7KH*DUGHQRI*RG VOL . 12, N O. 1 7+(&$7+2/,&81,9(56,7<2)$0(5,&$35(66 7RZDUGD+XPDQ(FRORJ\ 3RSH%HQHGLFW;9, 7KH *DUGHQ RI *RG JDWKHUV WRJHWKHU WKH DXGLHQFHV DGGUHVVHV OHWWHUV DQG KRPLOLHV RI %HQHGLFW LQWR D YDOXDEOH UHVRXUFH IRU DOO WKRVHZKRVHHNWRXQGHUVWDQGPRUHIXOO\WKHUHODWLRQVKLSEHWZHHQWKH HQYLURQPHQW&DWKROLFVRFLDOWHDFKLQJDQGWKHRORJ\ Nova et Vetera Winter 2014 • Volume 12, Number 1 The English Edition of the International Theological Journal $SULO 3DSHU‡‡ HERRN‡‡ C OMMENTARY Reflections on Lumen Fidei 0DWWKHZ/HYHULQJ ³/HYHULQJ¶V VFKRODUVKLS LV QRW RQO\ VRXQG EXW VRPHWKLQJ RI DQ H[HPSODU IRU KRZ VLPLODU VWXGLHV VKRXOG EH XQGHUWDNHQ +H KHOSV WR PRGLI\ DQG PDNH PRUH HIIHFWLYH WKH VRPHZKDW WRSKHDY\DQGGLI¿FXOWVWDWLVWLFDOKHXULVWLFVRIRWKHUZRUNVLQWKH¿HOG$GGLWLRQDOO\KHXVHV LPSRUWDQWFRQWHPSRUDU\ZULWLQJVWRGHPRQVWUDWHWKHSHUHQQLDOUHOHYDQFHDQGLQVLJKWIXOQHVVRI $TXLQDV¶6XPPDIRUFRQWHPSRUDU\WKHRORJ\DQG3DXOLQHH[HJHVLV´ &KULVWRSKHU%DJORZ1RWUH'DPH6HPLQDU\1HZ2UOHDQV 0D\ &ORWK‡‡ HERRN‡‡ $&DWHFKLVPIRU%XVLQHVV 7RXJK(WKLFDO4XHVWLRQV ,QVLJKWVIURP&DWKROLF7HDFKLQJ (GLWHGE\$QGUHZ9$EHOD -RVHSK(&DSL]]L Nova et Vetera WINTER 2014 3DXOLQWKH6XPPD7KHRORJLDH R EINHARD H ÜTTER Lumen Fidei and Contemporary Errors on Faith I RENE A LEXANDER The Theological Mind of Pope Francis K EITH L EMNA & DAVID D ELANEY Papal Ministry and the Theology of the Cross E MEKA N WOSUH , O.P. A RTICLES Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger R ICHARD D E C LUE The Jewishness of the Apostles J EAN -M IGUEL G ARRIGUES, O.P. Contraception outside Marriage D ONALD H AGGERTY The Mission of Israel ROCH K ERESZTY, O.C IST. 7KLV ERRN¶V HDV\WRXVH TXHVWLRQ DQG DQVZHU DSSURDFK LQYLWHV TXLFN UHIHUHQFHIRUWRXJKTXHVWLRQVUHJDUGLQJEXVLQHVVHWKLFVDQGVHUYHVDV DEDVLVIRUUHÀHFWLRQDQGGHHSHUVWXG\RIWKHULFKWUDGLWLRQRI&DWKROLF VRFLDOGRFWULQH Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology PAUL M ORRISSEY The Church as Defender of Conscience K EVIN O'R EILLY, O.P. 0DUFK 3DSHU‡‡ HERRN‡‡ Creation and Covenant S ANTIAGO S ANZ Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas FR+RSNLQV)XO¿OOPHQW6HUYLFH32%R[%DOWLPRUH0' FXDSUHVVFXDHGX M ICHAEL M. WADDELL O N R ATZINGER /B ENEDICT XVI’ S T HEOLOGY Benedict XVI on Jesus’ Prayer DAVID G. B ONAGURA , J R . Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy A ARON P IDEL , S.J. Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI Augustine Institute R. J ARED S TAUDT B OOK R EVIEWS Nova et Vetera Winter 2014 • Volume 12, Number 1 The English Edition of the International Theological Journal S ENIOR E DITOR Georges Cardinal Cottier, O.P. C O -E DITORS Reinhard Hütter, Duke University Divinity School Matthew Levering, Mundelein Seminary R. Jared Staudt, Augustine Institute A SSOCIATE E DITORS Holly Taylor Coolman, Providence College Gilles Emery, O.P., University of Fribourg Paul Gondreau, Providence College Timothy Gray, Augustine Institute Thomas S. Hibbs, Baylor University Christopher Malloy, University of Dallas Bruce D. Marshall, Southern Methodist University Charles Morerod, O.P., Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg John O’Callaghan, University of Notre Dame Chad Pecknold, Catholic University of America Michael Sherwin, O.P., University of Fribourg Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Dominican House of Studies B OARD OF A DVISORS Anthony Akinwale, O.P., Dominican Institute, Ibadan, Nigeria Khaled Anatolios, Boston College Robert Barron, Mundelein Seminary John Betz, University of Notre Dame Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P., Angelicum Christopher O. Blum, Augustine Institute Stephen Brock, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross Peter Casarella, University of Notre Dame Romanus Cessario, O.P., St. John’s Seminary Boyd Taylor Coolman, Boston College Lawrence Dewan, O.P., Dominican University College Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, O.P., Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Douglas Farrow, McGill University Anthony Fisher, O.P., Bishop of Parramatta, Australia Paul J. Griffiths, Duke University Divinity School Scott W. Hahn, Franciscan University of Steubenville Russell Hittinger, University of Tulsa Paige Hochschild, Mount St. Mary’s University Andrew Hofer, O.P., Dominican House of Studies Matthew L. Lamb, Ave Maria University Joseph Lienhard, S.J., Fordham University Steven A. Long, Ave Maria University Guy Mansini, O.S.B., Saint Meinrad School of Theology Francesca Aran Murphy, University of Notre Dame Thomas Osborne, University of St. Thomas (Houston) Trent Pomplun, Loyola University Maryland Richard Schenk, O.P., University of Eichstätt Michele Schumacher, University of Fribourg Janet Smith, Sacred Heart Major Seminary Christopher Thompson, St. Paul Seminary Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap., United States Conference of Catholic Bishops William Wright, Duquesne University Instructions for Contributors 1. Address all contributions, books for review, and related correspondence to Matthew Levering, mjlevering@yahoo.com or Reinhard Hütter, rhuetter@div.duke.edu. 2. Contributions should be prepared to accord as closely as possible with the typographical conventions of Nova et Vetera. The University of Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition) is our authority on matters of style. 3. Nova et Vetera practices blind review. Submissions are evaluated anonymously by members of the editorial board and other scholars with appropriate expertise. Name, affiliation, and contact information should be included on a separate page apart from the submission. 4. Galley-proofs of articles are sent to contributors to be read and corrected and should be returned to the Editors within ten days of receipt. Corrections should be confined to typographical and factual errors. 5. Submission of a manuscript entails the author’s agreement (in the event his or her contribution is accepted for publication) to assign the copyright to Nova et Vetera. NOVA ET VETERA The English Edition of the International Theological Journal ISSN 1542-7315 Winter 2014 Vol. 12, No. 1 C OMMENTARY Enlightenment: Reflections on Pope Francis’s Encyclical Letter Lumen Fidei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R EINHARD H ÜTTER Faith Enlightens the Mind: Pope Francis’s Lumen Fidei and Contemporary Errors on the Nature of Divine Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I RENE A LEXANDER Three Pathways into the Theological Mind of Pope Francis K EITH L EMNA & DAVID H. D ELANEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI: An Abandonment of the Cross? A Theology of the Papal Ministry in the Light of the Theology of the Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emeka Nwosuh, O.P. A RTICLES Eucharistic Ecclesiologies of Locality and Universality in John Zizioulas and Joseph Ratzinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R ICHARD D E C LUE The Jewishness of the Apostles and Its Implications for the Apostolic Church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J EAN -M IGUEL G ARRIGUES, O.P. Contraception outside Marriage: Prudence or Sin? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D ONALD H AGGERTY A Catholic Perspective on the Mission of Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ROCH K ERESZTY, O.C IST. Servais-Théodore Pinckaers, O.P., and the Renewal of Sapiential Thomistic Theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAUL M ORRISSEY The Church as the Defender of Conscience in Our Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K EVIN O’R EILLY, O.P. Creation and Covenant in Contemporary Theology: A Synthesis of the Principal Interpretative Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S ANTIAGO S ANZ The Importance of Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M ICHAEL M. WADDELL 1 11 25 57 77 105 123 147 163 193 217 255 O N R ATZINGER /B ENEDICT XVI’ S T HEOLOGY Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s Christology of Jesus’ Prayer and Two Contemporary Theological Questions . . . . . . DAVID G. B ONAGURA , J R . 287 Joseph Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A ARON P IDEL , S.J. 307 Reality and Sign: Thomas Aquinas and the Christological Exegesis of Pope Benedict XVI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R. JARED S TAUDT 331 B OOK R EVIEWS Thomas Aquinas: Teacher and Scholar. The Aquinas Lectures at Maynooth, volume 2: 2002–2010. Edited by James McEvoy, Michael W. Dunne, and Julia Hynes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M ATTHEW A RCHER 365 Metaphysics: The Creation of Hierarchy, by Adrian Pabst A NNE M. C ARPENTER 370 The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, edited by Gilles Emery, O.P., and Matthew Levering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . T HOMAS H. M C C ALL Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, by Mark A. Noll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . J ONATHAN M ORGAN Ascension Theology, by Douglas Farrow . . . . . . . . . F RANCESCA A RAN M URPHY Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering, by Eleonore Stump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . K ARINA ROBSON 375 378 382 384 The English edition of Nova et Vetera is published quarterly and provides an international forum for theological and philosophical studies from a Thomistic perspective. Founded in 1926 by future Cardinal Charles Journet in association with Jacques Maritain, Nova et Vetera is published in related, distinct French and English editions. The English edition of Nova et Vetera welcomes articles and book reviews in theology, philosophy, and biblical studies that address central contemporary debates and discussions. We seek to be “at the heart of the Church,” faithful to the Magisterium and the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, and devoted to the work of true dialogue, both ecumenically and across intellectual disciplines. Nova et Vetera (ISSN 1542-7315) is published quarterly by Augustine Institute Inc., 6160 S. Syracuse Way, Suite 310, Greenwood Village, CO 80111. 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For subscription inquiries, email us at nvjournal@intrepidgroup.com or phone 970-416-6673. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 1–10 1 Enlightenment: Reflections on Pope Francis’s Encyclical Letter Lumen Fidei R EINHARD H ÜTTER Duke University Divinity School Durham, NC F OR THOSE who have eyes to see and ears to hear, Pope Francis’s first encyclical letter, Lumen Fidei, affords enlightenment in at least three respects: first, as regards the encyclical’s unique authorship; second, as regards the encyclical’s noteworthy scope and structure, and finally, third, as regards the encyclical’s luminous leitmotif. Authorship Lumen Fidei (LF ) is a novelty in the relatively brief but rich history that papal encyclicals have enjoyed since Pope Leo XIII turned them into the central instructional instrument of his ordinary magisterium. Promulgated on June 29, 2013, the Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, Lumen Fidei is the first encyclical letter of the newly elected Pope Francis. At the same time, this encyclical conveys the rich theological patrimony of the Pope emeritus Benedict XVI. Pope Francis states the matter explicitly: These considerations on faith—in continuity with all that the Church’s magisterium has pronounced on this theological virtue1—are meant to supplement what Benedict XVI had written in his encyclical letters on charity and hope. He himself had almost completed a first draft of an On October 8, 2013, an earlier version of these reflections was offered at Duke University Divinity School to faculty and students gathered for a colloquy of graduate students in theology and ethics. I am grateful to the colleagues and students for their reactions to my observations and for their own thoughts and observations. 1 LF refers to the Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius, chapter 3 (DS 3008–3020); to Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, §5; and to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 153–65. 2 Reinhard Hütter encyclical on faith. For this I am deeply grateful to him, and as his brother in Christ I have taken up his fine work and added a few contributions of my own.The Successor of Peter, yesterday, today, and tomorrow, is always called to strengthen his brothers and sisters in the priceless treasure of that faith which God has given as a light for humanity’s path. (§7) The genesis of Lumen Fidei thus gives ample and lively witness not only to the one faith that the two successors of St. Peter obviously share but also to their spiritual brotherhood as well as to their inspiring humility. Lumen Fidei represents the completing element of Benedict XVI’s trilogy of encyclicals on charity, hope, and faith and simultaneously constitutes the opening of Francis’s papal magisterium. Precisely in its Janus-faced nature—looking simultaneously backward and forward—this encyclical forms the magisterial center of the year of faith that Pope Benedict XVI inaugurated on October 11, 2012, the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and that Pope Francis concluded on November 24, 2013, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. As a theological testament of Benedict XVI, Lumen Fidei displays all the signs of the theological and philosophical milieu that shaped the pope emeritus as a student and professor in post–WWII West Germany: St. Augustine, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and St. Bonaventure inform the encyclical’s foundational theological horizon; Bl. John Henry Newman, Romano Guardini, and Heinrich Schlier inform its proximate theological horizon leading up to Vatican II; the philosophers Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein stand for aspects of a complicated post-Christian intellectual landscape that Catholic theology had to face in Europe from the eighteenth century on. Martin Buber, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and T. S. Eliot stand for Jewish and Christian thinkers and poets, East and West, who profoundly understood and engaged a world “after faith.” But in §57 the attentive reader also comes across striking references to St. Francis’s transformative encounter with the leper and to the centrality the poor and the destitute play in Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s vocation. §57 concludes with the following arresting formulation: Suffering reminds us that faith’s service to the common good is always one of hope—a hope which looks ever ahead in the knowledge that only from God, from the future which comes from the risen Jesus, can our society find solid and lasting foundations. . . . Let us refuse to be robbed of hope, or to allow our hope to be dimmed by facile answers and solutions which block our progress, “fragmenting” time and changing it into space. Time is always much greater than space. Space hardens processes, whereas time propels towards the future and encourages us to go forward in hope. (§57) Reflections on Lumen Fidei 3 It is not at all unlikely that §57 is one of the sections Pope Francis added. It would be very tempting to submit Lumen Fidei to the kind of text-critical analysis modern biblical scholars apply to the canon of the Holy Scriptures. Such a move would, however, be a grave mistake, for not only would the reader sidestep the encyclical’s teaching and instead turn an act of the Pope’s ordinary magisterium into an object of higher (or more likely lower) criticism. But such a move would also and more importantly miss the first important occasion of enlightenment Lumen Fidei offers—the remarkable example of humility and self-effacement the pope emeritus and the new pope display.They both disown themselves as “authors” in the modern sense by referring and deferring to each other. The pope emeritus “gives up” his last encyclical letter, his theological patrimony, to his successor, and Pope Francis returns the encyclical to his predecessor by publicly giving credit to him. In a world suffused by celebrity worship and narcissistic self-referentiality, Benedict XVI and Francis point out that the Catholic Church is not theirs but Christ’s and that they both together are claimed by and stand in service of the truth of the one faith, and that their teaching is informed by the self-same light of faith. Scope and Structure The wide and welcoming horizon of the encyclical’s scope and structure is reminiscent of the inviting and embracing gesture with which Bernini’s colonnades embrace St. Peter’s square. Just as the colonnades welcome the pilgrims and guide them forward into St. Peter’s Basilica and eventually to its center, the high altar, so does each of the encyclical’s four parts invite the readers from a wide open horizon and guide them to the core and center of the faith: Christ and his body, the Church. Similarly, at the beginning of the encyclical’s first part, the reader encounters Abraham, “our father in faith” (noster in fide pater), and at the conclusion of its fourth part, the reader encounters Mary, “the perfect icon of faith” ( perfecta fidei icona). As the encyclical in each of its four parts leads the reader from God’s all-embracing salvific purpose to the concrete historical Gestalt of Christ’s body, the Church, so does the encyclical as a whole move from Abrahamic promise to Marian fulfillment—a fulfillment, though, that through Christ’s resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven issues in a hope that transcends the horizon of human and cosmic history. The first chapter of Lumen Fidei, “We have believed in love,”2 highlights the fundamentally communal character of the Christian faith, embedded in 2 The title of the encyclical’s first chapter echoes 1 Jn 4:16 which is explicitly referenced: “So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (RSV). 4 Reinhard Hütter God’s history of call, promise, and fulfillment, a history in which the reference point never is the isolated individual per se but rather always is God’s people.The consideration of the “we” of faith moves from the origin of the “we” of God’s people, the Abrahamic paradigm of “hearing and following God’s voice”—“Faith is our response to a word which engages us personally, to a ‘Thou’ who calls us by name” (§8)—to the communal specification: “Faith is necessarily ecclesial; it is professed from within the body of Christ as a concrete communion of believers” (§22).The theological center of the encyclical’s first part is the consequence of believing in love—filiation: “In accepting the gift of faith, believers become a new creation; they receive a new being; as God’s children, they are now ‘sons in the Son.’ The phrase ‘Abba, Father,’ so characteristic of Jesus’ own experience, now becomes the core of the Christian experience” (§19). “The Christian can see with the eyes of Jesus and share in his mind, his filial disposition, because he or she shares in his love, which is the Spirit. In the love of Jesus, we receive in a certain way his vision” (§21). The second chapter of Lumen Fidei, “Unless you believe, you will not understand,” emphasizes the epistemic nature of faith. Faith is essentially ordered to the Truth and conveys a reliable and transformative knowledge of God’s truth and love.The chapter moves from emphasizing at the beginning that “precisely because of its intrinsic link to truth, faith is . . . able to offer a new light” (§24) to drawing out at its end the important implication that “theology is impossible without faith; it is part of the very process of faith, which seeks an ever deeper understanding of God’s self-disclosure culminating in Christ” (§36). The second chapter closes by unequivocally pointing to that very light on which the Catholic theologian depends in order to contribute authentically to the enlightenment that faith affords: Theology also shares in the ecclesial form of faith; its light is the light of the believing subject which is the Church. This implies, on the one hand, that theology must be at the service of the faith of Christians, that it must work humbly to protect and deepen the faith of everyone, especially ordinary believers. On the other hand, because it draws its life from faith, theology cannot consider the magisterium of the Pope and the bishops in communion with him as something extrinsic, a limitation of its freedom, but rather as one of its internal, constitutive dimensions, for the magisterium ensures our contact with the primordial source and thus provides the certainty of attaining to the word of Christ in all its integrity. (§36) Ecclesial faith and faithfulness to the Church’s magisterium are indispensable presuppositions for the authenticity and integrity of Catholic theol- Reflections on Lumen Fidei 5 ogy and are constitutive of the theologian’s freedom in service of the enlightenment that issues from “the word of Christ in all its integrity.” The second chapter’s concluding specification follows directly from what constitutes faith’s center. At the heart of the faith stands a knowledge conveyed by love, a knowledge of touch, of intimacy, of connaturality: By his taking flesh and coming among us, Jesus has touched us, and through the sacraments he continues to touch us even today; transforming our hearts, he unceasingly enables us to acknowledge and acclaim him as the Son of God. In faith, we can touch him and receive the power of his grace. . . . Only when we are configured to Jesus do we receive the eyes needed to see him. (§31) According to Lumen Fidei it seems indispensable for the authenticity of Catholic theologians that they not only constantly stay in touch with Jesus through faith and the sacraments but also remain connected through constant fidelity to the Church’s magisterium. The third chapter of Lumen Fidei, “I delivered to you what I also received,” insists on the oneness of faith and moves from considering the Church as the mother of faith to considering the unity and integrity of faith. The motherhood of the Church is absolutely indispensable for each believer to become contemporaneous with Jesus: The Church is a Mother who teaches us to speak the language of faith. . . . The love which is the Holy Spirit and which dwells in the Church unites every age and makes us contemporaries of Jesus, thus guiding us along our pilgrimage of faith. (§38) As the mother is the child’s first teacher of his or her “mother tongue,” so is the Church the mother who teaches the faith’s semantics and syntax. Learning the language of faith does not happen by picking up a book called “The Bible” and learning it by heart or by coming up with one’s own “private language” of faith. Rather, from its first instantiation as the confession of Peter and subsequently as the apostolic faith in the risen Christ, the faith is communicated and taught by the Church. It is the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Church Who is the divine source of her motherhood, through Whom, by way of the Church’s motherhood, believers are made contemporaries of Jesus. It does not happen otherwise. The third chapter ends fittingly with a reflection on the oneness of faith: If faith is not one, then it is not faith. . . .What is the secret of this unity? Faith is “one,” in the first place, because of the oneness of the God who is known and confessed. . . . Faith is also one because it is directed to 6 Reinhard Hütter the one Lord, to the life of Jesus, to the concrete history which he shares with us. . . . Finally, faith is one because it is shared by the whole Church, which is one body and one Spirit. (§47) Last but not least, Lumen Fidei does not hesitate to commit the sin of “political incorrectness” (another testament of the pope emeritus) by challenging the contemporary “dictatorship of relativism” that has invaded certain superficial interpretations of the “hierarchy of truths” that characterizes the one faith: Since faith is one, it must be professed in all its purity and integrity. Precisely because all the articles of faith are interconnected, to deny one of them, even of those that seem least important, is tantamount to distorting the whole. (§48) The “hierarchy of truths” does not mean that some articles of the faith are more true and others less true, so that those at the top of the hierarchy would require an unconditional assent of faith while those at the bottom of the hierarchy would require only a weak or conditional assent. But as Bl. John Henry Newman rightly pointed out in his Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, it is the very nature of the act of assent to be unconditional. While some articles are more central to the faith’s identity than others, denying any one of them would distort the whole faith. The assent of faith (and it might very well be implicit faith) is an unconditional act of assent to all the articles of the faith. Lumen Fidei restates in succinct and plain terms what St. Thomas Aquinas taught in the Summa theologiae and what has been the constant teaching of the Catholic Church regarding the oneness of the faith: Obviously one who holds fast to Church teaching as to an infallible rule of faith gives assent to all that the Church teaches. Conversely, anyone who from among the many things taught by the Church picks some and not others as he chooses, no longer holds fast to Church teaching as an infallible rule, but to his own will (ST II–II, q. 5, a. 3). Faith, however, holds to all the articles of faith on the basis of the one single motive, the divine truth set before us in Scripture understood, rightly, i.e. in conformity with Church teaching (ST II–II, q. 5, a. 3, ad 2).3 The true supernatural enlightenment that the faith affords depends on the oneness of the faith accepted by a comprehensive act of assent to all the articles of the faith as taught by the Church. The Church’s mother3 Translation by T. C. O’Brien, O.P., St.Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae.Volume 31 (2a2ae 1–7): Faith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006 rpt.). Reflections on Lumen Fidei 7 hood, the oneness of the faith, and the comprehensive act of assent to all the articles of the faith are of one piece. The fourth and final chapter of Lumen Fidei, “God prepares a city for them,” addresses an inevitable consequence of authentic faith, which is not only a journey but always also a process of building, that is, “the preparing of a place in which human beings can dwell together with one another. . . . The God who is himself reliable gives us a city which is reliable” (§50). In short, living faith, faith formed by charity, always inevitably issues into serving and strengthening the common good: “The hands of faith are raised up to heaven, even as they go about building in charity a city based on relationships in which the love of God is laid as a foundation” (§51). The family is the first and fundamental setting in which faith enlightens the human city. Contrary to the 2013 study “Between Autonomy and Dependence: Strengthening Family as a Reliable Community”4 by the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) which explicitly denies that marriage should be seen as a normal presupposition of the family, Pope Francis affirms the constant teaching of the Catholic Church regarding marriage and family: I think first and foremost of the stable union of man and woman in marriage. This union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s own love, and of the acknowledgment and acceptance of the goodness of sexual differentiation, whereby spouses can become one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24) and are enabled to give birth to a new life, a manifestation of the Creator’s goodness, wisdom, and loving plan. Grounded in this love, a man and a woman can promise each other mutual love in a gesture which engages their entire lives and mirrors many features of faith. (§52) A faith accepted and deepened by the family is subsequently capable of illuminating all relationships in society. But the inverse also obtains.When faith in God is removed from the city, the consequences are dire: When faith is weakened, the foundations of life also risk being weakened, as the poet T. S. Eliot warned: “Do you need to be told that even those modest attainments /As you can boast in the way of polite society/ Will hardly survive the Faith to which they owe their significance?” If we remove faith in God from our cities, mutual trust would be weakened, we would remain united only by fear and our stability would be threatened. (§55) 4 See Michael Root, “Reforming the German Family,” First Things 237 (Novem- ber 2013): 19–21. 8 Reinhard Hütter Lumen Fidei rightly points out the dynamic of a subtle but steady barbarization of Western secularized culture. When faith in God has been banished from public life and imprisoned within the privacy of the living room, the first principles of truth and goodness begin to fade and eventually the principles of utility and preference are substituted for them. In consequence, the basic human right becomes one of self-realization, the willful rule over one’s nature and body, and the concomitant right to the social acceptance of such willful self-realization. Of course, the city of man is never without worship. With faith in God removed from the public life of the city, the worship of God has been replaced by the worship of self. And this idol demands sacrifice and adoration, a demand that finds its telling expression in laws that permit the shedding of innocent blood yet prosecute prophetic acts of witness to faith in God and to God’s law as hate crimes. The fourth chapter guides the reader from considering the indispensability of faith for the common good of the earthly city to considering concretely the consolation and strength that faith affords amid suffering. Furthermore, the reader is invited, indeed, urged to consider the witness of those for whom St. Francis and Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta stand as paradigms, that is, of those who “have found mediators of light in those who suffer. . . . They understood the mystery at work in them. In drawing near to the suffering, they were certainly not able to eliminate all their pain or to explain every evil. Faith is not a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and suffices for the journey” (§57). At this very important point of its teaching, Lumen Fidei invokes the virtue of hope: Suffering reminds us that faith’s service to the common good is always one of hope—a hope which looks ever ahead in the knowledge that only from God, from the future which comes from the risen Jesus, can our society find solid and lasting foundations. (§57) This hope is neither a naïve optimism founded on some innate law of progress writ in human history or a virtue that one might acquire as one acquires courage by imitating the acts of courageous persons. Rather, like faith and charity, hope is an infused theological habitus that consists in the complete trust in God’s mercy and omnipotence and that directs the believer’s will to God as the desired final end. No obstacle will defy the God Who is the object of faith’s unconditional assent and with Whom the believer is already united in charity: In union with faith and charity, hope propels us towards a sure future, set against a different horizon with regard to the illusory enticements Reflections on Lumen Fidei 9 of the idols of this world yet granting new momentum and strength to our daily lives. (§57) The fourth chapter concludes with the following noteworthy lines already cited earlier: Let us refuse to be robbed of hope, or to allow our hope to be dimmed by facile answers and solutions which block our progress, “fragmenting” time and changing it into space. Time is always much greater than space. Space hardens processes, whereas time propels towards the future and encourages us to go forward in hope. (§57) The rule over space—as much space as possible—is the characteristic of an empire. The only way for an empire also to rule over time is to break it up, to fragment it and thus turn time into quantified “spaces” of time— in short, into a strict regime of time-management. Whereas space is exhaustible, time remains inexhaustible. No space is in principle immune from imperial conquest. But time outlasts every empire. As “chronos” time might be submitted to the regime of “spacing,” but as “kairos” time remains inexhaustibly new, uncontrollable, and invulnerable to the imperial libido dominandi. Modern technological and managerial reason, arguably a strategy of empire, quantifies and thereby hardens all processes. By contrast, a reason informed and perfected by faith is always ordered to a future that remains the uncontrollable and hence freeing gift of God’s providence—the only source of genuine progress. The Leitmotif In the very first sentence, after the opening two words that make up the encyclical’s title, “Lumen fidei,” “the light of Faith,” the encyclical’s leitmotif is established: “In John’s Gospel, Christ says of himself: ‘I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness’ ( Jn 12:46)” (§1). The encyclical’s intention is to offer the true answer to the famous academic prize question in response to which Kant wrote his prize-winning essay “What Is Enlightenment?” Lumen Fidei is unequivocal about the nature of true enlightenment: “Those who believe, see; they see with a light that illumines their entire journey, for it comes from the risen Christ, the morning star which never sets” (§1). Without wasting any time, the encyclical names the objections advanced both by those who assume that the “Enlightenment” program of modernity announced in the eighteenth century still obtains and by those who in a postmodern skeptical turn dismiss not only the Christian Enlightenment but also the secular Enlightenment. But, as is all too obvious, the 10 Reinhard Hütter light that autonomous modern reason and the various postmodern subjective lights of emotive and existential affect promise to shed turn out to be unable to illumine the future. Consequently, “in the absence of light everything becomes confused; it is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road to our destination from other roads which take us in endless circles, going nowhere” (§3). What stands in urgent need of recovery— or, better, re-discovery—is the one true Enlightenment that faith in Christ affords: Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives.Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great promise of fulfillment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us. Faith, received from God as a supernatural gift, becomes a light for our way, guiding our journey through time. (§4) Putting forward the leitmotif of a true enlightenment arising from the transformative effect of God’s antecedent Love, Lumen Fidei aims at persuading by the attraction of beauty. Far from discursively advancing theological arguments, the encyclical’s infectious persuasiveness lives from its rich biblical and patristic imagery. The underlying conviction is that the beauty of God’s love attracts, a conviction that suffused the holy rhetoric of Augustine, Bernard, and Bonaventure and found a comeback in the vision, if not exactly in the style, of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s trilogy, a conviction that also deeply marked the theological style of the pope emeritus Benedict XVI. Anyone who expects Lumen Fidei to be extraordinary, breathtaking, and worthy of headlines in the news is obviously in need of the very enlightenment to which the encyclical gestures. For what is extraordinary, breathtaking, and worthy of headlines is the Faith to which Lumen Fidei gives such eloquent witness by way of a magisterial catechesis that is as profound as it is beautiful. The encyclical’s luminosity comes directly from its subject matter. Lumen Fidei simply says: “Come and believe that you are loved and then see, love, and understand.” If this encyclical were to be indirectly responsible for any headlines, they would be headlines referring to contemporary imitators of persons like the martyr Hierax, who was asked by the Roman prefect Rusticus, “Where are your parents?” and who responded: “Our true father is Christ, and our mother is faith in him” (§5). N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 11–23 11 Faith Enlightens the Mind: Pope Francis’s Lumen Fidei and Contemporary Errors on the Nature of Divine Faith I RENE A LEXANDER University of Mary Tempe, AZ “Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love . . . transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see.”1 T HE G OSPEL of Luke recounts the story of Jesus healing a blind man on his way to Jericho. When the blind man cries out to the Lord, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Lk 18:39–41, RSV). The blind man cries out, “Lord, I want to receive my sight.” Jesus replies, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well” (Lk 18:42). Jesus heals the man, who went forth from this encounter giving praise and glory to God. Pope Francis’s first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, emphasizes in a profound way this Biblical theme of the encounter of the living God in faith, and the reception of sight: “transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see.”2 Faith is a light, initiating the believer into communion with God, and therefore into the deepest and most profound truths of human existence. Yet unlike the blind man of Luke’s Gospel, who knows he is blind, knows that he wants to see, and knows from whom he can receive his sight, crying out to him, Pope Francis’s encyclical is directed towards a different kind of blindness, the blindness of contemporary man who has not yet realized that he is blind. This blindness of soul, as the ancient philosophers understood, is a more debilitating kind of blindness. As Socrates teaches in the Apology through the Delphic Oracle, the wise man 1 Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter Lumen Fidei ( June 29th, 2013), §4. 2 Ibid., §4. Irene Alexander 12 knows when he does not know, and seeks the truth for which he longs. There is, however, a new situation for modern man, a new ignorance which blocks the “light of faith.” Wounded by skepticism, relativism, nihilism, and enticed by the greatness of man’s technological progress and the endless pursuit of entertainment, modern man no longer pursues the questions which are most fundamentally human. Where did I come from? What is the meaning of my life? Why is there evil? How can I find happiness? Whereas the early Fathers and Doctors of the Church realized that the Incarnation is the fundamental answer to these deepest of questions which compel every human heart,3 modern society is so distracted that it largely does not ask these fundamental questions anymore. The contemporary culture has buried itself almost exclusively in technological mastery and in the pursuit of material things. Yet, as Pope Francis reminds the modern world, this endless pursuit of the material world will never fulfill the deep hungers of the human heart, for “There is nothing in the material world which can shed light on the meaning of the whole of existence.”4 There is nothing material which can answer life’s most fundamental question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”5 Both Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI Emeritus, who authored the original draft of the encyclical, are acutely aware of the new situation for modern man. The secular culture often dismisses anything outside of the material realm as “unscientific,” or perhaps as merely a matter of private opinion or private faith to which each person is entitled.The idea that the Catholic faith presents a universal truth which is objective and certain and thus able to be proposed to everyone seems fundamentally unreasonable. Pope Francis states with clarity the following contemporary objection: Yet in speaking of the light of faith, we can almost hear the objections of many of our contemporaries. In modernity, that light might have been considered sufficient for societies of old, but was felt to be of no use for new times, for a humanity come of age, proud of its rationality and anxious to explore the future in novel ways. Faith thus appeared to some as an illusory light, preventing mankind from boldly setting out in quest of knowledge.6 According to the modern objection, faith is something of the past, which perhaps man’s naïve ancestors needed to explain reality and to live peace3 Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et Ratio (September 14th, 1998), §1. 4 Lumen Fidei §1. 5 Ibid., §1. 6 Ibid., §2. Lumen Fidei and Contemporary Errors on Faith 13 fully, but human beings now have more developed rational capacities, especially modern technology, which take man into “real” human knowledge, and open new horizons of hope for humanity. At best, enlightened modernity calmly sees no need for faith, and at worst, thinks it is actually an obstacle to real knowledge and human progress. After stating this modern objection, in the next sentence of the encyclical Pope Francis cites the atheist philosopher Nietzsche, who “encouraged his sister Elisabeth to take risks, to tread ‘new paths . . . with all the uncertainty of one who must find his own way’, adding that ‘this is where humanity’s paths part: if you want peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek’.”7 The Pope comments on this text that as a result of the modern outlook, the pursuit of truth becomes fundamentally divorced from the light of faith. He states, “Belief would [therefore] be incompatible with seeking. . . . Faith would thus be the illusion of light, an illusion which blocks the path of a liberated humanity to its future.”8 The modern premise that faith is fundamentally divorced from the light of truth yields disastrous results both for faith and for truth.The Pope explains that, as a result, faith becomes associated with what is “dark” and unreasonable, and thereby becomes reducible to subjectivism and blind emotion. In the process, faith came to be associated with darkness. There were those who tried to save faith by making room for it alongside the light of reason. Such room would open up wherever the light of reason could not penetrate, wherever certainty was no longer possible. Faith was thus understood either as a leap in the dark, to be taken in the absence of light, driven by blind emotion, or as a subjective light, capable perhaps of warming the heart and bringing personal consolation, but not something which could be proposed to others as an objective and shared light which points the way.9 For the majority of modern men, faith is understood just as the Pope describes, as an irrational Kierkegaardian “leap” into the darkness of the unknown, or as something very subjective, or merely emotive.Very often even well-meaning Christians speak of their own belief in God as “taking a leap of faith” as if it were something fundamentally irrational and opposed to human nature. Such an account of an individual’s faith is a far cry from understanding faith as a theological virtue, that is, as an act of the intellect that is moved by divine grace to assent to God himself, and to the 7 Ibid., §2. 8 Ibid., §2. 9 Ibid., §3. Irene Alexander 14 things he reveals. The problem that Pope Francis points out is that this specifically more voluntarist way of thinking about faith as private and subjective creates an impassible chasm between the faith of the believer and the pursuit of objective truth. One often finds this chasm not only throughout the secular media and in society in general, but also in the university culture, sadly even among Catholic universities, which, unaware of their rich intellectual heritage, have fallen into accepting this same modern dichotomy between faith and truth as their secular contemporaries. The modernist culture cannot help but think in terms of this fundamental disjunction: either one follows a subjective and blind faith, or one follows the path of rigorous objectivity accomplished only by modern science. Such a divide, however, is fundamentally untenable for two reasons: first, because it misconstrues the true nature of ecclesial faith as a gift which perfects the intellect in its pursuit of truth, and second, because it proposes a very truncated view of human reason, dogmatically accepting as true only those things which are empirically verifiable, cutting off human reason from its true breadth and grandeur. As Pope Francis says, “In contemporary culture, we often tend to consider the only real truth to be that of technology: truth is what we succeed in building and measuring by our scientific know-how, truth is what works and what makes life easier and more comfortable.”10 Such a gravely erroneous understanding about the nature of faith and truth was completely foreign to the early and medieval Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and does a great disservice both to the light of faith and to the full breadth of human reason, which are never contradictory or in opposition, but rather illumine each other through the conjoined pursuit of natural and supernatural wisdom. Faith is not opposed to the pursuit of truth, but rather enlightens the mind, revealing truth most fully. As St. Cyril of Jerusalem observes in the opening of his Protocatechesis, catechumens who are preparing to enter into the faith of the Church are truly the photizomenoi, “those being enlightened.”11 The fundamental crisis of faith today, as Pope Francis points out, is that faith is no longer rightly understood, as it should be, precisely and formally as “an objective and shared light which points the way.”12 Modern man no longer seems to understand the nature of faith as initiating the believer into a living encounter with God who is Truth itself. Thus Pope Francis states that “today more than ever, 10 Ibid., §25. 11 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Lectures on the Christian Sacraments, ed. F. L. Cross (Crest- wood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1951), 1. Translation mine. 12 Lumen Fidei §3. Lumen Fidei and Contemporary Errors on Faith 15 we need to be reminded of this bond between faith and truth, given the crisis of truth in our age.”13 The Pope’s characterization of the contemporary error about the nature of faith reminds me of a very moving image from Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. In the beginning of the dialogue, Boethius notices that the garment of Lady Wisdom “had been ripped by the hands of some violent men, who had torn away from it what bits and pieces they could.”14 Certain sects of philosophers had torn off pieces of her luminous garment, grasping but a mere shred of her wisdom, and concluded erroneously that they had grasped her wisdom fully. The situation of such men is in fact very dangerous, more dangerous than those who have never known Lady Wisdom, for in learning only very little of her truth, they think that they know her fully and as a result, have ultimately renounced the overarching search for truth and wisdom. This imagery describes well the current secular culture’s view of Christianity, and shows why it is necessary for the Church to renew her missionary efforts in the “New Evangelization.” Most of our contemporaries have heard of Christianity and of the Church, and they know some pieces or shreds of her truth. Yet they often dismiss Christianity as merely mythical, or irrational, or boring, or its teachings as hopelessly outdated. In possessing a mere part, they think that they have grasped the whole, and they have ultimately renounced the “light of faith,” the Divine light ever ancient and ever new, which is “capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence.”15 The renunciation of faith, and the corresponding reduction of human reason, Pope Francis argues, leads humanity to dismiss the search for the overarching truth about the nature of God, whence man comes and toward whom he is ordered. Pope Francis cautions that “the light of autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future. . . . As a result, humanity has renounced the search for a great light, Truth itself, in order to be content with smaller lights which illumine the fleeting moment yet prove incapable of showing the way.”16 When the light of faith is dismissed, even the natural light of human reason begins to fade. Man becomes so blinded that he is no longer capable of discerning the Divine Light that reveals the meaning and purpose of his life. His eyes are so weakened by living in the cave of darkness that he even begins to lose his 13 Ibid., §25. 14 Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Ignatius Critical Edition, ed. and trans. Scott Goins and Barbara H. Wyman (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), Book I. 15 Lumen Fidei §4. 16 Ibid., §3. 16 Irene Alexander natural ability to discern good from evil. Pope Francis says, “[I]n the absence of light, everything becomes confused; it is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road to our destination from other roads which take us in endless circles, going nowhere.”17 The Pope’s words here seem to be a play on the Vulgate’s translation of the Psalms, which put the matter very vividly. In circuitu impii ambulabunt; “the wicked walk around in circles” (Ps 12:8), like the blind leading the blind, going nowhere having lost the light which illumines their path (Ps 119:105). Pope Francis makes the following argument specifically to modern man who believes he is so enlightened by his autonomous human reason that he no longer needs divine faith: To reject the light of faith is to reject the wisdom of God entering into and illumining the mystery of humanity. In a word, it is to accept living in darkness, fumbling about in circles, being spiritually lost in a wood without a guide. He argues therefore: “There is an urgent need, then, to see once again that faith is a light, for once the flame of faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim.”18 And Pope Francis boldly proclaims that the source of this light is not a theory or an abstract truth, but the very person of Jesus Christ who enlightens every man coming into the world ( Jn 1). But how, one might ask, can ecclesial faith be associated with “sight” and “vision”? Is not faith precisely a lack of sight and vision? For in supernatural faith, one does not yet see fully for himself the truths which he professes to know, but accepts them based on the testimony and vision of another. How, then, is faith a true “light” and knowledge, when its mysteries are not apparent to the senses? Do not the faithful believers sing before the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament praestet fides supplementum/ sensuum defectui ? Again, Pope Francis anticipates this question within the heart of modern man. “How is this possible? How can we be certain, after all these centuries, that we have encountered the ‘real Jesus’?”19 Certainly it is impossible for an individual to verify personally an event which happened thousands of years ago. But Pope Francis cautions that individual verification is not the only path to knowledge; in fact, it is not even the most common way of knowing.The majority of what is considered universal knowledge, even in the empirical sciences, does not come about through each scientist personally verifying every experiment of his predecessors; rather, it is based on natural belief in the work of others handed on through a tradition. This very natural indebtedness to tradi17 Ibid., §3. 18 Ibid., §4. 19 Ibid., §38. Lumen Fidei and Contemporary Errors on Faith 17 tion is precisely why the radical skepticism proposed by René Descartes and bequeathed to modernity is so fundamentally unreasonable. Descartes’s theoretical principle of beginning in doubt, especially of doubting the role of the senses in coming to knowledge, is fundamentally incompatible with the nature of reality and the way he actually lived. If man were to doubt everything that exists on principle, then in practice he ought not to get out of bed in the morning, for he could not be sure the world exists, the sun has risen, and that the room before him is his own. Descartes departed so radically from that tradition of which he was, in fact, a recipient, and in which he naturally (but perhaps not consciously) believed, but which, in his philosophical skepticism, he failed to acknowledge. Supernatural faith too comes by way of tradition.This is why the Church has always stated that faith is fundamentally ecclesial and not a radically individual enterprise.To enter into ecclesial faith is to encounter anew the living Christ, whose word and sacrament are handed on by an “unbroken chain of witnesses” which date back to the Incarnation itself.20 St. John the Evangelist argues that the knowledge of faith is not some gnostic spiritual intuition or personal opinion untethered to the concreteness of reality and the flesh, but is truly rooted in the very sense experience of the apostles: “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life” (1 Jn 1–2). To enter into the faith of the Church is to trust God’s plan of establishing an unbroken chain of witnesses, each of whom has been physically touched by the sacramental “laying on of hands” of his ordained predecessor (1 Tim 4:14), going all the way back to the very tangible experience of the apostles themselves, whose own hands have touched the Lord Jesus himself, and who boldly proclaim, “We have seen His glory” ( Jn 1:14). For this reason, Pope Francis reiterates the teaching of the Church that the fullness of divine faith takes place only within the communion of the Church. Outside of full communion with her, one fails to recognize fully the authentic tradition to which the Christian believer is in fact indebted. He can never make the act of faith on his own, qua individual. It is impossible to believe on our own. Faith is not simply an individual decision which takes place in the depths of the believer’s heart, nor a completely private relationship between the “I” of the believer and the divine “Thou”, between an autonomous subject and God. By its 20 Ibid., §38. Irene Alexander 18 very nature, faith is open to the “We” of the Church; it always takes place within her communion.21 When speaking of the theological virtue of faith, St. Thomas Aquinas shows the reason for the Pope’s conclusion even more clearly. He states: “When we believe God by faith, we reach God himself. . . . This is why I have said that God is the object of faith not simply in the sense that we believe in God (credere Deum) but also that we believe God (credimus Deo).”22 The Angelic Doctor distinguishes the material content of the faith, the truths which are believed ( fides quae), from the formal aspect of faith, or the faith by which one believes ( fides qua).To believe means to trust God for no other reason than that it is God the First Truth revealing himself. To put it simply, in the act of faith man first trusts and believes God himself (credere Deo) before he accepts any particular articles of faith (credere Deum). Thus, discovering the internal coherence and reasonableness within the articles of faith is not yet the virtue of theological faith. Finding certain propositions of faith to be attractive and beautiful, though it is part of the initial stage of coming to faith, is still not yet the virtue of faith. “The faith of which we are speaking,” St. Thomas says, “does not assent to anything except because it is revealed by God.”23 Man assents because it is the First Truth himself, the beloved Father, who speaks. In the act of faith, the believer trusts the divine Someone, who, on account of his trustworthiness, gives him reason to assent to the divine something or the revealed truths that God speaks through his Word handed on faithfully through his Church.24 After all, how could man, who by nature is endowed only with natural reason, adjudicate on supernatural matters? His faith in their truth relies upon the omniscient God who in his divine nature enjoys fully the vision of himself and reveals his truth through the tradition of apostolic witnesses. An individual man who has stumbled upon the Sacred Scriptures cannot trust himself to make infallible pronouncements on revealed truths and be certain that they are free from error. (Is Christ homoousios or homoiousios with the Father?) He is, by his own human nature, incapable of doing so. Therefore only a fully ecclesial faith preserves the certitude of divine truth. When a person dissents from a particular teaching of the Church, whether doctrinal or moral, the very ratio for that person’s faith changes; in truth, the reason for his faith becomes somewhat incoherent. When a Catholic or a non-Catholic Christian accepts many but not all the truths 21 Ibid., §39. 22 Summa theologiae II–II, q. 81, a 5. 23 ST II–II, q. 2, a. 2. 24 Joseph Pieper, Faith, Hope and Love (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 31. Lumen Fidei and Contemporary Errors on Faith 19 about God revealed in Christ through his Church (1 Tim 3:15), he is in fact making two formally distinct acts which are by nature in opposition. By one act, he trusts God the Father who reveals supernatural truths and teaches them to man infallibly through the Church; by another act, he removes his faith in God the revealer by trusting his individual self, resorting to his own human opinion or private judgment of Scripture to discern what is true concerning supernatural realities.25 Herein lies the incoherence: the very ratio of his belief continually oscillates between relying upon a tradition that he implicitly continues to trust as providing him infallible truth about the inner mysteries of God, and resorting to his own private judgment. Such oscillation is contrary to the virtue of faith. One cannot maintain the same ratio for belief in God’s revelation, while at once making oneself the private arbiter of divine revelation. Although the reasons for the splintering of Christianity and individual dissent are various and complex (and one cannot fault an individual Christian believer, Catholic or non-Catholic, for not being taught clearly the fullness of the Catholic faith), nevertheless, a very real intellectual incoherence remains in such Christians with regard to the theological virtue of faith. This unsteady oscillation between an implicit trust in the infallibility of the Church and a resort to private judgment not only causes tremendous disunity among various Christians, but also, and perhaps even more regrettably, causes Christians to lack credibility in presenting the unified divine faith as a light to the modern world. From the perspective of a contemporary atheist or non-Christian, it seems that even Christians themselves cannot agree on what is the truth of the faith; the unbeliever is left confused and hesitant to place his trust in Jesus Christ as the “way the 25 Reinhard Hütter, in his article “Relinquishing the Principle of Private Judgment in Matters of Divine Truth,” explains that an integral part of his journey into the Catholic faith was the recognition of the falsehood of the principle of private judgment on matters of revealed truth. He states, “What stood at the beginning of this quest [into “the fullness of the Catholic faith”] was the slow but sure realization that the principle of private judgment in matters of divine truth, and hence in matters of the faith, is a burden and a bane inescapably embedded in all versions of Protestantism. And what sent me eventually on the road to the Catholic Church was my increasing realization that as a Protestant theologian I could not escape from abiding by the principle of private judgment. Because I am narrating the journey of a theologian into the Catholic Church, it does not come as a surprise that my story has a theological plot: the more I understood the principle of private judgment as the hidden center of my existence as a Protestant theologian, the more strongly was I drawn to the faith of the Catholic Church.” See Reinhard Hütter, “Relinquishing the Principle of Private Judgment in Matters of Divine Truth: A Protestant Theologian’s Journey into the Catholic Church,” Nova et Vetera 9.4 (2011): 865–81. Irene Alexander 20 truth and the life” ( Jn 14:6). When faced with this reality, the secular unbeliever is more likely to conclude, as his philosophical modernism has taught him, that one simply cannot know truth concerning supernatural realities. The rejection of a fully ecclesial faith due to individual private judgment and the consequent splintering of Christians into various factions, in fact, contributes to the pervading contemporary skepticism of the modern world. Such disunity and unbelief was never God’s intention. On the eve of his passion, Jesus Christ Himself prayed to the Father for the unity of all believers, “that they may be one as we are one” precisely so that “the world may believe that you have sent Me” ( Jn 17:21). When a believer enters into the Catholic faith, therefore, he neither enters as an individual who discovered the mysteries of the faith by himself nor remains as an isolated individual, but as is revealed in the Sacred Scriptures, he becomes a part of God’s covenantal family. The faith of the Church, as Pope Francis teaches, is a covenantal faith which believes in the profoundly personal love God has for man; he loves his own creature so deeply that “he loved him to the end” ( Jn 13:1), to death, even death on a cross (Phil 2).To enter into the life of faith is to acknowledge that one’s life is not so radically individual, but already a part of a greater narrative. Faith opens the believer’s eyes to the divine love story which begins with the primacy of God’s goodness as the origin and end of all things, and his initiative in founding a covenant with fallen man. “The beginning of salvation,” the Pope says, “is openness to something prior to ourselves, to a primordial gift that affirms life and sustains it in being.”26 To enter into the life of faith is to recognize the priority of God’s gift and to receive his love, a covenantal love which creates new personal and family bonds.27 The believer now calls upon his Creator not only as Lord of all things but much more intimately as “Father,” and receives a new communion with the whole mystical body of believers. Pope Francis states: Here we see why those who believe are never alone, and why faith tends to spread, as it invites others to share in its joy. Those who receive faith discover that their horizons expand as new and enriching relationships come to life. Tertullian puts this well when he describes the catechumens who, “after the cleansing which gives new birth” are welcomed into the house of their mother and, as part of a new family, pray the Our Father together with their brothers and sisters.28 26 Lumen Fidei §19. 27 For a summary of the current development in the Biblical notion of covenant, see Scott Hahn, “Covenant in the Old and New Testaments: Some Current Research (1994–2004),” Currents in Biblical Research 3.2 (2005): 263–92. 28 Lumen Fidei §39. Lumen Fidei and Contemporary Errors on Faith 21 By entering the new covenant of faith, the believer is now a brother to Abraham and to Moses; their story is now an integral part of his own. The Mother of Jesus is now the believer’s own Mother ( Jn 19; Rev 12), the saints are his own brothers and sisters, whose being is filled by the very same body and blood of the Divine Bridegroom, offered in the sacrament of the altar. Participating in the New Covenant through the Eucharistic feast feeds the hungry soul of man with the divine substance itself and creates a new spiritual family incarnated by the Eucharistic blood of the Lamb flowing in every believer’s veins. Through the sacraments, the believer enters into a new blood relationship with God and with his neighbor, whom he now sees with “new eyes.” This profound communion with the Father through the Son and Holy Spirit leads the human person to begin to see reality from the heights of God’s own vision. His faith leads to new sight and to a new vision of the whole of reality. By accepting the love of Jesus, “we receive in a certain way his vision”29 or as St. Paul says, “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). Pope Francis’s words on the nature of faith as leading to a deeper sight conform very deeply to the Biblical notion of faith found throughout the Gospels and especially to the words that come from the very lips of Jesus Christ: “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” ( Jn 11:40). Pope Francis states that “faith’s understanding is born when we receive the immense love of God which transforms us inwardly and enables us to see reality with new eyes.”30 God’s love is the original source of man’s gift of faith, and, transformed by this love, man longs to know more of the one whom he has already come to see and know; he longs for the eternal vision of God as he is in himself. The gift of faith invites the believer into this profound vision of truth, which elevates the mind and heart to see reality anew as God himself sees it and enables the believer to find his own personal mission in the world in light of the primordial truth about his origin and destiny. It is in this sense, both Biblical and Greek, that faith is fundamentally, as Pope Francis says, “a common good,”31 for salvation is the common spiritual good of the covenant family, who calls upon God not merely as “my Father” or “my personal Lord” but as Jesus Christ himself has taught his disciples, as “Our Father” (Mt 6:9). For God both is and is to be loved as the Father of the whole human family, as the common good of all. Divine faith cannot be otherwise than a common good since it is a good so superabundant that it is capable of perfecting the being of all men with the 29 Ibid., §21. 30 Ibid., §26. 31 Ibid., §51. 22 Irene Alexander radiating power of truth and love. Only in light of this Divine common good32 which unites truth and love can men work towards building just and virtuous societies, which is true human “progress.” Yet, without this light of faith which initiates the believer into the very wisdom and love of God, man tends towards darkness and to the destruction of human life. 32 J. Brian Benestad, in Church, State and Society: An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine, explains that recognition of God as the highest common good leads to the greatest respect for the dignity of the human person. “No person properly seeks salvation for himself alone. He wants all people to share his liberation from sin and his union with God. To affirm the primacy of the highest common good is to desire that all human beings participate in the life of God and that all are united in that participation. To will the end is to will the means. Therefore, those desirous of salvation pray that everyone’s trespasses will be forgiven and that all live virtuously in the eyes of God. It may seem ironic that seeking God as the highest common good leads to the greatest respect for the dignity of the human person . . . [yet] the whole message of salvation proclaimed by the Church teaches people that, as parts of a whole, they are ordered to the greatest of all goods, union with God.” J. B. Benestad, Church, State and Society: An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 104–5. See also St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles III, ch. 17; ST II–II, q. 26, a. 3, ad. 3, and especially ST I q. 60, a. 5, ad. 5: “Since in God his substance and the common good are one and the same, all who behold God’s essence are by the same movement of love moved towards the Divine essence as it is distinct from other things, and according as it is the common good. And because He is naturally loved by all so far as He is the common good, it is impossible that whoever sees Him in His essence should not love Him. But such as do not behold His essence, know Him by some particular effects, which are sometimes opposed to their will. So in this way they are said to hate God; yet nevertheless, so far as He is the common good of all things, everything naturally loves God more than itself.” For an excellent treatment of St. Thomas’s notion of the common good see Charles De Koninck, De la Primauté du Bien Commun contre les Personnalistes. Le principe de l’ordre nouveau (Québec/Montréal: Ed. de l’Université Laval/Fides, 1943), and “In Defense of St. Thomas,” Laval Theologique et Philosophique 1 (1945): 9–109. De Koninck succinctly summarizes St. Thomas’s position on love of God as a common good when he says, “Why is God so insistent that we love our neighbour? Why does our very salvation depend upon the love of our neighbour? If any man say: I love God, and hateth his brother; he is a liar. It can surely be only because it is impossible to love God as he is in himself without loving him in his communicability to others. If God had created and beatified but a single intellectual creature, he would still have to be loved in his communicability to other intellectual creatures. God is the bonum universale simpliciter. There can never be a proportion of equality between this infinite good and the intellectual creature’s capacity for beatitude. The divine good can never be other than a common good for the creature.To prescind from the inexhaustible communicability of the divine good to others, whether it is actually communicated or not, is to prescind from the bonum universale itself.” Charles De Koninck, “In Defense of St. Thomas,” 47. Lumen Fidei and Contemporary Errors on Faith 23 In his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, Pope Francis goes straight to the heart of the modern world’s erroneous conception about the nature of divine faith and shows the falsehood and inadequacy of the contemporary disjunction between the light of faith and the search for truth. Faith is not merely a subjective enterprise, reducible to personal opinion, voluntarism, or blind emotivism. Nor is human reason’s pursuit of truth reducible merely to techne and praxis; rather, both the full breadth of human reason and the light of divine faith lift man up into the very mind and heart of God, who, through his incarnation, death, and resurrection, offers to man the treasury of his own divine life. “What do you want me to do for you? ” Jesus says to the blind man on his way to Jericho (Lk 18:39–41). It is a chilling sort of thing to imagine the Son of God asking a mortal man to make a request of him. What to ask for! What is the greatest thing one could ask of the Divine Majesty? In a word, it is vision, sight. One holy saint and preeminent doctor of the Church gave such an answer to this very question when asked by the Lord Himself. While celebrating Mass on the feast of St. Nicholas, St. Thomas Aquinas heard a voice coming from the cross: “You have written well of me, Thomas. What reward will you have?” The saint replied, “Only You, Lord. Only You.” In that moment, Christ granted him a profound mystical vision, after which the Angelic Doctor never wrote again. Though he had spent his life preaching and writing of that very “light” that comes from faith, bequeathing to the Church an unparalleled treasury of wisdom, St. Thomas’s profound silence before the mystery of God teaches man that even the great “vision”33 and “sight” which man receives through the gift of divine faith does not compare with the eternal vision to come. For even the “new eyes”34 that man receives by faith, are eyes which have not seen, nor in any way have imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor 2:9). N&V 33 Lumen Fidei §4. 34 Ibid., §4. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 25–56 25 Three Pathways into the Theological Mind of Pope Francis K EITH L EMNA St. Meinrad Seminary St. Meinrad, IN DAVID H. D ELANEY San Antonio, TX T HE YOUNG papacy of Pope Francis has excited many Catholics and non-Catholics throughout the world. The best evidence of this perhaps was the outpouring of enthusiasm demonstrated by throngs of people at World Youth Day 2013 in Brazil, many of whose participants were especially eager to catch a glimpse of and hear from the new pope from Latin America who had already won their loyalty. This massive gathering of Catholics and others showed the world that in Pope Francis the Church has a formidable leader, at least inasmuch as he has captivated the attention of many millions of people, drawing even the fascination of hardened detractors of the Church. Indeed, Pope Francis has become a hallowed figure among classes of people who have generally held the Church in open scorn for the past several decades. Pope Francis, in contrast to the previous two popes, is seen by them (however accurately or inaccurately) to be an eminently sympathetic figure, a builder of bridges, who understands what is truly in the hearts of modern and postmodern men and women and who desires to conform the Church to their needs and expectations. Nevertheless, it seems clear that Pope Francis has not yet been understood, at least in the English-speaking world, on a theological level. He has most certainly not been understood in terms of how his magisterium reflects his theological sources. His ideas warrant a much more serious discussion by theologians than has so far been produced. We hope in this article to take a step or two toward understanding Pope Francis in a 26 Keith Lemna and David Delaney systematic manner, to see him in light of his theological background so that we may provide some clues for a richer interpretive context for his papacy, one that is a little less liable to journalistic misconstruing. At the outset, it is particularly important to note that Pope Francis is first and foremost not a professional theologian by training or vocational background but a Jesuit pastor. He has brought his Jesuit spirituality, with all of its Ignatian practicality (even pragmatism), simplicity, and sense of order to the papacy. His philosophical and theological interests are largely of a practical nature, ordered to the service of his flock. He has a pedagogical background in pastoral theology and even in Spanish literature but not in systematic theology or philosophy. He never finished a proposed doctoral dissertation in Munich on the theology of Romano Guardini, whose non-Hegelian and non-Marxist theology of dialectic was attractive to him. It is likely that one would search in vain to locate any particular school of theological or philosophical thought to which he might be said to subscribe fully. He is known to have been trained by reputable Thomists in Argentina and to have read widely in the Church Fathers and in the Church’s spiritual tradition, but some of those in the Jesuit order who have known him are quick to point out that he has developed his own personal views—and always very pastorally oriented—regarding Catholic theology and philosophy.1 With all of this said, his mind, like that of any other pastor in the Church, cannot be understood in utter detachment from the specifics of his theological formation. Thus, it is important, in interpreting him, to explore his Argentinian theological background. As a first step, then, in developing a plausible, interpretive theological context for Pope Francis, 1 Conversations that we have had with Jesuits who know his thought and its formational influences confirm that his thought cannot be identified with any particular stream of thought. He seems to have developed his own personal theological vision, which he takes from many sources. His use of terminology also exhibits this characteristic; it does not fit exactly with any particular school but tends to be analogous usage of terms in order to highlight some specific characteristic. At the same time, as we shall see, there is strong evidence that an Argentinian teología del pueblo (theology of the people) is a very strong influence for him. This sense of Francis’s individuality is supported by various brother Argentinian Jesuits in a recently published book of interviews; see Alejandro Bermúdez, Pope Francis: Our Brother, Our Friend: Personal Recollections about the Man Who Became Pope (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2013). Other common themes Bermúdez’s book brings out are Francis’s firm Ignatian spirituality and practicality, his priority of pastoral application even over against theological inquiry, and his astute intellect in knowing how best to get things done. Regarding his dissertation idea, see ibid., 68, where it is discussed by Juan Carlos Scannone, S.J., whom we will discuss in some detail below. The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 27 we shall explore briefly Argentinian liberation theology, which is at the vanguard of Argentinian theology and with which, we shall demonstrate, Pope Francis is almost certainly at home. This type of liberation theology has distinguishing characteristics that make it, in contrast to some other varieties of the general type, amenable to the Church’s doctrinal tradition. In Argentina, liberation theology takes the direction of a specific sort of “theology of the people” (teología del pueblo) that refuses to pit classes of people against one another or against the Church in an inevitable situation of conflict. It takes its starting point in a cultural-historical analysis of the present situation of human communities in the light of faith and not in the light or darkness of Marxist categories. Access to the Holy Father’s mind can also be gained by looking at his pre-papal writings, a task that was seemingly much more easily accomplished in the case of the previous two pontiffs, who had each written voluminously in areas pertaining to Catholic theology and philosophy prior to being elected pope. This might at first appear not to be so in the case of Pope Francis.Yet, this appearance is deceiving. It rests on ignorance of the significance for him of the massive and theologically rich Aparecida document, the joint declaration of the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM) from their Fifth General Conference in 2007, held in Aparecida, Brazil, whose editorial commission he headed. Since the time of his election as Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis has spoken of the decisive importance of this document for the future of Latin American Catholicism. His role in the document’s outcome was crucial. Indeed, he was in charge of the writing of the final document. The content of this document surely tells us much about how Pope Francis understands the situation of the global Church—and not only the Church in Latin America—in the face of the challenge of contemporary and future evangelization.2 Even more, it is not too much to say that it gives us access to his theological mind in the manner of a personal writing. 2 See Sandro Magister, “When Bergoglio Defeated the Liberation Theologians,” Chiesa (October 1, 2013); available at: chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/ 1350613?eng=y; accessed on 1 Oct 2013. In this article, Filippo Santoro, Archbishop of Taranto, Italy, who worked with Bergoglio on the document, is quoted as saying: “Of course, Aparecida made a significant contribution and marked a change of position that is valid not only for Latin America, but for the whole Church.” Indeed, the recent release of the Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (EG ) on 26 November 2013 would seem to confirm Aparecida’s now universal significance (available at the Vatican website). In this first of Francis’s magisterial writings that is not left over from Bendict XVI’s pontificate we can see more clearly Francis’s plan. Evangelii Gaudium cites Aparecida and its associated documents no fewer than sixteen times. 28 Keith Lemna and David Delaney In this essay, then, we would like to explore briefly, in turn, the aforementioned two pathways into the mind Pope Francis: first, Argentinian liberation theology, and, second, the Aparecida document. We shall dedicate a section to each pathway. In a third section, we shall suggest how these pathways are integrated in his thinking in the light of a third important pathway into his thought: the writings of Luigi Giussani, the founder of the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation. We shall suggest in this section that Pope Francis is moved in his thinking by the desire to kindle the fire of new evangelization and that all of the pathways into his thought that we will have explored coalesce around his desire for the Church to become more fully missionary, and his recognition that mission should proceed by awakening the religious heart of man with the attraction of the Cross of Christ humbly made present to the world through the personal witness of the Church. By clarifying the three pathways that we have marked out, we hope to catch a glimpse of the sort of theological reasoning that underlies the Holy Father’s evangelical strategy, evident for instance in the recently released Evangelii Gaudium, and to spur future theological inquiry into his exercise of the papal office. I We shall begin by expounding Argentinian liberation theology. It is necessary at the outset of this task to provide at least a cursory historical sketch of the experience of Catholicism in Latin America and in particular in Argentina.3 The advent of liberation theology is, after all, deeply conditioned by this history. One might plausibly say that the early experience of Catholicism among the various peoples of Latin America is to a large degree a shared one, even if the resulting regional particularities are relatively unique cultural expressions of this experience. Catholicism came to the southern continent of present day Latin America in the early sixteenth century through the evangelistic efforts of Spanish and Portuguese missionaries accompanying the colonists. In 1508, Pope Julius II gave authority to King Ferdinand of Spain to appoint bishops in the Spanish colonies in the New World, subject to papal approval. The resulting system has been called real patronado (or padronato real, which translates to “royal patronage”). In many ways, the consequences of this system are still felt today in the sense of alienation of the average Catholic from the hierarchical 3 Cf. John Frederick Schwaller, The History of the Catholic Church in Latin America: From Conquest to Revolution and Beyond (New York: New York University Press, 2011); John Lynch, New Worlds: A Religious History of Latin America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012). The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 29 Church, a situation that an ecclesial figure with the heightened pastoral sensitivity of Pope Francis would want naturally to redress. At the risk of overgeneralizing, one of these consequences has been an all-too-often misplaced loyalty on the part of the bishops first to Spain and later to the ruling powers.The bishops were generally chosen from the elite classes even after the Spanish were expelled.The majority of the priests, on the other hand, were solicitous to the average, poor Catholic whom they served, which would eventually lead to a sense of alienation of many priests from their bishops and subsequently toward the hierarchical aspect of the Church. By the twentieth century, the average Latin American Catholic and many priests would come to equate the hierarchical Church with privilege, elitism, and the injustices of particular political regimes. Priests would in various ways be exempted in public sentiment from association with Church hierarchy. When liberal and masonic thought entered Latin America in the nineteenth century, this alienation turned into an anti-clericalism that now carried over to animosity toward priests as well in many minds, a situation that has left a lasting memory.4 The colonial experience of the indigenous peoples was of course often deplorable, and this generally caused most tribes that did not need the Spanish for protection to resist Spanish culture, including the Catholic faith. Although the various missionary orders—the Franciscans, the Dominicans, and later, but primarily in the rural areas, the Jesuits and their reducciones (“reductions” or rural settlements aimed at “reducing” those aboriginal ways of life that were in contradiction with the Gospel)—were relatively beneficent toward the indigenous peoples, the secular Spanish often exploited them out of the motivation of greed.5 Spanish landowners were always looking for cheap labor; subjugation and 4 The term “liberal” is a technical term still commonly used in Latin America to refer to Enlightenment-influenced thinking which gave rise to the American and French revolutions and to the many revolts against Spanish rule in nineteenth-century Latin America. However, Latin American liberal thinking came directly from Europe, spreading there with the European revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848. Masonic influence, primarily with its anti-Catholic, anti-clerical emphases, was also felt throughout Latin America, though perhaps Mexican Catholics suffered most from it in the Cristero wars of the early twentieth century. This cultural memory explains Francis’s continued concern with freemasonry mentioned in his plane interview returning from World Youth Day 2013; transcript available here: www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/speeches/ 2013/july/documents/papa-francesco_20130728_gmg-conferenza-stampa_ en.html. In this interview, Pope Francis refers explicitly to “lobbies” of Masons. 5 Cf. Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, Heaven on Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the Twenty-first Century, trans. Alejandro Bermúdez and Howard Goodman (New York: Image, 2013), 199–201. Here, Pope Francis 30 Keith Lemna and David Delaney enslavement of the indigenous peoples provided their primary source of such labor. This pattern established what would become a class system based upon skin color, with those of pure Spanish origin becoming members of the elite class and the poor indigenous and mestizos (of mixed Spanish and indigenous and/or Black African blood) forming the underclass and often being exploited for their cheap labor. The Spanish colonial era in Latin America approached its end with Napoleon’s incarceration of the Bourbon king, Ferdinand VII of Spain, in 1807. This led to wars of independence throughout Latin American territories. In Argentina, the May Revolution of 1810 led to the ouster of the Spanish Viceroy, and the colony declared independence in 1816, though fighting with Spanish royalists would continue until 1824. Like almost every other newly independent country, Argentina quickly fell into a long civil war, a struggle between two different factions with differing views of how the country should be governed. It finally approved its current Constitution in 1853, though, like its neighbors, it continued to experience a somewhat tumultuous history progressing through liberal governments, dictatorships, radical governments, coups followed by military dictatorships, wars with neighboring states, and reforming governments. In many ways the experience of Argentina is similar to that of the rest of Latin America, but in many other ways it is different. Argentina’s indigenous population quickly declined, almost to disappearance, primarily due to nineteenth-century European immigration; today the population is about 97 percent white.6 Thus the class system based upon skin color experienced in other Latin American countries was not as great a factor in Argentinian social structures. The elite were usually the landowners. Argentina has had as well an unusually large middle class for much of its history, though one economic collapse in the 1980s and a second one at the beginning of the new millennium reduced its size to the present day. Even so, Argentina has throughout its history been one of the most prosperous countries in Latin America. Nevertheless, it has also had and continues to have a large poor class, with poverty of a kind not seen in the United States.7 Although the common experience in most Latin Ameri(then Jorge Bergoglio) stresses the beneficial presence of the religious orders in the colonies of Latin America. 6 This figure comes from: www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ geos/ar.html; accessed on August 9, 2013. 7 Overall, by the mid 1990s, poverty in which basic human needs were not met was at about 15 percent; however, in rural areas this rate was as high as 40 percent. This was down from an average closer to one quarter of the population in the later Perón and post-Perón years; acquired from go.worldbank.org/ TIDQRMGIS0. The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 31 can countries of the great wealth divide (the few rich and the majority in extreme poverty) was not as pronounced in Argentina, most Argentinians were still aware of this acute poverty from experiences in certain areas of the cities and from visits to rural areas and neighboring countries. Argentina differs from many other Latin American countries in another important respect: Marxist socialism has never seemed to gain a foothold there. Perhaps this was due to Juan Perón, who rose to power during World War II, achieving the presidency in 1946. Perón has been described as more of a fascist or a national socialist than an outright Marxist. He was at once populist and authoritarian. His economic policies were initially successful but soon began to fail, and Argentina lost its once stable, flourishing economy. Peronian nationalist collectivism, which redistributed wealth to the poor, seems to have inoculated Argentina to some degree against Marxist success in achieving governance and, as we shall see, in gaining a foothold in theology. As with the rest of Latin America, the country is predominantly Catholic (somewhere between 77 and 92 percent),8 but the percentage who practice their faith is much lower (around 20 percent).9 With this as background, let us now turn to explore the special character of liberation theology in Argentina, enlisting especially the aid of Juan Carlos Scannone, S.J. (b. 1931), the greatest living Argentinian Jesuit philosopher, who has been at once a mentor to Pope Francis (then Jorge Bergoglio) and a spiritual advisee of his.10 Scannone taught Greek and literature to the young Bergoglio in the seminary.11 Later, while Bergoglio was rector of the seminary at which Scannone taught, he would consult with Scannone on theological and philosophical matters and Scannone with him on spiritual matters.12 This mutual mentoring went on for some ten years. This lends credibility to Scannone’s assertion, made in an interview with the French 8 These figures come, respectively, from features.pewforum.org/global-christian- ity/total-population-percentage.php (August 9, 2013) and www.cia.gov/library/ publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ar.html (August 9, 2013). 9 This figure comes from the second source in note 8 above. 10 Our primary reference for this discussion is taken from the article by Juan Carlos Scannone, S.J. “Perspectivas Eclesiológicas de la ‘Teología del Pueblo’ en Argentina,” in Ecclesia Tertii Millenni Advenientis: Omaggio al P. Angel Anton, Professore di Ecclesiologia alla Pontifica Università Gregoriana nel suo 70° Compleanno, ed. F. Chica, S. Panizzolo, and H. Wagner (Casale Monferrato: PIEME, 1997), 686–704. 11 La Stampa, “Fr. Scannone: ‘Meet my Pupil, Bergoglio,’ ” March 3, 2013; accessed from: vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/francesco-francisfrancisco-23770/ on August 9, 2013. See also Bermúdez, Our Brother, 62. 12 Ibid. Scannone also reports that he lived together with Bergoglio at the Colegio Máximo de San José in San Miguel, in the province of Buenos Aires for as many as 17 years. On this, see Bermúdez, Our Brother, 62–63. 32 Keith Lemna and David Delaney daily journal La Croix shortly after Bergoglio’s election to the papacy, that Francis is a product of the Argentinian school of liberation theology, for which Scannone is himself a foremost advocate.13 Fr. Scannone is a particularly interesting figure, the study of whose work would greatly enhance the North American understanding of Latin American theology and philosophy. He is Professor Emeritus, Theology Director at the Institute for Research in Philosophy at the University of the Savior–San Miguel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was educated as a philosopher, gaining his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1967 from the University of Munich, where he wrote his dissertation on the French philosopher Maurice Blondel, although he was most profoundly affected later by the thought of the French phenomenologist Emmanuel Lévinas, particularly his 1961 work Totality and Infinity.14 Although Scannone was schooled in phenomenology and some of his work is still in the field of phenomenology (he has recently shown interest in the work of Jean-Luc Marion), he is also a liberation theologian/philosopher. One might say that he is a liberation theologian who informs his work with insights from phenomenology. He was involved in liberation theology from its beginning (1968), but, perhaps because of Peronism in Argentina, he and his Argentinian confreres never considered Marxist metaphysics a possible foundation for their work.15 Nevertheless, they did see value in a liberationist hermeneutic for developing an inculturated theology for the Latin American—and particularly the Argentinian—context, but not one that would be a provincial and segregated specimen of theology. Scannone suggests that for any inculturated theology to be legitimate it must also be a universal theology. This is a tricky balance to accomplish, and one would doubtless have to see his work in light of his appropriation of Lévinas’s concept of alterity to understand how he might suggest pulling it off. It is beyond our goals at present to do so, but it is interesting to ponder that the present papacy might inspire some North American theologians to think about what it means for contemporary French phenomenology to inform a Latin American teología del pueblo and vice versa. At any rate, Scannone seems to be indebted at least as much to 13 La Croix, “Le pape François et ‘l’école argentine de la théologie de la libération,’ ” March 17, 2013; accessed from: www.la-croix.com/Religion/Actualite/Le-pape-Francois-etl-ecole-argentine-de-la-theologie-de-la-liberation-_NP_-2013-03-17-921907 on August 13, 2013. For more information on their relationship, see Bermúdez,“Father Juan Carlos Scannone, S.J.” in Our Brother, 61–75. 14 Carlos Beorlegui, “La Influencia de E. Levinas en le Filosofía de la Liberación de J. C. Scannone y de E. Dussel (1a Parte),” Revista Realidad 57 (May-June 1997): 245. 