),
and often with reference to Averroes’ commentary on Book IX of the Metaphysics. See Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum magistri Petri
Lombardi, Lib. III, d. 26, q. 1, a. 2; IV, d. 43, a. 1, a. 1 qla. 3; Quaestiones disputatae
De veritate, q. 18, a. 2; a. 5; De potentia, q. 6, a. 1, obj. 18. Other places where the
principle is asserted include Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, Lib. III, d. 2, q. 1, a.
1, qla. 1; Summa contra Gentiles II, c. 60, par. 19 (Marietti §1388); Summa contra
Gentiles III, c. 45, par. 6 (§2222). However, in his Responsiones ad lectorem Venetum

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order to determine the motion’s duration, to know what its end is, and
whether the end is or is not such as to require an everlasting motion.
Thomas then examines four hypotheses about the end, each of which
would make it something requiring an everlasting motion. He finds all
four of them unsatisfactory.
One of the hypotheses is the one mentioned and rejected in the
passage from the commentary on the Metaphysics: that the celestial
motion is for the sake of the generation and corruption of lower things,
that is, the things on earth. Although this is a certain effect and terminus
of the motion, it cannot constitute the motion’s end, because the heaven
is “more eminent” than earthly things, and its motion is more eminent
than their motions and changes. An end is always more eminent than
what is for the sake of the end.
Two of the hypotheses are not mentioned in the commentary on the
Metaphysics. Both propose an end for the motion that is intrinsic to it.
One holds that the end is simply the motion itself. Thomas rejoins: a
motion can never be an end. Every motion intrinsically tends toward
something other than itself. It is an imperfect act, in itself incomplete.23
In this respect, he observes, the motion of the heaven is not like its being,
which is indeed an end; according to its being, the heaven is like God.24
The other hypothesis is “to arrive in act at the place to which it is in
potency.” Thomas remarks that Avicenna “seems to say this” (no work is
cited); but nevertheless, Thomas argues, this cannot have the nature of an
end, because it is infinite and unattainable.25 Whenever the heavenly
body reaches some place in act, it will only be in potency to another
place in which it was previously in act.26
de articulis XXX, ad 4 (dated 1271), Thomas seems to consider it only probable,
not strictly demonstrated, that the heavenly bodies are moved by angels and not
immediately by God.
23 He cites De anima III (the place would be c. 7, 431a7).
24 On the sort of likeness to God that is constituted by the being (and not the
motion) of things, see below, n. 59.
25 To put the infinite in the final cause, he says, is to destroy the nature of the end
and the good, as is shown in Book XII of the Metaphysics (see c. 2, 994b10–14);
this is because nothing is moved toward what is impossible to attain, as is affirmed
in the De caelo (see I 7, 274b9–17).
26 In other words, by means of the rotational motion, the body’s being in potency
to some place or other can never be fully reduced to act. “Finis autem motus
caeli non potest esse ipsum moveri: motus enim, cum semper in aliud tendat, non
habet rationem ultimi finis. Nec potest dici quod finis caelestis motus sit, ut
corpus caeleste reducatur secundum ubi de potentia in actum: quia haec potentia nunquam potest tota in actum reduci: quia dum corpus caeleste est actu in
uno ubi, est in potentia ad aliud; sicut est et de potentia materiae primae respectu

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The absence of these two hypotheses, or anything like them, in the
commentary on the Metaphysics is certainly noteworthy. Several prominent interpreters both before and after Thomas have held that the circular celestial motion, just in itself, constitutes or establishes a likeness to the
nature and perfection of the first mover.27 The De potentia passage shows
that Thomas is familiar with the idea; and yet in his reading of the Metaphysics, he does not even entertain it—not even in order to reject it. He
apparently judges the ascription of such an idea to Aristotle himself too
implausible even to deserve consideration. Perhaps he does so for the
reasons given in the De potentia.
The last hypothesis in the De potentia—the last candidate for the end of
the celestial motion—is something extrinsic to the motion. It is also of
particular interest for us.Thomas ascribes it to “certain philosophers,” without saying who these are. On this view, the end would be “likeness to God
in causing”—similitudo ad Deum in causando.28 It seems to be the very end
that Thomas himself proposes in the passage from the commentary on the
Metaphysics.Yet in the De potentia, although he does not entirely reject it, he
judges it improbable. He finds it leading back to one of the hypotheses that
he has already rejected.To say that the end of the motion is likeness to God
formarum”: Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, ed. P. Marc, C. Pera, P.
Caramello (Turin: Marietti, 1961–67), IV, c. 97, par. 3 (§4287).
27 See Berti, “Da chi è amato il motore immobile?” 66–71; “La causalità del motore
immobile,” 637. Berti observes that the idea goes all the way back to Alexander:
Berti, “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” 234.
28 I have not been able to determine who those “philosophers” would be. There are
a couple of passages in Avicenna’s Metaphysics that contain similar phrases, but I
doubt whether Thomas had these in mind, since he had just cited Avicenna, by
name, as seeming to hold the previous hypothesis. The passages are these. “Et ex
dispositionibus et ex diuturnitate sui cursus sequitur ipsum assimilari primo
secundum quod ab illo fluunt bonitas; non quod illae sunt intentio eius, ita ut
motus sit propter illas, sed quia intentio eius est assimilari primo, secundum quod
possibile est, ut sit secundum quod perfectius esse potest in seipso, quantum ad
hoc quod sequitur illum et quantum ad hoc quod assimilatur primo et quantum ad
ea quae proveniunt ab illo post illum. Igitur motus erit propter illud principali intentione”: Avicenna, Liber de Philosophia prima sive Scientia divinaV–X, ed. S. van Riet
(Louvain: Peeters, 1980), tract. IX, c. 2, 459 (my emphasis). Even closer to
Thomas’s formulation: “Huius autem motus principium est desiderium et electio, non autem ut motus sit id quod intenditur principaliter; hic enim motus est
quasi servitium aliquod angelicum vel caeleste. Non est autem de condicione
motus voluntarii ut sit intentus in se. Sed, cum virtus desiderativa fuerit ut
desideret aliquid, proveniet ei ex ea impressio propter quam moventur membra
et aliquando alio modo consimili vel paene eodem, cum fuerit hoc per imaginationem, sive intentio sit aliquid quod assequatur, sive sit assimilari ei in faciendo
quod facit vel in esse”: ibid., 461 (my emphasis).

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in causing, he reasons, is altogether the same as to say that the end is simply
“to cause.” But to cause cannot be the end, because it is a transitive operation, one that brings about something else and tends toward something
else. As Aristotle says, what such operations bring about is better than the
operations themselves; such makings perfect the things made more than the
makers. So the true end would be the item brought about, that is, the
generation of lower things. But this cannot be the end.29
How is it, then, that in the commentary on Book XII, Thomas can
adopt unreservedly the idea that the end of the motion is likeness to the
first mover in causing? Is it simply that there he is only interpreting Aristotle, without rendering judgment? In other words, in the De potentia
passage, would Aristotle himself be one of those “philosophers”? I think
this is unlikely, especially since Thomas appeals to Aristotle there in arguing against the idea. Between the composition of the De potentia and that
of the commentary on the Metaphysics, did Thomas simply change his
mind about the idea’s plausibility? Perhaps. But I think the truth is that,
on closer examination, the idea that he proposes in the passage from the
commentary on the Metaphysics turns out not to be quite the same as the
one presented in the De potentia.
For one thing, in the De potentia, the causality under discussion is that
which belongs to the heavenly body, through its motion. It is the causality
29 Of course, even the end that Thomas proposes—the attainment of the number

of the souls of the elect—is an effect to which the celestial motion contributes,
by disposing the matter. And in fact Thomas somewhat qualifies his judgment
about “being rendered like God in causing,” saying that if this is the motion’s
end, it would be chiefly in the causality by which the motion is involved in causing what God causes immediately, namely, rational souls. (These are more noble
than the heavenly body; and unlike the cycle of the generations and corruptions
of lower things, the number of the souls of the elect is a definite terminus.) Similarly, in the rest of the passage of the Summa contra Gentiles quoted above (n. 26),
Thomas in a way accepts the idea that the motion’s end is to be rendered like
God in causing this effect: “Sicut igitur finis naturae in generatione non est
reducere materiam de potentia in actum, sed aliquid quod ad hoc consequitur,
scilicet perpetuitas rerum, per quam ad divinam similitudinem accedunt; ita finis
motus caelestis non est reduci de potentia in actum, sed aliquid consequens ad
hanc reductionem, scilicet assimilari Deo in causando. Omnia autem generabilia
et corruptibilia, quae causantur per motum caeli, ad hominem ordinantur
quodammodo sicut in finem, ut in tertio est ostensum. Motus igitur caeli praecipue est propter generationem hominum: in hoc enim maxime divinam similitudinem consequitur in causando, quia forma hominis, scilicet anima rationalis,
immediate creatur a Deo, ut in secundo est ostensum. Non autem potest esse
finis multiplicatio animarum in infinitum: quia infinitum contrariatur rationi
finis. Nihil igitur inconveniens sequitur si, certo numero hominum completo,
ponamus motum caeli desistere.”

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that the body’s motion enjoys with respect to the generation of lower
things. What is supposed to be “rendered like God in causing” is the heavenly body itself. In the commentary on the Metaphysics, by contrast, the
causality belongs to the proximate mover of the heaven, the celestial soul.
The celestial motion itself is said to be caused by this mover, and it is the
soul that is rendered like the first, unmoved mover in causing. So whereas
in the De potentia, Thomas could say that it does not matter whether the
(proximate) mover of the heaven is God (the first mover) or an intelligence
or a soul, in the commentary on the Metaphysics it certainly does matter.
It also matters that the proximate mover is intelligent.30 In the De potentia hypothesis, the heavenly body is definitely a non-intellectual substance.
Its intelligent mover is presumed to be something substantially separate
from it. Now of course a non-intellectual being can have a likeness of
something else, perhaps even of God. But it cannot have a tendency toward
the likeness itself, as such; this would require its having compared itself with
the likeness’s object. Only an intellectual being can compare itself with
something and tend directly toward a likeness of it.Thus it may be observed
that, in the De potentia, the likeness to God that the heavenly body is
supposed to obtain is always expressed either with a noun, similitudo, or
with a verb in the passive voice, assimilari Deo in causando. In the commentary on the Metaphysics, on the other hand, Thomas uses a reflexive expression: ut assimilet se ei in causando. The celestial soul is seeking to liken itself
to God. It acts for the sake of the likeness itself.
I would suggest that this is why, in the commentary on the Metaphysics,
Thomas can accept the idea that the end of the celestial motion is likeness
to the first mover in causing. In the De potentia, he argues that there is no
difference between saying that the end is likeness to God in causing and
that the end is simply to cause. But when we are talking about the end of
an agent that can understand and pursue a likeness, as such, this is not true.
Such an agent can act in a certain way because it is seeking a likeness of
something, a likeness that is realized in and through acting in that way.The
heavenly body cannot do this, but the celestial soul can.
30 In the De spiritualibus creaturis Thomas insists on this point, presenting as his own

a view very close to our passage from the commentary on the Metaphysics—
while integrating into it the goal of completing the number of the elect:
“Oportet igitur dicere, quod motus caeli sit ab aliqua substantia intelligente.
Nam finis huius motus non potest esse nisi quoddam bonum intelligibile abstractum, propter quod movet substantia intelligens quae movet caelum, ut scilicet
assequatur eius similitudinem in operando, et ut explicet in actu id quod virtute
continetur in illo intelligibili bono; et praecipue completio numeri electorum,
propter quos omnia alia esse videntur”: Quaestio disputata De spiritualibus creaturis,
a. 6, corp. See also Quaestiones disputatae De anima, a. 8, ad 3.

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The passage from the commentary on the Metaphysics also differs from
the De potentia in another way. It adds a further characterization of the
end: “to unfold in act that which exists virtually in the first mover.”31 In
the third passage to be examined we will see what this “virtual existence”
is. But for the moment we can take note of this: when Thomas speaks of
the soul’s rendering itself like the first mover in causing, what he has in
mind is not that the soul sees the first mover producing a certain motion
and desires to imitate it by producing yet another motion.32 The soul
functions as the “proximate” mover of the first celestial motion. It is a
secondary cause of the very same motion of which the unmoved mover
is the first cause.33 (In the eighth lectio Thomas speaks of the motion as
31 In the commentary on chapter 10 Thomas speaks again of “unfolding”; see below,

n. 70.
32 This seems to be the position of Pedro Fonseca, S.J. (1528–99): the first mover

would immediately cause the motion of the first sphere, and the celestial souls
would only cause the motions of the other spheres, in imitation of the first. See
Petri Fonsecae, Commentariorum in Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Stagirita tomi
quatuor, vol. IV (Cologne: Zetzner, 1629 [reprint Hildesheim: Georg Olms,
1964]), 104.
33 This would also be true according to the De potentia passage; see above, n. 29.
Twetten (Aquinas and the Prime Mover of Aristotle, 281) maintains that, on Thomas’s
interpretation, that of which the unmoved mover is the efficient cause is the
knowledge by which the celestial soul knows and loves him. In other words, the
unmoved mover would be an efficient cause insofar as he is an intelligible object.
(Twetten is silent about the efficient causality of the unmoved mover with
respect to the celestial motion itself.) I find no explicit support for this in
Thomas’s commentary. It is true that he says that the soul knows the unmoved
mover in a way similar to that in which Plato says we know the separate forms,
namely, by a certain “contact” (In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 8, §2541–2542); but
Thomas nowhere uses this to explain how the unmoved mover is an efficient
cause. Citing this passage about the soul’s “contact” with the unmoved mover,
Twetten judges that “Aquinas’s interpretation [of the prime mover’s causality] is
possible . . . only insofar as he starts with an Aristotle already overlaid with
‘Neoplatonic’ elements, especially with the doctrine that one intelligence causes
in another the forms or ideas by which it is, in turn, understood and loved”:
Twetten, Aquinas and the Prime Mover of Aristotle, 327 (see also 369). However, in
commenting on the passage where Aristotle discusses the intelligible and desirable objects, Thomas says only that the intellect’s act is moved “in some way”
(quodammodo) by the intelligible object: In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 7, §2522. Moreover, as we have seen, Thomas understands that for Aristotle, Platonic forms do
not function as active or efficient principles. The “contact” that Thomas speaks
of need not imply efficient causality. It may simply refer to the union of the
knower with the object known. On the basis of ST I, q. 82, a. 4 and I–II, q. 9, a.
1, it seems clear that Thomas does not conceive the objects of the soul’s powers
as moving the powers in the manner of efficient or agent

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an “influx” of the first mover in the heavenly body.)34 The soul is, as it
were, cooperating with the unmoved mover.35
In some way, then, the efficient causality of the first mover, with
respect to the celestial motion, is still in view. We need to see how it is
exercised. This too will become clear in the examination of the third
passage. But now let us turn to the second one.
III. An Immobile Entity as the End of an Action
After asserting that the first mover moves as desirable and intelligible
things do—without being moved—Aristotle offers a brief discussion in
which, according to Thomas, he seeks to show that the chief object of
desire is in fact something intelligible and that the first intelligible object
and the first desirable object coincide in the same nature, which is
precisely that of the first mover: a simple substance that is pure act.36
Along the way, Aristotle remarks that “simple” is not the same as “one”:
whereas “one” means a measure, “simple” means “how something is in
causes; what moves as an agent is what moves with respect to “exercise,” whereas
objects move only with respect to “specification.” So I do not think that for
Thomas, the efficient causality of the unmoved mover with respect to the celestial motion can be reduced to the way in which he causes the celestial soul’s
knowledge. In fact, the first mover’s causality of the soul’s knowledge seems to
be merely incidental. As we shall see, the first mover causes the celestial motion
by way of a command, and the efficient causality of a command does not consist
in how it makes itself known, but in its impelling the command’s recipient
toward the execution of the commanded action.
34 “Non autem potest dici virtus caelestis corporis infinita, etiam si infinito
tempore moveat inferiora corpora; quia non movet nisi motum. Et ita influentia
est ex primo movente . . .”: In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 8, §2550.
35 In the commentary on the Sentences, within a discussion that takes up the idea of
likeness to God in causing (and that refers the idea to the “philosophers”),Thomas
had spoken of separate intelligences that function as “cooperators” with God:
“alicui agenti vel imprimenti, potest aliquod recipiens assimilari dupliciter: vel
secundum formam tantum; vel secundum formam et actionem. . . . Sic etiam assimilantur angeli Deo in receptione divini luminis, et haec assimilatio ostenditur in
hoc quod dicit: deiforme, inquantum possibile est, similans, et etiam in transfusione
ejusdem in alios; et hoc ostenditur cum dicitur: ad inditas illuminationes, idest
secundum virtutem et regulam datarum illuminationum ascendens in Dei similitudinem, operando in alios secundum suam proportionem; et ideo nominat ascensum, quia in hoc est perfectio similitudinis, et omnium divinius est Dei
cooperatores fieri, sicut ibidem dicit Dionysius: propter quod etiam philosophi
posuerunt finem intelligentiarum moventium orbes (quem intendunt) assimilationem divinam in causando”: Thomas Aquinas, Scriptum super libros Sententiarum,
vol. 2, ed. P. Mandonnet (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1929), Lib. 2, d. 9, q. 1, a. 1, ad 7.
36 For a good treatment of Thomas’s reading of this discussion, see Twetten, Aquinas
and the Prime Mover of Aristotle, 241.

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itself.” Thomas suggests that with this remark, Aristotle avoids seeming to
share the opinion of Plato, who posited the “intelligible One itself ” as the
first principle of things.37 Thomas understands that, for Aristotle, the fact
that every substance is one does not mean that the very nature of the first
principle is somehow found in or shared by every substance. In fact it is
not: the other substances do not have the simplicity of the first.
Then come two sentences in Metaphysics XII 7, at 1072b1–3, that have
been the object of considerable discussion, partly because here the manuscripts do not agree.What Thomas seems to have had in front of him runs
as follows (I leave it in Latin so as not to force the sense): “Quia autem
est quod cuius gratia in immobilibus, divisio ostendit. Est enim alicui
quod cuius gratia, quorum hoc quidem est, illud vero non est.”38
Thomas’s interpretation of these sentences is rather unusual. It constitutes
the second passage that I wish to examine.
Since the desirable and the good have the nature (ratio) of an end, and
an end does not seem to exist in immobile things, as was argued in the
objections in Book III, here he removes this doubt, saying that this division, by which two ways of saying “end” are distinguished, shows that
“that for the sake of which,” i.e., an end, can in some way exist in
immobile things. In fact something can be an end of something else in
two ways. In one way, as something preexisting, as the center of the
universe is the preexisting end of the motion of heavy things. And
nothing prevents an end of this sort from existing among immobile
things. For something can tend, by its motion, toward participating
somehow in something immobile. And in this way the first mover can
be an end. In the other way, something is called the end of something
else, as what is not in act, but only in the intention of the agent, through
whose action it is generated; as health is the end of medical activity. And
an end of this sort is not found in immobile things.39

37 In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 7, §2525.
38 Aristoteles Latinus, vol. 25, 3.2, Metaphysica Recensio et Translatio Guillelmi de Moer-

beka, ed. G. Vuillemin-Diem (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 257, ll. 257–59.
39 “Sed quia appetibile et bonum habent rationem finis, finis autem non videtur

esse in rebus immobilibus, ut in obiectionibus tertii libri actum est, ideo hanc
dubitationem removet; et dicit, quod haec divisio, qua distinguitur quot modis
dicitur finis, ostendit, quod cuius causa, idest finis, aliquo modo potest esse in
immobilibus. Dupliciter autem potest esse aliquid finis alterius. Uno modo sicut
praeexistens; sicut medium dicitur finis praeexistens motus gravium, et huiusmodi finem nihil prohibet esse in immobilibus: potest enim aliquid tendere per
suum motum ad participandum aliqualiter aliquo immobili: et sic primum
movens immobile potest esse finis. Alio modo dicitur aliquid esse finis alicuius,
sicut quod non est in actu, sed solum in intentione agentis, per cuius actionem

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If I have understood correctly, most interpreters see 1072b1–3 as referring to a distinction that Aristotle draws elsewhere, between two senses
of “end.” In one sense, it means “that for whose benefit” something acts,
that is, the subject that is perfected through the action. In the other sense,
“end” means “that in pursuit of which” something acts, that is, the perfection itself.40 On this reading, 1072b1–3 would be saying that “that for
whose benefit” cannot be immobile, because it is changed and perfected;
but “that in pursuit of which” can be an immobile entity. Against this
reading, there is the objection raised by Berti and others, that for Aristotle, “that in pursuit of which” something acts is always a “practical”
good.41 A practical good is something contingent, something that may or
may not exist and that is brought about through the action itself; for
example, health. Such an end is not immobile.
Thomas, by contrast, takes 1072b1–3 to be referring to a sub-distinction
within “that in pursuit of which.” What is an end in this sense may be something that does not yet exist, something to be brought about through
action, such as health; or it may be a preexisting thing, and hence even a
thing that always exists and is immobile.42 Taking the 1072b1–3 distinction
in this way, Thomas sees a clear reason why Aristotle mentions it: he does
so in order to set aside a doubt raised in Book III about the existence of
an end in immobile things. Remarkably, at least on Thomas’s reading of it,
generatur, sicut sanitas est finis operationis medicinae; et huiusmodi finis non est
in rebus immobilibus”: In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 7, §2528.
40 See Physics II 2, 194a35; De anima II 4, 415b2, b21. The De anima passage is the
source of the terminology typically used to express the distinction, finis cuius (οὗ)
and finis quo (ᾧ). However, in commenting on this passage, Thomas offers two
ways of understanding the distinction. The first way is the one just mentioned,
between “that for whose benefit” and “that in pursuit of which”; the second way
is between the object chiefly pursued, e.g. health, and that by which it is attained,
e.g. warming the body. (Thomas Aquinas, Sentencia libri De anima, Lib. II, lect. 7,
§316 [Marietti].) This second way, I believe, would explain Thomas’s use of the
expressions finis cuius and finis quo in other places; see below, n. 44.
41 Berti, “Da chi è amato il motore immobile?” 65, 75; “Ancora sulla causalità del
Motore immobile,” 11–12, 20–21. See De anima III 10, 433b29–30; De motu
animalium 6, 700b4–701a2; Eudemian Ethics I 8, 1218b4–5.
42 Apparently, in Alexander’s commentary on Book XII (which we have only in
fragments contained in Averroes’ commentary), the distinction would also be
within “that in pursuit of which,” although it would differ somewhat from
Thomas’s. It would be between an end that is a being per se—a substance—and
an end that is a perfection and an accident of something else. See Berti, “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” 230–31. For the Latin text of Averroes’ commentary on 1072b1–3 see Aristotelis Metaphysicorum libri XIIII cum
Averrois Cordubensis in eosdem commentariis (Venetiis: Apud Iunctas, 1562; reprint
Minerva [Frankfurt am Main, 1962]), 320F–G.

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that doubt is very similar to Berti’s objection. It is that “an end and that for
the sake of which seems to be the terminus of some act, and all action seem
to be with motion; and so it seems to follow that in immobile things there
cannot exist this principle, that is, the final cause, which has the ratio of
good.”43 Thomas is saying that 1072b1–3 is distinguishing between two
types of “termini” of action. One type is brought about through the action,
whereas the other preexists.
Now, it does not seem to me that in saying this, Thomas is denying
that action is always in pursuit of a practical and contingent good. To say
that something acts in pursuit of a preexisting and immobile thing does
not mean that it acts only in pursuit of that. Elsewhere, in fact, Thomas
shows that this is not possible. When something acts in pursuit of a preexisting thing, it also acts in pursuit of some attainment of the thing. In
different senses, both of these—the preexisting thing, and the attainment
of it—are the action’s end; both are “that in pursuit of which” the agent
acts.44 Thus, there is the center of the universe, toward which heavy
things tend; and there is their own being at the center, toward which they
also tend. In the case of the celestial motion, there is the unmoved mover
himself, and there is also the likeness of him, realized by the soul through
the action of moving the heaven.45 And even if the preexisting thing
43 “Finis autem, et cuius causa fit aliquid, videtur esse terminus alicuius actus;

omnes autem actiones videntur esse cum motu. Ergo videtur sequi, quod in
rebus immobilibus non possit esse hoc principium, scilicet causa finalis, quae
habet rationem boni”: In Meta., Lib. III, lect. 4, §374. The Metaphysics passage is:
“τὸ δὲ τέλος καὶ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα πράξεώς τινός ἐστι τέλος, αἱ δὲ πράξεις πᾶσαι μετὰ
κινήσεως; ὥστ᾽ ἐν τοῖς ἀκινήτοις οὐκ ἂν ἐνδέχοιτο ταύτην εἶναι τὴν ἀρχὴν”: Metaphysics III 2, 996a26–28. In Averroes’ commentary on 1072b1–3 (see above, n.
42) there is no mention of Book III. In one of his earlier writings on the topic,
Berti connects 1072b1–3 with the passage from Book III (Berti, “Da chi è amato
il motore immobile?” 65), arguing however that an immobile thing can be the
end only of its own activity, not of a motion. In a later discussion of 1072b1–3,
where he expresses even stronger doubts about the unmoved mover’s status as an
end in Metaphysics XII 7, Berti is silent about Book III (Berti, “Ancora sulla
causalità del Motore immobile,” 12–13, 20–21).
44 This would be the distinction between finis cuius and finis quo as Thomas intends
it in ST I–II, q. 1, a. 8. (Here he refers the distinction to Metaphysics V, but this
seems to be a mistake. The source is surely De anima II 4, 415b2, understood in
Thomas’s second way—see above, n. 40.) See also ST I–II, q. 2, a. 7; q. 3, a. 1; q.
5, a. 2; q. 11, a. 3, ad 3; q. 16, a. 3. Of these two senses, the chief one is finis cuius,
i.e., the thing pursued. The attainment of the thing is good on account of the
goodness of the thing itself: see ST I–II, q. 16, a. 3.
45 Whereas being at the center coincides with the cessation of the motion of heavy
things, the likeness to the first mover in causing is simultaneous with the (soul’s)
action of moving; hence it is compatible with an everlasting motion and is itself

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exists necessarily, the attainment of it may or may not exist. The attainment is practical and contingent. Further on in the commentary, Thomas
will insist that for Aristotle the celestial motion does not exist with
absolute necessity. It is contingent. The only necessity that belongs to the
motion, Thomas holds, is what he calls “necessity for an end,” which is
merely a kind of hypothetical necessity. It consists in the fact that “without the perpetuity of such motion, there would not be the suitable order
to the end.”46
The idea of a preexisting thing functioning as the end of an action
does not seem very problematic.47 A target, for example, is an end, insofar as one strives to hit it. Still, we might wonder how it is that being
rendered like the unmoved mover constitutes “attaining” him. Thomas
does not address this question here. If I were to hazard an answer, I would
start from the fact that to “attain” a thing means to be united with it in
some way. There are many ways of being united with something. Aristotle says in the Nicomachean Ethics that, for the beasts, “living together”
everlasting. Thomas alludes to its everlastingness in glossing the line where Aristotle says that the unmoved mover moves “as loved.” It is better to say “loved,”
Thomas remarks, rather than “desired,” because desire is of what is not yet
possessed, but love is also of what is possessed (what has already been “attained”):
In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 7, §2529. Although what the soul causes is a motion, the
likeness to the first mover is not itself a motion, nor is it something that is generated by the motion or that takes any time to accomplish. It is nothing other than
the conformity between the soul’s own everlasting action of causing the motion
and something existing “virtually” in the first mover.
46 “Cum ergo dicitur quod caelum ex necessitate movetur, non potest dici, quod
huiusmodi sit necessitas violentiae, quia in rebus incorruptibilibus non est aliquid extra naturam; quae autem sunt violenta sunt extra naturam. Similiter non
potest esse necessitas absoluta, quia primum mobile est movens seipsum, ut
probatur in octavo Physicorum [see Physics VIII 5, 256a21 ff.]; quod autem seipsum movet in seipso habet moveri et non moveri [see Physics VIII 4, 255a7–11].
Relinquitur ergo, quod necessitas primi motus sit necessitas ex fine, inquantum
sine perpetuitate talis motus non convenit [contingit?] esse convenientem
ordinem ad finem”: In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 7, §2533. He is commenting on Metaphysics XII 7, 1072b11–14. To me it is not clear that these lines refer to the celestial motion, but this is not the place to go into that. Perhaps though it is worth
noting that in any case, what Thomas is calling contingent is only the motion of
the heavenly body, not its being.Thomas always teaches that the substantial being
of the heavenly bodies is absolutely necessary. This point comes out also in the
commentary; the first mobile, Thomas writes, can be otherwise secundum locum,
but not secundum substantiam (§2530–31).
47 In the Eudemian Ethics VIII 3, 1249b14–15, Aristotle even says that “the god” is
the end in view of which prudence commands. Here he also reminds us that
“end” is said in two senses. Evidently the “attainment” of the god, in this passage,
would be the “contemplation and service” of him (1249b21).