15 Scannone, “Perspectivas.” The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 33 French theology as to German theology, the latter of which is the source of most forms of liberation theology. The Argentinian school of liberation theology is, like all other forms of this theology, deeply wedded to the preferential option for the poor. However, as Scannone has expounded the matter, it contextualizes the preferential option in a wider theology of the people (teología del pueblo) that takes its starting point not in Marxism but in the ecclesial documents Gaudium et Spes (GS) and Evangelii Nuntiandi (EN). The category of the People of God is decisive here.Though there was interchange between the Argentinians and some elements of the Marxist liberation theological schools (not all of whose representatives accepted the Argentinian school as a legitimate branch of liberation theology), the Argentinian school would use the latter’s terminology, but in a manner that is quite congruent with Church tradition. It would stress a preferential option for the poor that is ecclesially integrated.That is, Argentinian liberation theology sees the poor within the heart of the People of God, in the light of an ecclesiology of communion where all have a share in the Church. It does not dismiss the importance of hierarchical institution but affirms that ecclesial authority exists to serve the people. Scannone distinguishes four currents in liberation theology, and his schematization was taken up by Cardinal Antonio Quarracino (who preceded Bergoglio as Archbishop of Buenos Aires) in the Cardinal’s presentation of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation (1984) in L’Osservatore Romano. Gustavo Gutiérrez has himself confirmed that there is a distinctive Argentinian current of liberation theology.16 In order to distinguish more precisely the particular characteristics of the Argentinian school, we will follow Scannone in highlighting some of its differences from Latin American Marxist currents of liberation theology. Perhaps the most important differentiating characteristic of the Argentinian teología del pueblo is that it emphasizes what Scannone calls an “integral liberation,” by which he means a theocentric, vertical liberation that makes possible horizontal, political liberations. Liberation comes first from God, in this view, in contrast to the Marxist idea that liberation is first and foremost a human political achievement. Following Evangelii Nuntiandi, the teología del pueblo understands that while human liberation from oppression 16 Cf. Bermúdez, Our Brother, 64. Quarracino’s years are 1923–98. Scannone’s orig- inal article identifies the four currents as: 1) theology from the pastoral praxis of the Church, 2) theology from the praxis of revolutionary groups, 3) theology from historical praxis, and 4) theology from the praxis of the Latin-American Peoples (see Juan Carlos Scannone, “La teología de la liberación. Caracterización, corrientes, etapas,” Stromata 18 [1982]: 3–40). Keith Lemna and David Delaney 34 is linked to the Gospel message of salvation, it is not—as Marxist liberation theology might have contended—the only liberation, nor should it be the first concern for theology (see EN 35–39). Clearly, a theology of personal sin would be crucial in this perspective. One could not, in this school, reduce the reality of sin to its presence in social structures. Another important distinguishing characteristic of the Argentinian school is that it rejects the primacy of the Marxist category of conflict. Scannone indicates that the teología del pueblo presupposes that unity has an ontological primacy; conflict arising in human affairs comes only later. Scannone holds that one is better able from this perspective to analyze conflict arising from injustice and oppression and so to resolve it. In this way, the term “people” is understood differently than in the Marxist schools, which reduce the category “people” to those who are oppressed, in a natural state of conflict with the oppressors. In the Argentinian school, the oppressors are also “people” who must be reconciled with those whom they oppress. Thus, a great part of the project of the Argentinian school is to look at the relationship between all of the “people” from a particular historico-cultural context and from that of the People of God. Marxist sociological analysis is not the determining factor here.17 The category “people” also includes, as intimated above, the hierarchical structure of the Church, which the Argentinian school recognizes as necessary if the Church is to be a servant Church. It is a special challenge in many Latin American contexts to affirm the hierarchical Church, for the reasons pointed out in our exposition above. Besides the category of “people,” and the attendant emphasis on a preferential option for the poor, the teología del pueblo prizes as a primary category “popular religiosity.” As we have seen so far in his papacy, popular religiosity is very important to Pope Francis. This is also an important theme in Evangelii Nuntiandi, and it has found a place in Evangelii Gaudium as well.18 As Scannone understands it, this concept presupposes that at the center of a culture is the organization of a society around the ultimate 17 Cf. Bermúdez, “Father Juan Carlos Scannone, S.J.” in Our Brother, 64. 18 Evangelii Nuntiandi §48, emphasizing the importance of popular religiosity, instructs that one which is well oriented is able to be purified of distortions and superstitions, which if not dealt with can result in the development of sects and do damage to true ecclesial community. However, if pastors guide it through a “pedagogy of evangelization” then its richness in values which manifest an implicit thirst for God and the unique spiritual expression of those who experience poverty and simplicity, become apparent. Evangelii Nuntiandi says that popular religiosity often brings people to generosity and sacrifice, it highlights profound attributes of God such as fatherhood, providence, and a sense of His loving omnipresence, and it engenders in those who practice it patience, a daily The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 35 meaning of life—that is, how individuals and the society should relate to one another and to God as demanded by Him. For Scannone, this takes the form in Argentina of popular piety. Liberation theologians of the Marxist variety often differ from the teología del pueblo very strongly on this point. One might take Juan Luis Segundo’s theology of liberation as a counterexample, which has been plausibly accused of Gnosticism and elitism.19 Segundo’s representative Marxist position seems—or so critics have argued—to privilege saving gnosis for an elite few, eschewing the Catholic piety of the common folk, those whom Segundo refers to as “the common Christian.” In a Marxist analysis, “popular piety” might be perceived as an opiate given to the people by those from the oppressor classes, or at least encouraged by them, in order to keep the people from seeking a social justice that would undo the stratification of society. This is not Scannone’s view; he nevertheless thinks that one must not take popular piety in a completely uncritical way, absent any theological and moral analysis of it.20 A final distinguishing mark that we would like to highlight is the Argentinian school’s unique aspiration to evangelize culture and cultures. Inspired by Gaudium et Spes and Evangelii Nuntiandi, the teología del pueblo takes the Church’s mission of evangelization with the utmost sense of urgency. Scannone himself argues that the evangelization of cultures is necessary through a so-called “marvelous exchange” between the People of God and “the peoples,” especially through popular religiosity. We cannot draw out the specifics of this proposal here, but it is quite different from Marxist versions of liberation theology, which do not follow the Magisterium on evangelization with the seriousness that Scannone’s Argentinian school does. All of the concerns of the Argentinian school of liberation theology that we have briefly expounded are expressed in a summary of liberation theology given in an interview of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio by Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin in 2010, prior to his election to the papacy.21 In this interview, Cardinal Bergoglio characterizes the Church’s awareness of the Cross, detachment, openness to others and devotion. While Scannone does not explicate these, they are implicit in his treatment of the teología del pueblo and its dependence upon Evangelii Nuntiandi for its theology of popular religiosity. See also Evangelii Gaudium §§90 and 122–26. 19 See Horacio Bojorge, S.J., Teologías Deicidas: El Pensamiento de Juan Luis Segundo en su Contexto: Reexamen, Informe Crítico, Evaluación, 2d ed. (Montevideo: Centro Cultural Católico “Fe y Razón,” 2011), 293–311. 20 Evangelii Gaudium reflects this approach. Cf. §§69 and 70. 21 Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words, interviews with Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin, trans. Laura Dail Literary Agency (New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 2013), 92–95. This is the translation and publication of the 2010 interview book referenced here. Keith Lemna and David Delaney 36 stance on liberation theology—a theological movement which he sees as an “interpretive consequence of the Second Vatican Council”22 —as quite broad. He stresses that the Church has not made a mass condemnation of it. He recognizes the ideological missteps of liberation theology, particularly its use of Marxist categories to analyze reality, but he stresses as well the importance of its emphasis on a preferential option for the poor and on popular religiosity—the latter being, as we have just seen, a prevalent concern in the type of liberation theology he likely knows best, namely, the Argentinian variety. He commends those many men and women who have been inspired by liberation theology to live in greater service to the Church. An Argentinian interpretive lens seems very much present in the summary of liberation theology given in this interview. Pope Francis/ Cardinal Bergoglio asserts that the emphasis that emerged after the Council toward a preferential option for the poor was of the utmost importance for evangelization, but that it had the potential—which was, of course, realized—to be co-opted by ideologies in the turbulent time of the 1960s. He suggests that the taint of ideology was lessened, however, by a growing awareness among theologians and pastors of the treasure of the popular religion of the people. Francis has the highest praise here for Paul VI’s Evangelii Nuntiandi. He particularly commends that apostolic exhortation for its treatment of popular religion, which is, he says, “the greatest thing written” about it and which, he tells us, is repeated in the Aparecida document in what he considers to be that document’s greatest part.23 We see, then, that Francis has a glowing assessment of the concerns of the Argentinian school of liberation theology that we have expounded: a preferential option for the poor (which the Aparecida document places, in line with the Argentinian school, in the context of a rich theology of the People of God), evangelism, and popular religiosity. All of these concerns are found expressly in the Aparecida document, to which we now turn. II There is, it should be said to start with, much debate about the meaning of the Aparecida document, which as we noted above resulted from CELAM’s Fifth General Conference in 2007. In the Second General Conference of CELAM, held in 1968 at Medellín, Colombia, the Latin American bishops adopted an expression of their common concerns which was very much influenced by Marxist liberation theologies; it 22 Ibid., 92. 23 Ibid., 94. It is no surprise then, that Francis cites Evangelii Nuntiandi no fewer than thirteen times in Evangelii Gaudium. The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 37 explicitly approved certain aspects of the liberation program such as base communities. However, beginning with the Third General Conference, held in Puebla, Mexico in 1979, we begin to see a softening of this connection, although most agree that Puebla reaffirmed everything from Medellín. John Paul II directed CELAM to hold its Fourth General Conference in 1992 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s founding of the new world.This conference was held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. John Paul II greatly influenced the Latin American bishops to center their concerns on his call for a new evangelization, and this is what one finds in the Santo Domingo document. This caused Salvadoran liberation theologian Jon Sobrino to characterize “Medellín as a ‘leap forward’ and Puebla as a ‘dainty step forward,’ ” while he characterized the conference in Santo Domingo “as a ‘shaky step into the future.’ ”24 Although Aparecida still contains some positive reference to ecclesial realities derived from liberation theology that were found in Medellín, such as base communities, it is clear that those which it considers to have been successful are those in communion with the Church and obedient to the Magisterium.25 Even Cardinal Bergoglio, in 2012, seems to have admitted that the document was a break from the CELAM documents of the past.26 The Aparecida document is a well-thought-out document (or rather, a coherent series of documents) that is thoroughly Trinitarian in theology (see especially paragraph 14, put there through a “decisive intervention” by then–Cardinal Bergoglio)27 and exhibits a communio-influenced ecclesiology. Its primary focus is on missionary evangelization, and every concern it presents is discussed in this context.28 Moreover, unlike some of its predecessor documents, it addresses pastoral priorities in an order reflecting an authentic missionary focus. The Aparecida document seems to correspond with the tenets of the teología del pueblo outlined above, which makes sense since the latter arose from reflection on Evangelii 24 Anna L. Peterson, “Santo Domingo and Beyond: Documents & Commentaries from the Historic Meeting of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference by Alfred T. Hennelly,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 63, no. 4 (Winter, 1995): 863. 25 See CELAM, Aparecida document (AD) (2007), par. 99e; available at: www.celam.org/aparecida/Ingles.pdf. 26 See George Weigel, “Light from the South,” On the Square, June 13, 2012; accessed from www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/06/light-from-the-south on August 13, 2013. 27 Reported by Archbishop Santoro, in “When Bergoglio Defeated the Liberation Theologians.” Others at the conference had not wanted to lay the foundation for the document, as paragraph 14 does, in the theology of the Trinity. 28 There are more than 150 mentions of mission or evangelization. 38 Keith Lemna and David Delaney Nuntiandi and Gaudium et Spes, ecclesial texts which likewise form a basis for Aparecida.29 The document opens with a focus on creating missionary disciples and on the Church’s primary mission to evangelize, obviously reflecting the primary concerns of the new evangelization. It also discusses the great dangers facing Latin America, including threats to marriage, family, and life, and it highlights the need to recover the sense of the dignity of women in many Latin American cultures. It highlights the perennial challenges that Latin America has faced in the social and economic disparity that leads to widespread, abject poverty. However, we now see all these concerns placed into their proper relationship to the Gospel message. Social teaching no longer appears to be presented as the entirety of the Gospel itself. Like the concerns of the Argentinian school, the Aparecida document strongly emphasizes a preferential option for the poor, integral liberation (or authentic Christian liberation), and popular religiosity. In close connection with these themes is the concept of “encounter,” which is a theme of great importance to Pope Francis, as we shall see in the third section of this essay. The document’s treatment of the preferential option for the poor integrates it as an essential aspect of evangelization. Every authentic disciple, it tells us, is a missionary, and every authentic missionary loves Jesus Christ and so sees Him in the “least of His brothers” (citing Mt 25:40). Jesus made Himself poor (here it cites Heb 2:11–12 and 2 Cor 8:9). Love for his poor brothers manifests itself first in the disciple’s concern for the unity of the poor with Christ, but inseparable from this is his concern for promotion of the poor man’s integral (material and spiritual) human development. Francis, both before and since his election, has emphasized that integral liberation demands that we not lose sight of our obligation to care for the “suffering flesh of Christ.”30 Moreover, evangelizers must put on Christ, becoming poor as He did, though we do so because Christ is all we have to give of redeeming value. All of this is encompassed in the term “authentic Christian liberation,” which refers to the primary importance of salvation from sin but with necessary fruits being manifested in the work of believers toward the liberation of the least of their brothers from poverty and oppression. 29 The Aparecida document cites Evangelii Nuntiandi nine times. 30 Jorge Bergoglio, “Bringing the Nearness of Christ to a Disillusioned World: Homily at the Closing Mass of the National Congress on the Social Doctrine of the Church,” 8 May 2011; in Pope Francis, Encountering Christ: Homilies, Letters and Addresses of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (New Rochelle, NY: Scepter, 2013), 155. For example, see his interventions at Assisi available at Vatican Radio website (en.radiovaticana.va). The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 39 This harkens to a theme that we have already encountered with Scannone and the distinguishing characteristics of Argentinian theology visà-vis the Marxists. Interestingly, in the context of youth ministry, the Aparecida document states that missionaries must embrace a “preferential and evangelical option for the poor and needy” (AD 393e).31 This phrase “evangelical option” seems simply to link the preferential option with the Church’s essential mission of integral liberation, though no explanation is given. While there is an emphasis on the preferential option, Aparecida clarifies that it is not an “exclusive or excluding” option (AD 392), though it does not clarify how it is not exclusive. One might presume that this means that the Church is meant to reach everyone with the mercy of Christ and not just the poor. Emphasis on the poor is an unmistakable hallmark of Pope Francis’s pontificate to date, punctuated by its receiving approximately eighty mentions in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.32 The Aparecida document mentions another important theme that we have heard from Pope Francis, that of the obligation of the Church to go out to the peripheries of society.33 The Church must be especially solicitous of those most unlikely to hear the Gospel because of their poverty. The preferential and evangelical options for the poor are the interpretive keys for understanding what Francis means when he says he wants “a poor Church for the poor.” Since his election to the papacy, he has clarified what is meant in speaking of a poor Church.34 He has explained that a poor Church is one that realizes it has nothing of its own, that everything that it has is from Christ, upon Whom it is completely and 31 The preferential option for the poor has the corollary of the evangelical option for the poor (see also AD 446) which seems to be a reflection of the Old Testament preferential option for first bringing the good news to the anawim that scholars see fulfilled in the sequence of the epiphanies of the Messiah, beginning with Mary and Joseph and then to the shepherds (cf. Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: a Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, New Updated Edition [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993], 497–99). 32 While there are certainly clusters of focus, it is notable that this theme of the poor and the option for them is found throughout the Exhortation (see EG §§21, 48, 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 70, 76, 80, 97, 123, 125, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 204, 205, 207, 212, 218, 236, 265). The careful observer will see that this concern permeates the entirety of Pope Francis’s thought; he sees it in its manifold meanings as the key for the New Evangelization and for the renewal of Church and society. 33 We see this point repeated in Evangelii Gaudium (see EG §20). 34 Address of Pope Francis to the Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the International Union of Superiors General, 8 May 2013; available on the Vatican website. 40 Keith Lemna and David Delaney totally dependent. He says that it is not sufficient to know a theoretical poverty; one must experience it, one must touch the flesh of the poor Christ in order to learn humility, solidarity, sharing, and love.35 Francis is firm in his commitment to the importance of popular religiosity and is responsible for its emphasis in the Aparecida document.36 The document follows Evangelii Nuntiandi quite closely, as then–Cardinal Bergoglio said to interviewers in 2010.37 However, like the teología del pueblo, it more explicitly ties popular religiosity to the relationship of all the people with the People of God. It cites as particular expressions of popular piety in Latin America “patronal saint celebrations, novenas, rosaries, the Way of the Cross, processions, dances and songs of religious folklore, affection for the saints and angels, solemn promises, and family prayer” (AD 258).38 It highlights pilgrimages especially as a manifestation of the People of God in their earthly pilgrimage of faith. We see in this especially the simultaneous intimate solidarity of pilgrims with God and one another. The Aparecida document emphasizes that popular religiosity is not “mass spirituality.” Rather, it is at once a personal encounter with the Lord and a response to felt concrete, human spiritual needs. The document, like Evangelii Nuntiandi, emphasizes the importance of pastors taking popular religiosity seriously if they are to help guide it to maturity and so deepen the faith of its practitioners. Here Aparecida has in 35 While the context of this discussion is the evangelical counsels, he clearly includes the entire Church in his words on poverty. 36 Scannone often discusses Francis’s emphasis on popular religiosity and says it is directly derived from the Argentinian School. One example Scannone points to is Francis’s emphasis on the clergy’s need to engage with and foster the simple faith of the people. Scannone also confirms that it was due to Cardinal Bergoglio that popular religiosity achieved the emphasis it has in AD (cf. Bermúdez, “Father Juan Carlos Scannone, S.J.” in Our Brother, 71). Likewise, Msgr. Fazio, regional vicar of Opus Dei in Argentina and close friend to then–Cardinal Bergoglio, affirms that understanding the Pope’s thought means understanding his emphasis on popular piety (cf. Mario Fazio, Pope Francis: Keys to His Thought [New Rochelle, NY: Scepter, 2013], 40–48). We find this emphasis on popular religiosity articulated in his pre-papal interventions as well. For example, Bergoglio writes: “Popular piety has a deep sense of transcendence and, at the same time, is a real experience of the nearness of God, possesses the capacity to express the faith in a full language that overcomes rationalisms with contemplative features that define one’s relationship with nature and other men . . .” ( Jorge Bergoglio, “Religiosidad popular como inculturación de la fe en el espíritu de Aparecida,” in A la luz de Aparecida, Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, 2009, 25; cited in Fazio, Keys, 42). Popular piety also receives prominent mention in Evangelii Gaudium (see EG 90, 122–26). 37 Cf. His Life, 94. 38 Msgr. Mario Fazio identifies the major elements of Cardinal Bergoglio’s popular piety as: shrines, pilgrimages, feasts, and Marian devotions; see Fazio, Keys, 40–48. The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 41 mind a more direct contact with Scripture, greater participation in the sacraments, devotion to the Sunday Eucharist, and a greater expression of love of and service to others. For Aparecida, popular religiosity in Latin America is Marian in spirit (43). It has traditionally been and continues to be a means of dialogue and inculturation with indigenous cultures (see all of 2.1.5). Encounter, as we have said, is another primary category found in the Aparecida document. Of course, the context is a personalistic faith to which one comes through an encounter with Jesus Christ. The first encounter anyone has with Christ is that which is manifested in His missionaries (that is, all believers). This personal encounter must be a permanent attitude manifested in a spirit of brotherly and sisterly solidarity for service, including the defense of life and the protection of the most vulnerable and excluded (AD 394).39 Pope Francis provides us with insight into his major themes of concern from Aparecida in his address to the leadership of CELAM given at a general coordination meeting in Rio de Janeiro for 2013 World Youth Day.40 The first point we might note is that his introduction indicates his belief that Aparecida differed from the previous four General Conferences in some important ways. This is consistent with his comments in an interview in 2012, which we referenced above.41 He first mentions that the bishops did not begin by discussing the Instrumentum Laboris, the mandate for discussion which had been developed by the experts of the preparatory committee. Rather, the bishops first prayed in the Marian shrine, accompanied by the People of God, where they could hear the pilgrims’ prayers and hymns. This public interpretive focus by Pope Francis corresponds to all that we have seen from him in regard to his Marian devotion, his prayer-based spirituality, and his having been influenced by the teología del pueblo. The bishops then proceeded to discuss their mutual concerns in order to outline their major priorities before making reference to the Instrumentum. In this way, the agenda was set by the concerns of the entire body, in the midst of prayer, rather than by the preparatory committee. The major concern Francis highlights, alluding to the words of his two previous successors, is the bishops’ mission of helping to guide the universal Church in preparing for a new Pentecost. This preparation begins with forming and preparing missionary disciples. In the same way that mission 39 See Samuel Gregg, “Pope Francis on the True Meaning of Poverty,” Crisis Maga- zine ( June 5, 2013). 40 Available on the Vatican website. 41 See note 26, above. 42 Keith Lemna and David Delaney and evangelization form the core of the Aparecida document, they constitute Francis’s summary of it. He identifies as his first concern Aparecida’s call for a “pastoral conversion.”This is interesting because Aparecida covers pastoral conversion in the middle of the document, but it dedicates to it only about a page and a half out of about 150 pages. His intervention at Rio suggests it has a much higher priority in his mind.42 Among the elements of pastoral concern he highlights is the need for pastors to examine their activities to ensure that they are predominantly pastoral rather than administrative. He wants them to become less patronizing of the laity; rather, the bishops and clergy should recognize that the laity must be given the freedom to mature in discipleship in order to live the Gospel more effectively and so become fruitful collaborators with their pastors. In saying this, he suggests that the history of the involvement of the bishops with their flock is one of manipulation and “infantilization.” Here we believe we can see an understanding of the clergy as responsible for spiritual leadership in service of the laity, but that both together share the responsibility, if in different ways, for mission and evangelization. In what could be the key to understanding Francis’s pastoral priority, he cites the first line of Gaudium et Spes, a document upon which the teología del pueblo and Aparecida rely. Pope Benedict XVI had chosen this exact passage for his opening address to the 2007 Aparecida General Conference. The passage declares that the same hopes, joys, grief, and anguish are shared by the people of the world and the followers of Christ (GS 1). This linking of “the peoples” with the People of God is a central theme of the teología del pueblo, as we have seen, and its influence would in part explain Francis’s sensitivity to this particular passage and this particular approach to mission. Of this passage, Francis declares what we think might be the hermeneutical key for interpreting his entire pontificate to date: “Here we find the basis for our dialogue with the contemporary world.” We will investigate, in more detail below, his approach to this dialogue and his rationale for it. However, here we might note that he goes on to say that he believes the world, especially the world’s young, to be in some manner attentive to the existential concerns about which the Gospel, the Magisterium, and the Church’s social teaching have much to say. Therefore through these three a fruitful exchange “must” take place.43 42 Pope Francis affirms this in Evangelii Gaudium, emphasizing the urgency for ecclesial renewal and the central place pastoral conversion must take in it (see EG §§27–33). 43 The official Vatican English translation uses the term “change” for the Spanish cambio. While this is the primary meaning of the term, and one might otherwise expect “intercambio” meaning “exchange;” cambio can also mean exchange. In this The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 43 In other words, it is not optional for the Church to engage in this continuing dialogue with modernity. The Church’s social teaching and its implications appear to be what he considers the most fruitful place for this dialogue. Francis indicates that the first step in this dialogue is listening, and thereby engaging with today’s people in every scenario and “areopagi” (a term employed by the Aparecida document for a place of encounter with the nations) in every language, culture, and reality in order to proclaim Christ to them.This one statement would appear to explain what we have seen of Francis’s actions, his words, and his priorities thus far. He appears to be working to gain the attention of the world through actions and words, in order to engage the people of the world first in issues of mutual concerns (if perhaps unthematized concerns) in order to reveal to them the radical nature of the Gospel’s response. Lastly, we might mention that he highlights his concern over the danger posed by various proposals for contemporary missionary evangelization but which he says are simply parodies of, and so stumbling blocks to, authentic missionary discipleship. Among these he includes the substitution of various ideologies, including politico-economic ideologies such as market liberalism and Marxism, for the Gospel. He mentions also the reduction of the Gospel to a psychological enterprise, which he calls an elitist hermeneutic that turns the person inward through spirituality courses and spiritual retreats and has nothing to do with the authentic Gospel, which is self-transcending. He also rejects proposals grounded in Enlightenment ideology he characterizes as Gnostic, in which “enlightened Catholics” offer a higher spirituality which ends up being disincarnate, focused sterilely on quaestiones disputatae. We agree with Thomas Reese, who suggests the Holy Father is speaking of such quaestiones disputatae as birth control and women priests.44 He rejects restorationism as a form of Pelagianism by which doctrine and discipline themselves replace the Gospel. His frequent criticisms of the legalism or Pelagianism of “Catholic Traditionalism” as he understands it, and his preference for mysticism, expressed in a recent interview,45 evoke the ancient distinction between Christian ascetical theology (represented in the extreme by context, it seems to us that he did mean an exchange in the form of dialogue. If “change” is the correct meaning, this would seem to indicate an urgency for effecting social change. 44 Thomas Reese, “Pope Francis and the Three Temptations of the Church,” National Catholic Register, August 13, 2013; available online at the NCR website. 45 Cf. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., “A Big Heart Open to God: The Exclusive Interview with Pope Francis,” America (September 30, 2013); available at the Vatican website under “speeches.” 44 Keith Lemna and David Delaney Pelagius) and Christian Platonism (represented by Saint Augustine); the former lauds the human capacity to pursue virtue on its own by obedience to external command, and the latter emphasizes the need for interior transformation of the passions by grace. He rejects functionalism, in which ecclesial programs are created and assessed according to quantifiable results and statistics; from the beginning of his papacy he has expressed his concern that functionalism turns the Church into an NGO. Finally, he condemns clericalism. He says that in the majority of cases clericalism is manifested in what we might consider a reverse fashion, that we have seen since the 1980s. Here the clergy attempts to clericalize the laity, allowing them to take roles proper to the clergy, often in response to their requests. He says that clericalism is largely responsible for the lack of freedom and maturity seen in Latin American (and in this context we would argue, North American) laity, although it is clear from his teaching in other contexts that he is strongly opposed to any form of clericalism, even when that word is understood in its most usual meaning, that is, that the clergy often abuse their authority and use their office in order to be served rather than to serve.46 III We believe that our third pathway into the theological mind of Pope Francis clarifies and integrates much that we have expounded in this essay and brings his evangelical spirit into full relief. The writings of Luigi Giussani, the third pathway that we have marked out (in addition to the teologìa del pueblo and the Aparecida document), have been of great importance to Pope Francis. He has said so himself in public presentations of two of Giussani’s books that he gave when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires and in the published versions of these presentations. In 1999, he presented the Spanish edition of Giussani’s The Religious Sense at a public lecture. In the revised publication of this lecture he said that he did so to express the gratitude that he owed Giussani. “For many years now,” Archbishop Bergoglio said, “his writings have inspired me to reflect and have helped me to pray.” “They have,” he continued, “taught me to be a better Christian, and I spoke at the presentation to bear witness to this.”47 In 2001, Bergoglio presented the Spanish version of Giussani’s The Attraction of Jesus Christ and said that he agreed to do so for two 46 It must be admitted that what the Holy Father said at World Youth Day would seem to be at odds with Evangelii Gaudium in which he says that excessive clericalism has kept laity away from roles in decision making (see EG §§102). 47 Jorge Bergoglio, “For Man,” in Generative Thought: An Introduction to the Works of Luigi Giussani, ed. Elisa Buzzi (McGill: Queens University Press, 2003), 79. The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 45 reasons: “The first and more personal one is the good that this man has done me, in my life as a priest, through the reading of his books and articles. The second reason is that I am convinced that his thought is profoundly human and reaches man’s innermost longings.”48 Pope Francis’s words about evangelization spoken on the 2013 Feast Day of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux—which coincided with his initial meeting with the consultative group of eight cardinals that he established to help him in his governance of the Church—are indicative of the direction in which he would like to take the universal Church. He spoke directly in reference to the Saint of the Child Jesus, but we think that his talk was just as much evocative of essential points in Giussani’s apologetics: Another spirit comes, that of that charity that suffers all, pardons all, that does not boast, that is humble, that doesn’t seek itself. Someone could say—and there are some philosophers that think this way—that this is a humiliation of the majesty of man, of the greatness of man. This is sterile! The Church has wisely made this saint, humble, small, trusting in God, meek: she has made her the Patron of Missions . . .The Church, Benedict XVI told us, does not grow through proselytism, it grows through attraction, through witness. And when the people see this witness of humility, of meekness, of mildness, they feel the need that the Prophet Zachariah spoke of: ‘We want to come with you.’ The people feel that need in the face of the witness of charity, of this humble charity, without bullying, not sufficient, humble. Worship and serve! . . . Today, here in the Vatican, begins the meeting with the Cardinal consulters, who are concelebrating the Mass. Let us ask the Lord that our work today will make us all more humble, more meek, more patient, more trusting in God, so that the Church can give a beautiful witness to the people, and seeing the People of God, seeing the Church, they might feel the desire to come with us.49 It is significant that in his presentation of Giussani’s The Attraction of Jesus he compared some of Giussani’s statements to those of Saint Thérèse. Both see Christian mission in the terms just quoted: of personal encounter, of humble servitude, of meek witness through which the divine mercy of Christ is made known to humanity. Obviously strongly drawn to this understanding of mission, Bergoglio said, “I dare to say that the privileged encounter is the caress of the mercy of Christ on my sin. . . . In front of 48 Silvina Premat, “The Attraction of the Cardinal,” Traces: Communion and Libera- tion International Magazine, available at: www.traces-cl.com/Giu2001/argent.htm; accessed on 1 October 2013. 49 Vatican Radio, “Pope Concelebrates Mass with Council of Cardinals,” available at Vatican Radio website (en.radiovaticana.va). 46 Keith Lemna and David Delaney this merciful embrace—and I continue along the lines of Giussani’s thought—we feel a real desire to respond, to change, to correspond.”50 The Christian him- or herself must model Christ’s exemplary mercy in his or her own life. The Christian life must become, on this traditional but newly articulated view, attractive, that is, beautiful with the glory of the Cross. Christ draws those who suffer into his Church through the witness of his followers, in their taking up of his own path of redemptive love. Conversion—religious, doctrinal, aesthetic, and moral—would follow from an initial longing elicited or awakened in the heart of those who encounter the mercy of God demonstrated in his People. An entailment of this position is that failure to follow this witness among the People of God makes the Church ugly—for all its merely apparent and external beauty—and causes many sheep to leave the sheepfold.51 The Giussanian approach described here and openly advocated by Pope Francis even prior to his being elected pope is, of course, redolent of Saint Augustine, but also and perhaps especially of the logic of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Love Alone Is Credible.52 A typically patristic concern with Christ’s manifestation or revelation is revived in this aesthetic theology.53 Both Giussani and Pope Francis are strongly centered in an explicitly articulated Christic faith; they proclaim the mercy of God by openly speaking of Jesus Christ and His salvific mission. They tell us of the power of His gaze to move our hearts.54 Obviously, not every episcopal leader or theologian thinks in these Christocentric terms, with such personalist and aesthetic focus. One might wonder where Pope Francis was inspired to do so. There is no evidence that we have been able to find that he read Balthasar directly or with profit. His own admission that he has read Giussani’s books and articles and that they have been very important to him seems to be a strong indication that the founder of Communion and Liberation has been quite influential on him in this respect. 50 Premat, “Attraction.” 51 The continuing central importance of the theme of the attractiveness of Christ and His disciples for evangelization for Pope Francis can be verified in Evangelii Gaudium (see EG §§15, 34, 39, 44, 73, 99, 100, 107, 113, 131, 141, 153, 157, 159, 167, 168, 261). 52 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Love Alone Is Credible, trans. David Schindler (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004). 53 Cf. Robert Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994), 205–8. In this study, Sokolowski connects Balthasar, phenomenology, and the concern of the Church Fathers with the manifestation of God in Christ. 54 Cf. Giussani, At the Origin of the Christian Claim, 53. In his daily homilies, Pope Francis has often called on us to be open to Christ’s (and even Mary’s) gaze. The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 47 There is, however, another level of approach in Giussani: he leaves space for a dialogical encounter that does not require explicit reference to the person of Christ. In presenting The Religious Sense to the Argentinian public, Archbishop Bergoglio validated this level of evangelical approach, which may tell us something about his overall pastoral strategy even as Bishop of Rome. In consideration of this, it is well to recall the structure of presentation in Giussani’s great trilogy of apologetics.55 He follows a classically modern tri-partite division in this regard: first, in The Religious Sense, he discusses religion in general and focuses on the religious dimension of human self-questioning or the restless heart that Saint Augustine so profoundly thematized; next, in At the Origin of the Christian Claim, he explores the irreducible uniqueness of the Gospel, evoking G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man to show how radical and singular are the claims of Christ regarding his authority over history and the cosmos; finally, in Why the Church? he establishes the unique dignity and destiny of the Catholic Church.56 The logic of the structuring of the apologetics manuals invoked in Giussani’s own trilogy is doubtlessly incapable of being evaded, given the perennial nature of the human soul in its movement toward Christ, and Giussani clearly sees the lasting validity of this structure. However, he infuses it with a pastoral content and does not seek to demonstrate the Christian claim according to the canons of modern critical reason, as so many manuals tried to do.57 Pope Francis has understood the benefit of the Giussanian method of personal encounter (rather than that of textbook, rational demonstration) in a pastoral setting where mission is lived out in the day-to-day lives of the people. In presenting The Religious Sense, he affirms with Giussani that on a first level of encounter one needs to clarify the essential question of what it is to be human. It is fruitless to speak the name of Jesus Christ with its full doctrinal accompaniment to someone who has not first become a religious question to himself. One is reminded of Cardinal Newman’s statements at the 55 Luigi Giussani, The Religious Sense, trans. John Zucchi (Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 1997); At the Origin of the Christian Claim, trans.Viviane Hewitt (Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 1998); Why the Church? trans. Viviane Hewitt (Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 2001). 56 Cf. Avery Dulles, A History of Apologetics (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999), 202–5. In these pages, Dulles discusses the tri-partite structure of classical Catholic apologetics in the eighteenth century, which was followed by the manualist tradition well into the twentieth century. He discusses Giussani’s more pastoral approach to this tri-partite division on pp. 341–42. 57 Cf. Avery Dulles, The Craft of Theology (New York: Crossroad, 2001), 3–14. Dulles discusses here the different approaches to apologetics historically taken by theologians in the face of modern criticism. 48 Keith Lemna and David Delaney end of A Grammar of Assent, where he says that it is his goal primarily to reach religious man with the Gospel and not what one might call the “overlycivilized” and a-religious men and women of the day; the task of evangelizing these he would leave to the likes of a Christian mind presumably more at home in engineering than religion, such as that of William Paley.58 Certainly, Pope Francis wants to reach everyone, including the “overly-civilized,” but in line with Newman’s insight into the difficulty of communicating the Gospel to the irreligious, he commends, in presenting The Religious Sense, the strategy of first bringing people to see their religious essence. Bergoglio quotes Reinhold Niebuhr (on whom Giussani did his doctoral dissertation): “Nothing is so incredible as an answer to an unasked question.”59 The claims of Christ can be seen as credible only to one who has first asked the right questions, the very questions to which Christ alone is the answer. Bergoglio insists that the most important question of all in this regard is not, as in most presentations of natural theology, whether or not God exists or if we can know Him, but whether or not we can find in ourselves “the mark that God has made, so as to be able to meet with Him.”60 This passage calls to mind the early Christian Platonism that we briefly mentioned above, represented for instance in Saint Gregory of Nyssa’s Sermon on the Sixth Beatitude, wherein the great Cappadocian theologian argues that man should go in search for God by looking within, to the image of God in the soul that is now covered over with passions but that can be washed clean by following the beatitudes. God can be found more fully within the soul, Gregory insists, than outside of it by deducing His existence as the cause of physical nature or as the Orderer of the cosmos. Augustine himself would of course be the greatest Western champion of this “Christian Platonist” approach to the interior search for God. This in fact deeply scriptural understanding of humanity has, properly understood, always given the Church a universal anthropology of mission centered on the image of God found in each soul, testifying that each human soul has equal ontological dignity in the sight of God. The Christian is moved by this anthropological focus to realize that he or she must meet all people with the Gospel as brothers or sisters, since all equally contain the image of God within themselves. 58 John Henry Newman, A Grammar of Assent (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1979), 328–32. 59 Bergoglio, “For Man,” 79. Giussani himself often made reference to this quote. The quote comes from Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, vol. 2, Human Destiny (New York: Nisbet, 1943), 6. 60 Bergoglio, “For Man,” 80. The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 49 Bergoglio says that it is paradoxical that Giussani would say so little in The Religious Sense about God but so much about human beings and their religious search, but this, he insists, aligns with the most important challenge of the culture of our day, that is, the challenge of human meaning. Humankind has, he asserts, lost a proper sense of itself, and it can only come to find itself again by giving reason its full scope in asking about life’s meaning. Humankind has the need to come to see itself again in the light of the totality of reality’s factors—to rediscover its religious sense— if it is truly to flourish. The human heart, understood in terms of the unity of reason, will, and affect, has to be drawn to be open to the whole of reality in order for the claims of God in Christ to be at all credible to it. All of this is to say that it has to be willing to let reality measure it, to open itself up to all of experience, rather than to make of itself the measure of reality. Such self-opening would entail openness to all the “big questions” that help us make our way through the thicket of diversion, self-deception, or sloth that keeps us from encountering the divine image within us in the light of Christ: “Why is there pain, why death, why evil? Why is life worth living? What is the ultimate meaning of reality, of existence? What sense does it make to work, love, become involved in the world? Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?”61 Bergoglio insists with Giussani that only by means of personal encounter (as we have seen, a decisive theme in the Aparecida document) and companionship can the human heart verify the meaning of its experience, to see the validity of its questioning, and to find a concretely satisfying answer to this questioning.The certainty that one arrives at through Christian faith in response to the religious search can be attained only “in the harmony of all the human faculties,”62 and this can come about only through the personal dialogue that one encounters in living community. Otherwise, the religious or Christian claim would come off as abstract or even absurd speculation. Living Christian personal witness and encounter is absolutely essential for evangelizing the unbeliever, in order that he may verify the claims of Christ; they even allow one to raise the preliminary religious questions at an appropriate pitch, that he might understand that these questions bring into human consciousness the totality of existence and that Christ alone is the total response to them.63 61 Ibid., 82. 62 Ibid. 63 Pope Francis’s estimation of the importance of the theme of encounter for the New Evangelization is confirmed in reading Evangelii Gaudium (see EG §§1, 3, 7, 8, 44, 78, 87, 88, 91, 128, 167, 171, 257, 264, 272). 50 Keith Lemna and David Delaney We think that the signs of Giussanian influence have been quite discernible in aspects of Pope Francis’s magisterium thus far. This is so not only in regard to his practical focus on a type of evangelical aesthetics of the Cross but also in regard to his obvious desire to reach out to all of humanity in its search for meaning. His two famous interviews (as of the time of this writing) have made this clear.64 Yet, we would not want to go too far in equating Pope Francis’s approach with that of Giussani. There is this difference between them which can be seen by considering a criticism, however unjustly leveled, that has often been made of Communion and Liberation, namely, that it does not seek cultural mediation for the Christian faith.65 One reason for this criticism is evidently the fact that Giussani at times spoke in very critical language regarding culture outside of the Church. In At the Origin of the Christian Claim, for instance, he stresses emphatically that the revelation of Christ “overturns the religious method,” which could be taken to entail an overturning even of “naturally religious” cultures. Moreover, the ecclesial movement that he founded is resistant to letting secular culture determine the movement’s way of life (like Giussani himself, they take the need for prudential judgment in this regard with the utmost seriousness), a fact that has led to a great deal of annoyance in some quarters. The Giussanian method strictly applied has an eschatological, Niebuhrian, Barthian, or Balthasarian edge to it that one does not so readily encounter in Pope Francis’s teachings. Indeed, Pope Francis seems at times to have more of a correlationist or adaptationist tonality to his teaching, one that might evoke the aggiornamento of John XXIII more than the oftentimes critical approach of Giussani or of the previous two popes or that might call to mind the post-conciliar strategy to inculturate the Gospel to modern tastes that was adopted by so many of his Jesuit confreres after the Second Vatican Council. Thus, he has been applauded by many of those in the Church who think that it is time for the Church to seek a mediatory pact with contemporary secular culture. Certainly, he has wanted to search for commonalities among believers, across religions, and among all of humanity and to set aside differences as much as possible. As he said in his book interview from 2010, the Church has one sheep left in the fold and needs to go in search of the ninety-nine who have left.66 He has 64 Cf. Spadaro, “A Big Heart,” and Eugenio Scalfari, “The Pope: how the Church will change,” Repubblica (1 October 2013), available at www.repubblica.it. 65 Giorgio Sarco, “What Kind of Life Gives Birth to Communion and Liberation: An Interview with Luigi Giussani,” Traces: Communion and Liberation International Magazine (May 1979): 6ff. 66 Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words, 80–81. The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 51 repeated this since his election to the papacy. He seems to hold most firmly that dialogue, friendship, and at least a partial bracketing of contentious social disputes that appear to be peculiarly Christian concerns form an indispensable first stage in the journey to reach the lost ninety-nine (and this means, of course, all of humanity). Scannone, in interpreting his theological protégé, has gone so far as to suggest that Pope Francis wants to make the Church more austere—this is evident in his desire to create “a poor Church for the poor”—so that it would be easier for it to adapt itself to modern culture.67 However true that may be, Pope Francis clearly has stressed that the Church must meet humanity where it is in the respective brokenness of the Church and of contemporary human communities. The Church must, he thinks, lose its fear of personal encounter with men and women of all walks of life and all existential or metaphysical proclivities. We think that, for at least two reasons, Pope Francis’s emphasis on universal dialogue should not—as in fact it has—cause consternation among some in the Church. First, the approach to evangelization that stresses a non-combative, dialogical method in search of common ground is not simply—as some may suspect—a strategy of the failed ecclesial programs of the 1970s. It has ancient roots in Catholic thought, a fact that Hans Urs von Balthasar himself acknowledged as he was trying to defeat the accomodationist method of evangelization of the post-conciliar age with his radically Stauro-centric aesthetics.68 Saint Peter Faber, for one, one of the first companions of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and one of Pope Francis’s heroes in the Society of Jesus, was famously “non-combative” and “dialogical.”69 Faber was known to hold that the Church must take special care to meet people outside of it as friends and not as enemies. This position corresponds as well to that held by some of the Jesuit missionaries in Asia, such as Saint Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci, both of whom are known to be much beloved by the present pope. According to the method of these great early modern Jesuit missionaries, the Church must be willing to set 67 Cf. Mauro Castagnaro, “La teologia di Francesco. Intervista a Juan Carlos Scan- none” Il Regno (May 2013): 128; available at: www.ilregno.it/php/view_pdf.php? md5=551d2a89d33b8cf6be7d72459d0d1cb1; accessed on Oct 21, 2013. If the instrumentalist premises that underlie this claim hold true for Pope Francis as for Scannone, Francis’s approach would still have the benefit of forcing theologians with a richer, deeper, expressivist understanding of the Gospel in relation to culture to think about the theology of mission with greater urgency. 68 We refer to Balthasar’s perhaps somewhat unfair treatment of the “cosmological reduction” and the “anthropological reduction” in Love Alone Is Credible, especially at 15–50. 69 Cf. Spadaro, “A Big Heart.” 52 Keith Lemna and David Delaney aside, for the purpose of common human endeavor, the differences that divide it from cultures in particular times and places in order to show that it can be trusted but also in order to work together with ambient cultures in the pursuit of the good of all people. It should be noted that for Faber and the other Jesuit missionaries just mentioned this was clearly an evangelical strategy and not simply a matter of giving in to worldly ideologies for the sake of a false peace. Nevertheless, it can be said that it is in the spirit of Peter Faber that Pope Francis has focused on issues of common social concern such as unemployment, care for the elderly, and the effects of “savage capitalism” (this last expression being rather non-divisive in many parts of the world). Pope Francis can provide the very important lesson to the universal Church that evangelization requires a spirit of friendship that can reach out to all people, that does not exclude in practice the Gospel imperative to extend God’s salvific mercy to everyone, and that does not fall into despair in a world that in much of Europe and North America has become progressively de-Christianized. At the same time, if we see Pope Francis’s teachings as a whole, there is no reason to think that he is not in fact in closer agreement with Giussani himself on the matter of cultural engagement than might appear at first sight. Explaining what “openness to the world” really means for the Church of the Second Vatican Council, Giussani once said: Many protagonists of the aggiornamento in Italy were convinced that the Council had opened the Catholic Church to a system of thought borrowed from certain philosophical or sociological trends. We [meaning Communion and Liberation], on the other hand, while respecting all the human sciences within their own contexts, were convinced that the starting point that the Council was pointing us toward was the imitation of the mindset, the method, that Christ had used in His life. Opening up to the world does not mean accepting (and certainly not uncritically) the world’s ideologies; it means finding the desire for truth that moves mankind.70 This goes back to the first level of Giussanian apologetics, and one might presume, given his presentation of The Religious Sense, that Pope Francis would agree with this statement. Certainly, these words align with Pope Francis’s warning to the Church at World Youth Day to avoid reducing the faith to worldly ideology—whether of the “left” or the “right.” And this brings us to our second point, namely, that one must not forget that there has been another side to Pope Francis’s magisterium that 70 Sarco, “What Kind of Life,” 17. The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 53 is not often commented on, one that is hardly bereft of admonitions to the faithful to follow the Way of the Cross and to avoid worldliness, spiritual or otherwise.71 After all, as we have said, Francis has made it clear that the beauty of Christian witness is a participation in the glorious Cross of Christ. He has said himself that the peace to which a Christian life truly lived leads is not a “saccharine peace.”72 He has affirmed that the Way of the Cross is singular and unworldly—hardly a message conducive to a simplistic correlationism as practiced, particularly by many Jesuits, in the 1970s. A balanced interpretation of Pope Francis must acknowledge that he does have his moments where he wants us to remember that Christ, to speak in the terms of Giussani, “overturns the religious method.” Nor should one forget elements of the doctrinal tradition that he has firmly upheld and taught about. He has been very explicit in his Marian devotion, in recognizing the reality of spiritual warfare, and in affirming the prospect of personal sin with the need for the sacrament of confession in order that the sinner may be reconciled with God. We do not often hear about the Virgin Mary (whose virginity Francis clearly takes literally) or about angels and demons (whose real, and not simply metaphorical, existence Francis has affirmed in the past) from people who take a stance for a watered-down Gospel of a purely correlationist or adaptationist variety.73 Again, he has emphasized the unity of the faith and that Catholics must accept it whole, even warning young people not to “liquefy” their faith.74 71 On “spiritual worldliness,” see Evangelii Gaudium §§93–97. “Spiritual worldli- ness,” this document teaches us, seeks, behind a mask of religious piety, earthly glory rather than the Lord’s glory. 72 See Vatican Radio, “Papal Mass Draws Thousands in Assisi,” available at the Vatican Radio website (en.radiovaticana.va). Further evidence that Pope Francis does not lack an eschatological edge to his evangelical approach can be found in the daily Mass homily he gave on November 18th, 2013, where he condemned as “adolescent progressivism” an uncritical accommodation to worldly practices. In doing so, he cited the 1907 apocalyptic novel, Lord of the World, by Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson, Anglican convert to Catholicism. This novel depicted a mass apostasy before the Second Coming brought about by a “spirit of worldliness,” as the Pope called it (available on L’Osservatore Romano website). 73 On his devotion to the Blessed Virgin see e.g. his homily on the Solemnity of the Assumption, accessible on the Vatican website; for an analysis on Francis’s belief in the reality of the devil and spiritual warfare and its relationship to his Ignatian spirituality, see e.g. ncronline.org/news/vatican/battle-devil-pope-francis-frames-fightjesuit-terms. Regarding the devil, Bergoglio stated the matter quite plainly in an interview: “I believe that the Devil exists.” In Pope Francis: On Heaven and Earth, 8. 74 See for example his address to the Argentinian youth at the 2013 World Youth Day www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-s-address-to-argentinian-youth. The Official Vatican translation chose to interpret the Spanish licuar, as “water down” rather than 54 Keith Lemna and David Delaney Pope Francis’s thought is formed by a number of diverse influences, which we certainly do not intend to reduce naively to one idea.Yet, there does seem to be an integrating ratio that unifies the three theological pathways we have reviewed in this essay. This ratio is his commitment to the goodness of man who is created for God, who is unceasingly called by God, but who must be helped to see that his interior desire is sated only through a profound, intimate union with Christ; only by imitating Him can man’s sublime vocation be fulfilled (cf. Gaudium et Spes 22).This is in perfect accord with his emphasis, influenced by liberation theology, on the need to care for the suffering flesh of Christ—that is, the poor and oppressed who have a special place in this calling. Pope Francis clearly wants the Church to become more fully a missionary Church—led by a servant hierarchy whose representatives are pastorally converted to go out to the “existential peripheries” of humanity, even at the risk of injuring the Church. His frequent talk of the need for Christians to risk injury to the Church for the sake of mission may be taken to mean, we think, that the followers of Christ, forming together with the Lord His Mystical Body, must be willing to “fill up [in themselves] those things that are wanting in the sufferings of Christ” (Col. 1:24). After all, how else can mission proceed? Bergoglio’s preferred method of evangelization is dialogical encounter with the other, in which the Christian manifests Christ’s mercy as he has experienced it in his own encounter with the Lord, especially with the other who suffers (through poverty, for instance) or who is truly open to the religious dimension of human nature (through popular religiosity, for instance). He seems to sense an acute urgency to remind us that this can be quite a dangerous procedure, and perhaps especially to the Christian’s own sense of self-security or even self-certainty.Yet, he insists, it is absolutely necessary if we are to be a truly missionary Church concerned for the salvific good of all people. “liquefy” as in the Zenit translation. Thus, it reads Francis asking the Argentinian youth: “please don’t water down your faith.” This is a legitimate interpretation as well. Licuar can mean “to blend” or to “liquefy.” The reason Francis makes reference to orange, apple, and banana milk shakes (in the Zenit translation) or juice (in the official translation) in this context is that in using the term licuado which means “blended” or “liquefied” he is referring to a popular Argentinian drink. In Latin America, licuado is used to refer to a drink that blends some sort of fruit together with milk, blending or liquefying the fruit. Thus, the reference could suggest a number of things, something foreign added (the milk), something diluted, or inasmuch as he says the faith should be taken whole, we think it means taking just a drink and so part of the faith (which would be the fruit), something along the lines of what is sometimes called “cafeteria Catholicism.” The Theological Mind of Pope Francis 55 In the end, we think that it is a personal sense of the interplay of the universal religious sense present in all souls and the need to proclaim the irreducible and unique Gospel of Christ that moves any concrete pastoral strategy. Every pastor of the Church balances these factors differently. It should not be surprising that bishops of Rome would themselves differ in this balancing act or that Pope Francis would have a different measure of things than, say, Pope Benedict XVI—even while there remains an essential continuity between them, as between all popes. Clearly, Pope Francis’s experiences of crushing poverty and of the ubiquitous presence of popular religion in Latin America have shaped his perception of the postmodern world differently than John Paul II’s or Benedict XVI’s European experiences of the effects of emergent wealth on native religiosity, and so one might especially expect a different balance of these factors between Francis and his immediate predecessors. He has lived directly amongst masses of impoverished yet “naturally religious” people who maintain a concomitant natural humility. Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, on the other hand, were immediately ensconced in a world of growing and even tyrannical consumerism and irreligion, truly a “culture of death” presided over by a “dictatorship of relativism,” whose effects are oftentimes experienced in Latin America merely as an unwelcome colonialist European exportation. These different experiences might easily lead to different senses of how the Church should engage the world: one, perhaps, focused on calling Europe back to its Christian roots, the other, perhaps, focused on seeking a Christian religiosity that is not eurocentric and is, if anything, more sympathetic to the state of contemporary culture, which cannot be reduced to its European or North American expressions. We think that with the help of Giussani’s appropriation of the classical stages of apologetics, the Argentinian liberation theology, and the Aparecida document we are able to get a better understanding of Pope Francis’s own personal balancing act, manifest, for instance, in Evangelii Gaudium. His theological mind emerges a bit more clearly through a consideration of these sources. He is obviously an advocate of personal encounter and dialogue through a preferential option for the poor and respect for popular religiosity in order to proclaim an integral liberation, through which he would have the Church connect to the universal aspirations of the human heart in the contemporary period. He is, as we have demonstrated, far from blind to the irreducible uniqueness of the beautiful form of Christ on the Cross, a concern of Christian proclamation that he has likely drawn at least to some extent from Giussani and made an essential part of his day-to-day teaching. He seems to de-emphasize cultural conflict as 56 Keith Lemna and David Delaney much as possible, but, one might surmise, this is all (as was true of Faber) for the good of proclaiming the Gospel universally, so that it can reach all people, even those who have seemingly turned the most fiercely away from it—doubtlessly in many cases because of the very failure of Christians to be true to the example of Christ’s own witness. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 57–75 57 The Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI: An Abandonment of the Cross? A Theology of the Papal Ministry in the Light of the Theology of the Cross E MEKA N WOSUH , O.P. Dominican Institute Ibadan, Nigeria Preamble F EW EVENTS in contemporary history have generated so much public interest, discussion, comment, and speculation in the media and among both religiously inclined and uninclined (or disinclined) persons, as the unexpected announcement by Pope Benedict XVI of his intention to resign as the 265th Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. Addressing the Cardinals in a Consistory, the Pope himself declared: After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect 58 Emeka Nwosuh the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is. In the above few words, Pope Benedict XVI wittingly or unwittingly made a historic decision that is of immense import for the Roman papacy, of which the full import, historical and theological, may not be fully known immediately. But what is certain for now is that, by renouncing the ministry of Bishop of Rome, former Cardinal Ratzinger has opened a new chapter in the contemporary history of the Catholic papacy and of the Church as a whole. It is a chapter that will no doubt include theological issues and questions on the very ministry of the Bishop of Rome. In this essay we shall explore a few of these theological questions and issues. Delineating the Theological Issues and Questions A good starting pointing for articulating some of the key theological questions arising from Pope Benedict’s renunciation of the ministry of Bishop of Rome would be its reception by the general public. Across the length and breadth of the globe, the Pope’s resignation was received with shock, incredulity, disappointment, sorrow, a feeling of betrayal and even anger. Perhaps for most Catholics, for whom his resignation had a more direct and immediate significance and consequence, and even perhaps for some non-Catholics or non-Christians, there must have been an added feeling of panic and sense of being directionless like a flock suddenly left without a shepherd. Despite the scandals and crises that have recently dogged the Catholic Church and more particularly the Vatican headed by the Pope, the papal ministry remains for many, especially Catholics, the last bastion of stable authority in a world that is marked by a crisis of authority. The unexpected resignation of Pope Benedict represented for many, therefore, a very disturbing and distressing event. It was like having the rug pulled out from under their feet, and it left them with a feeling of great vulnerability. The myriads of conflicting emotions that enwrapped the hearts and minds of many who heard of Pope Benedict’s resignation can be simply encapsulated in the following phrases: The Pope cannot resign! The Pope should not have resigned! It could be said that the latter feeling became the more dominant perspective, especially in the light of Pope John Paul II’s own experience and example and the reason adduced by his successor for relinquishing the ministry of the Bishop of Rome. It would appear then that in the minds of most Catholic faithful and the general public the Pope does not and should not resign from office. In the eyes of critical scholars, this general opinion is understandable and Papal Ministry and the Theology of the Cross 59 explainable, as it is a rarity for a pope to resign. In fact, in his last General Audience, Pope Benedict himself acknowledges the “novelty” of his decision.1 And so, while the strong emotional response to Pope Benedict’s resignation may be attributed to a collective perception rooted in centuries of established tradition, one nonetheless cannot completely rule out the theological import of this strong collective response. It is our task to unravel how this charged emotional reaction embodies a contemporary perception and expectation of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome regardless of the received accumulated memory about the ministry and office of the Pope in its historical developments. One might then ask: what is the theological content that is embedded in that strong reaction to the Pope’s resignation? The Pope: More Than a Bishop? In his brilliantly written and illuminating book: The Bishop of Rome, the French Canadian Dominican ecclesiologist Jean-Marie Tillard, in exploring the intricate “theological problem of the papacy,” captured with great perspicacity the core of the theological issue regarding the office and ministry of the Bishop of Rome in the title of the first chapter of his book: “The Pope . . . more than a Pope?”2 Perhaps a more appropriate title would have been: “The Pope . . . more than a Bishop?” But anyhow, commencing from the basic presupposition that the papal office and ministry is essentially and primarily an episcopal one, Tillard argues that, for one to correctly appreciate and interpret the true and proper nature and character of this ministry, one must always locate it within the context of the episcopal college and never outside or above it. And so, the pope, though first among all other bishops, by reason of the precedency of the See of Rome, remains essentially and fundamentally a bishop like other bishops, given also the fact that the fullness of the sacrament of Holy Orders is rooted in the episcopal ministry. Sacramentally speaking, therefore, the pope is nothing else but a bishop, notwithstanding the years of historical evolution, which have given the papacy a character and image that suggest, or at least seem to suggest, that the pope is more than a bishop. This according to many critics, especially among theologians 1 Pope Benedict is right in calling his decision to resign a “novelty,” notwithstand- ing that there have been instances in history, albeit few, of popes who resigned or were made to resign. See Daniel Bornstein, “A Brief History of Papal Resignations,” Religion and Politics, February 24, 2013, religionandpolitics.org/2013/ 02/24/a-brief-history-of-papal-resignations/. 2 J.-M. R. Tillard, The Bishop of Rome, trans. John de Satge (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1982), 3. Emeka Nwosuh 60 from both the Orthodox and Catholic traditions, and no less the Protestant traditions, is a distortion arising from centuries of papal pretensions, or as Tillard himself would put, from the roots of a certain attitude.3 But removed from all polemical controversies and historical hangovers, it is without doubt that one of the issues confronting contemporary Christendom as a whole is the articulation of an adequate and comprehensive response to the twofold question that Jesus addressed to his disciples, viz.: Who do people say I am? And you who do you say I am? Peter, who on behalf of the rest of the disciples offered a clear, concise, and definitive answer to that question, appears, in turn, to be asking that same question about himself. These questions are no new questions. In fact, they are questions that had already begun to echo prior to the Second Vatican Council in the thoughts and writings of “progressive” theologians and ecumenically inclined Catholic and non-Catholic theologians. They are questions to which the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council attempted to find responses in their effort to recover the original context and meaning of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome.4 These questions also lie at the heart of Blessed Pope John Paul II’s invitation to fellow bishops, priests, religious men and women, lay men and women, theologians, Catholics and nonCatholics, indeed, the whole people of God, to help him discern and articulate how this ministry could be better understood, interpreted and better exercised as a ministry of communion and unity.5 They are questions that lie at the heart of the ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church and the ecclesial communities of the Reformation and post-Reformation Traditions. And so the question of the proper identity of the Bishop of Rome is fundamental for understanding his ministry in and to the Body of Christ. The recurrence of these questions is certainly due to the fact that a clear, precise, and definitive response, akin to Peter’s own response to Jesus’ question, is yet to be found and articulated among the disciples of Christ. Is the pope, though a bishop, more than a bishop—just as Christ, though a prophet, is much more than a prophet?6 3 Ibid., 50. 4 See especially Lumen Gentium (LG ), §§18–29. 5 Cf. Pope John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint, May 25, 1995, §96. 6 There are theological tendencies which have already began to visualize the Papal ministry in a more universal dimension, i.e. as a universal pastorate, especially as a universal ministry of Christian unity. See the recommendations of the World Conference of the Commission on Faith and Order, Report of the Second Section, Santiago de Compostela (1993): Confessing the One Faith to God’s Glory, 31, 2, Faith and Order Paper No. 166, World Council of Churches (Geneva, 1994), 243. Papal Ministry and the Theology of the Cross 61 In some ways, the global reaction to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI re-echoes those important questions. This global response compels us to reflect critically on the papal ministry in the light of today’s global context, taking into consideration its implications and consequences for the universal mission of the Church. This global response further impels us to rethink, reinterpret, and perhaps harmonize accepted theologies (and perhaps canonical norms or provisions). For instance, what theological presupposition (or presuppositions) underlie the thinking of many Christian faithful which in their estimation makes the resignation of every bishop at the age of 75 a normal and accepted pastoral norm, while the resignation of a pope, who is essentially also a bishop, is an “unusual” if not an “abnormal” happening, not minding the fact that such papal resignation is provided for in canon law? But even more importantly, the global response to Pope Benedict’s resignation raises a new theological question for the episcopal and perhaps priestly ministry, namely: is the episcopal ministry a ministry unto death, that is, until death, or is it one that could be abridged in time? This question assumes a much greater relevance when viewed through the prism of the theology of the Cross and its relation to papal/episcopal and priestly ministry. The Papal/Episcopal Ministry and the Cross of Christ Stanislaw Cardinal Dziwisz, Archbishop of Cracow and former personal Secretary to Pope John Paul II, is credited with having remarked, in response to the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, that Pope John Paul II refused to step down from the Throne of Peter even as he neared the end of his life because “he was convinced that one doesn’t come down from the cross.” This statement, widely reported in many international media,7 was certainly made as a veiled critique of the reasons given by Pope Benedict XVI for stepping down from the sedes of St. Peter. Dziwisz’s critique in a way cast Pope Benedict in the light of the Apostle Peter running away from the city of Rome, that is, from a likely martyrdom (i.e., the Cross), in that famed novel and later movie Quo Vadis? The import of this critique was not lost on the retiring Pope; hence in his ultimate Wednesday audience Pope Benedict gave an unambiguous but gentle response to Cardinal Dziwisz and to all who hold similar views. Addressing the large crowd that gathered to listen to his public catechesis for the last time, he declared: 7 See for example: vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/news/detail/articolo/wojtylawojtyla-wojtyla-22147/; www.catholicregister.org/columns/item/15911-papaloffice-is-forever-changed. Emeka Nwosuh 62 In recent months, I felt that my strength had decreased, and I asked God earnestly in prayer to enlighten me with his light to guide me to the right decision, not for my sake, but for the good of the Church. I have taken this step in full awareness of its gravity and also its novelty, but with a deep peace of mind. Loving the Church also means having the courage to make tough choices, and suffering for them, always holding as first the good of the Church and not oneself. The “always” is also a “forever”—there can be no return to private life. My decision to renounce the exercise of active ministry does not deny this fact. I am not returning to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences and so on. I am not abandoning the cross, but I am remaining at the foot of the Crucified Lord. I will no longer hold the power of the office for the government of the Church, but by rendering the service of prayer I shall rest, so to speak, in the domain of St. Peter. St. Benedict, whose name I bear as Pope, is a great example of this. He showed us the way to a life which, active or passive, belongs wholly to the work of God.8 This statement by Pope Benedict XVI is, indeed, very significant.While the Pope, in the above statement, disagrees with Cardinal Dziwisz’s interpretation of his gesture, that is, that his renunciation of the ministry of Bishop of Rome is equivalent to renouncing the Cross, he nonetheless agrees with him essentially that the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, and by extension that of all bishops, is closely and, in fact, inseparably connected to the Cross of Christ. In his interview with Peter Seewald, Pope Benedict explains the role and nature of the Petrine ministry in the light of the Cross of Christ, which is what defines and gives the papal primacy its character and quality. The ministry and primacy of the Bishop of Rome, he says, is rooted in the primacy of martyrdom, which is what has marked the origin and history of that particular church. Thus, Benedict concludes, the fact that all the early popes were martyrs is significant. Standing there as a glorious ruler is not part of being pope, but rather giving witness to the One who was crucified and to the fact that he himself is ready also to exercise this office in this way, in union with him.9 Pope Benedict further underscores his clear conception of the ministry of the papacy in relation to the Cross of Christ when he explains: My decision to renounce the exercise of active ministry does not deny this fact. . . . I am not abandoning the cross, but I am remaining at the foot of the Crucified Lord. Perhaps, without realizing or intending to do so, Cardinal Dziwisz 8 Emphasis added. 9 Benedict XVI, Light of the World,The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times— A Conversation with Peter Seewald, trans. M. J. Miller and A. J. Walker (San Francisco/Bangalore: Ignatius Press/Asian Trading Corporation, 2010), 9. Papal Ministry and the Theology of the Cross 63 provided us an important hermeneutic for understanding and interpreting what might best be described as the spirituality of the papal/episcopal ministry. And so, far beyond and far above the usual visualization of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome and, indeed, all episcopal ministry in terms of office, power, rank/hierarchy, dignity, etc., the ministry of the episcopacy is one that is intrinsically and intimately tied to the Cross of Christ.10 Although Cardinal Dziwisz may have, unwittingly, brought into focus the mystery of the Cross as integral to the spirituality of the papal/episcopal ministry, he in no way invented it. In fact, the Gospels makes it clear that the Cross is at the very heart of the mystery of the one who oversees the flock of Christ in so far as the mystery of the Cross is what defines and shapes the ministry of Christ, the Good Shepherd. This theological outlook is the peculiarity of the Gospel of John. Blessed Pope John Paul II provides us an excellent reading, exegesis, and theological exposition of this outlook and thus provides us with the right perspective for understanding this outlook. The Cross and the Apostolic Ministry in the Theology of Pope John Paul II In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis, Blessed Pope John II anchors the priestly ministry, of which the episcopacy is its full expression,11 in the ministry of Christ the Good Shepherd. According to him, [the Church] knows that Jesus Christ himself is the living, supreme, and definitive fulfillment of God’s promise: “I am the good shepherd” ( Jn 10:11). He, “the great shepherd of the sheep” (Heb 13:20), entrusted to the 10 One can at this point immediately begin to see the insight and insistence of the Patristic Fathers on the intrinsic and inseparable connection between the episcopal ministry, the Eucharist, and the Church. Cf. John D. Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church:The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop During the First Three Centuries, trans. Elizabeth Theokritoff (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001); see also the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, which is one of the earliest post-apostolic writings that highlights the intrinsic triadic connection of the Eucharist, Bishop, and Church. Writing to the church in Smyrna, Ignatius would warn: “Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid” (cf. Letter to the Smyrnaeans, no. 8). 11 Cf. John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis (PDV ), Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, 25 March, 1992, §17. Emeka Nwosuh 64 Apostles and their successors the ministry of shepherding God’s flock (cf. Jn 21:15ff.; 1 Pt 5:2).12 But this good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep (Cf. Jn 10:11, 15). He is not like the hired man, who abandons the sheep ( Jn 10:12). This total dedication and commitment to his sheep even to the point of laying down his life is what the Pope characterizes in this Exhortation as pastoral charity13 (amoris officium).14 According to him, “the essential content of this pastoral charity is the gift of self, the total gift of self to the Church [sheep].”15 This total gift of self, which characterized and defined the mission of Christ, who “loved the Church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25), is what is demanded and must characterize the ministry of all who have been entrusted with the task of shepherding and watching over the flock of Christ. This gift of self is a virtue by which they imitate Christ in his self-giving and service. It determines their way of thinking and acting, their way of relating to people. It makes special demands on them.16 But what else is the meaning of the Cross, if not the definitive action, sign, and symbol of the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep? Here, one sees the intrinsic connection between the pastoral ministry of Christ, carried on by his Apostles and their successors, and the Cross. And so, Cardinal Dziwisz is quite right in intuiting this inner connection between the ministry of the Bishop of Rome and the Cross of Christ. It is absolutely necessary for the one who shepherds Christ’s flock to remain bound to the Cross of Christ.This amoris officium is what is distinctive of that very ministry and so it can be said of the episcopal/papal ministry as it can be said of the Church that it bears profoundly the structure of the Cross.17 12 PDV §1. 13 John Paul, PDV §23. 14 Saint Augustine, In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus 125, 5; CCL 36, 678 quoted in PDV §23. 15 John Paul, PDV §23. 16 Cf. ibid. 17 Cf. Gediminas T. Jankunas, The Dictatorship of Relativism: Pope Benedict XVI’s Response (New York: St. Paul’s, 2011), 79. In his own usage of this notion, that the Church should have the structure of the Cross, Pope Benedict employs it to speak, not of the mystery of suffering which the Cross signifies, but its relational (vertical and horizontal) dimensions: the vertical dimension pointing to God and the horizontal to humankind. Of course, this relational dimension cannot be divorced or separated from the core aspect of suffering which the Cross typifies. One can also speak of the Cross pointing to two dimensions of sufferings: the vertical dimension which points to or explicates the suffering of God in and with man, and the horizontal dimension which points to the co-suffering of man with his fellow man. Our focus here is not yet on the two-dimensional character of the ministry of the bishop.That will be explored later.We have only tried to highlight the link of this ministry with the Cross of Christ. Papal Ministry and the Theology of the Cross 65 And so, to abandon the Cross is to abandon the flock of Christ; and one abandons the flock of Christ when he abandons that very ministry of watching over the flock entrusted to his care. To abandon that ministry implies ultimately a renunciation of the Cross. A good shepherd, however, never abandons his flock, that is his post, which is at the foot of the Cross. Is Resignation a Renunciation of the Cross? Does the resignation of a pope, especially for reasons of the burden involved in carrying on that ministry, constitute a renunciation of the Cross and, by extension, the flock of Christ? This is the question that the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI has raised—or rather, this is a question that Cardinal Dziwisz’s remark has occasioned. This question is all the more pertinent especially since the ministry of shepherding the flock of Christ is an entrusted mission. It is a mission which the minister did not choose of his own accord; rather, the mission was laid upon him, like a Cross. It is a mission which the minister is expected to bring to full consummation and which, in fact, totally consumes the one who brings it to full completion. On the Cross, therefore, Christ brought to consummation the mission entrusted to him by his Father, hence he could cry: “it is finished (consummated)” ( Jn 19:30), but by this very act he was also consumed; hence the evangelist immediately adds, “And bowing his head he gave up his spirit” ( Jn 19:30). It would seem then that it is only when one is himself consumed that he may be said to have brought to completion/consummation the mission entrusted to him. This appears to be the logic underlying Cardinal Dziwisz’s reasoning. The pope does not resign from the ministry of shepherding the flock of Christ; he rather must die in office, for only in that way does he bring to full consummation that mission entrusted to him by Christ through the votes of the cardinals gathered in a conclave. It would appear then, that the burden of age, a deteriorating strength of mind and body, are insufficient grounds for not consummating the mission of shepherding Christ’s flock. These, indeed, it may be argued may be ways of being consumed as one strives even with his utmost and residual energy to bring to consummation that ministry and mission for which he was chosen. Rather than focus on, and perhaps be overwhelmed by, one’s sense of incapacity, one is to focus on Christ who strengthens him (cf. Phil 4:13) and whose grace is ever sufficient for him (cf. 2 Cor 12:9). As John Paul II himself observes, “[it] is precisely in Peter’s human weakness that it becomes fully clear that the pope, in order to carry out this special ministry in the Church, depends totally on the Lord’s grace and prayer: ‘I have prayed for you that your 66 Emeka Nwosuh faith may not fail’ ” (Lk 22:32).18 Could it be that a pope who resigns from office on whatever grounds of personal incapacity is like the Apostle Peter, who has removed his gaze from Christ and his Cross and is frightened by the turbulent water and strong wind—and in his personal weakness (cf. Mt 14: 30ff ) renounces the ministry entrusted to him? And so the question remains, did Benedict XVI abandon the Cross when he renounced the ministry of the Bishop of Rome? Bound to the Cross of Christ: Two Contrasting Models The logic of the theological arguments outlined in the preceding paragraphs may seem to suggest a “Yes” answer to the question that concluded the preceding paragraph. But even more, the still-fresh and powerful image and memory of Blessed Pope John Paul II, sick, old, trembling, curved yet very resolute in carrying on the ministry of the Bishop of Rome right to his very last moment, appears to confirm decidedly the “Yes” verdict to the above question. In fact, the very image of a tired and weak John Paul II clinging tenaciously to his papal crosier, etched with the image of the crucified Christ, is almost a prophetic symbol that wordlessly explicates the theology of the apostolic/episcopal ministry that is closely bound up and rooted in the Cross of Christ. In a word, the ministry of Pope John Paul II seems to bear credible testimony to that spirituality of the episcopal ministry, a spirituality of pastoral charity (amoris officium) in which he the shepherd is willing to bring to full consummation his entrusted mission of pasturing the flock of Christ by allowing himself to be completely consumed like a holocaust. But does the ministry of Benedict XVI fall short of this spirituality? The answer to this question is to be found in the answer to the following question, namely: in what does the spirituality of pastoral charity consist, given that this spirituality stands at the very heart of the papal/episcopal ministry and indeed, the priestly ministry? As mentioned previously, “the essential content of this pastoral charity is the gift of self, the total gift of self to the Church [sheep].” The shepherd who watches over the flock pours out his life like a libation for the good of his sheep.19 All his actions are motivated and directed towards the good of the flock over which he keeps watch. The shepherd does not, in order words, think of himself, his own good, but only the good of his flock. He does whatever it takes to ensure that the good of his flock is safeguarded, even at the very cost of his own life. It is a death to self so that others may live, as St. Paul himself reminds 18 John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint §4. 19 Here one can see the unmistakable features of Pauline theology. Papal Ministry and the Theology of the Cross 67 his own Christian community. It is in this death to self that the mystery of the Cross and the Crucified Christ shines through and in which the shepherd becomes truly conformed to the one true Shepherd. Upon close examination of Pope Benedict’s statement announcing his resignation, we can unmistakably discern that underlying his motive for renouncing the office of Bishop of Rome is that overarching pastoral charity which lies at the very heart of the episcopal ministry as described above. Indeed, the very words of the Pope Emeritus encapsulate and underscore this very motivation. In what appears to be an apologia de fuga sua,20 Pope Benedict explains: “I have taken this step in full awareness of its gravity and also its novelty, but with a deep peace of mind. Loving the Church also means having the courage to make tough choices, and suffering for them, always holding as first the good of the Church and not oneself.” The good of the Church is the very essence of pastoral charity. It would seem then, that Pope Benedict accepted “death”—a certain and perhaps an unusual kind of death—for the overriding good of the Church. His was not a physical death, nor can it be completely qualified as a spiritual death. It is a death in which he buries himself in obscurity and seals himself behind the walls of prayerful silence. This is the death which he assumes for the good of the church towards which he has great pastoral solicitude and charity. It is a death he willingly accepts based on his deep awareness that prolonging his pontificate would not serve the interest of the Church but perhaps his own. Now, it would be pointless to argue why Pope John Paul, weighed down by old age and sickness, did not take a similar step. Was it that he sought to remain in the limelight even at the cost of the good of the Church? There is, certainly, a serious flaw with this line of reasoning, as it completely ignores the uniqueness and unrepeatability of each papacy or episcopal ministry. While there may be common elements that cut across the episcopal ministry, each one who is called to that ministry is unique and each call is also unique. Each one, that is, each pope or bishop, is called with the specificity of his character and person. But besides these psychological and human elements, the theological grounding for the uniqueness of each Bishop of Rome is discipleship. The one who is called to watch over the flock of Christ is first and foremost a disciple, the one who sits and listens at the feet of the Master. He is one who has been given a disciple’s tongue to know the word that sustains the weary. However, he must first wake up each morning to listen, as one being instructed (cf. Isa 50:4). Although, he watches over the flock, the 20 This is the title of a work of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, in which he offers a reason for seeking to escape from the responsibilities of the priesthood. 