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means eating in the same place, whereas for men, it means sharing words
and thoughts.48 This is what friends seek. To be sure, in the Metaphysics
he does not say that the first mover is the celestial soul’s “friend.” He does
however say—immediately after the two sentences in 1072b1–3—that
the first mover moves as “loved.” And, as we have seen, at least on
Thomas’s account the celestial soul is indeed united with the first mover
in something, some activity.The soul “cooperates” with the first mover in
causing the celestial motion.
Why, however, does Thomas speak of this in terms of assimilatio?49
Perhaps one could answer that being like something also means being
united with it in something, some form.50 But what would the form be
in this case? Moreover, if we say that the celestial soul shares a form with
the unmoved mover, are we not merely strengthening another possible
objection to this passage in Thomas’s commentary? He speaks here of
“participating” somehow in something immobile. The objection is:
Platonism! That indeed is how it sounds. But we still need to see what
the “form” is, according to which the soul is rendered like the first
mover.51 This will become clear, I think, in the third passage.
48 Nicomachean Ethics IX 9, 1170b12–13.
49 A discussion that is certainly pertinent, though the point of view is not quite the

same, is found in the Summa theologiae, within the reply to an objection against
the idea that the end of God’s government of the universe is something extrinsic to the universe (viz., God). The objection is that according to Nicomachean
Ethics I 1, an end is always either an operation or else a work brought about
through operation—that is, it is always something “practical.” In the reply,
Thomas first argues that the Ethics passage only concerns the ends of the arts, and
then he says, “Contingit autem aliquid extrinsecum esse finem non solum sicut
operatum, sed etiam sicut possessum seu habitum, vel etiam sicut repraesentatum,
sicut si dicamus quod Hercules est finis imaginis, quae fit ad eum repraesentandum. Sic igitur potest dici quod bonum extrinsecum a toto universo est finis
gubernationis rerum sicut habitum et repraesentatum, quia ad hoc unaquaeque
res tendit, ut participet ipsum, et assimiletur ei, quantum potest”: ST I, q. 103, a.
2, ad 2. Thus, being rendered like something would constitute “being united”
with it, in the sense of “making it present,” representing it. However, in
commenting on Book XII, he speaks not of “representing” the first mover, but
of “unfolding” what is in the first mover virtually, that is (as we will see in the
third passage), what is in his understanding and will. Perhaps the difference is
connected with the fact that in the commentary, Thomas is speaking not of the
end of God’s own government—what God Himself intends in governing—but
of the end intended by the celestial soul in moving the heaven.
50 See ST I, q. 4, a. 3.
51 Yet another objection would be that “being rendered like” seems to refer more
to the formal or exemplary cause than to the final cause. This is true, but here
the likeness is being considered as something desired. So at least the likeness itself

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IV. The Will of the Unmoved Mover as Agent and as End
The passage appears at the end of the seventh lectio. We are at the place
where Aristotle writes, “on such a principle depend heaven and earth”
(1072b14). Thomas explains that the principle meant is “the first mover
as end” ( primum movens sicut finis).52 Then he returns to the point about
the necessity of the celestial motion, drawing out an implication.
. . . Aristotle says here that the necessity of the first motion is not
absolute necessity, but rather necessity for an end. Now, the end is the
principle that he later calls God, insofar as an assimilation to him is realized through the motion. But an assimilation to that which wills and
understands, as he shows God to be, is realized according to will and
understanding; as artifacts are assimilated to the artisan insofar as the
artisan’s will is fulfilled in them. It follows that the entire necessity of
the first motion is subject to the will of God.53

Here I think we find the answers to the questions raised by the first two
passages.
Let us begin with the question of the likeness. It is now fairly clear
what the “form” is, according to which the celestial soul is like the first
mover. It is not the form that constitutes the first mover’s own substance,
his simple and immobile nature.54 Rather, it is like the form of an artifact,
is functioning as a final cause. And if this is sought because it in some way constitutes an “attainment” of that which serves as exemplar, the exemplar too has the
status of a final cause.
52 See Twetten, Aquinas and the Prime Mover of Aristotle, 270.
53 “Attendendum est autem, quod cum Aristoteles hic dicat, quod necessitas primi
motus non est necessitas absoluta, sed necessitas, quae est ex fine, finis autem
principium est, quod postea nominat Deum, inquantum attenditur per motum
assimilatio ad ipsum; assimilatio autem ad id quod est volens, et intelligens, cuiusmodi ostendit esse Deum, attenditur secundum voluntatem et intelligentiam,
sicut artificiata assimilantur artifici, inquantum in eis voluntas artificis adimpletur; sequitur quod tota necessitas primi motus subiaceat voluntati Dei”: In Meta.,
Lib. XII, lect. 7, §2535. (I have divided the translation of this into several
sentences, to make it more readable.)
54 The second passage said, “For something can tend, by its motion, toward participating somehow in something immobile.” Berti presents this as though it were
a matter of participating in the very immobility of something immobile.
“Thomas reintroduces the traditional interpretation, saying that the end can be
among the immobile realities that preexist the motion and are the object of
participation by the heaven under the aspect of their immobility ( potest enim aliquid tendere per suum motum ad participandum aliqualiter aliquo immobili )”: Berti, “Il
movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” 242 (my translation); see also
Berti, “Da chi è amato il motore immobile?” 68–69. But in this passage Thomas

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which is not the artisan’s nature, but something that he understands, a
form that he has conceived.55 The soul does not somehow become one
in kind with the first mover.
Moreover, the example of the artifact is only a comparison. The form
here is not a quality, something “structural,” like the shape of a statue. It
is a form of action.The soul is likened to the first mover “in causing.” But
not even the soul’s action is of the same kind as the first mover’s. Thomas
has already indicated, in our first passage, that what the celestial soul
enacts is not found “in act” in the first mover. The soul acts in order to
“unfold in act” something that is found in the first mover only virtually.
And now what this means is clear. What the soul enacts is something that
exists in the first mover’s intellect and will. It is something that the first
mover has conceived and toward which he has ordained the soul by an
act of will. The soul does not act in the same way as does the first mover,
but rather in the way that the first mover wants it to act. How does the
first mover himself act? In a work that is more or less contemporary with
the commentary on the Metaphysics, Thomas writes that Aristotle posits a
separate good that is “commander or lord”—imperatorem vel dominum—
of all things.56 So if we wish to specify the first mover’s action, I think
we can call it an imperium, a command. The soul does not command. It
executes the first mover’s command.
It seems to me that these considerations serve to ease at least some of
the discomfort that may be generated, from an Aristotelian perspective,

is only explaining how something immobile can function as an end. He is saying
that it can be an object of participation “somehow,” i.e., according to some characteristic or other. But he does not specify that the participation is precisely
according to its immobility, and it does not seem to me that this is what he has
in mind. I think our third passage makes it clear that it is not a matter of imitating the very nature or mode of being—the simple and immobile substance—of
the first mover, but only of imitating something in his understanding and will.
55 “Voluntas et natura secundum hoc differunt in causando, quia natura determinata est ad unum; sed voluntas non est determinata ad unum. Cuius ratio est, quia
effectus assimilatur formae agentis per quam agit. Manifestum est autem quod
unius rei non est nisi una forma naturalis, per quam res habet esse, unde quale
ipsum est, tale facit. Sed forma per quam voluntas agit, non est una tantum, sed
sunt plures, secundum quod sunt plures rationes intellectae, unde quod voluntate
agitur, non est tale quale est agens, sed quale vult et intelligit illud esse agens”:
ST I, q. 41, a. 2.
56 “Ponit enim unum bonum separatum omnibus providentem, sicut unum imperatorem vel dominum, sub quo sunt diversi rerum ordines”: Thomas Aquinas, De
substantiis separatis, in Opera omnia, iussu Leonis XIII P. M. edita, vol. 40 (Rome:
Ad Sanctae Sabinae, 1969), c. 3, ll. 61–63.

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by the word “participation.”57 We should keep in mind that for Thomas
this word can be used in very many ways. Especially important here is the
fact that, as he uses it, the idea is not always that what participates in
something has in itself the very nature or kind that characterizes the
thing in which it participates—not even in a diminished way. Sometimes
what the participant has in itself is only some sort of proportion or order
to that in which it participates. For example, in another work, Thomas
declares that someone may participate in the art of medicine in any of
three ways: either by receiving in himself the “property of the nature” of
the art—that is, receiving the art itself, becoming a physician in his own
right; or by receiving some knowledge of the art; or by somehow “doing
service” to the art—that is, not by having the art itself, or even a part of
it, but only by doing something that the art directs him to do.58
We might also consider that in Thomas’s own thought, it is in just this
way that God functions as the “exemplar” of created things. Creatures,
writes Thomas, never become like God according to his very nature or
in His very “kind.” What they can attain a specific likeness of is only the
representation in Him of some ratio that He understands, as a house that
is in matter is like the house that is in the mind of the builder.59 For
57 We might also note that in a famous passage in the De caelo concerning the

distribution of the motions in the world, Aristotle speaks of that which “has and
participates in [μετέχει] the best”: De caelo II 12, 292b9. Tommaso comments,
“Dicit autem ‘habet,’ propter supremam causarum, quae est Deus altissimus, qui
est ipsa essentia bonitatis; dicit autem ‘participat,’ propter inferiores substantias
separatas, quae esse et bonum habent ex alio; nam ‘participare’ nihil aliud est
quam ab alio partialiter accipere”: In De caelo II, lect. 18, §463 [6]. Also in this
lectio, Thomas repeatedly says that the celestial substances are like the goodness of
God “in causing,” and more precisely, insofar as they attain a certain “universal”
causality; see §463, §465, §467, §468.
58 “Tripliciter enim aliquid potest ab alio participare: uno modo, accipiendo proprietatem naturae eius; alio modo, ut recipiat ipsum per modum intentionis cognitivae; alio modo, ut deserviat aliqualiter eius virtuti, sicut aliquis medicinalem
artem participat a medico vel quia accipit in se medicinae artem, vel accipit
cognitionem artis medicinalis, vel quia deservit arti medicinae”:Thomas Aquinas,
Super Epistolam Beati Pauli ad Colossenses lectura, in Super Epistolas S. Pauli lectura,
vol. 2, ed. R. Cai (Turin: Marietti, 1953), cap. 1, lect. 4, §42. This passage appears
within a discussion of the ways in which the various angelic orders participate
in God. (The dating of this work is not entirely certain; the evidence favors the
period 1265–1268, but there is some possibility that it was not composed until
1272 or 1273.)
59 “Licet creaturae non pertingant ad hoc quod sint similes Deo secundum suam
naturam, similitudine speciei, ut homo genitus homini generanti; attingunt
tamen ad eius similitudinem secundum repraesentationem rationis intellectae a
Deo, ut domus quae est in materia, domui quae est in mente artificis”: ST I, q. 44,

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Thomas, not even grace, which is termed a participation in the divine
nature, constitutes an inherence of God’s nature in the soul. It is a created
quality that renders the soul pleasing ( grata) to God and worthy to
receive the vision of His nature.60
Granted, this does mean that in a way the end ( finis cuius) of grace, its
“target,” is the divine nature itself. But grace is something supernatural. I
think it is clear that in the commentary on the Metaphysics, although
Thomas sees the first mover as in some way the end of the celestial soul’s
action, the soul’s “target” is not precisely the first mover’s nature.What the
soul’s action renders the soul like is not the first mover’s nature but something in the first mover’s will. And this, not in the sense that the soul does
exactly what the first mover’s will does, but only in the sense that it does
what the first mover wants it to do.61
This brings to mind something that Thomas says in the Summa theologiae regarding the obligation (the “necessity for an end”) to conform
oneself to God’s will. He observes that the good that is proportioned to
a creature’s nature and knowledge, its proper good, is only a particular
good. It is not the universal and divine good, to which God’s will alone
a. 3, ad 1. To be sure, according to Thomas, God conceives creatures insofar as He
knows himself and the various ways in which it is possible to participate in the
perfection of his nature: ST I, q. 14, a. 6. But this participation does not constitute a specific likeness, or even a generic one; it is only an analogy, that is, a likeness of proportion, similar to that which all things are like each other in “being”:
ST I, q. 4, a. 3. Berti himself finds analogies in Metaphysics XII 7 between things
that fall within our experience and the unmoved mover: Berti, “La causalità del
motore immobile,” 644; “Ancora sulla causalità del Motore immobile,” 17–18.
60 See ST I–II, q. 110; also I, q. 13, a. 9, ad 1. Even in the beatific vision, the soul
“has” the divine nature only as its object, not as something inhering in it.
61 The likeness that Thomas has in mind, between the celestial soul and the first
mover, does not seem to consist simply in the fact that the soul too exercises an
intelligent and voluntary causality. In that case, it would be only a likeness of
proportionality. There is a passage in the Summa theologiae along this line. Objection: “Videtur quod beatitudo consistat in operatione intellectus practici. Finis
enim ultimus cuiuslibet creaturae consistit in assimilatione ad Deum. Sed homo
magis assimilatur Deo per intellectum practicum, qui est causa rerum intellectarum, quam per intellectum speculativum, cuius scientia accipitur a rebus”. Reply:
“Ad primum ergo dicendum quod similitudo praedicta intellectus practici ad
Deum, est secundum proportionalitatem; quia scilicet se habet ad suum cognitum,
sicut Deus ad suum. Sed assimilatio intellectus speculativi ad Deum, est secundum
unionem vel informationem; quae est multo maior assimilatio. . .”: ST I–II, q. 3 a.
5, obj. 1 & ad 1. As I see it,Thomas views the celestial soul’s causality as “informed”
by that of the first mover, insofar as it “unfolds in act that which exists virtually in
the first mover.” In this way the soul would attain a genuine “union” with the first
mover—not a contemplative union, but an active one, a “cooperation.”

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adequately corresponds. This is not to deny that the rational creature is
somehow obliged, in his own way, to want the universal good; Thomas
insists that he is. But Thomas also argues that, even in wanting his own
merely particular good, the creature can and should conform himself to
God’s will. By wanting his true proper good, he is wanting what God
wants him to want.62
I mention this because, as Berti rightly insists, for Aristotle each thing
has its proper good and its intrinsic end, which is not the same as the first
and separate good.63 The point would be that in Thomas, there is a sense
in which acting for God’s sake, as for an end, may mean simply acting in
pursuit of one’s own proper good. One acts for God’s sake in acting to
fulfill His will, and this may consist simply in tending rightly toward one’s
proper good—a good that is distinct from the divine good itself. I think
it is clear that this is the sense of “acting for the first mover’s sake” that is
operative in the commentary on Book XII. Our third passage leaves no
doubt that for Thomas, the good that is proper to the first mover—which
he now insists on calling God—wholly transcends that which the celestial soul attains by causing the celestial motion. I am referring to the last
sentence: “the entire necessity of the first motion is subject to the will of
God.” God’s good does not depend on or need the motion. What needs
it is only that which falls under the order that He has freely instituted.64
In the same article of the Summa theologiae, Thomas explains that this
type of conformity to the will of God is according to the divine will’s
character as an efficient cause.65 This is because the creature’s inclination
62 ST I–II, q. 19, a. 10.
63 See Nicomachean Ethics I 4, 1096b31–34; Berti, “Da chi è amato il motore immo-

bile?” 19.
64 Earlier in the commentary on chapter 7, Thomas was careful to qualify the order

itself as something merely “suitable” to the end; see above, at n. 46. The order is
“for” the first mover, but he does not strictly need it. On “subject to the will” as
an expression of freedom, see ST I, q. 41, a. 2.
65 “Secundum autem quod non conformatur ei [scil. voluntati Dei] in volito materialiter, conformatur ei secundum rationem causae efficientis, quia hanc propriam
inclinationem consequentem naturam, vel apprehensionem particularem huius
rei, habet res a Deo sicut a causa effectiva”: ST I–II, q. 19, a. 10. (Thomas is thinking of a case in which the creature wants a particular good that in itself is not
wanted by God and is not realized, even though God wants the creature to want
it. It is also supposed that the creature wants this good as ordered to God as last
end; in other words, that from the creature’s point of view, this good seems truly
in conformity with the universal common good.) Berti is thus correct in saying
that the example of the artisan offered in our passage makes one think more of
an efficient cause than of a final cause: Berti, “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” 243. But what the example is serving to illustrate is a rather

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Stephen L. Brock

to its proper good comes from God, as from an efficient cause. I have
already proposed the word “command” to designate the efficient action
of the first mover, such as Thomas presents it in the commentary on
Book XII. I think we can now see how the first mover and the celestial
soul can be said to be efficient causes of the same effect, the celestial
motion. With an act of his intellect and will—a command, or something
similar—the first mover orders the soul to bring the motion into act, and
the soul executes the order.66 We can also see that the first mover is functioning, at the very same time, as final cause of the celestial motion, insofar as the soul effects the motion for the purpose of complying with and
executing the mover’s command. This is how command works. He who
commands certainly gives an “impulse” or a “thrust”; he functions as an
efficient cause, that from which motion originates. But his command has
its effect by way of someone who grasps it and wants to fulfill it. And if
he who fulfills it wants to do so out of love for the commander, may we
not say that the commander is also functioning as a final cause?
Among the interpretations proposed in the last century concerning
the causality of the unmoved mover, probably the most influential is that
of W. D. Ross, according to which the unmoved mover would be an efficient cause of the celestial motion “insofar as he is a final cause.”67
Thomas’s reading could perhaps be formulated inversely: at least in a
sense, the unmoved mover is a final cause insofar as he is an efficient
cause. I do not mean that his final causality is identical with his efficient
causality. They are different relations. The unmoved mover is efficient
cause insofar as his will or his command gives rise to the celestial motion.
He is final cause insofar as the celestial soul, in producing the motion, acts
special case, in which what the “artisan” (the first mover) acts directly upon is itself
a voluntary agent, the celestial soul; and the effect produced depends also on the
soul’s will, which tends toward it out of love for the first mover and for the sake
of conforming itself to his will. So final causality is involved as well.
66 Also in Alexander (as reported by Averroes—see above, n. 42) the first mover is
presented as a lord and king, to whose will the others must “conform.” Similarly,
Themistius compares the first mover to a law or a king that the first heaven wants
to obey and “imitate”; see Berti, “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” 231–33 and 236–38.
67 W. D. Ross, Aristotle (London: Methuen, 1949), 181; Aristotle’s Metaphysics
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), vol. 1, cxxxiv. Ross seems to hold that the
object of desire is an efficient cause of desire, even though it is only a final cause
of the motion that the desire produces. He rejects the idea that the unmoved
mover causes by an act of will, because on his view the life of the unmoved
mover is that of pure thought, without any practical dimension: Aristotle, 184–86;
Aristotle’s Metaphysics, cxxxvii, cxlix–cliv.

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for his sake. But the precise thing that the soul is seeking is to fulfill his
command. This is what I mean: it is in the very quality of commander—
which is a kind of efficient cause—that the first unmoved mover is that
for the sake of which the celestial soul moves the heaven.68
V. The Unmoved Mover as His Own End in Commanding
I close with a nod to chapter 10 of Book XII. Here Aristotle asks how
the nature of the “whole” has the good and the best: as something separate and independent, or as the whole’s order? According to Thomas, the
“whole” in question is the whole universe, that is, heaven and earth.69 In
other words, the whole would not include the separate good itself. The
question then would be whether the end of the whole is extrinsic to the
whole, as is the place toward which something is moved; or whether
instead it is an “intrinsic form,” as is the order that unites the parts of a
whole. Aristotle’s answer is: both. The situation is like that of an army,
whose good is found both in its order and in the general. But it is more
in the general, because the order is on account of him, and not vice versa.
Thomas’s gloss on this is lengthy, but it will serve to recapitulate much of
what we have seen.
There is a separate good, which is the first mover, on which heaven and
earth depend, as on an end and an appetible good. . . . And since all
things that have a single end must come together in the order to the
end, there must be a certain order in the parts of the universe. . . . It is
as we see in an army. For the good of the army is found both in its
order and in the general who presides over it; but more in the general
than in the order, because the end is stronger in goodness than the
things that are for the end, and the order of the army is for the sake of
fulfilling the good of the general, namely, the general’s will to attain
victory; and not vice versa. And since the ratio of the things that are for
an end is taken from the end, it is necessary not only that the army’s
order be for the general, but also that the army’s order be from the
general. . . . Thus the separate good, which is the first mover, is a better
68 I am speaking of the way in which the first mover constitutes the end of the

action of the celestial soul. This does not exhaust the account of the first mover’s
final causality, because there is also the fact that he acts for his own sake (see
below, section V). Obviously in this respect the first mover would not be a final
cause “insofar as he is an efficient cause”; that is, it is not that he acts in order to
fulfill a command given by himself to himself. It is simply that he acts on account
of his own goodness.
69 In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 12, §2627–2628 (on Metaphysics, XII 10, 1075a11). In
other words, the separate good, which is the first mover, would be separate from
the whole—while nonetheless being the good of the whole.

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Stephen L. Brock
good than the good order that is in the universe; for the entire order of
the universe is for the first mover, that is, is for the sake of unfolding in
act in the ordered universe that which is in his intellect and in his will.
And so it is necessary that the entire ordination of the universe be from
the first mover.70

What stands out here is Thomas’s effort to present the first mover as a good
and an end. It is thus that the whole depends on him and is on account of
him. But for this very reason, the order of the whole also comes from him.71
He is its efficient cause as well. And he is the whole’s end just insofar as his
will for its order is something due to be carried out.72
At the same time, further on it becomes clear that the comparison with
the general can be taken only so far. A general’s good, his own end, is
victory, which is something distinct from him. Even a general is only a
moved mover, moved by some other desirable object.With the first mover
it is otherwise. Metaphysics XII 10 contains a brief passage in which Aristotle seems to praise Anaxagoras for making his Good and his Intellect to be
a moving principle.73 But then Aristotle adds a reservation. Such a principle, he says, “moves for an end, which will be other”—evidently another
good, and a more principal one—“unless it is as we say: in a certain way,
the art of medicine is health.” Thomas glosses this last remark thus:

70 “Est enim aliquod bonum separatum, quod est primum movens, ex quo depen-

det caelum et tota natura, sicut ex fine et bono appetibili, ut ostensum est. Et,
quia omnia, quorum unum est finis, oportet quod in ordine ad finem conveniant, necesse est, quod in partibus universi ordo aliquis inveniatur. . . . Sicut videmus in exercitu: nam bonum exercitus est et in ipso ordine exercitus, et in duce,
qui exercitui praesidet: sed magis est bonum exercitus in duce, quam in ordine:
quia finis potior est in bonitate his quae sunt ad finem: ordo autem exercitus est
propter bonum ducis adimplendum, scilicet ducis voluntatem in victoriae consecutionem; non autem e converso, bonum ducis est propter bonum ordinis. Et,
quia ratio eorum quae sunt ad finem, sumitur ex fine, ideo necesse est quod non
solum ordo exercitus sit propter ducem, sed etiam quod a duce sit ordo exercitus. . . . Ita etiam bonum separatum, quod est primum movens, est melius bonum
bono ordinis, quod est in universo. Totus enim ordo universi est propter primum
moventem, ut scilicet explicatur in universo ordinato id quod est in intellectu et
voluntate primi moventis. Et sic oportet, quod a primo movente sit tota ordinatio universi”: In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 12, §2629–2631.
71 “. . . ordinare in finem est eius cuius est proprius ille finis”: ST I–II, q. 90, a. 3.
72 On the comparison with the general as an indication that the first mover is an
efficient cause, see Berti, “Prefazione,” in Nuovi studi aristotelici, 9–12.
73 Metaphysics XII 10, 1075b8–10. Berti discusses this passage in Berti, “Da chi è
amato il motore immobile?” 81–82. Pertinent is De caelo II 12, 292b4–7; see also
Berti, “La causalità del motore immobile,” 647.