68 Emeka Nwosuh pope/bishop does not own the flock, for there is only One Shepherd, the Good Shepherd. And so, he must listen like a good disciple to the one who has entrusted him with that task, and follow the dictates and directions of the One Shepherd, who knows what he has in mind and in view for his flock. Once again, we see in the very words of Pope Benedict this very quality of a good and dutiful disciple. He says: “In recent months, I felt that my strength had decreased, and I asked God earnestly in prayer to enlighten me with his light to guide me to the right decision, not for my sake, but for the good of the Church.”The faithful disciple follows the dictates, not of his own heart, nor the expectations or desires of the crowd, and not even the norms of canon law, but the very voice of the Spirit. It is without question that what the Divine Master demands of one disciple is not what he may demand of another. Again, the Gospel of St. John distinctively points out the uniqueness of the fate of each disciple, in Jesus’ response to Peter’s question in reference to the beloved disciple, “Lord what about him?” (cf. Jn 21:21). The destiny of each disciple is in the very hands of his Master. It is therefore, pointless to evaluate and judge the ministry of one pope on the basis of another’s. There is no one single mold that fits or that should fit all popes. It is crucial to underscore and uphold this unique, flexible, individual, and personal character of the ministry of the episcopate or papacy if the ministry is not to lose its spiritual character and quality. The one who bears the shepherding rod and crook of Peter must place greater premium on an attentive ear and obedience to the voice of the Lord who has personally called him to watch over his flock, over and above canonical provisions, ecclesial customs, and, indeed, all human expectations and demands. Understandably, such unrestricted room for personal action may appear risky precisely because it falls outside the control of human authority. Yet, it is precisely in that attentive listening and obedience to the voice of the Lord that one rediscovers the truth that the Church is the Lord’s, and he and he alone is the one who guarantees security and stability to his flock. It is a truth that can easily slip out of our consciousness, especially when we create a certain image and vision of the pope. This is, in fact, one of the lessons of Pope Benedict’s resignation. As already noted, his sudden resignation threw most Catholics into panic and bewilderment. It was, for some, one of the apocalyptic signs of the end of the Catholic Church, especially following the series of scandals that had bedeviled it in recent times. Legitimate as the feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, doubt, and fear may be in the wake of his resignation, such feelings betray a lack of absolute trust in the one who has sworn to be with his Church until the end of time. Pope Benedict’s quiet but firm insistence that he needed to leave the Papal Ministry and the Theology of the Cross 69 scene at this point of the Church’s life and history must, on the contrary, have flowed from that deep and clear conviction that the Church is not his but the Lord’s and so the fate and future of the Church does not depend on him but on Christ and on him alone. And so, Christ, and not the pope, is the protagonist, the one who reigns supreme and thus guarantees the future and stability of the Church. And so by his resignation, Pope Benedict recalls the whole church to an important truth that the theology of the pope as the Vicar of Christ and the visible head of the Church must never be allowed to obfuscate the more important truth that Christ is the Head of the Church, and so all depend on Him. Benedict’s Resignation: A Norm for Successive Popes? By virtue of his resignation has Benedict XVI set down a norm which future popes are bound to follow? The import of this question may not be immediately felt or fully grasped, but it is a question that cannot be ignored, especially in light of how history unfolds itself. One can say with a good measure of certainty that there would definitely have been a not too positive evaluation of Pope John Paul II’s tenacity in remaining in office despite his advanced age and failing health had his papacy followed that of Benedict XVI. Just as Benedict is criticized in some circles for lacking the courage and endurance of John Paul II to carry on the papal ministry to the very end in spite of his failing strength, John Paul would have similarly been highly criticized for lacking the humility, honesty, and selflessness of Benedict to quit office when his weakness and fragility became too manifest, had his papacy followed that of Benedict. And so the question, which of these two examples is the ideal model for future popes? The response to this question would largely be shaped by the evaluative criterion employed. If the Corporate Board Room Management criterion is employed—that is, a criterion which lends more importance to contemporary managerial principles of corporate leadership with its accompanying qualities of efficiency, competence, articulateness, agility, dynamic exuberance, charisma, etc.—an eighty-some-year-old, bent over, stuttering and quivering man will hardly fit the image of a corporate head of what in the media and other circles is often considered the largest corporation in the whole world. It is expected, in this case, that one will naturally be inclined towards resignation as a norm for one who, as pope, begins to display signs of frailty. A diminishing health and increasing frailty would, in this logic of corporate management, negatively affect not only the corporate image of the corporation but also its overall efficiency and productivity and hence competitiveness. For proponents of this perspective, not only is it inconceivable that strength can shine through weakness 70 Emeka Nwosuh but, in fact, weakness and strength are incompatible bedfellows. However valid this approach to corporate leadership might be, it is nevertheless important to bear in mind that the Church is not an association for religious or humanitarian purposes but a living body, a community of brothers and sisters convoked by the Father and bound together by the Spirit under the headship of Christ the Good Shepherd. It is this divine origin and nature of the Christian community that also distinguishes its ministries, especially the papal/episcopal ministry. A second and opposing perspective is one that rejects resignation as a norm for popes merely for reason of fragility on account of age or ill health. It is a perspective that approaches the issue from a more theological than pragmatic angle. It is a perspective that is rooted in the Christian belief that strength, particularly Divine strength, can powerfully shine forth through human weakness. This is a truth that is pervasive in the New Testament, especially in the Pauline epistles. Paul himself speaks of God choosing the weak in order to demonstrate that it is the power and strength of God that is at work. Thus, in mere earthen vessels, the infinite treasure of God’s graces is embodied, so that the immensity of the power of God is made clearly manifest (cf. 2 Cor 4:7). Applying this logic, the frailty of an old and ailing pope cannot constitute a real obstacle to God’s continuing providence for the Church of Christ Jesus; and therefore, a norm imposing a moral or canonical requirement of resignation will constitute an affront to God’s sovereignty. In addition, such a requirement, whether by norms of canon law or by norms of public opinion or pressure (moral norms), would completely ignore the distinctive and unique character and vocation of the episcopal/papal ministry as one that is first and foremost that of discipleship. According to Raymond Brown, although in a very real sense all Christians are called to be disciples of Jesus, it has nevertheless been felt that those engaged in the special Christian ministry are bound in a special way by the demands of Christian discipleship.21 Brown goes on to explain the radical character of discipleship with its rigorous demands. It is both its radicalness and its rigor that have permeated and shaped the understanding of a Christian ministry, that priesthood is neither part-time nor temporary.22 It is a vocation unto death! Building on this insight, one could therefore argue that, as first and foremost a disciple, one who is called by Christ to assume the ministry of shepherding the flock of Christ is called to do so until the one who called him decides otherwise. He stays at his post until the Chief 21 R. Brown, Priests and Bishops: Biblical Reflections (New York: Paulist Press, 1970), 21. 22 Ibid., 23. Papal Ministry and the Theology of the Cross 71 Shepherd relieves him of that responsibility. It therefore will be wrong for either him or someone else to relieve him of that responsibility except in very exceptional and extreme situations—for instance, in the case of insanity or heresy. Now, since attentive obedience is the chief virtue of a disciple, it should be the prerogative of each individual pope to decide, presumably of course, in attentive obedience to Christ who called him and entrusted this ministry to him and who is ever mindful of his body the Church, either to stay on or to quit. Although this approach could be faulted on the ground that it appears rather too subjective and even individualistic, since it could ignore the ecclesial dimension of the ministry and thus exclude the possibility of ecclesial input, it remains the best approach that accommodates and reconciles the examples of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Each, it could be said, chose the right course of action after careful and prayerful listening to the voice of the One who called them. Any other approach short of this will present these two models as mutually exclusive and thus necessitate the need to choose one model over the other. On the whole, the two perspectives, viz., that which is inclined towards the resignation of a pope as a desirable norm and the other perspective, which opposes such a norm, each have their merits and demerits. While the former articulates and appropriates the benefits and values of modern managerial and corporate leadership qualities, it, nonetheless, fails to take into consideration an essential truth of the Christian Gospel, particularly that which pertains to the mystery of the Cross of Christ: that which appears as weak, worthless, despicable in the eyes of men, can in God’s hand become an instrument of inestimable force. On the other hand, for all its articulation and appropriation of the richness of the Christian Gospel, the second perspective appears to ignore or minimize the fact of human sinfulness, which can sometimes prevail over the obligation of attentive obedience. The human vices of pride, vainglory, selfishness could be so present and dominant as to drum out the voice of Christ urging a pope to resign and relinquish office for the good of the Church. This, of course, can pose a real danger to the entire Church. But can a middle way be found between these two perspectives? Perhaps. But whatever this third perspective may be, what is certain is that Benedict XVI’s resignation cannot constitute a norm which subsequent popes are obliged to follow. Canon 401 §1 & §2 and the Cross of Christ In the light of the foregoing discussions, one cannot but raise a question about the implications of Canon 401 §1 & §2. The two sections of the canon state: 72 Emeka Nwosuh §1. A diocesan bishop who has completed the seventy-fifth year of age is requested to present his resignation from office to the Supreme Pontiff, who will make provision after he has examined all the circumstances. §2. A diocesan bishop who has become less able to fulfill his office because of ill health or some other grave cause is earnestly requested to present his resignation from office. This canon, like several others, highlights the still unresolved tension between the bishops of local churches and the Bishop of Rome, that is, the Pope. These canons contain some vestiges of the pre–Vatican II conception of a bishop as a subordinate of the pope and the papal curia, a conception that the Second Vatican Council tried to correct. Of course, in practice the mentality that the bishop is a quasi-subordinate of the pope still prevails.23 And, indeed, the canonical stipulation that requires a local bishop to present, that is, submit, his resignation—naturally to the pope through the appropriate decastry of the papal curia—upon attaining the age of seventy-five or when weighed down by ill health appears to suggest such subordination even if it does not presume it. In our preceding discussions, we had argued towards the conclusion that the papal ministry, marked as it is by the structure of the Cross, demands a life-long commitment which can be renounced only in attentive obedience to the voice of the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep as the Crucified Savior. But the papal ministry is essentially an episcopal ministry, and so this theological conclusion must also apply to each bishop, since they too are true shepherds of that portion of God’s flock entrusted to their care. Besides, there is actually one single episcopal ministry shared in common by all bishops (including the pope) by virtue of their incorporation into the one single college through episcopal consecration and by the hierarchical communion with the head and members of the college (LG §22). Apart from the secondary but nonetheless important question, Why should a bishop be canonically required to resign at a certain age while no similar canonical requirement is made of the Bishop of Rome? there is the more important question about the 23 The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, while clearly affirming the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, nonetheless clearly affirm that bishops are not to be regarded as vicars of the Roman Pontiff, for they exercise the power which they possess in their own right and are called in the truest sense of the term prelates of the people whom they govern. In fact, bishops were referred to as vicar and legates of Christ, thus indicating that they derived their ministry, authority, and power from Christ himself (cf. LG §27). Papal Ministry and the Theology of the Cross 73 legitimacy or validity of such a canonical stipulation, which impinges on the essential character of the episcopal ministry, that is, its inner connection to the mystery of the Cross. The weight of this question becomes even more pressing in cases in which a bishop resigns upon attaining the canonical age even though he may still possess the spiritual, mental, and physical strength to carry on that ministry way beyond the limit of the canonical age. Another question raised by the provision of these canons is whether a canon can legislate the cessation of service to Christ and his Church.This question is rooted in the theology of the episcopacy of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council. Although it is evident that one may be required to resign or retire from an office, one may not and, in fact, cannot be required to retire from a service, especially a service of love (amoris officium) which is the essential nature of the episcopal ministry as explained earlier in this essay. But is that not precisely what the provisions of Canon 401 ask bishops to do—given that the office which the Lord committed to the pastors of his people (i.e. bishops) is, in the strict sense of the term, a service which is called very expressively in sacred scripture a diakonia or ministry (Acts 1:17 and 25; 21:19; Rom 11:13; 1 Tim 1:12)?24 Here one can draw a powerful insight from the ministry of priests (of which the ministry of the episcopacy is the fullness).25 It is odd to hear of a priest, however old or sick, retiring from the priesthood.Yes, he may retire from exercising the functions of a parish priest, but he carries on the priestly ministry of celebrating the liturgy, hearing confessions, etc., until he is completely incapacitated. These sacramental actions belong essentially to a priest’s ministry and identity. Now, the very identity of a bishop lies in shepherding. He is first and foremost a shepherd who watches over the flock of Christ. In shepherding the flock of Christ, he celebrates the liturgy for them; proclaims the Gospel of Christ to them; heals them through the sacraments of reconciliation, etc. But these are aspects of the primal service of shepherding.26 It is in this primary function of shepherding that a bishop is clearly and definitively distinguished from an ordinary priest—we would otherwise fall back to that dubious characterization 24 Lumen Gentium §24; emphasis added. 25 LG §§21, 26. 26 This view is unambiguously well attested in the thought of the Council Fathers, who articulated the heart of the ministry of the episcopate in the following words: “In that way, then, with priests and deacons as helpers, the bishops received the charge of the community, presiding in God’s stead over the flock of which they are the shepherds in that they are teachers of doctrines, ministers of sacred worship and holders of governing office” (LG §20). 74 Emeka Nwosuh of a bishop as a senior or exalted priest.27 And so, it will not be sufficient to argue that when a bishop retires or resigns he continues to celebrate the liturgy, preaches, and hears confessions. Even if he does these, he still is not fulfilling that primary function for which he is ordained a bishop and which gives him the identity of a bishop. Neither would it suffice to argue that, in resigning or retiring, a bishop merely gives up the exercise of governance. It is very doubtful if the threefold function of a bishop as a shepherd, as stated in Lumen Gentium §20 (viz., teacher of doctrines, minister of sacred worship and holder of office), can be separated. This threefold function constitutes the essence, character, and identity of the ministry of the episcopate. And so the question remains whether the provisions of canon law can legitimately demand that a bishop cease carrying on a diakonia entrusted to him by Christ. Returning to our earlier notion of the episcopal ministry being marked by the structure of the Cross, that is, in its two dimensionality,28 it’s quite easy to notice that the provisions of Canon 401 focus on only one beam or dimension of the Cross, that is, the horizontal dimension. It would appear that the overriding concern of this canon is to guarantee that each local Christian community has as its shepherd one who is healthy, strong, mentally alert—in short, one who is fit to administer his diocese. There is, in other words, a concern for the horizontal relationship between the bishop and his flock. Since it is presumed that at seventy-five, one may have much less mental and physical vigor for keep27 The view that bishops and priests are merely two degrees of dignity of the same grade of Order was a prevalent view of the medieval theology of Orders. See the discussion of medieval theology of Order in chapter 3 of Aidan Nichols’s Holy Order: The Apostolic Ministry from the New Testament to the Second Vatican Council (Dublin: Veritas Publications, 1990). This view sharply contrasts that of virtually all the Patristic writers, except for St. Jerome, whose position encapsulates in a classic and apt manner what would eventually become the dominant view for several centuries. According to Jerome, “for with the exception of ordination, what does a bishop do that a presbyter does not do?”Earlier he argued that “the Apostles clearly teach that presbyters are the same as bishops” and that one presbyter is elevated over other presbyters only for the purpose of avoiding schism (cf. Letter 146). The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council abandoned this position and retrieved the much earlier Patristic theology that conceived the bishop as being invested with the fullness of the sacrament of Orders; he is the steward of the grace of the supreme priesthood (LG §26). This position brings the Catholic theology of the episcopate into line with that of Byzantine theology, given that the Conciliar Fathers quoted the words of the prayer of episcopal consecration in the Byzantine rite in describing the ministry of the Catholic episcopate (cf. LG §26; see footnote 49). 28 See footnote 17 above. Papal Ministry and the Theology of the Cross 75 ing up with the demands of the office of a shepherd, it follows, therefore, that a bishop should retire from office. This reasoning sounds both intelligent and valid.Viewed from this perspective, it is not difficult to see the ease with which one can speak of establishing a canon that requires a bishop to resign, since the criteria for office are seen and judged almost purely from a human perspective. But this perspective, as we see in the provisions of Canon 401, ignores the vertical dimension of the Cross, which is the relational dimension between the bishop and Christ (God) who called him and entrusted to him the mission of shepherding his flock.The bishop, therefore, has an immediate and direct obligation to the one who entrusted him with that ministry as much as he has an obligation to the flock over which he presides, that is, the obligation to see that they are properly watched over. Here we have a meeting of two obligations: to Christ and to his flock. Whereas the latter belongs to what may be termed the public forum, the former lies within the domain of the private/personal; in other words, it is a domain to which no one else but the bishop and Jesus Christ, the good Shepherd, has access. Here, both enter into an intimate dialogue to arrive at a decision as to whether the bishop is still in a position to fulfill his obligation to both Christ and his flock.We are dealing with the question of freedom: responsible freedom, as Walter Kasper would put it.29 Each bishop must be given the vital space to make responsible decisions, not only in the matters of implementing universal norms, but also in deciding whether or not to carry on the episcopal ministry in the face of certain challenges.30 Conclusion The resignation of Pope Benedict, while by no means a novelty in the history of the Catholic Papacy, is an event of no small significance in contemporary history. But how much influence this event should have on future papacies is an entirely different question. Through our theological analyses, we have demonstrated that, though important as a historical event, Pope Benedict’s resignation cannot constitute a standard or norm of action for future popes. His resignation does not circumscribe the limit of the tenure—or better still, the years of diakonia—in the papal ministry. N&V 29 Walter Kasper, “On the Church: A Friendly Reply to Cardinal Ratzinger,” The Furrow 52 ( June 2001): 324. 30 Cf. ibid. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 77–103 77 Eucharistic Ecclesiologies of Locality and Universality in John Zizioulas and Joseph Ratzinger R ICHARD D E C LUE The Catholic University of America Washington, DC T HE ASPIRATION for full ecclesial communion between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches has been growing in recent decades. Both sides are working to strengthen the Catholic-Orthodox relationship. Particularly noteworthy are the efforts of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which officially commenced in 1980. Despite some difficult setbacks, including a six-year break in dialogue between 2000 and 2006, the Commission’s membership continues to work diligently, and their labor is bearing fruit. To date, the Commission has held twelve plenary sessions and produced at least five joint documents. This level of cooperation is encouraging other theologians to engage in the process as well, and a large number of articles, books, and collections of essays have been published as a result.1 All of these factors help to advance 1 An exhaustive list is not possible here, but a select sample of books and essay collec- tions include: James F. Puglisi, ed., Petrine Ministry and the Unity of the Church: ‘Toward a Patient and Fraternal Dialogue’ (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999); Olivier Clément, You are Peter:An Orthodox Theologian’s Reflection on the Exercise of Papal Primacy (New York: New City Press, 2003); Adriano Garuti, Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and the Ecumenical Dialogue, trans. and ed. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004), esp. 12–86; Cardinal Walter Kasper, ed., The Petrine Ministry: Catholics and Orthodox in Dialogue (Mahwah, NJ: The Newman Press, 2006); Aidan Nichols, Rome and the Eastern Churches, 2d ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010); James F. Puglisi, ed. How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Unity of the Universal Church? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010); Adam A. J. DeVille, Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of EastWest Unity (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011). 78 Richard DeClue authentic dialogue in mutual respect and familial charity. In addition to an increase in fraternal spirit, there are also substantial theological agreements that are coming to the fore. Among the most encouraging points of convergence within CatholicOrthodox dialogue is the shared acceptance of, and growing emphasis on, the intrinsic connection between the Church and the Eucharist. This understanding of the Church-Eucharist relation finds its most direct and explicit scriptural foundation in 1 Corinthians 10. In a letter thoroughly concerned with the unity of the Church at Corinth, St. Paul reminds the Corinthians of the sacramental source of their ecclesial union, which ought to be reflected more purely in the interactions among the faithful in that city. St. Paul writes: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a [communion] in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a [communion] in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”2 Here, St. Paul declares that common reception of the Eucharist is the basis of ecclesial unity. The Eucharist effects the communion of believers. Those who receive the one Body of Christ in the Eucharist (the one loaf) are united as the one body of Christ (the Church).The view that the Church receives her life from the Eucharist has led many theologians to develop what is often called “eucharistic ecclesiology,” which is prominent in both Catholic and Orthodox thought. As a common vision, eucharistic ecclesiology provides a solid framework for addressing the major issues still facing Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. One central ecumenical concern is the relationship between the local church and the universal Church. The precise points of agreement and disagreement on this issue are not always clear, and subtle nuances often carry profound implications. There is need for a better understanding of what continues to unite versus what continues to divide if the remaining obstacles to CatholicOrthodox unity are to be overcome. This article intends to clarify and delineate important similarities and differences between Catholic and Orthodox perspectives by directly comparing and contrasting the eucharistic ecclesiologies of John Zizioulas (the Orthodox Metropolitan 2 1 Corinthians 10:16–17. The text is quoted from: The New American Bible, St. Joseph Edition (New York: Catholic Book Publishing, 1992), henceforth NAB. The Greek word, koinonia, translated in the NAB as “participation,” has been replaced (indicated with brackets) by the present author, who prefers the translation “communion,” especially within this context. The meaning of koinonia as communion has become very significant in contemporary ecclesiology. Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 79 of Pergamon) and Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI)3 on the question of the local and universal aspects of the Church. The aim is to acquire not only greater knowledge of where they agree and disagree but also a better understanding of why. In this presentation, the Church’s locality and universality are explored in relation to the celebration of the Eucharist according to John Zizioulas and according to Joseph Ratzinger. In that connection, several related issues are discussed, including: the full ecclesial quality of the local church, the necessity of unity between local churches, the Church as one and universal, and the eucharistic structure of the Church. One particularly important aspect of the local/universal Church mystery, universal primacy, is also considered, again from a eucharistic perspective. Treating the above topics will lead to the formulation of succinct summary lists of similarities and differences between Zizioulas and Ratzinger’s eucharistic ecclesiologies of the local and universal Church in an effort to reveal both assets and obstacles in current ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. 3 It is recognized that Zizioulas and Ratzinger do not represent every theologian from their respective Churches, from whom they have both received negative criticism. Nevertheless, they stand as two influential figures who contribute significantly to the advance of theology and ecumenical concerns. Additionally, Zizioulas holds the position of co-chair (alongside Cardinal Kurt Koch) on the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Thus, they are aptly fit for a direct comparison. For a presentation of—and response to—Orthodox criticisms of Zizioulas, cf. Alan Brown, “On the Criticism of ‘Being as Communion’ in Anglophone Orthodox Theology,” in The Theology of John Zizioulas: Personhood and the Church, ed. Douglas Knight (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2006), 35–78. Cf. also, John Behr, The Way to Nicea (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 2001); idem, The Nicene Faith (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 2004); and Andrew Louth, John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Perhaps the most well-known criticism of Ratzinger—and his response thereto—is found in what has been called the Ratzinger-Kasper debate. The component documents of this debate are listed here in chronological order: (1) Walter Kasper, “Zur Theologie und Praxis des bischöflichen Amtes,” Auf neue Art Kirche Sein: Wirklichkeiten—Herausforderungen—Wandlungen (Munich: Bernward bei Don Bosco, 1999), 32–48. (2) Joseph Ratzinger, “On the Relation of the Universal and the Local Church in Vatican II,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 22, 2000, p. 46 [English version: “The Ecclesiology of the Constitution on the Church,Vatican II, ‘Lumen Gentium,’ ” L’Osservatore Romano, September 19, 2001, pp. 5–8]. (3) Walter Kasper, “On the Church: A Friendly Reply to Cardinal Ratzinger,” America 184 (April 23–30, 2001), 8–14. (4) Joseph Ratzinger, “The Local Church and the Universal Church: A Response to Walter Kasper,” America 185 (November 19, 2001), 7–11. (5) Walter Kasper, “From the President of the Council for Promoting Christian Unity,” America 185 (November 19, 2001), 7–11. 80 Richard DeClue The Full Ecclesial Quality of the Local Church Zizioulas’s study of the original meaning of the term ekklesia provides a good starting point for this section. According to Zizioulas, the term ekklesia is used approximately 80 times in the New Testament. More than 70 percent of the time, the term is used in reference to an “assembly in a particular place.”4 Mere locality, however, is not the most important aspect to such usage. As Zizioulas argues, “The point of altogether special importance is that it was not just any assembly, but strictly speaking, the eucharistic assembly that was called ekklesia of ‘Church.’ ”5 The dominant use of ekklesia to signify the Christian faithful gathering together to celebrate the Eucharist demonstrates the intrinsic connection between the Divine Liturgy and the church as community, as already intimated in the earlier reference to 1 Corinthians 10. The identification of the church with the eucharistic assembly, as found in the New Testament, continues to find expression in the early Patristic period. St. Ignatius of Antioch’s ecclesiology is a prime example. St. Ignatius does not just borrow the New Testament terminology, however; he further develops the theology expressed therein. As Zizioulas notes, “What characterizes Ignatius in particular is that for him the Eucharist does not simply make the local community into the Church, but that it makes it the catholic Church . . . i.e. the full and integral body of Christ.”6 4 John D. Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop in the First Three Centuries, trans. Elizabeth Theokritoff (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001), 45. Without debating the veracity of Zizioulas’s statistic that 70 percent of New Testament uses of ekklesia refer to the local community, one may question the significance of this statistic and explore possible reasons behind it. The more frequent use of the local sense does not necessarily indicate a priority for the local church vis-à-vis the universal Church. It could simply be a factor of the situations in which the term is used. Since a large portion of the New Testament consists of letters about and to local churches, it is no surprise that the term would often be used in that sense, simply out of contextual necessity. 5 Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 46. Elsewhere in the New Testament, the universal sense is emphasized. The well-known biblical scholar Raymond Brown admits that “in the period between 35–65 the most frequent use of ekklesia was for a local church. . . . Yet a passage like 1 Cor 12:28 indicates that there was a more universal usage as well. In the last third of the cent., this universal usage becomes very frequent; see Acts 9:31; Matth 16:18,” and “Nowhere is it more apparent than in Col and Eph, where it dominates completely.” Quoted from: Raymond E. Brown, S.S. et al., “Early Church,” The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990) 80:29 (p. 1345). 6 John Zizioulas, “The Ecclesiological Presuppositions of the Holy Eucharist,” Nicholaus 10 (1982): 335 (emphasis in original unless otherwise noted). For patristic references to ekklesia in the universal sense, cf. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 81 Here, Zizioulas defines the term “catholic” as something other than “universal.” Zizioulas sees the Aristotelian meaning of katholou behind the Greek patristic use of “catholic.” “It is notable,” writes Zizioulas, “that whenever [Aristotle] defines it he gives it a qualitative sense denoting what is full, whole, general, or common.”7 Taken in the larger context of St. Ignatius’s ecclesiology, then, “Catholicity . . . does not mean anything else but the wholeness and fullness and totality of the body of Christ ‘exactly as’ . . . it is portrayed in the eucharistic community.”8 As Zizioulas soundly points out in defense of his position, “Even the context in which the term [catholic church] appears is a eucharistic one, in which Ignatius’ main concern was the unity of the eucharistic community.”9 “Orthodox ecclesiology,” affirms Zizioulas, “is based on the idea that wherever there is the Eucharist there is the Church in its fullness as the Body of Christ.”10 The following passage is particularly helpful for expressing Zizioulas’s major position with regard to the catholicity of the local church: Inasmuch as the eucharistic assembly incarnates and reveals in history not a part of the one Christ but the one Lord Himself in His entirety, who takes up the “many” in Himself in perpetuity in order to make them One and bring them back through His sacrifice before the throne of the Father, what we have in the Eucharist is not a part of the Church, but the whole Church herself, the whole body of Christ. Thus the ecclesiological fullness and “catholicity” of the Church sojourning Doctrines, revised edition (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1978), 189: “Looked at from the outside, primitive Christianity has the appearance of a vast diffusion of local congregations, each leading its separate life with its own constitutional structure and officers and each called a ‘church’. In a deeper sense, however, all these communities are conscious of being parts of one universal Church, which Ignatius [Eph. 17, 1] implies is related to Christ as the body is to its head. It extends, we are informed, [cf. Didache 9, 4] to the ends of the earth, and God gathers it together from the four winds. . . . As he faces his death, Polycarp himself prays [Dialogue with Trypho 8, 1] ‘for the entire Catholic Church throughout the world’. . . . So for Hermas [Sim. 9, 17] the Church collects its members from the whole world, forming them into one body in unity of understanding, mind, faith and love. Justin speaks [Dial. 63, 5] of all those who believe in Christ as being united ‘in one soul, one synagogue, one Church, which is brought into being through His name and shares in His name; for we are all called Christians.’ ” 7 Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 109. 8 John Zizioulas, Being as Communion (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), 149. 9 Ibid. 10 John Zizioulas, “The Local Church in a Eucharistic Perspective: An Orthodox Contribution,” Midstream 33 ( January 1994): 421. 82 Richard DeClue in each place formed the first and the basic consequence of the unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist. “Each single Church, gathered around the Bishop and culminating in his person, is not simply a part of the whole within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church; but inasmuch as she communes in the whole in the unity of the Holy Spirit, she is herself one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, i.e., the ‘fullness’ and the ‘body of Christ’.”11 The notion of “the one and the many,” alluded to in the above quote, is a common Zizioulan theme. He holds that it is one of the many that makes the many one. This theme appears here with regard to Christ and the Church. As the head of the body, Jesus Christ is the one who makes the many (the faithful) one (the Church). Moreover, in Zizioulas’s view, “the one and the many are mutually constitutive.”12 Therefore, in regard to the relation between Christ and the Church, Zizioulas notes that “the existence of the body is a necessary condition for the head to be a head.”13 Christ is head of the body, the Church. Furthermore, Zizioulas asserts that the Church’s relationship to Christ is so strong that “the Church is described as Christ Himself, the whole Christ in Augustine’s apt phrase,” and thus, “ecclesiology ceases to be a separate chapter for theology and becomes an organic chapter of Christology.”14 According to Zizioulas, then, Christ and the Church constitute one corporate personality.15 This radical unity with and in Christ is realized in the eucharistic synaxis. Therefore, each local church, as the eucharistic assembly, possesses the fullness of ecclesial reality by virtue of the very fullness of the Lord’s presence in the Eucharist. If Christ is fully present in the Eucharist, and Christ and the Church are one, then the Church is also fully present in the Eucharist. 11 Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 248. Here, Zizioulas quotes from Metr. Dionysios of Servies and Kozani, “Encyclical for the Inauguration of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Church of Greece,’ ” in Oikodomi, Ecclesiastical and Literary Bulletin 2 (1959): 126. 12 Paul McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue, 2d ed. (Fairfax, VA: Eastern Christian Publications, 2006), 179. Cf. Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 41. 13 John Zizioulas, “The Mystery of the Church in the Orthodox Tradition,” One in Christ 24, no. 4 (1988): 299. 14 Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 15. Cf. Georges Florovsky, “Le corps du Christ vivant: une interpretation orthodoxe de l’église,” in La sainte Église universelle. Confrontation oecuménique (Neuchâtel-Paris: Delachaux et Niestl, 1948), 124; also, McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church, 212–13. 15 Cf. John Zizioulas, “The Ecclesiological Presuppositions of the Holy Eucharist,” Nicholaus 10 (1982): 342; also, Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 145–47. Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 83 Ratzinger also affirms the full ecclesial quality of the local church (that is, the episcopal diocese).16 Like Zizioulas, Ratzinger acknowledges that “for the early Christians the word ecclesia meant first of all and most conspicuously the local Church. In other words, the Church is realized immediately and primarily in the individual local Churches which are not separate parts of a larger administrative organization but rather embody the totality of the reality which is ‘the Church.’ ”17 Ratzinger’s words closely resemble Zizioulas’s own vocabulary with regard to the qualitative character of the local church, which concretely contains within it the fullness of the Church’s essence. Additionally, Ratzinger agrees with Zizioulas that the Eucharist is the basis for the full ecclesial reality of the local church. The Church is inseparable from the Eucharist. As he writes: “According to the Fathers, Eucharist and Church do not stand as two different things next to one another, but fall thoroughly into one another [durchaus ineinander-fallen].”18 Ratzinger even goes so far as to say quite succinctly, “The Church is Eucharist.”19 As with Zizioulas, Christ is at the center of this great mystery. It is communion with Christ as celebrated and received in the Eucharist that gives rise to the Church as communion: “The Eucharist joins men together, not only with one another but also with Christ thus making them Church. . . . [the] Church lives in eucharistic communities.”20 16 Zizioulas and Ratzinger both understand the local/particular church as an epis- copocentric reality.The development of the parish system in the third century and its expansion over the course of the fourth century did not render each parish “church” in the full sense.The eucharistic synaxis as celebrated in a parish community is seen as a participation in the bishop’s celebration, even when the bishop is not physically present.Thus, unity under the presidency of the bishop is still viewed as a necessary component of the full ecclesial reality of the local church. 17 Joseph Ratzinger, “The Pastoral Implications of Episcopal Collegiality,” Concilium in Dogma, vol. 1, The Church and Mankind (Glen Rock, NJ: Paulist Press, 1965), 44. 18 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “Gemeinde aus der Eucharistie,” in 800 Jahre St. Martini Münster, ed. Werner Hülsbusch (Münster: Verlag Regensburg, 1980): 32. Where English editions of texts are not indicated in the notes, the translation is that of the present author. 19 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Called to Communion, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 75. 20 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, “The Ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council,” trans. Stephen W. Arndt, Communio 13 (1986): 242–43. One difference between Zizioulas and Ratzinger regarding the Christological aspect of this mystery is Zizioulas’s avoidance of “bride of Christ” language and his insistence that the Church has no hypostasis of her own (cf. Zizioulas, “The Mystery of the Church,” 302). Ratzinger holds, to the contrary, that “the Church is the Body of Christ in the way in which the woman is one body . . . with the man. Put in other terms, 84 Richard DeClue These statements sound compatible—if not identical—with Zizioulas’s own ecclesiology of the local church. What is more, Ratzinger and Zizioulas draw the same conclusion for the same reason, a significant factor in dialogue. For both of them, the concrete celebration of the Eucharist is the basis for affirming the full ecclesial quality of the local church. Both theologians emphasize that the local church cannot be seen as a mere “part” of the universal Church. Rather, in each church of a particular place, the Church is present in her fullness and with all her essential elements. Thus, it is important to reaffirm, as a point of agreement between Ratzinger and Zizioulas, the full ecclesial character of the local church. Participants in the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue have also reaffirmed this position as an important consensus between Catholic and Orthodox thought.21 The Unity of the Churches and the One Universal Church The full ecclesial reality of the local church does not mean that each can stand in isolation. On the contrary, Ratzinger and Zizioulas both insist on the need for communion among the local churches as a constitutive element of the very ecclesial fullness of each church. “For,” writes Zizioulas about the local church, “her wholeness and fullness are not her exclusive and private possession. It is the one Christ who Himself, however, lives and is incarnate identically in the other Churches, too.”22 Since each local church embodies the whole Christ, each local church is intrinsically united to every other such embodiment of Christ. In like manner, Ratzinger insists that each local church—while fully church—must maintain unity with the whole Church precisely because of the nature of the Eucharist. “Christ is wholly present everywhere, that is the one very important thing the Council formulated in common with our Orthodox brethren. But he is only one everywhere, and therefore I can have the one the Church is the Body, not by virtue of an identity without distinction . . . in their indissoluble spiritual-bodily union, they nonetheless remain unconfused and unmingled” (Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 39; emphasis added). For an excellent treatment of the “bride of Christ” issue, cf. Paul McPartlan, “Who is the Church? Zizioulas and von Balthasar on the Church’s Identity,” Ecclesiology 4 (2008): 271–88, especially 284–85, where McPartlan directly compares Zizioulas and Pope Benedict XVI on this question. 21 Cf. Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, “The Mystery of the Church and of the Eucharist in Light of the Mystery of the Trinity” (Munich: June 30–July 6, 1982): III.1; available on the Vatican website. 22 Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 260. Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 85 Lord only in the unity that he himself is, in the unity with the others who also are his body and are to become it ever anew in the Eucharist.”23 Elsewhere, this viewpoint is stated quite forcefully: “The Eucharist is celebrated with the one Christ, and thus with the whole Church, or it is not being celebrated at all.”24 The need for unity between local churches is a necessary condition for the fullness of their ecclesial character. This is an important point of concurrence between the thought of Zizioulas and that of Ratzinger. Drawing similar conclusions from the above statements, Ratzinger and Zizioulas both affirm that there are simultaneously one Church in the world and many churches in and through which the one Church exists. Again, there is a eucharistic basis for this position. As Zizioulas states: “There is one Eucharist in the whole universal Church and yet this one Eucharist is at the same time many Eucharists.”25 Elsewhere, he writes: “I have always believed that the nature of the Eucharist points to the simultaneity of locality and universality in ecclesiology.”26 Zizioulas has coined an apt phrase to express such simultaneity of the local and universal Church, that is, the communion of all churches as one Church: “The unity of the Church throughout the world is a unity in identity.”27 “Unity in identity” indicates that each local church is united to every other local church precisely because they are identical in Christ through their respective episcopocentric eucharistic communities. It is one and the same reality that is made present in each instance. Zizioulas thinks that this concept of “unity in identity” is necessary to redirect theological discussion about the relationship between the local and universal Church. As he writes: The fundamental and crucial problem of the relationship between the “local” and the “universal” catholic Church must be solved apart from any notion of a unity in collectivity, and in the direction of a unity in identity. Schematically speaking, in the first case the various local Churches form parts which are added to one another in order to make up a whole, whereas in the latter, the local Churches are full circles which cannot be 23 Ratzinger, “The Ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council,” trans. Stephen W. Arndt, Communio 13 (1986): 244. 24 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 106. 25 John Zizioulas, “Primacy in the Church: An Orthodox Approach,” in Petrine Ministry and the Unity of the Church, ed. James F. Puglisi (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1999), 118. 26 Ibid., 119. 27 Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 260. Richard DeClue 86 added to one another but coincide with one another and finally with the Body of Christ and the original apostolic Church.28 Once again, Zizioulas strongly defends the integrity of the local church’s ecclesial status without negating the inherent necessity of universal communion. Zizioulas also believes that his approach can preclude the tendency towards localism or isolationism. The mystery of universal communion of all in Christ is maintained. “What each eucharistic community . . . was meant to reveal, was not part of Christ but the whole Christ and not a partial or local unity but the full eschatological unity of all in Christ.”29 Thus, via the concept of “unity in identity,” Zizioulas conveys—in an impressively nuanced way—that the Church is both one and many at the same time. Ratzinger makes similar remarks about the simultaneity of multiplicity and unicity within the Church, rooted in the mystery of the Eucharist: Church arises and exists [entsteht und besteht] through this, that the Lord communicated himself to men, walks in communion with them and thus brings them into communion with one another. The Church is the communicating [Kommunizieren] of the Lord with us, which at the same time creates the true communing of men with one another. Hence, Church arises each time around one altar. Therefore, it is built up in local Churches—“communities,” since only a “community” can be the location of communication. Hence, it is, at the same time however, still only one in the multiplicity [Vielheit ] of communities, since there are not many bodies of the Lord but one single Christ, who is everywhere whole but also everywhere is only one.30 The Church, like the Eucharist, is simultaneously local and universal. Each instance of the Eucharist found in various places is the whole Christ. Similarly, the Church is wholly present everywhere she is found. The agreement between Zizioulas and Ratzinger on this point is profound. Yet, differences remain. The main point of disparity between Ratzinger and Zizioulas on the relationship between the local and universal Church stems, not from different assessments of the ecclesial quality of the local church, but from their different estimations of the ontology of the universal Church. Ratzinger attributes greater ontological weight to the universal Church than does Zizioulas. For Ratzinger, “the one Church is a theological entity, and not the subsequent empirical uniting of many 28 Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 158n66. 29 Ibid., 154. 30 Ratzinger, “Gemeinde aus der Eucharistie,” 32. Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 87 churches.”31 In other words, the universal Church is a real “ens,” a concrete reality that exists substantially as one. Furthermore, Ratzinger professes that the universal Church enjoys a certain precedence vis-à-vis the local churches. He insists that “what first exists is the one Church, the Church that speaks in all tongues—the ecclesia universalis; she then generates Church in the most diverse locales, which nonetheless are all always embodiments of the one and only Church. The temporal and ontological priority lies with the universal Church.”32 The one, universal Church makes herself present in a given location, and this constitutes the local church. As that which now becomes present in a particular place, the universal Church must exist prior to—ontologically and temporally—the individual local church. To Ratzinger, this seems self-evident, and he finds it difficult to entertain any other perspective: “The ontological precedence of the Church as a whole, of the one Church and the one body, of the one bride, over the empirical and concrete realizations in the various individual parts33 of the Church seems to me so obvious that I find it difficult to understand the objections raised against it.”34 Zizioulas has a different view of the universal Church. One may affirm that there is one Church in the world in some sense. However, in his view, the term “Church” does not have the same level of significance when it is used in the worldwide sense as it does when predicated of the local church. For Zizioulas, the latter carries the most ontological weight as that which incarnates full ecclesial reality. The former is predicated analogously as a means of expressing the communion between the individually concrete realities of the local churches. In other words, it is the local church that is an “ens,” according to Zizioulas, while the universal Church is the communion of each “ens” with every other “ens.” In Zizioulas’s own words: In a eucharistic view of the Church this means that the local Church . . . is the only form of ecclesial existence which can be properly called 31 Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship, 249. 32 Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 44. 33 In a previous quote, Ratzinger declares that local churches are not “parts” of the Church. Here, he refers to them as “individual parts of the Church.”This discrepancy is due to different senses of the word “part” in each instance. On the one hand, local churches are called “parts” of the Church in a quantitative sense, insofar as one local church is neither every local church nor the entire Church throughout the world. On the other hand, they cannot be called “parts of the Church” in a qualitative sense, since they possess all the essential ecclesial qualities. This distinction is also compatible with Zizioulas’s contention that the catholicity of the local church is a qualitative characteristic, as discussed earlier. 34 Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship, 135. 88 Richard DeClue Church. All structures aiming at facilitating the universality of the Church create a network of communion of Churches, not a new form of Church. . . . Any structural universalization of the Church to the point of creating an ecclesial entity called “universal Church” as something parallel to or above that of the local Church would inevitably introduce into the concept of the Church cultural and other dimensions which are foreign to a particular local context.35 As the last quote indicates, Zizioulas insists that the local church is the only entity deserving the title “church” in the full sense. His position rests on the close association of ekklesia with the concrete eucharistic assembly under the presidency of the one bishop. Since, according to Zizioulas, the church is the eucharistic assembly, and there is no universal eucharistic celebration, then there are no supra-diocesan structures that can be called “Church” in the original and full sense of the word. As Zizioulas states: “There was not in practice one universal Eucharist, so there was not one universal Bishop in the early Church. . . . Therefore, on the universal level we do not have a fixed and permanent center for the expression of ecclesial unity in the Divine Eucharist and the Bishop, and it is in this that Roman Catholic ecclesiology since the First Vatican Council has deviated from the early Church.”36 For Zizioulas, ecclesial structure is identical with the structure of the Eucharist, which is always a concrete, local reality. It is clear, then, how their differently articulated understandings of the relationship of the local and universal Church are derived from divergent understandings of the ecclesial character of the universal Church. On the one hand, Zizioulas, stressing the catholicity of each local church, tends to view local churches as separate realities first (even if identical realities), which then, on account of their identity, establish and maintain communion with one another. On the other hand, Ratzinger, without denying the full ecclesial quality of each local church, emphasizes the fact that each local church does not create itself, but rather receives its being from without, that is, from the universal Church, which is therefore prior to (temporally and ontologically) these local churches. For Ratzinger, “reception from without” is fundamental: “The element of receiving belongs essentially to the Church. . . . We call this structure of receiving and encountering ‘sacrament.’ ”37 He says elsewhere that this reception applies to the Eucharist: “The fact that the sacrament of priestly service is requisite for the Eucharist is founded upon the fact that the congregation cannot give itself the Eucharist; it has to receive it from the 35 Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 258. 36 Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 253. 37 Ratzinger, “The Ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council,” 244. Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 89 Lord by the mediation of the one Church.”38 Since the local church does not give itself its bishop (that is, it cannot ordain him without other bishops from other churches), it cannot give itself the Eucharist; it must first receive the sacraments and church structure from without, before it can be established as a local (even catholic) church. In other words, from Ratzinger’s perspective, there are not first many local churches each springing up independently, which then establish communion with one another in recognition of their mutual identity as churches. There is first the one Church (quite real and concrete) established by Christ, which then goes forth into the world and makes herself present in various places in and through local churches, which are fully churches only because they have received from the one Church all the necessary ecclesial elements (including baptism, holy orders, and most especially the Eucharist). The Eucharistic Structure of the Church In light of the above statements, it is clear that the relationship between ecclesial structure and the Eucharist is another point about which Zizioulas and Ratzinger share some fundamental principles yet diverge in their elaborations. They both see a profound connection between ecclesial structure and the Eucharist, but they do not interpret this relationship in the same way. As indicated earlier, Zizioulas identifies the church with the eucharistic assembly, and he therefore attributes all truly ecclesial structures to the Eucharist, especially those of bishop, presbyter, and deacon. “The identification of the eucharistic assembly with the ‘Church of God’ led naturally to the coincidence of the structure of the Church with that of the Eucharist.”39 Zizioulas claims that the Church’s “organization . . . was not borrowed or copied from the world around her . . . but arose naturally out of the eucharistic assembly through which canonical unity is connected with the essence of the Church.”40 Here, Zizioulas’s insights offer an important reminder that ecclesial structure is not primarily pragmatic. Zizioulas believes that the structure of the church finds its ultimate expression in and through the Eucharist, where the assembly gathers in a way that reflects the eschatological Church. Explaining St. Ignatius of Antioch’s understanding, Zizioulas writes: The association of episkopé with the ultimate authority and fullness of the local church and with the eucharist implied that whenever the local 38 Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship, 143. 39 Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 59. 40 Ibid. 90 Richard DeClue community was gathered together to celebrate the eucharist, the eschatological community was there present in its fullness. This inevitably meant that the structure which this community had at that moment is to be regarded as an image of the “heavenly” or ultimate structure of the world in which God reigns. Ignatius draws his view of the episcopacy from the belief that in the local eucharistic gathering one figure is central and exercises final authority: God who gives to the world eternal life through communion in the Body of his Son—or, in terms of the Church structure which represents this, the president of the eucharistic community who “sits in the place of God” and surrounded by the presbyters (who represent the apostles sitting on their eschatological thrones) passes ultimate judgment on every other matter pertaining to the Church.41 The value of Zizioulas’s presentation is that it shows how ecclesial structure in general must be understood in light of the eschaton, which is expressed and present in the eucharistic synaxis. This view helps to root one’s understanding of ecclesial structure in a theological principle and in the Kingdom of God, rather than too narrowly in pragmatism. It is worth affirming the great value that such a view has for understanding the Church as a real mystery of faith and not simply as a human organization structured for the sake of expediency. For Zizioulas, the structure of the Church that is manifest in the structure of the eucharistic assembly is the result of God’s own providential handiwork and not simply the contingent choice of Christians themselves. Church structure itself is revelatory. Though Ratzinger also sees a connection between the structure of the Eucharist and the structure of the Church, he nuances the relationship differently. On this point, Aidan Nichols expresses the disparity between Ratzinger and many Orthodox theologians, like Zizioulas: “Ratzinger’s own theology of ministerial office does not take its rise from reflection on the Eucharistic assembly, as with the pure eucharistic ecclesiologies of the Orthodox tradition, but from a wider, if more diffused, picture of the Gospel community.”42 Nevertheless, Ratzinger perceives a relationship between ecclesial structures and the Eucharist. As Maximilian Heim explains, “Every celebration of the Eucharist inherently presupposes ‘a visible, concrete [nennbare, identifiable] . . . unity’ as an essential structural element.”43 Perhaps the key differ41 John Zizioulas, “Episkopé and Episkopos in the Early Church: A Brief Survey of the Evidence,” Episkopé and Episcopate in Ecumenical Perspective (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1980), 33. 42 Aidan Nichols, The Thought of Benedict XVI: An Introduction to the Theology of Joseph Ratzinger (New York: Burns & Oates, 2005), 139. 43 Maximilian Heinrich Heim, Joseph Ratzinger: Life in the Church and Living Theology, trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007), 275. Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 91 ence vis-à-vis Zizioulas lies in Ratzinger’s insistence that the Eucharist’s intrinsically universal dimension necessitates universal structure as a corollary to—and perhaps even a precondition for—local church structure, in such a way that this universal structure must also be called Church in the full sense. “Accordingly, the commemoration of the pope and the bishop in the Eucharistic Prayer during the Mass is not something incidental; rather, it is an expression of this unity, for it means, in Ratzinger’s opinion, ‘that we are truly celebrating the one Eucharist of Jesus Christ, which we can receive only in the one Church.’ ”44 Thus, the unity of the Church—not only on the local but also on the universal level—is expressed in the structure of the Eucharist. “This, however, has repercussions for the eucharistic understanding of the Church, for an essential part of the eucharistic structure of the local community is the horizontal relation of its bishop to the college of bishops.”45 The main point here is that the bishop’s role as the center of unity within his local church is intrinsically tied to his unity with the other bishops. In other words, the bishop cannot stand in isolation, as a principle of unity simply in himself. A major function of his role within the local church is precisely to keep it united to the other local churches and with the whole Church. He does this, Ratzinger believes, precisely through his union with the other bishops as a member of the college of bishops.Thus, the local bishop serves as part of the universal structure of the Church. Of course, episcopal unity is not only synchronic but also diachronic. Unity among the bishops of today is necessary, but not sufficient. Unity with bishops from every age is also essential. This is the role of apostolic succession. Without apostolic succession, one could not be a true bishop, for one would not serve as a point of historical and sacramental continuity with the apostles and with the Church of all times. Since apostolic succession is required for the authenticity of the episcopal office, which in turn is essential to the proper celebration of the Eucharist, “Ratzinger sees apostolic succession as the guarantee for the legitimacy of the Eucharist, which is necessary for the fulfillment of its life-giving purpose.”46 In a similar way, Zizioulas directly connects the significance and necessity of apostolic succession with the Eucharist. He writes: “Apostolic succession as an historical fact stemmed from the Divine Eucharist, in the offering of which the Bishops succeeded the Apostles. This becomes clear from studying 1 Clement where the meaning of succession from the Apostles revolves 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid., 278. 46 Ibid., 282. 92 Richard DeClue exclusively around the ministry of ‘offering the Gifts.’ ”47 Therefore, the ministry of unity that the bishop serves is tied directly to the Eucharist’s own internal essence and purpose. As Ratzinger states: “A Church understood Eucharistically is a Church constituted episcopally.”48 The office of bishop, through collegiality (synchronic unity) and apostolic succession (diachronic unity), supplies the structural, visible component to spaciotemporal universality. Indeed, the structure of the Church is connected with the structure of the Eucharist, but precisely because the Eucharist (and the unity it effects) is simultaneously a local and a universal reality, structures of unity in the Church are required on both levels. Thus, as Heim explains, “Even though the ecclesiology of the local Church (led by the bishop), as set forth by the Second Vatican Council, follows from the intrinsic connection between Eucharist and community, this unity always has, according to Ratzinger, a universal structure.”49 Of course, a bishop is a point of unity on both levels. He is simultaneously the one who makes visible the unity of the assembly within the local church as well as the unity of his eucharistic assembly with all other eucharistic assemblies through his communion with the college of bishops as a whole. Interestingly enough, this corresponds to Zizioulas’s own words when he says, “The bishop is both a local and a universal ministry. The bishop is ordained for a particular Church in order to be its head and center,” but “he is at the same time a bishop of the church universal.”50 If the structure of the Church is related intrinsically to the structure of the Eucharist, which is episcopocentric, and the bishop serves both a local and a universal ministry, then there is no reason to conclude that an understanding of ecclesial structures based on the Eucharist is limited to local structures alone. This affirmation is precisely why the bishop—in order to be an authentic leader of the local eucharistic community—must be in union with the whole Church. If he is cut off from the other local churches, then he is no longer a point of unity between the local church and the universal Church, and therefore, he cannot be a legitimate point of unity within the local church. So closely tied are the unity within a local church and the unity between local churches that one is inconceivable without the other. But, in order to avoid the danger perceived by Zizioulas that a universal structure would challenge the ecclesial fullness of the local church and 47 Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 65–66. 48 Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 79. 49 Heim, Joseph Ratzinger, 283. 50 Zizioulas, “Primacy in the Church,” 119. Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 93 its structure, one can point out that the universal structure is constituted precisely by the communion between the centers of local church structure: the bishops. Zizioulas and Ratzinger agree on this point. The difference between them is based on whether or not this universal structure is itself “Church” in the full sense, as discussed earlier. A further point regarding universal ecclesial structure revolves around the ministry of the apostles and itinerant preachers exercised in the early Church. Ratzinger reminds the reader that “In the apostolic period, the catholic [universal] element in the Church’s structure is obvious. . . . One can even say that the ministry concerned with the universal Church enjoys such a clear precedence over local offices.”51 Additionally, Ratzinger points out that the apostles “were not bishops of particular local Churches but simply ‘apostles’ and were commissioned as such for work in the whole world and in the whole of the Church to be built up in the world.”52 No one claims that the apostles, who did not belong solely to any given local church, were not full members in the body of Christ, or that their office was not really an ecclesial structure because it was universal and not local. They were members and leaders of the Church universal. Furthermore, a connection between universal offices and the Eucharist is seen in the fact that when apostles or itinerant preachers were present in the local community during their travels, it was they who presided over the Eucharist. As Ratzinger highlights, “The prophetic rank, invested with an equally supralocal mission, was active alongside the apostles. Still, these prophets are always designated in the Didache as ‘your high priests’ (13, 3).”53 The fact that holders of supra-local offices were allowed to preside over local celebrations of the Eucharist is significant for pointing out the universal character of both the Church and the Eucharist.The fact that the episcopal office took on a universal dimension in the post-apostolic era54 only further links the universal and the local dimensions of the Eucharist. Zizioulas acknowledges the presence of supra-local ministries in the early Church, but once again there is a difference in emphasis and interpretation. Examining the works of Ignatius of Antioch and his contemporaries, Zizioulas notices a shift from the apostolic to the post-apostolic period. “A careful study of . . . three sources . . . (Ignatius, 1 Clement, Didache) reveals that in all of these the problem of transition from the apostolic to the post-apostolic period is faced with the help of the function of episkopé, 51 Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 85. 52 Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship, 187–88. 53 Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 85. 54 Cf. ibid. Richard DeClue 94 and that all of these sources attach the same content to this function.”55 According to Zizioulas, bishops and deacons replaced prophets, itinerant preachers, and apostles in their liturgical roles. He explains, however, that the offices of bishop and deacon were not new to those early communities: “They are simply made now the focal ministry in the transition to the expense of the traveling ministers who no longer constitute the link between the apostolic and the post-apostolic churches.”56 He grants that in the apostolic period there were universal offices or ministries that linked the various communities with the apostles and the apostolic churches. He denies, however, that any supra-diocesan structures functioned as the link to apostolic churches in the post-apostolic period. It is the local church communities that are now the bearers of apostolic succession, not offices and ministries above or parallel to them. Again, the difference is interpretive. Ratzinger and Zizioulas both agree that, in the post-apostolic period, the bishops took on a universal role of maintaining Church unity, diachronically and synchronically. However, Ratzinger sees this as guaranteeing the continuation of the one universal Church as a true ecclesial reality, while Zizioulas sees this as the era of local churches, each catholic and apostolic, without the need of universal structures above the local structures. In Zizioulas’s view, then, universal structures are not truly Church in the full sense. For Zizioulas, episcopal unity constitutes the structure of communion between churches, not a self-subsisting entity called the universal Church. Universal Primacy within a Eucharistic Ecclesiology As one would expect, differences in thought regarding the ontological weight of the universal Church lead to disparate evaluations of the nature and role of universal primacy. Nevertheless, it is highly significant that Zizioulas affirms both that universal primacy is of divine right and that it properly resides with Rome. Against a common Orthodox position that universal primacy is only of ecclesial right, as opposed to the divine right of synods, Zizioulas argues: “The main weakness of this position lies in that it seems to overlook the simple and obvious fact that synodality cannot exist without primacy. There has never been and there can never be a synod or a council without a prôtos. If, therefore, synodality exists jure divino . . . primacy also must exist by the same right.”57 If synodality (a.k.a., conciliarity) is a 55 Zizioulas, “Episkopé and Episkopos,” 31. 56 Ibid., 32. 57 John Zizioulas, “Recent Discussion on Primacy in Orthodox Theology,” in The Petrine Ministry: Catholics and Orthodox in Dialogue, ed. Cardinal Walter Kasper (New York: Newman, 2006), 237. Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 95 “ ‘sine qua non conditio’ for the catholicity of the Church,”58 as Zizioulas argues, then, “Primacy is also a ‘sine qua non conditio’ for the catholicity of the Church,”59 precisely because primacy is a “sine qua non conditio” for synodality. This perspective excludes any attempt to present conciliarity as a substitute for— or in opposition to—primacy. “There must, therefore, be a way of incorporating primacy into conciliarity.”60 While Zizioulas readily admits the divine right of universal primacy, he does not think the universal primate possesses any direct authority over the intra-ecclesial affairs of another episcopal see. This conviction is closely linked with the notion of the full ecclesial quality of each local church. As Zizioulas insists, “The primacy should not be primacy of jurisdiction,” understood as “interference with the affairs of a local church,” because “this means the destruction or negation of its catholicity and ecclesial integrity.”61 Zizioulas’s view is also related to his insistence that every diocesan bishop succeeds to the entire college of apostles, including Peter, and thus has full and sole authority over intra-diocesan affairs. Through Zizioulas’s interpretation of the documents of the first three centuries, he concludes that “the college of the Twelve and the ‘throne of Peter’ which was preeminent within it formed the foundation, not of one Church, but of every episcopal Church because every Bishop was understood as being a successor to all the Apostles—and to Peter,” and thus, “Every one of the Bishops sat on the throne of Peter; his Church being regarded as fully apostolic and based on the foundation of all the Apostles.”62 Each bishop succeeds to the apostolic college not as part of the college but as a successor to the entire apostolic college. Just as in Zizioulas’s ecclesiology of the relationship between the local and universal Church, the unity of bishops is more akin to the notion of “unity in identity” than it is to the relation of “part to whole.” Zizioulas claims to draw this view from Cyprian. In the third century, Cyprian’s writings indicate a shift away from the christological conception of the episcopacy towards a more explicitly apostolic understanding of the bishop’s role. Zizioulas maintains that Cyprian “is . . . too ancient to abandon the idea of the local church as being the ‘catholic Church’ and for this reason he regards each bishop as the successor of Peter.”63 58 Zizioulas, “Primacy in the Church,” 120. 59 Ibid., 121. 60 Zizioulas, “Recent Discussion on Primacy,” 238. 61 Zizioulas, “Primacy in the Church,” 124. 62 Zizioulas, Eucharist, Bishop, Church, 263. 63 Zizioulas, “Episkopé and Episkopos,” 35. 96 Richard DeClue Ratzinger sees the matter differently. Although he concurs that a particular bishop does not succeed to a specific apostle64 (except, perhaps, in the case of bishops of apostolic sees, including the bishop of Rome), he would not agree that each bishop succeeds to the entire college in such a way that the entire college is now complete in each bishop. Rather, Ratzinger insists that each bishop succeeds to the apostles as a member of the college of bishops, who together succeed to the apostolic college.65 Of course, all this points to a fundamental difference between the Catholic approach and that of Zizioulas and other Orthodox theologians. The office of universal primacy, in the Orthodox view, is not based upon Petrine succession. Universal primacy is not, for them, Petrine primacy. While Zizioulas supports seeking universal primacy in the bishop of Rome, he understands its Petrine character differently than Ratzinger. McPartlan expertly explains the complicated issue as follows: “We have seen Zizioulas approvingly interpreting Cyprian as teaching that Peter and the apostles constitute one leadership which presides in each of the many local churches. Thus the pope would stand among the bishops not as Peter among the apostles, but as a definitive Peter in his own local church, constituting and enabling their manifold presence as Peter in their own local churches, with each local presbyterium representing the apostolic college.”66 In the concrete, the major question in dispute with respect to universal primacy is the extent of its authoritative range. Zizioulas wants to set strict boundaries around universal primacy. He would like to apply Apostolic Canon 34 to the role of the universal primate: The bishops of each province (ethnos) must recognize the one who is first (protos) amongst them, and consider him to be their head (kephale), and not do anything important without his consent ( gnome); each bishop may only do what concerns his own diocese (paroikia) and its dependent territories. But the first (protos) cannot do anything without the consent of all. For in this way concord (homonoia) will prevail, and God will be praised through the Lord in the Holy Spirit.67 64 Cf. Joseph Ratzinger, “La collégialité, développement théologique,” in L’Église de Vatican II: Études autour de la Constitution conciliaire sur l’Église, vol. 3, ed. Guilherme Baraúna (Paris: Cerf, 1966), 774. 65 For a presentation on Ratzinger’s understanding of apostolic and petrine succession, cf. Richard G. DeClue, “Primacy and Collegiality in the Works of Joseph Ratzinger,” Communio: International Catholic Review 35, no. 4 (Winter 2008): 651–61. 66 McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church, 208–9. 67 Apostolic Canon 34, quoted from: Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, “Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 97 If this were to be applied to the pope, then bishops could do nothing concerning the universal Church without him, but neither could the pope do anything without them. He could not act in the name of the universal Church unilaterally. Zizioulas explains his idea of how universal primacy would work as follows: “The Bishop of Rome will be in cooperation on all matters pertaining to the Church as a whole with the existing patriarchs and other heads of autocephalous churches,” and “he would be the President of all heads of churches and the spokesman of the entire Church once the decisions announced are the result of consensus.”68 Universal primacy exercised in this way is not only “ ‘useful’ to the Church but an ecclesiological necessity in a unified Church.”69 Again, this is based on the application of Apostolic Canon 34 to the universal level. It ought to be noted, however, that Apostolic Canon 34 itself quite explicitly refers to relations between bishops on the regional—not the universal—level. It directs the relational conduct of the bishops within “each province.” Interestingly enough, Ratzinger does not see the need for much change regarding the structure of the Orthodox Church, at least administratively, in a reunified Church. As he states: “It becomes additionally clear that an extensive patriarchal ‘autonomy’ is compatible with the true essence of primacy, and perhaps the Eastern Churches would hardly need to change anything in terms of concrete juridical structure.”70 This statement corresponds nicely with the rather emphatic language of Unitatis Redintegratio: This holy synod solemnly declares that the churches of the east, while keeping in mind the necessary unity of the whole church, have the power to govern themselves according to their own disciplines, since these are better suited to the character of their faithful and better adapted to foster the good of souls.The perfect observance of this traditional principle—which however has not always been observed—is a prerequisite for any restoration of union.71 Of course, this statement does not nullify Vatican I’s doctrine, which clearly asserts that the pope possesses universal and immediate jurisdiction Nature of the Church: Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and Authority” (Ravenna: October 13, 2007): §24. 68 Zizioulas, “Primacy in the Church,” 125. 69 Ibid. 70 Joseph Ratzinger, “Primat,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 2d ed., vol. 8., ed. Josef Höfer and Karl Rahner (Freiburg: Herder, 1963), 763. 71 Vatican II, Unitatis Redintegratio §16. 98 Richard DeClue over the whole Church.72 Nevertheless, it does suggest a principle of selfrestraint on the part of the Roman Pontiff, who should generally favor the principle of subsidiarity whenever possible. Generally speaking, local churches should govern themselves unless some grave reason requires papal intervention, and even then only after regional efforts have proven insufficient. Obviously, the question of direct, immediate, and universal jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, especially in the exercise of papal infallibility, remains a major point of contention. Eventually, Catholic-Orthodox dialogue will be faced with that question directly.73 Presently, the catholicity of each local church needs to be raised once more, this time in relation to universal primacy. Zizioulas is apprehensive about the possibility of supra-diocesan structures impinging upon the full ecclesial (and thus catholic) character of each local church. The office of universal primate can seem to be just such an external structure threatening the integrity of the local church. This is precisely why Zizioulas sets those limits to universal primacy outlined above. However, it is not necessary to view the universal primate as purely external to the local church. Perhaps the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s document Communionis Notio —issued under Ratzinger’s name as Cardinal Prefect—can provide an understanding of the Petrine office’s relation to the local church that helps pacify Zizioulas’s apprehension, at least to a degree. The following quote illuminates the issue: But for each particular Church to be fully Church, that is, the particular presence of the universal Church with all its essential elements, and hence constituted after the model of the universal Church, there must be present in it, as a proper element, the supreme authority of the Church: the Episcopal College “together with their head, the Supreme Pontiff, and 72 Cf. Vatican Council I, Pastor Aeternus (1870) in The Christian Faith in the Doctri- nal Documents of the Catholic Church, ed. Jacques Dupuis, S.J., 7th ed., rev. and exp. (NY: Alba House, 2001), §826. 73 Cf. Walter Kasper, “Introduction to the Theme and Catholic Hermeneutics of the Dogmas of the First Vatican Council,” in The Petrine Ministry: Catholics and Orthodox in Dialogue, ed. Cardinal Walter Kasper, trans. The Staff of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (New York: Newman, 2006), 7–23. Kasper offers a good summary of the issues surrounding the dogma of papal infallibility and the need for careful interpretation of the text. He offers four hermeneutical principles that should be followed in interpreting Vatican I’s dogmatic statement on infallibility. This shows that more work should be done to make sure the dogma is understood correctly. There is hope that a correct interpretation and explication of the dogma could be reached that, while remaining faithful to Vatican I, would make it more understandable and acceptable to the East. Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 99 never apart from him.” The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and the episcopal College are proper elements of the universal Church that are “not derived from the particularity of the Churches”, but are nevertheless interior to each particular Church. Consequently “we must see the ministry of the Successor of Peter, not only as a ‘global ’ service, reaching each particular Church from ‘outside’, as it were, but as belonging already to the essence of each particular Church from ‘within’ ”. . . . The ministry of the Successor of Peter as something interior to each particular Church is a necessary expression of that fundamental mutual interiority between universal Church and particular Church.74 This perspective, which affirms that the entire episcopal college, including the Successor of Peter as its head, is somehow interior to each local church, approximates Zizioulas’s assertion that each bishop succeeds to the entire apostolic college, including Peter. Both Zizioulas and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then, maintain that somehow the supreme authority deriving from the entire apostolic college persists interiorly in each local church and not as something entirely foreign to it. The major difference, not insignificantly, is that for Zizioulas each bishop is the bearer of this supreme authority and is the means by which this supreme authority is present in the particular church, while the Congregation wants to keep universal primacy clearly in the hands of the “bishop of Rome” and speak of his interiority within each particular Church. The pope, in a way, belongs to each local church as part of what makes it catholic in Zizioulas’s sense of the term, meaning integral and whole. Much potential lies in the Congregation’s vision. However, more elaboration is needed to explain precisely how the pope and the entire episcopal college are interior to each local church, if not via the diocesan bishop. Exploring and explaining more fully the Congregation’s view may very well be an important task for Catholic theologians going forward. In our current context, the most important question is how the view of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is arguably that of Ratzinger, relates the role of the Supreme Pontiff to the eucharistic character of the Church. It will be shown in what follows that the universal primate’s role of fostering communion between local churches is crucial for the proper celebration of the Eucharist by those churches. If the universal ministry is essential to the Eucharist, which is the source of a church’s catholicity, then the universal ministry is also essential to the catholicity of each local church. Thus, universal primacy can be seen, not as an external 74 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [henceforth, CDF], Communionis Notio, in Origins ( June 15, 1992): §13. Richard DeClue 100 addition to the fullness of the local church, but as a principle that supports and promotes the catholicity of the local church, making it possible at all. Regarding the relationship between the local and the universal Church from a eucharistic perspective, Communionis Notio asserts: It is precisely the Eucharist that renders all self-sufficiency on the part of the particular Churches impossible. Indeed, the unicity and indivisibility of the eucharistic Body of the Lord implies the unicity of his mystical Body, which is the one and indivisible Church. From the eucharistic centre arises the necessary openness of every celebrating community, of every particular Church; by allowing itself to be drawn into the open arms of the Lord, it achieves insertion into his one and undivided Body.75 With this in mind, the document also asserts that the office of Peter fits into this eucharistic dimension of the Church as both local and universal: “For this reason too, the existence of the Petrine ministry, which is a foundation of the unity of the Episcopate and of the universal Church, bears a profound correspondence to the eucharistic character of the Church.”76 Paul McPartlan explains the significance of these statements as follows: The pope, in short, is here being understood as eucharistic guardian and guarantor, as one who primarily strengthens his brother bishops not juridically but eucharistically. He supports the eucharistic presidency of each local bishop, with whom he is named in the eucharistic prayer, and exercises a ministry of vigilance . . . to ensure that the eucharistic lives of the many local churches are in harmony with one another in their witness to the world of today and in harmony, also, with the witness of past ages, because the fact that all are striving to live out the same mystery in their own locality, means that the witness of each affects all, for good or ill.77 The importance of seeing the papacy as a eucharistic ministry is of undoubted importance for Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, and it certainly corresponds to Ratzinger’s own position. In fact, McPartlan makes an important remark in this regard when he writes: “Long before he became Prefect for the Congregation, Joseph Ratzinger already held, as Battista Mondin neatly summarises, that ‘the primacy of the pope does not primarily concern either orthodoxy or orthopraxy, but rather orthoEucharist.’ ”78 75 CDF, Communionis Notio §11. 76 Ibid. 77 Paul McPartlan, Sacrament of Salvation (London: T&T Clark, 1995), 70. 78 McPartlan, Sacrament of Salvation, 70n7. Cf., Battista Mondin, Le nuove ecclesiologie (Rome: Paoline, 1980), 171. Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 101 Since ecclesial communion, both within and between each local church, corresponds to the very essence of the Eucharist, it follows quite reasonably that universal primacy, whose function it is to maintain and promote universal communion, fosters the intrinsic character of the Eucharist for each church. In short, the universal primate helps to ensure that the universal communion at the heart of the eucharistic mystery remains a concrete, visible reality, not just in principle but in fact. Zizioulas’s writings, too, may serve to bolster the view that universal primacy is a eucharistic office, if one links together a number of his insights. First, Zizioulas holds that universal communion relates directly to the Eucharist. Zizioulas maintains that “in each eucharistic celebration the Gifts are offered in the name of and for the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church’ which exists in the whole world.”79 Thus, unity between local churches is necessary to express the oneness of the Eucharist celebrated in each local church. Since this oneness is intrinsic to the Eucharist itself, lack of unity either within a local church or between local churches constitutes a defective situation. “If two or more Churches are in schism, the eucharistic life (and perhaps also validity) of all local Churches is upset. Conciliarity as an expression of unity of the local Churches in one Church, constitutes a fundamental condition for the Eucharist.”80 It has already been explained that, for Zizioulas, primacy is a sine qua non conditio for conciliarity. If conciliarity constitutes a fundamental condition for the Eucharist, and primacy is a necessary condition for conciliarity, then universal primacy must also be a necessary condition for the Eucharist. As Zizioulas insists, “Ecclesial unity on a universal level is essential for the Eucharist.”81 Universal primacy is required to serve universal unity, and it thereby serves the Eucharist. Concluding Summary of Similarities and Differences At this point, summary lists of the points of agreement and disagreement between Ratzinger and Zizioulas would be beneficial. It is not at all easy, however, to separate the two lists, since Zizioulas and Ratzinger often both agree and disagree on one and the same issue. First, Ratzinger and Zizioulas agree on many ecclesiological issues. They each strongly affirm the full ecclesial quality of the local church. Similarly, this full ecclesial quality of the local church is connected with the celebration of the Eucharist in both of their writings. Likewise, the two theologians emphasize the need for communion between local 79 Zizioulas, “Ecclesiological Presuppositions,” 347. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. 102 Richard DeClue churches as something necessary for them to maintain their own ecclesial reality to the fullest degree, and they both insist on the simultaneity of locality and universality in the Church. The structure of the Eucharist and the structure of the Church are viewed as essentially interconnected in each of their works. The episcopacy is central to this structure, and Zizioulas and Ratzinger both view apostolic succession as directly tied to the Eucharist. Fundamentally important to current Catholic-Orthodox dialogue is the fact that Ratzinger and Zizioulas each affirm the need for universal primacy and view this primacy as a matter of divine constitution. Furthermore, there is evidence that both sides agree that universal primacy is fundamentally related to the integrity of each local church’s ecclesial reality precisely insofar as it helps manifest the intrinsic and universal communion received in the eucharistic synaxis. In short, they both supply the means by which universal primacy can be understood as a eucharistic office. Despite these tremendous points of similarity, differences remain. Ratzinger perceives the universal Church as ontologically and temporally prior to each local church. Conversely, Zizioulas conceives of the local church as that which is truly church, not seeing the universal Church as a real, self-subsistent entity the way Ratzinger does. Thus, while Ratzinger sees the Church first as one and then making itself present in the many local churches, Zizioulas first sees the local churches as complete entities in such a way that the universal Church is understood principally as the communion between these churches, and perhaps even a reality consequent (logically, not temporally) upon such communion. With regard to apostolic succession, Ratzinger views each bishop as a member of the episcopal college, which as a college succeeds to the college of apostles. Zizioulas, on the other hand, views each bishop as successor to the entire apostolic college, including Peter. Thus, while Ratzinger views the bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter, Zizioulas sees all bishops as Peter’s successors. In conclusion, it is proposed that even though all the differences in nuance between Ratzinger and Zizioulas have not yet been settled, it is clear from this study that their similarities are so profound—and their basic principles and concerns so close—that profitable dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church can be legitimately hoped for if other theologians study and follow their example, especially since both sides benefit so clearly from the insights of the other. In particular, to help advance Catholic-Orthodox relations, further exploration and collaboration is needed on the question of the relationship between the Eucharist and universal primacy. In a reunited Church, Eucharistic Ecclesiology in Zizioulas and Ratzinger 103 universal primacy must be viewed as a eucharistic office, that is, an office in service to the Eucharist. Only then could both the multiplicity and the unicity of the Church—in their mutual relation—be safeguarded in a completely Orthodox and Catholic way. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 105–21 105 The Jewishness of the Apostles and Its Implications for the Apostolic Church J EAN -M IGUEL G ARRIGUES, O.P. Institut Supérieur d’Études Thomistes Toulouse, France Jewish Mediation as Structural Dimension of the Church I N RECENT decades Catholic thought has become increasingly aware of the implications of the Jewishness of Jesus for the Christian faith. Though less attention has been given to the Jewish character of the Apostolic Church and its significance, much in the New Testament suggests that the Jewish connection is as important to ecclesiology as it is to Christology. The olive tree mentioned by Paul in Romans (11:17–24) is likely the people of Israel as it is united to the Messiah in the New Covenant. It is a nation whose “roots are holy” (11:16), from the Patriarchs to Jesus; it’s “first fruits” are also holy (11:16) in the person of the “saints of Jerusalem” (Acts 9:13; Rom 15:26), that is, the Jewish believers in Jesus. Since both the roots and the first fruits are Jewish, Paul implies that the mediation of the Jews on behalf of the Gentiles is structurally connected to the mediation of Jesus. According to Paul, if a Gentile is incorporated by baptism as a member of Christ, he is at the same time grafted onto the cultivated olive tree “among its natural branches, so that he can benefit, together with these, from the root and the sap of the olive tree” (Rom 11:17), that is, from the fulfillment in Jesus of the promise which Israel possesses. And so we must ask: Is this mediation of the Jews who believe in Christ an enduring structural dimension of the Church, The reflections I propose in this essay have emerged in the course of my participation in a Catholic–Messianic Jewish dialogue group which has met annually since 2000, rotating between Jerusalem and Rome. My friendship and theological exchange with the Messianic Jewish theologian Mark Kinzer has played an important role in the development of these insights. 106 Jean-Miguel Garrigues, O.P. or is it simply an historical circumstance related to the origins of the Christian Church? The first community of the Church was made up of Jews, and the Gentiles who converted were associated with them. This was true both in the land of Israel and in the Diaspora, where, according to Acts, Paul always visited the synagogues first and addressed himself to his fellow Jews, some of whom were persuaded (cf. Rom 11:14). If those Jews had failed to believe in Jesus, there would have been no Church at all; this is a point on which all Christians agree. But was this founding role a mere chance occurrence of history, or is it really an enduring structural component in Christ’s mediation with regard to his entire Body? It seems difficult to construe the emphatic words of Paul concerning Jews and Gentiles in the Church as a mere metaphor, intended only to describe the concrete historical situation at the beginning of the apostolic mission. We need to reread Paul’s words in connection with the question we have raised. Paul bases himself on what Christ said to him on the road to Damascus, when Paul first received his mission as an apostle: “so that the nations to whom I am sending you . . . may obtain, by faith in me ( Jesus), the forgiveness of their sins, and a portion in the inheritance of those who have been sanctified” (Acts 26:17–18). Paul continually repeats the same idea in his own words: “The Gentiles are admitted to the same inheritance [the one intended for the Jewish people and which Jews who believe in Christ have actually received], they (the Gentiles) are members of the same Body” (Eph 3:6). The Gentiles, who formerly were only “strangers and sojourners” (Eph 2:19), separated from Christ (without a Messiah), excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of the promise” (Eph 2:12), have now become in Christ “fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19). Indeed, “the Father has qualified (them) to share in the inheritance of the saints” (Col 1:12). For the Body of Christ that is the Church, the Jewish believers in Christ are the heirs of the promises made by God to Israel. And thus, by the fact of their election they have a role in communicating God’s blessing in Christ to the Gentiles who convert. In the Church, they constitute a living witness to the way in which “Christ became a minister to the circumcised, in order to show God’s truthfulness” (Rom 15:8); thanks to this faithfulness of the Lord towards them (the people of Israel), “the nations glorify God for his mercy” (Rom 15:9). And thus, in Paul’s view the double vocation of Jews and Gentiles remains at the very center of the unique Body of Christ. The duality between Jews and Gentiles is not erased in the unity of the Church: Christ wants to “create both of them in himself as one New Man” (Eph 2:15) and to “reconcile both of them in The Jewishness of the Apostles 107 one Body” (Eph 2:16); and, above all, “through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father (Eph 2:18). It appears that Paul considers this association of Jewish believers in Christ with Christ’s mediation to be a structuring dimension of the Church. Indeed, he does say that in virtue of baptism “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus; for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, . . . neither male nor female . . . for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26–28). However, this holds true only with regard to the baptismal gift of grace by faith, which brings salvation: “for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek: all have the same Lord, who bestows the riches (of his grace) upon all who call upon him” (Rom 10:12; cf. Rom 3:22–24). By the same token, there is no longer “either male or female” with regard to the baptismal priesthood. However there still remains a distinction between the vocations, missions, and ministries of men and women, a distinction that the Catholic Church steadfastly guards. Similarly, the distinction between the vocations and missions of Jew and Gentile continues to exist in the Church. To repeat, for Paul this distinction of ecclesial vocations and missions appears to play a structural role. Paul employs an inclusive “we” when referring to salvation, which is common to Jewish and Gentile believers. Thus, when evoking baptismal typology in his letter to the Corinthian church, which consisted mainly of Gentiles, Paul indicates that they too have been included in Israel by Christ: “Our fathers were all under the cloud; and all passed through the sea” (1 Cor 10:1). On the other hand, when he explains the forms of mediation involved in the realization of God’s plan of salvation, he distinguishes between “we [the Jews]” and “the rest of you [the Gentiles]” (Eph 1:11–13). Later in this same epistle, he says to the converted Gentiles, “Remember that at one time, you, the Gentiles . . .” (Eph 2:11). And this distinction holds true not only for the past, the era preceding their entry into the Church. It continues to exist in the present life of the Christian community: “Now I am speaking to you Gentiles” (Rom 11:13). Today the Catholic Church encounters a new (yet old) development: Messianic Jews who share with us the New Testament faith in Jesus as the accomplishment of God’s promises. These contemporary Jewish believers in Jesus are confronting the Church of Christ with the following decisive question: is the mediation exercised by the Jews at the birth of the Church a mere historical accident, or does it have a deeper significance? Does it represent an enduring structural element for the Church? At first glance, this mediating function would seem to have disappeared with the 108 Jean-Miguel Garrigues, O.P. apostolic or sub-apostolic generation, when the Judeo-Christian community of Jerusalem held the role of the Mother Church. Modern historical studies provide a resource for responding to this important question.1 They have shown the great extent to which the sacramental and liturgical rites and the priestly institutions of the subapostolic Church—the very “frühkatholischen” elements that would mark her from the second century onwards as the “Catholic Church”— received the structural imprint of Judeo-Christian models which can come only from the original apostolic community. Unfortunately, with the influx of Gentiles into the Church the Judeo-Christians became marginalized and gradually disappeared. In light of the emergence of the Messianic Jewish movement in the twentieth century, we should ask ourselves whether this treasure of Christian community and spiritual life which goes back to the apostles, and which the Catholic Church guards as the apple of her eye, can really yield its full meaning and fruit for the benefit of all Christians without being assumed by the Jews who believe in Jesus as the accomplishment of the messianic promises carried by the people of Israel. On an even deeper level, we need to ask ourselves whether the multitude of believers coming from the nations can fully express its own baptismal incorporation into the Messiah of Israel, without taking root, through Christ-believing Jews, in the people of Israel, which God preserves as the trustee of the promise for its final fulfillment in view of the glorious Coming of the Messiah (Rom 11:15). “If you want to boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you” (Rom 11:18). The Catholic Church can only respond to these questions with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, whose mission is to “introduce [the Church] into the entire truth” ( Jn 16:13), and to glorify Christ in her, through fellowship among a diversity of members.2 The Jewishness of the Apostles As noted above, the Catholic Church has made a considerable effort in recent decades to account for the Jewishness of Jesus in its Christological 1 For example, Jean Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, trans. John A. Baker (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1964); Louis Bouyer, Eucharist, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968); Carmine Di Sante, Jewish Prayer: The Origins of the Christian Liturgy (New York: Paulist Press, 1991). 2 Up to this point the text has mainly been taken and translated from my book Le Saint-Esprit sceau de la Trinité: le Filioque et l’originalité trinitaire de l’Esprit dans sa personne et dans sa mission, coll. “Cogitatio fidei” no. 276 (Paris: Cerf, 2011), 125–28 and 142–45. The Jewishness of the Apostles 109 teaching. Nothing comparable has yet been undertaken to integrate the Jewishness of the apostles of Christ, and of the Mother Church of Jerusalem, into Catholic ecclesiology. Greater attention to these factors might well have major consequences for both the theory and the practice of the apostolic ministry in the Church. All the apostles were Jews. This holds true in the first place for the “twelve apostles” (Mt 10:2).These are most often designated as the collective body of “the Twelve” (Mk 3:14)—an expression employed even for the period when the group included only eleven members (1 Cor 15:5). They are also sometimes called simply “the apostles” (Luke 6:13) par excellence. But in addition there is the larger group of “all the apostles,” as St. Paul calls them (1 Cor 15:17), and of which he himself is the “last”(1 Cor 15:7). This group too is entirely made up of Jews. It is composed of those to whom the risen Christ appeared and whom he himself sent to be his witnesses (cf. 1 Cor 9:1; Rom 1:1, 5; Gal 1:16). James, “the Lord’s brother” (Gal 1:19), must be counted among these, because Christ appeared to him personally (1 Cor 15:7). In this larger group of apostles we also find Barnabas (cf. Acts 14:14) who is “a Levite from Cyprus” (Acts 4:36) and Andronicus and Junias, kinsmen of Paul (Rom 16:7). These “apostles,” like the Twelve, received their mission directly from Christ, without having to submit to any ordination “through man” (cf. Gal 1:1), as will later be the case, for example, with Timothy (cf. 1 Tm 4:14; 2 Tm 1:6).This larger group of apostles was undoubtedly quite sizable, since Paul speaks of an appearance of the risen Christ to “five hundred brethren at once” (1 Cor 15:6). Christ calls the apostles to be witnesses of his resurrection according to the order which he himself established before his death. The most primitive kerygma includes Peter and the Twelve as foundational to the testimony concerning the resurrection (cf. 1 Cor 15: 5). Only those who were called to associate with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry until his death can validly testify that it is the same Jesus who is now risen from the dead (cf. Jn 15:27). This is why the ministry of “all the apostles” is based on the testimony of the Twelve (cf. Acts 13:31), who are the “foundations” (Rev 21:1). Paul himself receives from them the kerygma (cf. 1 Cor 15:3) as well as baptism and the Eucharist; before embarking upon his apostolic mission, he goes up to Jerusalem “to see Peter, spending fifteen days with him” (Gal 1:18). Christ instituted the college of the twelve apostles in order to correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel. They are the leaders of the people of Israel in its new messianic and eschatological era. In Matthew, the formula “The names of the Twelve are . . .” (Mt 10:2) is reminiscent of the language 110 Jean-Miguel Garrigues, O.P. employed by the Book of Kings in describing the twelve prefects appointed by Solomon at the head of all the people (cf. 1 Kgs 4:7–8).This status of the Twelve is inseparably historical and eschatological, extending over the entire time span of the New Covenant inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ and including the Last Judgment which will establish the Kingdom of future glory: “In the new world (παλιγγενεσίᾳ), when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you also shall sit you on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Mt 19:28). In Hebrew the verb “to judge” (shafat) means both to rule and to exercise judgment. The Greek equivalent (krino) is employed here in Matthew to refer both to the time of history during which the Eucharist is celebrated (i.e., “until he comes” [1 Cor 11:26]), and to the eschaton when God will be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28). When he instituted the Eucharist, Jesus said to the Twelve: “It is you who have been continually with me in my trials; and I assign to you the kingdom as my Father has assigned it to me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Lk 22:28–29). The book of Daniel prophesied that in the messianic age “the saints would possess the kingdom” (Dn 7:22) and “thrones would be placed” (Dn 7:9) so that the saints could exercise judgment with the Son of Man. We see this fulfilled in the Apocalypse: “I saw thrones and seated upon them were those to whom judgment was entrusted” (Rev 20:4). In the eschatological Jerusalem the Twelve exercise judgment because the city has “twelve foundations, and on them are the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Rev 21:14). The wall of Jerusalem, of which the Twelve are the foundations, is endowed “with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel” (Rev 21:12). The Twelve ensure the messianic structure of the people of Israel up to and into the age to come. This people is visibly represented in the Apocalypse by those who are chosen from “all the tribes of the sons of Israel” (Rev 7:4). The expression is too precise to apply to a “spiritual Israel.” It obliges us to see, in the immediately subsequent vision of a “great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev 7:9), the multitude of the Gentiles, who are considered as distinct, even in the age to come, from the twelve tribes of the eschatological Israel. The Twelve are destined by Christ to judge the twelve tribes of Israel in the world to come. In the meantime, they already have a permanent mission to govern the people of Israel as embodied in its Messianic kahal (assembly or church). The faithful from the Gentiles are joined to this kahal, with its Jewish roots in the mother community of Jerusalem. On The Jewishness of the Apostles 111 the Apostolic Sees, from which the Twelve judge the twelve tribes of the Messianic Israel, bishops (most often Gentiles) have succeeded one another throughout the history of the Church. But these bishops represent the twelve apostles in their ministry, because it is always through them that Christ “keeps [his flock] under his constant protection through the apostles, guiding it still through these same pastors who continue his work today.”3 The apostolic ministry of the Church is indeed Jewish in its historical origin, and this is not a purely contingent fact of history, but instead a stable disposition established by divine providence and by the will of Christ in an eschatological perspective. What may seem at first sight paradoxical is that these Jewish apostles, whose ministry is based on the twelve tribes of Israel, are all sent by Christ to the Gentiles: “All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples from all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And behold, I am with you until the end of the world” (Mt 28:18–20). We find the same universal mission in the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16:15). Only Luke notes that the preaching of the Gospel to all nations requires a “beginning at Jerusalem” (Lk 24:47). This serves as a reminder to the Gentiles that they must not cut themselves off from the Mother Church, the church of the eyewitnesses of Jesus and of Pentecost, which is attached directly to the Jewish people. The opening up of the messianic Jewish kahal to the Gentiles is clearly revealed through the interdependence of the three key apostolic figures of the early Church: Peter (inseparable from John and from the College of the Twelve), Paul, and James. Peter and Paul as Jewish Apostles Peter, the rock upon which Christ founded the Church (Mt 16:18) and the one who loved the Lord Jesus “more than the others” ( Jn 21:15), is the pastor of the entire flock (cf. Jn 21:15–17). It is he who is responsible for “strengthening his brethren” (Lk 22:32). Even before the coming of the Holy Spirit, Peter took the initiative to complete the College of the Twelve by presiding over the election of Matthias (Acts 1:15). Peter is the one who speaks to the people of Israel on behalf of the Twelve. He does this alone at Pentecost (Acts 2:14), and acts together with John during the first miraculous healing (Acts 3:11–12). He is the one who, with John 3 Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1575 quoting the Preface of the Apostles of the Roman liturgy. The Catechism further states: “The college of bishops . . . makes the college of the Twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ’s return” (no. 1577). 112 Jean-Miguel Garrigues, O.P. (Acts 4:7–13) and the apostles (Acts 5:27–32), speaks twice on behalf of the apostolic Church before the Sanhedrin. His universal ministry is also evident in the initiative he takes at the home of Cornelius, where, in obedience to the Holy Spirit, he “ordered that [the Gentile believers]” be baptized (Acts 10:48). Later he departs from Jerusalem, leaving James to preside over the church of this city (cf. Acts 12:17). He goes first to Antioch (cf. Gal 2:11), then to Rome (cf. 1 Pt 5:13). The geographical itinerary of Peter’s apostolic mission between Jerusalem and Rome expresses the eschatological extension of the nation that was desired by the risen Christ. However, this universal ministry, which is ultimately established in Rome, the first world metropolis, is exercised by Peter as “the apostle to the circumcised” (Gal 2:8). His point of departure and of reference is the singularity of the divine election of the Jewish people. His First Epistle is addressed “to the foreigners (or exiles) in the Diaspora: Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia” (1 Pt 1:1). From Rome, Peter is writing either to the Jewish believers of the Diaspora who reside in these nations, or more probably to all “Christians” (1 Pt 4:16) who in this world are “strangers and sojourners” (1 Pt 2:11 citing Gen 23:4 and Ps 39:13). In any event, it is clear that he is addressing his recipients as a Diaspora of the people of Israel, thus implicitly referring them to Jerusalem. Passing from Jerusalem to Rome, Peter does not enact a simple geographic transfer of the Church, in the way that historians would later speak of a translatio imperii by Charlemagne. Peter accomplishes his apostolic mission received from Christ, a mission which goes from Jerusalem to the nations, not in order to start a “Gentile church” replacing the people of Israel presumed to have been rejected by God, but instead to gather the nations together and, at the right time, to integrate them into Israel. Paul, who is the “last” to whom the Risen Christ appeared (1 Cor 15:8), describes himself as “the least of the apostles” (1 Cor 15:9). He is not a member of the College of the Twelve, in which Peter has John as his usual companion, both before and after Pentecost. Nevertheless, Paul has received from Christ a mission to the Gentiles, parallel to the mission Peter has received to the Jews, and this puts them in a symmetrical position (Gal 2:7–9). This explains why Tradition has come to honor them together as the two “princes of the apostles.” When Paul describes his mission in the Letter to the Galatians, he employs the same terms found in St. Matthew’s episode of Peter’s confession at Caesarea: “When [God] was pleased to reveal his Son in me” (Gal 1:15–16) is parallel to the Gospel’s “ ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’. . . ‘This has been revealed to you by my Father who is in heaven’ ” (Mt 16:17). It is even more striking to note the parallel between St. Paul’s expression, “without consulting The Jewishness of the Apostles 113 flesh and blood” (Gal 1:16), and Jesus’ words in the Gospel, “this revelation came to you not from flesh and blood” (Mt 16:17). Even though for Paul the Twelve are “the apostles [his] predecessors” (Gal 1:17), he does not go to Jerusalem to meet them immediately after his encounter with the risen Christ. However, before embarking on his apostolic mission to the Gentiles (Gal 1:18–21), he does go up to Jerusalem “to visit Cephas and stay with him fifteen days” (Gal 1:18). Paul’s recognition of the apostolic authority of Peter, and at the same time his awareness of the symmetry of their missions, stand out simultaneously in the confrontation which later occurs between the two apostles at Antioch. Paul “opposed [Peter] to his face because, the latter stood self-condemned” (Gal 2:11), having concealed the fact that up until then he had been in the habit of “eating with the Gentiles” (Gal 2:12). Paul openly opposes him in this, because Peter’s authority is such that “other Jews [i.e., Jewish believers in Christ] followed him and began likewise to dissimulate, to the point that even Barnabas was carried away by their dissimulation” (Gal 2:13). In Paul’s eyes, Peter “stood self-condemned” in hiding “for fear of those from the Circumcision” (Gal 2:12) the true conviction of his faith, which he had expressed openly up until then by “living like a Gentile and not like a Jew (ἐθνικῶς καὶ οὐχὶ Ἰουδαῖκῶς )” (Gal 2:14) and by eating together with the Gentile believers.4 This dissimulation led his fellow Christ-believing Jews astray, and seemed to “compel the Gentile converts to adopt Jewish practices,” contrary to the decisions of the apostolic assembly of Jerusalem (cf. Acts 15:28–29) and to Peter’s own speech on that occasion (cf. Acts 15:7–11). Paul further pursues the parallel between himself and the “apostle to the circumcised” (Gal 2:8) by seeking to go to Rome, where Peter had probably already established himself along with his two longtime disciples Silvanus and Mark (1 Pt 5:12–13). Paul does this despite the fact the he usually “makes it his ambition to limit [his] apostolate to the regions where the name of Christ has not been invoked, in order not to build on the foundations laid by others” (Rom 15:20, cf. 2 Cor 10:15–16). At first glance it might appear that Paul considers this visit to Rome as a mere stopover on a mission to Spain (cf. Rom 15:24, 28; Acts 19:21). But the manner in which Christ reveals to Paul the meaning of his upcoming journey to Rome (Acts 23) helps us understand the reason why both of these apostles must come to the capital of the Roman Empire. In the course of a dream that Paul has while a prisoner in Jerusalem, Jesus says to 4 Contrast this with Peter’s exclamation when God asks him to share the table of the Gentile Cornelius: “Oh no, Lord! Because I have never eaten anything profane or unclean” (Acts 10:14). 114 Jean-Miguel Garrigues, O.P. him: “Courage! Just as you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so must you testify in Rome “(Acts 23:11). There is a striking correlation here (“just as . . . so”) between Rome and Jerusalem, as well as between the mission that Christ assigns to Paul “in Rome as in Jerusalem”—a mission requiring that Paul “testify about him.” In this context, the expression seems to imply that there will be persecution. This is why the book of Acts, which begins in Jerusalem, ends with the arrival of Paul in Rome. It is therefore no accident that Peter and Paul, the “princes of the apostles,” bore witness to Christ together through the martyrdom they endured under Nero.5 In the second century, Irenaeus of Lyons refers to “the very great, very ancient and universally known Church, which the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, founded in Rome.”6 The Church of Rome, as the Church marked forever in blood by the charisma of Peter and Paul, is the Apostolic See not merely because it is the church of the capital of the Roman Empire. It has this status because this same empire, as it already manifests itself under Caligula and Nero, is the first draft of a false pagan universality or an antichristic Babylon, which represents its historical and eschatological struggle among the nations, as Peter in his first epistle (5:13) and the Apocalypse (chapters 17 and 18) indicate. This church, through the Gospel preaching and the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, received the gift of being not only the church whose bishop exercises the ministry of Peter, the universal pastor,7 but also the church of Peter and Paul, linking together the two modalities of their respective apostolic missions—the mission to the Jews, who represent the “first fruits” (Rom 11:16) of the Church rooted in Israel, and the mission to the multitude of nations, to whom Christ sent the apostles in order to evangelize them. James as Jewish Apostle This presentation of the interaction between the two main apostles would be incomplete without reference to a third apostle, James, “the brother of the Lord” (Gal 1:19; cf. Mk 6:3). Whereas in the first eleven chapters of the Acts of the Apostles the Twelve are omnipresent and Peter takes all pastoral initiatives, in chapter twelve a shift occurs in the narra5 Before the end of first century, Clement of Rome already attests to this fact in his Letter to the Corinthians (5:3–5). 6 Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, III, 3, 2. 7 “For with this church, by reason of her pre-eminence, the universal Church, that is, the faithful everywhere, must necessarily be in accord, since she is that church in which, for the benefit of people everywhere, has always preserved the Tradition which comes from the Apostles.” (ibid.). The Jewishness of the Apostles 115 tive. When Peter returns after being miraculously delivered from his third arrest, he asks that “James and the brethren” be informed of what has occurred (Acts 12:17).The same verse concludes enigmatically: “Then he departed and went to another place.” Although Peter had previously been the book’s main protagonist, he now fades into the background, leaving James as the head of the church of Jerusalem. Paul mentions that on the first trip he made to Jerusalem as a believer in Christ he had already seen James, but insists that he had come “to visit Peter and remain with him fifteen days” (Gal 1:18–19). Relating his second visit to Jerusalem, fourteen years later, Paul says that James extended to him his hand as a sign of communion. This time James is mentioned alongside Peter and John, as an “acknowledged pillar of the Church” (Gal 2:9). The full importance of James appears at the Council of Jerusalem (cf. Acts 15:7–29). Peter speaks first to recall his initiative, in obedience to the Holy Spirit, of receiving the Gentiles into the Church: “In the early days, God chose me from among you, so that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the Good News and become believers” (Acts 15:7). The silence that follows signifies the adherence of the entire assembly, something that the Occidental text of Acts recounts in this way: “As the elders gave their assent to what Peter had said, the whole assembly fell silent” (Acts 15:12 Syriac). Paul then proceeds to describe, together with Barnabas, their common mission to the Gentiles. James is the last to speak, and his words put an end to the debate: “I myself judge . . .” (Acts 15:19). If the words of James at this Council were so decisive, it may be due in part to the fact that the original challenge which gave rise to the meeting had came from “some people in the entourage of James” (Gal 2:12). In the Book of Acts these are referred to as “some people from the party of the Pharisees “(Acts 15:5). More importantly, James appears here as the one who ensures that the opening to the Gentiles is not acquired at the price of making the Church cease to belong to the people of Israel. James presents the entry of the Gentiles into the apostolic Church as their integration into the people of Israel, raised up once again by the Messiah according to the prophetic promise: Simon [Peter] has described how, early on, God has taken care to draw from the Gentiles a people dedicated to his name.This is consistent with the words of the prophets, as it is written: “After this I will return and I will raise up the tabernacle of David which has fallen; I will raise up its ruins, and I will set it up so that the rest of men may seek the Lord, all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is invoked, says the Lord, who does these things” (Am 9:11–12) (Acts 15:13–17). 116 Jean-Miguel Garrigues, O.P. Acts quotes this passage of the Prophet Amos according to the Septuagint, which differs from the Masoretic version. Instead of “that other men may seek the Lord,” the Masoretic text reads “so that they [those of the tabernacle of David] may possess the remnant of Edom.” Recent exegetical research opens up the possibility that the Septuagint version quoted by Acts may be closer to the meaning of the original Hebrew.8 Whatever the precise meaning of the text quoted from Amos, it is clear that in this speech James appears as the apostle who ensures that the reception of the Gentiles into the Church comes about according to the fulfillment of the promises to Israel, that is, “according to the Scriptures.” His concerns contrast with the attitude of Peter, who in his speech emphasizes two very different points. First, Peter insists upon the impossibility of perfectly observing the Law: “Why do you tempt God now by trying to impose upon these disciples [the Gentiles] a yoke which neither our fathers nor we ourselves have had the strength to bear?” (Acts 15:10). This is exactly the same reasoning that Paul will use (cf. Gal 3:10; 6:13). Then, at the end of his discourse, Peter advances still another Pauline argument: “Indeed, it is through the grace of the Lord Jesus that we believe in order to be saved, just like them” (Acts 15:11; cf. Gal 2:15–16). What is most significant in the apostolic interaction displayed in the Council of Jerusalem is that Peter, Paul, and James finally agree on three essential points concerning the reception of the Gentiles into the Church: 1. It is by grace and faith in Jesus the Messiah, and not by the observance of the Law, that both Jews and Gentiles are saved. 2. The conversion of the Gentiles to Christ is the work of the Lord, who broadens the notion of what it means to belong to the people of God, a people which, according to the promises of the prophets, has now reached its Messianic phase. Nevertheless, this broadening is accomplished through the integration of the Gentiles, and it in no way implies a separation of Christ’s disciples from the people of Israel, to whom the Jewish believers in Christ still belong. 3. It does not mean that the distinction between Jew and Gentile is abolished by faith in Christ. The Gentiles remain Gentiles; they do not become Jews, as did proselytes, and so they are not required to observe the Mosaic Law.This implies, in turn, that the Jews who believe in Jesus remain Jews, and are required as such to substantially fulfill the Law. 8 Cf. Michael A. Braun, “James’ Use of Amos at the Jerusalem Council: Steps toward a Possible Solution of the Textual and Theological Problems,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society ( June 1977): 113–21. The Jewishness of the Apostles 117 The first point, which will be of capital importance to Paul, is set forth by Peter, and it is not in any way contradicted by James. On the other hand, Peter and Paul symmetrically accept the way in which James shows how he sees the integration of Gentiles into the people of Israel, maintaining the distinction between Jews and Gentiles. Who is this James, who guarantees that the apostolic Church belongs to the people of Israel that is now called to enter into the messianic age? He is certainly an “apostle” (Gal 1:19), in the broader sense of the term, but probably not one of the Twelve. At the same time, he is “the Lord’s brother” (Gal. 1:19), that is, a close relative of Jesus according to the flesh. The “brothers of Jesus” appear in the Gospels as an extended family group or clan. At the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, they deem that he had lost his mind (cf. Mk 3:21). Then, upon seeing the miracles he accomplished in Galilee, their behavior towards him tends to be more ambiguous: Now the Jewish feast of tents was near. So his brothers said to him: “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples may see the works that you are doing. For no man works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” Indeed, not even his brothers believed in him. ( Jn 7:1–4). What happened later on? Some became disciples of their relative. Scripture attests that the Risen Lord Jesus appeared personally to James (1 Cor 15:7), and that the brothers of Jesus were present in the Upper Room at Pentecost.The Holy Spirit descended upon the witnesses of the entire life of Jesus: alongside the witnesses of Jesus’ public ministry (cf. Acts 1:21–22), the twelve apostles and the holy women, we find the group of “his brothers,” witnesses of his hidden life at Nazareth, with Mary, the Lord’s mother (Acts 1:14), who serves as the link between the two groups. As the “brother of the Lord,” James is related to Jesus according to the flesh. This genealogical connection between James and Israel’s Messiah, a connection reinforced by the Spirit of Pentecost, is a precious link binding the apostolic Church to the Jewish people, to whom Jesus came as the Messiah “[son of God] become from the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom 1:3). By his very being James is a living reminder of the Jewishness of Jesus, as well as a living link with “Israel according to the flesh” (1 Cor 10:18), a nation which is still called to enter into the Messianic fulfillment of the promises (see Rom 9:4–5). This fleshly and genealogical sacramentality, proper to the Jewish people, accounts for the fact that the church of Jerusalem had as its first hierarchical leaders several “brothers of the Lord.” According to Hegesippus, the choice of Simeon— 118 Jean-Miguel Garrigues, O.P. another “brother of Jesus”—to succeed James, was decided by a council of the apostles and relatives of the Savior. James connects the apostolic Church to the people of Israel not only through his flesh but also through his deep spiritual continuity with the tradition of Jewish wisdom. James is surrounded (Gal 2:12) by “members of the party of the Pharisees who had become believers” (Acts 15:5).These are the same people who ask Peter for an explanation, upon his return from the home of Cornelius:“Why have you joined the uncircumcised, and why did you eat with them?” (Acts 11:3). Later these men will enjoin the brothers who have come from the Gentiles “to be circumcised and to keep the Law of Moses” (Acts 15:1, 5). On his last journey to Jerusalem, Paul went “to see James, with whom the elders were assembled” (Acts 21:18). It is now James alone, assisted by the presbyters, who governs the church of Jerusalem. Those who are assembled on this occasion say to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have embraced the faith and they are all zealous partisans of the law!” (Acts 21:20). Hegesippus reports that James was revered as Jacob the Just by the Jews of Jerusalem, believers and nonbelievers in Christ alike, until he was put to death upon the order of the high priest in 62. It is even possible that our James is identical to a Jacob of that same period, echoes of whose wisdom are found in the Talmud. Of course, the Epistle of James is also attributed to him. In this letter, the apostle addresses himself to the “twelve tribes in the Diaspora” ( James 1:1), that is, to the Jewish Christ-believers scattered throughout the pagan nations.The letter reflects the best of the spirituality of the Pharisees, insisting on the importance of good works, without which faith is dead. It seems implicitly to engage in a discussion with the Letter of Paul to the Galatians, commenting on the same biblical texts concerning Abraham, and the relation between faith and works. This letter of James could well be inserted between the letters of Paul to the Galatians and to the Romans, since in the second of these Paul expresses his ideas with greater nuance.The apparent opposition between James and Paul is more terminological than real. We need to remember that when Paul speaks of “works,” he is spontaneously thinking of “dead works,” those accomplished without love, and which therefore serve no purpose. And when he speaks of faith, he has in mind “living faith” or “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). By contrast, when James speaks of faith, he spontaneously thinks of “dead faith,” which is that of the demons; and when he speaks of works, he always has in mind “living works,” which proceed from the grace of God through charity. The final meeting in Jerusalem between Paul and James enables us to grasp the essence of their apostolic interaction, as we have sought to describe it. As Paul declared before a Jewish audience, he never denied his Jewish- The Jewishness of the Apostles 119 ness, nor did he forgo any of the Mosaic observances, as long as these did not interfere with his mission to the Gentiles. One demonstration of this is the Nazirite vow which he made (or perhaps completed) at Cenchreae (Acts 18:18). James knows that Paul “has also behaved as an observer of the law” (Acts 21:24). To cut short the reproaches of those who accuse him of “teaching the Jews who live among the Gentiles to forsake Moses” (Acts 21:21), James advises Paul to accomplish his vow of purification publicly, in the Temple, alongside four Jewish believers in Christ who are also under a vow (cf. Acts 21:23–24). And Paul does as he is told by James. To understand this docility of Paul towards James, we need to recall the motive behind Paul’s last visit to Jerusalem: the collection for “the saints” which he took up among the Gentiles whom he had converted to the Lord. The faithful in Jerusalem are “saints” in a very special sense of the term: they have put their all property in common, and share everything according to individual needs (cf. Acts 2:43–45). This was a way of showing their abandonment to Providence and, in fact, very soon, they fell “into poverty” (Rom 15:26) and needed to be rescued (cf. Acts 11:29–30). During his earlier visit with Peter, John, and James in Jerusalem, Paul had been asked to “remember the poor” of Jerusalem (Gal 2:10). And, he informs the Galatians, “that is precisely what I have been eager to do.” More profoundly, this collection indicates that the Gentile churches are connected to the Mother Church of Jerusalem and, through her, to the people of Israel. When he defends himself before the governor Felix and the high priest Ananias, who has come to accuse him, Paul expresses this idea in terms that are borrowed from the vocabulary of Jewish ritual: “I came to bring alms to my nation and to present offerings. As I was doing this, they found me purified in the temple” (Acts 24:17–18). The same priestly vocabulary is found in the letters of Paul when he explains the reason for the collection: “I am going to Jerusalem to minister to the saints. . . . [The Gentiles] owe this to them: for if they have participated in their spiritual blessings, they must in turn serve them with their worldly goods” (Rom 15:25–27). In Paul’s eyes this is not only a debt of charity on the part of Gentile believers towards the church of Jerusalem; it is also for the Gentiles a religious duty. “Because the rendering of this service not only supplies the needs of the saints, it is also a rich source of abundant thanksgiving to God. This service proves to them who you really are, so that they may glorify God for your obedience in the profession of the gospel of Christ and for the generosity of your communion with them and everyone” (2 Cor 9:12–13). Through the offering which he brings to James and to the Mother Church of Jerusalem, Paul intends to signify the spiritual connection of the Gentiles to the people of Israel, 120 Jean-Miguel Garrigues, O.P. from whom (in the person of Christ) and by whom (in the persons of the apostles) their salvation has come. The carnal and genealogical ties that linked James to Christ were not transmitted beyond the first Jewish bishops of the church of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the apostolic succession continued to be transmitted sacramentally through the bishops (for the most part Gentiles) upon the seats of the apostles, to whom Jesus had promised: “Behold, I am with you all the days, unto the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). However, the apostles are and remain forever Jews, called by Christ to “judge the twelve tribes of Israel.” Furthermore, the fundamental genealogical succession, which belongs to the Jewish people, continues to thrive on the basis of a divine election which is “irrevocable” (Rom 11:29), in the same way that the sacramental transmission of apostolic succession is based on a gift of God which is irrevocable. Any future encounter (in whatever form), reuniting these two distinctive types of succession in the Church must necessarily reflect the interaction among the apostles that we have attempted to point out in the pages of the New Testament. The universal primacy represented by Peter (in a Church confronted more and more by “the gates of hell [which, however,] will not prevail against her” [Mt 16:18]) can exercise its charisma in an entirely fruitful manner only if it is supported by the charismata of the two other apostolic pillars: that of Paul, for the universality of the mission, but also that of James, which guarantees the roots of the Church in the Jewish people. Indeed, when Peter inaugurated the mission to the Gentiles, a mission Paul would later develop, he did so from his Jewish roots as “apostle to the circumcised” (Gal 2:8), roots for which James and the Mother Church of Jerusalem continue to serve as the guarantee. The charisma of James, acting through the Jews who believe in Christ while maintaining their Jewish identity, is a physical and spiritual reminder that the Church originally came from Jerusalem and from Israel through Jewish apostles. It also reminds the Church that she is and always will be based on the apostles and is eschatologically pointed by them towards the earthly Jerusalem, where Jesus “will come in the same way as he went” (Acts 1:11). Conclusion Paul stands for the pilgrim Church sojourning in this world with her universal mission to all nations. To Peter was entrusted the ministry of receiving (cf. Jn 20:17) these “other sheep [i.e., Gentiles] that are not of this fold” ( Jn 10:16) into the catholic fullness of the “one flock” ( Jn 10:16), whose unique shepherd is Christ. It is Peter in his role as “apostle to the circumcised” (Gal 2:8) who gathers this one flock inasmuch as it The Jewishness of the Apostles 121 constitutes the messianic fullness of Israel in its “remnant” (Rom 11:5), which has now truly become “the light for the nations” (Is 42:6; 49:6; Acts 13:47). In doing this, he illustrates that these two missions (to Israel on the one hand, and to the nations on the other) are not identical, even if they lead all men to the same salvation through Christ. In the case of the Gentiles, reception of the Good News implies renunciation of idolatry and entry into the Covenant. In the case of the Jews, on the other hand, the Good News represents God’s fulfillment in his Son of his promises to Israel. This is why the ministry of Peter, which brings about the messianic and eschatological renewal to which the Jews are called, is inseparable from the continuity and stability of the election of Israel embodied by James, as well as from the universal mission to the nations of Paul. The Jewish identity of the Twelve is central to their apostolic role as those who “judge the twelve tribes of Israel.” The Jewish identity of Peter, as head of the Twelve, is integral to his particular role as “apostle to the circumcised.” The Jewish identity of James, kinsman of Jesus, is especially noteworthy, as he stands guard over the relationship of the messianic kahal to the Jewish people as a whole and to the Jewish tradition. The Jewish identity of Paul is crucial to his apostolic mission as he represents Israel’s vocation to be a “light to the nations.” These reflections on the theological significance of the Jewishness of the apostles are supported by Paul’s teaching, considered at the beginning of this essay, that suggests a structurally significant ecclesiological role of Jewish believers in Christ. While quite striking in their potential implications, all of these fruits of exegesis would remain highly theoretical if it were not for the re-emergence of an explicitly Jewish corporate expression of faith in Christ in our own day. It is now conceivable that the Jewish structural dimension of the Church could once again find explicit visible expression. How and when this will occur is uncertain, but faith in the God who chose Israel, raised Jesus from the dead, and poured out the Spirit at Pentecost leads us to expect the unexpected and to imagine the unimaginable. As Paul states after reflecting on similar themes, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! . . . For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom 11:33, 36). N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 123–45 123 Contraception outside Marriage: Prudence or Sin? D ONALD H AGGERTY Capuchin Institute of Philosophy and Theology Addis Ababa, Ethiopia I S THE ACT of contraception a sin only against marriage? Humanae Vitae, the 1968 encyclical of Pope Paul VI on the regulation of birth, alludes only to the conjugal act of husband and wife in condemning the use of artificial contraception to impede the procreative capacity in sexual relations. While the act of contraception in marriage is proscribed in the strongest terms as intrinsically evil, the key references target exclusively the violation of the conjugal act.1 The encyclical makes no explicit mention of an intrinsic evil in the use of artificial contraception when committing sins of fornication or adultery. Some interpret this absence of specific reference to contraceptive use in the latter sins as an indication of its non-importance in these sins. In this view contraception in sexual acts already recognized as gravely sinful means very little. Indeed it is questioned whether any additional wrongdoing takes place at all. Instead the use of a contraceptive device in nonmarital relations is assumed to be a prudent choice. If a man and woman are determined to proceed with sinful sexual relations, better to do so in a manner with less chance for regret. Thus to use contraception in an act of fornication or adultery is to choose a lesser evil than the same sexual sin chosen while unmindful of possible consequences. It is at least a way of avoiding injustice to an unwanted child born out of wedlock, or worse, to the child vulnerable now to an abortion. In this view, the choice to contracept in sins of fornication or adultery shows a certain moral sensitivity that would be lacking without concern for a possible pregnancy. This question of the morality of contraceptive use outside marriage has had a particular pertinence recently. In January 2012, the United 1 Humanae Vitae §§10–14. 124 Donald Haggerty States Catholic Bishops denounced the mandates of the Obama health care law requiring insurance coverage for contraception in Catholic hospitals and universities and continued to exert forceful protest against the law and these provisions in the subsequent months. The Affordable Care Act, upheld by a 5–4 vote in the United States Supreme Court on June 28, 2012, allows these Catholic institutions no conscience exemption and therefore no option but to make provision in their health care plans for employees and students who desire insurance coverage for contraception. One question poses itself here uncomfortably. If the majority of these prescriptions, at least on college campuses, are likely to be sought by non-married women, can we affirm as Catholics a clear sense of the wrongdoing of contraceptive use in the case of non-marital sexual relations? Does this choice involve an independent and distinct sin in addition to the sinful act of fornication or adultery?2 Contraception as a moral issue may be of secondary importance in what is bound to be, as the Obama health care law is enforced, an ongoing and contentious dispute about the exercise of religious liberty in America. Surely paramount in this challenge is the need of the Church to protect its religious autonomy from governmental interference with institutional policies touching on morality. Nonetheless, while fighting this battle, it would seem important that a clear moral doctrine is precisely the Church’s justification for its institutional policies. Unfortunately, in the perception of many Catholics who give any thought to the matter, it may seem that the Church maintains a universal prohibition against contraception, including the case of non-marital relations, only for the sake of consistency. Moreover, it may be that many priests in their pastoral ministry and in confessional practice do not have an adequate sense of a particular and distinct wrong in the contraceptive choice outside marriage. Much anecdotal evidence, at least among priests, attests that a theological ambiguity surrounds the contraceptive choice in the case of non-marital relations. The likely result is a failure to address its actual moral significance. When contraception is a customary practice prior to marriage, as it apparently is in the pre-marital relations taking 2 Clearly an affirmative or negative response to this question does not determine whether Catholic institutions should provide institutional access to contraception. The institutional prohibition of contraceptive access involves primarily the necessity to avoid any impression of promoting or condoning the sinful practices that accompany contraceptive use. But the advertence to scandal or the avoidance of facilitating immoral behavior do not in themselves clarify why contraception is wrong in itself in the case of fornication or adultery. Contraception outside Marriage 125 place before most Catholic marriages, it is not surprising that it is difficult to reverse the practice after marriage.3 Historical Considerations and the Contemporary Context In fact, it is a narrow theological view to restrict the Catholic condemnation of contraception to marital relations. The immorality of contraceptive use in all circumstances, not just in marital relations, has a long historical tradition in the Catholic Church.4 Much of the argument against contraception in the history of Catholic teaching made reference to the “unnatural” manner by which a sexual act took place in order to impede the conception of a child. Prior to the introduction of the anovulant pill in the 1950s, almost all forms of contraception involved some type of barrier method or some manner of performing the sexual act that in either case prevented insemination of a woman by a man.5 The act did not achieve its 3 One might add, in this regard, that the opportunity for a clearly enunciated defense of the Church’s teaching on the evil of artificial contraception should not be missed. As a public issue the protection of religious liberty is undeniably important and attracts sympathy. The largely unaccepted Catholic ban on artificial contraception, however, cannot be separated from the Catholic rejection of a health care law that mandates coverage for contraceptives. The United States Catholic Bishops with a united voice should take this moment to provide a clear reaffirmation of the Catholic teaching on artificial contraception—and, perhaps, to clarify properly that this moral teaching extends beyond a marital context. 4 One can find a magisterial treatment of the condemnation of contraception in the Catholic moral tradition in John T. Noonan, Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965). Unfortunately, Noonan’s work, invaluable as an historical study, makes great effort as well to expose the inapplicability of the principles undergirding the Church’s previous prohibitions of contraception to the question of marital contraceptive use in the contemporary time. Published prior to Humanae Vitae, it is a testimony to the intense impact of the contraceptive question during this period. 5 In addition to the condemnation of “unnatural” sexual relations in which no insemination takes place, two significant ancient texts should be mentioned as condemnations of contraception even when sexual relations presumably include an act of insemination. The first is the important text of St. Augustine known in history as Aliquando, from his work Marriage and Concupiscence, which exposes the iniquity of procuring “poisons of sterility” [sterilitatis venena]. This condemnation of contraception became a canon in the Decretum of Gratian and remained a part of the law of the Church from 1150 to 1917. It was quoted in a debate at the Second Vatican Council in an intervention by Cardinal Ernest Ruffini in December 1964. Noonan, Contraception, 512. The second, linking contraception to a homicidal intent, is the text Si aliquis, dating from the period of the penitentials and preserved in a writing of the tenth-century abbot Regino, later included by Burchard of Worms in his Decretum (1010), and remaining also a part of Church law until 1917. This text declares, in short, “let it be held as homicide if someone 126 Donald Haggerty natural completion, which did not mean necessarily an act of procreation, but the natural act ordained by God for sexual union between a man and woman. Insemination is also of course biologically necessary for the procreative dimension of the act. The Catholic moral tradition, in understanding insemination as a moral imperative of the sexual act, likewise identified an intrinsic finality in the procreative end of the sexual act. Deviation in the use of the sexuality between a man and woman occurred in any ejaculatory act apart from insemination, which in effect meant a sexual act in which procreation was impossible. This understanding of the unnatural use of the sexual organs provided a justification for prohibiting all forms of contraception in marriage or outside marriage.6 In the twentieth century, contraception became an intensely controversial issue among Catholics after the introduction of chemical contraceptives [si aliquis] . . . gives a man or woman to drink, so that he cannot generate or she conceive.” See Noonan, Contraception, 167–70. The latter text of Si aliquis, in particular, was itself sufficient to condemn contraceptive practice in all contexts. As Germain Grisez notes, “Historically . . . much of the Christian tradition condemned contraception as a contralife act without distinguishing between its uses by married couples and by others.” The Way of the Lord Jesus, Vol. 2: Living a Christian Life (Quincy, IL: Franciscan Press, 1993), 506. 6 Cajetan, for example, in the medieval period, states: “An act which prevents conception is a sin against nature, if it is accomplished by ejaculating outside the natural receptacle, or if during ejaculation within the natural receptacle something is done to prevent conception, whether on the part of the man or on the part of the woman, regardless of the instrument or method which is used, since then the act of intercourse is deliberately frustrated from the attainment of its natural end.” Commentarii in Summam Theologiae, II–II, q. 154. a. 1, no. 12. See also note 31 below from St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, Lib. III, c. 122. It is of interest to note that the moral necessity of an act of insemination is the fundamental position taken by prominent contemporary moral theologians holding that a sexual act between a husband and wife using a condom is not a marital act. See Thomas O’Donnell, S.J., Medicine and Christian Morality, 3d edition (New York: Alba House, 1996), 245–47; William May, “Aids, Marriage, and Condoms,” Ethics and Medics 13 (Sept. 1988): 3–4; Janet Smith, “The Morality of Condom Use by HIV-Infected Spouses,” The Thomist 70 (2006): 27–69. Note also the exceptionless condemnation of condom use in the responsa of the Holy Office, April 19, 1853, to the question of the permissibility of a wife passively cooperating in intercourse where a condom is used: “No. For it would be participation in what is intrinsically unlawful.” Noonan, Contraception, 400; DS, 2795. Finally, one may observe that the necessity of insemination continues to be a criterion for the valid consummation of marriage, in accord with Canon 1061.1 in the Code of Canon Law. See the discussion by Janet Smith on the non-consummation of marriage when condoms are used in her “Condom Use by HIV-Infected Spouses,” 39–42. Some theologians, such as William May, Germain Grisez, and Christian Brugger, affirm that all contraceptive use, even with insemination, prevents the consummation of a marriage. Contraception outside Marriage 127 in the 1950s, since these did not function as a barrier method to impede conception.7 It took some time before the abortifacient effect of chemical contraceptives became more widely known; this knowledge raised a much more serious objection to their use.8 Prior to that knowledge, with the burgeoning popularity of the pill as an apparently safe, effective means of contraception, the focus of many moralists was on a possible justification for artificial contraception within marriage.There was in this period before the issuance of Humanae Vitae a notable absence of theological comment on the use of contraception in sexual acts apart from marriage. It was not a matter of concern. The preoccupation was the question of artificial birth control within marriage, especially now that a form of birth regulation was possible that did not violate the traditional requirement of the deposit of 7 It is worth noting, in regard to the Church’s condemnation of “unnatural” sexual relations mentioned in the previous paragraph, that a common argument among moralists who favored a change in the Catholic doctrine regarding artificial contraception prior to Humanae Vitae, especially in consideration of the nonbarrier method of the pill, and who then dissented against the encyclical, was to treat the long tradition of contraceptive condemnation in the Church as stemming from a physicalist and rigidly biological interpretation that was dependent on an outdated Aristotelian understanding of nature. The clarion call of dissent against Humanae Vitae was to disparage the encyclical’s principles as little more than a prolongation of the same physicalist argument—a condemnation of contraception based not on personalist foundations but on physiological processes; Flannery characterized the dissenting position as “confus[ing] human actions and physical events.” For a strong philosophical refutation of that position, see Kevin Flannery, S.J., “Philosophical Arguments against and for ‘Humanae Vitae,’ ” in Anthropotes 2 (1994): 189–204, at 193. A clear example of the dissenting view that the Magisterium had reduced its teaching on sexuality to claims based on physical, biological processes can be found in Charles Curran, “Sexuality and Sin: A Current Appraisal,” in Charles Curran and Richard McCormick, S.J., Readings in Moral Theology, No. 8: Dialogue About Catholic Sexual Teaching (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1993), 405–17, esp. at 412–14. See also Bernard Häring, “The Inseparability of the Unitive-Procreative Functions of the Marital Act,” in Charles Curran, ed., Contraception: Authority and Dissent (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), 176–92: “Humanae Vitae confines the procreative meaning of the marital act to the faithful observance of biological laws and rhythms. It is implied therein that God’s wise and divine plan is revealed to the spouses through these absolutely sacred physiological laws. . . . It goes so far as to declare biological laws as absolutely binding on the conscience of men” [at 180]. 8 An early acknowledgment of this possibility is made by John Ford, S.J., and Gerald Kelly, S.J., in a chapter on sterilizing drugs: “It seems that some new drugs cause early abortion or the disintegration of the fertilized ovum.” Contemporary Moral Theology, Vol. 2: Marriage Questions (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1963), 338, n. 1. For a more detailed description, see O’Donnell, Medicine and Christian Morality, 251–53.The so-called intrauterine device functions even more consistently as an abortifacient method of contraception. 128 Donald Haggerty semen in the vagina of a woman. In 1968, when Humanae Vitae finally settled the long-simmering issue with a papal condemnation, provoking at the same time an unprecedented explosion of public dissent, the focus remained solely on artificial contraception as a sinful act within marriage.9 It is well known how theological dissent against Humanae Vitae led in turn to explicit repudiations of the Church’s moral doctrine in various areas of sexuality.10 Indicative of the turbulent moral climate was the 1975 document Persona Humana of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reasserting the Church’s perennial teaching on matters of pre-marital sexual relations, masturbation, homosexuality, etc. The magisterial intervention, however, did not quell the tide. Aberrant moral teaching on sexuality continued into the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. With dissenting moral theologians arguing at times for the permissibility of non-marital sexual relations at least in committed relationships, it is not surprising that one encounters occasional recommendations of the propriety of contraceptive use in non-marital relations.Two representative examples twenty years apart expose what may have been common convictions among dissenting moralists in a time of widespread sexual excess. It used to be said that the employment of birth control devices always added to the wrong of premarital intercourse. . . . [I]t might be suggested today that such a couple, using birth control devices, is actually lessening the wrong in their intercourse since at least they are avoiding the procreation of new life for which they are unable to take responsibility.11 Adolescents, young adults, and anyone else who cannot be dissuaded from engaging in nonmarital, premarital, or extramarital intercourse, should be encouraged to a careful use of some kind of contraception. 9 The 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii of Pope Pius XI likewise restricted its explicit condemnation of artificial birth control methods to the context of the marital act. In that sense Humanae Vitae’s focus on the violation of the marital act is consistent with the earlier papal condemnation of birth control methods within marriage. The papal interventions in both cases were concerned with marital life, which is not to say that other areas of sexual morality were left open to question. 10 See, for example, the articles selected by Charles Curran and Richard McCormick, S.J., in Readings in Moral Theology, No. 8: Dialogue About Catholic Sexual Teaching. The work of Anthony Kosnik et al., Human Sexuality: New Directions in American Catholic Thought (New York: Paulist Press, 1977), commissioned by the Catholic Theological Society of America and subsequently denied its previous imprimatur by a decision of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is a conspicuous example in the genre. 11 Philip Keane, Sexual Morality: A Catholic Perspective (New York: Paulist Press, 1977), 109. Contraception outside Marriage 129 Moral responsibility would seem to demand this cause of action. And while it must be made clear that no form of contraception is totally effective, nonetheless, contraceptive intercourse provides some protection against unwanted pregnancy and appears to be less morally harmful than the subsequent decisions, either to avoid unwed parenthood by recourse to abortion or to enter into a precipitous, premature, and unloving marriage or, finally, to bring a child to birth under circumstances that seriously jeopardize his or her well-being.12 What may be more interesting to observe, however, is the manner in which the ban on artificial contraception in marriage as taught by Humanae Vitae may have had a subtle effect on the perception of priests in their pastoral understanding of contraceptive use outside marital relations. Fifteen years ago a priest colleague in the moral theology department at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland, an exemplary man noteworthy for his faithful adherence to magisterial teaching and his Thomistic commitment, shocked me somewhat by contending that it was a generally held view among moralists that the use of artificial contraception was sinful only within marriage. In his explanation it was precisely Humanae Vitae’s teaching that provided the basis for asserting that the context of non-marital relations removed the use of contraception from the status of a strict and absolute prohibition.13 Humanae Vitae’s “Inseparability” Principle and Non-marital Contraception We have to turn, then, to Humanae Vitae to see why even some traditionally minded theologians have viewed the ban on artificial contraception as a teaching confined to relations between married persons. Pope Paul VI’s basic contention against the use of artificial contraception in Humanae Vitae is familiar to most Catholic couples who have attended a pre-Cana marriage preparation. There are two inseparable truths that define the marital act of sexual union. It is a unitive act between spouses of total, selfgiving love.The bodily union of becoming one flesh expresses a profound 12 Vincent Genovesi, In Pursuit of Love: Catholic Morality and Human Sexuality (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 223. 13 Not all moralists, of course, held this view. One might cite, for instance, the clear refutation of this position by Germain Grisez: “A man and a woman who are not married to each other should not engage in sexual intercourse in any case; if they not only do so but practice contraception, they only facilitate one immorality by another. Moreover, using contraception aggravates rather than mitigates the sinfulness of fornication, since to the specific malice of fornication it adds that of a contralife will and the associated injustice to the unwanted child if contraception fails.” The Way of the Lord Jesus, Vol. 2: Living a Christian Life, 515. 130 Donald Haggerty spiritual union. The marital bond is permanent, and the mutual fidelity of husband and wife to each other is renewed and deepened in the act of becoming one flesh. At the same time, by its very nature, the conjugal act is capable of beginning a new life. There is a procreative meaning, a mystery of creative possibility, inherent in the nature of sexual union.14 Those who would hold that the Church’s ban on contraception is directed exclusively to marital relations argue that this teaching of Humanae Vitae on the inseparability of the unitive and procreative meanings in the marital act, while valid in marriage, breaks down once outside the sacredness of the conjugal act. The inseparability principle, in this view, cannot provide a justification for banning a deliberate choice to prevent procreation in the non-marital sexual act precisely because this is not a true unitive act in its proper meaning. Physically there is a sexual union between a man and a woman, but the marital truth of total self-giving between a man and woman is lacking in these relations.They may be united in pleasure but not in a permanent gift of mutual fidelity. The act is a lie, a deception, as Pope John Paul II often repeated, inasmuch as their bodily union is contradicted by the actual truth of not giving themselves fully to each other.15 Serious questions accompany this argument.Without the authentic reality of the unitive meaning in non-marital sexual relations, how can one 14 “[T]he Church, calling men back to the observance of the norms of the natural law, as interpreted by their constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life. That teaching, often set forth by the magisterium, is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives, according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and woman. By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination toward man’s most high calling to parenthood.” Humanae Vitae §§11–12. As mentioned earlier in note 7, moralists who dissented against Humanae Vitae generally objected to what they considered to be a biological or physicalist requirement that the conjugal act remain by its nature always open to the transmission of life. But certainly, as this passage confirms, the encyclical is extending the argument against the intrinsic wrongdoing of contraception beyond simply a description of natural physiological operations. See Nova et Vetera 6, No. 4 (Fall 2008), a 40-year anniversary issue devoted to the moral implications and principles of Humanae Vitae. 15 See Familiaris Consortio §11, on the lie of non-marital relations: “The total physical self-giving would be a lie if it were not the sign and fruit of a total personal self-giving, in which the whole person, including the temporal dimension, is present: if the person were to withhold something or reserve the possibility of deciding otherwise in the future, by this very fact he or she would not be giving Contraception outside Marriage 131 speak of a procreative meaning that is inseparable from it and must be joined to it? If the unitive meaning of this sexual act is necessarily lacking in non-marital relations, does this not fracture, as it were, the whole structure of sacredness in the act? If the genuineness of the procreative meaning of the act depends on a genuine unitive self-gift, and the latter is absent, can we consider the former inviolable? In this view the inapplicability of the inseparability principle in non-marital relations implies the necessary loss of the procreative meaning as a sacred value in sexual relations. There is no apparent reason to protect a procreative meaning in the sexual act when the authentic unitive meaning of the act is absent or repudiated.16 This is a challenging objection to any universal ban on artificial contraception outside the marital act. If the unitive-procreative analysis of the conjugal act determines as well the violation of the act when contraception is used, perhaps the violation is no longer present when the conjugal act is not taking place. But that is too quick a conclusion. All that the previous argument shows is the failure of non-marital relations to fulfill the inherently sacred purpose of human sexuality. What it does not prove totally.” The parallel between the act of marital contraception as a refusal of a total self-gift and the sexual relations of a man and woman without permanent commitment can be noted as well in Familiaris Consortio §32: “The innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.” 16 There is a certain irony here. Partly in response to the new methods of chemical contraception, the encyclical showed an advancement in the theological understanding used to explain the intrinsic evil of contraception within marriage. A more personalist and phenomenological approach to the conjugal act was taken, rather than the former biological or physicalist argument dependent on the proper natural function of bodily organs. But the same personalist argument of an inseparable link between the unitive and procreative meanings of the conjugal act became an invitation to dismiss the moral significance of contraception outside marriage.The advancement in theological understanding can be seen by comparing Humanae Vitae’s text quoted in note 14 above with the words of Casti Connubii in 1930: “But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious. . . . Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of grave sin.” [§54 and §56] 132 Donald Haggerty is that an action to impede procreation is meaningless when no marriage exists. On the contrary, contraception may then have its own perverse significance. This can be understood initially by perceiving what ordinarily happens in sexual relations when the very nature of the act cannot express the exalted purpose of the conjugal act. The Truth of the Contraceptive Motive in Non-marital Relations An honest appraisal of non-marital sexual relationships shows that, even with close emotional bonds, the hunger for bodily pleasure overcomes what should be a profoundly spiritual aspect accompanying the sexual act. The absence of a permanent commitment plunges the sexual act into the immediacy of current pleasure, with no longer perspective. Naturally this is so. Without a commitment of lifelong fidelity to the other, the experience of sexual pleasure tends to dominate for its own sake. It lacks the spiritual element of uniting one soul to another in a transcendent manner.The relations have no basis for permanence, no inherent reason to perceive the other as sacred and irreplaceable. Instead the demand for pleasure easily descends to an exploitation of the sexual partner. And as pleasure tires or becomes stale, the value of the other likewise diminishes. When no longer satisfied, the desire for pleasure tends to seek gratification elsewhere.17 This is very different from the role of pleasure in marital relations. In marriage, sexual pleasure is one aspect of attraction to the marital act. God’s design is that the pleasure of sexual union becomes an “inducement” to propagation, which is itself a primary purpose of sacramental married life, namely, to raise and educate children in the Christian truth. But sexual pleasure in marriage is also joined to love, and in marital relations has a unifying effect on spouses. In sexual union and the pleasure it affords the couple, an experience of shared oneness is possible that extends beyond bodily gratification. Pleasure in this case cannot be limited to bodily experience. It is never isolated in itself, as though the aim of the act is solely for physical satisfaction. It has a spiritual effect and fosters the desire for lifelong fidelity to the beloved partner in marriage.18 Even more significantly, pleasure binds together the unitive and pro17 See Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II), Love and Responsibility (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1981), especially 73–84 and 109–114; Dietrich von Hildebrand, In Defense of Purity (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1935), especially 12–14; C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960), especially 91–115. 18 “Pleasure is a kind of perfection of operation, as the Philosopher has made clear; it perfects operation just as beauty perfects youth.” Summa contra Gentiles, Lib. I, c. 90. See also ST I–II, q. 33, a. 1: “Man’s affection is expanded by pleasure, as though it surrendered itself to hold within itself the object of its pleasure.” For further insight see Elizabeth Anscombe, “Contraception and Chastity,” in Faith in Contraception outside Marriage 133 creative meanings of the marital act. It contributes to their inseparability as a profound truth within marriage. In that sense sexual pleasure not only inflames a desire for loving fidelity, serving as a catalyst to mutual gratitude in spouses. It does not stop there. It is a common experience that the self-giving love shared in sexual pleasure between husband and wife provokes in turn the desire to bear a child as the fruit of their love.19 In non-marital relations, by contrast, it is almost inevitable that pleasure should become a principle of distortion. Pleasure no longer supports and undergirds the deeper unitive and procreative meanings of the sexual act. It shifts instead to an essential motive of the sexual act. Surely many would object on the basis of a personal experience of romantic love. The emphasis on pleasure seems to presume a tendency to hedonism in all non-marital sexual relations when admittedly there can be an intimate bond of affection between an unmarried man and woman. But, again, an honest examination of the matter shows that precisely the intensity of sexual pleasure betrays the sexual act when no lifelong commitment is present. Instead of fostering fidelity and a mutual self-gift that extend beyond the sexual act, pleasure in non-marital relations tends to be sought for its own sake. In a quite literal sense there is nothing more important to be sought than the sexual experience in itself.20 a Hard Ground: Essays on Religion, Philosophy and Ethics, ed. Mary Geach and Luke Gormally (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2008), 170–91. 19 A long development in the understanding of a legitimate enjoyment of sexual pleasure in marriage took place in the history of the Church. Noonan, throughout Contraception, traces much of this development, which was rooted in the question of the purposes or ends of marital intercourse, and whether an explicit procreative intent was required for an absence of some sinfulness in the act. The modern period gradually clarified the truth that the legitimate expression of the unitive meaning in the marital act does not require a necessary biological fertility; i.e., openness to the procreative meaning of the act does not demand a positive intention to conceive a child in each particular expression of the marital act. See especially Noonan, Contraception, 491–504. On pleasure in marriage, both its legitimate expression and the excesses that are possible, see Pope Pius XII, “Address to the Italian Catholic Society of Midwives,” AAS 43 (1951): DS 2211 and 2212. Also valuable, as indicative, by that date [1963], of a theologically conclusive view, is Ford and Kelly, Contemporary Moral Theology, Vol. 2: Marriage Questions: “[T]hose who consciously act for the pleasure of sexual intercourse apprehended as something permissible, need no further explicit legitimating motive to escape imputation of acting ob solam voluptatem. In other words, if their conduct in marital intimacies is such that it preserves the inherent purposes or values which belong to conjugal intimacy, the pleasure they seek is well-ordered; they cannot be said to be acting ob solam voluptatem” (192–93). 20 The words of Pope John Paul II in a General Audience of 1980 are noteworthy: “Concupiscence, which manifests itself as a ‘constraint sui generis of the body,’ limits 134 Donald Haggerty This primacy of pleasure as a motive for engaging in sexual relations is a sign of a misuse and diminishment of the sacred gift of human sexuality. But the question still remains how impeding conception is an additional wrong when the act is already deformed by a non-marital context. Again the motive of pleasure provides an insight. In non-marital relations the risk of pregnancy threatens to terminate the pleasure sought in sexuality, including the fixation in love enjoyed in any romantic involvement. Pregnancy must not interfere with sexual enjoyment. The contraceptive choice becomes as such not simply a protection against pregnancy; it is not only contralife in its intent. In offering a safeguard for worry-free sexual pleasure, it serves to enhance selfish pleasure-seeking as a primary aim in non-marital sexual relations. In effect it allows the falsity and deformation of the sexual act to intensify by reliably isolating sexual relations to a pursuit of pleasure. No wonder that these relations often end up reducing the sexual partner to an object of gratification, soon discarded for another. The notion, then, that without a true unitive meaning in the sexual act, there can be no wrongdoing in impeding the procreative act is too superficial. The choice to contracept in non-marital relations is a distinct act in itself. It has its own intrinsic selfishness and conveys a distinct element of wrongdoing. This choice is taken not just to avoid an unwanted pregnancy, but also to protect the undisturbed continuation of sexual pleasure. The two motives unite in the act of contraception. It is facile to consider only the first motive of avoiding an unwanted child and interpret this choice as a kind of lesser evil in the sin of fornication or adultery. This assumption ignores a quite obvious motive in avoiding a child, namely, to allow no interference with the pleasures derived from current sexual relations. This fixation on pleasure undergirds the anti-procreative impulse in non-marital sexual relations. It is inseparable from them, an inescapable aspect of the choice. And it is a sign of a selfish depravity in itself. The tendency to minimize or even dismiss the moral significance of contraception outside marriage is traceable to a false idea. The confusion and restricts self-mastery from within, and thereby in some sense makes the interior freedom of the gift impossible. At the same time, also the beauty that the human body possesses in its male and female appearance, as an expression of the spirit, is obscured. The body is left as an object of concupiscence and thus as a ‘terrain of appropriation’ of the other human being. Concupiscence as such is not able to promote union as a communion of persons. By itself, it does not unite, but appropriates to itself. The relationship of the gift changes into a relationship of appropriation.” Pope John Paul, II, General Audience of July 23, 1980; translation, by Michael Waldstein, is taken from John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2006), 259–60. Contraception outside Marriage 135 is caused by conceiving the use of contraception in an act of fornication or adultery as a single moral choice. This formulation misrepresents the actual reality. The real nature of the act is double-edged, as it were, in its moral significance. A particular choice for contraception accompanies a separate sinful act of fornication or adultery. The willingness to fornicate or to commit adultery involves one choice, while the option to accompany the sexual act with contraceptive protection involves a distinct second choice. To collapse the one act into the other is morally inaccurate. Contraceptive use may be subordinate to the act of fornication or adultery inasmuch as it would not take place without the illicit sexual act. But this does not mean that it loses its own species of immorality as an independent choice.When an act motivated by some selfish intent accompanies another evil act, this does not efface the evil of the former. If someone robbing an unoccupied house deliberately ignites a fire on the premises, thereby leaving no fingerprints and achieving protection from apprehension, the arson has not become morally insignificant. It is a separate and discrete act in itself even as it is joined to the act of robbery. Contraception in Non-marital Relations as the Choice of a Lesser Evil? Admittedly, contraception accompanying sins of non-marital sexuality still poses a moral conundrum—more than is generally acknowledged. One has to return to a dilemma initially mentioned. The problem arises when one holds that the use of contraception is an evil choice regardless of context. In that case, by a certain logical necessity, contraception should accentuate the evil when it is chosen in tandem with the act of fornication or adultery. One is adding an evil to another evil. But for many people this is not convincing. The pragmatic objection is raised. When contraception accompanies an act of fornication or adultery, instead of increasing evil, it seems to reduce the potentially greater wrongdoing that would be present without it. In this view a couple’s indifference to the possibility of conceiving a child is considered a more callous act of fornication or adultery than the same act carried out with a concern to prevent the unhappy consequence of an unwanted pregnancy. How, if it diminishes wrongdoing, can contraception be considered intrinsically evil in its own right. The context of its use would seem to determine the question of morality. Is there really an additional evil in the use of contraception when sexual relations take place outside of marriage? A clarification about the moral category of the “lesser evil” is apropos. It is easy to misconstrue the notion and assume that it implies a moral permissibility to choose an act that is evil when otherwise a greater evil 136 Donald Haggerty might be chosen or might occur.21 The most common proper use of the phrase, however, is simply to note the comparative difference between acts within the same moral vice. Greater harm can be done with a loaded gun than by hitting someone with a stick; thus it is a lesser evil to threaten someone with a stick than with a gun. Sometimes it can mean the option of a less blameworthy evil if otherwise a greater evil might ensue. One might choose to drink to excess rather than violently harm another person in an act of revenge. Neither interpretation of the lesser evil, however, constitutes a permission to act with moral impunity. A sinful act is chosen even if one chooses a “lesser evil.” The notion is simply an acknowledgment of comparative degrees of evil.22 In the issue at hand, fornication and adultery are always sinful, but in some cases they can involve a greater evil. This difference is undoubtedly true without the addition of contraceptive use. There are variations, for instance, in the evil of fornication: unmarried people engaging in relations prior to their wedding; the casual sex of the so-called “one-night stand”; sexual relations to obtain some benefit or in exchange for money. But when the comparative term is the use or non-use of contraception in the act of fornication or adultery, a perplexity arises. Is it a greater sin 21 On the notion of the “lesser evil,” and on the question of counseling the “lesser evil,” see Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus, Vol. 2: Living a Christian Life, 237–38 at 237, n. 72. For a fine study of the historical development of the “lesser evil” as a moral category, see Kevin Flannery, S.J., “On Counseling the Lesser Evil,” The Thomist 75 (2011): 245–89. See also the article of William B. Smith, “Contraception as a Lesser Evil,” and his references to the views of classical moralists on this question in Modern Moral Problems: Trustworthy Answers to Your Tough Questions, ed. Donald Haggerty (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012): 142–45. See also the treatment of the “lesser evil” in the question of condom use for spouses with one party infected with HIV, in Janet Smith, “The Morality of Condom Use by HIV-Infected Spouses,” 27–69, at 65–67. 22 On the other hand, to tolerate a lesser evil is an altogether different notion. This refers to a choice never evil in itself but one which will be accompanied by some adverse consequence. One chooses to take an action or to omit an action because a greater evil would ensue without that choice or omission. For example, a politician may give an affirmative vote to a law that reduces public funding for abortion while not eliminating funds. The act is to reduce harmful effects that would otherwise go undiminished. See Evangelium Vitae §73. See also Humanae Vitae §14: “In truth, if it is sometimes licit to tolerate a lesser evil in order to avoid a greater evil or to promote a greater good, it is not licit, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil so that good may follow therefrom; that is, to make into the object of a positive act of the will something which is intrinsically disordered, and hence unworthy of the human person, even when the intention is to safeguard or promote individual, family or social well-being.” Contraception outside Marriage 137 to fornicate without contraceptive protection, or to fornicate with some protection? Does the use of a contraceptive device in fornication introduce into the sexual act a further violation of the moral order? Or does this choice necessarily resist any universal prohibition? For those who would see no wrong in contraceptive use for non-marital relations, the inherent wrongdoing of sexual union outside marriage can be reduced by insuring that the act is non-procreative. The context of non-marital sexual relations makes procreation a consequence that ought to be avoided because of the harm likely to the child born out of wedlock. It is therefore a lesser evil to engage in non-marital relations in which infertility is deliberately induced than to engage in the same relations without this guarantee. The context of fornication or adultery, in other words, is a circumstance that removes the moral disorder from contraception or at least neutralizes it as a moral choice. Contraception in this case is simply subsumed into the immorality of the non-marital sexual relations and thus joins the act as another variation on the sin of fornication or adultery—albeit a sin now less evil than it might be otherwise.23 An Understanding of Distinct Evils in a Single Act Something rings wrong, and sounds a false note, in such an analysis. One might turn to a different understanding on the manner in which circumstances affect the morality of an action. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that an action evil in itself can have an additional deformity within it due to circumstances. Two distinct evils then reside within the one action. In one sense Aquinas will view this dual aspect of evil as a combination of distinct 23 See, for example, Janet Smith on “condomized fornication”: “As sources of phys- ical evil, perhaps both mutual masturbation and condomized fornication are less evil than simple fornication since both have less risk of resulting in pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases. Thus, which is worse: engaging in an act that is defective as a human act (an act of condomized fornication) or an act that potentially does significant harm (an act of noncondomized fornication by the fertile or those having an STD)? Perhaps condomized fornication is a lesser moral evil, but it is still clearly a moral evil.” “The Morality of Condom Use by HIV-Infected Spouses,” 67. While acknowledging that fornication in this case remains “still clearly a moral evil,” her comments suggest that the choice of contraception in an act of fornication, by making the act of fornication now a lesser evil than it would be without contraceptive intervention, is not a distinct evil in itself. Is this not to neutralize contraception as a moral choice in this case? While the choice to contracept admittedly introduces an element of prudential concern that would otherwise not be present, an exclusive consideration of the intent to prevent pregnancy may fail to confront the deeper implications of this choice and its actual harm. 138 Donald Haggerty vices within one action. Thus adultery is a sin of lust and injustice.24 In a different manner he will distinguish separate and distinct moral species within the one action. The action of stealing, for example, becomes also an act of sacrilege when the thief is a Catholic and the stolen object is a chalice used for the consecration of the Blood of Christ in Mass.25 In the latter case, the action takes place all at once as a single action, but it includes simultaneously two distinct species of evil within the same action. Both are willed, even though the thief in this case may not advert so consciously to the sacrilege he is committing.26 In a similar manner, sexual intercourse with a consecrated virgin is not only a species of lust, but a species of irreligion within the sin of lust, namely, of sacrilege. Even more to the point, Aquinas affirms in the next article of the Summa theologiae that unnatural vice, that is, venereal pleasure sought in a manner that violates the natural manner of copulation or that by lustful motive “intends not human generation,” is once again a distinct species of lust, by which he means a species of sin that poses an additional deformity to the sin simply of lust.27 This last interpretation would seem to be 24 “Nothing hinders the deformities of different vices concurring in the one act, and in this way adultery is comprised under lust and injustice.” ST II–II, q. 154, a. 1 ad 2. See also ST II–II, q. 154, a. 6 ad 3: “Nothing prevents a sin from having a greater deformity through being united to another sin. Now the sin of lust obtains a greater deformity from the sin of injustice, because the concupiscence would seem to be more inordinate, seeing that it refrains not from the pleasurable object so that it may avoid an injustice.” 25 “If a circumstance should constitute another, disparate species of sin, then the same act is included in different species of sin. . . . Therefore, as it is not inappropriate that the same material substance be sweet and white, which are different species of quality, and that the same human being be blind and deaf, which are specifically different deficiencies, so it is not inappropriate that the same act belong to different species of sin.” De malo, q. 2, a. 6 ad 3. See also ST I–II, q. 18 a. 10. 26 “Although the will of the thief is chiefly directed to the gold, not to the sacred object, the thief ’s will is still directed to the sacred object by implication, since the thief prefers to steal the sacred object than to lack the gold.” De malo, q. 2, a. 6 ad 6. 27 ST II–II, q. 154, a. 11 and q. 154, a. 11 ad 3. The references to unnatural vice in this article do not pertain explicitly to the use of contraception. But one can read this article in tandem with ST II–II, q. 154, a. 1, where Aquinas identifies six species of lust, including, lastly, unnatural vice. In the body of this first article, Aquinas describes the sin of lust as the seeking of venereal pleasure in a manner not in accord with right reason. But this sin can include the additional deformity of being “inconsistent with the end of the venereal act,” namely, by “hindering the begetting of children.” It is a venereal act which excludes the generation of children. In that case there is “the sin against nature, which attaches to every venereal act from which generation cannot follow.” The examples in article 11 identify acts of sexual perversity which cannot lead to generation. But the same Contraception outside Marriage 139 the proper moral analysis when one is looking at two distinct choices such as the current example of contraceptive use in non-marital relations. To choose contraception when committing a sin of fornication or adultery is to add a specific deformity to the act that otherwise would not be present. Two species of deformity are then present, inasmuch as a deliberate choice is made to obstruct a generative act while committing fornication or adultery. The choice to impede procreation is an additional element of wrongdoing accentuating the evil in the act.28 Nonetheless one must still clarify in what way a distinct additional evil is added to the sexual impropriety when contraceptive use takes place in non-marital relations. For in a certain sense, as some moralists have suggested,29 St. Thomas Aquinas seems to offer an argument against this view of a distinct intrinsic evil in contraceptive use outside marriage. The problem is St. Thomas’s analysis of the evil in fornication. Aquinas contended that the primary evil in fornication was the injustice to the offspring that can result from non-marital relations. The child born out of wedlock is ordinarily deprived of proper parental care. “Simple fornication is contrary to the love of our neighbor, because it is opposed to the good of the child to be born, as we have shown, since it is an act of generation accomplished in a manner disadvantageous to the future child.”30 What, then, if measures are taken to insure that no child is conceived in the sexual act? In that case, is there no sin in fornication? And what of fornication principle would apply if a positive act to thwart generation takes place in copulation between a man and woman. This latter is an act not unnatural by reason of a perverse expression of pleasure-seeking, but unnatural because a deliberate choice is made to hinder the begetting of children. 28 See the trenchant comment of William B. Smith on the distinct evils in this choice: “Thus, contraceptive fornication is not a so-called ‘lesser evil’, it is rather a different evil, or different evils. They are distinct acts of choice, separate and separable, both of which are intrinsically evil (VS, no. 47). Intrinsic evils are not ‘lessened’ or ‘improved’ morally by adding on another intrinsic evil as it if were some kind reverse compound interest.” “Contraceptive Fornication,” in Modern Moral Problems, 146–47. 29 “Ironically, an approach to sexuality exclusively in terms of procreation could logically lead to interesting consequences.Thomas Aquinas saw the generic grave malice of fornication in the harm done to the child who might be born of that union. The use of contraception would destroy the primary argument of St. Thomas asserting the generic malice of fornication!” Charles Curran, “Sexuality and Sin: A Current Appraisal,” in Readings in Moral Theology, No. 8, 414. One might add that the exclamation mark of Fr. Curran is fitting for the simplicity of overstatement in this remark. 30 ST II–II, q. 154, a. 2 ad 4. “Now simple fornication implies an inordinateness that tends to injure the life of the offspring to be born of this union.” ST II–II, q. 154, a. 2. See q. 154, a. 3 and q. 154, a. 3 ad 3. 140 Donald Haggerty when one party at least is sterile or past the child-bearing age? Is there no sin? Aquinas naturally does not draw such a conclusion.31 His statement above simply identifies the most egregious consequence of fornication as the potential harm to the child conceived in non-marital relations. Aquinas was quite clear in numerous places that sexual relations outside the marital covenant were always wrong. They involve a misuse of bodily organs that in God’s design are to be used solely for a sexual function within the sacred union of marriage.32 But still we hear the echo of an objection as a result of Aquinas’s view. If the child conceived in fornication or adultery can be subject to harm, is it not a better option to prevent this possibility by a deliberate action? Does not the addition of an anti-procreative intent introduce into this act a more rational semblance of responsibility beyond simply a pursuit of bodily pleasure? The question misses the point of Aquinas’s denunciation of fornication as evil. He mentions the harm possible to a child born out of wedlock in order to expose a further aspect of wrongdoing that ensues from fornication; the harm to the child is an additional consequence of an already evil act, just as many evil acts display additional harmful effects. His point was to expose the full extent of wrongdoing in fornication by adverting to all the attendant consequences that may follow from the act. The rebuttal that fornication or adultery protected by contraceptive use must be a better option rests on a false inference. It may be a common sense declaration that one should not procreate if not married, but this maxim cannot stand alone. It does not follow that if one is not married some form of implicit obligation exists to employ a means of contraception in a sexual relationship. The proper imperative is that one ought not to engage in sexual relations with someone to whom one is not married. 31 Aquinas’s explicit answer to this question, like his response in ST II–II, q. 154, a. 11, is given while identifying the “unnatural sin” in sexuality as an act in which generation cannot occur due to the perverse nature of the act or, implicitly, to some positive act to thwart generation. The mere incapacity of one party, however, for an act of generation does not make this act an unnatural use of sexuality. “Every emission of semen, in such a way that generation cannot follow, is contrary to the good for man. And if this be done deliberately, it must be a sin. Now, I am speaking of a way from which, in itself, generation cannot result: such would be any emission of semen apart from the natural union of male and female. For which reason, sins of this type are called contrary to nature. But, if by accident generation cannot result from the emission of semen, then this is not a reason for it being against nature, or a sin; as for instance, if the woman happens to be sterile.” Summa contra Gentiles, Lib. III, c. 122. 32 See ST II–II, q. 154, a. 1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 11; De malo, q. 15, a. 3; Summa contra Gentiles, Lib. III, c. 122. Contraception outside Marriage 141 The More Harmful Consequences? A final question still needs to be addressed. If a sexual relationship between unmarried persons is already decided upon, what then? To remain open to procreation in a non-marital sexual act is to invite a serious risk—a pregnancy out of wedlock and possibly an unwanted child. But is it proper to call this consequence a potential evil? That a child is conceived? The consequence of non-contraceptive use in non-marital relations may indeed be a pregnancy. But it is certainly improper and offensive to refer to the child conceived as an evil ensuing from the act. The conception of a child would not bring to this act of fornication or adultery an additional evil. The contention of those favoring the view of contraceptive fornication or adultery as a “lesser evil” is, of course, not that the child conceived is an evil consequence of the act. It is simply that a child conceived out of wedlock is likely to undergo deprivation, and a couple should avoid the risk of this potential evil. The harmful consequence is the likelihood that a child suffers to some extent in its upbringing from a conception out of wedlock. This contention may be true in principle. But it ignores the possibility of more harmful consequences incurred by contraceptive use in non-marital relations. The assertion that the use of contraception in non-marital relations is to opt for the “lesser evil” assumes the diminishment of potential harm that can ensue from the act if a child is conceived. But this assertion refuses to confront further aspects of harm likely to occur from the repeated choice to engage in sexual relations with an anti-life and selfish intent. What is considered a choice for a “lesser evil” may be accompanied by other more pernicious effects. Contraception as an ongoing choice can have its own harmful psychic and moral consequences; they are arguably graver in magnitude than the risk of bearing a child out of wedlock.These effects, while often unacknowledged, leave their moral and spiritual scars. They can be considered additional deleterious consequences of the distinct sin of contraception adjoined to non-marital relations.33 One effect is simply contraception’s encouragement of indifference to the immorality of non-marital relations. Those who argue for the moral neutrality of contraceptive use in non-marital relations tend to reduce the question to a matter of a single instance of fornication or adultery. The advantage of preventing a pregnancy in the particular act is the exclusive focus. But of course sexual relations tend to be multiple in act over a period of time. Does one have such firm assurance that other forms of 33 On the moral import of harmful consequences ensuing from an action, whether they are acknowledged consciously or not, see ST I–II, q. 20, a. 5 and q. 73, a. 8. 142 Donald Haggerty harm will not occur in the course of time precisely by the repeated choice of contraception? Indeed clear harm does take place. For one thing, the use of contraception is likely to facilitate a certain insouciance toward the moral seriousness of the sexual relations currently indulged and allow them to continue without reflection. For some decades now, the ease with which, because of contraceptive availability, sexual relations can be enjoyed without commitment has surely been a cause for widespread promiscuity and the high incidence of divorce. The availability of contraceptive protection clearly plays a part in making sexual seduction a temptation harder to resist. When contraceptive means and devices were not so common and acceptable, the risk of pregnancy contributed to a more cautious approach to sexuality prior to the commitment of marriage. One might add as well that sexually aberrant practices have increased with the growing use of contraception. Disrespect for the bodily capacity for procreation has been attended by perverse misuse of the body’s capacity for enjoyment, treating the body as an object of manipulation for the pursuit of unrestrained, unlimited pleasures.34 Another matter of potential harm presents itself. No contraceptive use is a guarantee against future carelessness, nor is it a protection against some technical failure. The continuing engagement in sexual relations is likely to enhance the chances of some eventual mistake. It can be shocking at first to confront the decades-long statistical evidence that more prevalent contraceptive use has invariably increased the number of abortions in societies.35 One would expect the reverse, since the protection 34 Pope Paul VI, in Humanae Vitae §17, famously adverted to the pernicious effects that more widespread use of contraception would bring to societies. “Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. . . . It is also to be feared that man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.” 35 Noonan, in Contraception, 518–20, provides ample evidence of the statistical link between the dissemination of contraceptive means in European societies and Japan in the 1950s and the increase in the numbers of legal abortions. In the end he denies that one can conclude “that a contraceptive mentality led to abortion on a mass scale” [at 520]. But the numbers certainly belie his reservations. The nexus between contraceptive use and recourse to abortion remains to this day a tragic phenomenon. See also Janet Smith’s comment: “Studies show that over 80 percent of young women who have had abortions are contraceptively experienced. . . . Contraception outside Marriage 143 against pregnancy is precisely the reason for the contraceptive use. But on second thought this link between contraceptive use and recourse to abortion should not be surprising. A contralife intent is unavoidable in any contraceptive choice.36 In those who use contraception for extended periods of time, it seems to encourage a subtle hostility to pregnancy, an unacknowledged animus to the child as a threat to one’s autonomy and personal life. As a preliminary attitude this makes the option for abortion an easier choice if a conception takes place. Even without the danger of an abortive impulse in the case of an unexpected conception, there is a longstanding selfishness toward the procreative capacity that occurs with contraception. In those who eventually do Most abortions are the result of unwanted pregnancies, most unwanted pregnancies are the result of sexual relationships outside of marriage, and most sexual relationships outside of marriage are facilitated by the availability of contraception. To turn this ‘progression’ around: contraception leads to more extra-marital sexual intercourse; more extra-marital sexual intercourse leads to more unwanted pregnancies; more unwanted pregnancies lead to more abortions. Not many women intend to use abortion as a ‘back-up’ to failed contraception, but it is undeniable that it is often so used.” “Paul VI as Prophet,” in Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader, ed. Janet Smith (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1993), 522–23. See also the comments of Chrisopher Tietze, referred to by Brian Clowes in The Facts of Life: An Authoritative Guide to Life and Family Issues (Front Royal,VA: Human Life International, 2001), at 58, as “one of the world’s most experienced abortion statisticians”: “A high correlation between abortion experience and contraception experience can be expected in populations to which both contraception and abortion are available . . . women who have practiced contraception are more likely to have had abortions than those who have not practiced contraception, and women who have had abortions are more likely to have been contraceptors than women without a history of abortion.” Christopher Tietze, “Abortion and Contraception,” in Abortion: Readings and Research (Toronto: Butterworth & Co., 1981), 54 and 60. Note, finally, the statement from Evangelium Vitae §13: “The negative values inherent in the ‘contraceptive mentality’ . . . are such that they in fact strengthen this temptation [to abortion] when an unwanted life is conceived. Indeed, the proabortion culture is especially strong precisely where the Church’s teaching on contraception is rejected.” 36 Grisez, in The Way of the Lord Jesus, Vol. 2, Living a Christian Life, 506–19, identifies the intrinsic evil of all contraceptive use in a contralife intent. For Grisez the contralife intent is constitutive within this choice and is the reason in itself for the sinfulness of the contraceptive choice in all contexts, marital or non-marital. “[C]onsidered as a moral act, each and every contraceptive act necessarily is contralife. Moreover, in and of itself, a contraceptive act is nothing but contralife. For, being distinct from any sexual act that occasions it, a contraceptive act cannot be considered part of that sexual act, even if the outward behaviors involved in the two acts are closely associated. Contraception is related to sexual acts only instrumentally, inasmuch as it lessens the likelihood of pregnancy” (509–10). 144 Donald Haggerty have children in marriage after long use of contraception in non-marital relations, the result is often a possessive relationship toward one’s child akin to the attitude one ordinarily has toward an object of ownership. The manipulative control exercised previously in the realm of procreative capacity may continue in a certain manner, making a child subordinate to one’s own need. There can be great care, for example, not to allow a child to interfere with one’s career and material enjoyments. In part, these responses are acquired from a contraceptive culture that has transformed the notion of sacrifice into a self-referential term, useful largely for the benefits it can bring to one’s own life. In that sense a contraceptive civilization is not just excessive in the pursuit of materialistic comforts. It is destructive of a primary demand for natural and supernatural happiness. Sacrifice for another, self-donation for another, becomes feared as a threat to personal contentment and well-being. Conclusion The Catholic prohibition of contraception in all circumstances as an intrinsic violation of natural law remains a formidable teaching with a long history. But it is arguably the harmful consequences of contraceptive use that most clearly expose today its essential evil as a choice in nonmarital relations. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches clearly that when evil consequences are foreseen to result from an action, they increase the malice of the act. “For when a man foresees that many evils may follow from his action, and yet does not therefore desist therefrom, this shows his will to be all the more inordinate.”37 The argument that harmful moral consequences must factor into the evaluation of contraceptive use in non-marital relations ought not to raise the specter of consequentialism. The attention to consequences in this case is not to make them the exclusive determinant of the immorality of the act.The choice to contracept in non-marital relations is already linked to an intrinsically sinful action of fornication or adultery. As a distinct choice in itself, moreover, contraception in non-marital relations is likewise, in the view of moralists like Germain Grisez and William Smith, an intrinsically evil act by reason of its necessarily contra-life and selfish intent as a moral choice. The legitimate consideration of harmful consequences in this case is rather to cast a sharper light on attendant evils in the contraceptive choice accompanying non-marital relations. These evils, even as potential effects, directly counter the facile assumption of the contraceptive choice in this case being a choice for a “lesser evil.” It is the argument here that 37 ST I–II, q. 20, a. 5. Contraception outside Marriage 145 contraceptive use in non-marital relations produces an act of greater and not lesser evil precisely because the consequences of this choice, while often identified only in view of the avoidance of a pregnancy, are quite evident and foreseeable as evil effects. Indeed, the deleterious effects of the contraceptive mentality are sufficiently evident. What in contraceptive use may seem at first sight a prudential limitation of risk has facilitated over the longer term a general degrading of sexuality in human persons. Sexual immorality is now both epidemic and largely accepted, and of course contraception has had a long partnership in this. The appeal of efficiency in impeding conception has proven an irresistible invitation to the more casual pursuit of sex for pleasure. The clamor for a right to abortion is likewise linked to contraceptive use. The expectation of a right of control over childbearing is customarily learned first by contraceptive use. Moreover, the most common means of contraception, the pill, is sometimes abortifacient in its operation. Those, on the other hand, who perceive a lesser evil in fornication or adultery when contraception is employed argue in effect that the sole criterion for judgment concerns the avoidance of an unwanted pregnancy in this case, which circumstance allows one to view contraceptive fornication or adultery as a sinful act but not as sinful as the act without contraceptive use. It is easier, perhaps, to persuade from the pragmatic advantage; the concrete gain of protected sexual relations seems to be immediately evident. Nonetheless the moral harm done by longer term contraceptive use in non-marital relations precludes any designation of this choice as a “lesser evil.” Contraceptive use is essentially an unnatural act, both as a manipulation of bodily integrity and as a violation of the sacred bond inherent in the use of sexuality. By intensifying the reduction of sexual expression between a man and a woman to a more complete lie, to a more complete spiritual deception, for the sake of personal pleasure, contraceptive use outside marriage has surely contributed to the widespread moral decline of recent decades. It is wrong, then, and shortsighted, to downplay or even dismiss the use of contraception in non-marital sexual relations as morally without significance. The use of contraception in non-marital relations is an essential part of the problem, as it were, an inseparable component in the current day, by which sexuality and the act of procreation have been progressively diminished in their sacredness. There should be no surprise that marriage, in turn, continues to suffer as an institution from a loss of confidence. N&V Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 147–62 147 A Catholic Perspective on the Mission of Israel ROCH K ERESZTY, O.C IST. University of Dallas Dallas, TX I N THE second volume of his trilogy Jesus of Nazareth, Joseph Ratzinger, writing not as pope but as a theologian, makes the rather startling statement that in the present time, until the fullness of the Gentiles enters the Church, “Israel retains its mission,” and that “Israel is in the hands of God who will save it as ‘a whole’ at a proper time when the number of the Gentiles is complete.”1 Ratzinger bases his statement on the Pauline view of the history of salvation as sketched out in Romans 9–11. What is new in his position is the positive affirmation, only implicit in Paul, that during the time of the Gentiles “Israel retains its mission.” In the context of Ratzinger’s theology of history, this cannot mean two parallel covenants, as if Israel had a special way of salvation apart from Christ. Ratzinger has always maintained the universal salvific role of Christ for all human beings. There is only one covenant, he stated in an earlier work,2 but it has several stages in history, each directed toward Christ, fulfilled in him and made effective by him. The Mosaic Covenant, then, was and is salvific for the Jews in good faith who express their trust in God’s promise of redemption by their obedience to the Mosaic Law. To clarify the topic of my essay, I start with a quote from that earlier book by Ratzinger, which explains his statement on the interim mission of Israel: 1 Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Part II, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 44, 46. Ratzinger does not imply here that individual conversions from Judaism are to be discouraged. In his writings he emphasizes the Church’s universal mandate of evangelization. 2 See Ratzinger, Many Religions, One Covenant (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999). Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. 148 [T]he question of Israel’s mission has always been present in the background [of Catholic theology].We realize today with horror how many misunderstandings with grave consequences have weighed down our history. Yet a new reflection can acknowledge that the beginnings of a correct understanding have always been there, waiting to be discovered, however deep the shadows.3 In the first part of my article I plan to explore some of the “deep shadows” as well as the “beginnings of a correct understanding” in the past two millennia. In the second part I propose a tentative and partial outline of a reflection on “what waits to be discovered” regarding the mission of Israel.4 History of the Catholic View on Israel’s Mission The New Testament For those familiar with St. Paul’s presentation of Israel’s role in God’s plan of salvation, Ratzinger’s position may not be too surprising. In Romans 9–11, Paul outlines the complex relationship between Israel and the Church, as well as Israel’s past, present and future in the light of his christocentric view of history. Even though “a hardening has come upon Israel in part” on account of their unbelief, this will last only “until the full number of the Gentiles comes in, and thus all Israel will be saved” (11:25–26). In the meantime, Israel is both an enemy of the Christians with respect to the Gospel and “beloved” by God “because of the patriarchs” (11:28). The Israel of the Old Testament is the “noble olive tree” and the Gentile Christians are the “wild olive shoots” who are grafted onto it, nourished by the rich sap of the root which supports them (11:17–24). Even the branches that were broken off on account of their unbelief may be grafted on again if they do not remain in unbelief (11:20, 23). Paul seals his affirmation of God’s enduring love for Israel by stating that “the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (11:29). Paul is not alone in the New Testament in showing forth the enduring importance and final “acceptance” and salvation of “all Israel” (Rom 11:15, 26).5 The four Gospels affirm or at least imply, each in its own way, the enduring presence of Israel and its salvation at the end of history. 3 Ibid., 44. 4 In this essay I use the term “Israel” in the sense of religious Jews, faithful to the First Covenant, rather than the state of Israel. I also talk about “Catholic” rather than “Christian” attitudes toward Israel since in Protestant Christianity there exists a widely divergent range of views on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. 5 It is not clear what “acceptance” ( proslem̃psis) means in the text: acceptance into the Kingdom of God, into the Church, or Israel’s acceptance of the Gospel? The Mission of Israel 149 Matthew, written for Jewish Christians, draws a stark picture of Israel’s unbelieving elite by presenting the parable of the wicked tenants of the vineyard and denouncing the sins of the scribes and Pharisees in a passionate discourse on the terrible judgment awaiting them and the Temple. Yet after his sevenfold woe of condemnation, he finishes his address by announcing, “I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Mt 23:39). In Matthew, unlike in Luke, this prophecy cannot refer to his triumphant entry into Jerusalem (21:9), since he has already entered the city. Being placed before the eschatological discourse, it must mean his coming at the end of this age. Moreover, the angel’s message to Joseph before the birth of Jesus, “[Y]ou are to name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins” (1:20), is a divine promise that must ultimately be fulfilled. God’s design to save Israel is irrevocable. In fact, his saving plan for Israel is revealed paradoxically by the shouting of the “whole people” before Pilate: “His blood is on us and on our children” (Mt 27:25). The bloodthirsty crowd, of course, is unaware that the blood of Jesus cries out not for vengeance but for mercy and forgiveness. The saving power of his blood had been already manifested by Jesus to the disciples at the Last Supper, when he pronounced the words over the chalice: “For this is my blood of the covenant which is to be poured out for many unto the remission of sins” (26:28). In the “for many,” all humankind is included and yet, before the Gentiles, Jesus’ saving blood is offered to, and falls upon, Israel.6 As seen above, Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel predicts that Jerusalem will accept Jesus as her Messiah at the end. The evangelist, however, suggests even more: in harmony with the early kerygma, the evangelist sees in Jesus the embodiment of the final, eschatological Israel. This needs some explanation.The Servant in the four Songs of Isaiah points to an individual and also to the collective Israel (Is 49:3). The Son of Man in Daniel 7 also designates both an individual heavenly being who accedes to the throne of the Ancient of Days (7:13–14) and the “holy ones of the Most High” (7:18; 21–22), the collective Israel of the end times. This does not create any confusion in Hebrew thought, since those who represent the people, such as ancestors, kings and prophets, can naturally be identified with the 6 Paul also respects this “heilsgeschichtliche” priority which follows from God’s plan: “[The Gospel] is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: for Jew first, and then the Greek” (Rom 1:16).The same priority of Israel is expressed by Paul’s way of acting in Acts: he visits first the synagogue in every city and goes over to the Gentiles only after the Jews refuse to listen to him. 150 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. people; they embody, as it were, Israel in themselves. If, then, Jesus is the Servant who through his suffering has become the glorious Son of Man, he is not merely one of the Israelites but the new, eschatological Israel. Hence we can understand from a new perspective that, through being called back from Egypt (Hos 11:1 as interpreted by Mt 2:15), through his temptations, and also through his public ministry, Jesus re-lives the historic experience of Israel. This identification of Jesus with Israel is already prepared in the ancient kerygma, quoted by Paul in 1 Cor 15: 3–7. In this perspective, far from being contrived, the application of Hos 6:1–3 to the resurrection of Jesus on the third day (v. 4) sheds light on the mysterious link between the destiny of Israel and that of Jesus: God becomes man as the eschatological Israel and the resurrection of Christ is the resurrection of Israel of which the prophet Hosea spoke.7 Even though addressed to a Hellenistic audience, the first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel represent a traditional Jewish perspective: Mary’s son will sit on the throne of his father David and rule in the house of Jacob forever (1:32–33).8 Only the prophecy of Simeon opens up a universal perspective. The child is destined to be revealed to the Gentiles, but he remains the glory of God’s people, Israel (2:32). Although by the end of Luke-Acts the center of the Church is transferred from Jerusalem to Rome (after the persecutions in Jerusalem caused Peter’s departure and Paul’s imprisonment), the divine promise, delivered by Gabriel and through Simeon’s prophecy, was never revoked. In fact, when the apostles ask Jesus before his Ascension, “Lord, is it at this time that you are going to restore the kingship to Israel?” Jesus does not reprimand them for this narrow nationalistic perspective but simply refuses to reveal the time of this apokatastasis (restoration): “It is not for you to know the time or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority” (Acts 1:6–7). Thus not even the universalistic Jesus of Luke excludes the kingship of Israel from the end stage of salvation history. The Fourth Gospel has long been accused of an anti-Jewish tendency, as it frequently equates the enemies of Jesus with the “Jews.”The frequent identification is indeed a fact, and it reflects the situation around the end of the first century when Christians were everywhere excommunicated from the synagogues, and Christianity was treated as a dangerous heresy. Nevertheless, the Gospel of John, like all the New Testament documents 7 C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Substructure of New Testament Theology (New York: Fontana Books, 1965), 103, and Roch Kereszty, Jesus Christ:The Fundamentals of Christology, new ed. (Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 2002), 157–58. 8 Marcion was so disturbed by the Jewish character of the infancy narratives that he cut out the first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel. The Mission of Israel 151 (and even more forcefully than some of them), insists that all that Jesus did and suffered fulfills the Scriptures and festivities of Israel: Abraham rejoiced when he saw his day, Moses wrote about him, and Isaiah saw his glory. His last word on the cross, tetelestai, “it has been completed” or “achieved,” means in context that he fulfilled, not only the will of his Father, but also the Scriptures.9 Even though the Jews are often characterized as enemies, Jesus expresses the greatest praise for a Jew that is found in all the four Gospels, by calling Nathanael “the true Israelite in whom there is no guile” (1:17). Moreover, Jesus counts himself among the Jews when he tells the Samaritan woman, “You worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand,” and he gives the cause for this knowledge by saying what no other Gospel does, “because salvation is from the Jews” (4:22). A most surprising but often overlooked feature of this Gospel concerns the kingship of Jesus. At a superficial glance, it appears that Jesus’ kingdom is completely different from the Davidic kingship because it is not of this world. In fact, Jesus is not, anywhere in John, labeled “son of David,” nor is his kingdom that of David.Yet the evangelist uses the device of inclusion to emphasize that Jesus, as the Son of God and the Son of Man, is the messianic king of Israel. The exclamation of Nathanael, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel” is echoed and intensified by the shouts of a “big crowd” which greets Jesus when he solemnly enters Jerusalem as the king prophesied by Zechariah: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel” ( Jn 1:49; Zec 12:13–14). Of course, Nathanael and the crowd do not understand the nature of Jesus’ kingship, which is gradually revealed in Jesus’ trial, Passion, and Resurrection. The hearing before Pilate centers on the question “Are you the king of the Jews?” Aware that Jesus has no political ambition, Pilate and the soldiers nonetheless mock the kingly claim of Jesus, not only when they dress him in a purple cloak and place a crown of thorns on his head, something which is also described in the Synoptics, but also when Pilate seats Jesus on Pilate’s own bench of judgment and declares, “Behold your king!”10 The title fixed above his head on the cross and written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek reads: “Jesus the Nazorean, the king of the Jews.” When the chief priests protest the wording, Pilate remains firm: “What I have written, I have written” (19:19–22). This presentation is a fascinating example of what the exegetes call “Johannine irony.” On the level of what this world can understand, Jesus 9 Recall John 19:28, which interprets the last cry: “after this Jesus, aware that all has been fulfilled (tetelestai ), so that the Scripture may be fulfilled (teleiothe), he said: ‘I thirst.’ ” 10 The Jerusalem Bible and the New American Bible translate ekathisen as transitive. 152 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. is seated on Pilate’s bench and enthroned upon the cross out of mockery. Those who contemplate the scene with the eyes of faith, however, know that, unaware and unwilling, Pilate and the soldiers are carrying out God’s design: Jesus is truly enthroned on the cross as the King of Israel. At the same time, the inscription in the three languages, which from a contemporary Jewish viewpoint encompassed the entire world, proclaims to all peoples the universal kingship of Jesus. But he is made universal king as king of Israel. Having fulfilled God’s will to the end, Jesus is enthroned on the cross to rule over all creation. In a similar way as in Matthew’s perspective, the universal king of Israel embodies in himself the eschatological Israel; he is the mysterious Son of Man in Daniel who represents “the saints of the most high.” Thus also in the Gospel of John, the mission of Israel is fulfilled in Jesus the Messianic King, the Son of Man, to whom is given “dominion, glory, and kingship; nations and peoples of every language serve him” (Dn 7:14, 18). Regarding the New Testament’s appraisal of Israel, we may conclude that her mission culminates in Jesus. The unbelief of the “official” Israel is experienced as a “great sorrow and constant anguish” (Rom 9:2), yet none of its writings considers her unbelief definitive. Moreover, her survival to the end of times is not just one of many possible historical scenarios; it becomes, rather, a necessary part of God’s providential plan of mercy. In this sense, then, according to the New Testament Israel has a mission. God wills its existence so that after the fullness of the Gentiles enters the Church, all Israel may be saved. The History of the Church Most Jewish and Christian theologians hold to a one-sided negative appraisal of historic Christianity’s view on Israel’s mission. For example, a recent study by a Jesuit scholar quotes approvingly the phrase coined by the Jewish French historian Jules Isaac, who characterized Catholic teaching on Jews throughout the centuries as un enseignement du mépris (“a teaching of contempt”).11 Therefore, most historians regard the document Nostra Aetate of Vatican II and the subsequent actions and speeches of Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI as causes of a revolutionary turn in Jewish-Christian relations. While no one can deny the momentous change which occurred after the Council, the history of the relationship is far more complex than an unambiguously negative critique suggests.12 11 David Neuhaus, “Engaging the Jewish People. Forty Years since Nostra Aetate,” in Catholic Engagement with World Religions: A Comprehensive Study, ed. Karl J. Becker and Ilaria Morali (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2010), 395. 12 A notable exception to the wholesale negative appraisal is the book by David Dalin, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2001), which shows The Mission of Israel 153 Like the New Testament, later Catholic tradition has never ceased to consider the (temporary) unbelief and the existence and destiny of Israel intrinsic to the existence and destiny of the Church. For the Fathers of the Church, Israel is both the mother of Jesus and the mother of the Church. Many of them, however, like to add that she acted more like a cruel stepmother who persecuted her son, crowned her son with thorns and killed him.13 Yet as the mother of Jesus and of the Church, she belongs to their very mystery. When in the second century Marcion removed the Old Testament from his Bible, the Church removed Marcion from the body of the Church, and she continued to consider herself the legitimate heir of the Jewish Scriptures as an integral part of the inspired word of God without which the New Testament becomes incomprehensible. Whenever pogroms and persecutions threatened the survival of the Jewish people, the official Church, especially the popes, condemned them. According to Rabbi and Professor David Dalin, the only state that never in history expelled the Jews was the Papal States.14 Pope Gregory X officially states that he offers the Jews “the shield of his protection,” following, as he writes, “in the footsteps of our predecessors . . . Callixtus, Eugene, Alexander, Clement, Celestine, Innocent and Honorius.” Gregory also condemns those Christians “who falsely claim that Jews have secretly and furtively carried away [Christian] children and killed them.”15 St. Bernard of Clairvaux severely reprimands the monk Rudolph who incited a pogrom in the Rhine valley. If the Jews were exterminated, he says, where does that saying come in, “not for their destruction I pray” and “When the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in, then all Israel will be saved,” and “the Lord is rebuilding Jerusalem, calling the banished sons of Israel home?” Who is this man that he should make out the Prophet to be a liar and render void the treasures of Christ’s love and pity? This doctrine is not his own but his father’s. But I believe it is good enough for him, since he is like his father who was, we know, “from the first a murderer, a liar and the father of lies.” What horrid learning, what the popes’ consistent policy of protecting the Jews from persecution throughout the centuries. 13 See, for example, Petrus Chrysologus, Collectio sermonum, sermo 164: Cetedoc Library of Christian Latin Texts, 0227; Eusebius Gallicanus, Collectio Homiliarum 49: Cl 0966; Apponius, in Canticum Canticorum Expositio 5: Cl 0194. 14 The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, 18–19. 15 Letter of Gregory X, October 7, 1272. Even though the popes consistently defended the Jews from persecution, they did insist on discriminatory measures: the Jews had to live in a ghetto, wear special clothing, and were barred from public office and the military. They were free, however, to engage in trade, banking, and medicine. Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. 154 hellish wisdom is his! A learning and wisdom contrary to the prophets, hostile to the apostles, and subversive of piety and grace. It is a foul heresy, a sacrilegious prostitution “pregnant with malice . . .”16 Let us note: according to Bernard, it is Satan himself who instigated the monk to persecute the Jews. In Sermon 79 of his Sermones super Cantica Canticorum, Bernard explains the relationship between Synagogue and Church as root to branch, mother and daughter: The branches should not be ungrateful to the root, nor daughters to their mother. The branches should not envy the root since they have drawn (the sap) from the root, nor daughters be envious toward their mother since they sucked her breast. Bernard interprets the words of the bride in Songs 3:4 as the words of the Church Bride to her Bridegroom, Christ: “I have held on to him and will not let him go until I introduce him into my mother’s house and into the bedroom of the one who bore me.” Thus, according to Bernard, the Church Bride is not at all envious of her estranged mother, the synagogue, but wants to introduce her Bridegroom to her: How could this be that she yields her spouse, or rather desires her spouse for another? No, this is not the case. Indeed as a good daughter she desires Him for her mother but this is not the same as yielding Him to her, but rather to share Him. One (Groom) suffices for both; they, however, will no longer be two but one in Him. He is our peace who makes the two into one, so that there will be one bride and one Bridegroom who is Jesus Christ our Lord.17 Bernard here (and elsewhere) expresses in a new and passionate way a general patristic belief: Israel is the object of a special Providence and will 16 Letter 393 in The Letters of St. Bernard, trans. and ed. Bruno Scott James (Regn- ery: Chicago 1953), 466. 17 Bernard, Sermones super Cantica Canticorum, 79, 5–6. We also need to acknowledge that there has been much friendly contact between certain Christians and Jews throughout ancient and medieval history. Many popes had Jewish physicians as their personal doctors. St. Jerome learned Hebrew from Jewish rabbis, and in his Bible translation he consulted the Hebrew text of the books of the First Testament. In the Middle Ages, Blessed Stephen Harding, one of the founding abbots of the Cistercian Order, amended the Vulgate translation of his Bible by asking for the help of Jewish rabbis. St. Thomas studied and used the works of the great Jewish philosopher Maimonides. Thomas himself teaches that after all the pagans chosen for salvation have embraced the faith, all Jews in general (not every individual) will be saved (cf. Super Epistolam ad Romanos II.2). The Mission of Israel 155 exist until the end of history when all Israel will be saved. Moreover, Bernard advises Pope Eugene III about the inopportunity of trying to convert the Jews at this time: “For them a determined time has been fixed which cannot be anticipated.”18 On the other hand, the protection of the Jews by the Church hierarchy coexisted with Church support of repressive measures. For example, the Fourth Lateran Council ruled that Jews may not hold public office, must wear distinctive dress, and may not appear among Christians during the Easter holidays.19 Thus, according to Jewish scholar Robert Chazan, the official policy of the Catholic Church was “moderate toleration.”20 Three false beliefs have justified the Church’s approval and even promotion of unjust laws against the Jewish people. Throughout the centuries the Church has acted out of the conviction that the Jews are collectively responsible for the execution of Jesus, since the Jews of today are the descendants of those who condemned the Son of God and thus they share in their forefathers’ guilt. The second misunderstanding was the belief that the truth of Christianity is so evident to everybody that the Jews’ refusal to believe in Christ manifests their bad faith and, therefore, makes their rejection of him inexcusable. The third reason was fear: the pastors of souls were afraid that “Jewish error” might compromise the faith of their flock. In order to provide a more balanced picture of the relationship between Jews and the Catholic Church, we must mention the official declaration of the Church in the sixteenth century regarding Jewish guilt, found in the Roman catechism and composed after the Council of Trent: The guilt in us seems more enormous than in the Jews, since according to the testimony of the same Apostle, “If they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8); while we, on the contrary, professing to know him, yet denying him by our actions, seem in some sort to lay violent hands on him.21 In light of this history, Nostra Aetate of Vatican II and the words and actions of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI do not appear completely 18 Quoted from Bernard’s De Consideratione III 1, 2 in Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. II, 44. 19 Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, nos. 68, 69: Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner, vol. I, 266–67. 20 R. Chazan, “Christian-Jewish Interactions over the Ages,” in Christianity in Jewish Terms, ed. Tikva Frymer-Kensy et al. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000), 7–24. 21 Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests (New York: J. F. Wagner, 1923), 50–61; 362–65. Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. 156 unprepared by, or contrary to, the previous history of Catholic thought. Even though supersessionism, which claims the definitive rejection of Israel and its replacement by the Gentile Church of the New Covenant, had been the prevailing belief of Catholics at large, the Fathers and the best theologians of the Church as well as the popes have never succumbed to it. They could not do so, since they all read, and accepted the teachings of, the Letter to the Romans, which excludes such a position. In spite of the Jewish opposition to the Gospel, the official Church remained convinced on theological grounds that the Jews had to be preserved and protected against the violent outbursts of popular antiJudaism. If Israel were wiped out, God’s promise, made known through Jesus and Paul, would prove false. Moreover, if the Church were to participate in the destruction of Israel, she would be guilty of matricide, the murder of her own mother. We must admit that, before Benedict XVI’s writings on the subject, the awareness of the Church’s duty to preserve Israel did not include the explicit recognition of her mission. Her mission was implied, however, in the belief that the actual survival of Israel in spite of so many adversities bears witness to God’s absolute fidelity before the world. The Present and Future Mission of Israel from a Christian Perspective After the historical overview, we attempt to start a “new reflection” on what Benedict calls “the beginnings of a correct understanding” of the mission of Israel during the time of the Gentiles which “has always been there, waiting to be discovered.” According to David Novak, the renowned professor of Jewish studies at the University of Toronto, the most important contribution of Judaism to the world is the teaching on the natural moral law, which derives from what he calls a general revelation to all humankind.22 If both Jews and Christians proclaim together the principles and demands of the natural moral law, the secular world cannot ascribe this position to a particular religious belief, and it may more easily recognize the natural law as universally valid and inscribed in the very nature of humanity. I welcome this recommendation and note that a united witness in certain moral matters (such as the protection and promotion of the dignity and rights of persons, the struggle against any sort of discrimination, poverty, disease, and oppression) has already begun in some regions of the world. I believe, however, that in addition to proposing the natural moral law to all humankind, believing 22 See David Novak, The Natural Law in Judaism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). The Mission of Israel 157 Jews do have a much more specific mission in the world, which derives from their irrevocable election as the people of the First Covenant. This mission has been expressed with great depth in a short story by Franz Werfel, a famous German Jewish novelist.The story is based on real events. The following excerpt is taken from a scene set in an Austrian village where a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi have become good friends. One day the rabbi asks this question of his Catholic companion: “What would happen if one day all Jews in the world became Christians? Israel would disappear. But with Israel, the only real witness of God’s revelation would also disappear. In that case the Bible would no longer be documented by our own existence, it would become an empty and lifeless saga, just like the Greek myths are. Does the Church not see this danger? . . . Reverend Father, we belong to each other but we are not ONE . In the Letter to the Romans it is said that the Church is built on Israel. My conviction is that as long as the Church exists, so also will Israel. But if Israel has to fall, so must the Church, too.” “Why do you think this is true?” asked the priest. “On account of our sufferings that last up to this very day,” replied the rabbi. “Do you think that God allowed us for no reason to endure what we have endured and to survive what we have survived for two millenia?”23 Our Jewish readers, I trust, will not hold against us Catholics that we can only partly agree with this profound statement. We cannot be expected to give up our hope that at the end Israel will recognize her Messiah in Jesus of Nazareth. For us, a full agreement would be tantamount to our disregarding the love which animated the soul of Jesus, whose direct mission was to gather the lost sheep of Israel. Moreover, as a Catholic theologian, I believe that even after “all Israel” recognizes her Messiah in Jesus, Israel will not disappear within the Church but will always retain its special identity and mission within it, as the “noble olive tree” onto which the Gentile “branches” have been grafted. At the same time, we can all recognize the rabbi’s admirable insight into the inseparable connection between Israel and the Church: “As the Church exists, so will Israel. But if Israel has to fall, so must the Church, too.” Martin Buber expresses a similar awareness of mutual belonging to one another: “Only we two, the Church and Israel, know what Israel really means.”24 John Paul II also describes the intrinsic bond which unites the Church to Judaism: 23 F. Werfel, Die wahre Geschichte vom geschändeten und wiederhergestellten Kreuz (Berlin: Verlag Haude & Spener, 1965); my translation. 24 Die Stunde und die Erkenntnis: Reden und Aufsätze (Berlin: Schocken Verlag, 1936), 148. 158 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. [T]he Church of Christ discovers her “bond” with Judaism by “searching into her own mystery.” The Jewish religion is not “extrinsic” to us, but in a certain way is “intrinsic” to our own religion. With Judaism, therefore, we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers and, in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.25 Let us now examine the different aspects of our mutual belonging, in particular, the mission of Israel from a Catholic perspective. First, with Werfel’s rabbi we must acknowledge that Israel in its very existence witnesses to the reality of God. Not simply to the ultimate Cause of the cosmos and the ultimate foundation of morality, but to the living God of the Covenant who cares about us, speaks to us, freely binds himself to us by covenant. He chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in whose offspring the entire world will be blessed; in spite of the multiple infidelities of his people, he remains unshakable in his faithfulness. With the rabbi, we must also include the sufferings of Israel throughout history in this witness—in fact, consider them a sign of her election. As the rabbi said: “Do you think that God allowed us for no reason to endure what we have endured and to survive what we have survived for two millennia?” Pope Benedict confirmed this aspect of Israel’s mission at his visit to Auschwitz: The rulers of the Third Reich wanted to crush the entire Jewish people, to cancel it from the register of the peoples of the earth. Thus the words of the Psalm: “We are being killed, accounted as sheep for the slaughter” were fulfilled in a terrifying way. Deep down, those vicious criminals, by wiping out this people, wanted to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that are eternally valid. If this people, by its very existence, was a witness to the God who spoke to humanity and took us to himself, then that God finally had to die and power had to belong to man alone—to those men, who thought that by force they had made themselves masters of the world. By destroying Israel, by the Shoah, they ultimately wanted to tear up the taproot of the Christian faith and to replace it with a faith of their own invention: faith in the rule of man, the rule of the powerful.26 25 In the Pope’s original Italian: “Il primo è che la Chiesa di Cristo scopre il suo ‘legame’ con l’Ebraismo ‘scrutando il suo proprio mistero’. La religione ebraica non ci è ‘estrinseca’, ma in un certo qual modo, è ‘intrinseca’ alla nostra religione. Abbiamo quindi verso di essa dei rapporti che non abbiamo con nessun’altra religione. Siete i nostri fratelli prediletti e, in un certo modo, si potrebbe dire i nostri fratelli maggiori” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 78 [1986], 1120). 26 Address of Pope Benedict in Auschwitz Birkenau on May 28, 2006; available on the Vatican website. The Mission of Israel 159 Second, in this deeply emotional speech, Pope Benedict points not only to the vocation of Israel as the living witness of the living God but also to the patrimony of her faith as a taproot of our Christian faith. He has evoked this Pauline metaphor of Israel’s heritage as “taproot” many times and has shown concretely in his speeches and writings how Israel’s faith serves him personally to enrich and deepen his own insights. Pope Benedict begins his theological writings almost always with an explanation of what the First Testament (and, often, what Jewish tradition) says about his topic. In this way he shows the direction and consistency of God’s revelation, the gradual process by which God has educated his people and, through them, also the Church. But against our Jewish interlocutors, who often note that the sacred books are only a preparation in the eyes of Christians, most of these texts are considered by the Catholic Church to be essentially more than mere preparation. Through the First Testament we understand better not only the background and preparation for the realities of the New Testament but also their full meaning. For instance, Jon D. Levenson has gathered much convincing evidence that the entire Jewish sacrificial system, including the Passover Lamb, was understood in the Second Temple period as patterned and inspired by the akeda, the sacrifice (the binding) of Isaac by Abraham.27 This conclusion implicitly questions the theories of a number of Christian exegetes who claim that Jesus could not have understood his death as sacrifice and that this interpretation was developed only at a later stage of the New Testament. From Levenson’s book it becomes plausible to think that Jesus and his immediate disciples had at hand the conceptual tools to interpret his death as the fulfillment of all previous Jewish sacrifices. In addition to being a preparation, the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham helps us enter more deeply into the mystery of Jesus’ sacrifice. It reveals the depth of God the Father’s love for humankind: he did not let Abraham sacrifice his beloved Son, but he did allow the sacrifice of his own beloved Son. As the hymn of the Paschal Candle sings, “In order to redeem the slave, you handed over your Son.” We could continue the examples indefinitely to document the deepening of our faith by relating the New Testament fulfillment to the type in the Old. The type is not simply a stepping stone to be left behind once we come to know its fulfillment in Christ; rather, it continues always to shed light and provide a deeper understanding of the Christian mystery. This awareness is expressed in the liturgy by the proclamation of texts of the Old Testament 27 See Jon D. Levenson, The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transfor- mation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven, CT:Yale University Press, 1998). 160 Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. without which our understanding of our feasts and of the Eucharist would become flattened and distorted. Third, Israel’s faith also belongs to her mission before the end of history. On the level of the explicit, propositional content of that faith, a Christian must see it as incomplete.28 Yet if we consider not what scholastic theology calls fides quae but fides qua, namely the grace-bestowed act of faith by which we reach God himself, adhere to him and build our existence on him, beyond concepts and propositions, this aspect of faith depends ultimately on the strength and depth of our love for God. On this intuitive, we might say, mystical level, a Jew who loves God with all his heart, mind, and strength grasps the mystery of God more deeply and more fully even today during the “time of the Gentiles” than a Christian with a mediocre love but sophisticated theological knowledge could do.29 Gregory the Great and the medieval monastic tradition knew that amor ipse notitia est (“love itself is knowledge”), a knowledge based on God’s indwelling in the soul and the purity and depth of the love which flows from this indwelling. Fourth, regarding the existential application of the biblical texts to the life of the individual and community, Christians can learn much from our “older brothers.” In fact, every Christian must go through the “school” of the Old Testament. We need to experience the slavery to sin and our hopeless inability to break out of its imprisonment. In this way we learn to cry out to God and put all our hope in him. In this way also, we experience the miracle of Exodus: He will liberate us from our sins so that we may become part of his people, a “holy nation, a kingdom of God” (Ex 19:6). We need to go through some desert places in our lives and experience the providential care God exercises in keeping us alive materially and spiritu28 Our Jewish friends at times express regret and incomprehension about the fact that Christians consider their ( Jewish) faith incomplete in comparison to the fullness of their own. Even Buber thinks that we look at their Bible as a forecourt while for them this is the sanctuary itself. In fact, if we consider the conceptually formulated content of what we believe, he is right.We hold that the Catholic Christian faith is the fulfillment of the First Testament but still awaiting a final consummation. Obviously, this position is not inspired by arrogance but rather by the desire to remain faithful to Christ. 29 Thus, on the level of intuitive grasping, even the fides quae of the loving Jew may “fairly compete” with that of a Christian. Nevertheless, by acknowledging the value of this intuitive, love-inspired knowledge, we should not diminish the importance of knowing the propositional truths of the Catholic faith and the reception of the sacraments. The explicit knowledge of the Christian mysteries (such as God as Trinitarian communion, the Incarnation and Redemption, the mystery of the Eucharist) and the Christian sacramental practice have a built-in dynamism toward increasing our love for God and thus intensifying his presence in us. The Mission of Israel 161 ally; And we must also, like Israel, go through situations in which we become either materially or spiritually poor, so that we can learn how poverty can liberate us from the dangers of earthly riches to find our true riches in God. When we Christians see Jews live the Covenant of Sinai by fulfilling the Law with zest and joy, we discover in them the foretaste of the New Covenant in which God implants his Law into our hearts. Observant Jews, like observant Christians, may become pharisaic if they boast of their moral performance. But those who obey the Law in order to sanctify the divine Name and who consider their whole life a sacred worship provide a shining example for those Christians who like to complain even about the observance of some minimal obligations. They may venerate in these Jews the anticipated eschatological gift of the Holy Spirit.30 And finally, Catholics of course cannot agree with the Jewish denial of the Christological meaning of the entire First Testament.The Catholic position, namely that all of the Old Testament points to Christ and finds its full meaning in Christ is, according to Jewish scholars, arbitrary and untenable. Yet there are still many believing Jews for whom hope in the Messianic promises of the prophets remains an essential dimension of their lives.These Jews, whose faith has been nourished by the Jewish Bible, know that “the world to come” cannot result from the civilizational and moral efforts of humankind alone. They learned from the Holocaust that God calls for constant and maximum engagement from us in the battle against moral and physical evil, but they also know that the new heaven and new earth of which Isaiah dreamt can be only the final redemptive work of God. Our eschatological faith is strengthened by the presence of these Jews, who read with faith the prophetic texts of their Bible and thus share in the experience of the prophets; that is, in some real sense they also see and taste in the Spirit the eschatological reality, the salvation promised to Israel and the world.31 This partial unity in testifying to our converging eschatological expectation does confirm our mission but does not eliminate our division regarding the 30 Neighborly love as the sum total of the Law is not an exclusively Christian insight. In the Talmud R. Akiba declared: “This is the most fundamental principle enunciated in the Torah: ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself ’ ” (The Talmud: Selected Writings. Introduction by Ben Zion Bokser and Baruch M. Bokser [New York: Paulist Press, 1989], 28). 31 This renewed emphasis on the prophets would counter the tendency of rabbinic Judaism that focuses on the Torah. Yet, the secular eschatology of “enlightened Judaism” has been crushed by the experience of the Holocaust. There is a new openness even in Reform Judaism to hope in a transcendent “world to come,” an act of divine redemption. On traditional Jewish eschatology, see FrymerKensky et al., eds., Christianity in Jewish Terms, 269–75. Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. 162 person and role of Jesus Christ. Yet even in this fundamental opposition, Israel does Christians a great service. Our faith in the Incarnation is enriched by a new, concrete dimension as we discover that God has become not some generic human being but he has become man by becoming a Jew, in fact more than a Jew: Jesus of Nazareth is the Jew, the embodiment of the new eschatological Israel. This is so because he fulfills both the Suffering Servant prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah and the Son of Man vision of Daniel. And as we have seen in the historical part of this essay, these two figures represent both an individual and the eschatological Israel. In this way, paradoxically, we are united with believing Israel even in the sharpest difference between us: Jesus of Nazareth is our unbreakable bond with Israel. For us, too, Israel is a holy nation; once the fullness of the Gentiles32 enters the Church, the temporarily separate mission of Israel will come to an end, as she discovers in the face of Jesus her own deepest mystery, the face of the eternal Israel of God. N&V 32 We do not know what in God’s plan this “fullness of the Gentiles” means in rela- tion to world population. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 163–91 163 Servais-Théodore Pinckaers, O.P., and the Renewal of Sapiential Thomistic Theology PAUL M ORRISSEY University of Notre Dame Sydney, Australia I N RECENT times there has been a call for Catholic theology to find again its sapiential vision.1 In its latest document, Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles and Criteria, the International Theological Commission identifies a number of criteria for Catholic theology, the last of which considers the fact that theology is not only a science, but also a wisdom.2 In characterizing theology as a form of wisdom the Commission makes a number of points. First, wisdom is the study of the mystery of God; a study that seeks not to grasp or possess God but to be possessed by him.3 1 Some recent examples of theologians exploring various dimensions of sapiential theology include the following: Thomas Joseph White, O.P., “The Precarity of Wisdom: Modern Dominican Theology, Perspectivalism, and the Task of Reconstruction,” in Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, and the Moral Life: Essays in Honor of Romanus Cessario, O.P., ed. Reinhard Hütter and Matthew Levering (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 92–123; Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., “Wisdom as the Source of Unity for Theology,” in Wisdom and Holiness, Science and Scholarship: Essays in Honor of Matthew L. Lamb, ed. Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2007), 59–71; Reinhard Hütter, “Theological Faith Enlightening Sacred Theology: Renewing Theology by Recovering its Unity as Sacra doctrina,” The Thomist 74 (2010), 364–405; Gregory F. LaNave, “Why Holiness in Necessary for Theology: Some Thomistic Distinctions,” The Thomist 74 (2010): 437–59. 2 International Theological Commission (hereafter ITC), Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles and Criteria (2012), n. 86. For background and context of this document see Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P., Pour Lire le document “La théologie aujourd’hui: perspectives, principes et critères” (Paris : Cerf, 2012); both items are available on the Vatican website. 3 ITC, Theology Today, n. 99. A point elaborated in n. 97, “The object of theology is the living God, and the life of the theologian cannot fail to be affected by the 164 Paul Morrissey This leads to an understanding of theology that acknowledges the “wisdom tradition” as it spans the horizon from biblical revelation, eastern and western Christianity, and the wisdom of the saints.4 The Commission also stresses the vocation of the theologian and the importance of a pursuit of holiness and a life of prayer. Theologians have received a particular calling to service in the body of Christ. Called and gifted, they exist in a particular relationship to the body and all of its members. Living in ‘the communion of the Holy Spirit’ (2 Cor 13:13), they along with all their brothers and sisters should seek to conform their lives to the mystery of the Eucharist ‘from which the Church ever derives its life and on which it thrives’.5 The vocation of the theologian is characterized by a particular spirituality embodied by “a love of truth, a readiness for conversion of heart and mind, a striving for holiness, and a commitment to ecclesial communion and mission.”6 The International Theological Commission also sees sapiential theology as providing a unifying vision. Wisdom integrates and unifies the various sciences. “The human person is not satisfied by partial truths, but seeks to unify different pieces and areas of knowledge into an understanding of the final truth of all things and of human life itself.”7 Thus while the individual disciplines of human knowledge (and those that exist within theology itself) are essential, wisdom “strives to give a unified view of the whole of reality. It is, in effect, a knowledge in accordance with the highest, most universal and also most explanatory causes.”8 In summary then, when the Commission claims that one of the criteria of Catholic theology is sapientia, it is encouraging a theology that seeks God in a participatory way, is rooted in the wisdom tradition, seeks holiness, is not divorced from spirituality, and integrates and unites all knowledge.9 sustained effort to know the living God. The theologian cannot exclude his or her own life from the endeavour to understand all of reality with regard to God. Obedience to the truth purifies the soul (cf. 1Pet 1:22), and ‘the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy’ ( James 3:17).” 4 Ibid., n. 99. 5 Ibid., n. 94. 6 Ibid., n. 93. However, “This special feature of the theological enterprise by no means violates the scientific character of theology; on the contrary, it profoundly accords with the latter.” 7 Ibid., n. 86. 8 Ibid., n. 90. 9 This approach to theology can be married to Thomas Aquinas’s. See my “The Sapiential Dimension of Theology According to St.Thomas Aquinas,” New Blackfriars 93 (May 2012): 309–23. Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 165 In this article I will argue that Servais Pinckaers, the renowned Dominican moral theologian, is a model of this sapiential approach to theology. The argument will proceed as follows. First, I will briefly outline three reasons why sapiential theology declined in the Catholic tradition. Second, I will situate Servais Pinckaers within the renewal of Thomistic sapiential theology in the twentieth century, especially in line with the French Dominicans Marie-Dominique Chenu and Jean-Pierre Torrell. And finally, I will outline four key dimensions of sapiential theology that are found in the work of Pinckaers. The Decline of Sapiential Theology For a renewal to take place there needs to have been a decline. My focus here will be on the fragmentation of theology and especially the split between theology and spirituality that occurred after the Middle Ages. The account of this decline will, of necessity, be brief; it will have the aim of showing the context of the twentieth-century renewal in the Thomist sapiential tradition, of which, I argue, Servais Pinckaers forms a part.10 There are myriad reasons that could be given for the decline of the sapiential approach to theology. I will consider three: (1) the Enlightenment and the epistemological revolution that results in a divorce between faith and reason; (2) the rise of the universities, which resulted in theology becoming an academic discipline—a change from when its natural home was in the monastery; (3) the developments in later scholasticism, especially in the work of William of Ockham, that split apart much of the unity that had existed in theology up to that point. It must be stated that there is no one sole reason for the decline of sapiential theology, nor can these three reasons be considered the only ones. One of the principal explanations for the decline in sapiential theology can be situated in the epistemological developments of the Enlightenment.11 These developments resulted in a less holistic understanding of 10 Thus my purpose here is a limited one. What I am suggesting corresponds with Pinckaers’s own history of moral theology. I am passing over the contribution of the post–Thomas and Neo-Thomistic period. Michael Sherwin, in the area of moral theology, I think, very fairly sums up this contribution in his essay “The Four Challenges of Moral Theology,” Logos 6:1 (2003): 13–26. 11 John Paul II writes, regarding the Cartesian revolution in thought: “Abandoning the investigation of being, modern philosophical research has concentrated instead upon human knowing.” Fides et Ratio §5. For accounts of the rise of modernity see Michael Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven, CT:Yale University Press, 1987), and Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). For an overview of the Enlightenment, see Louis Dupré, The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern 166 Paul Morrissey truth where, especially since Bacon and Comte, truth is located only in verifiable facts.12 Therefore, if we are to know God, it can only be through a metaphysically assured reason, the verifiable. This divorce of faith and reason resulted in an empty God, a God who is necessary, as Kant says, only for the autonomous subject to have some sort of grounding as a moral agent.13 And as Paul Griffiths rather colorfully states, Enlightenment epistemology has had profound effects on theology tout court: In extreme cases these effects have included the abandonment of theology; and even in more moderate instances the result has been a Babylonian captivity in which theology has become a worshipper of alien epistemological gods and has been gagged and fettered by them so that she can only whisper where she ought declaim and hobble where she ought stride.14 Others, with some justification, argue that a sapiential approach to theology began to decline prior to St. Thomas with the rise of the Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). For the epistemological turn and its effects on Thomism, see Fergus Kerr, O.P., After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), 17–34. 12 This development’s effect on theological knowledge as sapiential is ably summed up by Ellen Charry: “Sapiential truth is unintelligible to the modern secularized construal of truth. Modern epistemology not only fragmented truth itself, privileging correct information over beauty and goodness, it relocated truth in facts and ideas. . . . Knowing the truth no longer implied loving it, wanting it, and being transformed by it, because the truth no longer brings the knower to God but to use information to subdue nature. Knowing became limited to being informed about things, not as these are things of God but as they stand (or totter) on their own feet. The classical notion that truth leads us to God simply ceased to be intelligible and came to be viewed with suspicion.” Ellen Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds:The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 236. 13 “The moral life . . . leads ineluctably to religion, through which it extends itself to the idea of a powerful moral Lawgiver outside of mankind.” Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, trans. T. M. Greene and H. H. Hudson (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), 5, 6. See also Reinhard Hütter, “The Knowledge of the Triune God: Practices, Doctrine, Theology,” in Knowing the Triune God: The Work of the Spirit in the Practices of the Church, ed. James J. Buckley, and David S. Yeago (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 24. For a succinct outline of how Kantian metaphysics contrasts with Thomistic metaphysics, see Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Wisdom in the Face of Modernity: A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010), 10–21. On Kant as the father of modern theology, see Garrett Green, “Kant as Christian Apologist: The Failure of Accomodationist Theology,” Pro Ecclesia 4, no. 3 (1995): 301–17. 14 Paul J. Griffiths, “How Epistemology Matters to Theology,” The Journal of Religion 79, no. 1 (1999): 1. Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 167 medieval university. Prior to this, theology was confined to the monastery and was integrated into the entire life of the monk and his pursuit of holiness.15 Thus theology was taken out of the context of a “pursuit of holiness” into a separate institution dedicated to knowledge.16 This is not to say that the medieval theologians “rejected” the pursuit of holiness; rather, this new institution of knowledge became the place where theology itself became segregated in the post–high-scholastic period. Thus, according to Avery Dulles, by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, theology as it was practiced in the universities drove too sharp a wedge between the natural and supernatural orders; “The professors, absorbed in academic disputes, seemed to lose contact with ordinary Christian experience and with the original biblical heritage.”17 Edward Farley, in his extensive study into the history of different approaches to theological knowledge, also sees the disintegration beginning with the rise of the universities. Farley looks at two senses of the word “theology” in his overview. The first is theology as knowledge, an “actual, individual cognition of God and things related to God”; this cognition relies on faith and has eternal happiness as its final goal.18 Theology in this sense is a habitus of the human soul and was the unique way of doing theology prior to the rise of the universities. The second sense of theology as Farley sees it is theology as a discipline, a 15 Thus, St. Bernard of Clairvaux can say: “It is not disputation, it is holiness which comprehends if the Incomprehensible One can in a certain way be understood at all. And what is this way? If you are a saint, you have already understood, you know. If you are not, become one, and you will learn through your own experience.” De erroribus Abaelardi, 1, cited in Aidan Nichols, O.P., The Shape of Catholic Theology: An Introduction to Its Sources, Principles, and History (London: Burns and Oates, 2003), 290. 16 This is the argument of Mark A. McIntosh, who claims that the split between theology and spirituality begins with the decline of the monastic schools and the rise of the universities.Theology was no longer integrally linked to the entire life of the theologians; it was now joined to a separate institution dedicated to knowledge. “Theology and Spirituality,” in The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology Since 1918, ed. David F. Ford (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 395. For an authoritative guide to the characteristics of monastic theology see Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, 2d ed., reprint (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974). For the medieval origins of the split between theology and mysticism see F. Vandenbroucke, “Le Divorce entre théologie et mystique: ses origines,” Nouvelle Révue Théologique 82 (1950): 372–89. 17 Avery Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 39. 18 Edward Farley, Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 31. 168 Paul Morrissey scholarly enterprise of understanding.19 This is how theology develops in the universities. St. Thomas’s approach to theology is a unity of the two; a theology that is wisdom as divine gift, “but it is a wisdom which can be promoted, deepened, and extended by human study and argument.”20 According to Farley’s account, the gradual disintegration of theological unity reaches its climax in the post-Enlightenment period. The third argument is that the sapiential approach to theology collapses soon after St. Thomas, especially during the late scholastic period. This reason is the focus of Pinckaers’s own history of the decline in sapiential moral theology. Jean-Pierre Torrell outlines three dimensions to St. Thomas’s theology, or sacra doctrina. In outlining these dimensions Torrell also explains how St. Thomas’s synthesis broke down. The first dimension of St.Thomas’s theology is the speculative, or what is called intellectus fidei— to bring one’s reason to what is held by faith. The second dimension is his effort to understand (both historically and allegorically) the sacred Scriptures, the better to preach them. The third dimension is what Torrell calls the mystical, meaning how, practically speaking, the Christian returns to God (what today we call moral theology).21 Torrell goes on to note that tellingly these three dimensions, which Thomas held in a splendid unity, were soon after his death separated.22 The speculative dimension descended into what is called the manualist tradition, whereby certitudes were sought through syllogisms.This manualist tradition,Torrell points out, became so sidelined after Vatican II that the speculative approach to understanding faith was neglected. The second dimension, one that is called today an historical-positivist approach, has evolved into a highly specialized field cut off from speculative theology.The outstanding examples of this are in the fields of exegesis and patristics. The mystical approach, as Torrell sees it, has tried to set itself up as an autonomous field of study and has descended into anti-intellectualism. This breakdown is a thwarting of the Thomistic synthesis which is Augustinian and Anselmian in origin.23 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., 36. 21 Jean-PierreTorrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2: Spiritual Master, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 2, 3. 22 Torrell, Spiritual Master, 3. 23 Torrell, Spiritual Master, 3. A tradition summed up well by Avery Dulles: “In his (Anselm) various theological meditations he provides a classic instance of contemplative reason on pilgrimage between simple faith and the heavenly vision to which it aspires. Believing, for Anselm, is not a matter of intellect alone.The mind is inclined to believe by a heart that loves.” Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For, 28. Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 169 Many blame this breakdown on Duns Scotus (and his univocal concept of being)24 and William of Ockham (nominalism). The onset of nominalism resulted in what Pinckaers calls an “atomic explosion” whereby the unity between faith, reason, freedom, grace, and nature were torn asunder.25 Thus the ground was laid for the Reformation and the Enlightenment.26 The duality between reason and revelation meant that spirituality and the quest for holiness came to be divorced from theology. Theological knowledge was no longer seen as a participatory knowledge.27 Even if this disintegration began outside Thomism, it would later become somewhat synonymous with it, especially after the Reformation, as the theology of St. Thomas became the principal bulwark against Protestantism.28 With the onset of the Enlightenment and the exaltation of reason, 24 Thus, contrary to Aquinas’s (and the Christian theological tradition before him) doctrine of the analogy of being that held that while one can say that God exists the existence of which we speak can only be understood analogically when compared to created existence, Scotus says that the being (or existence) of God and creatures has no metaphysical difference. On this point, see Robert Barron, The Priority of Christ:Toward a Post-Liberal Catholicism (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2007), 13,14; Olivier Boulnois, “Reading Duns Scotus: From History to Philosophy,” Modern Theology 21:4 (2005): 603–8. 25 “With Ockham we witness the first atomic explosion of the modern era. The atom split was obviously not physical but psychic. It was the nadir of the human soul, with its faculties, which was broken apart by a new concept of freedom. This produced successive aftershocks, which destroyed the unity of theology and Western thought. With Ockham, freedom, by means of the claim to radical autonomy that defined it, was separated from all that was foreign to it: reason, sensibility, natural inclinations, and all external factors. Further separation followed: freedom was separated from nature, law, and grace; moral doctrine from mysticism; reason from faith; the individual from society.” Servais Pinckaers, O.P., The Sources of Christian Ethics, trans. Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 242. 26 For the nominalist background to the Reformation see Alister McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 70–76. 27 For a good account of theology as participation, with an accent on its historical decline, see Frans Jozef van Beeck, S.J., “Trinitarian Theology as Participation,” in The Trinity, ed. S. Davis, D. Kendall, and G. O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 295–325. 28 For a brief overview of the principal figures and themes in Thomism see: Romanus Cessario, O.P., A Short History of Thomism (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003); Gerard McCool, S.J.’s series of books on recent Thomism, Nineteenth-Century Scholasticism: The Search for a Unitary Method (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989); From Unity to Pluralism:The Internal Evolution of Thomism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989); The Neo-Thomists (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1994); and see Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism. 170 Paul Morrissey the thought of Thomas was seen as the most potent weapon with which to argue for the faith on the grounds of reason alone.This attempt is given the name neo-Thomism or neo-scholasticism.29 Thus, as Fergus Kerr points out, “Paradoxically, theologians who might plausibly be charged with ‘postTridentine Catholic positivist authoritarianism’ in questions of doctrine were the very ones most anxious to secure autonomy for philosophy and the sciences, in what of course they conceived of ideally as a harmony between the work of reason and the gift of divine revelation.”30 Situating Servais Pinckaers in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology In the twentieth century there are two general critiques of NeoThomism and the perceived divorce between faith and reason, theology and life (spirituality). The first is termed transcendental Thomism; it was inspired by Rousselot and Marachel, and taken up by Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan.31 These Thomists were interested in taking up modern Kantian epistemology and marrying it to St. Thomas. The meeting of neo-scholastic Thomism and transcendental Thomism was more impasse than fruitful encounter, as Mark McIntosh outlines: In the neo-scholastic case, the theological implications of spirituality are away off in a rarefied realm of highly unusual psychological states; and in the transcendental Thomist case, spiritual experience is primarily of interest as a piece of evidence for the existence of transcendental experience behind Kant’s categories—and whatever theological language such experiences might happen to be couched in would ultimately be secondary. In neither case could the integrity of theology and spirituality become perceptible, let alone persuasive.32 29 For a good account of Neo-scholasticism/Neo-Thomism, see Fergus Kerr, “A Different World: Neoscholasticism and its Discontents,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 8, no. 2 (2006): 128–48. 30 Fergus Kerr, O.P., “A Catholic Response to the Programme of Radical Orthodoxy,” in Radical Orthodoxy? A Catholic Enquiry, ed. Laurence Paul Hemming (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 56. 31 See Thomas Sheehan, “Pierre Rousselot and the Dynamism of the Human Spirit,” Gregorianum 66.2 (1985): 241–67. On his debt to both Rousselot and Marechal, see Rahner, Hearers of the Word (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), 9. See also A Marechal Reader, ed. Joseph Donceel (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970). For Karl Rahner’s transcendental approach see his Hearers of the Word, 53–68. Although often put together, there are obvious differences between Rahner and Lonergan. On their basic approaches to theology and the reception of revelation, see Guy Mansini, “Experiential Expressivism and Two Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians,” Nova et Vetera 8, no. 1 (2010): 125–41. 32 McIntosh, “Theology and Spirituality,” 396. Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 171 The second critique came from the so-called ressourcement theologians, who sought to renew theology by going back to the sources. Fundamenally they advocated advocated a return to the Scriptures, the Fathers and the liturgy as the principal sources for theology. Theologians such as Jean Daniélou and Henri de Lubac33 believed that neo-Thomism had separated theology from life. Hans Boersma points out: According to Daniélou and the other nouvelle theologians, neo-Thomism ended up endorsing modernity’s acceptance of the autonomy of nature as well as the Enlightenment belief in human progress in this independent (or immanent) realm of nature. In the eyes of the nouvelle theologians, this was a deeply ironic situation, considering neo-Thomist distrust of the Enlightenment and the secularism that it had brought.34 Servais Pinckaers, I argue, can be placed in a mediating position within Catholic theology; especially with respect to the split between neoThomism and those influenced by the ressourcement school. Pinckaers is not interested so much in transcendental Thomism, being rather critical of Kant’s influence on modern theology.35 To help place Pinckaers’s theology today, a recent article by John Milbank is helpful, even if it does not mention Pinckaers by name. In the article Milbank, an Anglican “radical-orthodox” theologian, outlines what he sees as the new divide in theology.36 This divide is between “romantic orthodoxy” and “classical orthodoxy.”37 He 33 For an evaluation of Daniélou, see Aidan Nichols, “The Theology of Jean Daniélou: Epochs, Correspondences, and the Orders of the Real,” New Blackfriars 91 ( Jan 2010): 46–65. For a recent evaluation of Henri de Lubac’s theology, see Aidan Nichols, “Henri de Lubac: Panorama and Proposal,” New Blackfriars 93 ( Jan 2012): 3–33. 34 Hans Boersma, Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 5. For an overview of Catholic ressourcement theology see Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in TwentiethCentury Catholic Theology, ed. Gabriel Flynn and Paul D. Murray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). For a look at a rapprochement between ressourcement and Thomism, see the symposium “Thomism and the Nouvelle Théologie,” Josephinum Journal of Theology 18, no. 1 (2011), especially the introductory essay by William F. Murphy, “Thomism and the Nouvelle Théologie: A Dialogue Renewed?” 4–36. 35 See, Servais Pinckaers, O.P., “My Sources,” Communio: International Catholic Review 26 (1999): 913–15, and his comment, “I do not hide my impression that in morality I escaped from the prison of Kantian rationality thanks to St. Thomas.” Interview with Thomas Instituut Utrecht, Jan. 16, 2000. 36 John Milbank, “The New Divide: Romantic Versus Classical Orthodoxy,” Modern Theology 26:1 (2010): 26–38. 