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831

unless perhaps he should say as we have said, that the intellect and the
thing understood can be the same, and that the intellect moves for its
own sake; which in a way is found in those who act by intellect, according to our view. For the art of medicine acts for the sake of health, and
health is in a certain way the very art of medicine, as was said above.74

The first principle must be entirely for his own sake. Somehow he must
be so not only in his contemplative activity but also insofar as he operates in a “practical” way, as an agent or mover. His end, in moving other
things, cannot be anything distinct from or higher than himself. But we
get a glimpse of how this is possible by considering just what Anaxagoras said: he is intellect. One who acts by intellect acts for the sake of a
good that he understands, as one who has the art of medicine understands health; and in a way, the intellect and what it understands are one
and the same, as the art of medicine and health are.
This discussion seems to be quite pertinent to one other possible
objection to Thomas’s interpretation of the causality of the unmoved
mover.75 The objection is that in Book XII, notwithstanding the
comparison with the general, Aristotle never says that the unmoved
mover “commands”; and that in fact, in the last chapter of the Eudemian
Ethics, he declares that “the god is not a commanding ruler but is the end
for the sake of which prudence commands,” since the god “has need of
74 “Nisi forte dicat sicut nos diximus, quod idem potest esse intellectus et intellec-

tum, et quod intellectus moveat propter seipsum, quod aliquo modo invenitur in
his quae agunt per intellectum secundum nos. Ars enim medicinae agit propter
sanitatem, et sanitas est quodam modo ipsa ars medicinae, ut supra dictum est”:
In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 12, §2648. (The reference might be to Metaphysics XII 4,
1070b33; see also XII 9, 1075a1–4.) One might also take the expression “secundum nos” in this passage to mean “among us.” In this case, Thomas would be
saying that even among human beings, in some way one who acts by intellect,
e.g. a physician, acts for his own sake. At any rate, Thomas sees a need to qualify
the comparison (“in some way,” aliquo modo). I suppose this is because, as he reads
Aristotle, human practical understanding is ultimately ruled by and for the sake
of a principle outside the mind, which is not the case with the first mover.
Human art “imitates nature” (Physics II 2, 194a21–23; see In Physicorum, Lib. II,
lect. 4, §170–71 [5–6]), whereas the first mover is the source of the natural order
itself, as comes out fairly clearly in the continuation of the Metaphysics XII 10
passage (1075a16–25; see In Meta., Lib. XII, lect. 12, §2632–37); and human
action is ultimately for the sake of contemplation, whose chief object is not man
himself or even man’s own mind, but the divine (see, inter alia, the Eudemian
Ethics passage discussed below, n. 78), whereas of course what the first mover
chiefly contemplates is himself (Metaphysics XII 9, 1074b15–1075a10).
75 See Berti, “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” 233.

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832

nothing.”76 Thomas does not entertain this objection.77 But I would ask:
what exactly does Aristotle mean by this? Does he mean that the god
does not command at all? Or does he mean that the god’s rule does not
consist solely or primarily in commanding? If it did, then the god would
be ruling for the sake of some end beyond himself, as prudence does; and
in that case, he would be being ruled by a higher principle, the end. But
does the god’s being the end exclude his also commanding? A couple of
lines previously in the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle had observed that in
man, the ruling principle is twofold. In one sense, it is like the art of
medicine; in another, it is like health.78 The general idea seems clear: the
art of medicine rules insofar as it commands, but the end and the primary
ruling principle is health. But now, in Metaphysics XII 10, speaking not of
man but of the first mover, Aristotle brings in the comparison with medicine and health, not to say that they are two, but to say that in a way they
are one and the same. Does this not suggest that here there is one principle that is at the same time end and commander? To be sure, it will be
the very first principle, the “most principal” one, because it is the end, the
final cause. But it is nevertheless also an agent, a moving cause—one that
moves for its own sake.
Moreover, it is a purely intellectual substance. I must say that I find it
difficult to imagine how a purely intellectual substance could function as
a mover, if it is not by way of a command, or at least something analogous to one.79 But I leave this as a question.
N&V

76 οὐ γὰρ ἐπιτακτικῶς ἄρχων ὁ θεός, ἀλλ᾽ οὗ ἕνεκα ἡ φρόνησις ἐπιτάττει . . . , ἐπεὶ

κεῖνός γε οὐθενὸς δεῖται: Eudemian Ethics VIII 3, 1249b14–16.
77 I have not found any reference at all to this passage of the Eudemian Ethics in

Thomas’s writings.
78 Eudemian Ethics VIII 3, 1249b12–13. The principle in man that he seems to be

comparing to medicine is prudence; what is comparable to health, i.e., the end,
would be contemplation—the contemplation of the god.
79 It is true that the “agent intellect” of De anima III 5 does not seem to act by way
of a command. But what the agent intellect effects is not a motion in the strict
sense. It is the actuality of the intelligible object, which is a “perfect actuality,”
one that has its proper end in itself. A motion is for an end distinct from the
motion itself.To say that a motion is caused by an intellect, it seems to me, means
that the thing moved has been ordered toward the motion’s end; and I see little
difference between “ordering to an end” and “commanding.”

Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2012): 833–61

833

On Professor Berti’s Interpretation
of the Causality of the First Unmoved Mover
K EVIN L. F LANNERY, S.J.
Gregorian University
Rome, Italy

F OR much of his academic life Professor Enrico Berti held what he
calls the “traditional interpretation” about the causality of the first
unmoved mover.1 According to this interpretation, the first unmoved
1 Berti speaks of the contrast between his earlier and later views in, for instance,

Enrico Berti, Nuovi studi aristotelici: II—Fisica, antropologia, metafisica (Brescia:
Morcelliana, 2005), 8 and Enrico Berti, Aristotele: Dalla dialettica alla filosofia prima,
con saggi integrativi (Milan: Bompiani, 2004), 83–85. Other places where he treats
the theme are: Enrico Berti, “Da chi è amato il Motore immobile? Su Aristotele,
Metaph. XII 6–7,” Méthexis 10 (1997): 59–82; Enrico Berti, “Il movimento del
cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” in La Filosofia in Età Imperiale: Le Scuole e le
Tradizioni Filosofiche (Atti del Colloquio Roma, 17–19 Giugno 1999 ), ed. Aldo
Brancacci (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2000), 227–43; Enrico Berti, “La causalità del
Motore immobile secondo Aristotele,” Gregorianum 83 (2002): 637–54; Enrico
Berti, Struttura e significato della Metafisica di Aristotele (Rome: EDUSC [Edizioni
Università della Santa Croce], 2006), 135–59, and Enrico Berti, “Ancora sulla
causalità del motore immobile,” Méthexis 20 (2007): 7–28.The two articles where
Berti’s position is set out most concisely are those published in 1997 and 2002
(see below, note 3). Henceforth, these two articles will be referred to as Berti,
“Da chi?” and Berti, “Causalità,” respectively.
A couple points of translation. First, Berti often speaks of “il Motore immobile” when he clearly means the first unmoved mover. The title of one of the
articles we shall be studying, “Da chi è amato il Motore immobile?” is a case in
point. In the present essay, I tend to use the fuller expression. Secondly, Aristotle
posits a number of celestial spheres (by one count, 49), each of which is called a
“heaven” (in Greek, οὐρανός).The first heaven—or the farthest sphere—is sometimes understood as embracing the whole “sky” and, in such cases, the term “the
heaven” (ὁ οὐρανός) is equivalent to our “the heavens.” But to use the expression
“the heavens” in such contexts would cause confusion since the term

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Kevin L. Flannery, S.J.

mover moves the first sphere—the celestial sphere most distant from
earth, to which are attached the fixed stars—as its final cause. That is, as
Aristotle says in Metaphysics XII 7, it moves the first sphere in the way
proper to “the object of desire and the object of thought, [which] move
without being moved”; or, as he puts it a few lines later, the first unmoved
mover moves the first sphere “as object of love, and by means of that
which is moved it moves the other things.”2 Professor Berti has now
rejected this interpretation, arguing first in 1997 that the first unmoved
mover is not the final cause of the first celestial sphere but only of itself,
and then in 2007 that the same mover is not final cause at all but only
efficient cause. In this essay, I will be defending the traditional interpretation—at least with respect to the idea that the first unmoved mover is
the final cause of the first celestial sphere.
My procedure will be as follows. In section I, I give a summary of
Berti’s position, as set out in two articles: the 1997 article just mentioned
and another that appeared in 2002.3 In section II, I discuss Aristotle’s
could also refer to Aristotle’s plural heavens (the celestial spheres), which present
distinct philosophical issues having to do with their relationship with the first
heaven and its unmoved mover. In the present essay, therefore, the word “heaven”
can mean, depending on the context, either the first heaven or what we call “the
heavens.” The word “heavens” refers to the various celestial spheres.
2 κινεῖ δὲ ὧδε τὸ ὀρεκτὸν καὶ τὸ νοητόν· κινεῖ οὐ κινούμενα—Metaph. XII 7,
1072a26–27; κινεῖ δὲ ὡς ἐρώμενον, κινουμένῳ δὲ τἆλλα κινεῖ—Metaph. XII 7,
1072b3–4. Ross (see cite just below), with no manuscript support, gives instead:
κινεῖ δὴ ὡς ἐρώμενον, κινούμενα δὲ τἆλλα κινεῖ. These “other things” are presumably the other celestial spheres, which in turn influence events farther below, so
that the traditional interpretation (if not the early Berti) usually recognizes a teleological ordering of the natural world with respect, ultimately, to the first
unmoved mover.
In my English translations of Aristotle, where (as here) Berti has provided an Italian translation, I render that into English. For the Greek text of 1072b3–4, Berti
follows Jaeger [Werner Jaeger, ed., Aristotelis Metaphysica, Oxford Classical Texts
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1957)] rather than Ross [W. D. Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics: A
Revised Text with Introduction and Commentary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1953)].
3 The two articles are (in order) Berti, “Da chi?” and Berti, “Causalità” (see above,
note 1).The second reprises many of the arguments of the first, but also adds arguments. My synthesis here of Berti’s position takes into consideration primarily
these two articles, and not the 2007 article (Berti, “Ancora sulla causalità del
motore immobile”) because this more recent piece presupposes the argumentation
of the earlier two. If the earlier arguments fall (or are weakened), the later argument falls (or is weakened) as well.The reading of Metaph. XII 7 found in the 2007
article is basically a radicalization and extension of the idea that, when at 1072b3
Aristotle speaks apparently of the first unmoved mover as an object of love, he is
speaking figuratively. The section in which he presents “a new interpretation of

Berti on the Causality of the Unmoved Mover

835

understanding of circular motion, as set out in two passages in the Physics.
In Berti’s view, the movement of the first sphere creates difficulties for
our understanding of its relationship with the first unmoved mover. In
my view, these passages in the Physics suggest that we ought to be very
cautious in attributing movement to the first celestial sphere. In section
III, I consider a passage in Eudemian Ethics I 8, where Aristotle says that
nothing immobile can be practical [1218b5–6]—a passage that is important for Berti’s argument that the first unmoved mover is independent of
all movement. In section IV, I consider Aristotle’s remark in Metaphysics
XII 7 (1072a30–b1) regarding parallel series (or columns), arguing that
Berti has overlooked a passage in De sensu et sensibilibus that helps us to
interpret this remark. In section V, I argue that De caelo II 12, which Berti
maintains supports his position that final ends are internal to the natures
to which they pertain, goes quite contrary to his position. Finally, in
section VI, I put forward some ideas regarding the connection between
the first unmoved mover’s final and efficient causality.
In De caelo II 12, as he prepares to confront the problem of the
disparate complexity of the various motions of the celestial bodies, Aristotle says that “on these questions it is well that we should seek to
increase our understanding, though we have but little to go upon, and are
placed at so great a distance from the facts in question.”4 The same attitude recommends itself in the present study of the Aristotle’s understanding of the causality of the first unmoved mover, especially as it is
expressed in Metaphysics XII. It is well worth our while studying the relevant texts, for whether or not we get Aristotle right, we will learn something about how natural theology works (or ought to work); but, because
of the recalcitrant character of the material we have to work with—in
particular, the corrupt state of the text of Metaphysics XII and the mindnumbing conciseness of its argumentation—we ought all also to
acknowledge that various interpretations of the data are possible. As Aristotle says of the stars, we have but little to go upon and we stand at a great
distance from the facts in question.

Metaph. XII 7, 1072a26–b4” finishes with the remark: “Therefore, I would totally
exclude the idea that the unmoved mover of the heaven should be, besides efficient cause, also final cause, thereby eliminating the ambiguity that remained in my
earlier writings” [Berti, “Ancora sulla causalità del motore immobile,” 21]. As
mentioned in note 1, Berti discusses our theme also elsewhere.
4 292a14–17; Revised Oxford Translation [The Complete Works of Aristotle: The
Revised Oxford Translation, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP,
1984)].

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Kevin L. Flannery, S.J.

I. Professor Berti’s Position
The traditional interpretation of Metaphysics XII 7, according to which the
first unmoved mover is final cause of the first sphere, is, says Berti, “in
contrast with that which is found in Metaphysics XII 6, that is, that the
unmoved mover is essentially efficient and not only final cause.”5 Metaphysics
XII 6 contains a criticism of Plato’s Forms, which cannot serve as the first
principle (or first principles) of all, says Aristotle, because, even if they could
be said to be “capable of moving and doing” [κινητικόν ἢ ποιητικὸν—
5 Berti, “Da chi?” 59. The Italian of the last phrase is “. . . il Motore immobile è

essenzialmente causa efficiente e non solo causa finale.” The contrast between
the traditional interpretation and the non-traditional is, perhaps, not as clear as
one might wish. Berti includes among the traditional interpreters both Thomas
Aquinas and W. D. Ross [Berti, “Da chi?” 68–71], even though, while insisting
that the first unmoved mover is final cause, neither denies that it is also efficient
cause—and, indeed, Thomas Aquinas is quite insistent that God is efficient cause.
[See Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, vol. 1, cxxxiv]. In Thomas, see: ScG I, c. 13, par.
33 (§113) (“Ergo oportet ponere primam causam efficientem esse: quae Deus
est”), also ScG II, c. 6, par. 2 (§879) (“Ostensum est enim supra [apud I, c. 13, par.
33 (§113)], per demonstrationem Aristotelis [Metaph. II 1, 993b23–31], esse
aliquam primam causam efficientem, quam Deum dicimus”). See also ST I, q. 3,
a. 4c (“Deum dicimus esse primam causam efficientem”).]
On the other hand, Giacon and Fonseca—two Jesuits whom Berti associates
with the rejection of the traditional position—while downplaying, as Berti notes,
the first unmoved mover’s final causality, do not go so far as to say that its final
causality has only to do with itself. For Fr. Giacon, the first unmoved mover’s
final causality is not isolated from its efficient causality; Aristotle’s characterization in Metaph. XII 7 as final cause of what was described in Metaph. XII 6 as the
first efficient cause is just his way of explaining how “the first efficient cause,
which moves without being moved, is, formally speaking, an absolutely immobile mover” [Carlo Giacon, La causalità del motore immobile (Padua: Antenore,
1969), 86]. And Giacon adds: “The moving, however, qua final cause does not
exclude, nor does it substitute for, the moving of the efficient cause: it is in order
that the efficient cause might complete its proper causation that the final cause
completes its” [Giacon, 87]. For Petrus Fonseca, the first mover is the “primum
movens quod ipsum est primum appetibile”; it is the “finis . . . propter quem
participatione quadam similitudinis imititivae obtinendum, inferiores intelligentiae orbes coelestes movent” [Petrus Fonseca, Commentariorum in Metaphysicorum
Aristotelis Stagiritae libros (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1964), IV 106aD–E (Cologne,
1615–29)]. Berti praises Fonseca for not putting forward the traditional interpretation: “According to [Fonseca] the unmoved mover does not move the
heaven in as much as it is desired by it because such desire would not explain the
movement of the heaven but would indicate only what it is similar to, that is, it
would make of the first mover solely a final cause and not truly efficient” [Berti,
“Da chi?” 69]. Berti attributes such a theory to Alexander of Aphrodisias—and
criticizes him for it [Berti, “Da chi?” 67]. See also Giacon, La causalità del motore
immobile, 134–36.

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837

1071b12], they would have to be that way always, as is his first unmoved
mover, who is pure act. For this reason, neither does Plato’s “world soul” do
the trick, since a soul involves potency as well as act. By definition, potency
might not be in act, but the activity of the principle of all is (and must be)
eternal.6 Berti acknowledges that in book one of the Metaphysics Aristotle
recognizes that Plato holds that the Forms are the active cause of both being
and becoming; but, as Berti also argues, Aristotle maintains that Plato’s claim
is false: “the things that participate in them do not come into being unless
there is a moving cause.”7 Clearly, the Form of the Good, which—presuming it exists—is “pursued and loved for itself,” would not suffice as the first
principle of all, “because it is not activity” [Berti, “Da chi?” 61].
Another problem in reconciling Metaphysics XII 6 and XII 7 if one
holds to the traditional interpretation is that the first sphere does not
move toward the first unmoved mover as toward an object of desire but
rather rotates and (as it is said) thereby imitates the first unmoved mover
inasmuch as circular motion is the type of local motion that comes closest to stillness. Moreover, if the Platonic Form of the Good as loved for
itself does not supply the activity demanded by Metaphysics XII 6, neither
would it as “imitated”—another Platonic concept connoting static receiving of attention and no more. Following this line of reasoning, the highest principle would be an exemplary and not a final cause, notes Berti,
but Aristotle says clearly in Metaphysics XII 7 that it is a final cause.
According to Aristotle, there are two types of final cause: that for the
benefit of which something acts and that with a view to which something
acts. Since it is impossible for God to benefit from anything (otherwise he
would not be unmoved), he cannot be final cause in the first sense [Berti,
“Da chi?” 64–65; Berti, “Causalità,” 644–45]. But there are also two ways in
which something can be an end “with a view to which something acts,”
suggests Aristotle in Metaphysics IX 7: it can either come at the end of a
movement or it can be present throughout the movement—or, rather,
throughout the πρᾶξις (which, strictly speaking, is not a movement).8 The
first unmoved mover (as end of itself) is certainly an end in this latter sense,
that is, an end in itself, since it moves toward nothing. Although, however,
in this sense, an end, the first unmoved mover is not a practical end, since, as
6 Berti

connects this argument with Metaph. XII 6, 1071b17–20 [Berti, “Da
chi?” 61].
7 These are Berti’s words [Berti, “Da chi?” 60], although he makes reference to
Metaph. I 7, 991b3–5: ἐν δὲ τῷ Φαίδωνι οὕτω λέγεται, ὡς καὶ τοῦ εἶναι καὶ τοῦ
γίγνεσθαι αἴτια τὰ εἴδη ἐστίν· καίτοι τῶν εἰδῶν ὄντων ὅμως οὐ γίγνεται τὰ μετέχοντα
ἂν μὴ ᾖ τὸ κινῆσον . . .
8 Metaph. XII 7, 1072b2–3; but see below, note 12.

Kevin L. Flannery, S.J.

838

Aristotle says in Eudemian Ethics I 8, nothing immobile can be practical:
πρακτὸν δὲ τὸ τοιοῦτον ἀγαθόν, τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα. οὐκ ἔστι δὲ τὸ ἐν τοῖς ἀκινήτοις

[1218b5–6]. This thesis of Aristotle’s is difficult to reconcile, argues Berti,
with the idea that the first unmoved mover is the final cause of the movement of first sphere, for that would make it a practical end or the good
toward which such movement proceeds [Berti, “Da chi?” 65]. It also
suggests, he says, that Aristotle’s comparison [Metaphysics XII 7, 1072a26–27]
of the causality of the first unmoved mover to that of an object of desire or
thought is just a “comparison,” since the passage in the De anima from which
the idea is drawn [III 10, 433b16] says clearly that such an immobile object
as it has in mind must be practical (a πρακτὸν ἀγαθόν—433b17), exactly
that which is excluded (according to Berti) for the first unmoved mover.9
Berti finds support for his approach also in a very obscure remark in
Metaphysics XII 7, a remark that follows upon Aristotle’s serial assertions
that (1) the motion of the first sphere is circular [1072a22], that (2) it is
moved by something which moves but is not moved [1072a25], that (3)
this is the way in which the objects of desire and intellect move [1072a26],
and that (4), at the highest level, the object of desire and the object of intellect coincide [1072a27] since at that level desire for the apparent good is
not an issue [1072a27–28]. That is, having made all these assertions, Aristotle remarks: “And the intellect is moved by the intelligible, and one of the
two series is per se [καθ’ αὑτήν] intelligible” [1072a30–31].10 Aristotle
speaks often of such parallel series or columns, which are sometimes associated with Pythagorean series of opposites;11 but Berti sees in this remark
a shift on the part of Aristotle to consideration of “objects intelligible for
themselves” as distinct from “objects intelligible for us” [Berti, “Causalità,” 643]. This would be a confirmation of his thesis that, when Aristotle
speaks in Metaphysics XII 7 about the first unmoved mover, he is speaking
about something that stands outside of the practical altogether; that is, it
would confirm his thesis that Aristotle’s talk (within a few lines) of the first
unmoved mover’s moving “as loved” [Metaphysics XII 7, 1072b3] is “just an
analogy, that is, a comparison” [Berti, “Causalità,” 644]. The first unmoved
mover is not a practical end—that is to say, not an end completing a movement—but rather an end for itself and in itself [Berti, “Causalità,” 645].
Berti connects all this with the distinctions made above regarding ways
of being a final cause:
9 Berti, “Causalità,” 641–42; see also Berti, “Ancora sulla causalità del motore

immobile,” 17–20.
10 See Berti, “Causalità,” 642.
11 Hermannus Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1961), vol. 5 of Aris-

totelis Opera 736b33–737a19. See also Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, vol. 2, 376.

Berti on the Causality of the Unmoved Mover

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So then, the traditional interpretation, according to which the unmoved
mover would be the end of the heaven and would move it as object of
desire on the part of the heaven, not only does not find in this passage any
foundation but is explicitly excluded by the affirmation that the unmoved
mover is not an end “for something” (τινὶ) [Berti, “Causalità,” 645].12

The first unmoved mover’s activity is not for its own advantage (that is, the
end for someone: τινὶ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα), since there is no such thing as its
“advantage”; but the first unmoved mover (or its activity) is also not for the
advantage of the first sphere [Berti, “Causalità,” 645; Berti, “Da chi?” 65].
Berti finds support for his approach also in De caelo II 12. The argument of this chapter is curious—even amusing. Aristotle is puzzled by the
fact that the motion of the first sphere, most distant from us and therefore of the “fixed stars,” is simple, consisting of a single movement; the
motion of the lower “astronomical bodies” is more complicated, consisting of many movements, arising from the many spheres that effect their
motion; but as we get closer to earth the motion of the celestial bodies
becomes again simple [291b28–292a9]: the motion of the moon and the
motion of the sun are uniform and the earth itself is utterly static
[292b20].13 Aristotle’s explanation (which, as we have noted, he
acknowledges to be based on minimal information [292a15–16]) is that
the heavenly bodies are like men who require varying amounts of physical exercise with a view to remaining fit:
12 The word τινὶ comes from 1072b2. According to Jaeger and Ross, the text (of

1072b1–3) is as follows: ὅτι δ’ ἔστι τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα ἐν τοῖς ἀκινήτοις, ἡ διαίρεσις δηλοῖ· ἔστι
γὰρ τινὶ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα καὶ τινός, ὧν τὸ μὲν ἔστι τὸ δ’ οὐκ ἔστι [Metaph. XII 7, 1072b2–3].
But preferable is the reading found in MSS E and J: ὅτι δ’ ἔστι τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα ἐν τοῖς
ἀκινήτοις, ἡ διαίρεσις δηλοῖ· ἔστι γὰρ τινὶ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα, ὧν τὸ μὲν ἔστι τὸ δ’ οὐκ ἔστι (that
is, eliminating the καὶ τινός). (This reading of Metaph. XII 7, 1072 b1–3 is maintained also by Berti [Berti, “Causalità,” 645; Berti, “Ancora sulla causalità del
motore immobile,” 20; Berti, “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” 229–30].) The text, however, does not deny that the first unmoved mover
can be end “for something,” as Berti suggests. In the passage Aristotle is saying that
there is no difficulty saying that immobile things are ends because there are two
ways in which an end can be end for something (τινὶ—1072b2): it can be something at which the other thing must arrive (and which therefore does not yet exist
for it) or it can already exist for it. In the second case, from the point of view of
the thing which is not immobile, the relationship is not one of “seeking to get to
x” but one of contemplating something that is already present. See below, note 24.
13 I call these “astronomical bodies” because earth would not be, according to Aristotle, a celestial body (i.e., a body found in the heaven). Etymologically the word
“astronomical” also suggests bodies found in the heaven (ἄστρον = star); but, because
it is hidden in the linguistic roots of the word, perhaps the anomaly is less strident.

840

Kevin L. Flannery, S.J.
. . . one is in good condition without exercise at all, another after a short
walk, while another requires running and wrestling and hard training, and
there are yet others who however hard they worked themselves could
never secure this good, but only some substitute for it [ἕτερόν τι].14

So, says Aristotle, “that which stands in the best condition has no need of
action: it is itself the end (ἔστι γὰρ αὐτὸ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα), whereas the action
always requires two things, that is, both the end and that which looks to
the end.”15
All this has consequences not only for our understanding of the first
unmoved mover but also for our understanding of the celestial entities,
especially the first sphere. As to the first unmoved mover, it means, says
Berti, that “also in Metaphysics XII 7, when it is said that the unmoved
mover is an end, the idea is not that it is the end ‘for something’ different from itself, for in such a case it would have to be realized by means
of an action, but it is end for itself, as befits the supreme good” [Berti,
“Causalità,” 647]. At the other end of the scheme, the sun and the moon
do move but their movements are minimal, “for they do not ever reach
the final goal but attain to the ‘most divine principle’ (θειοτάτη ἀρχὴ) to
the extent that they are able” [Berti, “Causalità,” 647]. This shows, says
Berti, that “the ‘most divine principle’ has nothing to do with the
unmoved mover but is the best for each of the celestial bodies, that is, its
end, the good reachable by it, as the example of health eloquently
demonstrates. Also the first heaven, therefore, has as its end not the
unmoved mover but its proper end . . . ” [Berti, “Causalità,” 647].
II. Circular Motion
Obviously, there is a great deal going on in this, Berti’s theory of the causality of the first unmoved mover. We should be grateful to him for opening
for us a whole gamut of issues that have been neglected in recent years.16
14 De caelo II 12, 292a25–28 [Revised Oxford Translation].
15 Τῷ δ’ ὡς ἄριστα ἔχοντι οὐθὲν δεῖ πράξεως· ἔστι γὰρ αὐτὸ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα, ἡ δὲ πρᾶξις ἀεί

ἐστιν ἐν δυσίν, ὅταν καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα ᾖ καὶ τὸ τούτου ἕνεκα [De caelo II 12, 292b4–7].
The translation is my translation of what Berti gives: “colui che sta nel modo
migliore non ha bisogno di nessuna azione: è lui stesso infatti il fine (ἔστι γὰρ
αὐτὸ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα), mentre l’azione richiede sempre due cose, cioè sia il fine sia
ciò che è in vista di questo” [Berti, “Causalità,” 647].
16 Berti’s interest in these issues is shared now by a number of other scholars: see,
for instance, Mary Louise Gill, “Aristotle on self-motion,” Aristotle’s Physics: a
collection of essays, ed. Lindsay Judson (New York: Clarendon Press, 1995), 243–65
Thomas De Koninck, “La ‘pensée de la pensée’ chez Aristote,” La question de Dieu
selon Aristote et Hegel, ed. Thomas De Koninck and Guy Planty-Bonjour (Paris:
PUF, 1991), 69–151; Mary Louise Gill, “Aristotle on self-motion,” Self-motion:

Berti on the Causality of the Unmoved Mover

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In order to achieve a proper understanding of the first unmoved
mover’s final causality, it is necessary to understand how Aristotle understands the circular movement of the first heaven or the first sphere. There
are two factors to bear in mind here: first, the non-linearity of circular
motion in general; secondly, the first sphere’s peculiar status as the outermost of the 49 celestial spheres posited by Aristotle.17 Regarding the first
factor, Aristotle’s core concept of a movement (or κίνησις) is of something’s beginning at point A, going through point B, and finishing at
point C, so that (as he says) any movement has a beginning, a middle, and
an end. As Aristotle explains in Physics VIII 9, circular motion does not
quite correspond to this model, since its point of departure and point of
arrival are indefinite [ἀόριστα—265a32]:
For why should any one point on the line be the limit rather than any
other? For each of them is alike beginning, middle, and end, so that
each is both always and never at a beginning and at an end. Therefore,
in a way the sphere is both in motion and at rest, for each occupies the
same place.18

Since every point on the periphery of the sphere (or, for that matter, on any
spherical surface within the sphere) is “beginning, middle, and end,” there is
no favored point that would count as the completion of the sphere’s movement, so that it is always moving; and yet it is also still since it (the sphere
itself) always occupies the same place. Aristotle goes on to attribute all this,
but especially the stillness, to the center of the sphere, which is at once the
beginning, middle, and end of the distance traversed [τοῦ μεγέθους—
265b4]—which, in fact, is no distance at all since the center goes nowhere.
Since the center is on no theoretical spherical surface that is part of the
sphere [διὰ τὸ ἔξω εἶναι τοῦτο τῆς περιφερείας—265b4–5] and yet the
From Aristotle to Newton, ed. Mary Louise Gill and James G. Lennox (Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1994), 15–34 (also in Aristotle’s Physics: A Collection of Essays, ed.
Lindsay Judson [New York: Clarendon Press, 1995] 243–65); Lindsay Judson,
“Heavenly motion and the unmoved mover,” Self-motion: From Aristotle to
Newton, ed. Gill and Lennox, 155–71; Carlo Natali, “Cause motrice et cause
finale dans le livre Lambda de la Métaphysique d’Aristote,” Essais sur la theologie
d’Aristote: Actes du colloque de Dijon, ed. M. Bastit and J. Follon (Louvain-laNeuve: Éditions Peeters, 1998), 29–50.
17 Metaph. XII 8, 1074a13–14 (accepting the emendation of ἑπτά to ἐννέα suggested
by Sosigenes).
18 τί γὰρ μᾶλλον ὁποιονοῦν πέρας τῶν ἐπὶ τῆς γραμμῆς; ὁμοίως γὰρ ἕκαστον καὶ ἀρχὴ

καὶ μέσον καὶ τέλος, ὥστ’ ἀεί τε εἶναι ἐν ἀρχῇ καὶ ἐν τέλει καὶ μηδέποτε. διὸ κινεῖταί
τε καὶ ἠρεμεῖ πως ἡ σφαῖρα· τὸν αὐτὸν γὰρ κατέχει τόπον [Physics VIII 9,

265a32–b2].

Kevin L. Flannery, S.J.

842

motion of the sphere occurs with respect to it, any point outside the center
will move around it as middle [περὶ τὸ μέσον] without ever going toward the
“extreme” (the end) of a movement [πρὸς τὸ ἔσχατον], since the extremes
(beginning and end) are the middle around—but not toward—which any
point moves.19 And so, Aristotle repeats, in a way, the whole sphere “both
remains always at rest and moves continually.”20
If this argument to the effect that any rotating sphere must be considered both at rest and in motion is open to dismissal as merely linguistic
(such a dismissal being, however, less than convincing, since the issue is
the meaning of the language Aristotle uses in referring to the activity of
the first sphere), a related argument in the fourth book of the Physics
(chapter five) and pertaining just (or primarily) to the first sphere’s status
as the outermost sphere is more concretely compelling—at least, if one
puts oneself into the mindset of ancient Greek astronomy, recognizing
the existence of celestial spheres, etc. In order for something to be said to
move, there has to be a larger set of coordinates against which it is said to
move. Given that beyond the universe there are no spatial coordinates
(indeed, there is no “beyond” “there”—for the word ‘beyond’ itself
implies the presence of coordinates), it makes no sense to speak, for
instance, of moving the universe to the left or to the right. But, similarly,
it makes no sense to speak of the universe “spinning,” since spin presupposes a set of coordinates with respect to which any point on the surface
of a sphere changes position (in a continuous manner).
This is not to say, however, that, in another sense, we cannot attribute
“spin” to the universe. When a person standing inside the universe looks
at the heaven and, in particular, at the stars embedded in the first sphere,
he does see power there: the power of locomotion. Aristotle speaks of the
movement of the universe as going from right to left (presumably since
19 The idea appears to be this. Presume that the end of the movement is on some

theoretical spherical surface within the sphere; since the movement is around the
center, it would be on a surface toward the center rather than toward the outer
surface. As one searches for the appropriate theoretical spherical surface—that is,
the one containing the end or extreme of the movement—the candidate spherical surfaces become smaller and smaller. None qualifies until one gets to the
very center of the sphere, at which point there can be no real or definitive end
point, since the center is at once beginning, middle, and end [265b3–4].
20 αἴτιον δ’ ὅτι πάντα συμβέβηκε ταῦτα τῷ κέντρῳ· καὶ γὰρ ἀρχὴ καὶ μέσον τοῦ μεγέθους

καὶ τέλος ἐστίν, ὥστε διὰ τὸ ἔξω εἶναι τοῦτο τῆς περιφερείας οὐκ ἔστιν ὅπου τὸ
φερόμενον ἠρεμήσει ὡς διεληλυθός (ἀεὶ γὰρ φέρεται περὶ τὸ μέσον, ἀλλ’ οὐ πρὸς τὸ
ἔσχατον), διὰ δὲ τὸ τοῦτο μένειν ἀεί τε ἠρεμεῖ πως τὸ ὅλον καὶ κινεῖται συνεχῶς [Physics

VIII 9, 265b2–8].

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the power of initiating action in human beings is usually on the right).21
But this movement of the fixed stars from right to left—that is, from east
to west—would not be perceived by someone standing outside the
universe. Indeed, since no one could be standing outside the universe (in
the sense of occupying a space not included in it, for the universe by definition includes all space), such movement does not exist.
We find this approach in the aforementioned chapter 5 of Physics IV.
There Aristotle compares the universe as a whole to a mass of water that
is not within any container whatsoever: there may be various movements
of water within the larger mass, but the mass of water itself (which is
presumably spherical) does not move:
That body, outside of which there is some body that surrounds it, is in
a place; when this is not the case, it is not. So, even if there should exist
water that was not thus [i.e., surrounded], its parts will be moved (for
the parts are surrounded by one another); the whole, however [τὸ δὲ
πᾶν], will in a sense be moved, in a sense not.22

A few lines later he remarks that some things are per se “in a place,” for
instance, any body that is moved either locally or with respect to size.
“But,” he says,
the heaven, as was said, as a whole [ὅλος] is nowhere nor is it in some
particular place since no body surrounds it. But that with respect to
which it is moved—with respect to that place there is also a place for
the parts; for the parts are contiguous with one another.23

This conception of the first sphere as both moving and not moving—
an idea that appears in so many words twice in Physics VIII 9 and once
here in Physics IV 5—itself provides us with a way of dealing with many
of the issues identified by Berti and presented above. Unlike the Platonic
Ideas, the first sphere, under the influence of the first unmoved mover, is
genuinely active and forceful, even though (as Aristotle requires) strictly
21 See De caelo II 2 (especially 285b17–19: τοῦ δ’ οὐρανοῦ ἀρχὴ τῆς περιφορᾶς, ὅθεν

αἱ ἀνατολαὶ τῶν ἄστρων, ὥστε τοῦτ’ ἂν εἴη δεξιόν, οὗ δ’ αἱ δύσεις, ἀριστερόν); Physics

III 5, 205b34; History of Animals I 15, 494a27–494b1; Progression of Animals 4,
705b33–706a1 [κινεῖν γὰρ πέφυκε τὸ δεξιόν, κινεῖσθαι δὲ τὸ ἀριστερόν].
22 Ὧι μὲν οὖν σώματι ἔστι τι ἐκτὸς σῶμα περιέχον αὐτό, τοῦτο ἔστιν ἐν τόπῳ, ᾧ δὲ μή,

οὔ. διὸ κἂν ὕδωρ γένηται τοιοῦτο, τὰ μὲν μόρια κινήσεται αὐτοῦ (περιέχεται γὰρ ὑπ’
ἀλλήλων), τὸ δὲ πᾶν ἔστι μὲν ὡς κινήσεται, ἔστι δ’ ὡς οὔ [Physics IV 5, 212a31–34].
23 ὁ δ’ οὐρανός, ὥσπερ εἴρηται, οὔ που ὅλος οὐδ’ ἔν τινι τόπῳ ἐστίν, εἴ γε μηδὲν αὐτὸν
περιέχει σῶμα· ἐφ’ ᾧ δὲ κινεῖται, ταύτῃ καὶ τόπος ἔστι τοῖς μορίοις· ἕτερον γὰρ ἑτέρου
ἐχόμενον τῶν μορίων ἐστίν [Physics IV 5, 212b8–11].

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Kevin L. Flannery, S.J.

speaking it involves no movement. The circular motion of the celestial
spheres, and especially of the first sphere, is not movement (κίνησις) from
one extreme to another but rather a πρᾶξις, such as has its end in every
moment of itself [Metaphysics IX 6, 1048b18–35]. This approach also
solves the problem of imitation—that is, the objection that imitation is a
static relationship which, in any case, cannot explain movement on the part
of the first sphere—by showing how the first sphere, in all its power, can
be understood as (in a sense) not moving and therefore as doing the same
thing as the unmoved mover that governs it.24
24 In a series of lectures published in 2006, Berti considers an argument that makes

use of the physical analysis of circular movement; the argument that Berti rejects
maintains that the relationship between the first sphere and the first unmoved
mover is a relationship of imitation. Says Berti: “That circular movement resembles immobility is true, for the rotation of a sphere with respect to itself is a
movement but there is no change of place, because the sphere remains always in
the same place; so, if there must be a movement that more than any other resembles immobility, one can say that it is rotary movement. It remains true, however,
one does not see how the heaven can arrive at its end: realize its end” [Berti,
Struttura e significato della Metafisica di Aristotele, 148]. The arguments in the present essay, however, do not exploit the idea that in circular movement there is no
change of place (from left to right, for example), but rather the idea that in a
certain sense it does not involve movement. It is true that “movement” so
conceived does not attain its end, but that is a point in favor of the present interpretation. According to both arguments (that of Physics VIII 9 and that of Physics
IV 5), there is no attempt on the part of the first sphere to “attain” to the first
unmoved mover—for, in a certain sense, it does not move. In this sense, the first
sphere imitates the first unmoved mover—or, more precisely, does the same thing
that the first unmoved mover does: it remains immobile.
[In the final note of his contribution to the present volume, Berti takes issue
with my understanding of the word ὁμοία at Physics VIII 10, 267b6, used in a
context where Aristotle is speaking about the relationship between the first heavenly sphere and the first unmoved mover. I had taken the word in its usual sense
of “similar” and thought that the similarity, attributed to the movement of the first
sphere, must be with something else, that is, with that of the first unmoved mover.
(I understood Aristotle as saying, however, that the movement of the first sphere
was similar to that of the first unmoved mover in so far as it was not movement
at all!) Berti says that all interpreters agree that the word must mean there “similar to itself ” or “identical.” I am very happy to accept this interpretation, for it
removes from Aristotle’s theory—and the present interpretation—any suggestion
that the relevant “movement” of the first sphere approximates something else (with
which it is not identical). On Berti’s (and now my) interpretation, the word ὁμοία
at PhysicsVIII 10, 267b6 has reference simply to the sphere: its movement (as seen
by us) is continuous (as we might put it, “always like unto itself ”), and yet, as Aristotle says in the phrase immediately preceding that in which the word ὁμοία
appears, “it is necessary that the moved thing [the first sphere] be subject to no
change with respect to it [the first unmoved mover] (267b5–6).” So, the first

Berti on the Causality of the Unmoved Mover

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III. Practical Stillness: Eudemian Ethics I 8,
De anima III 10, and Metaphysics XII 7
But invoking Aristotle’s conception of circular motion leaves untouched
the various more textual arguments put forward by Berti, so we must
address also those. As we have seen, Berti argues that the first sphere
cannot have the first unmoved mover as its final cause because that would
make it a practical end, such as would be excluded by Aristotle’s remark
in Eudemian Ethics I 8 that nothing immobile can be practical
[1218b5–6]. Berti’s thesis would be that movement by the first sphere
toward the first unmoved mover is excluded by the Eudemian Ethics I 8
dictum. We can deal with this latter in the manner already set out, that is,
by pointing out that the first sphere both moves and does not move—
and, indeed, is probably best said not to move, since movement presupposes a set of larger coordinates against which it might be measured. This
response would be more than a merely verbal way of avoiding Berti’s
conclusions, for the first sphere really is immobile with respect to its
mover; and yet it still leaves standing an argument that might appear to
interfere with a non-metaphorical interpretation of the remark in Metaphysics XII 7 that the first unmoved mover moves “as object of love”
[1072b3]. One will recall that the remark in Eudemian Ethics I 8 is used
by Berti to diminish the force also of the related remark in Metaphysics
XII 7, that the first unmoved mover moves in the way that any object of
desire or of thought [τὸ ὀρεκτὸν καὶ τὸ νοητόν—1072a26] moves. This
appears to be a reference to the De anima III 10, 433b13–18, where any
unmoved mover, understood as object of desire or thought, is described
as a practical good [τὸ πρακτὸν ἀγαθόν—433b16]; but, as Berti argues,
since Aristotle says in Eudemian Ethics I 8 that immobile things cannot be
practical, the comparison in Metaphysics XII 7 to everyday objects of
desire or thought is just that: a comparison, like the comparison to an
object of love.
Regarding this line of argumentation, then, the first thing that needs
to be said is that Aristotle’s saying in De anima III 10 that an object of
desire or thought, although an unmoved mover, is a practical good is
problematic in its own right, for a few lines earlier Aristotle says that the
practical is that which can be otherwise than it is: πρακτὸν δ’ ἐστὶ τὸ
ἐνδεχόμενον καὶ ἄλλως ἔχειν [433a29–30].Trendelenburg’s solution to this
problem is reasonable. He says that the definition of the practical at
433a29–30 does not contradict the idea that the mover here is unmoved:
sphere both moves continuously and (in a distinct sense) does not move. I discuss
Physics VIII 10, 267b4–6 below, in section VI.]

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“For, in so far as it moves desire, the unmoved thing is itself placed
beyond the vicissitudes of the soul; in so far as appetite tends toward it, it
admits of alterations.”25 Trendelenburg then quotes Metaphysics XII 7,
1072a26–30, that is, the passage where Aristotle speaks of the first
unmoved mover as τὸ ὀρεκτὸν καὶ τὸ νοητόν.
It is entirely appropriate that Trendelenburg should cite this latter passage,
for his solution to the problem of the unmoved but practical good demonstrates that the concept of an object of desire and thought does not involve
essentially that object’s being practical. The object’s characterization depends
upon the effect that it has upon the thing that is inclined toward it. In the
De anima passage, the unmoved movers clearly include human goods such
as food or drink—things toward which men move. In as much as these
unmoved movers find themselves in variable relations with men, they can
be called practical. In Metaphysics XII 7, 1072a26–30, by contrast, the object
of desire and thought moves not the appetites of the human soul but rather
the love and admiration of the first sphere.26 The rapport between the first
sphere and its unmoved mover does not involve movement; therefore, we
need not—and cannot—call the first unmoved mover practical. But the
reason for this is not that it is not final cause like the objects of De anima III
10 but that the thing that loves it does not move toward it.
25 “Si τὸ πρακτὸν ita supra definiebatur, ut id esset, quod etiam aliter se habere

posset: quod nunc immotum dicitur, noli repugnat. Quatenus enim cupidinem
movet, ipsum immotum est extra animi vicissitudines positum; quatenus appetitus ad id ipsum tendit, mutationes admittit” [Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg, ed.,
Aristotelis de anima libri tres ( Jena: Sumptibus Walzii, 1833), 534]. Trendelenburg
goes on to quote not just Metaph. XII 7, 1072a26–30 but also Movement of
Animals 6, 700b35–701a2.
It is interesting that the same problem of a mover that “suffers” (that is, undergoes something) and does not suffer turns up in De anima III 5. At 430a12–13,
Aristotle says that a craft “suffers” with respect to the material upon which it operates: ἡ τέχνη πρὸς τὴν ὕλην πέπονθεν. (Here the craft, and not the craftsman, is the
efficient cause [see Physics II 3, 195a6]—and a craft does not move.) But, within a
few lines, Aristotle will say that the analogue of the craft, the active intellect, is
ἀπαθὴς [430a18] (impassible). In his commentary, Trendelenburg counsels us not
to put too much emphasis on the word πέπονθεν: “ne premas πέπονθεν; perverteres
enim rationem, quum ars agat, arti materia subiecta sit. πέπονθεν, nihil aliud quam
ἔχει” [Trendelenburg, 488]. Similar to what is seen in De anima III 10, the cause
“suffers” only to the extent to which the subject changes.
26 Aristotle suggests—but by no means apodictically—that the spheres have souls: see
De caelo II 2, 285a29–30 (ὁ δ’ οὐρανὸς ἔμψυχος καὶ ἔχει κινήσεως ἀρχήν), II 12,
292a20–22 (δεῖ δ’ ὡς μετεχόντων ὑπολαμβάνειν πράξεως καὶ ζωῆς· οὕτω γὰρ οὐθὲν
δόξει παράλογον εἶναι τὸ συμβαῖνον), 292b1–2 (Διὸ δεῖ νομίζειν καὶ τὴν τῶν ἄστρων
πρᾶξιν εἶναι τοιαύτην οἵα περ ἡ τῶν ζῴων καὶ φυτῶν) (emphasis, of course, added).
Whatever his hesitation, it is apparent in these passages that Aristotle regards the

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In Metaphysics XII 7, Aristotle says not that the first unmoved mover is
good but that it is beautiful [καλόν—1072a28]. The relationship between
something beautiful and that which loves it is not a relationship of movement, but this does not make things such that it is not a relationship of
final causality. Aristotle says in Metaphysics XIII 3 (that is, in his philosophy of mathematics) that “the good and the beautiful are different: for the
former is always within action, but the beautiful is also in immobile
things.”27 (In the remark in Eudemian Ethics I 8, where Aristotle says that
the practical is not found among immobile things [οὐκ ἔστι δὲ τὸ ἐν τοῖς
ἀκινήτοις—1218b5–6], he also speaks of the beautiful, distinguishing it
from the good.)28 His point in Metaphysics XIII 3 is that it is quite possible to love numbers, even though no one “goes after” them as one goes
after food or drink. Similarly, the first sphere’s attitude toward the first
unmoved mover is not that of a human soul toward a practical good, but
there is no reason why we have to assimilate all desire to that model since
desire [ὄρεξις] for Aristotle includes not just the lower cravings (such as
longing [ἐπιθυμία]) but also βούλησις or will.29 Aristotle speaks of the
celestial spheres as capable of initiating movement [κίνησις] and action [πρᾶξις].
Part of Berti’s argument that the first unmoved mover is not the object (the final
cause) of the first sphere’s motion is the claim that in Metaph. XII Aristotle never
says that the celestial spheres are animated. But that is a petitio principii: he is using
the conclusion of his argument as a premise. As Berti acknowledges, according to
most accounts, Aristotle does presume in Metaph. XII 7 that the first sphere is
animated in some way or another (as it would have to be if it has an
ὀρεκτὸν/νοητόν). There is certainly more evidence in Aristotle for the thesis that
the celestial spheres are animated in some way than for its denial. See Carlo Natali,
Cosmo e divinità: la struttura logica della teologia aristotelica (L’Aquila: Japadre, 1974),
83; see also Ross, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, vol. 1, cxxxvi.
27 τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ τὸ καλὸν ἕτερον (τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἀεὶ ἐν πράξει, τὸ δὲ καλὸν καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀκινήτοις) . . . [1078a31–32].
28 ἀλλὰ πολλαχῶς τὸ ἀγαθόν, καὶ ἔστι τι αὐτοῦ καλόν, καὶ τὸ μὲν πρακτὸν τὸ δ’ οὐ

πρακτόν. πρακτὸν δὲ τὸ τοιοῦτον ἀγαθόν, τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα. οὐκ ἔστι δὲ τὸ ἐν τοῖς ἀκινήτοις [Eudemian Ethics I 8, 1218b4–6].
29 See De anima II 3, 414b2: “For tendency [ὄρεξις] can be desire [ἐπιθυμία], impulse
[θυμὸς] and will [βούλησις].” See also III 10, 10,433a22–36: “Now, while the intellect [νοῦς] appears not to move without tendency (since the will [βούλησις] is a
tendency [ὄρεξις] and, when one moves in conformity with reason [κατὰ τὸν
λογισμὸν], one moves also in conformity with the will), tendency moves also against
reason, for desire [ἐπιθυμία] is a type of tendency. The intellect, therefore, is always
correct, while tendency and imagination [φαντασία] can be either correct or
incorrect. So, it is always the object of tendency [τὸ ὀρεκτόν] that moves, but this
is either the good or that which appears good [τὸ φαινόμενον ἀγαθόν]—not,
however, any good but the good that is practicable [τὸ πρακτὸν ἀγαθόν]. The

practicable is that which can also be otherwise.” This translation has the advantage of not using ‘desire’ to translate ὄρεξις. This in turn makes it more plausible

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unmoved mover not only as beautiful but also as object of the will:
βουλητὸν δὲ πρῶτον τὸ ὂν καλόν [Metaphysics XII 7, 1072a28].
So, I would agree with Berti that Aristotle’s reference in Metaphysics
XII 7 to De anima III 10 cannot be taken as saying that the relationship
between the first celestial sphere and the first unmoved mover is precisely
the relationship that exists between the human soul and (for instance)
food or drink;30 but this does not mean that there can be no relationship
of final causality between the sphere and its unmoved mover—or, ultimately, that all the first unmoved mover’s final causality must concern
itself. Aristotle has good reason to refer in Metaphysics XII 7 to the
unmoved movers that are practical goods (as in De anima III 10), for he
wants to identify a relationship between an unmoved mover and something distinct from it. This thing that the first unmoved mover moves is
quite different in condition and attitude from the human soul when it
desires food and drink; but it is turned toward an object of desire and
thought [τὸ ὀρεκτὸν καὶ τὸ νοητόν—1072a26]. The activity of the celestial spheres does not involve movement [κίνησις] in the strict sense;
nonetheless, the object of their attention fills them with a certain tranquil and steady power: the power of the love of beauty.
IV. Parallel Series: Metaphysics XII 7
and De sensu et sensibilibus 7
As we have seen, Berti also argues that Aristotle’s remark at Metaphysics XII
7, 1072a30–31 that “the intellect is moved by the intelligible, and one of
the two series is per se intelligible [νοητὴ. . . καθ’ αὑτήν]” (which follows
the remarks we have been considering about the first sphere’s being
moved by an unmoved mover in the way in which objects of desire and
intellect move the human soul) is in effect a shifting of the discourse out
of the practical realm and into a consideration of the interior life of the
first unmoved mover itself, which loves there—and is loved by—no other
entity than itself [Berti, “Causalità,” 643].
that the first unmoved mover might be an object of the first sphere’s ὄρεξις (that
is, an ὀρεκτόν). Aristotle says at Metaph. XII 7, 1072a27–30 that, in the case of the
first sphere, ὄρεξις (tendency) is not ἐπιθυμία [desire] but βούλησις [will]. In the
main text, however, I use “object of desire” as the translation of ὀρεκτόν since
Berti uses that translation (oggetto di desiderio); I translate ἐπιθυμία as “longing.”
On the issue whether the celestial spheres are animated, see note 26 above.
30 The resemblance between the objects of De anima III 10 and the first unmoved
mover becomes closer when the object of the human soul is beauty. Aristotle
associates circular motion with the human soul: Physics IV 5, 212b12; cf. De
anima I 3, 407b5–9. This would not be a going toward practical objects (such as
food and drink) but something closer to philosophical contemplation.

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It will be worth our while to consider the passage in question, moveby-move, taking note in particular of the way the argument flows. Aristotle
begins (at 1072a21) by saying that the motion of the first sphere is circular
and eternal but also that, since it moves and is moved, it cannot be the ultimate explanation of its own movement: “there has to be, as a consequence,
something that moves without being moved and which is eternal and
substance and act” [1072a25–26]. He is obviously referring to the first
unmoved mover. Then comes the remark with which we are now familiar: “And in this way the object of desire and the object of intellect move:
they move without being moved” [1072a26–27]. Next he interjects an
argument to the effect that, in the present case, we need not distinguish the
object of desire from the object of intellect, since the first sphere cannot
mistake some other object of love for its own unmoved mover, as we can
when longing rather than will takes the lead.31 (As we have seen, the desire
[ὄρεξις] of the first sphere is will [βούλησις] and not longing [ἐπιθυμία].)32
At this point comes the sentence where Berti descries a shift. Writes
Aristotle:
And the intellect is moved by the intelligible, and one of the two series
is per se intelligible. In this series, substance is first and, within
substance, first is that which is simple and in act. . . .33

What on earth does this mean? The obscurity of the remark itself supports
Berti’s thesis that we have here a shift of perspective. The commentators
speak, notes Berti, of the Pythagorean columns according to which “all
reality is divided into two series of opposites, the positive terms and the
negative” [Berti, “Causalità,” 642]. This clearly does not satisfy, so Berti
suggests that Aristotle introduces here a distinction between things known
by us humans and things that are known “in themselves” (per se), and is
thereby opting for the latter:
To me it seems likely that Aristotle, having mentioned that which is
intelligible for man, alludes to two series of intelligibles: the one intelligible for man, the other intelligible for itself [per sé]. In this case, at issue
is the distinction, articulated by him often, between the things that are
more clear, and more known, for us and the things that are more clear,
and more known, for themselves [per se stesse]. [Berti, “Causalità,” 642]
31 ἐπιθυμητὸν μὲν γὰρ τὸ φαινόμενον καλόν, βουλητὸν δὲ πρῶτον τὸ ὂν καλόν [Metaph.