37 In the Romantic Orthodox camp Milbank places the Anglo-Catholic movement of Radical Orthodoxy, the Communio group (including Pope Benedict XVI), 172 Paul Morrissey contrasts this with the immediately preceding divide (more intra-protestant than intra-catholic) between theological orthodoxy (neo-orthodoxy) and theological liberalism. This new divide is united in its sapiential character, namely, that both sides see the importance of a unitive approach to theology. For example, Milbank sees “a new willingness to embrace ideas of analogy, participation, sacramentality, phenomenology and metaphysics.”38 Moreover, “contemporary theology tends to look for a more ‘robust’ Christian intellectual account of everything under the sun and its searching tends to be both more catholic in scope and Catholic in its fundamental outlook.”39 In a footnote in that same article, Milbank sees the “Dominican Fribourg-Toulouse school” as mediating between the romantic orthodox and classical orthodox tendencies. He explicitly mentions Jean-Pierre Torrell and Serge-Thomas Bonino in this school; however, we can safely include Servais Pinckaers as being representative.40 Milbank writes that “they are more ‘romantic’ than ‘classical,’ and if they remain neo-Thomists then this is partly because they want to show that all the ‘romanticism’ one could want is in Aquinas himself. Hence their new stress on Thomas the commentator and Thomas the spiritual master.”41 This description by Milbank is supported by Serge-Thomas Bonino’s succinct account of this “Dominican Fribourg-Toulouse school” of Thomism, where Bonino highlights four principal traits: to further the fruitful work of historical-critical exegesis of St.Thomas’s works; to consider St. Thomas as a master of Christian wisdom and to treat him primarily as a theologian who respected the autonomy of philosophy and the need for spirituality (prayer) in theology; to absorb, “with discernment,” the Thomist tradition post–St.Thomas; and to bring these Thomist resources to contemporary questions in theology and philosophy.42 These traits line up with the approach Servais Pinckaers has to theology. A Twentieth-Century Renewal in Thomist Sapiential Theology Having accounted—albeit very briefly—for the decline in the Thomist sapiential theological tradition, I will turn now to what has been a renaisand sophiological currents in Eastern Orthodoxy. In the Classical Orthodox camp, primarily located in the United States, he lists Romanus Cessario, Ralph McInerny, and Steven A. Long. 38 Milbank, “The New Divide,” 28. 39 Ibid. 40 This point was supported by John Milbank in personal correspondence. 41 Milbank, “The New Divide,” 36n1. 42 Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P., “The Conception of Thomism after Henri de Lubac,” in Surnaturel: A Controversy at the Heart of Twentieth-Century Thomistic Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 173 sance in this tradition in the twentieth century.43 This renewal is multifaceted and takes in a wide variety of theologians who broadly belong in the Thomist tradition. The particular focus here will be on two French Dominican Thomists, Marie-Dominique Chenu and Jean-Pierre Torrell. These two have been chosen for the way in which their Thomist understanding of theology connects with that of Servais Pinckaers.44 Thought, ed. Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P., trans. Robert Williams and Matthew Levering (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2009), vii, viii. In an interview Bonino further outlines this vision: “It seems to me that Saint Thomas offers today an adequate model concerning the way of doing theology. Five points seem to me of special importance: 1. The privileged instrument of the intellectus fidei is a philosophy of being. 2. Theology is the work of intelligence. It does not fear to have recourse to the concept. 3. The theologian elaborates his own doctrine in an ongoing confrontation with the preceding theological tradition. Contrary to the artificial opposition between the quid homines senserunt and the veritas rerum which a certain kind of Thomism wanted to establish, the theological practice of Saint Thomas attests that the quid homines senserunt is the privileged way to the veritas rerum. 4. Theology has a sapiential vocation. The intellectus fidei aims at a contemplative synthesis that is not content with the fragmentation of theological disciplines. 5. Doing theology presupposes a permanent contact with the living sources of faith (Scripture, Tradition, the life of the Church) and shows itself to be a source of spiritual life.” From Carlo Leget, “Don’t Economise on References to Thomism—An Interview with Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P.” March 16, 2000. Found at www.thomasinstituut.org/nws.php?nws_id=3. 43 One should note here that within the Catholic tradition in the nineteenth century there was a renaissance in sapiential theology, though this was strictly speaking outside the Thomist tradition. This renaissance is found in the Tübingen school (for example, Johann Adam Möhler) and with John Henry Cardinal Newman. Both tried to reintegrate theological knowledge avoiding the extremes of evangelism and rationalism.Thus there is a participatory and a scientific dimension to theology. On this point see Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For, 83–87. 44 However, it should be noted that the sapiential renewal of the twentieth century is broader than this. Good cases can be made that the so-called transcendental Thomists, such as Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, tried to renew Thomism in a sapiential direction. Harvey D. Egan explicitly outlines the case for Karl Rahner, showing that Rahner attempted to integrate spiritual and systematic approaches to theology as well as seeing theology as a form of prayer. Harvey D. Egan, “Theology and Spirituality,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Rahner, ed. Declan Marmion and Mary E. Hines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 13–28. Also, the Ressourcement theologians, such as Henri de Lubac, Jean Daniélou et al., though principally concerned with pre-Thomist theology, 174 Paul Morrissey Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P. Marie-Dominique Chenu (1895–1990), one could argue, is the father of the renewal of Thomistic sapiential theology.45 In his summation of Chenu’s contribution to twentieth-century theology, Fergus Kerr traces the legacy of Chenu in the work of subsequent Thomists such as JeanPierre Torrell, Gilles Emery, Gregory Rocca, and, most especially, Servais Pinckaers (all without exception are proponents of a sapiential approach to theology).46 Chenu’s project, which began with his doctoral thesis, was to reintegrate St.Thomas into his historical context so as to better understand the sapiential nature of his entire work.47 Here Chenu was battling what he saw as a Thomistic rationalism that had segregated the work of Thomas into a variety of parts, the most important of which was his philosophy, which was seen as the Church’s principal armor against modern philosophy.48 In the words of Fergus Kerr, “This was to inocucontributed to this renewal. (Sapientially inclined theologians such as Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger come out of this school.) 45 For biographical details and evaluations of Chenu, see Marie-Dominique Chenu, Un théologien en liberté: Jacques Duquesne interroge le Père Chenu (Paris: Centurion, 1975); Christophe F. Potworowski, Contemplation and Incarnation: The Theology of Marie-Dominique Chenu (Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2001); Fergus Kerr, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians: From Neoscholasticism to Nuptial Mysticism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 17–21; Kerr, “A Different World: Neoscholasticism and its Discontents,” 141–48. 46 Kerr, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians, 33. We should note, however, that Chenu remains a controversial figure in Catholic theology, especially among Thomists. For a critique of Chenu’s work with which I agree, see Thomas Joseph White, O.P., “The Precarity of Wisdom: Modern Dominican Theology, Perspectivalism, and the Task of Reconstruction,” 92–94. White’s essay is important because he looks at the recent history of Dominican theology and the real tension that existed therein between recent historical approaches to theology and a pure Thomism of the commentatorial tradition in the twentieth century. The two preeminent figures in this tension within Dominican theology were MarieDominique Chenu and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange.White sums up this tension (which was not restricted to the Dominicans) as one between “the historical character of human existence and human knowledge and the supposedly absolute, unchanging truth claims of Christian revelation” (93). White, and here he would agree with Servais Pinckaers, finds both positive and negative aspects in both approaches; the solution, again agreeing with Pinckaers, is a return to a sapiential approach to theology that was the preferred way of St. Thomas himself. 47 A task that he shared with Etienne Gilson; see Francesca Aran Murphy, “Gilson and Chenu:The Structure of the Summa and the Shape of Dominican Life,” New Blackfriars 85 (May 2004): 290–303. Chenu’s doctoral thesis was titled “A Psychological and Theological Analysis of Contemplation” (Angelicum, Rome, 1920). 48 It is for this reason that Chenu was at the heart of one of the more important controversies in twentieth-century Catholic theology. This controversy centered Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 175 late them against infection by the idealist, subjectivist and positivist philosophies, which were held to have created the modernist crisis.”49 A principal theme for Chenu in his studies of St.Thomas was the need to place him in his historical context as a Dominican friar of the thirteenth century. In Chenu’s understanding, St. Thomas the theologian is the son of St. Dominic the preacher.50 This is demonstrated, for example, by Chenu’s devoting the first chapter of his work Aquinas and His Role in Theology to the “Friar Preacher.” Here Chenu notes two principal influences on the life and thought of St. Thomas: the importance of the Gospel that is to be preached, and the radical poverty the mendicants were called to. St. Thomas was in many ways caught up in a medieval evangelical revival, and his theology should not be divorced from that. In fact, Thomas’s prodigious intellect would be called on by his order to defend the “new apostles” against threats to their existence in Paris and thus to make explicit the apostolic and spiritual nature of the mendicants and the deep reasons for his own religious vocation.51 As part of situating Aquinas in his historical milieu, Chenu placed great emphasis on St. Thomas’s knowledge and love of Scripture. This is considered one of Chenu’s principal contributions in an era when the prevailing picture was that St. Thomas was primarily concerned with Aristotle.52 Chenu states that it is a “deadly misunderstanding” to overemphasize the Aristotelian dimension of Thomas’s work while forgetting the “life giving sap that comes from the Gospels and the Fathers.”53 “St Thomas,” writes Chenu, “was first and foremost a master in the sacred page.”54 Furthermore, on a dispute between Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, a neo-Thomist, and Chenu (his student and a dissenter from neo-Thomism). Chenu’s manifesto of 1937, Une école de théologie: le Saulchoir (Paris: Cerf, 1985), later placed on the index of forbidden books, was accused of being relativistic in that it placed too much emphasis on the historical context of theology. For an overview of this debate, see Kerr, “A Different World: Neoscholasticism and its Discontents.” For a reevaluation of the life and work of Garrigou-Lagrange, see Aidan Nichols, O.P., Reason and Piety: Garrigou-Lagrange in the Service of Catholic Thought (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2008). 49 Kerr, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians, 1. 50 Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., Aquinas and His Role in Theology, trans. Paul Philibert, O.P. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 10. 51 Chenu, Aquinas and His Role in Theology, 9. 52 This is the opinion of Lawrence Boadt, “St. Thomas Aquinas and the Biblical Wisdom Tradition,” The Thomist 45 (1985): 575. 53 Chenu, Aquinas and His Role in Theology, 138. 54 Ibid., 21. Paul Morrissey 176 Theology (for Thomas) arises out of, develops, and fulfills itself in the atmosphere of this living Word received in faith. Master Thomas teaches continuously on the text of the Bible, which is a foundational text of the faculty of theology. His Summa theologiae, despite its technical methodology, can only be understood properly as a living emanation from the pagina sacra [the sacred page of the Bible]. This word of God is heard and can only be understood in the context of faith.55 According to Chenu, theology is wisdom in the ancient sense of this word.56 What he means by this is that wisdom pertains to the oneness of knowledge and truth whereas science “holds no jot of mystery.”57 This is why, with St. Augustine, Chenu believes that theology is more a wisdom than a science. Following St. Thomas, Chenu outlines two ways in which the wisdom of faith develops, doctrinally and intuitively. The first is by way of study and instruction in the propositions of faith; the second through desire and emotional kinship with the object, such as the knowledge of a mother for her child. Theology proper belongs to the first; however, Chenu warns “woe to those who dissociate these two roads to the knowledge of God. They may arise from different principles and different disciplines, but they do not impair the essential unity of life and of grace.”58 Theology as science, in the more modern sense of the word, entails the various functions and methodologies peculiar to the different disciplines of theology.Theology as wisdom has the task to unite the various functions of theological science. Thus, though each discipline will be autonomous in a certain way, they must all work in the service of a single all-embracing vision which will always transcend the particular interests of the component parts. Thus the wisdom of theology gathers up and unifies many strands which are, humanly speaking, disparate—some of them eternal truths, some plunged in the temporal and contingent world, some the fruit of contemplation, some concerned with action—according to that division of functions which institutionally (and, alas, in practice too) distinguishes the ‘theologian’ from the ‘apostle’.59 For Chenu,to be a Thomist means understanding the theological enterprise as a unity. “Theology is one, with a unity such as other branches of 55 Ibid. 56 Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., Is Theology a Science? trans. A. H. N. Green- Armytage (London: Burns and Oates, 1959), 119. 57 Chenu, Is Theology a Science? 119. 58 Ibid., 120. 59 Ibid. Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 177 human knowledge can never pretend to.”60 Thus, while there are different sciences within the one wisdom of theology, each science should nourish the whole. In an essay on the renewal of moral theology, Chenu makes this point: Right at the beginning I must remark that the category “moral theology,” as distinguished from “dogmatic theology,” cannot be employed without reservation. Not that it is false, but in its pedagogical formalism it separates the elements of a global perception outside of which truth remains fragmented. It is well-known that this distinction is illsuited to the ordo disciplinae of Saint Thomas.61 Chenu specifically understands his description of sapiential theology as Thomistic. The objective and rational (scientific) and the intuitive and prayerful (spiritual) are distinct, though never separated. Both are ways, and both are necessary, to arrive at true wisdom, namely the knowledge of God. Therefore, Chenu in his writings places great stress on St.Thomas’s spiritual life and his quest for holiness. “In the person of Thomas, the doctor is a saint . . . this doctor of the Church is a doctor because he is a saint. This is the sanctity of intelligence. At the very heart of the spirituality of Thomas Aquinas rests this conviction: human understanding is a place for holiness, because the truth is holy.”62 In a chapter on St. Thomas titled “The Contemplative,” Chenu recounts how Thomas’s technical and speculative theology was a marrying of his contemplative/religious life as well as his intellectual genius. As a friar St.Thomas was a contemplative in action—one who is drawn to the pure contemplation of God while, at the same time, called to the evangelical zeal of the friar preacher. In making this point Chenu draws on a citation of St. Thomas from Quaestio disputata de caritate: There are some who experience in the contemplation of God such delight that they are unwilling to let go of it, even for the service of God in the salvation of their brothers and sisters. There are others, however, who arrive at such a summit of love where even this divine contemplation, in which they experience the greatest delight, is reexpressed in serving God in their brothers and sisters. That was the perfection of the Apostle Paul. And that is the perfection that belongs to the preachers.63 60 Ibid., 116. 61 Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., “The Renewal of Moral Theology: The New Law,” The Thomist 34 (1970): 2. 62 Chenu, Aquinas and His Role in Theology, 31. 63 St. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestio disputata de caritate, a. 11, resp. 6, cited by Chenu, Aquinas and His Role in Theology, 45. 178 Paul Morrissey Chenu sees in this statement an expression of Thomas’s own religious life as well as his vocation to the apostolate of the theologian. Thus wisdom for St. Thomas is both contemplative and active; it is also why there are found none of the modern distinctions between dogma, morality, and spirituality in his works.64 In this short overview of the work of Marie-Dominique Chenu, it is evident that he belongs to a school of Thomism that can be described as sapiential. Chenu’s commitment to placing St. Thomas in his historical milieu, as first and foremost a biblical theologian, as well as his unitive vision of theology, would have a lasting impact on twentieth-century theology, not least with Servais Pinckaers. Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P. Jean-Pierre Torrell has come to the attention of the English-speaking world with the translations of his authoritative two-volume work on the life and theology of St. Thomas.65 These volumes have been a crucial contribution in the renewal of Thomistic theology. Gilles Emery, a student of Torrell’s, states: “The important publications of Fr. Jean-Pierre Torrell have the great merit of helping us to rediscover the unity of the project of Christian wisdom which St Thomas Aquinas developed. . . . This integral conception of wisdom is indispensable to the vocation of the Christian theologian.”66 Emery adds that, in the second volume of his great work on Aquinas, Torrell explores the riches of Thomistic spirituality while showing the way to an authentic renewal of Thomism and “perhaps even to the renewal of theology itself.”67 64 Chenu, Aquinas and His Role in Theology, 46. 65 Saint Thomas Aquinas,Volume 1:The Person and His Work, revised ed., trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005) and Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2: Spiritual Master, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003). 66 Gilles Emery, O.P., “Book review: Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 2: Spiritual Master by Jean-Pierre Torrell OP,” Nova et Vetera 2, no. 1 (2004): 211. 67 Ibid. In a short intellectual autobiography, Torrell accounts for many of his influences and theological interests. He did his doctorate on the ecclesiology of Vatican I under the supervision of Jerome Hamer (who would have an influence on Servais Pinkaers). His ecclesiological studies were very much influenced by Henri de Lubac, Charles Journet, and Yves Congar. Torrell’s interests moved after the Second Vatican Council from ecclesiology (he felt his work on Vatican I had been superseded by Vatican II) to revelation and the Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum. This led Torrell to the question of prophetic knowledge as found in the Bible and as interpreted by St. Thomas as well as other medievals. In 1973, in collaboration with Denise Bouthillier, Torrell worked on the theology of Peter the Venerable. That same year he was asked to join the Leonine Commission, Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 179 Torrell sees himself as following the ground-breaking work of MarieDominique Chenu. As he states at the beginning of his biography of St. Thomas: “We would not know how to introduce Thomas’s work without mentioning Father Marie-Dominique Chenu’s Toward Understanding Saint Thomas.” A work “without equal,” an “unprecedented effort . . . to reinsert the Master into the concrete milieu in which he lived—not only the historical and theological, but the “evangelical and theologal” milieu.”68 Torrell adds that his own theological exploration of St. Thomas would have been unthinkable without Chenu.69 Like others who form part of the sapiential renewal of Thomism, Torrell sees Thomas first and foremost as an inheritor of a tradition and a thinker of his age, rather than looking at St. Thomas through the lens of subsequent commentators. Therefore, Torrell highlights that St. Thomas’s approach to theology is not a break from the tradition of Augustine and Anselm. For example, Augustine’s prayer to understand the Trinity highlights that theology begins with faith: “Aiming my efforts according to that rule of faith, as much as I have been able . . . I have sought Thee; I desired to see in understanding what I held by faith.”70 Augustine’s theological quest is expressed through prayer. “It is quite remarkable,” adds Torrell, “that the inventor of the formula fides quaerens intellectum, Saint Anselm, also expresses his theological project in a prayer: “I desire to understand at least a little Your truth,Your truth that my heart believes and loves.” And he adds something rather significant: “I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand (credo ut intelligam).”71 Thus faith and theology are inseparable and this is as true for St. Thomas as it is for Augustine and Anselm.72 The unseen (faith) together where he would work for eight years. In 1981 he succeeded the prolific Thomist Jean-Hervé Nicolas as Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the University of Fribourg. There, though retired, he remains to this day. Commencing in 1981, Torrell became one of the most prolific French Thomists of the late twentieth century. Jean-Pierre Torrell, ‘Mon Parcours Intellectuel,’ Fribourg 15/02/07, www.unifr.ch/dogme/dogme150fr.htm (accessed 19/08/2010). See also the foreword by Walter Principe, C.S.B. to Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Person and His Work, ix–xii. 68 Torrell, Thomas Aquinas: Person and Work, Preface, xix. 69 Ibid., xx. 70 St. Augustine, De Trinitate XIV, 6, 3, as cited in Torrell, Saint Thomas: Spiritual Master, 4. 71 Ibid., 4, 5. 72 Like Anselm and Augustine, “St Thomas’s thought maintains that theology’s origin is its relationship to faith, and that it would not even exist without constant dependence on faith. . . . Faith is that added capacity in us that requires human intelligence to rise to ‘the height’ of divine reality. It allows us to be 180 Paul Morrissey with the desire to know (reason); each spurring the other on in a common endeavor for truth. “Contemporary theologians,” writes Torrell, “may differ on many points, but if they wish to remain theologians, they cannot disagree on the connection of theology and faith.”73 It is simply inconceivable, says Torrell, to understand St. Thomas’s conception of theology divorced from his understanding of the need for faith. Torrell places particular importance on what St. Thomas says of his patron saint in his Commentary on the Gospel of St. John: “Statim factus est Thomas bonus theologus ueram fidem confitendo.”74 The doubting Apostle Thomas immediately becomes a good theologian when he kneels at the feet of the Risen Lord. “Without faith, we would have only hollow formulas, and our most beautiful constructions would be nothing more than empty shells. With faith, we can truly begin to be theologians.”75 Therefore theology is a “pious science.”76 As such it “demands a living faith, which is to say a faith penetrated (‘informed’ as Thomas says) by charity in order to correspond fully to its definition.”77 Theology then follows the path of the believing Christian from faith to the Beatific Vision; thus, as a scholar, the theologian is in a different position than a scholar in some other field. He is not some disinterested observer distancing himself from that which he studies so as to have some objective gaze. The theologian “does not need to leave theology to find God. It is enough for him to push the demands of his science to the limit in order to be irresistibly drawn toward Him who is the final aim of the life of a believer.”78 Therefore prayer is an essential part of the theologian’s toolkit.79 Another aspect of Torrell’s work that I wish to highlight is the spirituality of St. Thomas. It is significant that Torrell’s summary of Thomas’s reunited with the divine because ‘the act of believing does not reach completion in the formulas (of the Creed) but in (divine) reality itself.’ (ST IIa IIae q.1a. 2 ad 2).” Torrell, Saint Thomas: Spiritual Master, 5. 73 Ibid. 74 St. Thomas Aquinas, Lectura super Ioannem 20, lect.6, n. 2562. Cited by Torrell, Saint Thomas: Spiritual Master, 6. 75 Ibid. 76 Jean-Pierre Torrell, La Théologie Catholique, Deuxième édition revue et augmentée d’un post-scriptum (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2008), 68. 77 Torrell, Saint Thomas: Spiritual Master, 16, 17. 78 Ibid., 9. Also, “Theological study demands the same faith as do Christian life and prayer. And though these are different activities, the same faith finds expression in them all.” Ibid., 17. 79 “This is why,” states Torrell, “Thomas’s Prologue to the Sentences says that for him who practices it theology takes on the modality of prayer (modus oratiuus). There is no doubt that, for him, prayer belongs to the practice of theology.” Saint Thomas: Spiritual Master, 17. Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 181 theology (Volume 2) is entitled Spiritual Master. Aquinas’s entire work, Torrell argues, can be seen as a “spirituality.” Taking a lead from the work of Walter Principe, Torrell sees two dimensions to the word spirituality that can be related to the life and theology of St. Thomas.80 The first dimension designates spirituality as the reality lived by a given person. As Torrell points out, there is little doubt that Thomas had a personal spirituality.81 The second dimension of spirituality designates a spiritual doctrine. Usually this spiritual doctrine is associated with a particular person’s spiritual life—the doctrine and the life blend almost into one. There are many examples of this, such as Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Therese of Liseaux, Francis, and Benedict. Torrell makes a case that St. Thomas can be included in this list of “spiritual doctors.” Not, he says, on the plane of the “practically practical” (that is, practical guidance in the spiritual life that can be imitated, such as that provided by those listed above). Rather, Thomas is a spiritual doctor on the plane of “speculative practical knowledge.”82 This means, according to Torrell, that Thomas’s theology, peerless in terms of its speculative nature, is directed towards living a life directed towards God. His spiritual doctrine “is an implicit and necessary dimension of his theology.”83 And further, he says, “For [Thomas] there was no need to elaborate a spirituality alongside his theology. His theology itself is a spiritual theology, and we should always be able to recognize a Thomist theologian by the spiritual tone that he gives to even the most technical investigations.”84 Torrell is aware that the stereotypical understanding of Thomas is a far cry from the one he is proposing, namely, that he is a “spiritual master.” When one encounters St. Thomas’s writings, especially the Summa theologiae, its very structure and tone, its impersonal style and method, seem to belie what Torrell says. However, the stereotypical understanding evolves 80 Ibid., 18. The work of Walter Principe referred to is “Toward Defining Spiritu- ality,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 12 (1983): 127–57. 81 Torrell, Saint Thomas: Spiritual Master, 18. 82 Ibid., 20. 83 Ibid., 21. 84 Ibid., 18. Furthermore, “[S]pirituality of the Thomist sort remains unnoticed only by those who do not read Thomas deeply (the same happens with the more explicit spiritual masters if we are satisfied with studying them only superficially). Those who study Thomas in depth know what is to found in him, even if they usually feel no need to emphasize it. If Saint Thomas himself did not write that explicit work on spirituality that we seek, spirituality nonetheless finds a place in the Summa Theologiae. As Gilson once magnificently put it, ‘(t)hus his Summa Theologiae, with its abstract clarity, its impersonal transparency, crystallizes before our very eyes and for all eternity [Aquinas’s] very interior life.’ ” Ibid., 21. Paul Morrissey 182 from a superficial reading of St. Thomas. Even his via negativa in coming to the divine, suggests Torrell, is a spiritual theology: In itself, it is an unusually demanding asceticism. If a theologian tries to practice it in the spiritual state that we tried to describe in the opening pages of this book, he cannot help but see the stages of his progress as degrees of ascent on the way that leads to God. Like every believer, he must abandon idols and turn toward the living God (Acts 14:14). He must also renounce the constructions of his own mind, personal idols that have no less a hold. In his way, Thomas invites us to this when he distinguishes the contemplation of the philosophers from Christian contemplation. The former is always tempted to stop with the pleasure of knowledge in itself and, in the end, proceeds from self-love. The latter, the contemplation of the saints, completely inspired by love for the divine Truth, ends in the object itself . . . the practice of this theology shows itself to be an education in the spiritual life.85 St.Thomas, according to Torrell (and following Chenu), is both a theologian and a mystic. This however does not involve a dichotomy whereby he divides his time between two pursuits. Rather, theological knowledge is mystical knowledge: “St. Thomas, for example, is a mystic because he is a theologian.”86 It is possible that a theologian can also be a mystic, says Torrell, because it is only by faith that the knowledge of the theologian has any real content; for it is through faith that the theologian is taken from the obscurity of this world toward the vision of God.This is why it is necessary for the theologian as a scholar to direct his skills and knowledge to their final end, that is, in God’s own knowledge.87 “The theologian,” states Torrell, “does not have God at his disposal: he can only situate himself in relation to God, see in him his origin and his end, bring back to God everything in the universe as well as his own actions, and finally, pray to him, adore him, humble himself before him in contemplation.”88 It is essential that God be the subject of the theologian’s inquiry and never be reduced to being an object.Thomas’s position, says Torrell, is that theology is a science of conclusions (attainable only by faith as propositions), but this is not the end of theology. The end is “acquaintance with 85 Ibid., 34. 86 Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., “St. Thomas Aquinas: Theologian and Mystic,” trans. Therese C. Scarpelli, Nova et Vetera 4, no. 1 (2006): 4. 87 Ibid., 4. 88 Ibid., 5. Torrell quotes Chenu: “Contemplative prayer or theological speculation are specifically different variants in their psychological manifestations; but in theological structure, they have the same object, the same beginning, the same end.” Saint Thomas: Spiritual Master, 17. Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 183 theology’s subject.”89 It is for this reason that a theologian is a contemplative. St. Thomas sees theology as primarily an exercise in contemplation (speculation) and only secondarily as a practical science.90 “This answer,” says Torrell, puts Thomas into a class of his own in the long line of the theorists about theological science. Up until his appearance, theology was of course spoken of as a contemplative science, but essentially as it was ordered to the perfect practice of charity. . . . Thomas was the first to see it as, on the contrary, orientated toward contemplation. As we have just seen, since theology is completely directed toward God, that orientation carries all others along with it.91 Torrell sees in this observation another key point in St. Thomas’s theological vision, namely, Thomas reconizes that there is no distinction between moral and dogmatic theology. “It is one and the same sacra doctrina that encompasses everything, even, as we have seen, later concepts such as ‘spirituality’ or spiritual theology.”92 For Torrell the most important thing we can learn from Aquinas is the unitive dimension of theology.This unity is found in the Trinitarian God. In everything that concerns him, the theologian is constantly referred to the primary origin, which is Love flowing from its Trinitarian source. Thomas draws from this the concrete lesson that everything in theology, absolutely everything, must be considered in connection with God. It is from him that all things come, it is toward him that all creatures move.93 While our knowledge of things has increased since medieval times, we have, according to Torrell, lost the ability to organize our knowledge. “The power of Aquinas is exactly to propose an organic vision of things departing from the highest cause and in relation with which one can appreciate the rest. This is precisely the difference between science(s) and wisdom.”94 Aquinas then is the master of synthesis and a man of “complete 89 Ibid., 10, 11. Torrell goes on to point out that this understanding of theology’s true aim changed in the fourteenth century. 90 St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I, q. 1, a. 4. 91 Torrell, Saint Thomas: Spiritual Master, 12. 92 Ibid., 12, 13. 93 Ibid., 11. 94 Carlos Leget, “Liberating Aquinas from His Aristotelian Mask: An Interview with Jean-Pierre Torrell O.P.” (14/4/1998), www.thomasinstituut.org/nws.php (accessed 19/08/2010). 184 Paul Morrissey knowledge”: philosopher and theologian; speculative and practical; exegete and patristic scholar. Reflecting on his own work,Torrell sees the “incontestable richness of vision” that an interdisciplinary—unifying— approach to theology gives.95 Servais Pinckaers as a Moral Theologian in the Sapiential Tradition of St. Thomas In this final section my purpose is simply to show that Servais Pinckaers is of the same mind as Marie-Dominique Chenu and Jean-Pierre Torrell both in his understanding of St.Thomas’s theological vision and in his sapiential approach to theology.96 My focus will be on four areas: (1) How Pinckaers interprets (broadly speaking) St.Thomas’s writings; (2) Pinckaers’s notion of theology as a form of wisdom; (3) Pinckaers’s thoughts on the importance of prayer and holiness in theology; and (4) Why it is essential, according to Pinckaers, to understand the inherent unity of theology. Each of these areas demonstrates that Pinckaers’s theology is indeed a model of sapiential theology in accord with the criteria set out by the International Theological Commission. Pinckaers’s Interpretation of St. Thomas Servais Pinckaers is a Thomist, seeing in St. Thomas the principal, though not sole, influence for his own theology. Thus, when he seeks to define theology he takes his cue from Thomas: “Theology, in fact, is not merely the result of the work of reason elaborating science on the basis of the documents of revelation—which our condition as intellectuals inclines us to think. Beyond the discursive reason, theology finds its principal source, as St. Thomas himself says, in the light of the Word of God received in faith.”97 Here we see Pinckaers, following the work of Chenu and Torrell, highlighting the essential nature of faith in doing theology. However, faith also requires charity, which enables the believer to know in a connatural way. Through the experience of God and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, both the learned and the “little ones” are enlightened. 95 Leget, “Liberating Aquinas.” 96 Chenu was an important influence on Pinckaers and wrote the preface to his first book: Le renouveau de la morale (Tournai: Casterman, 1964). Contemporaries as theologians and Dominicans, Pinckaers and Torrell share the same fundamental approach to understanding St. Thomas. 97 Servais Pinckaers, O.P., “Dominican Moral Theology in the 20th Century,” trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P., in The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology, ed. John Berkman and Craig Steven Titus (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 84. Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 185 “This light of faith, the lumen fidei, is not sporadic. It accompanies and directs the lives of believers and of the Church all along the way, notably in the reflection of theologians.”98 For Pinckaers, this Thomistic understanding of theology places the theologian in a place of docility, humble in faith before the source of faith. Again, this is a far cry from a rationalistic Thomism that had become the stereotype by the twentieth century.99 The centrality of the Holy Spirit (and St. Thomas’s faithful docility to the Spirit) in reading the work of St. Thomas is paramount for Pinckaers. For example, Pinckaers states that in writing the Summa, “Thomas is aware that he is listening to the Lord teaching on the mountain, in the company of the Fathers and the holy Doctors of the Church, in the same fellowship with all those, philosophers and others, who, without having been able to hear this voice directly, had nonetheless known how to welcome, even if imperfectly, the light of truth poured into hearts by the Spirit, who had already hovered over the waters at the beginning of creation.”100 Here we hear echoes of the first lecture of St. Thomas, “Similarly the minds of teachers, symbolized by the mountains, are watered by the things that are above in the wisdom of God, and by their ministry the light of divine wisdom flows down into the minds of students.”101 98 Ibid. 99 Pinckaers, like Chenu and Torrell, also notes the context of St. Thomas’s theol- ogy. See, for example, his discussion of Aquinas’s understanding of beatitude: “To adequately understand St. Thomas’s conviction that nothing in this world comes closer to perfect beatitude than the contemplative life, it is important to acknowledge Thomas’s cultural context and personal experience, which help us understand his teaching more deeply. According to Gregory the Great, the Gospel gives us the model for the ideal of contemplation in the person of Mary of Bethany, seated at the feet of Jesus and listening to him. Thomas’s ideal— that contemplation of the truth is the beginning of our future life—was one he lived out in the “springtime” of his Dominican religious order. In the previous century St. Dominic had founded the order for the contemplation and preaching of evangelical Truth. All the power—better, all the fire—of Thomas’s efforts for spiritual renewal in the thirteenth century is contained in these pages. In reasoning that is exquisitely ordered and rigorously elaborated, St. Thomas reveals the soul of his theology and the heart of his personal experience in communion with his brothers.” Servais Pinckaers, O.P., “Aquinas’s Pursuit of Beatitude: From the Commentary on the Sentences to the Summa Theologiae,” trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. in The Pinckaers Reader, 99. Originally published as “La voie spirituelle du Bonheur,” in Ordo sapientiae et amoris (1993): 267–84. 100 Servais Pinckaers, O.P., “Sources of the Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas,” trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P., in The Pinckaers Reader, 23. 101 St. Thomas Aquinas, Inaugural Lecture, in Simon Tugwell, O.P., Albert and Thomas: Selected Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), 355. Paul Morrissey 186 We should, says Pinckaers, take our lead from St. Thomas that in order to understand divine revelation we need to read Scripture as it speaks to our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, before reading the work of St. Thomas we should do as he did, namely open the Gospel and meditate on it, pray with it, and put it into practice. Thus, revelation becomes a “living knowledge.” Only then, [n]ourished by the same spiritual source, we can enter into communion of mind and heart with St. Thomas and engage in fruitful dialogue with him, as well as with the authors whom he quotes, as he invites us to listen to them in our search for truth. Thus, we will better grasp the timeliness of his teaching, discerning its human riches and limitations. We will know, also, how to find the words needed today to transmit the intellectual treasure contained in his works.102 Pinckaers, like Chenu and Torrell, reads St. Thomas in light of his sources. Thomas is a master, but should not be read simply as if there had been no theological sources before him. His work is flooded with his deep knowledge of Scripture as well as with all those who have gone before him who loved and searched for truth. Whether it be with the Fathers (East and West) or the Philosophers, Thomas enters into “profound communion . . . with all the authors whom he consults.”103 Pinckaers’s Notion of Theology as a Form of Wisdom It is evident that, according to Pinckaers, theology is a form of wisdom. “Love for the ‘fulness of truth,’ as St. John puts it, ‘or the search for wisdom’ is essential for theology.”104 Pinckaers takes up the theme of wisdom explic102 Pinckaers, “Sources of the Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas,” 23. 103 Ibid. 104 Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 35. For a short overview of Pinckaers’s thoughts on wisdom see Servais Pinckaers, O.P., Plaidoyer pour la vertu (Paris: Parole et Silence, 2007), 330–37. Pinckaers differentiates between philosophical wisdom and theological wisdom in the following: “We can cite the passage from Cicero’s De finibus bonorum et malorum where he declares, “Wisdom does not resemble the art of the pilot and physician but rather a role in the theatre or a dance; for the height of art and its fulfillment lies in itself and is not at the beck and call of anything external to it.” And he adds that Wisdom is even more independent of external happenings than the arts. For Christian theology, according to St. Paul, the source of wisdom will be in God and will be communicated through the events of salvation history thanks to faith in Christ. Wisdom comes to the human person from without, but this does not hinder it from penetrating to the ultimate depths of the person. Wisdom, the supreme moral quality, thus acquires an objectivity and reality that are specific characteristics of Christian thought.” Servais Pinckaers, O.P., “A Historical Perspective on Intrinsically Evil Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 187 itly when he looks at the notion of truth in The Sources of Christian Ethics. He explains that since the Enlightenment and the onset of rationalism, theology has developed an impoverished notion of truth, a notion that separates truth from love. Taking his cue from Scripture, Pinckaers notes that a fuller understanding of truth does not just involve ideas but “grows out of a concrete, total experience engaging the entire person in encounter with the other.” This, he adds, is really a description of our relation to God.105 This co-inheres with a classical definition of truth—“the mind’s grasp of a thing”—but, adds Pinckaers, with an added something, namely, that the thing grasped is not simply a material object but a personal reality—God or neighbor. “This personal reality reveals itself in all its nature and mystery as light, goodness, beauty, energy, life. Mind is not now abstract reason but intelligence united to will, love, and desire, informing and directing them. It is understanding joined to sensitivity and imagination, guiding and regulating them.”106 Therefore, truth is not merely abstract but involves a person and, furthermore, the intellect having grasped truth is called into action. Thus we are called to live the truth in love. “Truth,” states Pinckaers, “is beneficial; through upright love it creates a profound harmony between our various faculties and between persons.”107 This understanding of truth corresponds to St. Thomas’s definition of the human intellect, as a power that “reads into” reality (IIaIIae, q 8, a1). It penetrates beyond the outward show of words, gestures, the literal text, to the very depth of a person, a thought, a life, and it understands. This understanding, flowing from active experience and profound contact, gives us a unique kind of knowledge that is universal, constructive, concrete, somewhat intuitive.108 This knowledge is sure because it is “connatural”; it is acquired through doing the truth in love. “Its name is wisdom. It culminates in the gift of wisdom, which perfects charity, and the gift of understanding, which perfects faith.”109 And theology, adds Pinckaers, for the Fathers, for Thomas and the great Scholastics, was a work of such wisdom—practical and contemplative.110 Acts,” trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P., in The Pinckaers Reader, 190–91. Originally published in Servais Pinckaers, O.P., Ce qu’on ne peut jamais faire (1986), 20–66. 105 Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 34. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid. 110 “Here, then, is a new aspect of Christian asceticism: that intellectual and spiritual detachment produced by the desire for truth, which urges us firstly to transcend 188 Paul Morrissey For Pinckaers, it is essential to “love the truth”; love and truth belong together. He cites the intuition of the novelist Georges Bernanos, who wrote about the primordial will to either lie or tell the truth; the determined will to lie will flicker for an instant in the liar’s eye, revealing the reality of his person. “Love of truth or of lying is primordial, basic to a person, and will affect his actions decisively so that they will be rich or empty.”111 Seeking the fullness of truth—wisdom—is essential in theology, whatever the theological discipline. For the moral theologian, such as Pinckaers, this seeking of wisdom will throw light on what a human act means. This wisdom is contemplative and must be restored to Christian ethics, which, states Pinckaers, “has become profoundly voluntaristic in recent centuries.”112 The Importance of Prayer and Holiness for Theology A theme that runs throughout Pinckaers’s theology is the link between prayer (and the desire for holiness) and theological knowledge. In the Prologue to The Sources of Christian Ethics, Pinckaers argues: “Particularly in the field of Christian ethics, I am convinced that work is useless unless it flows from faith and prayer. This applies equally to intellectual work, study, and daily effort. Theology is ecclesial work, and no one, whether concerned with minor details or the entire building, can build without sensible perceptions, then to transcend the ideas formed by our reason, then finally to transcend the intuitions of our mind, in order to allow the development within us of that contemplation, at once obscure and luminous, intelligent and unknowing, which is proper to faith in this life. When we reflect on these texts of the Summa we can read between the lines to discern the spiritual experience of the Angelic Doctor, an experience animated by the ardent love of truth which spurred Thomas on to seek God before all other realities, as his biographer William of Tocco tells us. We are not in his case dealing with a purely intellectual search, one which might become so abstract in its series of transcendent moves that it might risk vanishing like a rocket into the space of concepts, and even beyond that. From beginning to end, Thomas’s venture remains linked with the desire for beatitude and that love of goodness which moves the will. In his very succinct and sober style he describes for us the progress of our spiritual appetite, which unites the desire for truth with the love of the good, thus directing all the movements of the human mind and heart toward God. The pathway built by Thomas is indeed predominantly intellectual and sapiential, just like the teaching of the Fathers of the Church; but it is at the same time unitive through the love of God, which is strengthened by charity and the desire for beatitude, and lifted higher by the virtue of hope.” Servais Pinckaers, O.P., “Beatitude and the Beatitudes in Aquinas’s Summa theologiae,” in The Pinckaers Reader, 122–23. 111 Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 35. 112 Ibid. Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 189 the Holy Spirit.”113 Furthermore, in this same Prologue, to a work that he considered the synthesis of his theology, Pinckaers outlines his project: “I have opted for the roads that lead most directly to my main goal, and this goal has become progressively clearer to me. I have tried, in a word, to clear the way, all too often obstructed or even condemned, that leads to a rebonding of Christian ethics and spiritual spontaneity within the human heart, under the action of the Holy Spirit, through faith in Christ.”114 Notice here his determination to place prayer at the heart of the theological exercise, as well as the necessity, in moral theology, to take account of the role of the Holy Spirit. The importance of prayer is also highlighted by Pinckaers when he discusses the centrality of Scripture, something the Fathers of Vatican II wanted renewed in moral theology.115 The reunification of moral theology and Scripture, Pinckaers considers, is the chief task for moral theology today. “We must seize upon the grace offered by the Council.”116 This means taking into account the many advances in the scientific study of Scripture, but it is not restricted to that. The moral theologian cannot just refer questions for deliberation to this science alone. Rather, Pinckaers proposes what he calls “experiential exegesis.” This means an understanding of the Word acquired by living the faith proposed by Scripture and reflecting upon it. We see this method used particularly in his reflection of the Sermon on the Mount.117 “The theologian,” states Pinckaers, “cannot be content with merely multiplying references to Scripture or to extensive patristic sources, but must penetrate and grasp theology’s deepest foundations and principles.”118 Unless prayer and theological reflection are integrated, the very essence of theology will be affected, as well as its insertion into the deposit of faith. “The principle underlying St. Augustine’s own research convinces us of this. His assertion ‘Unless you believe, you will not understand,’ can easily translate into: ‘Unless you pray, you will not understand.’ ”119 Moreover, There must be a link between personal and liturgical prayer . . . and theology. Today we realize more and more the need for prayer in theological reflection. Under the influence of rationalism, we have too long 113 Ibid., xxi. 114 Ibid. 115 Vatican Council II, Optatam Totius, 15. 116 Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, xxiii. 117 Ibid., 161. 118 Ibid., xvii. 119 Ibid., 163. Paul Morrissey 190 believed that theology was a work of pure reason and prayer a matter of emotion. We have forgotten that the theologian cannot acquire an experiential, accurate understanding of what he teaches without the light of grace and therefore of prayer, without his share in the gifts of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and counsel.120 Experiential knowledge also requires a virtuous life; thus for a theologian it is best that he or she is virtuous. His or her virtue “will be the wisdom that unites everything.”121 It is also worth noting that in his reflection on his “Sources” the first two he mentions, before any theologian or philosopher, are an attraction to the Eucharist and the discovery of the Bible as the Word of God. Eucharistic adoration, for Pinckaers, “is a source of contact (with the Lord) situated beyond ideas, words, sentiments and representations, which secretly inspires them and makes them fruitful.”122 Pinckaers links his own devotion to the Eucharist to that of St. Thomas; it belongs to the realm of faith and it imparts deep understanding: “fides quaerens intellectum.”123 Understanding the Bible as the Word of God, superior to any human words, is paramount for Pinckaers. He writes, “I acquired from this an appreciation for the legitimacy and preeminence of the ‘spiritual’ meaning of the Scriptures that is tied to the experience that faith and practice provide, both through and beyond the historical and textual exegesis that was being taught to us. Interpreted in this way, following the practice of the Fathers of the Church but without neglecting the contributions made by modern scholarship, the Scriptures can become once again the principal and preeminent source of theology.”124 Pinckaers’s devotion to the Eucharist and the Word of God affected him profoundly as a Thomistic moral theologian: I was able to enter into the texts of St. Thomas from within, through the first source of its inspiration, beyond the textual and historical studies that approach his teaching from the outside. I was thus able to perceive the Christian and theological dimension of his teaching, particularly his moral teaching, while being confronted with the rational and philosophical reading of his work, which was predominant at the time: rediscovering, for example, the treatise on the New Law and the role of the gifts of the Holy Spirit; perceiving as well the spir120 Ibid. 121 “Le mieux pour un théologien est d’être lui-même vertueux. Sa vertu propre sera la sagesse qui les rassemble toutes.” Servais Pinckaers, O.P., Plaidoyer pour la vertu, 57. 122 Pinckaers, “My Sources,” 913. 123 Ibid. 124 Ibid. Pinckaers and the Renewal of Thomistic Theology 191 itual and even mystical dimension of his teaching, which one can connect to Eucharistic devotion.125 The Unity of Theology According to Pinckaers Another important part of Pinckaers’s project is to reintegrate moral theology into theology as a whole. In other words, there is for Pinckaers an inherent unity in theology. The opening of The Sources of Christian Ethics consists in Pinckaers’s attempt to define Christian ethics. No easy task, as he points out. The broad definition he favors is this: “Christian ethics is the branch of theology that studies human acts so as to direct them to a loving vision of God seen as our true, complete happiness and our final end.This vision is attained by means of grace, the virtues, and the gifts, in the light of revelation and reason.”126 The important point here in this unified vision of moral theology is the term “branch of theology.” Rather than the usual terms such as discipline or specialization or even field, “branch of theology” suggests that at root all the different branches are linked, each a branch of one vine. Pinckaers is at pains to point out the unified nature of theology. He notes how in recent centuries Christian ethics has been cut adrift from dogma, exegesis, and spirituality. Although this is important and necessary for pedagogical purposes, the problem has been that theology is no longer a single science; rather it is “in actual fact a tangle of disconnected parts.”127 “One of the principal tasks of theology today,” writes Pinckaers “is to restore its own unity.”128 The lines of communication between the different branches of theology need to be reopened for the mutual benefit of all. After all, writes Pinckaers, “Did not St. Thomas claim that theology, with all its branches, possessed a more intrinsic unity than philosophy, since the latter admits the innate duality N&V of metaphysics and ethics?”129 125 Ibid. 126 Pinckaers, The Sources of Christian Ethics, 8. 127 Ibid., 9. 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid. Before explaining the connection between the image of God and Christian ethics, Pinckaers states: “I approach the theme as a moralist, it is true, but one whose concern is to re-establish close bonds between Scripture, dogmatic theology, and the Christian experience, each of which expresses itself in its own way, converging in our theme.” Servais Pinckaers, O.P., “Ethics and the Image of God,” trans. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P., in The Pinckaers Reader, 131. Originally published as “Le théme de l’image de Dieu en l’homme et l’anthropologie,” in Humain à l’image de Dieu, ed. Pierre Büchler (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1989), 147–63. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 193–215 193 The Church as the Defender of Conscience in Our Age K EVIN E. O’R EILLY, O.P. Theological Studium, St. Saviour’s Dublin, Ireland “C ONTEMPORARY men are becoming increasingly conscious of the dignity of the human person and more and more of them are demanding that, in acting, men should enjoy and use their own counsel and responsible freedom without being subjected to coercion but rather being led by the duty of conscience.”1 Thus begins Vatican II’s declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis Humanae. In this opening sentence of the declaration three central themes of the document are enunciated: the dignity of the human person, responsible freedom,2 and conscience.3 These three ideas along with that of truth not only furnish the fundamental dynamics which inspire the formulation of this document but are also intimately interconnected with each other as will become evident in the course of this article. The declaration goes on to introduce the basic political concern it aims to address, namely, “the limitation of public powers lest the ends of virtuous/moral freedom and of the person and of associations be excessively circumscribed by them,”4 and specifies more 1 “Dignitatis humanae personae homines hac nostra aetate magis in dies conscii fiunt, atque numerus eorum crescit qui exigunt, ut in agendo homines proprio suo consilio et libertate responsabili fruantur et utantur, non coercitione commoti, sed officii conscientia ducti.” My translation. 2 The qualification of the word “freedom” by “responsible” indicates that we are not dealing with any absolutist conception of freedom. 3 The notion of conscience is not completely obvious in the translation by Laurence Ryan in Vatican Council II, vol. 1: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, ed. Austin Flannery, O.P. (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing, 1998), 799: “[I]nspired by a sense of duty.” 4 Ibid.: “Itemque postulant iuridicam delimitationem potestatis publicae, ne fines honestae libertatis et personae et associationum nimis circumscribantur.” My 194 Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. narrowly the concern of the Council, namely, that freedom in society is chiefly concerned with spiritual goods,5 especially those that regard the free exercise of religion. In brief, Dignitatis Humanae is concerned with the free exercise of religion in society as an expression of the objective constitution of the human person as well as with its contribution to the common good. If it is truly a virtue and as such conduces to the wellbeing of the human person, religion will also direct citizens towards the common good.6 The declaration situates the themes of freedom, conscience, and truth in the context of the natural law. It does not, however, expound upon the basis or nature of human freedom or its relation to conscience; neither does it clarify the relationship between conscience and truth. It presupposes, rather, a particular understanding, one which receives expression in the papal writings of John Paul II and Benedict XVI as well as being informed by the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. In what follows, I will elucidate the relationship between freedom, conscience, and truth as construed in these sources in order to gain a more adequate understanding of conscience, that is to say, an understanding that accords with the existential reality of the human person in its entirety. This understanding is fundamentally at variance with that which commonly informs contemporary discourse and practical affairs. The understanding espoused by the Church views human nature as inscribed by God with its specific structure and natural inclinations. The natural inclinations which are rooted in our psychosomatic nature are expressions of God’s providential care for us. They both provide us with clearly discernible guides for moral action and direct us towards final union with God as the ultimate Good. Since they are intrinsic to human nature itself they in fact furnish the conditions for translation. Ryan translates this sentence as: “At the same time they are demanding constitutional limitation of the powers of government to prevent excessive restriction of the rightful freedom of individuals and associations.” 5 Ibid.: “[A]nimi humani bona.” To translate “bona” as “values,” as Ryan does, introduces a subjectivist tenor which is arguably alien to the intent of the document’s authors. 6 See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II–II, q. 58, a. 5: “Now it is evident that all who are included in a community, stand in relation to that community as parts to a whole; while a part, as such, belongs to a whole, so that whatever is the good of a part can be directed to the good of the whole. It follows therefore that the good of any virtue, whether such virtue direct man in relation to himself, or in relation to certain other individual persons, is referable to the common good, to which justice directs: so that all acts of virtue can pertain to justice, in so far as it directs man to the common good.” The scope of this essay doesn’t permit a fullscale discussion of the notion of the common good in Catholic social teaching or in St. Thomas. For some clarification, however, see the appendix. The Church as Defender of Conscience 195 a proper exercise of freedom and in no way undermine it. Thus human freedom is at once embodied and has its ultimate ground in God. The anthropology espoused by the Church differs radically from that which predominates in some form or other in the Western world; consequently, her understanding of freedom and conscience also diverges substantially from that which characterizes this society. Therein lies the source not only of a clash of cultures with regard to bioethical and sexual ethical issues but also the source of attacks on the right to religious liberty, the beginnings of which we arguably have witnessed in Obama’s healthcare bill in the USA, in the refusal to allow Catholic adoption agencies in the UK to refer children to heterosexual families alone, and in the desire to remove the Catholic Church from education in Ireland. This article aims to illustrate why the natural inclinations have become a ferocious battle ground between contemporary democracies and the Church as the guarantor of freedom and conscience. The first step in illustrating this position requires, as already intimated, that we explicate the understanding of freedom espoused by the Church, a freedom that is both grounded in God and embodied. The Divine Ground and Embodied Constitution of Human Freedom Following St. Thomas, John Paul II succinctly describes the relationship between God, human reason, the moral law, and human law: “The moral law has its origin in God and always finds its source in him: at the same time, by virtue of natural reason, which derives from divine wisdom, it is properly human law.”7 Creation means that the autonomy that is ascribed to practical reason is what Veritatis Splendor terms a “participated theonomy.”8 We possess in ourselves a law but not in the sense that we are free to create values and moral norms. Kantian-inspired fears of heteronomy are easily discounted since the moral life is not here viewed as if it “were subject to the will of something all-powerful, absolute, extraneous to man and intolerant of his freedom.”9 Rather, God expresses His providential care to human beings in a way that is at once an expression of the very structure of human being itself, namely, “through reason, which by its natural knowledge of God’s eternal law, is consequently able to show man the right direction to take in his free actions.”10 Martin Rhonheimer 7 Veritatis Splendor §39. 8 Ibid., §41. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., §43. 196 Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. expresses this point well with reference to practical reason’s moving principle, namely, the natural inclinations: In order for the ordering and lawgiving act of the practical reason (as a cognitive participation in the eternal law) not to be falsified, the human reason can never “emancipate” itself from its moving principle, the actus proprius of the natural inclinations.The ordinatio rationis of the natural law is not a law that has these natural inclinations at its disposal, but is rather an ordering in the natural inclinations, since they are an expression of the plan of divine providence, at the level of the very structure of our being. They participate in the “directive power” of the eternal law.11 Not only are the specific natural inclinations—to self-preservation, to procreation and education of offspring, and to knowledge of the truth— inscribed within the structure of the human being by God’s providential creative act, but as expressions of the basic inclination to the good they are teleologically ordered towards ultimate fulfilment in God, the Supreme Good. God draws all things to Himself in virtue of the innate principles that He has inscribed within their being. In the case of human beings, these principles are reason and the natural inclinations: reason reflecting upon the natural inclinations directs the human being to final union with God. As Thomas writes: “The natural law is promulgated by the very fact that God instilled it into man’s mind so as to be known by him naturally.”12 If human freedom is to be understood correctly, however, it must be grasped not only in its reference to its Creator but also in the truth of its own constitution. Anthropology and conceptions of freedom go hand in hand. A true conception of freedom necessarily takes account of the human person in his entirety, that is to say, as a psychosomatic unity. Freedom properly construed is therefore not absolute but is embodied. Following St. Thomas on this point, the Church proclaims “the unity of the human person, whose rational soul is per se et essentialiter the form of his body.” John Paul II goes on to elaborate the implications of this point as follows: 11 Martin Rhonheimer, Natural Law and Practical Reason: A Thomist View of Moral Autonomy, trans. Gerald Malsbary (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), 250–51. See also John M. Haas, who writes: “There is no hint of heteronomy in a morality grounded in the doctrine of creation, because the moral law is but an expression of one’s very nature. Man’s very being comes from an external Source—God. But there is a way in which the Source does not remain external. In the very act of creation, the image of the Source becomes an attribute of man himself, body and soul” (“Crisis of Conscience and Culture,” in Crisis of Conscience, ed. John M. Haas [New York: Crossroad, 1996], 41). 12 ST I–II, q. 90, a. 4, ad 1. The Church as Defender of Conscience 197 The spiritual and immortal soul is the principle of unity of the human being, whereby it exists as a whole—corpore et anima unus—as a person. These definitions not only point out that the body, which has been promised the resurrection, will also share in glory. They also remind us that reason and free will are linked with all the bodily and sense faculties. The person, including the body, is completely entrusted to himself, and it is in the unity of body and soul that the person is the subject of his own moral acts. The person, by the light of reason and the support of virtue, discovers in the body the anticipatory signs, the expression and the promise of the gift of self, in conformity with the wise plan of the Creator. It is in the light of the dignity of the human person—a dignity which must be affirmed for its own sake—that reason grasps the specific moral value of certain goods towards which the person is naturally inclined. And since the human person cannot be reduced to a freedom which is self-designing, but entails a particular spiritual and bodily structure, the primordial moral requirement of loving and respecting the person as an end and never as a mere means also implies, by its very nature, respect for certain fundamental goods, without which one would fall into relativism and arbitrariness.13 True human freedom has parameters outside of which it cannot venture without undermining the conditions of its own exercise and these parameters are set by human nature itself, which nature is at once spiritual and corporeal. To exalt the spiritual dimension in such a way as to allow it to lord it over and to manipulate the bodily dimensions of human 13 Veritatis Splendor §48. For a magisterial account of Thomas’s anthropology, see Gilles Emery, O.P., “The Unity of Man, Body and Soul, in St. Thomas Aquinas,” in Trinity, Church, and the Human Person: Thomistic Essays (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2007), 209–35. The confines of this article do not permit a defense of the notion of the human as psychosomatically constituted. For a contemporary philosophical defense of this view, see David Braine, The Human Person: Animal and Spirit (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992). Braine argues that human beings are not “assemblages of parts, inner and outer,” but rather “wholes—psychophysical wholes—wholes in whose operations the mental cannot be extricated from the physical and the physical cannot be understood apart from the mental” (ibid., 22–23). Lawrence A. Shapiro, The Mind Incarnate (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004) draws upon a variety of sources (e.g., neuroscience, evolutionary theory, and embodied cognition), to develop an argument that converges with the positions of Thomas, John Paul II as representative of the Catholic magisterium, and Braine. Shapiro writes that “as embodied cognition research progresses, the traditional boundaries between mind and body will either continue to fade or will require extensive realignment. In short, my bet is that the mind is far more incarnate than most philosophers, and certainly most laypersons have appreciated” (ibid., 228). Thomas, John Paul II, and the Catholic magisterium are not to be included among “most philosophers” and “most laypersons.” 198 Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. being is properly speaking a violation of true human freedom and of the dignity of the human person. The foregoing discussion of the divine ground and embodied constitution of human freedom is a necessary prelude to an understanding of magisterial teaching concerning conscience. As the next section will clarify, conscience is intimately bound up with freedom in that it too presupposes the natural inclinations in its exercise and can therefore also be rightly considered God’s herald and messenger. Embodied Conscience as God’s Herald and Messenger It is precisely man’s constitution as a psychosomatic unity that explains how the precepts of the natural law, the first principles of human actions, structure the mind.14 Thomas employs the traditional term synderesis to express this idea: “Synderesis is said to be the law of our mind, because it is a habit containing the precepts of the natural law, which are the first principles of human actions.”15 The first two precepts mentioned by 14 Thomas states the precepts of the natural law at ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2: “Since, however, good has the nature of an end and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is that all those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally apprehended by reason as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance.Wherefore according to the order of natural inclinations, is the order of the precepts of the natural law. Because in man there is first of all an inclination to good in accordance with the nature which he has in common with all substances: inasmuch as every substance seeks the preservation of its own being, according to its nature: and by reason of this inclination, whatever is a means of preserving human life, and of warding off its obstacles, belongs to the natural law. Secondly, there is in man an inclination to things that pertain to him more specially, according to that nature which he has in common with other animals: and in virtue with this inclination, those things are said to belong to the natural law, which nature has taught to all animals, such as sexual intercourse, education of offspring and so forth. Thirdly, there is in man an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason, which nature is proper to him: thus man has a natural inclination to the know the truth about God, and to live in society: and in this respect, whatever pertains to this inclination belongs to the natural law; for instance, to shun ignorance, to avoid offending those among whom one has to live, and other such things regarding the above inclination.” 15 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 1, ad 2. While it is true that this term appears less frequently in the Summa Theologiae and De Malo than in the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum and the De veritate, the essential doctrinal content of Thomas’s treatment of first principles seems to remain constant throughout his career. For the doctrinal history of synderesis, see Odon D. Lottin, “Syndérèse et conscience aux xiie et xiiie siècles,” Vol. 2, pt. 1: Problèmes de morale (Louvain: Abbaye de Mont César, 1948), 101–349; Vernon J. Bourke, “The Background of Aquinas’ Synderesis Principle,” in Graceful Reason: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Presented to Joseph Owens, CSsR, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1983), 345–60; The Church as Defender of Conscience 199 Thomas are predicated upon the inclination to preservation of one’s existence and to the procreation and education of offspring. The first inclination we share in common with all beings, animate and inanimate, the second with the other animals. Both these inclinations issue from our embodied condition, which condition does not, however, stand over against practical reason but rather constitutes its very foundations and determines the direction for its right unfolding. Jean Porter gives expression to this idea when she states, “Because we are both creatures and animals, we too manifest . . . orderly patterns of action. In this way, the intelligible structures of natural processes provide the basis for the properly rational activities of the human creature—and these rational activities, in turn, are given coherence and direction by the natural processes out of which they stem.”16 Of course, it is not only the case that the first two inclinations, rooted as they are in the somatic condition of our being, enter into the constitution of the very wellspring of practical reasoning; they in turn are suffused with the life of reason and their expression is therefore radically different than in the case of even the highest of the other animals. Indeed, we can note in passing that the fact that they are infused with the life of reason explains why their realization in concrete action can be imbued with religious significance, bearing in mind that the inclination to act in accord with the nature of reason expresses itself in “a natural inclination to the know the truth about God.”17 Thus, for example, eating is an essential means of preserving one’s existence but can also take on a religious significance. The Eucharist is the preeminent example. Marriage, to offer another example, which furnishes the conditions that conduce to the optimal flourishing of offspring, participates in Christ’s spousal relationship with His Bride, the Church, when it is sacramentalized. The immediacy with which the first practical principles are known leads St.Thomas to compare them with the first principles of speculative reason: “[T]he precepts of the natural law are to the practical reason, what the first principles of demonstrations are to the speculative reason; because both are self-evident principles.”18 Thomas expresses this point at greater length and Michael Bertram Crowe, “Synderesis and the Notion of Law in Saint Thomas,” in L’homme et son destin d’après les penseurs du moyen âge, Actes du Premier Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale, 1958 (Louvain: Éditions Nauwelaerts, 1960), 601–9. 16 Jean Porter, Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 71. While this comment concerns the scholastics in general, it clearly applies to St Thomas in particular. 17 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2. It is of course obvious that this realization is not universal. 18 Ibid. Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. 200 elsewhere: “Accordingly we conclude that just as, in the speculative reason, from naturally known indemonstrable principles, we draw the conclusions of the various sciences, the knowledge of which is not imparted to us by nature, but acquired by the efforts of reason, so too it is from the precepts of the natural law, as from general and indemonstrable principles, that the human reason needs to proceed to the more particular determination of certain matters.”19 Practical reason is therefore led (deducitur) from first principles which are per se nota in the same way as speculative reason is.20 Thomas refers to this knowledge of first principles as “a kind of seed plot containing in germ all the knowledge which follows.”21 Synderesis, this “kind of seed plot containing in germ all the knowledge which follows,” is the foundation of conscience. As Ralph McInerny explains, “conscience is distinguished from synderesis” in that “it applies the common principles [precepts of the natural law] to particular deeds.”22 John Paul II writes: [W]hereas the natural law discloses the objective and universal demands of the moral good, conscience is the application of the law to a particular case; this application of the law thus becomes an inner dictate for the individual, a summons to do what is good in this particular situation. Conscience thus formulates moral obligation in the light of the natural law: it is the obligation to do what the individual, through the workings of his conscience, knows to be a good he is called to do here and now.23 Thus, conscience cannot be construed as the first rule of human acts. It is in fact a measured measure—in Thomas’s words, “a kind of rule which is itself regulated.”24 Since synderesis, which “is said to be the law of our mind, because it is a habit containing the precepts of the natural law, which are the first principles of human actions,”25 is inscribed by God in the structure of human being as psychosomatically structured, and since “conscience is an act proceeding from the natural habit of synderesis, God is said to have imprinted it [conscience] in the way in which He is said to be the source of all knowledge of truth which is in us.”26 Understood in this way, conscience can be said not only to bear witness to an individual 19 ST I–II, q. 91, a. 3. See also ST I, q. 79, a. 12. 20 See also In II Sent., d. 24, q. 2, a. 3. 21 De veritate, q. 16, a. 1. 22 Ralph McInerny, “Conscience and the Object of the Moral Act,” in Crisis of Conscience, ed. Haas, 93–110, at 97. 23 Veritatis Splendor §59. 24 De veritate, q. 17, a. 2, ad 7. 25 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 1, ad 2. 26 De veritate, q. 17, a. 1, ad s.c. 6. The Church as Defender of Conscience 201 concerning his own rectitude or iniquity but is, as John Paul II writes, “the witness of God himself, whose voice and judgment penetrates the depths of man’s soul, calling him fortiter et suaviter to obedience.”27 His quotation from St. Bonaventure makes this point in a striking way: “Saint Bonaventure teaches that ‘conscience is like God’s herald and messenger; it does not command things on its own authority, but commands them as coming from God’s authority, like a herald when he proclaims the edict of the king.This is why conscience has binding force.’ ”28 Of course, the fact that conscience has its wellspring in the natural inclinations and is intimately bound up with our reasoning processes means that it is not externally imposed upon human experience. The voice of God is proportioned to and mediated through the objective constitution of the human condition in so far as this constitution is respected in all its integrity. It turns out therefore that conscience and freedom are intimately bound up with each other: both have God as their ground and both presuppose the natural inclinations in a being that is psychosomatically constituted. Just as to exercise freedom in a way that subverts the natural inclinations is to undermine the very conditions of the exercise of freedom, so too this exercise constitutes a violation of one’s conscience, albeit a self-inflicted violation. If one can say that conscience is the ultimate expression of the dignity of the human person, then to act in a manner that is contrary to the evident indications of the natural inclinations constitutes a violation of one’s personal dignity. Having clarified the notions of freedom and conscience as employed in magisterial teaching, I now return to a consideration of religious freedom. As already indicated, the right to religious freedom is rooted in the third natural inclination concerning which Thomas writes: “[T]here is in man an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason, which nature is proper to him: thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in society.”29 When writing about the virtue of religion itself, Thomas maintains that it is the acquired virtue par excellence that directs the human person to God as his end.30 The following account is based on Vatican II’s declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis Humanae, a document that is foundational in contemporary Catholic thinking in 27 Veritatis Splendor §58. 28 Ibid. The quotation is from In II Librum Sentent., dist. 39, a. 1, q. 3, conclusion: Ed. Ad Claras Aquas, II, 907b. 29 ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2: “Tertio modo inest homini inclinatio ad bonum secundum naturam rationis, quae est sibi propria, sicut homo habet naturalem inclinationem ad hoc quod veritatem cognoscat de Deo, et ad hoc quod in societate vivat.” 30 See ST II–II, q. 81, a. 6. 202 Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. this area. The declaration deals with religious freedom both as an individual right and as a right ascribed to religious communities. Freedom of Religion: An Individual and Community Right Dignitatis Humanae 2 opens with a forthright declaration of the right of the human person to religious freedom. Such freedom of course implies that everyone should be immune from coercion from any quarter whatsoever, so that “within due limits, nobody is forced to act against his convictions in religious matters in private or in public, alone or in association with others.” The adoption of rights discourse is due in no small degree to the influence of Jacques Maritain, who in his engagement with modern thought argued, “The true philosophy of the rights of the human person is . . . based upon the idea of natural law. The same natural law which lays down our most fundamental duties, and by virtue of which every law is binding, is the very law which assigns to us our fundamental rights.”31 Ultimately, the thinking of Dignitatis Humanae is grounded in St. Thomas’s natural law theory, which states that man has a natural inclination both to the know the truth about God and to live in society.32 This inclination is singular in its reality but expresses itself in a twofold manner: first, to know the truth about God; second, to live in society. Dignitatis Humanae 2 in turn states that all human beings “are both impelled by their nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially reli31 Jacques Maritain, Christian Democracy & The Rights of Man and Natural Law, trans. Doris C. Anson (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986), 145. It is of course well-nigh impossible to engage in moral and political debate without the currency of rights language and yet, as Evangelium Vitae recognizes, that language is also employed to promote a culture of death. For a treatment of the limits that rights language places on our ability to discuss moral and legal matters, see Mary Ann Glendon, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse (New York: Free Press, 1991). G. J. McAleer writes that “some express the concern that Catholic social thought has become too closely allied to liberalism’s advocacy of rights to be able to launch an adequate critique of liberalism” (G. J. McAleer, Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics: A Catholic and Antitotalitarian Theory of the Body [New York: Fordham University Press, 2005], 160). Drawing upon Aurel Kolnai, he proposes a theory of privilege in order to counter “liberal equality, upon which are based both the argument for abortion (Nussbaum) and the argument against welcoming the stranger ( Jarvis Thomson).” This liberal equality “makes the unborn (and in principle all of us) persona non grata” (ibid., 161). McAleer argues: “This “bias for immoralism” is structurally part of the drive to equality on the part of liberal democracy, for it necessarily includes a denial of the very idea of intrinsic goods and evils as these presume hierarchy. It is, of course, for this reason that sexual politics is such a battleground in liberal democracies, for nothing quite exemplifies an order of values like purity and lust.” 32 See ST I–II, q. 94, a. 2. The Church as Defender of Conscience 203 gious truth” and that “the exercise of this right cannot be interfered with as long as the just requirements of public order are observed.” As intimated by Thomas, the quest for religious truth cannot run counter to the order of society since societal ordering is a function of the same faculty of reason that inspires the search for God. When the order of society is seriously disrupted by a particular expression of religious pursuit, this pursuit must naturally be called into question. Grounded in human nature, the inclination to know the truth about God in turn grounds the right to know the truth about God as well as making pursuit of this truth a matter of conscience. Indeed, the practice of religion can be considered to be a greater matter of conscience than matters of conscience flowing from the other inclinations. These latter, when properly ordered, are ultimately inclinations to the Good, namely, God. They are, moreover, subsumed into the life of reason itself on account of the hylomorphic constitution of the human person. Since the practice of religion is an inclination to the good according to the nature of human reason, it consists primarily, according to Dignitatis Humanae 3, “of those voluntary and free internal acts by which a man directs himself to God.” Since, moreover, acts that are voluntary and free internal acts lie beyond the realm of commandment or proscription on the part of human authority, so too do acts that are expressions of religious belief— provided of course that they do not interfere with public order. In fidelity to Thomas’s formulation of the third precept of the natural law, which pertains to the inclination to the good in accordance with the nature of reason, Dignitatis Humanae 3 argues for freedom of public expression of one’s religious convictions: “[H]is own social nature requires that man give external expression to . . . internal acts of religion, that he communicate with others on religious matters, and profess his religion in community.” The denial of this freedom of expression in the absence of any detrimental consequences for public order would be an injustice to the human person. It would also constitute an injustice with regard to the divinely established order, since the inclination to act in accord with the nature of reason that finds its expression in religious practice and societal life is at once an expression of God’s providence for human beings whereby He directs them to final union with Himself.33 33 See ST I–II, q. 91, a. 2: “[S]ince all things subject to Divine providence are ruled and measured by the eternal law . . . it is evident that all things partake somewhat of the eternal law, in so far as, namely, from its being imprinted on them, they derive their respective inclinations to their proper acts and ends. Now among all others, the rational creature is subject to Divine providence in the most excellent way, in so far as it partakes of a share of providence, by being provident both 204 Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. While the same inclination that expresses itself in religious practice also expresses itself in seeking societal harmony, there is nonetheless a crucial difference between these expressions. Societal harmony conduces to the attainment of the common good in the temporal order, whereas religious practice entails acts, both private and public, that “transcend of their very nature the earthly and temporal order of things.” Thus, while civil authority in its care for the common good in the temporal order is morally bound to “look with favor on the religious life of the citizens,” it ought not to arrogate to itself the right to control or to restrict religious activity. If and when it does so it exceeds the limits of its proper power. This situation obtains both in the case of the individual exercise of religious freedom and in the case where people act in community. Dignitatis Humanae 4 once again calls attention to the intimate link between the religious and social instincts inscribed in human nature: “Religious communities are a requirement of the nature of man and of religion itself.” They too must be free to act without coercion in religious matters just as individuals are. Provided there is no harm to public order they therefore have “a right to immunity so that they may organize themselves according to their own principles.” This point brings us to an application of our considerations thus far to State-Church relations for, as we are told in Dignitatis Humanae 13, “The freedom of the Church is the fundamental principle governing relations between the Church and public authorities and the whole civil order.” The next section of this essay passes on to a consideration of the implications for society of the Church’s teaching concerning freedom and conscience as well as to a consideration of the implications of society’s rejection of this teaching from its anthropological foundations upwards. The difficult situation in which the Church increasingly finds herself is that of at once being the sole guarantor of genuine freedom and conscience as well as being increasingly discriminated against for this very reason. In other words, the Church’s right to religious liberty, the exercise of which facilitates the protection of the dignity of the human person and of the common good of society, is under threat. The Church’s right to express her religious beliefs in practice goes hand and hand with objectively constituted personal and societal well-being. The Freedom of Ecclesial Conscience and Societal Well-Being In a consideration of magisterial teaching concerning freedom and conscience we saw that the Church construes them both as grounded in for itself and for others. Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law.” The Church as Defender of Conscience 205 God and as being embodied realities. Contemporary culture rejects this understanding, a point made with particular clarity and force in John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae. There he deals first with freedom before proceeding to deal with “the deepest roots of the struggle between the ‘culture of life’ and the ‘culture of death,’ ” namely “the eclipse of the sense of God and man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism.”34 Showing great perspicacity with regard to the way society was even then developing, John Paul II notes that this secularism “with its ubiquitous tentacles, succeeds at times in putting Christian communities themselves to the test.”35 He discerns a negative dynamic reciprocity between the loss of a sense of God and the loss of a sense of the human person. On the one hand, when there is a loss of the sense of God, there is also a tendency to lose the sense of the human person. Put bluntly, this tendency expresses itself in a lack of regard for the human being’s dignity and even her (his) life. On the other hand, “the systematic violation of the moral law, especially in the serious matter of respect for human life and its dignity” constitutes the source of “a kind of progressive darkening of the capacity to discern God’s living and saving presence.”36 John Paul II refers to this dynamic that obtains between the darkening of moral reason and the eclipse of God as a “sad vicious circle.”37 This negative dynamic reciprocity between the darkening of moral reason and the eclipse of God can be explained on the basis of the natural inclinations in the human person as psychosomatically constituted. Thus, to turn away from God or even to become lukewarm about God as the final end of one’s existence is to subvert the basic inclination to the good that underlies the other inclinations. In keeping with the psychosomatic constitution of the human person, this subversion necessarily distorts the directionality of practical reason’s unfolding and it does so at the very inception of this process. In other words, it occasions a darkening of moral reason. By extension, this altered directionality imparts a radically different character to the experience of conscience, a point that ought to be clear from our earlier discussion. Thus, for example, abortion and euthanasia come to be portrayed as compassionate responses to unwanted pregnancy and suffering respectively, while pro-life responses are depicted as the attempted impositions of moral dictators. Appeal to feeling trumps any attempt at moral reasoning that engages with reality as it presents itself. Anthony Fisher remarks that “By the 1960s conscience 34 Evangelium Vitae §21. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 206 Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. had become something like strong feeling, intuition or sincere opinion— what Allan Bloom called ‘the all-purpose ungrounded ground of moral determinations, sufficient at its slightest rumbling to discredit all other obligations or loyalties.’ To appeal to conscience was to foreclose all further discussion and to claim an immunity to reasoned argument or the moral law.”38 This foreclosure of discussion is, according to John Paul II, part and parcel of a construal of conscience as “an independent and exclusive capacity to decide what is good and what is evil.”39 When subjective sincerity becomes the predominant understanding of what constitutes conscience—a subjective sincerity that resists any appeal to reasoned argument or to the moral law—then moral consensus in society is undermined, since there are no shared objective principles on which everyone can agree.The result, as Fisher describes it, is that “appeal to conscientious belief degenerates into window-dressing for the raw expression of preference or power.”40 Moreover, given that the natural inclinations lie at the basis of the self-evident goods that function as the principles of practical reason, their subversion necessarily results in a set of self-evident “goods” that are in many respects antithetical to those that are construed in the light of the natural inclinations. The possibility of dialogue between proponents of these two radically different moral universes is sabotaged at the very foundations of the reasoning process. To distort the natural inclinations is, moreover, to divert or at least to weaken the ordination of the person as a unitary whole towards his Final End, namely God, the Good.41 Expressed otherwise, the conception of conscience as a positive affective experience of subjective sincerity leads in the direction of atheism. Naturally, conscience so construed contests Church teaching as well as tending to conform itself to the spirit of the age. And one characteristic of the spirit of our age is the practical primacy of affectivity over reason. In this respect one can discern the continuing dynamics of the Cartesian will, which Michael Allen Gillespie describes as being like that of God in that it is “infinite, indifferent, and perfectly free, not subordinate to reason or any other law or rule.”42 Placed on a par with 38 Anthony Fisher, Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 41. 39 Dominum et Vivificantem §43; see also Veritatis Splendor §60. 40 Fisher, Catholic Bioethics for a New Millennium, 50. 41 For a more developed version of this argument, see Kevin E. O’Reilly, “Medieval Voluntarism and the Culture of Death,” Studia Moralia 48 (2010): 207–11. 42 Michael Allen Gillespie, Nihilism before Nietzsche (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 55. Elsewhere, Gillespie writes: “The God that Descartes first imagined and feared was a titanic God, beyond reason and nature, beyond good and evil. Descartes won his struggle with this fearsome God only by taking this God’s The Church as Defender of Conscience 207 the divine will or rather believing itself to have superseded the divine will, the human will is able to resist God as it proceeds to exert its control over nature and—more alarmingly—over other human persons. The loss of a sense of God and the loss of a sense of the human person go hand in hand. The loss of a sense of God in our contemporary secularized society combines with construals of freedom and conscience that are in no way grounded in human nature as hylomorphically constituted to create serious difficulties for the Church in its relations with the State. In order to elucidate this point, let us turn briefly to the implications of Christ’s words concerning God and Caesar: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22:21). According to Benedict XVI in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, this distinction, namely, “the distinction between Church and State”43 is fundamental to Christianity. The Church cannot assume the role of a political player, that is to say, “She cannot and must not replace the state.”44 At the same time she cannot remain a simple observer of whatever injustices may be operative in society. Her role is rather to “help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly, even when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest.”45 In his pre-papal writings Benedict/Ratzinger elaborated this point. Thus he wrote that Christ’s words concerning what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God separate sacral authority from state authority and lie at “the origin and the permanent foundation of the western idea of freedom.”46 The dynamics of this freedom, which receives its most important expression in freedom of conscience, have been founded upon the existence of these two societies, related to but not identical with each other and neither of which has been capable of exercising a totalizing power. In this regard, Ratzinger writes that the state has not been “the bearer of a religious authority that reaches into the ultimate depths of conscience, but for its moral basis refers beyond itself to another community.”47 This community is of course the Church, which “understands itself as a final power on himself. He thereby opened up the hope and aspiration for human omnipotence, a hope that has manifested itself repeatedly since in monstrous form” (Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008], 206). 43 Deus Caritas Est §28. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 Joseph Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology (New York: St. Paul Publications, 1988), 161. 47 Ibid. Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. 208 moral authority which however depends on voluntary adherence and is entitled only to spiritual but not to civil penalties.”48 Each of these communities has therefore been “circumscribed in its radius, and on the balance of this relation depends freedom.”49 The implications of doing away with the Church as a public authority in counterbalance to the state should be apparent. I nevertheless quote from Ratzinger, for the import of this point cannot be overstated: [W]hen the Church is done away with as a public and publicly relevant authority, then too freedom is extinguished, because the state . . . claims completely for itself the justification of morality; in the profane postChristian world it does not admittedly do this in the form of a sacral authority but as an ideological authority—that means that the state becomes the party, and since there can no longer be any other authority of the same rank it . . . becomes total itself.50 Without the duality of the co-existence of Church and state as players of equal authority, totalitarianism inevitably begins to develop, and freedom of conscience both on the part of individuals and on the part of the Church as a whole is imperilled. Indeed, this problem is one that does not pertain to the Church and her members alone, for the autonomy and sovereignty of everyone in society is put at risk—a point made by John Paul II in his encyclical Centesimus Annus: [T]he totalitarian State tends to absorb within itself the nation, society, the family, religious groups and individuals themselves. In defending her own freedom, the Church is also defending the human person, who must obey God rather than men (cf. Acts 5:29), as well as defending the family, the various social organizations and nations—all of which enjoy their own spheres of autonomy and sovereignty.51 This conception of autonomy and sovereignty, which does not lead to an isolationism that runs contrary to the interests of the common good but which is rather essential to and promotes the common good, reflects a particular conception of the human person. Expressed otherwise, one’s conception of the nature of the political body is a function of one’s conception of the human person. Society is man writ large, to quote Plato.52 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., 162. 50 Ibid., 162–63. 51 Centesimus Annus §45. 52 Plato, Republic 368c–d. Although Plato employs this notion to refer to character types, I think that it can just as well apply to conceptions of human nature. The Church as Defender of Conscience 209 Eric Voegelin refers to this principle, which posits that society is a “microanthropos,” as the “anthropological principle.”53 St. Thomas agrees, as the following passage illustrates: As the Philosopher says (Polit. i, 2): We observe in an animal a despotic and a politic principle: for the soul dominates the body by a despotic power; but the intellect dominates the appetite by a politic and royal power. For a power is called despotic whereby a man rules his slaves, who have not the right to resist in any way the orders of the one that commands them, since they have nothing of their own. But that power is called politic and royal by which a man rules over free subjects, who, though subject to the government of the ruler, have nevertheless something of their own, by reason of which they can resist the orders of him who commands. And so, the soul is said to rule the body by a despotic power, because the members of the body cannot in any way resist the sway of the soul, but at the soul’s command both hand and foot, and whatever member is naturally moved by voluntary movement, are moved at once. But the intellect or reason is said to rule the irascible and concupiscible by a politic power: because the sensitive appetite has something of its own, by virtue whereof it can resist the commands of reason. For the sensitive appetite is naturally moved, not only by the estimative power in other animals, and in man by the cogitative power which the universal reason guides, but also by the imagination and sense. Whence it is that we experience that the irascible and concupiscible powers do resist reason, inasmuch as we sense or imagine something pleasant, which reason forbids, or unpleasant, which reason commands. And so from the fact that the irascible and concupiscible resist reason in something, we must not conclude that they do not obey.54 Examination of Thomas’s account of the relationship between the passions/emotions and reason shows that he deems the former to be essential to the functioning of the latter—with the proviso they be rightly ordered in the light of reason. As Mark D. Jordan expresses this point, “so far as the passions are brought under right reason, they increase the exercise of reason and so nearness to the good.”55 This right-ordering is achieved, however, by way of the participation of the emotions in the life 53 Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction (Chicago: The Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 1987), 61. Voegelin distinguishes two aspects of this principle. According to the first aspect it is “a general principle for the interpretation of society” (ibid.). According to the second, “it is an instrument of social critique” (ibid.). 54 ST I, q. 81, a. 3, ad 2. 55 Mark D. Jordan, “Aquinas’s Construction of a Moral Account of the Passions,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 33 (1986): 92. 210 Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. of reason and most emphatically not as a result of the dictatorial imposition of reason itself.56 When one construes the constitution of society on the analogy of the relationship between reason and sensuality, one must necessarily value and promote what one might call the participated autonomy of individuals and groups within society. The autonomy in question is participated because the rulers ideally represent the best interests of the ruled in view of the common good, while the ruled are in a position to resist the direction in which the rulers are taking society if they deem this direction to be undesirable. Thus, as G. J. McAleer writes: It is the fact of this moral knowledge original to sensuality that establishes the appropriateness of thinking of reason’s rule over sensuality in terms of the political analogy of rulership. Sensuality is naturally ordered to reason and yet the natural involvement of the two, and their mutual relations of dependence, is but a vehicle for a lived relationship of moral authority and persuasion, as well as obedience and to some degree even consent.57 Rulers and ruled can, of course, and all too often do pursue ends that are objectively disordered, thereby undermining the common good. Nevertheless, the lack of coercion exercised on others by those in authority itself constitutes a basic building block that is required for the attainment of the objective common good. Totalitarianism finds its anthropological analogy in the despotic rule of the soul over the body. Thomas writes, in the passage quoted above, that “the soul is said to rule the body by a despotic power, because the members of the body cannot in any way resist the sway of the soul, but at the soul’s command both hand and foot, and whatever member is naturally moved by voluntary movement, are moved at once.” The tyrant or tyrannical state claims absolute freedom over subjects. Indeed, the freedom exercised by the various totalitarian regimes in recent history is arguably more radical than that described by Thomas’s analogy. Perhaps John Paul II’s portrayal of a dominant contemporary attitude towards the human body communicates better the dynamics of contemporary totalitarianism. This attitude does not extend simply to the physical members of the human body but penetrates even to the natural inclinations. It treats this corporeal reality “as a raw datum” that is “devoid of any meaning and moral values until freedom has shaped it in accordance with its design.”58 56 For an exposition of this point see Kevin E. O’Reilly, “The Vision of Virtue and Knowledge of the Natural Law in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas,” Nova et Vetera 5 (2007): 51–56. 57 McAleer, Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics, 37. 58 Veritatis Splendor §48. The Church as Defender of Conscience 211 In this view the human body is viewed simply as a material condition for freedom to make its choice, a condition that is external to the human person. The anthropology involved is dualistic: it places human personhood over against human embodiment and it gives free reign to reason to manipulate the corporeal conditions of human being according to its own designs and all too often contrary to the indications inscribed within those very conditions themselves. Such is the logic that fuels the various manifestations of the culture of death. In this culture even crimes against life are deemed to be “legitimate expressions of individual freedom, to be acknowledged and protected as actual rights.”59 In light of the anthropological principle stated above, the following observation by McAleer ought to come as no surprise: “The architects of modernity, and thinkers who at best are only ambiguously related to Christianity . . . speak of a violent control of sensuality. Kant, for example, speaks of the need for reason to ‘stamp out’ the ‘rabble’ and ‘mob’ of sensuality.”60 If the natural inclinations are to be understood as ecstatic in that they are ordered towards particular instantiations of the good—instantiations of the good that defend and promote individual human life, family life, and the life of reason that manifests itself in the pursuit of truth, especially the truth about God, and in the ordering of society—then their subversion leads to a view of the individual as an isolated atom within a wider multitude of isolated atoms. McAleer offers a striking portrayal of the consequences of a culturally sanctioned subversion of the ecstatically ordered natural inclinations: “Liberal politics is the defense of the enstatic body, the body in principle isolated both from ecstatic reason (the ostiarius of the Law) and ecstatic sensuality. Such a body rejects its own propensity to self-diffusion, separating itself from ecstatic Being; therewith it rejects the foundling in enstatic sex; the unborn stranger in the womb; in its violent refusal of the order of good and being, it rejects civil society; and in favoring a utopian politics, it rejects God.”61 Decisionism directed against even human life itself and isolationism are thus the fruits of an absolutist construal of freedom grounded in a dualistic understanding of the human being. Within this culture of decisionism and isolationism, as John Paul II writes, “the body is no longer perceived as a properly personal reality, a sign and place of relations with others, with God and with the world.”62 59 Evangelium Vitae §18. 60 McAleer, Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics, 156–57. 61 Ibid., 159–60. 62 Evangelium Vitae §23. 212 Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. Conclusion In view of the foregoing discussion, the Church’s defense of religious liberty as outlined in Dignitatis Humanae and the battles that she is currently fighting in various jurisdictions have wide implications for civil society. The anthropology that underpins the defense of religious liberty sees the human person as ecstatically ordered towards union with God as the source of all good by means of all the natural inclinations. The exercise of religion, grounded in the inclination of reason to the truth, is an explicit expression of what remains implicit in the other inclinations: all the inclinations aim at assimilation with God as their final cause. One ought not to be surprised therefore—in the context of the wider culture in the so-called “developed world” in which a contraceptive mentality predominates, in which abortion is commonplace, in which there is pressure to legalize assisted suicide, and where homosexual “marriage” has been sanctioned in various countries—that the practice of religion should also begin to come under attack. The human person is psychosomatically constituted, and to subvert one natural inclination is therefore in some way to undermine all the natural inclinations in some way. Let us recall a point made earlier: in the human compositum the inclinations to self-preservation and to the procreation and education of offspring are subsumed into the life of reason. It follows therefore that to subvert the expression of the natural inclination to act in accord with the nature of reason, which expression receives its most exalted form in religious practice, is to subvert the other two natural inclinations. The contrary dynamic also obtains: the subversion of the inclinations to self-preservation and to the procreation and education of offspring inevitably sabotages the inclination to act in accord with the nature of reason, which naturally seeks the truth about God. When the organs of state begin to legislate for contraception, abortion, euthanasia, homosexual “marriage,” and so on, the Church has due cause for alarm; or, to be more precise, when the organs of state began to promote the phenomena of the culture of death, the Church had due cause for alarm. Now this cause for alarm has begun to be realized. In other words, the Church is coming increasingly under attack as the advocate of the natural inclinations and, concomitantly, as the advocate of genuine conscience, that is to say, of conscience whose judgments are objectively grounded in and directed by the natural inclinations. According to the line of thinking proposed in this article, the Church appears as society’s greatest ally, that is to say, as the institution that most promotes its harmony and well-being. Let us recall in this regard that the inclination to The Church as Defender of Conscience 213 act in accord with the nature of reason is also at once an inclination to live in society as well as to seek the truth about God. The fragmentation that characterizes a society that has rendered human nature to a large extent artificially “enstatic”63 ought therefore to come as no great surprise. The Church’s anthropological vision is the great but largely unknown hope for the society’s reintegration. As the great defender of conscience in our age, the Church finds herself at once to be the great enemy of those liberal democracies that exhibit totalitarian tendencies. Appendix Following Russell Hittinger we can discern at least three main foci for the common good—also referred to by the term “solidarity.” (See Russell Hittinger, First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World [Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2003], 277–82, for a more detailed account.) Firstly, there are goods that we share by virtue of our common humanity. Hittinger tells us: “By virtue of our common humanity, three notions arise: (1) common status, in the sense that no person is more or less human than another; (2) common ontological perfections, such as health, knowledge, and religious devotion; (3) common utilities, such as money, food, and technology” (ibid., 277). The inclusion of religious devotion here tallies with what we say in the course of the article about the natural inclinations in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas: religion is an expression of the third of these inclinations, namely, the inclination to the good according to the nature of reason. The second focus of the common good and solidarity regards “common activities” (ibid., 278). In John Paul II’s encyclicals the activities in question relate to “domestic political order, international relations, the initiatives of intermediate societies, and economic life” (ibid.). In Centesimus Annus, for example, he argues that man in his work does not simply employ the things of this world as objects and instruments and make them his own. He continues: By means of his work man commits himself, not only for his own sake but also for others and with others. Each person collaborates in the work of others and for their good. Man works in order to provide for the needs of his family, his community, his nation, and ultimately all humanity. Moreover, he collaborates in the work of his fellow employees, as well as in the work of suppliers and in the customers’ use of goods, in a progressively expanding chain of solidarity. (Centesimus Annus §43) 63 This term is borrowed from McAleer, Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics. 214 Kevin E. O'Reilly, O.P. The focus here is on the goods intrinsic to human activity itself. It is in relation to common activities that the question of subsidiarity arises, for the goods inherent to them can be lost by the inappropriate intervention of “higher” powers. As Hittinger writes, a proper understanding of subsidiarity “depends on a concept of solidarity that preserves the intrinsic value of collaborative activity” (Hittinger, First Grace, 279). In the third meaning constitutive of the common good, John Paul II adds the note of communion. Thus, in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis he writes: Solidarity is undoubtedly a Christian virtue. In what has been said so far it has been possible to identify many points of contact between solidarity and charity, which is the distinguishing mark of Christ’s disciples (cf. Jn 13:35). . . . Beyond human and natural bonds, already so close and strong, there is discerned in the light of faith a new model of the unity of the human race, which must ultimately inspire our solidarity. This supreme model of unity, which is a reflection of the intimate life of God, one God in three Persons, is what we Christians mean by the word “communion.” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis §40) While the diverse notions of the common good are included in what John Paul refers to as the “civilization of love,” Hittinger points out that the theological concept of communion is “the main model for what the papacy means by the proposition that man is inherently social” (Hittinger, First Grace, 282). Finally, lest there be any confusion, Catholic social teaching does not regard the good of the state as being instrumentally subservient of the individual and family. As Benedict XVI expresses the point: “Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State” (Caritas in Veritate §38). In the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church §166, we read: The demands of the common good are dependent on the social conditions of each historical period and are strictly connected to respect for and the integral promotion of the person and his fundamental rights. These demands concern above all the commitment to peace, the organization of the State’s powers, a sound juridical system, the protection of the environment, and the provision of essential services to all, some of which are at the same time human rights: food, housing, work, education and access to culture, transportation, basic health care, the freedom of communication and expression, and the protection of religious freedom. Nor must one forget the contribution that every nation is required in duty to make towards a true worldwide cooperation for The Church as Defender of Conscience 215 the common good of the whole of humanity and for future generations also. With regard to the role of the State in promoting the common good, we read: The responsibility for attaining the common good, besides falling to individual persons, belongs also to the State, since the common good is the reason that the political authority exists. The State, in fact, must guarantee the coherency, unity and organization of the civil society of which it is an expression, in order that the common good may be attained with the contribution of every citizen. The individual person, the family or intermediate groups are not able to achieve their full development by themselves for living a truly human life. Hence the necessity of political institutions, the purpose of which is to make available to persons the necessary material, cultural, moral and spiritual goods. The goal of life in society N&V is in fact the historically attainable common good. (Ibid., §168) Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 217–53 217 Creation and Covenant in Contemporary Theology: A Synthesis of the Principal Interpretative Keys S ANTIAGO S ANZ Pontifical University of the Holy Cross Rome, Italy Introduction T HE RELATION between the categories creation and covenant is a question that has occupied theology since the middle of the twentieth century and has become one of its characteristic themes. This is by no means a new question, since it references perennial themes of theology, such as the relation between creation and salvation and also between the natural and the supernatural. The novelty arises from the fact that now there is a desire to begin from a point of view that is more profoundly rooted in the sacred Scripture, to start from genuinely biblical concepts. In the theological literature of the past decades—here I refer above all to handbooks and theological dictionaries—it is easy to find allusions, often brief ones, to this question. Nevertheless, one does not find works that seek to synthesize the principal theological motivations that have guided the understanding of this theme for the authors who have most systematically studied it.1 Such a synthesis is all the more necessary to the extent that there continues to be a fundamental dispute that, in my opinion, remains This is the English version of my article “Creación y alianza en la teología contemporánea: síntesis de las principales claves de lectura,” Annales theologici 18 (2004): 111–54. Many reasons, besides the logical bibliographical updating, compel me to represent this essay, not the least of which is the explicit mention Pope Benedict XVI made to this point in his Easter Vigil homily of 23 April 2011, as well as the continuous reference in his teaching to the doctrine of creation. 1 I have dealt with this topic in my book La relación entre creación y alianza in la teología contemporánea: status quaestionis y reflexiones filosófico-teológicas (Rome: EDUSC, 2003). In this article I offer a synthesis of its fifth and last chapter. 218 Santiago Sanz unresolved: is it necessary to understand creation entirely in the light of the covenant, or rather is it necessary to maintain a certain independence for creation, both at a biblical level and the level of dogmatic theology? I consider this to be by no means an exegetical problem; rather, it seems to me that by bringing to light this fundamental question, presuppositions and key theological implications (philosophical as well) are seen, as the recent history of treatises on creation and anthropology demonstrates. In the following pages we propose, as a starting point for further considerations, a synthesis of the main interpretative keys for understanding the relation between creation and covenant that have been employed in contemporary theological reflection. We will seek to show that a metaphysical perspective, which is also necessary in theological discourse, provides fruitful assistance in harmonizing the demands of each interpretative key and that, after several decades of a certain estrangement, this metaphysical perspective has received a decisive endorsement from the encyclical Fides et ratio.2 Beforehand, however, we will give a brief history of the origin and development of this question in twentieth-century biblical and dogmatic reflection. A Brief Presentation of the Origin and Development of the Question3 Creation in the Light of the History of Salvation and of the Covenant The coming together of the ideas of creation and covenant has its origin, as is commonly accepted, in a double context: the biblical thought of the Lutheran exegete from Germany, Gerhard von Rad (1901–71), and the dogmatic theology of the Swiss Calvinist theologian, Karl Barth (1886–1968). In 1936 von Rad published an article that has since become highly influential and widely diffused. In it he asked himself about the origin and meaning of the Old Testament faith in creation. Beginning from the principal that the faith of Israel was essentially a salvation-history faith, 2 John Paul II, encyclical letter Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1998 [AAS 91 (1999): 5–88]. The call for a recovery of metaphysics, not only in the philosophical field, but also in the theological one, must be considered one of the main teachings of this pontifical document; cf. especially §§61, 82, 83, 97. 3 Cf. C. Link, Die Welt als Gleichnis. Studien zum Problem der natürlichen Theologie (Munich: Kaiser, 1976), 96–101; P. de Robert, “Perception de la nature et confession du Créateur selon la Bible hébraïque,” Études Theologiques et Religieuses 65 (1990/1): 49–52; J. Morales, “El retorno de la creación en la teología bíblica,” in Biblia, Exégesis y Cultura. Estudios in honor de José María Casciaro, ed. G. Aranda et al. (Pamplona: Eunsa, 1994), 175–81. Creation and Covenant 219 von Rad concludes that the faith of the chosen people in God the Creator developed only as their knowledge of God the Savior deepened. “Our main thesis was that in genuinely Yahwistic belief the doctrine of creation never attained to the stature of a relevant, independent doctrine. We found it invariably related, and indeed subordinated, to soteriological considerations.”4 With words that have been repeatedly cited afterwards, the Old Testament is characterized by a “soteriological interpretation of the work of creation” (soteriologisches Verständnis des Schöpfungswerkes).5 A few years later, in 1945, Barth published, as part of his vast project for a dogmatic ecclesial theology that was never completed, the volume that corresponds to the doctrine of creation, whose essential structure is given by this double principle: “the Creation as the external basis of the covenant;” “the covenant as the internal basis of Creation” (die Schöpfung als äußerer Grund des Bundes; der Bund als innerer Grund der Schöpfung).6 This now-famous bipolar formula places from the beginning the doctrine of creation within the perspective of the faith, with the clear and explicit intention of distancing itself from the search for any comparison or foundation in the sciences or in philosophy. Creation has not been revealed in the Bible as a neutral concept, but rather as the beginning of the history of the Covenant, as a preparation for grace. To think of the Creation within the perspective of the faith, and therefore as directed towards the Covenant, supposes that one already considers the Creation to be a Christian event. In this way, Creation is interpreted from Christ, thus offering a Christian protology based in the fact that Christ is both the origin and the end of Creation, as is inferred by biblical revelation. So it is that faith in the Creation is, above all, faith in salvation. At the heart of these perspectives is the idea that the people of Israel (and also the Church) address the question of God not from a metaphysical perspective but rather from that of history and their encounter with 4 G. von Rad, “The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation,” (1936) in From Genesis to Chronicles: Explorations in Old Testament Theology, trans. E. W. Trueman Dicken (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 177–86, here 186. Cf. idem, Old Testament Theology I: The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions, trans. D. M. G. Stalker (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 136–65. 5 Von Rad, “The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation,” 183. 6 K. Barth, Church Dogmatics III/1: The Doctrine of Creation, trans. J. W. Edwards, O. Bussey, and H. Knight (London: T & T Clark International, 2004) (orig. 1945), respectively, 94–228 and 228–329. For a synthesis, cf. H.U. von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, trans. J. Drury (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 108–13; H. E. Mertens, “Karl Barth’s Teaching on Creation,” Louvain Studies 10 (1985): 341–53. 220 Santiago Sanz the living God who determines their way of thinking and their faith.This is consistent with the dialectical theology held by Barth: there is no reflection that leads to God which arises from the world or from the person, but rather an irruption of God himself into human living that can be accepted only by faith. The people of Israel and Christians do not experience the God of the philosophers, but the God of history. Von Rad’s soteriological understanding of the creation and Barth’s conception of creation and covenant quickly experienced a wide diffusion and acceptance in biblical studies and dogmatic reflection. Subsequently, they served as a support for the process of renovating theological treatises on creation that began to take place in the middle of the twentieth century.7 In confrontation with a Neo-Scholastic manualistic tradition that tended to center itself on the philosophical aspects of creation and to present them as disconnected from their primary dimension within the mystery of the Christian faith, there arose a generalized movement toward theological recovering of creation; that movement set about to conceive this creation as the beginning of the history of salvation, the presupposition of the covenant, and therefore creation in Christ.8 An important landmark was Rahner’s suggestion to consider the doctrine of creation as a formal moment of theological anthropology.9 From this time on, the desire for a new configuration of the subject matter began to materialize, one that reunited the old treatises on creation and grace under the title of theological anthropology; the search was on for a unified theological vision of the mystery of man. Afterwards, before the risk of a certain “anthropocentrism,” it was realized that the much desired unified vision of God’s design for man could only be realized 7 Cf. M. Flick, “La struttura del trattato ‘De Deo Creante et Elevante,’ ” Gregori- anum 60 (1955): 284–90; G. Colombo, “Die Theologie der Schöpfung im 20. Jahrhundert,” in Bilanz der Theologie im 20. Jahrhundert, Band III, ed. R. Vander Gucht and H. Vorgrimler (Freiburg: Herder, 1970), 36–62; C. Theobald, “La théologie de la création in question, un état des lieux,” Recherches de science religieuse 81, no. 4 (1993): 613–41; F. G. Brambilla, “Teologie della creazione,” La Scuola Cattolica 122 (1994): 615–59. 8 M. Flick, Z. Alszeghy, Il Creatore. L’inizio della salvezza (Florence: Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, 1959); W. Kern, F. Mussner, G. Muschalek, “Die Schöpfung als bleibender Ursprung des Heils,” in Mysterium Salutis. Grundriss heilsgeschichtlicher Dogmatik, vol. II, ed. J. Feiner and M. Löhrer (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1967), 440–558; J. Ratzinger, “Schöpfung,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, vol. IX, ed. J. Höfer and K. Rahner (Freiburg i/B: Herder, 1964), 460–66; K. Rahner, “Schöpfungslehre I. Die Schöpfungslehre in der katholischen Theologie,”in ibid., 470–74; P. Schoonenberg, Covenant and Creation (London: Sheed & Ward Stagbooks, 1968). 9 Cf. Rahner, “Schöpfungslehre,” 472. Creation and Covenant 221 through a more decided assumption of Christocentrism. This has been the dominant line of thinking within Italian theology during the last decades, one that has struggled to develop an insight into the supernatural from a Christological point of view. Based on the primacy of the covenant over the creation, this theology has proposed a significant change in the name of the treatise De Deo creante et elevante (or rather De homine creato et elevato), changing it to De Deo elevante ideoque creante (or, in its anthropological version, De homine elevato ideoque creato).10 The Makeup and Independence of the Biblical Notion of Creation Beginning in the 1970s, after a period in which the theses of von Rad and Barth regarding creation were accepted without particular discussion, there arose a series of critical voices, within both biblical and dogmatic theology. One of the most prominent was the German exegete Claus Westermann (1911–2000) who, before the subordination of the creation to the history of salvation (election, covenant), defended the independence of the Old Testament notion of creation. Westermann has noted that the idea that all things originate from God was not unique to Israel but was shared with its surrounding world, as is revealed by an analysis of the myths and stories of the beginnings of nearby peoples.That the world and mankind had been created by a divine Being constituted a fundamental presupposition of their thinking, an accepted truth that was not subject to discussion. Thus the recognition of God as Creator does not depend upon the covenant or upon faith in a saving God, but rather precedes these ideas. This defense of Creation’s independence with respect to the covenant seeks only to point out that there exists a distinction between the two concepts, and that it is not possible to include totally one within the other without distorting the biblical message itself. “The work of the Creator both in the Old and in the New Testament has its own setting; it has a different origin and history from the work of the saviour.”11 In the end, according to Westermann and other authors 10 Cf. G. Gozzelino, Il mistero dell’uomo in Cristo. Saggio di protologia (Leumann [Turin]: Elle Di Ci, 1991). We have to mention some pioneering voices as forerunners of this handbook: G. Barbaglio, G. Colombo, “Creazione,” in Nuovo Dizionario di Teologia, ed. G. Barbaglio and S. Dianich (Cinisello Balsamo: Paoline, 1977), 184–210; G. Colzani, “Creazione,” in Dizionario Teologico Interdisciplinare, vol. 1, ed. L. Pacomio and others (Turin: Marietti, 19772 ), 601–14. 11 C.Westermann, Creation, trans. J. J. Scullion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974) (orig. 1971), 117. Westermann develops these ideas in other important and influential works, such as Genesis 1–11: A Continental Commentary, trans. J. J. Scullion (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994) (orig. 1974); and Elements of Old Testament Theology, trans. D. W. Scott (Westminster, MD: John Knox Press, 1982) (orig. 1978). 222 Santiago Sanz who have followed him, the idea of creation is not a consequence of the covenant, but it is rather the case that the covenant is inserted within a context marked out by the creation, the dominion of God over all peoples, which then explains the special predilection for Israel.12 On the other hand, sufficient attention is not always given to the fact that von Rad himself was aware of the difficulty of integrating his soteriological understanding of creation with wisdom literature, and he sought to purify it at the end of his life in Weisheit in Israel, where the creation is central since the starting point of sapiential reflection is not the action of God in history, but his manifestation in the order of creation.13 This work has since been considered a retraction of his previous vision that tended to subordinate unilaterally the creation to salvation.14 Through the lens of dogmatic theology, Barth’s formula regarding creation and covenant began to receive various criticisms from different Protestant theologians. On the one hand, Moltmann and Pannenberg 12 For example in H. H. Schmid, “Creation, Righteousness, and Salvation: ‘Creation Theology’ as the Broad Horizon of Biblical Theology,” in Creation in the Old Testament, ed. B.W. Anderson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 102–17. Among the criticisms that have shown some deficiencies in von Rad’s approach from a biblical point of view, we should mention B. W. Anderson, “Mythopoeic and Theological Dimensions of Biblical Creation Faith,” in Creation in the Old Testament, 1–24. We find a criticism of both von Rad and Westermann in B. S. Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1986), 31–38; Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 102–3 and 109–16. 13 Von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (London: SCM Press, 1970); see particularly the chapter entitled “The Self-Revelation of Creation” (144–76). 14 Cf. de Robert, “Perception de la nature et confession du Créateur selon la Bible hébraïque,” 50–51; R. Rendtorff, “Wo warst du, als ich die Erde gründete? Schöpfung und Heilsgeschichte,” in Kanon und Theologie ( Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag: 1991), 95–112; W. Vogels, “The God Who Creates Is the God Who Saves,” Église et Théologie 22 (1991): 315–17; Creation in the Biblical Traditions, ed. R. J. Clifford and J. J. Collins (Washington:The Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1992), 1; R. A. Simkins, Creator and Creation: Nature in the Worldview of Ancient Israel (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 10; this important point is also found in some handbooks, such as D. Sattler, T. Schneider, “Schöpfungslehre,” in Handbuch der Dogmatik, vol. I, ed. T. Schneider (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1992), 154; and L. M. Armendáriz, Hombre y mundo a la luz del Creador (Madrid: Cristiandad, 2001), 32n14. According to R. Albertz, the reason for the subordination of creation to salvation history and the election of Israel in von Rad’s early works (1930s) was his intention to defend the doctrine of creation from political abuse: cf. R. Albertz, Weltschöpfung und Menschenschöpfung. Untersucht bei Deuterojesaja, Hiob und in den Psalmen (Stuttgart: Calwer Theol. Monographien 3, 1974), 174; for all these questions and more bibliographic resources, cf. K. Löning, E. Zenger, Als Anfang schuf Gott: Biblische Schöpfungstheologien (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1997), 14–15. Creation and Covenant 223 noted that, from the perspective of Barth, the notion of creation would be reduced to the past (where it is only the beginning or preparation for the historical covenant), while the genuine biblical notion of creation also includes the future plenitude of the new eschatological creation.15 On the other hand, within the same Calvinist tradition of Barth, Gisel has pointed out the need to understand the relation between creation and covenant according to an ontological perspective.16 The Current Situation With regard to Catholic theology, as we saw, the first reaction was to receive the theses of von Rad and Barth to the extent that they were an excellent basis for the renovation of the treatise on creation according to a salvationhistory perspective. This is why a clearer critique, like the one realized among Protestants, was not made. The tendency has been to search for a reconciliation between the positive aspects of von Rad’s and Westermann’s positions, whereas the terminology of “creation-covenant” (or rather, “covenant-creation”) has solidified itself as a more biblical way of alluding to the classic question of the relationship between nature and grace. This approach has the advantage of offering a unified understanding of the divine plan in Christ and thus avoiding the danger of a certain “extrinsicism” that lay behind a good deal of previous Neo-Scholastic theology. Nevertheless, there have been several authors who have pointed out the risks of a complete absorption of creation into salvation history. Such risks can be summarized as a difficulty of sustaining the autonomy of created realities, or also the possibility of envisioning the divine plan as a necessary process in which the novelty of grace would disappear and the irruption of men’s sin into the history of salvation would lose its proper importance.17 Before this tendency to include the theology of creation within the first part of anthropological theology—something that is present in those who 15 Cf. J. Moltmann, God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Creation, trans. M. Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1985); W. Pannenberg, “The Creation of the World,” in Systematic Theology, vol. 2, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 1–174. On Pannenberg’s proposal of an eschatological ontology, cf. my study, S. Sanz, El futuro creador del Dios trinitario. Un estudio en la Teología Sistemática de W. Pannenberg (Valencia: Edicep, 2007). 16 P. Gisel, La Création (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1980 [19872]). 17 In this sense, see the following handbooks and monographs: J. Auer, Kleine Katholische Dogmatik. III: Die Welt—Gottes Schöpfung (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1983); L. F. Ladaria, Antropología teológica (Madrid/Rome: UPCM/ Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1983); G. Lafont, Dieu, le temps et l’être (Paris: Cerf, 1986); A. Gesché, Dieu pour penser IV. Le cosmos (Paris: Cerf, 1994); L. Scheffczyk, Katholische Dogmatik III: Schöpfung als Heilseröffnung. Schöpfungslehre (Aachen: MM Verlag, 1997). 224 Santiago Sanz completely accept Barth’s formula—the majority of these authors prefer to maintain creation as a treatise apart.18 In this sense it is indispensable to make reference to the so-called “eclipse of creation”19 into which theological reflection fell, after an initial period of optimism regarding the salvation-history perspective, especially during the 60s and the 70s of the last century. Paradoxically, what began as a source of renovation in creation theology finished in a certain sense as a source of forgetting about creation itself, in favor of an anthropological concentration that solidified in the 70s. It is significant that in Rahner’s Foundations of Christian Faith (1976), creation stands out because of its absence, being reduced to the question of man’s creatureliness. Nor do we find in Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity (1968) a particularly relevant place for this truth of faith.20 The scarce production of handbooks on this topic in the 70s is equally significant. Over the past few decades this situation has changed notably, thanks to various factors. The need has been felt for a decisive renovation of the faith in creation in the face of the marginalization that it has suffered, not only in theology but also in the catechesis of the Church.21 It is significant that Ratzinger himself, when assuming the position as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of Doctrine of Faith, spoke of “an almost complete disappearance of the doctrine on creation from theology,” mentioning, among other factors, the fact that “the decline of the doctrine on creation includes the decline of metaphysics.”22 18 In addition to some authors quoted above, we find a treatise on creation in A. Ganoczy, Schöpfungslehre (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1987); J. L. Ruiz de la Peña, Teología de la Creación (Santander: Sal Terrae, 1986); and M. Kehl, Und Gott sah, dass es gut war. Eine Theologie der Schöpfung (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 2006). 19 The first one to denounce the situation with these words, which were then used by others, was G. Hendry, professor at Princeton, in a lecture held in April 1971 before the assembly of the American Society of Theology: G. Hendry, “Eclipse of Creation,” Theology Today 28 (1972): 406–25. 20 J. Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, trans. J. R. Foster (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990) (orig. 1968); K. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. W. Dych (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1978) (orig. 1976). We have to specify that in Ratzinger’s book there is a real treatment of creation in several moments, even though it does not receive a particular chapter or section. See J. Rodríguez Mas, “La verdad de la creación en ‘Introducción al cristianismo’ de J. Ratzinger,” in Fede e ragione. Le luci della verità, ed. A. Porras (Rome: Edusc, 2012), 213–24. 21 Cf. C. Schönborn, “Schöpfungskatechese und Evolutionstheorie. Vom Burgfrieden zum konstruktiven Konflikt,” in Evolutionismus und Christentum, ed. R. Spaemann and others (Weinheim: VCH, 1986), 91–116. 22 Ratzinger, “Difficulties confronting the faith in Europe today,” L’Osservatore Romano (English version), July 24, 1989, 6–7.This is his opening address at the meeting with the presidents of the European Doctrinal Commissions, at Laxenburg (Vienna) from Creation and Covenant 225 There is no doubt that this turmoil has enriched theological reflection on creation. At the same time, one must note the methodological diversity that exists within the handbooks, between those who conceive of the theology of creation as an independent treatise and those who choose to include it as the first part of anthropology.23 It seems to me that this diversity reveals that the alternative between understanding creation as either subordinate to or independent of the covenant and the history of salvation continues today, and that it has not yet received a harmonious solution. In my opinion, at the heart of the problem lies a disagreement between a metaphysical perspective—strongly present in previous handbooks, with a certain tendency to essentialism—and the renewed perspective of salvation history that has arisen within the last decades.24 Thus a fundamental the 2nd to the 5th of May 1989. In this line, we can also highlight his criticism of the marginalization of the doctrine of creation, expressed some years before, in the context of a famous address at Paris and Lyon on the crisis of catechism (cf.“Sources and Transmission of the Faith,” Communio 10 [1983]: 17–34, here 30–31); in these interventions we can appreciate a certain nuance in Ratzinger’s thought compared to the previously quoted text Introduction to Christianity, as we can see likewise in In the Beginning . . . A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and Fall, trans. B. Ramsey, O.P. (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1990); it is significant that Ratzinger’s thought coincides here with the teachings of John Paul II on the mystery of creation. John Paul II developed these teachings in several general audiences in the context of his catechesis on the Creed, from January 8 to April 23, 1986; the English version of these audiences has been published in God Father and Creator: A Catechesis on the Creed (Boston: Pauline Books, 1996). 23 We can find in the Spanish area a clear reflection of this diversity of methodological options. There is a preference for an independent position in J. Morales, El Misterio de la Creación (Pamplona: Eunsa, 1994) [Creation Theology, trans. M. Adams and D. Cleary (Dublin: Four Courts, 2001)]; Armendáriz, Hombre y mundo a la luz del Creador; and J. A. Sayés, Teología de la Creación (Madrid: Palabra, 2002); there are others who prefer to include creation in anthropology, as M. Ponce, El misterio del hombre (Barcelona: Herder, 1997), and A. Martínez Sierra, Antropología teológica fundamental (Madrid: BAC, 2002); it is significant that, at the beginning of each of the last four quoted handbooks, some pages are explicitly devoted to the biblical debate on creation and covenant. 24 Although we cannot elaborate on this point, perhaps it is useful here to mention the thesis, born in liberal theology, about the hellenization of Christianity, formulated by Adolf Harnack (1851–1930). Even though it is difficult today to find any theologian who does not challenge this thesis, it is admittedly true that it had a great influence in its time and contributed to the creation and nourishing of an atmosphere of suspicion towards metaphysics within theology. Here the encounter between Christianity and Greek philosophy is considered negatively, as a corruption of faith. Nevertheless, as some important historians of theology maintain—among them we can mention A. Grillmeier and J. Quasten—this encounter has instead manifested itself as a Christianization of Hellenism: 226 Santiago Sanz motivation for the synthesis that we are about to undertake is the search— one that follows recent attempts and the suggestion of Fides et Ratio—for an equilibrium between the different perspectives.25 The Main Keys of Interpretation The brief review of the state of the question that we have just completed seems to me sufficient to show that the way of understanding and presenting the relation between creation and covenant obeys very specific theological motivations. We propose, therefore, to elaborate a synthesis of the fundamental theological reasons that have propelled the search for more convincing ways of establishing this relation. In other words, the task is to set forth theological keys of interpretation that will permit an exact understanding of the diverse proposals that have been given in formulations of the relation between creation and covenant. We think that it is possible to distinguish five such keys: an anthropological, a cosmological, a Christological, an eschatological, and an ontological. It should be said that each one of these keys seeks to respond to a real demand of Christian revelation and therefore expresses a true dimension of our question that cannot arbitrarily be put aside. In describing them we will focus our attention on the more significant arguments—making reference to the respective biblical foundations—in order to keep each interpretative key in relation with the problems that it tries to answer; this does not imply that the authors who sustain them have not also developed or at least alluded to other perspectives.26 For the same reason, we will highlight those cases in which it seems to me cf. L. Clavell, “Necesidad de la filosofía para la teología en la actualidad,” Seminarium 3 (2000): 513–36; here 515–16, with a reference to C. Geffré, “Thomas d’Aquin ou la christianisation de l’hellénisme,” in L’être et Dieu (Paris: Cerf, 1986), 23–42. 25 In maintaining that revealed and natural truth are not in opposition, because the unity of truth is a postulate of human reason itself, John Paul II affirms: “Revelation renders this unity certain, showing that the God of creation is also the God of salvation history. It is the one and the same God who establishes and guarantees the intelligibility and reasonableness of the natural order of things . . . and who reveals himself as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This unity of truth, natural and revealed, is embodied in a living and personal way in Christ . . . ; what is revealed in him is “the full truth” (cf. Jn 1:14–16) of everything which was created in him and through him and which therefore in him finds its fulfillment (cf. Col 1:17)” (Fides et Ratio §34; cf. also §11). 26 In my synthesis of these keys, I have deliberately mentioned only those authors who adopt these keys in a fundamental or programmatic way in order to lighten the creation-covenant binomial.The theological thought of every author contains, in a certain sense, references to the other perspectives. Creation and Covenant 227 that an interpretative key has been explained in a way that tends to exclude certain demands that are present in others. We do not, therefore, pretend to give a complete systematic vision, but rather we undertake to indicate certain necessary aspects that must be kept in mind when offering a theological interpretation of the present theme. This is necessary in order to avoid that reductionism of the divine plan of creation and salvation that does not account for some of its essential elements. For this reason, we will close this article with some conclusive reflections—reflections that can also serve as a starting point for further study and investigation—in which a proposal is made for an interpretation of the formula creation-covenant in light of the interconnectedness of the interpretation that will have been set forth. In this way we believe there is achieved a harmonious equilibrium with regard to a question that has provoked contrasting opinions, because of the fact that it has been argued from partial perspectives. The Anthropological Key Anthropology is one of the first areas in which the formula regarding creation and covenant has had a strong resonance. Here the central preoccupation is to understand who man is before God. The answer, with a strong biblical foundation, can be summarized by stating that man is a being created for the covenant. In this way various authors have proposed a theological anthropology in which the notion of the human creature and his creation are constitutionally open to the invitation of a covenant with God (Rahner; Muschalek and Kern in Mysterium Salutis; Ladaria). The biblical basis of this vision of man was initially set forth by von Rad and Barth. As a result of the wide reception of their theses, today it is generally accepted to consider theologically the creation of man within his orientation towards the covenant. This sensibility has brought about the proposal of understanding the category of creation within a personalistic light.27 The fundamental motive that is at work here is none other than the theological focus on anthropology, so characteristic of the last decades, that has been decisively inspired by the desire to present a concrete and 27 This indication, in the biblical field, is found in W. Foerster, “ktizô,” in Theologi- cal Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. III, ed. G. Kittel, trans. and ed. G.W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965), 1014; cf. also H. Volk, “Schöpfung III. Systematisch,” in Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe, vol. II, ed. H. Fries (Munich: Kösel, 1963), 516–7; Schoonenberg, Covenant and Creation, 79–93; P. Smulders, “Creation,” in Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology, vol. II, ed. C. Ernst, K. Rahner, and K. Smyth (New York: Herder, 1968), 27–28. 228 Santiago Sanz unified vision of man as he really exists.28 The desire has been to confront in this way what was perceived as one great problem of previous theology: an “extrinsicism of grace” that is in its turn a consequence of the impoverishment of several categories that had become abstract, categories that belong to a metaphysics that is more cosmological than anthropological. There derived from this a vision of man on two levels, the fruit of a juxtaposition between the natural and what is “added” by grace. The intrinsic orientation of creation towards the covenant—so proper to a biblical perspective—had thus been lost, and it was seemingly replaced by a theological reflection which preferred as its starting point a concept of nature for talking about man.29 The strength of the argument of this anthropological key is based on its recourse to the history of salvation30 as the only way of giving back a real, concrete basis to a theological vision of man. Man as he really exists is a man who lives in history, and for this reason the primary access to an understanding of who man is before God comes, not by abstract reflection, but by the history of salvation in which God has sought out mankind, revealing Himself as the God who created with the intention of calling man into covenant. From this comes the strong insistence, found throughout contemporary theology, on underlining the theological relevance of the anthropological-phenomenological itinerary of the biblical experience—both of the people of Israel and of the first Christian community—and of man’s relation with God, which is primarily historical and salvific. Within this perspective, therefore, the formula of Barth is understood in the sense that creation is ordained towards the covenant; this is what is fundamental in the design of God, since it constitutes the intrinsic final28 Ladaria expresses this idea by saying that the only valid point of departure for the solution of this problem is man who exists. Existing man, rather than any theoretical hypothesis about human nature, is the only one who can really be called man, because he is the only one God has willed to call to existence: he is called to communion with God and has been created by God only for that end (cf. Ladaria, Antropología teológica, 166). 29 This is the most-repeated criticism of Neo-Scholastic theology in the decades of the diffusion of de Lubac’s thesis on the supernatural. Nevertheless the debate has been the object of new developments in the last years; see Surnaturel: A Controversy at the Heart of Twentieth-Century Thomistic Thought, ed. S.-T. Bonino, trans. R. Williams, and rev. M. Levering (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2009); and especially L. Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God According St Thomas Aquinas and His Interpreters (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2010). 30 “Der volle theologische Schöpfungsbegriff wird nur erreicht, wenn die Schöpfung von der Heilsgeschichte her als deren notwendige Voraussetzung verstanden wird” (Mysterium Salutis, vol. II, 440). Creation and Covenant 229 ity of creation. In this way creation is integrated into the history of salvation as its first stage, is inseparable from that history, and is not complete in itself but rather culminates in the covenant. Consequently, the theological understanding of man before God is now expressed, no longer through the natural-supernatural duality, but through the proposal of new terms that seem more consonant with the dynamism of the divine plan, such as Rahner’s term “the supernatural existential” (taken up by Muschalek), or the “supercreational condition” of man, put forward by Ladaria. Both of these ideas result from a speculative effort to achieve a unified vision of the person before God as a being created for the covenant.31 Sharing the true aspects of the basis of this hermeneutical key, certain authors have called attention to the risks that might derive from an exaggerated focus on anthropology when interpreting the divine plan.32 If the salvific relation between God and man is conceived only in its associative or covenantal dimension, the concept of creation can end up being reduced to a mere subjective sentiment of dependence (creatureliness), and the significance of creation as origination (ex nihilo), inclusive of both the person and the universe, is marginalized.33 A radical anthropocentrism can cause one to forget the necessity of the cosmological dimension present in the divine plan, as will be seen later. From this arises the oscillation of contemporary handbooks that is still unresolved today, 31 Muschalek closes the part on creation in Mysterium Salutis by saying that, in the only concrete order of salvation, creation is always de facto understood as condition for the covenant, and, in this sense, human (historic) nature has a supernatural existential as its intrinsic element (cf. Mysterium Salutis, vol. II, 557). With an analogous motivation, Ladaria maintains that to define our relation to God and consequently our being as creature is insufficient. We are creatures of God and at the same time more than this. Therefore, he continues, we must distinguish, not separate, two ‘moments’ of gratuity ordered to one another: the divine creative freedom and his higher freedom of delivering to us his Son; the second moment does not depend upon the first, otherwise we would make God dependent on what is not God. At the same time, this second moment requires the first one, one of a free creation that, in our concrete case, has no other finality than to make possible the communication of God Himself. Man is a creature called to divine filiation; the original unity of our being in the diversity of its aspects corresponds to the unity of the salvific design (cf. Ladaria, Antropología teológica, 166–67). 32 This criticism is directed to certain ambiguities present in Rahnerian thought, and not to Ladaria, who tries to avoid them. 33 Cf. Auer, Die Welt—Gottes Schöpfung, 24; Scheffczyk, Schöpfung als Heilseröffnung. Schöpfungslehre, 34. Rahner had indicated that the first point in the doctrine of creation is not creatio ex nihilo, but creatureliness as fundamental and permanent relation from man to God: cf. Rahner, “Schöpfungslehre,” 471. 230 Santiago Sanz which fluctuates between dedicating a special section to creation or including creation as the first part of theological anthropology. Another limitation comes from the tendency to consider the person as created for the covenant only in his historical dimension. Since the focus is on understanding the person as he really exists, the “protological” and the “eschatological” are considered from the historical-salvific situation that is actually immanent in the person in his condition as covenant-partner with God. From this arises the tendency—clearly present within the thought of Rahner—to include as something belonging to the interior of the person the dimension of grace that the covenant presupposes, thus making less clear the specific character of the protology and the eschatology.34 A dynamic that reflects a vision of the person created for the covenant has favored interesting developments in a theology of earthly realities, such as the call to transform the existential structures of human life and history, following the argument of the conciliar teachings contained in Gaudium et Spes. The supremacy that is bestowed upon man in the work of creation has brought about a focus upon the process of personal selfrealization. At the same time, within moral theology, this has been manifested in the priority of the person’s conscience, which self-determines itself in its historic-salvific relationship with God. What is at work here is a deeper understanding of the specifically human, which does not reduce itself only to nature, but is above all person: a dialogical structure, a relational character, a constitution open to hearing and to being called. Although it is true that no one denies the possibility of speaking of a human nature as such, this concept has nevertheless wound up being emptied of its content in preference of historic and personalistic categories. The disassociation of nature and person and also of nature and history present here, without a doubt requires further reflection to harmonize these basic philosophical concepts. In short, the task is to grasp more deeply that “the human person is naturally historical or historical by nature, not because his nature substantially changes with history, but because he possesses a free nature.”35 There is space for an ontology of the historicity of the human person that does not reduce the novelty of historic events to 34 In this regard, see the critical observations in J. Ratzinger, “Salvation and History,” in Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. M. F. McCarthy (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1987), 162ff. 35 F. Ocáriz, “Dignidad personal, trascendencia e historicidad del hombre” (1984), in Naturaleza, gracia y gloria (Pamplona: Eunsa, 2000), 55. As Millán Puelles writes, the horizon of freedom constitutes the specific sphere of history, the metaphysical framework where historical realities find their own and more suitable place. But this freedom of our being, from which history is made possible, is not superadded to human nature. On the contrary, it is the freedom which that nature Creation and Covenant 231 pre-established outlines,36 but that attempts to understand the metaphysical dimension that makes it possible to speak of history. “Even more, it is precisely metaphysics that makes it possible to open ourselves to an understanding of history that is not limited to a mere succession of events or cultures, but that is authentically a history of salvation (with metaphysical reach).”37 For this reason today, and especially after Fides et Ratio,38 it is possible to consider an anthropology with metaphysical depth that, without either assimilating the person into the rest of created reality or understanding him on the basis of it, captures what is specific of the person in his free and historical dynamic, in his connection with a nature that has been given to him and makes him be precisely this way. The Cosmological Key In some authors one can single out a theological line of thinking that, while it decries the forgetfulness of the cosmos that follows upon the aforementioned anthropological inversion, argues for a consideration of the created world as an essential element of the structure of man’s salvation (Gesché, Ganoczy, Moltmann). This line of thinking also has a strong biblical foundation that has been highlighted especially by those exegetes who have emphasized a certain independence of the idea of creation in the Old Testament (Westermann, Schmid).39 Here could also be included the growing importance acquired possesses: cf. A. Millán Puelles, Ontología de la existencia histórica (Madrid: Rialp, 1955), 194. 36 We must recognize with Millán Puelles that man necessarily has a history, but not that man has a necessary history. Human freedom makes possible this apparently contradictory situation: to have necessarily a history is in fact very different from having a necessary history (cf. Ontología de la existencia histórica, 206–7). 37 L. Romera, “Pensiero metafisico e apertura a Dio,” in Dio e il senso dell’esistenza umana (Rome: Armando,1999), 49. 38 “Metaphysics should not be seen as an alternative to anthropology, since it is metaphysics which makes it possible to ground the concept of personal dignity in virtue of their spiritual nature. In a special way, the person constitutes a privileged locus for the encounter with being, and hence with metaphysical enquiry” ( John Paul II, Fides et Ratio §83). A commentary on the perspectives that arise from here can be seen in Clavell, “Necesidad de la filosofía para la teología en la actualidad,” 528ff. 39 For Westermann, “the simple fact that the first page of the Bible speaks about heaven and earth, the sun, moon and stars, about plants and trees, about birds, fish and animals, is a certain sign that the God whom we acknowledge in the Creed as the Father of Jesus Christ is concerned with all of these creatures, and not merely with humans. A God who is understood only as the god of humankind is no longer the God of the Bible” (Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 176). 232 Santiago Sanz by the covenant made with Noah, understood as a divine pact that encompasses all of created reality.40 It is clear that the problem that one wishes to avoid here is that of a certain anthropocentrism that has actually led to an attitude of manipulative domination on the part of man over the created cosmos. Nevertheless, today there is a special sensibility, caused, among other things, by growing ecological concerns, which has brought about a particular interest in what has been called “responsibility towards creation.”41 Within this sensibility one can detect a growing dissatisfaction with certain trends of contemporary theology to completely absorb the topic of creation within a history of salvation discourse, such that one ends up considering the distinction between the natural and the supernatural as inadequate.42 Among Protestants who desire to recover a certain harmony in man’s relation with the 40 Cf., among others, W. J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: An Old Testament Covenantal Theology (Exeter: Paternoster, 1984), where the author offers an interpretation of the universal dimension of the covenant with Noah; R. Murray, The Cosmic Covenant (London: Sheed & Ward, 1992), proposes the biblical topic of covenant, not reducing it to the deuteronomic tradition of the covenant with Moses, but amplifying it to the whole creation, in contrast with the opinions that exaggerate the importance of the historical dimension (cf., for example, 164–65); Simkins, “God’s Covenant with Creation,” in Creator and Creation, 152–72. 41 See Responsabilità per il creato, ed. S. Biolo (Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1998). Along with John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI has shown in different documents his concern for this topic, as for example in the homily given at the Easter Vigil 2011: “One might ask: is it really important to speak also of creation during the Easter Vigil? Could we not begin with the events in which God calls man, forms a people for himself and creates his history with men upon the earth? The answer has to be: no. . . . The Church is not some kind of association that concerns itself with man’s religious needs but is limited to that objective. No, she brings man into contact with God and thus with the source of all things. Therefore we relate to God as Creator, and so we have a responsibility for creation. Our responsibility extends as far as creation because it comes from the Creator. Only because God created everything can he give us life and direct our lives. Life in the Church’s faith involves more than a set of feelings and sentiments and perhaps moral obligations. It embraces man in his entirety, from his origins to his eternal destiny. Only because creation belongs to God can we place ourselves completely in his hands. And only because he is the Creator can he give us life for ever. Joy over creation, thanksgiving for creation and responsibility for it all belong together” (Benedict XVI, Homily, April 23, 2011). 42 Along these lines, see the contribution of A. Marchesi to the volume quoted in the previous footnote, entitled “Il ‘teorema della creazione’ e la responsabilità della comunità umana nei confronti dell’ambiente e delle generazioni future,” 189–200. We can also call to mind here the warning from Gesché not to enlarge improperly von Rad’s thesis on the primacy of soteriology over the theology of creation: cf. Gesché, Le cosmos, 44n37. Creation and Covenant 233 cosmos, Moltmann has articulated an ecological doctrine of creation that seeks to address these new demands made upon theological reflection.43 The fundamental objection against the anthropological key could be enunciated thus: Has the creation-covenant relationship been reduced to its anthropological dimension as if that were the only one pertinent for a theology of the history of salvation? In this way do we not lose the religious character—that is profoundly human and relevant from a soteriological perspective—of respect for the created world, created as a work of God’s wisdom? Based on these queries, the task is to make evident that the salvific plan of God has not only a quando (history) but also an ubi (cosmos). This is the cosmos with which man shares the status of creature and that has been entrusted to him as his dwelling. As a result, it is possible to develop theologically a vision of the world as a place of salvation so that the theology of creation might be a cosmology of salvation.44 Understood in this way, we think that the cosmological key offers a nuance that was not present previously. Now the creation is not simply the first step towards the covenant in a historical (or anthropological) sense. It is something more; the creation is the place proper to the covenant. This must be understood not in the sense that creation is an external backdrop, necessary but in itself irrelevant, but rather in the sense that creation has its own makeup and its own internal logic that belongs to the plan of God. In effect, the world, in a certain sense, precedes the human person and has its own substantiality apart from him, one that derives precisely from its having been created by the Word (Logos). If the world has been made by the Word of God, which is always the Word of salvation, it is then clear that creation is not only the dwelling of the Logos,45 but also that it possesses within its very constitution a logos of salvation, even before that of history. 43 To this motivation responds his cosmological theocentrism: “It is true that, as the image of God, the human being has his special position in creation. But he stands together with all other earthly and heavenly beings in the same hymn of praise of God’s glory, and in the enjoyment of God’s sabbath pleasure over creation, as he saw that it was good. Even without human beings, the heavens declare the glory of God. This theocentric biblical world picture gives the human being, with his special position in the cosmos, the chance to understand himself as a member of the community of creation. So if Christian theology wants to find the wisdom in dealing with creation which accords with belief in creation, it must free that belief from the modern anthropocentric view of the world” (Moltmann, God in Creation, 31). 44 Cf. Gesché, Le cosmos, 163ff. 45 Cf. ibid., 83–117. 234 Santiago Sanz Here can be found a cosmological-theological basis of the Christian sacramental economy, which makes use of created elements as efficacious signs of salvific grace.46 Likewise, a complement is offered to the dynamic anthropology of the Christian transformation of temporal structures, to the extent that one now sees how what is transformed and sanctified is not only man but also the created world, which is included in the redemptive work of Christ. An analogous complement can be glimpsed from the moral perspective, for now the proper autonomy of conscience is in harmony with the recognition of an order intrinsic to creation that imposes certain moral demands that conscience must respect, because it has not produced them but rather has perceived them as the work of God. Another aspect that the cosmological key manifests, one that could be understood in an ambiguous way, is a certain independence of the notion of creation with respect to the history of salvation. On the one hand, there is no doubt that a positive aspect of this is to allow inter-religious dialogue to be fruitful to the extent that it bases itself on a common ground: the conviction that God has made all things, a conviction that is present in many religious traditions, as evidence of the aspect of truth that the notion of creation has, as it is accessible to the light of natural human reason. This aspect suggests a renewed appreciation of the creation’s role as the so-called “court of the gentiles” which, after Barth, has tended to disappear in theology.47 On the other hand there must be noted the risk of radicalizing the cosmological perspective, something present in the doctrines that propose a religious attitude of man based exclusively on his sense of reverence before creation. Such doctrines tend to dilute what is specifically Christian within a universalist framework, one not far from a pantheism that confuses God with the world. Precisely what is lost here is the intrinsic ordination of the creation to the covenant within God’s plan, the realism of the fact that God has created in order to enter into the history of men, offering them in Christ a participation in his own life. It is certainly proper 46 Cf. ibid., 197. Speaking about the goodness of creation, Ganoczy affirms that, put at the disposal of the new creation by the work of the Holy Spirit, the elements of the cosmic and the human worlds, as they are, can become signs (Zeichen) of salvation (cf. Ganoczy, Schöpfungslehre, 82). 47 This point has been mentioned by Pope Benedict XVI, who in his Christmas address to the Roman Curia in 2009 suggested that the Church should open today a new Court of the gentiles in which we can speak about the question of God not only with people of different religions, but also with people who are without religion but for whom the question of God as the Unknown remains meaningful: cf. Benedict XVI, Address to the Members of Roman Curia, December 21, 2009. Creation and Covenant 235 to react against certain theological perspectives that had removed the person from the framework of nature so as to affirm that human life is simply history, and to do so by proposing a correct recovery of a contemplative attitude before the world. Nevertheless, this need not lead to the sacralization of nature that is present in certain extreme forms of ecologism, which try to recover a vague, mystic pantheism with Gnostic overtones—something that has had a certain influence in some of Catholic thought in the last few decades.48 The doctrine of creation teaches that the cosmos deserves contemplative respect not because it is divine, but because it is the work of God and reflects his perfections.49 These considerations suggest that it is worthwhile, within philosophy, to go deeper in the cosmological dimension of anthropology, in such a way that the emergence and peculiarity of the person in the world is shown. At the same time, it is necessary to make explicit the distinction and relation between cosmology and metaphysics, areas that at times give the impression of having been confused; the second has tended to be reduced to the first, as if the principal reference for the study of being and the first principles were the world rather than the person. In any case, with this perspective another partial aspect of our relation has been illuminated: if before the covenant tended to be understood as the end of creation only for man, now it stands out that salvation belongs to the realm of the created world. The Christological Key The exposition of the two preceding perspectives brings to the foreground the persistence of a certain fragmentation in the way of understanding the relationship between creation and covenant.Within a process of maturation and theological reflection, this fragmentation has been overcome through a growing use of the Christological key that has been taken by certain authors as their principal point of reference, particularly in Italian theology (Colombo, Colzani, Gozzelino, Bordoni). These authors have highlighted the fact that in Christ both God’s project regarding the creation and His project for salvation history simultaneously find their fulfillment. 48 Cf. W. C. French, “Subject-centered and Creation-centered Paradigms in Recent Catholic Thought,” Journal of Religion 70 (1990): 48–72. 49 For these questions, cf. Morales, Creation Theology, 238–50, where the author, while criticizing some extreme forms of divinization of nature, says: “Christian faith has demythologized the world, and there is no going back” (at 246). Cf. also Marie George, “Ought We to Revere Non-rational Natural Beings?” Nova et Vetera 11, no. 3 (2012):751–78, at 764; the author, reading St. Thomas, states: “Non-rational creatures . . . are not themselves objects of reverence, but rather are meant to lead us to revere God.” 236 Santiago Sanz The biblical foundation of this perspective is enriched by making use of the New Testament, explicitly interpreting the Old Testament theme of creation-covenant in the light of the revelation of its fullness in Christ. Particular attention is given to those texts that speak of creation in Christ (1 Cor 8:6; Heb 1:2–3; Jn 1:3, 10; Col 1:15–20), texts that allow for an amplification of the mediating role of Christ in the work of creation.50 In effect, a biblical argument has extended itself and gained a central importance, according to which, just as in the Old Testament creation is revealed with a view towards the covenant, in an analogous way in the New Testament, creation is contemplated from Christ and in view of Him. Within this perspective, the sought after, unified vision of man before God is truly made possible by the God-made-man, Christ, in whom the Creator has mysteriously united Himself to all of creation. In this way, Christ is the key to the unified divine plan of creation and of salvation. This allows for a unified vision of man before God, as well as the integration of the created world within this relation. For this reason, as Bordoni has explicitly demonstrated, the Christological key unites and fulfills the two previous ones, overcoming the irreconcilable extremes of anthropocentrism and cosmocentrism by their inclusion within a Christocentrism. In the divine plan, man and the world receive the fullness of truth and meaning only in Christ.51 Therefore, according to the Christological perspective, Revelation not only speaks of creation for the covenant, or of a creation that is the place of the covenant, but it takes a step further in the comprehension of this relation, conceiving of the creation itself as a covenant in Christ.52 This seeks 50 A good synthesis, with abundant bibliography, can be found in L. Scheffczyk, Schöpfung und Vorsehung (Freiburg: Herder, 1963), 13–23; also in F. Mussner, “Schöpfung in Christus,” in Mysterium Salutis, vol. II, 455–61. 51 Cf. M. Bordoni, “L’orizzonte cristocentrico della creazione in relazione alla questione della sua visione antropocentrica,” in La creazione. Oltre l’antropocentrismo? ed. P. Giannoni (Padua: Il Messaggero, 1993), 367–98, here 367–68. A summary of the theological consequences of this contribution can be found in the last words of the article, where Bordoni maintains that, if there is no possibility of a world without humankind, there is likewise no possibility of humankind without the world. But there is no possible humankind without the eternal Son of God, and there is no historically de facto creation of man without the eternal Son of God incarnated (cf. ibid., 398). 52 This is the theological position that Colombo defends and that is, in his view, committed to emphasize the most comprehensive aspect of Revelation, that is, to consider creation as “covenant with God in Jesus Christ” (cf. Colombo, “Creazione II,” 204). In an analogous way, Bordoni’s definition of creation, from the christocentric point of view, includes a reference to the covenant: cf. Bordoni, “L’orizzonte cristocentrico della creazione,” 395. Creation and Covenant 237 to make theologically explicit the original reference of creation to Christ in whom all things acquire their subsistence. Christ confers on the creation its fullest meaning as covenant offered by God.53 Thus there is shown the radical priority of the category of covenant, in which there is integrated, as a part of it, the idea of creation. Based on this unified vision there has been offered a solution to the problem of the supernatural according to this Christological key: the “Christic existential” proposed by Gozzelino, which has the advantage of conserving both the gratuity, since it follows upon the creaturely (this is what the term “existential” indicates, as distinct from “essential,”) as well as the constitutional reference of all of creation to Christ (indicated by the term “Christic,” as distinct from Christian, which is reserved for those who have explicitly taken unto themselves what is Christic).54 Thereby another step is taken forward in overcoming the extrinsicism of grace and the consequent dual anthropology existing on two levels.55 Such deficiencies are overcome not from beginning from man in the concrete, but rather more radically from the One who is the universale concretum, Christ,56 who being perfect man, is the only one who can reveal to man the truth about himself.57 53 Colombo maintains that the first theological datum about creation is this: Jesus Christ is the Revelation of the meaning of creation because He reveals that creation is the act of God for communicating ad extra the Trinitarian existence, and more precisely for generating ad extra the sons of God (cf. Colombo, “Creazione II,” 201). Further on, he says that Revelation specifies particularly that the world that actually exists, exists for the covenant with God in Jesus Christ, namely, it exists for actualizing the possibility of an ad extra communication of the condition of the Son within the Trinity (cf. ibidem, 202). 54 Cf. Gozzelino, Il mistero dell’uomo in Cristo, 62ff. There Gozzelino affirms that he picks up this expression from J. Alfaro, Hacia una teología del progreso humano (Barcelona: Herder, 1969), 81ff. 55 The critical reference is always modern theology, with its—in Colombo’s view— tendency to overlap covenant theology with creation theology and thereby to give existence and consistence to creation independently from the covenant. Colombo considers it necessary to overcome this mainly negative approach and to arrive at a positive one that consists in identifying creation theology with covenant theology (cf. Colombo, “Creazione II,” 204). 56 The application of the category universale concretum to Christ has its origin in some renaissance and modern authors; in the twentieth century it has been developed especially by Hans Urs von Balthasar to make a Catholic theology of history: cf. A Theology of History (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963) (orig. 1950). On the origin and meaning of this topic, from the point of view of Revelation, see a synthesis in S. Pié-Ninot, La Teología Fundamental (Salamanca: Secretariado Trinitario, 2001), 274–81. 57 Cf. Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, no. 22. 238 Santiago Sanz Therefore within these considerations it is possible to perceive how the Christological key better resolves the problems that the anthropological perspective attempts to settle, correcting at the same time the risks that it could lead to; that is to say, the immanentization of the mystery that would be supposed by starting from and centering on man who receives the Revelation, instead of starting from and centering on the mystery as it is revealed in Christ. Within this context, it should be pointed out that the authors who develop this key often have as their source of inspiration the thought of figures such as de Lubac and, above all, von Balthasar. In his dialogue with Barth, von Balthasar emphasized the Christological dimension of analogy58 in his efforts to show a respect for the realism and the primacy of the revealed mystery in Christ to the extent that it involves—including it without dissolving it—the analogia entis, as an affirmation of the equally important, relative consistency of creation.59 One has, then, a Catholic Christocentrism that dialogues with and, at the same time, tries to correct the risks of a “Christomonism” that is more proper to a Protestant form of thinking, of which Barth is a clear advocate.60 While agreeing upon the importance of the truth of the creation in light of Christ, certain authors have pointed out the limits of certain ways of presenting the Christocentrism of the creation.61 An excessive preoccupa58 Cf. von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, especially 247–70. This point was mentioned for the first time in A Theology of History, 74n5, developed to a further extent in his trilogy, particularly the Theodrama, and has become one of his great theological contributions. A synthesis of this question can be seen in R. F. Luciani Rivero, El misterio de la diferencia. Un estudio tipológico de la analogía como estructura originaria de la realidad en Tomás de Aquino, Erich Przywara y Hans Urs von Balthasar y su uso en teología trinitaria (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 2002), 492–506 and 545–52. Cf. also R. Díaz, Los nombres de Dios, de Jesucristo y de la Iglesia. El recurso a la metafora y a la analogía (Valencia: Edicep, 2009). 59 By virtue of the analogia entis of Catholic theology, understood in a concrete, that is, Christological way, von Balthasar defends an arrangement between the absolute prius of grace’s order compared to nature and the relative prius of creation’s order compared to grace. The simplicity of this double consideration, according to him, overcomes Barth’s formula about the interior and exterior basis: cf. von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth, 234 and 288. As you can see, here arises the necessity of maintaining, together with the Chistocentrism, what we will later call here the ontological key. 60 For this point see also Scheffczyk, “Schöpfung II,” in Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe, vol. II, 508; idem, Schöpfung als Heilseröffnung. Schöpfungslehre, 37–38. 61 I have in mind here Auer’s criticism of Colombo at the end of his handbook, referred to here with a certain personal re-wording: cf. Auer, Die Welt—Gottes Schöpfung, 582–84. For further explanations on this subject cf. S. Sanz, “La creazione in Cristo nella teologia dogmatica contemporanea: una proposta di Creation and Covenant 239 tion with underlining the unified character of the divine plan can end up losing sight of the radical nature of the newness that the Incarnation has, which, with a strong biblical basis, could authentically be called a new creation in Christ. If one focuses solely on the role of Christ in the first creation, one risks presenting the redemptive Incarnation as (in a certain way) a necessary and automatic continuation of the divine plan, and also underestimating the freedom of God’s action. Paradoxically, starting from an historic-salvific perspective, one can end up denying the radical newness that the Incarnation supposes in the history of salvation.62 Here one clearly sees the impoverishment that is brought about by trying to begin in theology with only a narrative consideration of the divine plan in the historia salutis, and consequently of the mystery of Christ. It does not cease to be paradoxical that, beginning from the truth of the creation in Christ, some have proposed to set aside the exposition of the doctrine of creation in favor of the narration of the history of Jesus Christ. Thus one would first affirm the Christological meaning of creation and only afterwards one would explain in what consists the mystery of creation. In reality, the first thing that “creation in Christ” suggests is to reflect on the creation as the action of God and afterwards on who Christ is—that is, He to whom is attributed divinity through His insertion in the creative act of the Trinity—in His mysterious reality as God-man.The suggestion of St. Athanasius is illustrative in this respect, who, when having to expound the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, commented, “It is fitting that we first speak of the creation of the world and of God its creator, in such a way that it might be adequately understood that the renovation of the world has been brought about by the Word who created it at the beginning. In effect, no contradiction will be seen if the Father has achieved the salvation of the universe in Him through whom it was created.”63 sintesi,” in Creazione e salvezza nella Bibbia, ed. M. A. Tábet and M.V. Fabbri (Rome: EDUSC, 2009), 503–15. 62 In this line there is a nuance to Gozzelino’s idea in a recent handbook in the Spanish language area: cf. Sayés, Teología de la Creación, 92–95; this author maintains that we should speak of a “Christic existential,” but explaining it without denying either the authentic autonomy of created being or the gratuity of the Incarnation. This gratuity would remain vague, according to Sayés, if one maintains with Gozzelino that there is an inchoative presence of Incarnation in creation, which would lead to putting in man as creature a demand for the Christic existential.This would be the same as affirming that creation can be understood only from Christ. 