XII 7, 1072a27–28].
32 See note 29.
33 νοῦς δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ νοητοῦ κινεῖται, νοητὴ δὲ ἡ ἑτέρα συστοιχία καθ’ αὑτήν· καὶ ταύτης

ἡ οὐσία πρώτη, καὶ ταύτης ἡ ἁπλῆ καὶ κατ’ ἐνέργειαν [Metaph. XII 7, 1072a30–32].

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Berti quite reasonably rejects the notion that Aristotle is speaking at
1072a30–31 of Pythagorean series of positive and negative terms, but
there is a more likely alternative than the one he goes for. In De sensu et
sensibilibus, chapter seven, Aristotle discusses parallel series (or columns),
in the first of which is mentioned a faculty, in the second its object. The
passage reads as follows:
What I mean, for example, is this; the same sense no doubt discerns
white and black, though they are specifically different from one
another, and so, too, a faculty of sense self-identical, but different from
the former, discerns sweet and bitter; but while both these faculties
differ from one another in their modes of discerning either of their
respective contraries, yet in perceiving the coordinates in each province
they proceed in manners analogous to one another; for instance, as taste
perceives sweet, so sight perceives white; and as the latter perceives
black, so the former perceives bitter.34

Aristotle clearly has in mind here two columns, one of which contains
faculties, the other their objects. His general point is that, although the
various faculties have, of course, their own operations (sight sees and taste
tastes), their relationships toward their proper objects are analogous: as
sight stands with respect to the visible, so taste stands with respect to the
tastable. It is not at all difficult to imagine Aristotle fitting the mind-like
faculty of the first sphere and its object, the first unmoved mover, into the
same scheme.
The one thing in Metaphysics XII 7, 1072a30–31 that De sensu et sensibilibus 7 does not provide an explicit explanation of is the idea that “one
of the two series is per se intelligible.” One possible explanation is,
however, derivable from De sensu et sensibilibus 7 itself. Earlier in the chapter, Aristotle has been discussing the perception of mixed objects: the
perception, for instance, by the sense of taste of something that is somewhere between sweet and bitter. The opposing elements entering into
the mix are not themselves perceived, he argues, for then the sense would
itself have to be divided; what is perceived is rather a unity: the mixture.
But, he says, “it is easier to perceive each object of sense when in its
simple form than when an ingredient in a mixture; easier, for example, to

34 λέγω δὲ τοῦτο, ὅτι ἴσως τὸ λευκὸν καὶ τὸ μέλαν, ἕτερον τῷ εἴδει ὄν, ἡ αὐτὴ κρίνει, καὶ

τὸ γλυκὺ καὶ τὸ πικρὸν ἡ αὐτὴ μὲν ἑαυτῇ, ἐκείνης δ’ ἄλλη, ἀλλ’ ἑτέρως ἑκάτερον τῶν
ἐναντίων, ὡς δ’ αὔτως ἑαυταῖς τὰ σύστοιχα, οἷον ὡς ἡ γεῦσις τὸ γλυκύ, οὕτως ἡ ὄψις
τὸ λευκόν, ὡς δ’ αὕτη τὸ μέλαν, οὕτως ἐκείνη τὸ πικρόν [Sens. 7, 447b26–448a1]

(translation from the Revised Oxford Translation).

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851

perceive wine when neat than when blended.”35 He does not use the
expression here, but it seems not unlikely that, had he expanded his
description of the two columns presented later in the chapter, Aristotle
might have specified that in the second column are found objects that are
simple and therefore per se perceptible by their respective senses: not as
part of a mixture but in themselves (per se). One notes that, at Metaphysics
XII 7, 1072a32, Aristotle does speak of the object in the second column
as “simple” [ἁπλῆ].
An alternative explanation—we recall what was stated at the beginning of this essay: that our information in this field of enquiry is sparse
and we stand at a great distance from the facts in question—would be
that Aristotle does have in mind in 1072a31 a second column containing
only objects that are known per se in the sense employed at, for instance,
Posterior Analytics I 2, 72a1–4. Says Aristotle there, “I call prior and more
familiar in relation to us items which are nearer to our perception, prior
and more familiar simpliciter items which are further away.”36 The things
that are “more familiar” not merely “in relation to us” [πρὸς ἡμᾶς] but
“simpliciter” [ἁπλῶς] are not, after all, inaccessible to us humans; it is just
that we have to work harder to achieve such knowledge: we must become
scientists, in the Aristotelian sense. But, just as the first sphere (as, presumably, any celestial sphere) is not troubled by mistakes due to the perception of apparent goods, so it need not go through the process of
becoming scientific: its proper object, like the proper object (or objects)
of any true scientist, is per se intelligible. There is no reason to say that,
in mentioning a second column (Metaphysics XII 7, 1072a31), Aristotle is
implying that, from that point on, he is interested in just the things that
are objects for themselves and known per se. The proper objects of any
genuine knower are things that are per se intelligible.
It makes perfect sense, therefore, that Aristotle, having drawn the parallel in Metaphysics XII 7 with the way we stand opposite objects of desire
and thought [τὸ ὀρεκτὸν καὶ τὸ νοητόν], should say that “the intellect is
moved by the intelligible, and one of the two series is per se intelligible.”
35 Sens. 7, 447a17–19 [Revised Oxford Translation]. At On Generation and Corruption

I 3, 319a14–17, Aristotle also speaks of one column including powers or faculties,
the other their objects: Οὐ μὴν ἀλλ’ ὁμοίως ἐν πᾶσι γένεσις μὲν κατὰ τὰ ἐν τῇ ἑτέρᾳ
συστοιχίᾳ λέγεται, οἷον ἐν μὲν οὐσίᾳ ἐὰν πῦρ ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐὰν γῆ, ἐν δὲ τῷ ποιῷ ἐὰν
ἐπιστῆμον ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὅταν ἀνεπιστῆμον. Here it is apparent that the proper object of

the intellect would be (as stated at Metaph. XII 7, 1072a30) the intelligible and not
the unintelligible.
36 Translation from Jonathan Barnes, translator & commentator, Aristotle: Posterior
Analytics, Oxford Aristotle Series (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994).

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In one column is the intellect, in the other the intelligible. That which is
understood (intellectum, τὸ νοητόν) is not just any intelligible but that which
is per se intelligible. Such an understanding in no way interrupts the flow
of the argument of Metaphysics XII 7; Aristotle would simply be continuing his analysis of the relationship between the first sphere and the first
unmoved mover, using the same general scheme he uses to analyze ὄρεξις
and νόησις as understood in De anima III 10. The discourse has not shifted
to a consideration solely of that which is per se intelligible, leaving behind
the “comparison” of souls or intellects facing objects, but continues rather
to be about the relationship between the first sphere’s soul (or something
like a soul) and its final cause: the first unmoved mover.
It is worth mentioning also that, at Metaphysics XII 7, 1072b1, Aristotle
refers to the object of (what I believe must be) the first sphere as an
analogue [ἀνάλογον]. This would be consistent with his remarks in De
sensu et sensibilibus 7 about faculties and their objects. As we have seen,
each faculty has its own character, but, when faculty and object are placed
in their respective columns, it is apparent that one faculty is the analogue
of any other, as are their objects.37
De caelo II 12
As we have seen, Berti calls to the stand in his own support De caelo II
12, the chapter in which Aristotle compares the activity of the heaven to
men who engage in more or less exercise. Some men seem to be healthy
always with no effort in that direction at all; some merely need to control
their weight; some need not only to control their weight but also to run.
And finally, some have no hope of ever achieving perfect health but are
satisfied if they can get into sufficient shape to run and thereby perhaps
to achieve some level of health. For these latter, running comes to substitute for being perfectly healthy—that is, for being in the best state: τὸ
ἄριστον [De caelo II 12, 292b10, 12, 18, 19]. These individuals who have
37 Siwek’s commentary on the De sensu et sensibilibus 7 passage is as follows:

“Modus, quo visus discernit colores contrarios (e.g. album et nigrum) utique
differt a modo, quo gustatus distinguit contrarios sapores (dulce et amarum). At
exsistit certissime—ait Aristoteles—inter duos hoc modos similitudo proportionis seu analogia: colorem album sentit visus simili modo, quo saporem dulcem
sentit gustatus. Colorem nigrum simili modo, quo saporem amarum” [Paulus
Siwek, ed. and trans., Aristotelis Parva Naturalia graece et latine (Rome: Desclée &
C.i Editori Pontifici, 1963), 120, n. 308]. Siwek’s translation of 447b29–448a1
also speaks of analogy: “Certe aliter [ambo sensus discernunt] utrumque contrariorum, attamen eodem analogice modo ambo procedunt in discernendis rebus
ad se pertinentibus: puta, sicut gustatus discernit dulce, ita visus album; et e
contra, sicut visus nigrum ita gustatus amarum.”

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no hope of achieving health are like the earth, the moon, and the sun,
which move (or run) not at all (as in the case of the earth) or very little
(as in the case of the moon and the sun). Those men who both control
their weight and run (and achieve perfect health) are like the planets,
whose movements are more numerous and more complicated than the
movements of the earth, the moon, or the sun. Those men who need
simply to control their weight (presumably, by walking) are like the fixed
stars. Finally, those who need not worry about their weight at all and who
(a fortiori) need not exercise are like the first unmoved mover: the first
unmoved mover exerts no effort (which would be to be in motion) but
is simply always in the best state. This parallel between men and the
motion of the celestial and sub-celestial bodies explains, according Aristotle, the curious fact that both at the center of the universe and at its
extremes there is relatively little movement—for we would expect
complexity to increase progressively in one direction or the other.38
From this chapter in De caelo, Berti picks out two remarks which he
regards as supporting his interpretation of Metaphysics XII 7.The first is Aristotle’s explication of the analogy between hopelessly unhealthy men and the
lower astronomical bodies: “It is for this reason that the earth simply does
not move and the things close to it have few movements. For these bodies
do not reach the ultimate end but they can arrive at something of the divine
principle.”39 He interprets this as implying that no creature’s seeking of a
remote end is a seeking of the ultimate end; a fortiori, therefore, the first
sphere has no such end but seeks its own internal end, as does the first
unmoved mover itself. The second remark comes a bit earlier in De caelo II
12, where Aristotle says that an entity that has no need of movement of any
sort is “itself an end, whereas an action requires always two things, that is,
the end and that which is for the end.”40 Berti understands this as referring,
at least by analogy, to the first unmoved mover, which again would be separated from any practical activity and an end only to itself.41
38 See the appendix.
39 Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἡ μὲν γῆ ὅλως οὐ κινεῖται, τὰ δ’ ἐγγὺς ὀλίγας κινήσεις· οὐ γὰρ

ἀφικνεῖται πρὸς τὸ ἔσχατον, ἀλλὰ μέχρι ὅτου δύναται τυχεῖν τῆς θειοτάτης ἀρχῆς [De

caelo II 12, 292b19–22].
40 ἔστι . . . αὐτὸ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα, ἡ δὲ πρᾶξις ἀεί ἐστιν ἐν δυσίν, ὅταν καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα ᾖ καὶ τὸ

τούτου ἕνεκα [De caelo II 12,292b5–7] (see Berti, “Causalità,” 647, upon whose Ital-

ian translation the English translation in the text is based).
41 Since Berti now holds that the first unmoved mover is not a final cause at all (see

Berti, “Ancora sulla causalità del motore immobile”), it is possible that his view
of this passage has changed. The passage is well worth considering on its own
merits, however, since it does provide some insight into Aristotle’s understanding
of the relation between the first sphere and its unmoved mover.

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I start with the first-mentioned remark. As demonstrated in the appendix to this essay, De caelo II 12 is made up of a series of five parallel lists,
two of them speaking of astronomical bodies, the other three of more
mundane things (or, at least, of things tied to more mundane things):
human bodies, animals, human souls, and their parts. In general, the lists
contains four items, which I call “divisions,” since each marks out a sector
or division of the domain represented by the list to which it belongs.
Occasionally Aristotle strays from the four-division model, but in such a
way that it remains clear that he has that general model in mind. (Once
he neglects to specify the fourth division, once he subdivides a fourth
division into two.) In each list, the bottom division (where specified)
contains things that do not seek the ultimate good (“the best: τὸ
ἄριστον”) but some substitute for it, as in the case of the men who will
never achieve perfect health but do a small number of things in order to
run rather than in order to be perfectly healthy. The third division
contains things that do arrive at the ultimate good, but by means of many
movements; the second division contains things that arrive at the ultimate
good by means of few movements (in effect, just one movement); the top
division contains things that require or involve no movement at all.
Now, even if it is true that the members of the various fourth divisions
of the lists “do not reach the ultimate end,” these can hardly be compared
to the members of the higher divisions in the various lists. In particular,
the supposed fact that the sun, the moon, and the earth are like relatively
inactive non-athletes by no means implies that the first celestial sphere—
which has a simple motion and, therefore, belongs to division 2 of its
respective list42 —is similarly handicapped, for the whole point of the lists
(and the chapter) is to show that the members of the various fourth divisions are different from the members of the higher divisions. The simplicity of the second divisions and the simplicity of the fourth divisions are
due to quite different causes.43
It is also worth noting that the members of one of the fourth divisions
are said by Aristotle to be “on their way” to “the best”: πρὸ ὁδοῦ . . . πρὸς
τὸ ἄριστον [292b9–10].44 Since the lists of De caelo II 12 are parallel lists,
Aristotle’s reference to “the divine principle” [τῆς θειοτάτης ἀρχῆς] in the
final list (“these bodies do not reach the ultimate end but they can arrive
at something of the divine principle” [292b21–22]) must refer not to the
internal and proper end of the members of this fourth division, as Berti
42 Or, actually, lists: (a) and (d). See the appendix.
43 See the appendix, especially the comment on 292a28–30.
44 This is said with reference to the fourth division in list (c); see appendix.

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maintains, but to the highest principle or the first unmoved mover (τὸ
ἄριστον)—which they can, however, never reach.
The second remark that Berti picks out of De caelo II 12 is part of Aristotle’s discussion of animals and plants. The discussion involves, of course,
a list (the third in De caelo II 12) and the remark in question—“[it is] itself
an end, whereas an action requires always two things, that is, the end and
that which is for the end”—pertains to the list’s first and second divisions.45 This remark does not support the idea that the first unmoved
mover does not serve as final cause of the first sphere, but quite the opposite. Aristotle’s point is that, although the active intellect involves no
action (οὐθὲν δεῖ πράξεως: 292b5), any member of the second division
(that is to say, any passive intellect) will involve action (ἡ δὲ πρᾶξις ἀεί
ἐστιν ἐν δυσίν: 292b6), that is, action that has two poles: one the passive
intellect itself, the second a member of the first division (or an active
intellect). Since the lists in De caelo II 12 are parallel lists, we must
conclude that there is a similar relationship between any celestial sphere
and its unmoved mover; there is, therefore, such a relationship between
the first sphere and the first unmoved mover.
VI. Efficient Causality
For most of this essay, we have been concerned with the final causality of
the first unmoved mover; but, since Berti’s thesis is that the first mover is
primarily—or even solely—efficient cause, it is appropriate to conclude
with a few words about the first mover’s efficient causality and its
connection, according to Aristotle, with its final causality. Indeed, this
topic allows us to reprise the major thesis of the present essay, that is, that
the first sphere can be said in some sense to be both in movement and
independent of movement.
Let us recall Aristotle’s definition of efficient cause in Physics II 3 as:
“whence [ὅθεν] the first principle of change or rest; for example, he who
deliberated is a cause, the father is cause of the child, and in general what
makes of that which is made and what changes of that which is
changed.”46 The word ὅθεν (“whence”) does signify a spatial point of
origin of the change or stillness, although the relationship between the
efficient cause and its effect is not necessarily a physical one. The relationship between “he who deliberated” (ὁ βουλεύσας), in so far as he
deliberated, and that which he brought about, is not a physical one:
45 In the appendix, (c) 1 and 2.
46 ὅθεν ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς μεταβολῆς ἡ πρώτη ἢ τῆς ἠρεμήσεως, οἷον ὁ βουλεύσας αἴτιος, καὶ ὁ

πατὴρ τοῦ τέκνου, καὶ ὅλως τὸ ποιοῦν τοῦ ποιουμένου καὶ τὸ μεταβάλλον τοῦ μεταβαλλομένου [194b29–33].

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something intellectual such as a deliberation can have no physical contact
with anything. In that sense the relationship is not physical. But the efficient causality of one who deliberates is not wholly independent of the
physical: it produces its effect at a certain spatio-temporal point—or, in
any case, it can do this, when the deliberation is about a physical action.
How this occurs is a mystery: the mystery of animate bodies, that is, the
way in which the non-physical moves the physical. But of the fact that it
occurs there is no doubt.47 This straddling by intentional action of the
two spheres—the physical and the non-physical—is what allows Aristotle
to conceive of the first celestial sphere as both in movement and independent of movement. The intention to do something is not a physical
change: it is simply a looking toward an end. But neither is it separate
from the physical action it makes to be intentional.
As we affirmed in section II, the final causality between the first sphere
and the first unmoved mover can be described as motionless; on the other
hand, the efficient causality between these does involve movement. That
Aristotle wants to associate the two—the final and the efficient causality—becomes apparent at the very end of the Physics. Just before the
passage that interests us, Aristotle has argued, in typical fashion, that any
47 As to what we might call “intentional causality,” Giacon complains that Thomas

Aquinas’s understanding of the first mover’s causality is based on an erroneous and
Platonic reading of Metaphysics II 1 [Giacon, La causalità del motore immobile, 113–25];
but Thomas’s analysis is not based solely upon that passage. In In I Sent. d. 37, q. 1,
a. 1c, Thomas explains how he understands the relationship between natural and
divine efficient causality. He commends Avicenna’s understanding of the difference
and similarity between the two: “. . . agens naturale est tantum causa motus, et agens
divinum est causa esse. Unde, secundum [Avicennam], qualibet causa efficiente
remota, removetur effectus suus, sed non esse rei; et ideo remoto aedificatore, non
tollitur esse domus, cujus causa est gravitas lapidum quae manet, sed fieri domus
cujus causa erat; et similiter remota causa essendi, tollitur esse.” A bit earlier,Thomas
notes that efficient causality differs in material and immaterial entities. Since material entities can not be in the same place, efficient causality requires contact; but spiritual entities have no such restriction: “ubi est quod movetur, ibi est ipsum movens;
sicut anima est in corpore, et sicut virtus movens caelum dicitur esse in dextra parte
orbis quem movet, unde incipit motus, ut habetur in Phys.VIII” [In I Sent. d. 37, q.
1, a. 1c] (cp. Giacon, 7).The reference is apparently to PhysicsVIII 5, 258a21–22 (see
Thomas’s In Phys.VIII, lect. 11, par. 3 [§1064]), although Thomas clearly also has in
mind De caelo II 2 (285a27–286a2, especially 285b16–19). In the latter passage, Aristotle is speaking of efficient causality; as Thomas suggests in In I Sent. d. 37, q. 1, a.
1c, he is also conceiving of the sphere in question as animated: ὁ δ’ οὐρανὸς ἔμψυχος καὶ ἔχει κινήσεως ἀρχήν [De caelo II 2, 285a29–30; see also Thomas Aquinas, “In
Aristotelis libros de caelo et mundo expositio,” ed. Raimondo M. Spiazzi, In Aristotelis libros de caelo et mundo, de generatione et corruptione, meteorologicorum expositio
(Turin: Marietti, 1952) II, lect. 3 (§§313–29)].

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series of things moved and moving will come to a halt [στήσεται—
267b1] at something immobile.This latter, he says, experiences no change
[μεταβολὴν—267b4–5]. And then he says:
It is necessary that the moved thing be subject to no change with
respect to it, so that the motion may be uniform. It is therefore necessary that it be either at the center or on the circumference, since these
are the principles [ἀρχαί]. But the things nearest the mover are the
things whose motion is quickest—and such is the motion of the
circumference. The mover, therefore, is there.48

There is a paradox in this remark, particularly when Aristotle says that
the thing moved experiences no change “so that the motion may be
uniform” [ἵνα ὁμοία ᾖ ἡ κίνησις—267b6]. Aristotle is speaking of precisely
the problem that will torment his followers in successive years (and
centuries): how can a movement, even a very regular movement, be an
imitation of the absence of movement?49 In the passage just quoted, he
provides a solution to this problem. Given that at issue is a combination
of non-change and change (or movement), it is “therefore necessary” that
the unmoved mover “be either at the center or on the circumference”
[267b6–7]. (This remark calls to mind, of course, the two passages in the
Physics we examined above: Physics VIII 9, 265a32–b2 and IV 5,
212a31–b11.) Putting the mover either at the center or on the circumference resolves the problem because either is at rest: the center, in a fairly
obvious way; the circumference (or the periphery), for the reasons we
saw at Physics IV 5, 212a31–34. That Aristotle chooses to “locate” the first
unmoved mover at the periphery shows that he wants a clear explanation
of the efficient causality of that mover: it is there, and not at the center,
that one sees movement, the movement of the fixed stars from east to
west.50 But Aristotle also wants this efficient causality to have its origin
48 δεῖ δὲ οὐδὲ τὸ κινούμενον πρὸς ἐκεῖνο ἔχειν μεταβολήν, ἵνα ὁμοία ᾖ ἡ κίνησις. ἀνάγκη

δὴ ἢ ἐν μέσῳ ἢ ἐν κύκλῳ εἶναι· αὗται γὰρ αἱ ἀρχαί. ἀλλὰ τάχιστα κινεῖται τὰ ἐγγύτατα
τοῦ κινοῦντος. τοιαύτη δ’ ἡ τοῦ κύκλου κίνησις· ἐκεῖ ἄρα τὸ κινοῦν [Physics VIII 10,

267b5–9].
49 See Theophrastus, Metaphysics, chapter 2, but especially 5a23–27; see also the

commentary of van Raalte (Marlein van Raalte, ed., Theophrastus: Metaphysics,
with an introduction, translation, and commentary [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993], 179–83).
See also Berti, “Teofrasto e gli Accademici sul moto dei cieli,” Gigantomachia:
Convergenze e divergenze tra Platone e Aristotele, ed. Mario Migliori (Brescia:
Morcelliana, 2002), 339–56 and also Berti, “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia.”
50 I do not wish to say that the first unmoved mover is literally “located” at the
periphery of the universe since—like the human intellect—not being a physical

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in stillness, that is, in independence from every spatial coordinate that
would permit one to speak of movement.
The paradox that we have identified in Physics VIII 10, 267b5–6—
saying, that is, that it is necessary that the thing moved experience no
change in order that its movement might have a certain characteristic—is
not evidence of a contradiction in Aristotle’s position, because in the
sentence itself (the first sentence of the above quotation) he specifies the
aspect that resolves the apparent contradiction: “It is necessary that the
moved thing be subject to no change with respect to it, so that the motion
may be uniform.” The first sphere is in movement—indeed, this movement is faster than any other movement in the heaven;51 but, with respect
to the unmoved mover [πρὸς ἐκεῖνο—267b5], it does not move. This
ensures that it is the movement of the first sphere that is “similar” [ὁμοία]
to that of the first unmoved mover; it is not the first sphere’s regularity that
is similar, as (perhaps) suggests Alexander of Aphrodisias.52 The movement
is similar because with respect to the first unmoved mover it involves no
movement; on the other hand, and to borrow a phrase from Galileo,
“eppure si muove” with respect to the rest of the universe.
We see here, then, the intersection of the two types of causality. In its
gazing at the first unmoved mover (its “object of desire” and “object of
intellect”: τὸ ὀρεκτὸν καὶ τὸ νοητόν [Metaphysics XII 7, 1072a26]), the first
sphere is still and in love. Its relationship with the first mover is a movement, in a sense, although we cannot call it that and speak sensibly, since
there are no outer coordinates permitting such talk to make sense. But its
love of the first mover is its movement with respect to the coordinates
within the universe, below itself. In other words, this latter movement is the
same thing, viewed now from a different perspective, a perspective from
which we can now speak sensibly of movement.
entity, it cannot be in a place; but it is “there” in the sense that it is there that it
has its effect, just as the human intellect has its effect there where the body to
which it belongs is found.
51 There is no contradiction between this idea and the idea we have already considered: that the first sphere has just one movement, the lower astronomical bodies
many. The one movement of the first sphere (and therefore of the fixed stars) is
faster than the other (multiple) movements.
52 Berti, “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” 231–33; Alexander of
Aphrodisias, Quaestiones, ed. Ivo Bruns and I. Bruns (Berlin: Reimer, 1892),
vol. 2.2 supplement of Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 62.15–63.7. [Since the
Cagliari conference at which the original version of this essay was read, my
understanding of the meaning of the word ὁμοία at Physics VIII 267b6 has
changed somewhat, largely on account of a comment made by Prof. Berti in the
latest version of his essay (included in this volume). For my changed position see
above, note 24.]

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At the very end of Nicomachean Ethics VII, just before going on in Book
VIII to speak of φιλία (friendship or love), Aristotle notes that God’s pleasure is single and simple—and yet it is powerful: “for there is an activity
[ἐνέργεια] not only of movement but also of immobility, and there is more
pleasure in rest than in movement.”53 The first sphere participates in this
power and passes it on to the lower parts of the universe.
Appendix: The Parallel Lists of De caelo II 12
In De caelo II 12, Aristotle gives us five lists, three of them containing four
divisions, the other two—(a) and (c)—reflecting the four divisions of the
other three. The divisions in each list have analogues—or implicit
analogues—in the others. The lists break down as follows:
a. astronomical bodies [292a22–24]
1. No need of movement [ὑπάρχειν τὸ εὖ ἄνευ πράξεως];
2. require(s) little, i.e., just one, movement [διὰ ὀλίγης καὶ μιᾶς];
3. require more movements [διὰ πλειόνων];
4. [not specified].
b. human bodies [292a25–28]
1. No need of exercise [οὐδὲ γυμναζόμενον εὖ ἔχει];
2. require a brief walk [μικρὰ περιπατῆσαν];
3. need to run, box, etc. [καὶ δρόμου δεῖ καὶ πάλης καὶ κονίσεως];
4. will never achieve health but only some substitute [ἕτερόν τι].
c. animals and plants [292b2–10]
1. Requires no action [οὐθὲν δεῖ πράξεως] (the human active
intellect);
2. involves one action, i.e., of the passive intellect with respect to
the active [ἡ δὲ πρᾶξις ἀεί ἐστιν ἐν δυσίν, ὅταν καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα ᾖ καὶ
τὸ τούτου ἕνεκα];
3. men, as capable of many actions [πλεῖσται πράξεις];
4. other things: (a) mere animals, as capable of few actions [τῶν
ἄλλων ζῴων ἐλάττους], and (b) plants, as capable of perhaps one
action [τῶν φυτῶν μικρὰ τις καὶ μία ἴσως].
d. astronomical bodies [292b10–13]
53 οὐ γὰρ μόνον κινήσεώς ἐστιν ἐνέργεια ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀκινησίας, καὶ ἡδονὴ μᾶλλον ἐν ἠρεμίᾳ

ἐστὶν ἢ ἐν κινήσει [Nicomachean Ethics VII 14, 1154b26–28].

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1. Already have or participate in the best [ἔχει καὶ μετέχει τοῦ
ἀρίστου];
2. achieve the best state with few actions [εὐθὺς δι’ ὀλίγων];
3. achieve the best state with many actions [διὰ πολλῶν];
4. can approach the ultimate state [ἱκανὸν εἰς τὸ ἐγγὺς τοῦ ἐσχάτου
ἐλθεῖν].
e. health seekers [292b13–17]
1. Always healthy [ἀεί ὑγιαίνει];
2. thin down (and are therefore healthy) [ἰσχνανθέν];
3. thin down and run (and are therefore healthy) [δραμὸν καὶ
ἰσχνανθέν];
4. do something else in order to run [ἄλλο τι πρᾶξαν τοῦ δραμεῖν
ἕνεκα].
In list (a) the fourth division is not specified, probably because Aristotle
has yet to explain why its members (the sun, the moon, and the earth)
involve fewer movements; that explanation begins just afterwards, in the
extended analogy beginning with list (b). Immediately after giving list (b),
Aristotle says [292a28–30] that it is quite easy at dice to throw “snake’s
eyes” once or twice, but very hard to do so thousands of times. Thus, the
reason for the simplicity characteristic of division 4 is quite different from
that for the simplicity of division 1: the activity of the members of division
4 is simple because of the lack of effort and intelligent control involved; the
one member of division 1 is simple because only a unified and simple principle can comprehend and control all the movements that depend upon it.
List (c) is the most difficult—but also the most interesting—of the five.
The divisions are not presented in the same order as in the other lists; the
distinctions between divisions are not as clearly marked; the fourth division
has two parts. Aristotle also appends an explanatory remark (292b8–10) to
this list which has led to interpretive difficulties. Division 3 is presented
first, at 292b3–4; divisions 1 and 2 are then given as a parenthesis (at least
in the Allan edition, though not in Bekker): 1 at 292b4–6, 2 at 292b6–7.
In these lines, Aristotle does not speak of the intellect—or its “parts”—in
so many words, but it is apparent that this is what he has in mind.54
54 Simplicius speaks of intellect in this general context, although with specific refer-

ence to 292b10 [τὸ μὲν οὖν ἔχει καὶ μετέχει τοῦ ἀρίστου]; see in Cael. 485.16–22.This
passage includes a fragment from Aristotle’s Περὶ εὐχῆς in which God is said to be
intellect or something above intellect [νοῦς ἐστιν ἢ επέκεινά τι τοῦ νοῦ; Valentinus
Rose, ed., Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta (Leipzig: Teubner, 1886), fr. 49].

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Although he speaks of the action [πρᾶξις] of division 2 as involving two
factors (ἐν δυσίν: 292b6), the action itself is single.55
Division 4 is set out at 292b7–8 and is subdivided into animals [ζῴων]
and plants [φυτῶν]. The subsequent explanatory remark [292b8–10] is as
much a summary of the whole previous section (that is, 292b2–8) as of the
immediately preceding remark about animals and plants (division 4). In it,
Aristotle acknowledges that he has in effect recognized a distinction
between men and other things (mere animals and plants). (Note the ἢ . . .
ἢ construction: ἢ γὰρ ἕν τί ἐστιν οὗ τύχοι ἄν, ὥσπερ καὶ ἄνθρωπος, ἢ καὶ τὰ
πολλὰ πάντα πρὸ ὁδοῦ ἐστι πρὸς τὸ ἄριστον.) Man does manage to achieve
the single best state [ἕν τί ἐστιν οὗ τύχοι] the other things are only on the
way to the best state; that is, as in the fourth divisions of (b), (d), and (e),
they must be satisfied with a substitute for the best.
That the distinction here is between men and all other living things
(that is, both mere animals and plants) is more clear if we follow either
manuscript M, F, or H, each of which includes the word ἄλλα in one
form or another; ἄλλα would then echo the ἄλλων in line 292b7
(although the ἄλλων seems to refer just to the animals, that is, the animals
other than man).
N&V

55 I am inclined to see a connection between this remark at De caelo II 12, 292b4–7

[τῷ δ’ ὡς ἄριστα ἔχοντι οὐθὲν δεῖ πράξεως· ἔστι γὰρ αὐτὸ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα, ἡ δὲ πρᾶξις ἀεί
ἐστιν ἐν δυσίν, ὅταν καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα ᾖ καὶ τὸ τούτου ἕνεκα] and that at Metaph. XII 7,
1072b1–3, in which Aristotle discusses the final causality to be associated with the
first unmoved mover. For the latter, see above, note 12. The idea in both passages
would be that there can be a final cause where there is no motion since to be the
final cause for something (τινὶ: Metaph. XII 7, 1072b2) sets up a relation, in which
the one party is immobile, the other not.

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863

The Finality of Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover
in the Metaphysics Book 12, Chapters 7 and 10
E NRICO B ERTI
Università degli Studi di Padova
Padova, Italy

I. Book 12, Chapter 7
FOR roughly ten years I have been exploring the possibility of an interpretation of the causality of Aristotle’s unmoved mover that differs from the
traditional one. According to the traditional interpretation, this causality is
exclusively final in the sense that the unmoved mover moves the heaven
and, through it, the entire universe, as final cause, that is, as an object of
English translation by Laurie Malashanko. Quotations from Aristotle are often taken
from The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. J. Barnes, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1984). Occasionally a translation from the latter work is adjusted in
order to correspond more closely to Prof. Berti’s argumentation and/or Italian translations; occasionally, for the same reason, a fresh English translation is provided.
Aristotle posits a number of celestial spheres (by one count, 55) each of which is
called a “heaven” (in Greek, ouranos). The first heaven—or the farthest sphere—is
sometimes understood as embracing the whole “sky” (as in “the night sky”) and, in
such cases, the term ‘the heaven’ (ho ouranos) is equivalent to our “the heavens.” But
to use the expression “the heavens” in such contexts would cause confusion, since
the term could also refer to Aristotle’s plural heavens (the celestial spheres), which
present distinct philosophical issues having to do with their relationship with the first
heaven and its unmoved mover. In order to avoid any confusion, we translate the
singular term (whether Italian or Greek) as singular, the plural as plural, even though
in standard English the heavens are not referred to as “the heaven.” When the word
“heavens” appears here, it refers to the various celestial spheres.
Another translation difficulty has to do with the Italian expression stare bene,
which Berti (following Aristotle) uses with respect to God (the first unmoved
mover). The expression is difficult to translate into English without resorting to
expressions that are inappropriately used of God: the Italian sto bene means basically
“I’m in good shape” or “I feel good.” We have chosen to translate stare bene with

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love.1 The most important passage (or, rather, perhaps the only passage) on
which the traditional interpretation is based is from Book 12, Chapter 7 of
the Metaphysics, specifically the lines 1072a26–1072b4. Even though this is
quite a famous passage, I include it in full for the reader’s convenience:
The object of desire and the object of thought (to orekton kai to noêton)
move in this way; they move without being moved. Of these, the first
are identical. The object of sensible desire is the apparently beautiful,
while the primary object of rational desire is the truly beautiful. But we
desire (oregometha) it because it seems beautiful, rather than its seeming
beautiful because we desire it, for the starting point is the intellection.
The intellect is moved by the intelligible, but the in-itself-intelligible is
one of the two series, and in this, substance is first, and of substance, that
which is simple and in act (the one and the simple are not the same, for
‘one’ signifies a measure, but ‘simple’ signifies a way of being). But the
beautiful and that which is in itself desirable are found in the same series,
and the first is always best or analogous to the best.That the end is found
among the immobile things is shown by the distinction, for the end is
for someone, of which the one is immobile, the other not. It moves as
loved, and by means of that which is moved it moves the other things.2

In my opinion this passage, traditionally interpreted as demonstrating
that the unmoved mover of the heaven is a final cause, is not speaking
about the unmoved mover of the heaven but rather about the object of
human desire and human intelligence, as follows from the use of the first
person plural (oregometha, “we desire”). This object, as also evident in De
anima, moves while remaining unmoved, through the desiring faculty (to
orektikon), which faculty (as opposed to the object) moves while being
itself moved.3 The primary object of human desire and the primary
the expression “to be fine” (or the corresponding derivative expressions), as in the
answer someone might make to the question, “How are you?” (“I am fine.”) This
translation has the disadvantage that people tend to use “I am fine” in a defensive
manner (“You look terrible!” “I’m fine”) which is not the connotation here; but it
has the advantage of being close semantically to the Greek words eu and kalos
frequently employed by Aristotle when speaking of God.
1 My principal studies on this theme are found in the second volume of E. Berti,
Nuovi studi aristotelici (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2005).
2 Aristotle, Metaph. XII 7, 1072a26–b4. For the lines 1072b2–3, I accept the reading of all manuscripts as printed by Bekker, but not the emendations of Christ,
Ross, and Jaeger. That reading is, in fact, sufficient to explain the distinction
between the end, which is immobile, and that of which it is the end, which
instead is moved by the end.
3 Aristotle, De anima III 10, where he says that the object of human desire (to orekton) moves (while remaining unmoved) the faculty of appetite (to orektikon),
which in turn moves (while being moved) man.

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object of human intelligence—as Aristotle asserts in the passage given
above—coincide, because the primary object of human desire, which is
the supreme good (ariston), coincides with the primary object of thought,
which is that substance that is simple and exists actually. Now, following
from Chapter 7, as well as from other Aristotelian texts, it emerges that
the supreme good of man is theôria.4 That which is a simple substance, as
is evident in various passages of the Metaphysics, is form.5 In the case of
man, the form is the intellective soul, that is, the intellect (nous), and
theôria is the intellect’s activity; therefore, Aristotle can say that that which
is primarily intelligible, i.e., the form, and that which is primarily desirable, i.e., theôria, coincide.
This good cannot be the unmoved mover of the heaven because—as
follows from De anima III 10, 433b15–16—that which moves desire is
always a practicable good (to prakton agathon), i.e., contingent, whereas the
unmoved mover of the heaven is in no way practicable, or achievable by
means of an action. That which “moves as loved” (kinei hôs erômenon) is
therefore the primary object of human desire and human thought, i.e.,
theôria, which, “by means of that which is moved,” i.e., the faculty of
appetite, “moves other things,” i.e., human beings. The unmoved mover of
the heaven moves in the same way, not because it also is an object of desire,
but because it moves while remaining unmoved, and by means of the first
heaven, which is moved, other things are moved, i.e., the other heavens, the
sun, and earthly things (“nature”). But this does not mean that it also [i.e.,
the unmoved mover] is the object of desire and thought: It moves as the
moving cause of the heaven,6 not as final cause of the heaven or of any
other thing. The entire passage is only a comparison that notes how both
the heavenly mover and the object of human desire move while remaining unmoved and move by means of something that is moved. 7
In the subsequent lines, Aristotle resumes speaking of the unmoved
mover of the heaven and notes the difference between the unmoved mover
4 This follows from what he affirms further on in the same chapter, i.e., in

1072b24, and in Nicomachean Ethics X 6–7.
5 That that which is a simple substance is the form follows from Metaph. VII 17,

1041b9–11, and IX 10, 1051b26–28.
6 In Metaph. XII 6, 1071b12, Aristotle calls it kinêtikon ê poiêtikon, i.e., “motor or

efficient.”
7 That the entire passage is referring to the object of human desire and not the

unmoved mover of the heaven has also been pointed out by Annick Stevens in
a paper presented at an Aristotelian seminar on causality, held in Brussels in
September 2002; cf. A. Stevens, “La causalité de l’intellect dans la Métaphysique et
le traité De l’Âme,” in La causalité chez Aristote, ed. L. Couloubaritsis and S.
Delcomminette (Paris: Vrin; Bruxelles: Ousia, 2011), 125–38.

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of the heaven and the heaven itself: the heaven can be other than it is, i.e.,
it is contingent, because its movement is local, whereas the unmoved
mover, inasmuch as it is unmoved, could not in any sense be other than it
is; that is, it is a necessary being, and for this reason “is fine” (kalôs), and it
is in this sense that it is a principle (kai houtôs arkhê ).8 At this point, Aristotle recalls the various meanings of the term “necessary” distinguished in
Book 5 of the Metaphysics (his dictionary of philosophical terms), that is:
“that which is by compulsion (in the sense that it is contrary to desire), that
without which something is not fine, and that which cannot be otherwise,
but is in a single way (haplôs).”9 Right after this he adds, “on such a principle (ek toiautês arkhês) depend the heaven and nature.”10 Since the
primary meaning of the term “necessary” mentioned is that which cannot
be otherwise, there is no doubt that the unmoved mover is a necessary
principle in this sense; however, it could also be a necessary principle in the
sense of “necessary” that is mentioned just prior, as that which is a condition of being fine, that is to say of the realization, on the part of the heaven
and of nature, of their good. In Book 5, it emerges that necessary principles in this sense are such things as breathing and food, which are necessary to live, or medicine, necessary in order to regain health, or travelling
via ship, necessary to acquire goods. We are talking, therefore, not about
final causes but rather conditions, i.e., efficient causes. That which is necessary is not the end in any of these cases because, if the necessary is understood as that which cannot be otherwise, it is not practicable, and if it is
understood as that which is necessary for being fine, it is an efficient cause
and does not coincide with the good for which it is necessary. The
unmoved mover could be a necessary principle as a condition of the good
of the heaven and other things since, in causing the movement of the
heaven, it permits the heaven, along with all the other things that are
moved by the heaven, to attain their good. In the case of heavenly bodies
this good consists in their circular movements, and in the case of earthly
bodies, particularly living things, in their eternal reproduction.11
Later on, Aristotle explains that the unmoved mover of the heaven
undertakes an activity that is pleasure (hêdonê ), and is therefore thought
(noêsis), because even for man thought is the most pleasing activity there
is, except that man enjoys it only in certain moments, whereas the
unmoved mover always enjoys it. For this reason, i.e., because it thinks, it
is a living being—thought is in fact a form of life—and, in being a living
8 Metaph. XII 7, 1072b4–13.
9 Metaph. XII 7, 1072b12–13; cf. Metaph. V 5, 1015a20–26.
10 Metaph. XII 7, 1072b13–14.
11 Aristotle, De anima II 4, 415a35–b3.

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being that is supremely good and eternal, because it eternally undertakes
the most pleasing of all activities, it corresponds to the definition that the
Greeks gave the gods (i.e., “immortal and supremely good living beings”)
and it is therefore a god. For the same reason the supreme principle,
notwithstanding Speusippus, is also supreme beauty and supreme goodness (to kalliston kai ariston).12
But for Aristotle, pleasure indicates that somebody is carrying out an
activity that is an end in itself; thus the unmoved mover of the heaven,
inasmuch as it takes delight, carries out an activity that is an end in itself.
In the first treatise on pleasure in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle in fact
affirms that pleasures are not forms of generation, i.e., they are not
processes, but “activities and end” (energeiai kai telos)13 and that “God
always enjoys a single and simple pleasure; for there is not only an activity of movement but an activity of immobility, and pleasure is found
more in rest than in movement.”14 And in the second treatise on the same
argument, contained in the same work, he affirms that “pleasure accompanies activity,” in which by activity he means precisely not a movement
but an activity that is an end for itself.15
In addition, in a famous passage from De caelo, in order to explain why
the heaven moves in a single movement whereas the planets move in
many movements, Aristotle affirms: “For it is plausible that the bestconditioned of all things should have its good without action, that that
which is nearest to it should achieve it by little and simple action, and
that which is farther removed by a complexity of actions.”16 This signifies that the unmoved mover eternally attains its own good, i.e., its own
end, while remaining immobile, while the first heaven, which is nearest
to it, attains its good through a single action, i.e., circular movement, and
the planets, which are further away, attain their good through the means
of many actions, i.e., many movements. The unmoved mover, therefore,
is an end in itself, whereas the heaven has circular movement as its end
and the planets have as their end the many movements to which they are
subject. In De caelo, Aristotle also affirms, “while the perfectly conditioned
has no need of action, since it is itself the end (esti gar auto to hou heneka),
and action always requires two terms, that is, both the end and that which
is for the end.”17 Therefore, the unmoved mover, which exists in the
12 Metaph. XII 7, 1072b14–34.
13 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VII 13, 1153a10.
14 Ibid., 15, 1154b26–28.
15 Ibid., X 4, 1175a5.
16 Aristotle, De caelo II 12, 292a22–24.
17 Ibid., 292b4–7.

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highest state possible, is itself the end. But of whom is it the end? Of
itself, because the affirmation that it is the end justifies the fact that there
is no need for any action in order to bring it about.
II. Book 12, Chapter 10
Chapter 10 is a little-studied chapter, as evidenced by the scarcity of
commentary dedicated to it, and the most recent study of it, David
Sedley’s, is influenced by the traditional interpretation of the unmoved
mover as final cause.18 The entire chapter deals with the problem of how
the universe (hê tou holou phusis) possesses the good or the highest good,
whether as something separate (kekhôrismenon ti ), or as an order (taxis), or
in both ways. Aristotle’s response encompasses this last option: The
supreme good is like an army general, i.e., it is separate, and it is the
unmoved mover of the heaven; however, order is also a good—the immanent order of the universe—which is nonetheless subordinate to the
unmoved mover, because the unmoved mover is the cause.19 The good
in which the unmoved mover consists is evidently an efficient cause, in
the way a general is the efficient cause of an army’s order. The unmoved
mover is the supreme good first of all because it is prime, eternal, and
maximally self-sufficient, i.e., “because it is fine” (dioti eu echei ).20 It is the
supreme good, then, because it is the cause of that good which is order,
the highest of which is the order of the universe; or better put, it [i.e.,
order] is a realizable good (prakton) thanks to the action of the unmoved
mover, and in this sense it can be considered a final cause.
“And all things,” Aristotle continues, “are ordered together somehow
(suntetaktai pôs)”—fish, birds, and plants—“but not all alike (oukh
homoiôs),” i.e., not in the sense that they all have the same end.21 In fact,
in the Eudemian Ethics I 8, 1218a30–33 Aristotle affirms: “And to say that
all existing things desire some one good (henos tinos agathou) is not true;
for each seeks its own special good (idiou agathou), the eye vision, the
body health, and so on.”Yet, things do not lack relations with each other;
something is held in common, “for all are coordinated in relation to one
(pros men gar hen hapanta suntetaktai ).”22 This “one,” in relation to which
all things are coordinated, i.e., are in order, is not an end but is rather the
cause of the order; namely, it is the unmoved mover of the heaven, which
18 D. Sedley, “Lambda 10,” in Aristotle’s Metaphysics Lambda: Symposium Aristotelicum,

ed. M. Frede and D. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 327–50.
19 Aristotle, Metaph. XII 10, 1075a11–15.
20 Cf. Metaph. XIV 4, 1091b14–20.
21 Metaph. XII 10, 1075a16–17.
22 Ibid., 1075a16–19.

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is an efficient cause. Likewise in a house, Aristotle continues, the freemen
act in an ordered way, while the servants and animals at times act
randomly, contributing little to the common good (to koinon), i.e., to the
order. The same thing occurs in the universe, “for this is the sort of principle that constitutes the nature of each. I mean, for instance, that all must
at least come to be dissolved into their elements, and there are other
functions similarly in which all share for the good of the whole.”23 In
short, because all things can participate in the whole (i.e., take part in the
universe, in coming to be), it is necessary that some of them cease to be
in order to give way to others, and this is the order, i.e., the common
good, the good of nature. The direct cause of this generation and corruption, as Aristotle explains in Book 12, Chapter 6, is the annual motion of
the sun along the ecliptic, which determines the changing seasons, and
the primary cause of the sun’s annual motion is the unmoved mover of
the heaven.24
At this point, after having thoroughly expounded a proper understanding of the good, Aristotle, as is his custom, compares it with the
thought of preceding and contemporary philosophers. Those who posit
contraries as principles err, first of all, because they do not realize
contraries require a third principle, i.e., a substratum, and, secondly,
because they identify the good with one of the two principles (Plato),
with the result that all things, besides participating in the good, also
participate in evil. If, on the other hand, they do not identify the good
with either of the two principles (Speusippus), then they do not realize
that “in all things the good is in the highest degree a principle (en hapasi
malista to agathon arkhê ).” The first thinkers are right, but they do not
explain how the good is a principle, “whether as final cause or as moving
cause or as form ( poteron hôs telos ê hôs kinêsan ê hôs eidos).”25 Thus, for
Aristotle the good is a principle, but it needs to be specified in what way:
The alternatives he proposes, as final cause, as moving cause, or as form,
are evidently diverse, so the different types of causes cannot be identified
with each other. Furthermore, in the whole Metaphysics he says that the
moving cause can be identical with the form and end only in species, in
the case of animals, not in number.26
Empedocles, Aristotle continues, identifies the good with friendship,
but he errs because he conceives friendship as a moving cause and he
conceives it together with the material cause, whereas these two causes
23 Ibid., 1075a19–25.
24 Metaph. XII 6, 1072a9–17.
25 Metaph. XII 10, 1075a25–b1.
26 Cf. Metaph. VII 8, 1033b30–1034a9; VIII 4, 1044a32–b1.

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are in essence diverse. In addition, he errs because he identifies evil with
strife, considering it imperishable.27 Yet again, therefore, Aristotle desires
that the types of causes be kept well distinguished from each other.
Anaxagoras, treated next by Aristotle, posits the good as a moving
principle; in fact, he identifies it with Nous, which moves: “But it moves
for the sake of something, which must be other than it (host’heteron),
unless it is as we say ( plên hôs hêmeis legomen), for medicine is in a certain
sense health.”28 In Book 3, 984b15–22, Aristotle notes that Anaxagoras
posits Nous as “the cause of the world and of all its order (aition tou kosmou
kai tês taxeôs pasês),” that is, as the “cause of its being fine (tou kalôs tên
aitian)”; however, he conceives of it as a cause from which movement
derives, i.e., as an efficient cause, and for this reason Anaxagoras’s view
seems sensible with respect to all of his predecessors, who spoke at
random. Aristotle, therefore, does not disapprove of Anaxagoras’s conception of the good as an efficient cause, but he objects that Nous of which
Anaxagoras speaks acts in view of an end—and this means that the good,
inasmuch as it is an end, is different from Nous (host’heteron can refer both
to the good and the end). This seems to be a difficulty, because he puts
forth two diverse goods without explaining what relation there is
between them. Nonetheless, Aristotle suggests remedying this difficulty
through recourse to his doctrine according to which “medicine is in a
certain sense health.” This doctrine, as noted, considers medicine as the
art that permits the physician to procure health, because it contains
ideally the form of health, and this therefore ensures that the physician,
inasmuch as he realizes a form he possesses in his mind precisely because
he is a physician, in a certain sense realizes himself, i.e., is an end in
himself, and does not have an end other than himself.29
If this doctrine is applied to that Nous which for Aristotle is the
unmoved mover of the heaven, one must admit that the unmoved mover
of the heaven possesses in its own mind the form of the order of which it
is the efficient cause in the universe, whereupon, bringing about the
cosmic order, it does not act in view of an end different from itself, but acts
having, in a certain sense, itself as the end. Aristotle’s unmoved mover
emerges in this way as similar to the demiurge of the Timaeus, which brings
order out of disorder, so that a beautiful world is brought about, because
the demiurge itself is good and gazes upon a beautiful model (the world of
Ideas). Yet, the difference remains, for which Aristotle reproaches the
Timaeus, that the organizing action of the demiurge presupposes an exter27 Metaph. XII 10, 1075b1–7.
28 Ibid., 1075b8–11.
29 Cf. Metaph. VII 7, 1032a3–b6.

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nal model (of which Aristotle denies the existence) and brings the world
from a preexisting disorder to order, establishing an order that at first did
not exist, and is therefore generated; whereas the moving action of the
unmoved mover is exerted all along and forever, for which reason it causes
order, but rather than a generated order it is an eternal one.Yet, perhaps it
is not necessary to overemphasize this allusion of Aristotle to his doctrine
of medicine and health, which only serves to critique Anaxagoras.
Philosophers, Aristotle continues, who posit contraries as principles (i.e.,
the Platonists) do not explain how some things are corruptible and others
incorruptible, since all of them derive from the same principles, whereas it
is necessary to admit diverse principles (the four earthly elements for
corruptible things, ether for those incorruptible).30 They do not explain,
moreover, how there is constant generation and what the cause of generation is (which for Aristotle is the sun, moved in its turn by the prime
mover).31 Lastly, they do not explain how sensible things participate in the
Ideas, whereas for Aristotle, in addition to the two contrary principles
(form and matter) a superior principle (arkhê kuriôtera) is needed that
explains such a participation, i.e., an efficient cause, the unmoved mover.32
These same philosophers, Aristotle observes, admit a principle contrary
“to wisdom, i.e., to the highest knowledge (têi sophiai kai têi timiôtatêi
epistêmêi),” whereas they do not need to admit it, because there is nothing
contrary to that which is primary and because the opposite of knowledge
would be ignorance.33 Here Aristotle is clearly thinking of the unmoved
mover posited by himself, which possesses wisdom and the highest knowledge, as evident in Metaphysics Book 1, Chapter 2, 983a9–10, i.e., it knows
the first causes and cosmic order of which it is the efficient cause. The
ideas and numbers set forth by Plato, on the other hand, do not cause
movement, i.e., they are not efficient causes but only formal causes and as
such do not explain that which has size and is extended. Additionally,
neither of Plato’s two contrary principles (the one and the indefinite dyad)
are “that which is in itself both efficient and moving (hoper kai poiêtikon kai
kinêtikon),” which instead for Plato is the world’s soul. But this, inasmuch
as it moves itself, is in potency, and therefore it could also have the possibility of not moving, or at least its doing is posterior to its potency
(husteron ge to poiein dunameôs), for which reason this does not explain the
existence of an eternal movement, which is that of the heaven.34
30 Metaph. XII 10, 1075b11–14.
31 Ibid., 16–18.
32 Ibid., 18–20.
33 Ibid., 20–22.
34 Ibid., 1075b22–34. Cf. XII 6, 1071b19–22.

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The Platonists, moreover, do not explain how numbers form a unity,
or how the soul and body form a unity, or in general the unity of form
and the thing, “unless one speaks as do we (Aristotle), saying that the
mover produces this unity (hôs to kinoun poiei ).”35 As is evident, the entire
critique of the Platonists revolves around the absence, in their doctrine,
of an efficient cause (kinêtikon, poiêtikon, kinoun, poiein), which is present
in Aristotle’s doctrine, and is the unmoved mover of the heaven.
Whoever admits, Aristotle lastly concludes, mathematical number as a
principle (i.e., Speusippus), and thereby always admits another reality that
comes next and diverse principles for diverse realities (i.e., a series of successive levels of reality, each with its own principles), renders the reality of the
universe episodic, since each reality in no way contributes to the others,
either by its existence or by its non-existence, and admits of many principles. Things, however, must not be governed ( politeuesthai) badly, “The rule
of many is not good; let there be one ruler.”36 In citing this Homeric verse,
recalling the supreme command of the Greek army entrusted to Agamemnon,37 Aristotle again takes up the metaphor of the army general, with
which he began the chapter, and he yet again identifies the supreme good
with the general, as the cause of good rule, that is, of order.
On the whole, therefore, Book 12, Chapter 10 reinforces the Aristotelian conception of the good of the universe as the unmoved mover of
the heaven, the efficient cause of that subordinate good that is the cosmic
order, consisting of the fact that each thing tends toward its own good, but
in a way that is coordinated with all the others. The only novelty introduced by Aristotle’s discussion of other philosophers seems to be the
critique of Anaxagoras’s Nous, which acts in view of another, unless
conceived according to the Aristotelian doctrine in which the artist who
produces an object succeeds in realizing the form constituted by his own
art, i.e., by himself. If one is obligated to apply this observation to the
unmoved mover, one would have to admit that the unmoved mover is an
Intellect, which, however, as opposed to that posited by Anaxagoras,
contains in itself the idea of the cosmic order, and thus, in causing the
order, has itself as an end. This conception finds little textual verification
in Aristotle, if one sets aside the passage already cited from the Metaphysics
Book 1, Chapter 2, where it is stated that the science of first causes is
divine because, in addition to having God as its object, who is one of the
first causes, God alone or God above all others can have it.38 If in fact
35 Ibid., 1075b34–37.
36 Ibid., 1075b37–1076a4.
37 Homer, Iliad II, 204.
38 Metaph. I 2, 983a5–10.

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God, i.e., the unmoved mover, possesses the knowledge of first causes,
because he knows himself, one must admit that in knowing himself as the
cause of the cosmic order he possess the knowledge of the same cosmic
order. In any case, the unmoved mover of whom Aristotle speaks cannot
be conceived of as an artist, who first conceives of a project and then
carries it out, because he moves the heaven eternally. The reason, in fact,
why Aristotle refused to accept a demiurge such as that described in the
Timaeus is that he judges this conception to be too anthropomorphic and
incompatible with his doctrine of the eternity of the world.
III. Appendix
In order to elucidate and support the interpretation proposed of Book
12, Chapters 7 and 10, it is useful to cite other passages, set forth in various works of Aristotle, that regard single points treated in Book 12. One
of these is in the Eudemian Ethics I 7, where Aristotle distinguishes practicable ( prakta) and non-practicable goods (ou prakta). The latter he identifies with beings that do not participate in movement (i.e., with the
unmoved movers of the heaven) and are by nature best (arista). The practicable goods are divided in turn into those that are practicable for human
beings and those that are “practicable for beings superior to us ( prakta
kreittosin hêmôn),” that is, presumably the heavens and stars. Even the
latter, therefore, tend toward practicable goods, which are not their
unmoved movers (which are not practicable). Finally, practicable goods
are divided into goods practicable in view of other goods, for example
health and riches, and goods practicable as ends in themselves, i.e., happiness. Happiness is the best (ariston) of the goods practicable for human
beings.39 The result of all of this is that the supreme good, i.e., the
unmoved mover, is not the end either of man or of the heaven because
it is practicable by no one; or, better, it is the end only of itself, an end
that is had without the need of any action.
Another passage useful in clarifying the Aristotelian conception of the
good is in Eudemian Ethics I 8. This passage explains well the difference
between the two goods; namely, that which is separate, i.e., transcendent,
which is the unmoved mover of the heaven, and that which is immanent
to nature, which is order.
‘Good’ is said in many ways and something of it is beautiful (kai esti ti
autou kalon), and the one is practicable (prakton) and the other is not
practicable. And the good of this type is practicable, that is, the end, but
it is not in immobile things. It is clear, then, that neither the Idea of
39 Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics I 7, 1217a30–40.

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good is the good itself that we are seeking, nor is the common predicate (for the one is immobile and not practical, the other mobile but
not practical), while that for the sake of which [we act] as end is the
best, and it is the cause of those things under it, and it is the first of
them all. This then will be the good itself, the end of actions practicable by man (to telos tôn anthrôpôi praktôn). This is the object of the
knowledge which has authority over all, which is politics, economics
and phronêsis.40

The non-practicable good is evidently the unmoved mover of the
heaven, while the supreme practicable good is the ultimate end of man,
i.e., happiness, which renders good everything that helps bring it about,
and it is the object, not of first philosophy, but of practical philosophy
(politics, economics, and ethics). The unmoved and non-practicable good
is an efficient cause; the supreme practicable good is a final cause.
Regarding Aristotle’s conception of the good, other clarifications are
found in the Movement of Animals 6. This passage also explains the difference between the two goods:
From these considerations it is clear that in one regard that which is
eternally moved by the eternal mover is moved in the same way
(homoiôs) as every living creature, in another regard differently (allôs),
and so while it is moved eternally, the movement of living creatures has
a limit. Now the eternally beautiful (to de aidion kalon), and the truly
and primarily good (alêthôs kai prôtôs) (which is not at one time good,
at another time not good), is too divine and precious to be anterior
(theioteron kai timiôteron hôst’einai proteron). The prime mover then
moves, itself being unmoved, whereas desire and its faculty are moved
and so move. But it is not necessary for the last in the chain of things
moved to move something else.41

The similarity between the way in which the unmoved mover of the
heaven moves the heaven and the unmoved mover of the animals, i.e., the
object of desire, moves each animal consists in the fact that both move
while remaining unmoved and they move through the means of that
which is moved; the difference consists above all in the fact that the
unmoved mover of the heaven moves eternally, whereas the unmoved
mover of the animals moves until it is realized, and also in the fact that
the unmoved mover of the heaven, here referred to also as “eternally
40 Ibid., 8, 1218b4–14.
41 Aristotle, De motu animalium 6, 700b29–701a2. I follow the text handed down by

all of the manuscripts, setting aside the corrections introduced by the modern
editors (W. Jaeger and M. C. Nussbaum), which seem to me unnecessary.

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beautiful” and “truly and primarily good,” is far too divine to be anterior,
i.e., to be the end that precedes all the actions that are aimed toward it.42
In sum, the unmoved mover of the heaven is the “first” ( prôton) good,
i.e., supreme, and not simply “anterior” ( proteron), as, on the other hand,
is the object of desire, i.e., the end that moves the animals.43
The only passage, other than that from Book 12, Chapter 7 which we
cited in the beginning, in which Aristotle could seem to be oriented
toward conceiving of the unmoved mover as a final cause is in Physics II
7, where he says:
Now the principles which cause motion in a natural way ( phusikôs) are
two, of which one does not belong to nature (ou phusikê ), as it does not
possess the principle of movement in itself. Of this kind is whatever
causes movement, not being itself moved, such as that which is
completely immobile, the primary reality (to pantelôs akinêton kai pantôn
prôton), and the essence and the form; for it is the end and that for the
sake of which (telos gar kai hou heneka).44

According to some interpretations (H. Carteron, O. Hamelin, L.
Couloubaritsis), the last phrase “for this is the end or that for the sake of
which” refers both to the unmoved mover and to the form; others do not
clarify to which of the two principles it is referring (A. Russo, L. Ruggiu,
G. R. de Echandìa, P. Pellegrin); still others maintain it refers only to the
form (P. H. Wicksteed–F. M. Cornford, R. P. Hardie–R. K. Gaye, H.
Wagner, W. Charlton, F. Franco Repellini, G. R. Giardina). As Rita Salis
has convincingly demonstrated, that phrase refers only to the form,
because the principles that move in a natural way (i.e., not violently like
man) are two, the unmoved mover and form, both of which are capable
of moving while remaining unmoved. Yet, whereas the unmoved mover
has no need to be explained as a mover, since it is introduced precisely
with this qualification, the form, on the other hand, does require this
explanation, since in itself it seems to be only a formal principle and not
a mover as well. So the explanation according to which such a principle
moves as an end and final cause regards only the form, the only principle for which it is necessary to explain how it could also be a moving
42 That the end precedes the actions that tend toward realizing it also follows from

Eudemian Ethics II, 1227a7–9.
43 On these passages see my works Le rapport entre cause motrice et cause finale dans la

“Métaphysique” and La cause du mouvement dans les êtres vivants, published in the
collection E. Berti, Dialectique, physique, métaphysique: Études sur Aristote (Louvainla-Neuve: Peeters, 2008).
44 Aristotle, Physics II 7, 198a35–b4.

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principle.45 Therefore, the unmoved mover is not being characterized as
a final cause. Both the unmoved mover and the form move in a natural
way, i.e., non-violently, but the unmoved mover does not belong to
nature, that is, it is not a “physical” principle (today we would say, “metaphysical”), whereas the form is a physical principle, because it is the form
of natural bodies and is the principle of movement within them, although
not as a moving cause but rather as final cause.
In conclusion, all of Aristotle’s passages that address the unmoved mover
speak of it as an efficient cause and none of them, it seems to me, speak of
it as the final cause of the heaven or of the universe.The interpretation of it
as a final cause already existed at the time of Aristotle, as Theophrastus attests,
in the works of several Platonists who posit that between the heaven and
the unmoved mover there is a relationship of “imitation,” which is coherent
with the logic of Platonism.46 This interpretation was consolidated with
Alexander of Aphrodisias,47 influencing the entire tradition, not only in
commentaries, but also philosophically in the most general sense. It acquired
a justification above all in the creation philosophies, Christian, Jewish, and
Muslim, because in the creationist visions God, being the total and sole
cause of the universe, and having only himself as the end of his own actions,
N&V
is himself also proposed as the end of the entire universe.48
45 Rita Salis, “La causalità naturale in Aristotele, Fisica II 7,” a paper presented at the

conference Fine del Dio di Aristotele, organized by the Pontifical Theological
Faculty of Sardinia, held May 5, 2009 in Cagliari, now published in Studi su Aristotele e la tradizione aristotelica, ed. C. Rossitto (Lecce: Edizioni di Storia della
tradizione Aristotelica, 2011), 81–102.
46 Theophrastus, Metaph. 5a25–29. Regarding this passage, see my work “Teofrasto
e gli Accademici sul moto dei cieli,” in Gigantomachia: Convergenze e divergenze fra
Platone e Aristotele, ed. M. Migliori (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2002), 339–58.
47 Cf. E. Berti, “Il movimento del cielo in Alessandro di Afrodisia,” in La filosofia in
età imperiale: Atti del Colloquio, Roma, 17–19 giugno 1999, ed. A. Brancacci
(Naples: Bibliopolis, 2000), 225–43.
48 In the conference at Cagliari mentioned above, Fr. Kevin Flannery presented a
paper on my interpretation of the unmoved mover in which he pointed to a passage
in which (according to his interpretation) Aristotle would be making an allusion to
an imitation of the unmoved mover on the part of the heaven.The passage is found
at PhysicsVIII 10, 267b5–9, where Aristotle affirms that “that which is moved need
not undergo any change with respect to it (that is, with respect to the unmoved
mover) in order that its movement might be similar (homoia).” Flannery interprets
this “similar” as “similar to the activity of the first mover,” whereas to me it seems
clear, and all interpreters agree on this point, that the movement of the heaven, as
Aristotle has just said, must be similar to itself, i.e., continuous, as in fact circular
movement is. Here “similar” means “identical” (see also L. Ruggiu, in Aristotle, Fisica
[Milan: Rusconi, 1995], which gives the translation, “affinché il movimento si mantenga
identico” [“so that the movement remains identical”].)

Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 10, No. 3 (2012): 877–94

877

Book Reviews
Perfecting Human Actions: St. Thomas Aquinas on Human
Participation in Eternal Law by John Rziha (Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2009), x + 300 pages
W HETHER an intellectual tradition descends from the ancient, the
medieval, or even the modern period, its doctrines find no easy entrance
into the muddled musings that occupy the minds of postmodern collegians. Alas, the Thomistic traditions of philosophy and theology afford no
exception. Classical Thomist doctrines may capture the attention of today’s
theology students, but Thomist categories seldom shape the students’ overall comprehension of things. An alien-to-Aquinas worldview has already
made of their minds its dwelling place. Faced with this difficulty, what can
a twenty-first-century Thomist do? One professor, who holds a chair at a
prestigious university, engages head on his students’ hipster sensibilities. He
recommends that they have tattooed on their wrists, as a sort of permanent
aide-mémoire, the words “analogy” and “participation.” Professor X drives his
point home. He insists that to understand both the sum and the parts of St.
Thomas’s moral doctrine, his students must master the way in which analogy and participation inform the whole of St. Thomas’s teaching. Otherwise, students bring to Aquinas’s texts their own postmodern suppositions,
which exclude analogical thinking and emphasize atomistic autonomy.
In light of the inhospitable circumstances that Thomism encounters
both in the United States and abroad, two recent publications supply
promising resources for professors and students of St.Thomas’s moral theology. One treats the topic of analogy; the other, participation. For the muchdebated topic of analogy, Steven Long’s well-received Analogia Entis: On the
Analogy of Being, Metaphysics, and the Act of Faith (University of Notre Dame
Press, 2011) merits special attention.This recently published work complements the excellent study by John Rziha, Perfecting Human Actions: St.
Thomas Aquinas on Human Participation in Eternal Law. Rziha provides his
reader a broad and thorough overview of St. Thomas’s moral doctrine as
seen through the philosophical optic of participation.

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The light that guides the substance of Rziha’s work returns us to the
sources of the moral life. We are reminded that participation in the eternal law furnishes the hermeneutical key—the Rosetta stone, if you will—
for reading and interpreting St. Thomas’s moral theology. The author
warns his readers: “No single created principle of morality (whether it be
reason, nature, virtue, law, happiness, grace, or the gifts) acts as a proper
foundation of Thomas’s theological moral theory” (281). Rziha goes on
to argue that certain presentations of Aquinas’s moral doctrine falter
because they focus inordinately on one or another of these created principles. That is to say, contemporary authors attempt to explain these principles without relating them to the uncreated foundation in which St.
Thomas locates them. “All of these principles work together in Thomas’s
moral theory because,” so the author insists, “they cause different modes
of participation in the eternal law” (281). Perfecting Human Actions, as the
title suggests, affords the careful reader the outline for a course in
Thomistic moral teaching. The author sets forth the principles and divisions that control what Thomists teach about the moral life. The human
person’s participation in the eternal law sets the norm for determining
which actions perfect the subject and which do not.
To buttress his argument regarding participation, Rhiza recalls the
moral riddle that Plato ponders in the Euthyphro, and he illustrates how
the Judeo-Christian philosophical tradition solves Plato’s dilemma. Unlike
the student of the Academy, Rziha notes, the Jewish or Christian moral
theorist begins his inquiry into the goodness of human actions with the
observation that “God by nature is true and good, and all other things are
true and good by participation in God” (2). Rziha explains the importance of rooting ethics, therefore, in a theory of participation: “In this
view, God is the source of all moral truth but not an arbitrary source.
Through his wisdom, God has created a universe where each creature is
fulfilled by performing its own proper action.When God legislates morality, this legislation is in accord with His divine wisdom, and when humans
know moral truth, their knowledge participates in divine knowledge. The
divine wisdom that orders all creatures to perform their proper actions is
called eternal law” (2). Throughout the whole of Perfecting Human Actions,
Rziha establishes the foundation for what Veritatis Splendor calls theonomy: “By developing the notion of participation in eternal law, this work
is meant to show the proper relation of human actions to God” (2).
Chapters 1 and 2 supply the historical and metaphysical groundwork
that introduces the reader into the basic mechanics, as it were, of participation. The second part of Chapter 2 is especially valuable in this regard.
Rziha walks the reader through the major treatises of the prima secundae

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879

of the Summa theologiae, and he demonstrates how St. Thomas regards the
human moral act as a participation in the eternal law, that is, as an effect
participating in its cause. In addition, Rziha helpfully makes clear how
this participation obtains in the orders of both nature and grace.
Chapters 3 and 4 form the heart of Rziha’s work. In the former, Rziha
examines the variety of ways in which the eternal law moves and governs
human activity: through the inclinations of human nature, through the
acquired and infused virtues, and through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Chapter 4 focuses on man’s cognitive participation in the eternal law.
Among the many benefits of this chapter, the reader discovers a treatment
of the workings of practical reason, an account of practical reason’s
dependence on speculative reason, a review of the twelve steps that mark
a completed moral act, and an explanation of practical reason’s perfection
through virtue and grace. In Chapter 5, Rziha demonstrates the strength
of his method of moral inquiry by applying it to various contemporary
moral debates, such as grace and freedom, divine law and human politics,
and practical advice on how to treat specific situations.
Because it orients virtue ethics toward the prior and complementary
doctrine of participation—a proper orientation noted specifically in Veritatis Splendor 40—Perfecting Human Actions merits a wide readership. The
book should find a place on the shelves of moral theology professors and
in the hands of all students of divinity. Though admittedly not as hip an
aide-mémoire as that of Professor X, Rziha’s book will leave a more lasting
impression on its readers than any tattoo can create.
N&V
Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P.
University of Fribourg
Fribourg, Switzerland
Romanus Cessario, O.P.
Saint John’s Seminary
Boston, MA

Divine Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering edited
by James F. Keating and Thomas Joseph White, O.P. (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2009), x + 357 pp.
D IVINE Impassibility and the Mystery of Human Suffering is a significant
volume, for more reasons than one. The topic treated is itself one of central
importance, as some of the essays contained therein argue explicitly. Claims
of divine impassibility—the teaching that God cannot suffer, or more specifically, that God altogether escapes creaturely vulnerability to being
changed—is certainly one of the oldest Christian tenets, central to early

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Christian understandings of the divine nature and of salvation. For the most
part, the teaching remained quite undisturbed for 1,800 years or so. Serious
challenges, though, to this understanding of God arose in the nineteenth
century, and these became widespread in the twentieth. Either in outright
rejection of the doctrine, or in radical rethinking of it, thinkers including
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Barth, and Jurgen Moltmann have, in different ways, moved a long-settled matter into the realm of disputation.
It is an issue worth thinking through for anyone interested in Christian theology, and for that task, this volume is a highly valuable resource.
Indeed, this is something like a round-table discussion of the topic, with
essays authored by Catholic scholars as well as by Orthodox and Protestant scholars, and with views spanning a wide variety of opinion.
Gilles Emery, Paul Gondreau, Thomas Weinandy, Bruce Marshall, and
Trent Pomplun, each arguing from a Catholic position, offer various
reassertions of a traditional understanding of impassibility. Emery offers a
remarkably thorough, if brief, recounting of the history of the doctrine
of impassibility. He draws upon St. Thomas Aquinas to argue that the
passion of Christ finds its full power and intelligibility in the context of
an explicitly Trinitarian account.
Paul Gondreau also works in a Thomistic context, but his emphasis is a
narrower one, exploring Christ’s affective suffering in view of St.Thomas’s
account of the communication of the idioms. Drawing on the significant
work done in his monograph Does God Suffer? Thomas Weinandy engages
directly another one of the contributors to this volume, Robert Jenson.
Weinandy, too, leans heavily upon Aquinas as he steps back to argue that
the basic Creator/creature distinction, as articulated by Aquinas, is the
hinge that requires us to understand God as impassible. Focusing very
specifically upon Christ’s cry of dereliction from the Cross, Bruce
Marshall, writing with his usual clarity, also draws upon Aquinas to argue
for the traditional affirmation of impassibility. Marshall offers a nuanced
account of the different senses in which Christ suffered, first, for the
sinful humanity incorporated into his body, and, second, in his own
person. Trent Pomplun’s essay inquires into the work of the fourthcentury Father, St. Hilary of Poitiers, and the history of the interpretation
of his work. Pomplun notes the contemporary critiques of impassibility,
but seeks to convince readers that these critiques simply do not hold with
regard to thinkers such as St. Hilary, in whose work is described a
profoundly human suffering in Christ. Finally, in this, one of his last
works, Avery Cardinal Dulles satisfies himself with reminding readers of
a related, and very practical, perspective: the question of human suffering
in general.

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881

Paul Gavrilyuk and David Bentley Hart address the topic from their position as Orthodox thinkers. They, too, defend the claim of impassibility, but
each seeks to display the patristic account of impassibility in it fullness and
nuance. Each, we should note, also reflects in his essay a more in-depth treatment of the question accomplished elsewhere. Gavrilyuk, who had already
authored The Suffering of the Impassible God:The Dialectics of Patristic Thought,
argues that if we would uphold the Christology of the Church Fathers, we
should speak not of God’s simple isolation from suffering; we should speak,
rather, of a fundamental way in which God is related to suffering, namely,
that God is eternally victorious over it. David Bentley Hart is, in a sense, the
center of this volume, as the book evolved out of the proceedings of a
conference centered on Hart’s interest in the nature of divine transcendence. Having authored both the remarkable volume The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth and also a slim volume on theodicy
entitled The Doors of the Sea, Hart here argues that the full meaning of transcendence allows us to see that impassibility is not simply an inability to
suffer, but refers rather to a divine existence that completely surpasses “the
responsive and the unresponsive . . . receptivity and resistance.”
Other contributors to this volume argue for a revision, more or less
radical, of the notion of impassibility. Gary Culpepper turns to the Chalcedonian affirmation of “two natures” in Christ in order to argue that
there is, in fact, a kind of suffering proper to Christ’s divine nature, as
there is a suffering proper to the human nature. Bruce McCormack
elucidates, and expands upon, the position of Karl Barth, locating a
certain form of impassibility—and indeed, the divine nature itself—
within the divine will. McCormack’s essay represents a place on the
theological map that must be taken with great seriousness. This is careful
thinking that re-imagines basic ecclesial claims in a modern philosophical universe. Robert Jenson offers some response to Weinandy’s essay, but
primarily—and not uncharacteristically—he articulates a completely
innovative account, in this case drawing upon music theory.
It is, then, a remarkable gathering of scholarly opinion, and could
indeed be described as a “round table”—with one meaningful exception.
As noted, this volume responds to a controversy set in motion in the nineteenth century, and yet, if there is a position missing here, it is one clearly
and strongly growing out of the nineteenth-century philosophical movements that are most influential in this regard. Jensen is accused of Hegelian
tendencies, in what seems to this reviewer a partly accurate accusation. He
himself rejects the classification, though, and his essay here certainly does
not represent a persuasive version of Hegelian thought. Hegel, in fact, is like
a ghost haunting this volume but never speaking directly. In a sense, all the

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writers represented in this volume can be understood as responding to
him, but without a committed defender thereof among them.
Now, this is perhaps understandable. The editors do not claim that this
volume represents every viewpoint present in the current world of Christian theology, and they themselves may well have no interest in taking up
that goal. Perhaps this phenomenon of seeming to spar with an invisible
partner could be best understood not as pointing to a weakness of the
volume, but as pointing to a reality in contemporary Christian theology,
broadly considered. Aquinas, so often referred to here, and Hegel, silent
but always present, stand behind some of the most important work going
on in Christian theology today. Although the two represent radically
differing commitments regarding God’s nature and our knowledge of
Him, their intellectual heirs seldom engage with one another directly on
these most fundamental questions. A specific question such as divine
impassibility might have offered an ideal location to do that.
It is of course possible to see the writers here precisely as taking up that
task, from the perspective they represent. This is, in fact, another strength of
the volume. The authors not only offer lucid treatments of the immediate
question at hand, a fundamental one having to do with God’s nature, but
they also display implicit answers to other basic questions: what is theology?
what are its sources? in what context is it taken up? As it makes a contribution in both the smaller and the larger sense, the volume demonstrates itself
to be an unusually valuable resource for those doing theology now.
N&V
Holly Taylor Coolman
Providence College
Providence, RI

A Companion to the Catholic Enlightenment in Europe edited by
Ulrich Lehner and Michael Printy (Leiden: Brill, 2010), v + 463 pp.
TAKING the measure of an age is no easy feat. The scholar who wishes
to do so may emphasize formal characteristics or historical boundaries,
and his choices in this regard largely determine how we conceive the age
in question, be it the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, or the Enlightenment. Take, for example, one of my favorite books of the Catholic
Enlightenment, Antonio Giorgi’s Alphabetum Tibetanum (1762). Giorgi
was an Augustinian hermit with an abiding interest in Etruscan antiquities. His Alphebetum used the reports of Capuchins in Tibet to write a
training manual for missionaries who wished to evangelize the land of
snows. Such works, which introduced missionaries to the languages,
histories, and cultures of the peoples they hoped to evangelize, were a

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883

peculiar genre of the Catholic Enlightenment. Stylistically, Giorgi’s work
is a baroque tome on steroids: it is written in a dense and ponderous Latin
and wields its erudition like a sledgehammer, using nine different fonts
and quoting texts in at least fifteen languages. And yet none other than
Johann Winckelmann, the doyen of “modern” art history, wrote the official approbatio for Giorgi’s opus arduum, and Immanuel Kant quoted it
with approval. Considered formally, Giorgi’s Alphabetum Tibetanum hardly
appears a product of the Enlightenment; considered historically, it cannot
be otherwise. It belongs to that class of historical artifacts that seem to
defy their time period, but which could not have been produced in any
other age, like a séance attended by William James.
Thankfully, a generation of scholars is slowly uncovering the richness of
Catholic intellectual culture beyond the Middle Ages, and A Companion to
the Catholic Enlightenment in Europe, edited by Ulrich L. Lehner and
Michael Printy, is a worthy contribution to this endeavor. The companion
consists of nine essays. After Lehner’s summary of scholarly debates about
“Catholic Enlightenment” and similar terms, the reader is treated to eight
surveys that divide the Enlightenment geographically: Jeffrey Burson covers
the Catholic Enlightenment in France; Harm Klueting in Austria or the
Hapsburg lands; Michael Printy in the Holy Roman Empire; Mario Rosa
in Italy; Frans Ciappara in Malta; Richard Butterwick in Poland-Lithuania;
Evergton Sales Souza in Portugal; and Andrea J. Smidt concludes the
volume with a survey of the Catholic Enlightenment in Spain. Each essay
provides a solid survey and wonderful bibliography. The essays show a
remarkable unity—a testament to the prowess of the editors—each focusing on the period from the promulgation of the anti-Jansenist Unigenitus
(1715) to the Suppression of the Society of Jesus (1773), with some extending back to the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and forward to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and the Secularization in Germany (1803). In
the course of the essays, we are introduced to a range of fascinating but
lesser-known characters, from critical historians such as Jean Mabillon
(1632–1707) and Ludovico Muratori (1672–1750) to radically eclectic
philosophers such as Celestino Galiani (1681–1753) and Antonio Genovesi
(1712–69). Of particular interest is the striking number of educational
reformers: Eusebius Amort (1692–1775), Luiz Antonio Verney (1713–92),
Diego Zapata (1644–1745), and Benito Jerónimo Feijoo (1676–1764).
Priceless among the many interesting insights provided by Lehner and
Printy’s Companion is the long view it affords to contemporary controversies in the Catholic Church. Lehner subtly undercuts much of the existing
literature by setting the Catholic Enlightenment as the fulfillment of
reforms initiated at the Council of Trent (18). Indeed, it is astounding just

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Book Reviews

how “Jansenist” much of the twentieth-century criticism of the “baroque”
looks after reading Lenher and Printy’s work. We see just how much the
Enlightenment informed the later Romantic fascination with the Middle
Ages, even as the principal figures of the anti-baroque Enlightenment
simply adopted the older humanist criticism of the Middle Ages. Lehner
shows himself quite well aware of these ironies when he notes, almost in
passing, the “embarrassing realization” of noting how much of the Catholic
Enlightenment came to fruition in the Second Vatican Council (47).
Pace scholars such as Jonathan Israel, Lehner and Printy use their
massive erudition to demonstrate that Catholics, too, contributed to the
advancement of reason, historical criticism, jurisprudence, interdenominational toleration and dialogue, and the manifold forms of social progress
common to the age. If the collection has an animating spirit, it is perhaps
the work of William Doyle. Almost every essay defines the positive aspects
of the Catholic Enlightenment in terms of “Jansenism,” generally approving of its resistance to papal authority, its desire to reform individual prayer
and the liturgy, and its Eucharistic austerity. Conversely, they consistently
define it negatively in its opposition to the Jesuits and the “baroque”
(23–24, 131, 192, 217, 367, 407). The use of the conflict between Jesuits
and Jansenists as an organizing trope for the Catholic Enlightenment is
nothing new. In fact, it is practically unchallenged in the field. I am not
convinced of its necessity, since it tends to simplify the Jesuit contribution
to the Catholic Enlightenment. It not only ignores changes in the Jesuits’
educational model—the Collegio Romano, for example, added chairs in
ecclesiastical and liturgical history to keep up with the times—it also
ignores their contribution to the sciences and arts such as ballet, theater,
and emblematics. It also tends to minimize the less-than-enlightened
aspects of Jansenism, such as the convulsionaries at St. Médard, or even
romanticizes Jansenism as a modern progressive movement. Burson, for
example, takes the political rhetoric at face value when he characterizes
the Jansenist control of the Sorbonne as “a conscious attempt to revive a
tradition of consensual deliberation over doctrinal matters” (!) (71).
A subtle romanticization of Jansenism sometimes leads authors into
subtle anachronisms in their references to the controversy over frequent
communion (63, 152). For the record, Jesuits allowed laypersons to
approach the altar every Sunday only if their spiritual directors confirmed
that they were consistently blessed with mystical graces. In other words,
there is little in the Jesuit doctrine that looks like the “modern” approach
to frequent communion encouraged by Pope Pius X. It should go without saying that almost no one fulfilled the Jesuits’ criteria, and much of the
Jansenist polemic on this matter sacrificed the finer nuances for greater

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885

rhetorical punch. “Molinism” is shorn of its theological subtleties, too, and
becomes little more than an emblem of the Jesuit emphasis on free will
(64, 73, 106). At the end of the day, “Jesuit” and “Jansenist” become figures
of the formal types “baroque” and “Enlightenment” rather than historical
realities, and the contributions of philosophers and theologians from other
orders, especially the Dominicans and Franciscans, are sometimes lost in
the dialectical scuffle. In all fairness, though, the essays also do much to
retrieve the contributions of the Benedictines, Oratorians, and Piarists.
The authors emphasize the discontinuities between baroque Catholicism and Enlightenment Catholicism a tad too much for my taste. I would
be inclined, for example, to see the beginnings of positive theology in
Melchior Cano, O.P. (1506–60) or Dionysius Petavius, S.J. (1583–1652)
rather than Bernard Lamy (1640–1715) or Richard Simon (1638–1712)
(34). Such dates point to a standard problem in periodization: many of
the formal characteristics of one age can be found in earlier ages. Indeed,
much of the interest in historical studies during the Catholic Enlightenment had its roots in the new archaeology of the Renaissance. In this
respect, someone like Muratori fit seamlessly into an archaeological tradition that dated to discoveries in Rome during the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, even as his philosophical and historical interests looked forward
to concerns more typical of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
I would have liked the authors to have interpreted “Europe” formally
rather than geographically, and so would have preferred to see chapters on
the important European colonies in Mexico and New France as well as a
chapter on the missions in Asia. But this is nothing more than my own
scholarly prejudice. The editors chose to produce a different book. So be it.
Some figures are conspicuous by their absence, such as the Jesuit JosephFrançois Lafitau (1681–1746), who is often thought to be the father of
modern ethnography, or the Malebranchian reformer Hyacinthe Sigismond
Gerdil (1718–1802). Lehner adds a note on the influence of Giovanni
Battista Scaramelli (1687–1752)—the great villain in Garrigou-Lagrange’s
genealogy of modern mysticism—but the inclusion of more textbooks of
spirituality might have made the age of the Jansenist convulsionaries seem
less paradoxical. Still, these are minor quibbles. Had I written any of these
essays, I would have failed to equal the erudition of their authors. Each has
done an admirable job balancing the conflicting demands of addressing
any age, especially one so rich as the Catholic Enlightenment, and I cannot
praise this collection and its bibliographies highly enough.
N&V
Trent Pomplun
Loyola University–Baltimore
Baltimore, MD

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Book Reviews

What Is Dogma? by Charles Cardinal Journet, translated by Mark Pontifex,
O.S.B. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 124 pp.
C HARLES J OURNET ’ S classic work What Is Dogma? remains as relevant
for the Church today as it was when first published in French in 1963.
As Roger Nutt observes in his new Foreword to this reprint of the text’s
1964 English translation, Catholic dogma has been “under fire” from
theologians and faithful the world over throughout the period following
the Second Vatican Council. In the twelve chapters of this accessible
volume, Journet provides readers with a concise but robust Thomistic
framework that counters these attacks by demonstrating the substantial
unity of the Christian faith over the millennia.
Already in Chapter 1, the author makes it clear that his principal
contention is with writers who misconstrue Aquinas’s thought so as to
justify their claim that the Church’s dogmas admit of mutation: “They
wish—and the illusion is not a new one—to think it possible, thanks to
the progress of knowledge, to give the dogmas of the Church a meaning
different from that which the Church has given them and gives them”
(20). Not content with a facile solution to this challenge, Journet steps
back and surveys the landscape of dogma such as it has developed not
only in the Church but over the entire course of divine revelation.
Beginning in Chapter 3, he considers epochs before the Gospel was
preached. Balancing St. Paul’s teaching that God wills all men to be saved
(1 Tim 2:4) with the observation that theological faith requires the presence of theological truths, he affirms that “undoubtedly all men . . . are
yet granted some prophetic light offering to them a message by which
they will be saved for all eternity if they accept it in the depth of their
hearts” (34). Journet elucidates this dynamic with the help of Aquinas’s
exegesis of Hebrews 11. As Hebrews 11:6 indicates, God made knowledge of the two fundamental dogmas ( prima credibilia) of the faith—that
God exists and that he rewards believers—available to those who lived
before the coming of Christ. These statements “contain in themselves,
implicitly, all that will finally be revealed,” including the mystery of the
Trinity and the Incarnation (36). Accordingly, he who assents explicitly
to the credibilia assents implicitly to the entire Creed.
Journet describes two avenues by which a non-Christian may be said
to possess the substance of the Christian faith. First, he reminds us of St.
Thomas’s teaching that a man who follows his natural reason in seeking
good and avoiding evil will “certainly” receive from God the knowledge
he needs for salvation, whether directly by inner inspiration or indirectly
through a preacher (37). Second, in the spirit of the journal he co-

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founded, Journet acknowledges the value of Aquinas’s traditional explanation while raising the possibility that a “more profound” answer might
take advantage of insights from contemporary human psychology. After
reiterating St. Thomas’s teaching that it is necessary for a person to
consciously assent to the two primary credibilia, he asks:
But previous to this normal state of faith, is there not the possibility of
an imperfect and provisional state in which the two primary “credibilia” would be believed, truly, actually, formally, so far as their content
and substance is concerned, but in a way that is as yet preconceptual,
prenotional, through the will, and to this extent unconsciously, that is,
not with reflective consciousness? (38)

Early in life, every child—whether baptized or not—is compelled to
choose for or against a rational human good. According to Journet and
Jacques Maritain, whom he cites, this movement of the will is made
possible because the child has been granted a “purely practical knowledge
of God.” If the child chooses the good, he is unknowingly tending toward
God through the sanctifying light bestowed from above: “He reaches
God actually and formally, but blindly, in virtue of the hidden force of his
will” (39). Should the child later be blessed with the opportunity to
conceptualize the content of this movement, he would state the two credibilia such as they are formulated in Hebrews 11. In the meantime, these
children “are at once undoubtedly joined, initially, imperfectly, yet in a
way that brings salvation, to the great universal Church, entrusted here
below to the jurisdiction of Peter and of the sovereign pontiff ” (43–44).
Before proceeding to the next stage of his argument, Journet raises the
issue of whether his conclusions regarding faith in individual children can
be applied to the waking of moral consciousness in the human race as a
whole. He affirms that humanity has undergone considerable psychic and
cultural evolution over the millennia, and that much of human history
entailed “a condition of childhood as regards membership in the
Church” (40). In this way, the author’s conviction that God does not
abandon individual children extends to entire peoples who lived in the
childhood of the human race. He even suggests that this may illumine the
status of those who still today lack explicit knowledge of the mysteries of
Christianity: “I am convinced that the Church is wider than is supposed,
that she possesses everywhere children who do not know her, and whom
she does not know” (46).
In Chapter 4, Journet employs the principles elucidated in previous
chapters in order to vindicate the unity of dogma throughout the Old and
New Testaments. He reiterates that the two primary credibilia of God’s exis-

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Book Reviews

tence and providence affirmed in the Old Testament “already contain the
whole substance of the Christian faith,” including the revelation of the
Trinity and the Incarnation. Like a rose in its bud (or an embryo, an image
that he uses in The Meaning of Grace and Benedict XVI uses in Spe Salvi to
make a similar point), the true faith developed over the course of divine
revelation, all the while maintaining its essential identity (47). Despite accidental changes to the faith as it was further explained over time, what the
two credibilia signify was not transubstantiated; it “developed in a homogeneous, and not an evolutionary, way” (49), a point Blessed John Henry
Newman also makes in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.
How, then, do we account for the fact that the apostles affirmed more articles of faith than their Old Testament predecessors? With Aquinas, Journet
explains that this increase entailed a gradual passage from implicit faith in
the full number of revealed truths to an explicit profession of faith in the
Creed, a development made possible “only through the action of fresh
prophetic lights of revelation” (50). Accordingly, ancient Israelites did not
enjoy explicit knowledge of the Trinity and Incarnation, but they did
possess these realities implicitly through their assent to the credibilia.
At the close of Chapter 4, Journet pauses to clarify that a passage from
implicit to explicit faith can take place in two different ways insofar as it
either requires fresh revelations or occurs by “simple development,” the type
of development upon which Newman’s work focused. In contrast with the
type of development we find in Scripture, development of doctrine within
the Church (“simple development”) does not require, and indeed excludes,
new revelation. The Church’s faith becomes more explicit only insofar as
Christians gradually articulate better the revelation that ended once and for
all with the death of the last apostle. The author provides a lengthy citation
from Francisco Marin-Sola, O.P., to further illumine this distinction, noting
that there are “two very different degrees in what is implied by implicit”
(51). While the dogma of the Trinity is implicitly contained in the dogma
of God’s existence, and the dogma of the Incarnation is implicitly contained
in the dogma of God’s providence, these truths are not implicit in relation to
man. In other words, whereas an apostle may have consciously professed
fewer revealed dogmas than Christians do today, all these truths would have
resided in his consciousness in an implicit way. An apostle who had never
heard the word “Trinity” would have assented to it had the term been
explained to him. In contrast, those who lived before Christ confessed fewer
truths for a very different reason: they could not explicitly assent to the
dogma of the Trinity because it had not yet been revealed.
The ensuing chapters of Journet’s work address the question of how
Christians today can be certain that the dogmas they profess are the same

Book Reviews

889

ones revealed to the prophets and apostles. In a salient passage, which again
finds parallels in Newman, the author teaches: “If God wished to preserve
publicly throughout the ages without change the original meaning of the
revealed deposit, oral as well as written, there was only one way to do this:
it was to accompany publicly throughout the ages the revealed deposit
with an interpretation which had God’s help.This he has done” (59). Journet thereby demonstrates the necessity of the Magisterium as a reference
point for any Christian who wishes to maintain that the faith to which he
assents is the same faith professed by Christians over the past two millennia. The primary task of the Church, then, is not to create new dogmas
but rather to preserve throughout the ages the deposit that she has
received from the apostles (63–64). Accordingly, when the Church does
give birth to new dogmas, it is “not by their substance or content, but by
the way in which they express and manifest the substance or content”
(69). Journet proceeds to back up these claims with examples of dogmatic
development concerning the Trinity, Christology, and Mariology.
In Chapter 9, the author returns to the issue he raised at the beginning of the book, elaborating that the individuals he has in his sights
claim that “dogmas of faith should be accepted only in the practical sense,
as standards of conduct, not as standards of belief ” (92–93). He refutes this
assertion with incisive real-life scenarios. In the same way that is not
enough for a woman to act “as if ” her husband were faithful to her or
for a man to act “as if ” the child given him is really his own, “we do not
tell a Christian to act ‘as if ’ God truly became incarnate for love of us.”
Applying this to the question of whether Christians need certainty
concerning dogma, Journet concludes that “it is the meaning of the
revealed statements that is important. . . . The words in which this meaning is expressed may vary” (94). As time marches on, the Church may
advance in the way she expresses her dogmas, but their meaning remains
unchanged. Likewise, as in the intriguing case of the term consubstantial,
“it may happen that the same expression, rejected in the sense it first
possessed, should afterwards be adopted by the faith with a substantially
different meaning” (94). Journet buttresses his conclusions with the
authority of the First Vatican Council, which taught that “the meaning
of the holy dogmas that must always be retained is that which our holy
mother the Church has once recognized in them, and this it is never right
to turn aside from, on the pretext of, or in the name of, a higher understanding” (Denz. 1800). After citing the anathema that follows this statement, the author concludes, “Could the thought of the Church about the
absolute truth of the statements of faith be more clearly expressed?” (98).

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Book Reviews

With this, Journet puts the final touch on an incisive rebuttal against
currents that would seek to justify changes in the Church’s dogma based
on the thought of St.Thomas Aquinas.The book persuasively executes its
argument that the Christian faith has maintained a substantial unity over
the millennia, a unity that is rooted in the credibilia accessible to human
reason and extends through the Old and New Testaments to the present
day. It is worthwhile to consider the relationship and compatibility of
Newman’s theory of doctrinal development with that of St. Thomas as
presented here by Journet, as they seek to achieve similar ends. Readers
of Newman and Aquinas alike may be surprised to find here a centuriesold framework capable of accounting for development both within Scripture and within the Church today.
N&V
Matthew J. Ramage
Benedictine College
Atchison, KS

A Cosmopolitan Hermit: Modernity and Tradition in the Philosophy of Josef Pieper edited by Bernard N. Schumacher (Washington,
DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), viii + 312 pp.
T HE PHILOSOPHICAL revival of virtue theory has often been attributed
to G. E. M. Anscombe (1958) or Vladimir Jankélévitch (1968–72) or Alasdair MacIntyre (1981). Its theological revival has been ascribed to Servais
Pinckaers (1978, 1985), Stanley Hauerwas (1981), or Paul Ricœur (1990).
All of these thinkers have offered significant input. But the earlier (1934),
sustained and vast work of Josef Pieper (1904–97) earns him the right to
be considered one of the major figures in the current revival of virtue
ethics and one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. His
influence is not waning. Pieper’s prodigious corpus (70 works), numerous translations (16 languages), and growing popularity are indicative of
the importance of his contribution.
Pieper is a philosopher who has fearlessly addressed the issues that
divide the world and that threw the twentieth century into conflict and
war. Of special popularity are his books on the virtues, leisure, culture,
and history. His approach to philosophy has demonstrated a capacity to
put the sapiential tradition into dialogue with the contemporary situation
in order to resolve human issues that remain problematic when addressed
by modern and post-modern conventions.
This volume is composed of ten original essays on the thought of Josef
Pieper. In the opening article, Bernard Schumacher invites the reader into
Pieper’s work, providing not only an introduction to the collection but also

Book Reviews

891

a contribution. Pieper approaches the human person and ethics through
culture and creation. Mankind’s dignity is protected in the practices of true
culture that Pieper defends using the Greek and Christian traditions in
dialogue with contemporary thought. The criterion in this dialogue is not
allegiance to a particular tradition per se, but rather allegiance to truth, the
truth of things and the reality of creation (3). His sapiential approach
critiques the relativism and historicism that have become so popular, but
that can be understood only when put in the context of modern philosophy, which is the task of Berthold Wald’s article (24–62). Pieper addresses
philosophical issues (such as truth and meaning, creation and nothingness,
language and reality) in a way that resolves the deadlock between analytical
and hermeneutical schools of thought. He sets the task of philosophy in
everyday human speech and thought that aims at knowing, loving, and
action. Pieper addresses the challenges of the post–World War II spiritual
situation, which naturalizes theology or completely denies God and creation
(nihilism), on the one hand, or imagines a utopian outcome to human hardships and efforts, on the other.
Pieper, moreover, confronts totalitarianism on several fronts. By both
defending a virtue-based vision of the human person and rejecting the
reduction of the person to productivity, he aims to protect the community from making itself an absolute. Frank Töpfer addresses such threats
in his article “Josef Pieper on the Intellectual Foundations of Totalitarianism” (63–87). Pieper’s philosophy of culture and leisure serves as an
antidote against materialist notions. His promotion of a fuller conception
of human happiness and the common good defends personal freedom
from being flattened by the criteria of productivity and utility.
Pieper is a thinker who is intimately bound to reality. In order to
remain so, he had to resist the limitations exercised by diverse currents of
thought, not only Hegelianism and Marxism, but also National Socialism. As a young researcher, he was engaged in debate with the social and
political ideas of his time, as is presented in Hermann Braun’s article
“Josef Pieper’s Early Sociological Writings” (88–115). His commitment
to reality and a just social order was focused by the encouragement that
Romano Guardini gave him (“All that ought to be is grounded in what
is”) and by the social teaching of the Church (especially Pope Pius XI’s
Quadragesimo anno in 1931). Pieper’s opposition to the National Socialist
regime led to the banning of his Theses on Social Policy (1934) and to his
return to philosophy. The thought of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas
became perhaps the most telling influences on his work. Aquinas’s influence was especially a methodological one, inasmuch as it aided Pieper to
resist facile propositions and rendered him free to contemplate reality in

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Book Reviews

a bold philosophical stance of confidence in truth. He rooted his resistance to moral subjectivism in a synthetic historical and systematic
approach, convinced that a self-enclosed system of truth contradicts the
creatureliness and transcendence of the finite human person.
Pieper’s ethics of virtue and his treatment of the cardinal and theological
virtues is discussed in Thomas S. Hibbs’s article (116–40). Instead of following Max Scheler’s notion of value or a casuistic rule-based ethics, Pieper
articulates a virtue approach to ethics within an Aristotelian notion of the
“whole” or flourishing life (eudaimonia). He reclaims the notion of virtue
from static notions by placing it in an understanding of the person as tending toward fullness of being through the practice of virtue. Thus he also
offers an alternative to Kantian formalist ethics and to utilitarianism. In
1934, he addressed the pressing issues of his time by publishing a book on
courage. It was the first of an extensive series on the four cardinal and three
theological virtues, which was rounded out in his book on love (1972).
Pieper’s treatment of virtue is remarkable, especially in his Hope and
History, as explained in Joseph J. Godfrey’s article (141–70). The timeliness of Pieper’s account is illustrated by his treatment of three historical
countercurrents of thought, which focus on: the annihilation of the
human race (Hiroshima); utopian visions of progress (Ernst Bloch); and
evolutionary accounts of man and God (Teilhard de Chardin). His antidote to misuses of hope involves, on the one hand, discerning the distinct
levels of hope that range from everyday to ultimate hopes and, on the
other, continually seeking to do “what is wise, good, and just.”
The noted Canadian philosopher Kenneth Schmitz provides a lucid
treatment of tradition in Pieper’s works (171–98). The act of philosophizing must make reference to the world, to tradition, and to revelation.
There is no way to demonstrate the verity of the “first things” that are
needed for humans to realize their well-being. Nor is there absolute
control over them. Tradition is the first thing that grounds objective reality itself. Philosophy appeals to tradition, seen as the reception of the
gift—the transcendent Source, the “truth” of truth—whose intelligibility
is opened by loving surprise and sealed with hope-filled belief.
Pieper bases his philosophy on the ontology of creation. As Matthew
Cuddeback explicates, this metaphysics of creation is in turn the foundation of his theory of “the truth of things and the world’s true face”
(228–50). Pieper’s approach humbly identifies the limits of human
knowledge. Man cannot know the inner structure of anything fully,
totally, and perfectly. As Pieper says in his Truth of All Things (quoted on
p. 14): “Knowledge of the essence and the totality of things is man’s
prerogative within the ‘promise of hope.’ ” Understanding the world as

Book Reviews

893

created gives the whole sense of being to things and to human knowledge of them. This metaphysics of creation, on the one hand, recognizes
the human capacity to know the essence of a thing through intellection
and rational acts of knowing. On the other, it affirms that man cannot
fully comprehend a thing, since its lucidity surpasses the human intellect.
The philosopher is called to a double discipleship, as Bernard Schumacher demonstrates in his article on faith and reason (199–227). The
philosopher must be truly open to the whole of being and to the loving
possession of wisdom. The philosophical question “why” leads to a journey of attentiveness to the gift that is the knowledge of the whole and
ultimately of the God who speaks (theios logos). Theology has its proper
task of critically interpreting, comparing, and explicating the meaning of
the data that tradition carries. Philosophy must also be open to revealed
data when it establishes the basis for critical thinking and contemplation,
which are goals for each human being. Activism, by contrast—as pursued
in the midst of rebuilding society, in a post–World War II Europe or a
twenty-first-century world buried in public and private debt—promotes
work as the highest value and thus runs the risk of instrumentalizing the
person and subjecting everyone to the sole criterion of output and profit.
Pieper emphasizes the need to affirm a true culture intimately linked to
authentic leisure. Each person and each civilization as a whole will flourish only if there is a distinction between the entertainment that seeks to
escape reality, on the one hand, and a genuine leisure that expresses the
human potential for free contemplation and responsible expressions of
culture, on the other. Pieper identifies a similar fight that Plato’s philosophy also had to wage against the Sophists and the pragmatic approach to
man. Juan F. Franck’s article “The Platonic Inspiration of Pieper’s Philosophy” (251–78) addresses the Greek sources that Pieper calls upon in
order to make a credible response to contemporary quandaries.
In sum, this volume is unique in being the only systematic treatment of
Pieper’s philosophy available. It demonstrates the importance of virtue
theory and approaches that draw on classic thought in dialogue with
contemporary forms of knowledge and science. The volume’s editor is
one of the rare experts in the writings of Josef Pieper. Schumacher has also
published a monograph on the German thinker: A Philosophy of Hope: Josef
Pieper and the Contemporary Debate on Hope (translated by D. C. Schindler
[New York: Fordham University Press, 2003]). The present book further
consolidates Schumacher’s effort to make Pieper’s works accessible to
English speakers.
The authors of the volume do us a great service in putting the German
thinker’s corpus into the context of philosophical, historical, and cultural

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Book Reviews

developments, from ancient history into the twenty-first century. In their
own right, they deepen an understanding of pressing philosophical issues.
True to Pieper’s own efforts, they address culture and leisure, totalitarianism and work, virtue and human growth, hope and violence, faith and
reason, as well as contemporary thought and tradition. One seldom finds
a collection of essays that is not only so wide-reaching in breadth and
homogeneous in focus but also so beneficial in effect.
Finally, the volume is philosophically critical and practically constructive.
It exemplifies Pieper’s idea that a firm assent to reality, as basically good,
underlies the true leisure of contemplation. Such an assent is practically
expressed in the principle of celebration. This attitude to reality is seen in
the manifold ways that love is expressed toward the world, other human
beings, and oneself. The love of each thing’s existence leads to the most
festive of celebrations, which is the worship that gives thanks for life. N&V
Craig Steven Titus
Institute for the Psychological Sciences
Arlington, VA

2012 PONTIFICAL JOHN PAUL II INSTITUTE

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The C
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atholic University
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America Press
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READING ROMANS WITH
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

EDITED BY MATTHEW LEVERING AND
MICHAEL DAUPHINAIS
A masterly work setting forth Thomas Aquinas’s
interpretation of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans
and St. Paul’s lasting influence on Aquinas.
With this rich collection of essays by leading
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theological discussion.
Hardback 978-0-8132-1962-2 $54.95

ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

The Catholic Dialogue with America and
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GLENN W. OLSEN
Prominent Catholic commentator Glenn Olsen
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Hardback 978-0-8132-1954-7 $69.95

DYNAMIC
TRANSCENDENTALS

Truth, Goodness, and Beauty from a
Thomistic Perspective
ALICE M. RAMOS
Addressing contemporary interest in the relationship
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significance of beauty for ethics, Alice Ramos presents
a study of the transcendentals and provides a dynamic
rather than static view of truth, goodness, and beauty.
Hardback 978-0-8132-1965-3 $64.95
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THE AQUINAS INSTITUTE
for the Study of Sacred Doctrine
announces

the publication of St. Thomas Aquinas’s
Commentaries on the Letters of Paul
• Latin and English in parallel columns
• five volumes with durable hardcover binding
• designed for ease of reference to chapter and verse

See www.theaquinasinstitute.org
for more details on this
and other forthcoming projects!