63 Saint Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi, no. 1 (PG 25,38C). In this sense, I think that Auer highlights a true dimension of the problem when he affirms that, in order to understand rightly Christ’s cooperation in creation, we have to clarify first the meaning of the revealed mystery about “Creation out of nothing” in its genuine positional value (cf. Auer, Die Welt—Gottes Schöpfung, 584). 240 Santiago Sanz From a broader point of view, one can say that there is circularity between the actions and the ways of being that those actions manifest. In order to be understood, narration—which rightly appeals to the unity of meaning—has to be combined with a reflection upon “what persons and things are.” This permits one to capture with precision the dynamism and the newness of being in history. There is thus opened a perspective that could be called “Christological realism,”64 about which we will elaborate further later on. The Eschatological Key If up until now the central motivation of the interpretative keys presented so far has been to set forth a unified perspective and continuity between creation and covenant, we must note the presence of a different motivation in those authors—especially Moltmann and Pannenberg—who have attempted to provide for a better understanding of eschatology as the definitive completion of the covenant in the new creation. The introduction of the eschatological key within an understanding of the binomial creation-covenant, tends to accent a dimension of discontinuity with respect to history, making explicit the nexus between protology and eschatology, between creation and consummation. It finds a clear biblical basis both in the rediscovery of the Sabbath of the creation theme in Genesis,65 and in the question of the new creation, present in both Testaments.66 Within this line of thinking there is a desire to resolve a problem detected within the history-salvation perspective that accompanies the ways of presenting the anthropological and Christological perspectives: the tendency to reduce the notion of creation to a fact of the past. By conceiving of the creation only in its character as the beginning of the history of salvation, one falls short and reduces the diverse biblical mean64 The expression is not mine, but I take it from P. O’Callaghan, “Il realismo e la teologia della creazione,” Per la Filosofia 34 (1995): 110. I think that Colombo would share this sensibility when he affirms, at the end of his study on the supernatural, that the proprium of Christian faith is to see mankind and the world as “created in Christ,” and this insight has suggested highlighting, as a qualifying feature, its ‘supernaturality’: cf. Colombo, Del Soprannaturale (Milan: Glossa, 1996), 360. 65 Cf. Moltmann, “The Sabbath:The Feast of Creation,” in God in Creation, 276–96, where he presents the sabbath as the day toward which the work of creation is oriented and in which it is fulfilled. In this way the sabbath constitutes a prefiguring of the coming eschatological kingdom. 66 Limiting the references to some dictionary voices, I indicate particularly: H. Reinelt, “Schöpfung I. Biblisch,” in Handbuch theologischer Grundbegriffe, vol. II, 499–500; and Barbaglio, “Creazione I. Messaggio biblico,” in Nuovo Dizionario di Teologia, 196–98. Creation and Covenant 241 ings of the notion of creation to only one of them (creatio prima) while creatio continua and nova creatio are either left on a second level of consideration or ignored all together. This reductionism is consistent with the centrality that has been given to the category historia salutis in the effort to understand Christianity. Moltmann and Pannenberg, in the context of the paradigm shift that has taken place in Protestant theology—a shift from the history of salvation to eschatology67—emphasize that what is truly definitive within Christianity is the eschatological fulfillment that will take place with the arrival of the future Kingdom of glory.68 This is a new outlook on the relation between creation and covenant; for the first time, the perspective is inverted by considering the covenant as a (new) creation. If up until now the emphasis has been placed on an understanding of creation that starts from the idea of the covenant, now the idea begins to gain momentum according to which the covenant is understood on the basis of the idea of creation. By showing that the covenant, in so far as it is historical, cannot be the ultimate foundation, since history is subject to what transcends it and gives it its ultimate meaning, one affirms that the covenant receives its true completion in the consummation of creation.69 Glory is introduced with the same motivation as the foundation of nature and of grace.70 67 For a description of that phenomenon, cf. Ratzinger, “Salvation History, Meta- physics and Eschatology,” in Principles of Catholic Theology, 171–90. 68 Some words from Pannenberg can be useful to clarify this way of thinking: “Instead of separating God’s covenant history from creation, the sending of the Son, from the incarnation to the resurrection, ascension, and glorious return, is to be seen as the fulfillment of God’s creative work. But this, of course, demands a view of creation that does not limit it to the world’s beginning” (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology II, 144). 69 “Creation in the beginning is therefore certainly open for salvation history; but salvation history, for its part, exists for the sake of new creation. Consequently even creation in the beginning already points beyond salvation history towards its own perfected completion in the kingdom of glory. In this respect history is not the framework of creation; creation is the framework of history. This sets a limit to the “historization of the world”. Creation is more than merely a stage for God’s history with men and women. The goal of this history is the consummation of creation in its glorification” (Moltmann, God in Creation, 56). 70 Moltmann proposes to complete the old theological principle “gratia perficit naturam” according to a threefold articulation of the same principle: “gratia non perficit, sed praeparat naturam ad gloriam aeternam”; or otherwise, “gratia non est perfectio naturae, sed praeparatio messianica mundi ad regnum Dei” (ibid., 8). Although we cannot go further on this point, it is worth noticing that in these formulations there is a different understanding of the concept of nature than in the Catholic tradition. On this complex topic see Ratzinger, “Gratia praesupponit naturam. Erwägungen 242 Santiago Sanz There is no doubt that an outlook such as this favors the elevation of the present horizon to that of the hereafter—that it allows for a vision of the problematic nature of human existence through a lens of Christian hope, which is a guarantee of the future. But, at the same time, it is clear that this interpretative key has greater difficulties in demonstrating the connection between earthly and future realities, between moral action in this world and salvation.71 In itself, the passage from the historic-salvific paradigm to the eschatological—one that could be described as “historic-evolutionary”—presents the unarguable merit of trying to overcome the extremes to which both anthropocentrism and historicism tend, by turning towards a certain ontology. Creation, through being projected towards its final consummation, much further than its beginnings in history, is thereby conceived of as an anticipation, a grammar whose rules are set forth for an eschatological verification.72 Here there is a certain dependence on idealist metaphysics to the extent that these authors tend to equate history with metaphysics, echoing Hegel, for whom history is a necessary process of realizing the Absolute. In this way, by holding that the fullness is given only at the end, the definitiveness of Revelation’s Christocentrism is emptied of its content. This is the most significant limitation of an excessive focus on eschatology, a limit that has rightly been noted.73 In a coherent presentation of the Christian mystery, it may not be lost from view that with Christ the fullness of time has arrived, that we are already children of God, even though it has not yet been manifested what we will become (cf. 1 Jn 3:2).74 über Sinn und Grenze eines scholastischen Axioms,” in Dogma und Verkündigung (Munich: Erich Wewel, 1973), 161–81; von Bathasar, “The Concept of Nature in Catholic Theology,” in The Theology of Karl Barth, 217–47. 71 It can be useful to remember the intra-catholic controversy between “eschatologists” and “incarnationists” regarding how to understand the theology of history and its relationship to earthly realities; for a brief synthesis see A. Nichols, Catholic Thought Since the Enlightenment: A Survey (Leominster: Gracewing, 1998), 146–48 with bibliography (220); for further analysis, see Colombo, “Escatologismo ed incarnazionismo,” La Scuola Cattolica 87 (1959): 344–76 and 401–24. 72 Therefore Moltmann speaks about creation as open, and about God as the condition of possibility of the future, in such a way that “in the messianic light of the gospel, the human being’s likeness to God appears as a historical process with an eschatological termination; it is not a static condition” (Moltmann, God in Creation, 227). 73 Cf. Brambilla, “Teologie della creazione,” 629. This risk is especially present in Protestant theology, whereas Catholic handbooks normally highlight that the connection between protology and eschatology receives its definitive sense from Christology; cf., for example, Ladaria, Antropología teológica, 28. 74 Cf. Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, no. 48. Creation and Covenant 243 In any case, the analysis of the eschatological key has opened a perspective that cannot be avoided.We are certainly aware of the fact that Christocentrism is capable of offering a response to eschatology, since in Christ one has the fullness of the primary creation and of the new creation. Nevertheless, one can detect in the authors of the Christological key the identification of the theology of creation with the theology of the covenant, even to the point of defining the creation as a covenant in Christ. By making explicit the role of Christ in the primary creation, there was a tendency to present the redemptive Incarnation as being in continuity with that creation, within the unified framework of the history of salvation. Now, the eschatological perspective shows that there is an unequivocal aspect of discontinuity that comes about through the irruption of a new creation within history in such a way that it is now the covenant that must be understood in light of creation. How can one maintain, without losing the unity of the divine design and the absolute centrality of Christ, the balance between continuity and discontinuity, between the orientation of the creation to the covenant and the novelty of being that this introduces into the history of salvation, to the point of being able to call itself a new creation? The analysis of the last interpretative key can provide interesting elements for a response to this question. The Ontological Key This name is one which I take explicitly from Lafont,75 who, together with other authors writing from a perspective that includes philosophical speculation, has attempted to propose an ontology capable of uniting in an analogical way both the doctrine of creation and the doctrine of grace (covenant), showing that this is possible by way of a certain renovation of a metaphysics of being and participation. The biblical basis with which this new way of viewing our question is presented is varied. On the one hand, there is a certain independence of the notion of creation (Westermann) that allows for speculative considerations within the Bible itself, such as that which occurs in the Wisdom books. Thus von Rad’s correction on the interpretation of faith in the creation within the Old Testament, to which we alluded previously, assumes renewed significance. It is very interesting to note biblical studies intent on showing that the very name with which God the Savior names Himself and by which He wants to be called—YHWH (Ex 3:14)— 75 Concretely, he holds that a proper theological interpretation of the facts that come from the history of salvation and particularly from the Paschal mystery, imply the use of the ontological key (cf. Lafont, Dieu, le temps et l’être, 324). 244 Santiago Sanz includes the idea of the Creator.76 Such studies suggest that, in general terms, contemporary exegesis seems to have resolved the standoff that for a good part of the twentieth century had determined the understanding of the relationship between metaphysics and biblical revelation. Childs’s invitation to deal with the ontic dimension that lies beneath the biblical question seems to go in the same direction.77 In this sense, the perspective of the biblical argument that is based on the sequence “Savior-Creator,” receives an interesting addition. Although it is true that the first to be experienced was the encounter with God as liberator, this does not imply that his character of Creator is secondary, since what is specific to Israel’s faith is precisely the union of the two aspects, which is the result of what could be classified in a certain sense as—to borrow the expression of Fides et Ratio (§83)—a step from phenomenon to foundation. Thus, placing the story of creation as the first word of God in the Bible cannot but have a precise theological motivation.78 The problem that this perspective clearly marks out and tries to resolve is the eclipse of the doctrine of creation; in certain sectors of contemporary theology, that doctrine has been absorbed into the doctrine of salvation. The desire to solve this problem is found in those authors who, while sharing and developing the anthropological, Christological, and eschatological points of view, strive to maintain that such perspectives need not lead to a loss of the consistency and substantiality that created 76 Cf. W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (London: Athlone Press, 1968; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990); F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 60–75. Following this idea, a Spanish exegete has suggested a careful correction of the current and sometimes manipulated opinion that the people of Israel attained God the Creator after their experience of God the liberator. According to Muñoz León, there is no question that the liberating experience is the center of Israel’s profession of faith, but this same profession of faith includes at least implicitly the idea of God the Creator, and perhaps explicitly, if, as he supposes, the divine name YHWH includes in its etymology the meaning of source of being: cf. D. Muñoz León, “El universo creado y la encarnación redentora de Cristo,” Scripta Theologica 25 (1993): 810n5. 77 Childs, Biblical Theology, 110. In this effort to rediscover the harmony between the metaphysical and biblical perspectives, as well as to renew Trinitarian theology and the development of a Trinitarian ontology, it will be very useful to read the suggestions offered by M. Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004). 78 We find this complement, from a biblical point of view, in Childs, Old Testament Theology, 222; idem, Biblical Theology, 110. From a theological standpoint we refer to O’Callaghan, “Il realismo e la teologia della creazione,” 105. Creation and Covenant 245 reality has.79 For it is precisely such consistency that makes it possible to speak of a dynamic of temporal structure’s proper autonomy and sanctification, as well as of the universal moral demands based on a respect for the natural order created by God, demands that constitute a fitting starting point for dialogue with nonbelievers.80 While recognizing the important achievements of the application of the history of salvation perspective to theology, and more specifically to the understanding of creation, some authors have noted that this application has at times been realized at the cost of speculative theological reflection, which includes as an indispensable support, the “metaphysical moment.” Even while sharing the reaction to an earlier theology that, with rationalist tendencies, tended to separate creation and salvation, these authors agree to propose a reconciliation between metaphysics and the history of salvation, being fully aware of the problematic nature of a theology that is without philosophical support.81 It ought to be pointed out as well that this proposal is also found within evangelical circles, specifically within Calvinism. Within the context of an effort to recuperate the original thought of Calvin, Gisel agrees upon the necessity of elaborating an ontology of creation that would be capable of understanding creation’s specific structure, since “to forget this solely to benefit the Redemption (here, the covenant, Christ, and Scripture) means falsifying the understanding of salvation precisely in its central element.”82 According to what has been said earlier, the interpretative keys that are most centered upon the historia salutis often focus on the relation between covenant and creation in historical terms: the creation as the first step of the covenant.The creation has as well a dimension of metaphysical permanence 79 The autonomy of created reality and its ordering towards Christ are elements that must be well understood and that constitute the basis of creation theology (cf. Ladaria, Antropología teológica, 51). 80 In my view, this is the motivation at the root of the International Theological Commission’s document The Search for a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law (2009), which reflects a new interest in the concept of human nature, and particularly in the ethical framework, vis-a-vis natural law. See the “Symposium” on this document in Nova et Vetera 9.3 (2011): 657–841. 81 Besides Lafont, other authors explicate this point, even from different perspectives: Kern, “Zur theologischen Auslegung des Schöpfungsglaubens,” in Mysterium Salutis, vol. II, 514; Auer, Die Welt—Gottes Schöpfung, 95; Gozzelino, Il mistero dell’uomo in Cristo, 72. 81–85; Scheffczyk, Schöpfung als Heilseröffnung. Schöpfungslehre, 10; Bordoni, L’orizzonte cristocentrico della creazione, 375. 82 Gisel, La Création, 229–30. It is also useful to recall his assertion that to write a book on creation means to acknowledge oneself in search of an ontology: see ibid., 7. Santiago Sanz 246 (participation in being, the original relation to God), that deserves to be theologically developed, since it constitutes the basis of the metaphysical repercussions that are contained within the doctrines of the covenant and of grace. As some authors have pointed out,83 a development of this kind encounters a solid foundation in the proposal of Cornelio Fabro (1911–95) for genuinely rediscovering the Thomistic notion of actus essendi, which permits one to conceive of creation in terms of the participation of being.84 This metaphysical vision, which explicitly presents itself as overcoming the essentialism and extrinsicism that preceded it, is a good point of departure for the development of what has been called a “theology of supernatural participation,”85 which can provide a new and fruitful contribution to the understanding of our subject. Concretely, it is good to highlight an aspect of the Thomistic understanding of creation that has been pointed out from this perspective: that the creation is not simply a historical fact, but rather for St. Thomas,86 it is “the metaphysical situation continuously in act of the creature upon which is founded the being and the action of all created causality.”87 It seems to me that this is a point of decisive importance in my reflection, because it permits a resolution of a question that has arisen in the analysis of the preceding perspectives. With frequency it has been repeated that the creation is the first stage of the history of salvation, the initial salvific act of God. But yet, if it is considered only under this aspect, it seems that creation is being reduced to a simple fact of history. It would then be interesting as a preparation for what is theologically relevant, that is, the covenant of God with men in the history of salvation, but not as something that affects present reality. For this reason it ought not to surprise us that a movement arose 83 Cf., among others, ibid., 164ff.; Lafont, Dieu, le temps et l’être, 314. 84 C. Fabro, Partecipazione e causalità secondo S. Tommaso d’Aquino (Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1960). 85 F. Ocáriz, Hijos de Dios en Cristo. Introducción a una teología de la participación sobre- natural (Pamplona: Eunsa, 1972); this author has developed this position in subsequently published articles, now collected in Naturaleza, gracia y gloria (Pamplona: Eunsa, 2000). 86 Cf., for example, Aquinas’s exposition in ST I, qq. 44–45. 87 Fabro, Partecipazione e causalità, 461. Following this idea, Ocáriz maintains that, when creation is considered as a simple fact ( factum), being a creature implies only an esse ab alio (relation of origin), without a manifestation of that being-acreature in the inner structure of being: in this way, “essence” and “existence” would be nothing more than two states of the same content (simple possibility and reality). With this approach, the way from one state to the other (from possibility to reality) is made through a jump: the merely extrinsic causality of creation (cf. Ocáriz, Hijos de Dios en Cristo, 50). Creation and Covenant 247 within Protestant theology that accentuated, not the history of salvation, but eschatology, of which creation is anticipation.88 And from here some authors (Moltmann and Pannenberg) have criticized the priority of the historical covenant, suggesting that the covenant must be subordinated to the eschatological fullness of the Kingdom. This tension is given a new perspective in the light of the theology of supernatural participation, which conceives of creaturely being not primarily as the fact of having a temporal beginning, but rather as a precise metaphysical position: to be without being Being.89 Creation is not reduced in this way to a fact of the past, but remains a present reality, that has received already a new metaphysical position (filial adoption as re-creation), which supposes the entrance of eschatology into history and will have its fulfillment in the fullness of the glory of the Kingdom.90 In this way it is not only creation that possesses a metaphysical dimension, but also the covenant; in so far as it is a divine initiative to make men participate in God’s own life, it is susceptible to a treatment of this kind via the notion of supernatural participation. The notion of participation, as the expression of the ontological aspect of the content of the creation and the covenant, permits one to perceive the double relation of continuity and discontinuity between both. Continuity exists because both indicate precisely a participation in the transcendental order of being; discontinuity is found in the fact that the polarity ad extra—ad intra must necessarily be maintained if one wants to respect the grandeur of the mystery of our being created in order to be deified. This development of the ontological key permits a formulation of the reciprocal bond between creation and covenant, sustaining at the same time an understanding of the creation as covenant and of the covenant as creation; that is to say, in its most radical meaning, creation means covenant in Christ, while the covenant can be understood as a (new) creation in Christ. In virtue of the analogy, both ideas are reciprocally illuminated, 88 For a comparison between this notion of anticipation (typical of Pannenberg’s ontology) and the Thomistic notion of participation, see Sanz, El futuro creador del Dios trinitario, 199–212. 89 As Ocáriz points out, for Saint Thomas being-creature implies neither exclusively nor primarily to have a beginning, but, precisely founded in the idea of participation, it implies being without being the Being, and from this, as a constituent element of created being, arises the real distinction between essentia and esse (actus essendi ): cf. Ocáriz, Hijos de Dios en Cristo, 51. 90 It is useful to point out that not only the idea of creation as relation but also the affirmation that the most appropriate way of speaking about creation is to consider it ut relatio, are present originally in Saint Thomas; cf. for example ST I, q. 45, a. 3; Summa contra Gentiles lib. II, cap. 18. 248 Santiago Sanz without losing what is specific to each one and conserving the covenant in its primacy that it logically deserves as the fullness of being. There is thus maintained a marvelous unity in the divine plan of love, without the tension that is proper to it being hidden.The tension consists in the fact that what is ad extra from God has been elevated to participate in the life of the Trinity ad intra. Within this perspective, whose objective is none other than to better understand our being in Christ, the distinction between the natural and the supernatural is maintained without any risk of juxtaposing the two planes of existence. If the creation is rightly considered as the gift of being, it is clear that it effects what is most intimate in the creature. At the same time, the covenant understood as a new creation, far from constituting something external and added on, presupposes a new participation that is called supernatural, precisely with regard to what is new about it, in so far as it is an elevation of created nature to a new metaphysical situation—the participation in the divine nature as such, which is the gift of grace. Nevertheless, what is primary is not nature’s elevation, because it is only the manifestation on a formal level of the primary and original elevation of the act of personal being to a participation in the unique Filiation of the Son who, being the Incarnate Word, is the model and summit of our supernatural elevation.91 Now if Filiation is Subsistent Relation, it can then be participated in by elevating the relation to God proper to the act of personal created being (esse ad Deum), to being, in addition, relation to the Father in the Son through the Spirit (esse ad Patrem in Filio per Spiritum Sanctum). This is perhaps the idea of greatest speculative potential that comes out of the development of the ontological key according to the rediscovery of the Thomistic notion of the act of being. This standpoint permits one to affirm that an extrinsicist view of grace has its roots in an insufficient metaphysical consideration of created reality that sees grace according to the binomial “essence–existence” in such a way that the latter is extrinsic to the former, since it comes about as the result of an external causality.The argumentation that seeks to begin with historical man as he really exists and that considers nature or essence as something abstract—perhaps due to a confusion between the concept of nature and the hypothesis of “pure nature”—does not in our judgment escape the hazards of this reduction.92 The making of grace extrinsic is due, then, to a previous extrinsicism of 91 It is convenient to indicate—although we cannot explore the topic at this time—that here lies the question, extensively argued by Ocáriz, of the distinction and articulation between filial adoption as elevation of the person and grace as elevation of nature. 92 See Feingold, The Natural Desire to See God, 329–343, 424–26, and 429–47. Creation and Covenant 249 creation, and only by overcoming this latter can the former be effectively overcome as well. Put another way, if grace is conceived of as something extra or added on to nature, it is because creation is also considered in this same manner, that is to say, as something that “puts” an essence into existence, the addition of something (existence) to an essence. In effect, certain authors who decry a vision of grace as something additional, profess— perhaps unknowingly—an essentialism that reduces the perfection of the act of being to pure “existential factuality” and do not sufficiently take into account the full extent of the real distinction between essence and the act of being.93 In this way it is possible to pass to the other extreme of a certain immanentism, which ends up considering grace as the development of what is already present within nature, which is the tendency that characterizes Rahner’s thought.94 If, with St. Thomas, one understands creation from the standpoint of being, he will then also understand grace from this standpoint, as affecting creation in its most intimate dimension. Here grace is not extrinsic to the creature, but rather intensifies his act of being in such a way that in a certain sense it can be considered, by way of analogy, a new creation ex nihilo, since the creature remains freely constituted in its new being.95 Although it has been possible to point out only a few possible lines of investigation, it seems to me that this speculation develops an intuition that is theologically correct, in a direction that I have qualified as Christological realism.96 93 Among others, Muschalek seems to move in this direction when he considers the creative act as the free position of the “non-divine” (“der freien Setzung des Nichtgöttlichen”: Mysterium Salutis, vol. II, 557). Colombo reduces the act of being to the fact of existence when he affirms that Revelation presents creation “as a fact” (“come fatto, cioè come attualità”: Colombo, “Creazione II,” 204). I discuss all these questions in Sanz, “Metafísica de la creación y teología. La racionalidad de la idea cristiana de creación a la luz de Santo Tomás de Aquino,” in Colección Cuadernos de Filosofía. Excerpta e dissertationibus in Philosophia, vol. XVII (Pamplona: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra, 2007), 9–105, esp. 45–70. 94 Cf. C. Cardona, “Rilievi critici a due fondamentazioni metafisiche per una costruzione teologica,” Divus Thomas 75 (1972): 149–76, especially 162ff.; for a more extensive criticism from a philosophical point of view, see C. Fabro, La svolta antropologica di Karl Rahner (Milan: Rusconi, 1974). 95 “Etiam gratia dicitur creari, ex eo quod homines secundum ipsam creantur, idest in novo esse constituuntur, ex nihilo, idest non ex meritis; secundum illud Ad Ephes. 2,9: ‘Creati in Christo Iesu in operibus bonis’ ” (ST I–II, q. 110, a. 2, ad 3). 96 From the point of view of the theology of Revelation, this means conceiving the divine plan of creation and redemption in Christ in such a unity that one maintains at the same time the necessary Christocentric perspective and the no less important distinction between the natural and the supernatural: cf. Ocáriz, “La 250 Santiago Sanz Final Considerations In our synthesis of the principle interpretative keys that have been offered within contemporary theology in order to find a more convincing relation between creation and covenant, it has been clear how certain perspectives presented themselves as the completion of what came before, at times insinuating the possibility of conflict. This was the case with the anthropological and cosmological keys; the Christological key seemed to conflict with these two; and finally the eschatological key seemed to clash with the Christological. At the same time we have called attention to the risk of carrying to the extreme each one of them if it was to be accepted to the exclusion of the others (i.e., anthropocentrism, cosmocentrism, cristomonism, and eschatological idealism). This shows us once again the importance of maintaining all of the dimensions that a theological consideration of the creation-covenant relationship demands. If on the basis of the anthropological and Christological keys, creation was to be read in terms of the covenant (creation as covenant), the cosmological and eschatological keys would permit one to consider the covenant in light of the creation. In both cases there exists a clear biblical foundation. Precisely for this reason, because it is necessary to maintain united the diverse facets of the revealed Mystery, we have seen afterwards how certain authors have judged it necessary and fitting to turn to the key of ontological realism, which, by way of the analogy of being and participation, can relax the tensions existing between the various keys to the extent that it permits us to follow the two directions of continuity and discontinuity, creation as covenant and covenant as creation. So what shall we say about the choice between a creation dependent upon or independent of the covenant? It seems that in light of the anthropological and Christological keys, one ought to sustain the first option, while the cosmological and eschatological keys suggest the second. In such a predicament, it seems to me that only if the ontological key is made explicit can the choice be resolved and mutual reciprocity sustained—the continuity and discontinuity that make it possible to see the primacy of the covenant and the relative autonomy of creation, which does not dissolve into covenant. As we have seen, the notion of participation applied both to creation and to the covenant allows us to understand the double relation present in the analysis of the biblical texts that many authors have made; that is revelación en Cristo y la consumación escatológica de la historia y del cosmos” (1992), in Naturaleza, gracia y gloria, 349–50. Creation and Covenant 251 to say, creation can be seen as covenant at the same time that covenant can also be considered as (new) creation. This implies an analogical use of these concepts that at the same time reflects the analogical structure of reality itself. According to Christian Revelation, it is possible to say that creation, in its fullest and most radical meaning, means covenant, since the apex of the creative work of God is Christ’s humanity in whom the covenant is definitively given to us. At the same time, this affirmation is not opposed to the consideration that there are other meanings of the word “creation,” more basic ones, that do not directly allude to the ultimate meaning of covenant (for example, the dimension of the creatio ex nihilo). By itself this allows us to understand that Sacred Scripture on certain occasions speaks of creation considered in itself, while on others it manifests its radically salvific dimension. There is no conflict or contradiction here, nor is there between affirming that creation is a mystery of our faith and sustaining that this is a truth accessible to the natural understanding that the human person can achieve with his intelligence. Creation and covenant come together, in our opinion, in a relationship that is both continuous and discontinuous.The continuity exists ultimately because of the fact that the plenitude of creation is the redemptive Incarnation of Jesus Christ, in view of which everything has been created according to the only divine plan. At the same time there is an undeniable discontinuity from the point of view of Revelation, to the extent that this nexus is not necessary but rather the fruit of a later manifestation of the Trinitarian love.97 If the continuity is lost from sight it is easy to fall into the juxtaposition of orders. But if the discontinuity is lost from view, the character of something that “goes beyond,” which is possessed by the marvelous gift of participation ad intra presupposed by our being made children of God in Christ, is lost as well. We have thought it fitting to spend more time discussing the ontological key, since frequently—also for understandable historical reasons— 97 This important question is clearly exposed by von Balthasar, “Creation and Trin- ity,” Communio 15 (1988): 285–93. In fact, after the concentration on the anthropological and Christological dimensions in the theology of creation, the last years have seen a new interest in the Trinitarian dimension of creation, as some studies indicate: C. E. Gunton, The Triune Creator: A Historical and Systematic Study (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998); Ganoczy, Der Dreieinige Schöpfer. Trinitätstheologie und Synergie (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2001). From a Thomistic point of view, cf. G. Emery, La Trinité Créatrice (Paris: Vrin, 1995); idem, The Trinitarian Theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas, trans. F. A. Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). An overview with abundant bibliography can be seen in S. del Cura, “Creación ‘ex nihilo’ como creación ‘ex amore’: su arraigo y consistencia en el misterio trinitario de Dios,” Estudios Trinitarios 39 (2004): 55–130, esp. 60–65. 252 Santiago Sanz it has tended to be undervalued in certain areas of contemporary theological reflection. We have seen how it has the ability to integrate the distinct dimensions of the revealed mystery, allowing for an organic interconnection of the keys of interpretation. If we now return our attention to the formula of Barth, we can affirm that, in effect, creation is the external foundation of the covenant; that is to say, it is the divine action ad extra of putting outside of Himself a participation of His being that is the condition or presupposition for being able to call it unto Himself; and the covenant is the internal foundation of creation, for, by virtue of the free and loving plan of God, it constitutes the moment in which the creature is elevated ad intra to participate in the fullness of Divine Being, in the inner-Trinitarian life of love—that is to say, in God who is a loving communion of Persons—through the creature’s insertion into the unique Filiation of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word. The covenant as participation in the life of God is realized primarily in the human creature in virtue of his spiritual nature that makes him capax Dei; and secondly, in an analogous way, in the material creation. The ontological key offers a valuable help to the theologian at a critical moment in understanding the relation between creation and covenant. The double function of the presupposition that Barth shows in articulating this formula is sustained and consolidated, not by a dialectical theology that rejects metaphysical thinking, but rather by a theology based on the realism of creation and of salvation in Christ.98 In a significant way, Benedict XVI assumes, on the one hand, Barth’s formula in his teaching: “The Covenant, communion between God and man, is inbuilt at the deepest level of creation.Yes, the Covenant is the inner ground of creation, just as creation is the external presupposition of the Covenant.” On the other hand, in the same homily, the Pope establishes that “to omit the creation would be to misunderstand the very history of God with men, to diminish it, to lose sight of its true order of greatness. . . . Our profession of faith begins with the words: ‘We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth’. If we omit the beginning of the Credo, the whole history of salvation becomes too limited and too small.”99 98 As Gesteira points out, although there is no doubt about the influence of Barth in Catholic theology in questions like the Christological foundation of creation and history, it is, however, hard to accept his actualism and his tendency to escape from the question of being, to escape from ontology: M. Gesteira, “Karl Barth, un profeta del siglo XX,” Introduction to the Spanish translation, by A. Martínez de la Pera, of K. Barth, Carta a los Romanos (Madrid: BAC, 1998), 40. 99 Benedict XVI, Homily, April 23, 2011. One could add here his reference to the insufficiency of speaking about God only as the “totally Other,” in a hidden allusion to Barth’s notion, in another significant homily. On the solemnity of Pentecost Creation and Covenant 253 As a consequence of what we have discussed thus far, it is possible to affirm that without a relatively autonomous theology of creation it would not be possible to develop a theology of the covenant in which it is understood as gift, nor an adequate Christology.100 Or, to put it positively, the metaphysics of being and of participation derived from the truth of creation—which in a certain sense can be characterized as a filial metaphysics—provides to the fides quaerens intellectum a theologically balanced understanding of the mystery of the history of our salvation in Christ. In conclusion, if within contemporary theology there has been an insistence—and rightly so—on considering creation as a covenant in Christ, it seems to me that, on the same basis, the complementary aspect must be insisted on as well, one that considers the covenant as a new creation in Christ. With this perspective one seeks to respect and at the same time understand, to the extent that it is possible, the immeasurable richness of the Trinity’s design, which is originally and always—in spite of men’s sins—a design of creation and covenant. N&V of the same year, after recalling that Pentecost is also a feast of creation because, for us Christians, the world is the fruit of an act of love by God who has made all things and in which he rejoices because it is “good,” the Pope said: “Consequently God is not totally Other, unnameable and obscure. God reveals himself, he has a face. God is reason, God is will, God is love, God is beauty” (Benedict XVI, Homily, June 12, 2011). 100 Cf. P. Eyt, “La ‘théologie du monde’ a-t-elle fait oublier la création?” La Documentation Catholique 1917 (1986): 472–78, here 474. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 255–85 255 The Importance of Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas M ICHAEL M. WADDELL Saint Mary’s College Notre Dame, IN Introduction O N THE WHOLE , scholars of Thomas Aquinas’s thought have not been much concerned with the topic of rapture.1 Studies of Aquinas’s accounts of cognition have tended to focus, rather, on faith and reason, perhaps to the point that one might think these were the only modes of cognition discussed in Aquinas’s teaching. This privileging of faith and reason might be understandable if one read only Thomas’s Summa theologiae or his Summa contra Gentiles—and especially if one only read these works in a cursory manner. But Aquinas’s earlier Disputed Questions on Truth offers a rich account of human cognition that presents prophecy and rapture right alongside faith and reason. And I believe that rapture, construed as a direct 1 To my knowledge, no study has been published squarely on the subject of rapture in Aquinas’s thought. However, I have found records of three unpublished theses: Casey Edler, Aquinas and the Knowledge of God (M.A. Thesis, Louisiana State University, 2005); Anthony Marett-Crosby, Seeing the Lord: Rapture and the Knowledge of God in Scholasticism up to Thomas Aquinas (D. Phil. Thesis, University of Oxford, 2000); and Diane Harwood, Rapture in the Spirituality of St. Thomas Aquinas (M.A. Thesis, Western Michigan University, 1978). Patrick Quinn also touches upon rapture in “Aquinas’s Concept of the Body and Out of Body Situations,” Heythrop Journal 34 (1993): 387–400, as do Peter Kwasniewski in “St. Thomas, Extasis, and Union with the Beloved,” The Thomist 61 (1997): 587–603, and Pamela Reeve in “The Metaphysics of Higher Cognitive States in Thomas Aquinas,” in Essays in Medieval Philosophy and Theology in Memory of Walter H. Principe, CSB, ed. James R. Ginther and Carl Still (Burlington,VT: Ashgate, 2005), 105–19. Finally, Ezequiel Téllez has provided a Spanish translation of De veritate, q. 13, with introduction, in Tomás de Aquino: De veritate, Cuestión 13: Tratado sobre el Arrebato Místico (Pamplona: University of Navarra, 1999). 256 Michael Waddell vision of the divine essence experienced in this life, might actually constitute the highest mode of human knowing discussed in De veritate. In this essay, I will attempt to claim a privileged place for rapture in our reading of Aquinas as well as to reflect on some reasons why rapture might not have been given that place all along. Since rapture has not received much attention from scholars of Aquinas’s thought, I will begin by offering a brief sketch of the act of rapture. Then, in the second part of the essay, I will show that rapture occupies an important place in Thomas’s account of cognition. Briefly stated, my argument for this claim will be that both Thomas’s doctrine and his practice suggest that truth is fundamentally relational and, indeed, even interpersonal or communal. Since rapture comprises a direct relationship between a human knower and God, it would seem to be the most perfect mode of cognition and to beget the highest truth humans can experience in this life. Of course, if this contention is correct, then one might ask: why has rapture not been a more central concern of Aquinas’s readers? In anticipation of this question, the third part of my essay will examine three objections that might be raised against my thesis of the importance of rapture in Thomas’s thought. The first objection contends that rapture is an exceedingly rare occurrence and is therefore not an important part of Thomas’s account of cognition. The second objection suggests that rapture, as a direct vision of God, is actually in tension with fundamental principles of Thomas’s broader theory of cognition, and should therefore be de-emphasized. And the third objection maintains that Thomas himself appears to have relegated rapture to a marginal place in his mature Summa theologiae, thereby rejecting any privileging of rapture that might have occurred in his early Quaestiones disputatae de veritate. After responding to these objections, I will conclude by suggesting a few ways in which an adequate appreciation of the importance of rapture in Aquinas’s teaching—beyond providing us with a deeper understanding of Thomas’s account of cognition—carries broader implications for how we understand Thomas’s thought and its place within the traditions of western intellectual life. A Brief Sketch of Rapture in De veritate Thomas explored rapture in several texts and at various stages of his career. The De veritate treatment of rapture is particularly interesting, though, because it is situated in the midst of a series of questions about human cognition that consider matters of natural knowledge as well as prophecy, rapture, and faith (qq. 10–14).2 Thus, the very structure of De veritate 2 While Thomas explores rapture most fully at De veritate, q. 13 and Summa theolo- giae II–II, q. 175, he also discusses the topic in his lectura on 2 Corinthians 12, lect. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 257 uniquely encourages the reader to think about the significance of rapture among the various modes of cognition that Thomas examines in these questions. Before trying to assess the significance of rapture in De veritate, though, it might be helpful to present a brief sketch of the act of rapture. Thomas begins his discussion of rapture in De veritate by rehearsing the definition of the masters: “Rapture is elevation, by the power of a higher nature, from that which is according to nature to that which is contrary to nature.”3 Thomas explains that this description of rapture, which defines it as a movement, provides its genus (“elevation”), its efficient cause (“by the power of a higher nature”), its starting point (“from that which is according to nature”), and the terminus of the movement (“to that which is 1–2 (this lectura comprises a part of Thomas’s In epistolas sancti Pauli). The lectura has the virtue of reminding us that Thomas’s interest in rapture arose, in part, from St. Paul’s rapture and therefore that both the De veritate and the Summa treatments of rapture are deeply informed by scriptural concerns. Nevertheless, there are several problems surrounding Thomas’s In epistolas sancti Pauli, including missing sections of text, confusions about authorship, and the existence of multiple editions without clear genealogies to explain the proliferation of versions (see Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas. Volume One: The Person and His Work [hereafter, The Person and His Work], trans. Robert Royal [Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996], 250–57, 340; James Weisheipl, O.P., Friar Thomas D’Aquino: His Life, Thought and Works [Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1983], 372–73; Marie-Dominique Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, trans. Landry and Hughes [Chicago: Regnery, 1964], 248). Scholars seem to be largely in agreement, though, that the lectura on 2 Corinthians 12 dates from some portion of Thomas’s Italian period (roughly 1259–68). Thus, chronologically, Thomas’s discussion of rapture in the lectura follows his discussion of rapture in De veritate, and the De veritate treatment seems to prepare the way for the lectura rather than vice versa (even if Thomas’s wrestling with Paul’s rapture is already evident in the De veritate account, especially in q. 13, a. 2 and q. 13, a. 5). Moreover, Thomas’s discussion of rapture in his lectura on 2 Corinthians 12 does not seem to differ substantially from his treatments in the earlier De veritate or the later Summa. Given the problems surrounding the In epistolas sancti Pauli, the fact that the De veritate prepares the way for the lectura rather than vice versa, and the basic agreement of the lectura with the accounts given in the earlier De veritate and the later Summa, it seems methodologically sound to take our brief description of rapture from De veritate without explicitly drawing upon the lectura on 2 Corinthians 12. I take up questions about the relationship between the De veritate and Summa accounts below, in the section entitled “Third Objection: Did Thomas Retreat from Rapture in the Summa Theologiae?” 3 De veritate (hereafter, DV ), q. 13, a. 1, in capite: “Raptus est ab eo quod est secundum naturam in id quod est contra naturam vi superioris naturae elevatio.” English quotations of DV are taken from Truth, trans. Mulligan, McGlynn, and Schmidt (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1994), which I have emended from time to time. Latin quotations of DV are taken from the Leonine edition (Rome, 1972). Michael Waddell 258 contrary to nature”).4 Still, the definition needs to be glossed in a number of ways in order to gain a clear sense of what rapture is. Rapture as Vision of the Divine Essence To begin with, the received definition of rapture is remarkably vague in its description of that to which the enraptured person is elevated. This might be due, in part, to the fact that there are several kinds of rapture, each of which involves a different level of abstraction from sense perception and therefore achieves a different level of vision.5 When Thomas writes about rapture without qualification, though, it is clear that he has in mind an elevation to the knowledge of God through God himself. And, in De veritate, q. 13, a. 2, Thomas insists that St. Paul saw God through the divine essence when the apostle was enraptured.6 As Thomas typically construes it, then, what is seen in the act of rapture is the divine essence itself. Thomas explains elsewhere that it is impossible for the human intellect to see the divine essence directly unless it be strengthened by the light of glory (lumen gloriae).7 Accordingly, the light of glory must be infused into the mind of the enraptured person in order for it to be able to see the divine essence. Thomas is careful to distinguish between two ways in which the light of glory can be received, though: The light of glory is infused into the mind in two ways. In one, it follows the mode of a form that becomes connatural and abiding. This makes the mind blessed without qualification, and is the manner in which it is infused in the blessed in heaven. In the other way, the mind receives the light of glory as a passing impression. It was in this way that Paul’s mind was enlightened with the light of glory when he was enraptured.8 4 See DV, q. 13, a. 1, resp. 5 See, for example, DV, q. 13, a. 2, ad 9. 6 Aquinas implicitly attributes a vision of the divine essence to Moses in the same text. See also DV, q. 12, a. 14, resp., where Thomas is more explicit about Moses’ vision of the divine essence. 7 See, for example, Summa theologiae (hereafter, ST ) I, q. 12, a. 2, resp. However, in DV, q. 10, a. 11, resp., Thomas suggests that the human intellect can be united to the divine intellect in this life “without being bathed in the light of glory” (sine hoc quod a lumine gloriae perfundatur). Perhaps he means only that such an intellect does not receive the light of glory as an abiding form (thereby still allowing that the intellect receives the light of glory in a transient manner). If not, this isolated statement would appear to be an anomaly within Thomas’s otherwise consistent teaching on this point. For more on the light of glory, see Michael Waddell, “Aquinas on the Light of Glory,” Tópicos 40 (2011): 105–32. 8 DV, q. 13, a. 2, resp. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 259 Thus, the enraptured person receives the light of glory only in a transient manner (sicut quaedam passio transiens). And in this way rapture differs from the beatific vision—which is also a direct vision of the divine essence made possible by an infusion of the lumen gloriae—for those who are blessed without qualification receive the light of glory as a “connatural and abiding form” ( per modum formae connaturalis factae et permanentis).9 Rapture and Sense Perception The fact that rapture comprises a direct vision of the divine essence has implications for the role of sense perception in rapture. As Thomas explains in De veritate, q. 13, a. 3, “a man living in this mortal body cannot see God through His essence, unless he is separated from the bodily senses (nisi a sensibus corporeis alienetur).”10 Thomas produces two arguments for this claim. He begins the first argument by noting that the act of any cognitive power requires attention. And if the soul gives complete attention to the act of one cognitive power, it must be inattentive to the other powers. But, Thomas asserts, “for the understanding to be raised up to the vision of the divine essence, the whole attention must be concentrated on this vision, since this is the most intensely intelligible object, and the understanding can reach it only by striving for it with a total effort.”11 Therefore, Thomas concludes, the enraptured person must be completely drawn away (omnino abstrahatur) from sense perception in order to be elevated to the vision of the divine essence. Thomas’s second argument for this claim proceeds along the following lines.12 The more perfect ( perfectior) the intellect is, the more it is purified ( purior) from contact with material things. This is why the human intellect, which knows material things through intelligible species 9 Thomas notes other differences between rapture and the beatific vision, includ- ing the fact that the enraptured person does not receive the gift of glory (dotem gloriae) nor does glory therefore flow from the soul into the body (see DV, q. 13, a. 2, resp.). Interestingly, though, Thomas asserts that Paul’s rapture was similar to the beatific vision in that his vision overflowed into the affections, begetting acts of enjoyment, love, and charity (see DV, q. 13, a. 2, ad 6). 10 DV, q. 13, a. 3, resp. 11 DV, q. 13, a. 3, resp.: “Ad hoc autem quod intellectus elevetur ad videndum divinam essentiam oportet quod tota intentio in hanc visionem colligatur cum hoc sit vehementissimum intelligibile ad quod intellectus pertingere non potest nisi toto conamine in illud intendat.” Thomas’s diction here is striking: the argument reads as though one could achieve the act of rapture through concentrated effort. Presumably, though, Thomas does not mean to retreat from his basic notion that rapture is an elevation by the power of a higher nature. Cf. ST II–II, q. 175, a. 2. 12 The discussion that follows in the text above is a synopsis of the rather lengthy argument Thomas presents in the corpus of DV, q. 13, a. 3. 260 Michael Waddell abstracted from phantasms, is less perfect than angelic understanding, which knows purely immaterial forms. Inasmuch as the human intellect still possesses the purity ( puritas) of intellectual knowledge, though, it retains the power to consider things that are purely immaterial. Thus, Thomas concludes, if the human intellect be elevated to a vision of the divine essence, which is the highest of immaterial things, it must be completely separated from the sight of material things. While this argument is a bit opaque, Thomas appears to be suggesting that in order for the human intellect to be elevated above its ordinary operations to a direct vision of the divine essence, the intellect must be made more perfect than it normally is by being cut off from contact with material things through sense perception. The conclusion of both arguments, then, is that the human intellect must be separated from sense perception during the act of rapture. Thomas explains that this separation does not, however, entail the separation of the soul from the body altogether. This is true for at least two reasons.13 First, inasmuch as the union of soul and body does not require the attention of any cognitive power, this union does not threaten to deprive the enraptured intellect of the attention required for a direct vision of the divine essence. Second, inasmuch as the power of understanding does not proceed from the essence of the soul as united to the body but rather insofar as it is free from the body, the union of body and soul does not extend to the act of the intellect and therefore cannot diminish its purity ( puritas). Thus, while Thomas takes the act of rapture to necessitate the intellect’s being carried out of the senses, he does not take it to necessitate a dissolution of the union between body and soul altogether. In other words, rapture is a vision of the divine essence received in this life, not after death. Rapture and Nature One of Thomas’s chief concerns in discussing rapture is to assess whether rapture is natural or contrary to nature. This question is set up, at least in part, by the magisterial definition’s asserting that rapture is an elevation “to that which is contrary to nature.” Inasmuch as Thomas espouses that definition, the groundwork is laid for him to maintain the view that rapture is contrary to nature.14 And, indeed, Thomas asserts that 13 The discussion that follows in the text above is a synopsis of Thomas’s more elab- orate arguments in DV, q. 13, a. 4, resp.Thomas presents similar arguments against rapture’s necessitating a suppression of the activities of the vegetative soul. 14 The sed contra of DV, q. 13, a. 1 also draws upon the authority of the Glossa ordinaria to assert that rapture is contrary to nature. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 261 [m]an’s proper activity . . . is to understand through the mediation of sense and imagination. For the activity by which he fixes on intellectual things alone, passing over all lower things, does not belong to man as man, but in so far as something divine exists in him . . . .Therefore, when man is transported out of his senses (a sensibus abstractus) and sees things beyond sense, his natural mode of knowing is modified (transmutatur).15 Interestingly, though,Thomas does not take a hard line in interpreting the definition’s claim that rapture is “contrary to nature.” Instead, he draws a distinction between two different ways in which natural and proper activity can be modified: Sometimes this change takes place because of some deficiency in man’s proper power, as happens with insane people and others who are mentally deranged. This kind of transport out of their senses is not an elevation but rather a debasing of man. Sometimes, however, such transport takes place through the divine power, and then it is properly an elevation. For, since the agent makes that which is passive like itself, the transport which takes place by the divine power, and which is above man, has an ordination to something higher than that which is natural to man (est in aliquid altius quam sit homini naturale).16 Thus, Thomas’s initial gloss of what it means for rapture to be “contrary to nature” is that the divine power elevates the enraptured person above what is natural for human beings to something higher; he does not view rapture as something beneath human nature, much less as something destructive of it.17 Indeed, Thomas further qualifies what it means to say that rapture is “contrary to nature” in his reply to the first objection of De veritate, q. 13, a. 1: One can know God in many ways: through God’s essence, through sensible things, or through intelligible effects. We have to make a similar distinction about that which is natural to man. For something is contrary to nature and according to nature for one and the same thing according to its different states (uni enim et eidem rei est aliquid secundum 15 DV, q. 13, a. 1, resp. 16 DV, q. 13, a. 1, resp. 17 Elsewhere,Thomas even replaces the preposition contra (“contrary to”) with supra (“above”) when presenting the magisterial definition of rapture: “Raptus est ab eo quod est secundum naturam in id quod est supra naturam, vi superioris naturae, elevatio” (Super II Epistolam B. Pauli ad Corinthios lectura, in Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Opera Omnia, vol. 6, ed. Busa [Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1980], lectio 1). Michael Waddell 262 naturam et contra naturam secundum eius status diversos), because the nature of the thing is not the same when it is in the state of becoming and when it has complete existence, as Rabbi Moses says. Thus, full stature and other things of the kind are natural to man when he has reached maturity, but it would be contrary to nature for a boy to have full stature at birth. Thus, it must be said that to know God in some fashion is natural for the human intelligence according to any state. But in the beginning, that is, in this life, it is natural for it to know God through sensible creatures. It is also natural for it to reach the knowledge of God through God himself when it reaches its full perfection, that is, in heaven (est autem ei naturale quod perveniat ad cognoscendum Deum per se ipsum in sui consummatione, id est in statu patriae).Thus, if in this life it is raised to the knowledge of God that it will have in heaven, this will be contrary to nature, just as it would be contrary to nature for a baby boy to have a beard.18 Rapture is not contrary to human nature absoluter, then, so much as it is contrary to human nature in this state of existence. We have already noted that Thomas glosses “contrary to nature” as meaning “above” or “higher than” what is natural. But Thomas’s example of the differences between what is natural for an adult and what is natural for a child helps us to understand more clearly that the relationship between rapture and natural knowledge—that is, knowledge natural to this state of human existence— is not a relationship of opposition but rather a relationship of what is higher to what is lower, or of what is more perfect to what is less perfect.19 Let us now conclude this brief sketch of the act of rapture by returning to the received definition with which Thomas began: “rapture is elevation, by the power of a higher nature, from that which is according to nature to that which is contrary to nature.” While Thomas seems to accept this definition, it should be clear that Thomas’s account of rapture is significantly clearer and deeper than the definition itself. In Thomas’s glossing of the definition, “that which is according to nature” is knowledge through sense perception, and “that which is contrary to nature” is the direct vision of the divine essence. Thus, rapture entails being carried out of sense perception to a direct vision of the divine essence. Thomas is careful to note, though, that these things are only “according to nature” and “contrary to nature” in this stage of human existence. Moreover, Thomas explains that what it means for rapture to be “contrary to nature” is to be a precocious “elevation” to a higher level of perfection 18 DV, q. 13, a. 1, ad 1. 19 Indeed, Thomas sometimes characterizes this relationship in terms of “perfect” and “imperfect.” See DV, q. 13, a. 3, sc 7 and resp. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 263 that is not normally found in this life but that is “natural” in the next. This “elevation” is possible only “by the power of a higher nature.” And thus it is by God’s agency, through a temporary infusion of the light of glory, that a person is enraptured to a direct vision of the divine essence while still in this life. The Importance of Rapture in De veritate In the Quaestiones disputatae de veritate, the significance of rapture is derived from its place in Thomas’s broader account of cognition and truth. This account, I would like to suggest, ultimately aspires to describe a relation(ship) between human knowers and God. Truth as an Interpersonal Relation In question one, article one of De veritate,Thomas first attempts to explain what truth is.20 He invokes the De anima’s claim that the soul “in some way is all things” in order to describe truth as a general mode of being that is comprised of a relation between being and intellect.21 In the De anima, we should recall, Aristotle suggests that a faculty is actualized by its object, and thus we can deduce that the intellect is actualized by the being(s) to which it is joined in the truth relation.22 In article two of question one, 20 While a good deal has been written about Aquinas’s teaching on truth, Jan Aert- sen has provided the magisterial treatment in Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals:The Case of Thomas Aquinas (New York: Brill, 1996), especially 243–89. See also Aertsen’s “Truth as Transcendental in Thomas Aquinas,” Topoi 11 (1992): 159–72; idem, Medieval Reflections on Truth: Adaequatio rei et intellectus (Amsterdam: Free University, 1984). For more recent works of interest, see John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas (New York: Routledge, 2001); Michael Waddell, “Truth or Transcendentals: What Was St. Thomas’s Intention at De veritate 1.1?” The Thomist 67 (2003): 197–219; idem, “Natural Theology in St. Thomas’s Early Doctrine of Truth,” Sapientia 59 (2004): 5–21; Lawrence Dewan, O.P., “Is Truth a Transcendental for St.Thomas Aquinas?” Nova et Vetera 4.1 (2006): 1–16; Jan Aertsen, “Is Truth Not a Transcendental for Aquinas?” in Wisdom’s Apprentice:Thomistic Essays in Honor of Lawrence Dewan, OP, ed. Peter Kwasniewski (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 3–12; and John Wippel, “Truth in Thomas Aquinas,” in Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 65–112. 21 See DV, q. 1, a. 1, resp., in passim. See also De anima III.8, 431b21 and III.4, 429a18. 22 De anima III.4, 415a18–22; see also III.2, 426a1–11 and III.4, 429a11–18. See also DV, q. 10, a. 6, resp.: “In another way, [the mind] is related to things as potency to act, inasmuch as determined forms of things are only potentially in our mind, but actually in things outside the soul.” It should be noted that the agent intellect also has its role to play in actualizing the passive intellect (see, for example, ST I, q. 85, a. 1, ad 3 and I, q. 87, a. 1, resp.). But even the agent intellect, which is actually immaterial, is not in a state of actuality with respect to the determinate nature of 264 Michael Waddell Thomas again gestures toward the De anima to suggest that there is a kind of circular motion that originates in being outside of the soul, then extends into the soul through the intellect, and finally reaches back outward toward being through the act of the appetite.23 Thus, Aquinas clarifies, the good that perfects the soul in the completion of this circular motion is the very same being from which the circular motion began. On the basis of these texts, one could say that the human soul is actualized by the being from which this circular motion originates and in which the motion finds its fulfillment.Truth, in a certain sense, just is the relation that arises as the intellectual faculty of the soul receives that being into itself. No sooner than Thomas has made this point, though, he expands his description of truth to remind us that truth consists not only in the relation between human intellect and being(s), but also in the relation between the divine (practical) intellect and created being(s).24 Thus, there the species of the thing known. See Sentencia libri De anima, bk. 3, ch. 4, lines 139–48: “The possible intellect is in potency to intelligibles just as the indeterminate is to the determinate: for the possible intellect does not possess determinately the nature of any sensible thing, whereas every intelligible is a determinate nature of some species; whence [Aristotle] said above that the possible intellect is related to intelligibles just as a tablet to determinate pictures. And, with respect to this, the agent intellect is not in act.” The English translation of the preceding passage from the Sentencia libri De anima is my own.The same text is found in the Pirotta edition at bk. 3, lectio 10, par. 738. Cf. ST I, q. 79, a. 4, ad 4 and ST I, q. 87, a. 1, ad 3. 23 DV, q. 1, a. 2, resp.: “The Philosopher speaks of a sort of circle formed by the acts of the soul: for a thing outside the soul moves the intellect, and the thing known moves the appetite, which tends to reach the things from which the motion originally started.” See De anima III.10, 433b21–30. On the importance of the circulatio motif in Aquinas’s writings, see Jan Aertsen, “The Circulation-Motive and Man in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas,” in L’homme et son univers au Moyen Âge: actes du septième congrès internationale de philosophie médiévale, ed. Monika Asztalos and Christian Wenin (Louvain: Centre DeWulf-Mansion, 1986), vol. 1, 432–39; idem, Nature and Creature: Thomas Aquinas’s Way of Thought (New York: Brill, 1988), 40–45. See also Torrell, The Person and His Work, 154. 24 DV, q. 1, a. 2, resp.: “A thing is referred differently to the practical intellect than it is to the speculative intellect. Since the practical intellect causes things, it is a measure of what it causes. But, since the speculative intellect is receptive in regard to things, it is, in a certain sense, moved by things and consequently measured by them. It is clear, therefore, that, as is said in the Metaphysics, natural things from which our intellect gets its scientific knowledge measure our intellect. Yet these things are themselves measured by the divine intellect, in which are all created things—just as all works of art find their origin in the intellect of an artist.The divine intellect, therefore, measures and is not measured; a natural thing both measures and is measured; but our intellect is measured, and measures only artifacts, not natural things. A natural thing, therefore, being placed between two intellects is called true as it conforms to either. It is said to be true with respect to its conformity with Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 265 are analogous levels of truth generated by the different relations that exist between God and created beings, on one hand, and between beings and the human intellect, on the other hand. If we carry forward Thomas’s metaphor of circular motion, we might suggest that while the human intellect and appetite are actualized by a circular motion that both begins and ends in created beings, these beings themselves are part of a circular motion that proceeds outward from God in the act of creation—here conceived as an act of practical intellect—and then returns toward the divine in a quest for fuller metaphysical actuality. Thus, our understanding of the circular motion of the soul would have to be revised in order to clarify that the point from which the metaphysical actuality of the soul’s circular motions begins—and therefore the point at which it ends—is God. In other words, we would have to acknowledge that the intellect is ultimately perfected by the truth that arises from its relation with God. Thomas’s description of the relationships among the various modes of truth bears out this suggestion. In De veritate, q. 1, a. 8, for example, he states: Hence, it is clear that the truth found in created things can include nothing more than 1) the being (entitatem) of the thing and [its] conformity (adaequationem) to intellect, [or] 2) the conformity of intellect to things or to the privations of things. All this is entirely from God, because both the very form of a thing, through which it is conformed, and the truth itself, inasmuch as it is the good of the intellect, [are] from God; for, as is said in the Ethics, the good of any thing whatsoever consists in its perfect operation. But there is no perfect operation of the intellect except inasmuch as it knows the true; hence, in this consists its good with respect to this sort of thing. Hence, since every good, as well as every form, is from God, one must say, without any qualification, that every truth is from God.25 Thus, the intellectual faculty of the soul, which is actualized by the relation to being that comprises truth, is in fact perfected by a relation to the divine being, which is God.26 Moreover, we should note, the human quest for perfection through truth culminates not only in a relation to a Being, but the divine intellect in so far as it fulfills the end to which it was ordained by the divine intellect . . . With respect to its conformity with a human intellect, a thing is said to be true in so far as it is such as to cause a true estimate about itself.” 25 DV, q. 1, a. 8, resp. See also DV, q. 1, a. 4, resp. and q. 1, a. 5, resp. Enticingly, but less clearly, see DV, q. 10, a. 9, resp.: “Even natural knowledge arises in us from divine illumination (etiam naturalis cognitio in nobis ex illustratione divina oritur).” 26 Thomas states this very thing, of course, in his discussion of happiness at ST I–II, q. 3, a. 8, resp. But it is important to note that the account of truth Thomas presents in question one of DV seems to drive toward the same conclusion. 266 Michael Waddell in a relation between persons—namely, the human knower and God.Thus, the doctrine of truth that Thomas presents in question one of his Disputed Questions on Truth is not only relational, but fundamentally interpersonal.27 Interestingly, the practice of disputation recorded in the Disputed Questions on Truth also seems to manifest an interpersonal (or communal) approach to cognition and truth. In disputation, truth is not sought by examining material beings directly—as, for example, one might do in scientific observation or experimentation—but rather by engaging in discussion and debate with other people. Thus, the quest for truth is a communal project, with the truth relation arising most immediately from relations between or among human intellects and then, by extension, to material things (which are themselves true primarily by virtue of their own relations to the divine intellect).28 If we consider the role that philosophical and theological authorities played in Thomas’s disputations, we might further suggest that authors who were not physically present with the masters and students at the disputation were nevertheless part of the community of knowers who generated truth in the intellects of other knowers. And, given what we have already noted about Thomas’s view that all truth is fundamentally from God, we might even have to acknowledge that God is a member of the community of knowers in which the truth relation is produced.29 Indeed, since the being and truth of created things exists only through participation in the divine intellect, it would seem that truth can arise in the human intellect only in virtue of a relation between the human being and God.To be sure, this relation is often mediated by written and spoken words, by other human intellects, and by 27 Cf. Josef Pieper, Living the Truth:The Truth of All Things and Reality and the Good, trans. Lothar Krauth and Stella Lange (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989). Pieper emphasizes the relationality of transcendental truth (see 35 and 37) and even dwells upon the fact that truth is established between two minds (see 51–52). However, he does not educe the point that human knowing is perfected by a relation to the divine intellect, nor does he recognize that truth is therefore an interpersonal relation. 28 One might object, here, that this makes it sound as though the object of the intellect is an intelligible species existing in another intellect rather than a being outside the intellect. Thomas, of course, rejects the notion that the intelligible species is what is known by the intellect, claiming instead that the intelligible species is that by which the intellect knows (ST I, q. 85, a. 2, resp.). I do not think my claim is incompatible with this point, though, since I am not arguing that we do not or cannot know beings outside the intellect; I am only arguing that, in the mode of disputation, the words and intelligible species of other people’s intellects also serve as a kind of bridge to extra-mental objects of knowledge. 29 Strictly speaking, of course, God cannot be a “member” of the community if by “member” we mean a “part.” Perhaps it would be more precise to say that God is the principle of this community. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 267 material things; but we should not let that mediation obscure the metaphysical and theological facts about the two terms of the relation. The truth that exists in human beings is fundamentally a relation between a human intellect and the divine intellect. Thus, both the content of Thomas’s doctrine and the very practice by which he came to that content seem to manifest an interpersonal account of knowing and truth. Reason Now, while all modes of human cognition enter into this interpersonal relation of truth, some modes can beget only a mediated relation. This is the case with both reason and faith, for which material beings must always mediate our approach to God. Regarding the ability of reason to know God, Aquinas states: In natural knowledge, our mind looks to phantasms as objects from which it receives intelligible species, as is said in The Soul. Hence, everything it understands in the present life, it understands through species of this sort abstracted from phantasms. But no species of this sort is sufficient to represent the divine essence or that of any other separated substance. For the quiddities of sensible things, of which intelligible species abstracted from phantasms are likenesses, are essentially different from the essences of even created immaterial substances, and much more from the divine essence. Hence, by the natural knowledge that we experience in this life, our mind cannot see either God or angels through their essences.30 This does not imply, of course, that reason cannot know God at all in this life. But reason can ascend to knowledge of God as cause or Creator only through knowledge of God’s created effects.31 Thus, natural reason’s approach to God in this life must always be mediated. 30 DV, q. 10, a. 11, resp. See also DV, q. 10, a. 9, resp.: “As is said in The Soul, in this life our understanding is related to phantasms as sight is related to colors, not, however, so that it knows phantasms as sight knows colors, but that it knows the things which the phantasms represent. Thus, the activity of our understanding is directed, first, to the things which are grasped through phantasms.” On the notion that natural reason is based in sense perception of material singulars, see also ST I, q. 84, a. 6, resp.; I, q. 84, a. 7, resp.; I, q. 85, a. 1, resp.; Summa contra Gentiles (hereafter, ScG ) I, ch. 30, par. 3; Expositio super librum Boetii De trinitate (hereafter, In DT ), q. 1, a. 3, resp.; q. 6, a. 1, resp. (reply to the second question); and q. 6, a. 2, resp. On the claim that natural knowledge cannot know the divine essence directly in this life, see also ST I, q. 12, a. 4, resp. and I, q. 12, a. 11, resp. 31 See, for example, ScG I, ch. 11, par. 5; I, ch. 33, par. 4; ST I, q. 1, a. 7, ad 1; I, q. 2, a. 2, resp.; In DT, q. 1, a. 2, resp.; q. 1, a. 4, resp.; and q. 5, a. 4, resp. Michael Waddell 268 Faith The same is true of faith, although the mediation occurs in a different way. One must look a bit more carefully to appreciate how faith’s access to God is mediated, for, while the object of natural reason is material being, Thomas states that “faith . . . has God as its principal object ( fides . . . ipsum Deum habet sicut principale obiectum).”32 Indeed, Thomas describes faith as an initial participation in the full knowledge of God that comprises eternal life.33 But Thomas also follows the Letter to the Hebrews in maintaining that faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.”34 Consequently, he writes, The object of faith is that which is absent from our understanding. (We believe that which is absent, but we see that which is present, as Augustine says.) . . . Now, whenever the determinate principle of the proper object is lacking, the act must also necessarily cease. Hence, as soon as something begins to be present or to appear, it cannot be an object of an act of faith (unde quam cito incipit aliquid esse praesens vel apparens, non potest ut obiectum subesse actui fidei ).35 Thus, although faith’s object is God, and although faith does beget a relation between the human believer and the divine source of all truth, the object of faith cannot be directly present to the understanding of the believer.36 Instead, faith’s access to God must be mediated.Thomas explains: Faith cannot be posited as a virtue based on the evidence of things [it grasps] because it deals with things that are not apparent. Consequently, it must be called a virtue because of its adherence to some testimony in which the truth is infallibly found. But, just as every created being of itself is empty and liable to fail, unless it is supported by uncreated being, so all created truth is liable to fail except in so far as it is regulated by uncreated truth. Hence, to assent to the testimony of a man or 32 DV, q. 14, a. 8, resp. 33 See DV, q. 14, a. 2, resp.: “For man to be ordained to the good which is eternal life, there must be some initial participation of it in him to whom it is promised. However, eternal life consists in the full knowledge of God, as is clear from John 17.3: ‘Now this is eternal life. . . .’ Consequently, we must have within us some initial participation of this supernatural knowledge. We have it through faith, which, by an infused light, holds those things that exceed our natural knowledge.” 34 DV, q. 14, a. 2, in capite. See also q. 14, a. 8, resp. 35 DV, q. 14, a. 9, resp. 36 In support of the claim that faith does not see the divine essence directly, see also ST II–II, q. 1, a. 4, resp.; DV, q. 13, a. 2, resp.; q. 13, a. 2, ad 5; q. 14, a. 8, resp.; and q. 14, a. 8, ad 3. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 269 an angel would lead infallibly to the truth only in so far as we considered the testimony of God speaking in them.37 In the act of faith, then, it is the testimony of God—that is, revelation— that joins the human being and God; faith does not offer a direct vision of God.38 Thus, faith, like reason, begets only a mediated relation between the human believer and God. Rapture It is precisely in this regard that rapture transcends reason, faith, and indeed every mode of human knowing in via. For rapture comprises an unmediated relation between the human knower and God.39 In De veritate, q. 13, a. 2, Aquinas approvingly cites St. Augustine as stating that “when Paul was enraptured, he saw God through God’s essence (dicit Paulum in raptu Deum per essentiam vidisse).”40 Thus, whereas natural reason can know God only through the mediation of created effects, and 37 DV, q. 14, a. 8, resp. 38 In support of the claim that faith is mediated through revelation (which presum- ably comes through preaching, Scripture, or historical events), see also DV, q. 14, a. 8, resp.; q. 14, a. 8, ad 2; q. 14, a. 9, resp.; ST II–II, q. 1, a. 1, resp.; II–II, q. 1, a. 9, resp.; II–II, q. 2, a. 5, resp.; and In DT, q. 3, a. 1, ad 4. In the ST, Thomas uses the language of the “formal aspect of the object of faith” ( formalis ratio obiecti fidei ) and suggests that faith accepts truths qua God’s revelation. See ST II–II, q. 1, a. 1, resp.; I, q. 1, a. 3, resp.; and II–II, q. 2, a. 1, ad 1. See also In DT, q. 3, a. 1, ad 1 and q. 3, a. 1, ad 4. 39 In this essay, I have chosen to argue for the importance of rapture only in relation to reason and faith, which have occupied scholars of Aquinas’s writings far more than other modes of cognition have. The relationship between rapture and prophecy, which is very important but much too complicated to treat adequately in this essay, is the subject of a forthcoming article. For purposes of the argument I am making in this essay, suffice it to note that prophecy, as Thomas understands it, always entails some sort of image or sign. A particular prophecy might rely on an image that arises during sleep or during wakefulness, a spoken word, or an allegorical sign. These signs can be received in such a way that the one presenting them is heard but not seen or both seen and heard. And they can be presented by a messenger in the form of a human being, the guise of an angel, or even the image of God. The crucial point, though, is that prophecy—like reason and faith—is always mediated (by an image or sign), and does not equal rapture in its comprising a direct vision of the divine essence. Since one might wonder whether the highest level of prophecy, in which one sees the image of God, equals rapture, it should be noted that Thomas states that if one rises to a direct vision of the divine essence and not merely a vision of an image of God, then this surpasses the mode of prophecy and has in fact become rapture (see DV, q. 12, a. 7, resp.). On prophecy in general, see ST II–II, qq. 171–74 and DV, q. 12. 40 DV, q. 13, a. 2, resp. See also DV, q. 13, a. 2, ad 9. 270 Michael Waddell faith can know God only through the mediation of revelation, rapture actually affords a direct vision of the divine essence in this life. Now, as I have argued above, the De veritate account suggests that truth is ultimately an interpersonal relation between the human knower and God. And the more immediate the relation between creature and God is, the more perfect it must be. (This is particularly evident in the case of knowing God, since no intermediary is adequate to convey knowledge of the divine essence itself.)41 Accordingly, since rapture is the only mode of human cognition that provides an unmediated vision of the divine essence in this life, rapture must also be the most perfect mode of human cognition in the interpersonal account of truth that emerges from both Aquinas’s doctrine and his practice in De veritate.42 This privileging of rapture might sound shocking when heard against representations of Thomas’s thought that tend to emphasize the mediated access to God available through faith and reason. But, of course, we know that the pinnacle of human existence is the direct experience of the divine essence that is had in the beatific vision. As Thomas writes in the Summa theologiae, “final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the divine essence.”43 And what is rapture if not a brief glimpse of the beatific vision that is given to some in this life? Mustn’t rapture also be regarded, then, as the most perfect mode of cognition that can be received in this life? Objections At this point, one might reasonably ask: if rapture is so significant in Aquinas’s De veritate, why hasn’t it played a more prominent role in our appropriations of Thomas’s teaching on cognition? Let me say, straight41 See ST I, q. 12, a. 2, resp. 42 My claim that rapture is the most perfect mode of cognition discussed in the De veritate account of truth should not be taken to contradict Thomas’s notion that the quiddity of a material being is the proper object of human knowledge in its natural mode (see, for example, ST I, q. 88, a. 1, resp. and I, q. 88, a. 2, resp.) or his suggestion that natural knowledge of immaterial substances, even in a separated soul, is imperfect (see ST I, q. 89, a. 1, resp.). As noted above, rapture is a supernatural mode of cognition, and thus its perfection does not arise from its appropriateness to human nature but rather from the level of the union to which the enraptured person is elevated by the light of glory. Thomas attests to the perfection of this union in his Scriptum super libros Sententiarum, bk. 4, d. 49, q. 2, a.4, ad 5, where he writes: “It must be said that to see God through God’s essence is the most perfect mode of knowing God (according to its genus).” The English translation of the super Sententiarum is my own, following the Latin text of the Busa edition (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1980). 43 ST I–II, q. 3, a. 8, resp. See also DV, q. 14, a. 2, resp. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 271 away, that I can only speculate about the reasons why rapture has not been given the place I think it deserves in our readings of Aquinas. However, I do think that three objections are likely to be made against my privileging of rapture. First Objection: Did Thomas Think Rapture Is Too Rare to Be Important? One objection that might be raised against my privileging of rapture contends that Thomas thought rapture is exceedingly rare and that rapture is not, therefore, an important mode of cognition for Aquinas. But this objection seems to fall short in at least two important ways. To begin with, it is not obvious to me that one must accept the objection’s premise: for there does not appear to be adequate textual evidence to prove decisively whether Thomas thought rapture was rare, common, or something in between. Aquinas does explicitly state that both Paul and Moses were enraptured to a vision of the divine essence.44 He also describes a number of other people as having been enraptured, though he is using the term “rapture” in analogous senses here and does not attribute a direct vision of the divine essence to these other people.45 Given that Thomas explicitly mentions only a couple of people who have experienced a direct vision of the divine essence in this life, one might reasonably wonder whether Aquinas regards this type of rapture as being an extremely unusual experience. However, the mere fact that Thomas does not mention others who have been enraptured does not necessarily mean that he believed there were no others. Indeed, given the long tradition claiming that Thomas experienced profound visions late in life, one might just as reasonably wonder whether Thomas himself was ever enraptured. In the absence of a clear statement from Thomas about the number of people he regards as having been enraptured, though, it seems to me that all we can do is speculate about how common or rare Aquinas might have thought rapture to be. More importantly, even if we conceded that Thomas thought rapture was in fact experienced by only two human beings, this would not detract from the importance of rapture as a mode of cognition. For, as I have argued above, the importance of rapture in Thomas’s thought follows from its nobility in offering a direct vision of the divine essence in this life, not 44 See, for example, DV, q. 13, a. 2; DV, q. 12, a. 14, resp.; and ST II–II, q. 175, a. 3, ad 1. 45 Thomas presents Adam, David, Peter, and John the Evangelist as examples of people who have experienced modes of rapture that fall short of the direct vision of the divine essence. See DV, q. 13, a. 2, ad 9 and ST II–II, q. 175, a. 3, ad 1. Michael Waddell 272 from its frequency.46 Thus, the question of rapture’s rareness does not really bear on my argument for the importance of rapture in Thomas’s thought.47 46 See above, in the section entitled “Rapture.” 47 One reader has offered a variation on this objection. This variation takes Thomas’s discussion of rapture in his lectura on 2 Corinthians 12 to be the key to understanding Thomas’s view on the subject, and suggests that Thomas’s purpose in discussing rapture there is merely to explain a few lines of Scripture about St. Paul. The objection then generalizes from Thomas’s task in the lectura to claim that “all [Thomas’s] discussions of raptus are more or less generalized forms of Scripture commentary,” and concludes that rapture is not an important mode of cognition in Aquinas’s thought but rather a topic that arises in his teaching only because of the need to explain a few verses of Scripture. We have seen, though, that the importance of rapture is derived not from its frequency but from its comprising a direct vision of the divine essence in this life. And this remains true regardless of whether the instances of rapture that give rise to Thomas’s reflections on the subject come from Scripture or from elsewhere. Several other points should also be made.To begin with, it would be methodologically problematic to make Thomas’s lectura on 2 Corinthians the foundation of our study of rapture in the thought of Aquinas (for reasons described in note 2, above). More importantly, the claim that Thomas’s discussions of rapture are all “generalized forms of Scripture commentary” does not capture the richness of these discussions. First, while Thomas undeniably has scriptural accounts of Paul and Moses in mind as examples of rapture in all of his discussions of the topic, the lectura on 2 Corinthians is the only text in which Thomas constructs his discussion of rapture primarily as an exploration of those scriptural passages. In both the De veritate and the Summa theologiae, Thomas’s discussions of rapture are offered in the context of broader explorations of modes of cognition. For example, in each of these texts,Thomas presents his treatment of rapture immediately after his treatment of prophecy. This is because Thomas regards rapture, in a way, as a degree of prophecy (see, for example, ST 2–2.171, prologue; cf. DV 12.7 co.). Thus, in both the Summa and De veritate, Thomas’s discussions of rapture must be construed as parts of Thomas’s broader explorations of prophecy. In addition, when Thomas takes up the subjects of prophecy and rapture in these texts, he is clearly in conversation with Augustine’s De genesi ad litteram (e.g., book 12, ch. 6 and ch. 9). And while there are certainly scriptural bases for Augustine’s interest in visions of the divine (not all of which concern Paul or Moses), Augustine is also concerned with all sorts of visions for which he has evidence that is not scriptural in any way whatsoever.What is more, when Thomas discusses prophecy and rapture, he also seems to be in sustained conversation with the writings of Avicenna (e.g., Liber de anima, 4.2, 4.4, and 5.6) and Maimonides (e.g., Guide for the Perplexed, 2.45), which are similarly concerned with numerous levels of prophecy, including direct vision of the divine essence.Thus,Thomas’s discussions of rapture must be seen also as arising out of and in response to several rich traditions—Augustinian, Avicennian, and Maimonidean—of reflecting on visions more generally. Finally, in the case of De veritate at least, Thomas situates his multivalent exploration of prophecy and rapture in the midst of additional questions about reason and faith, suggesting that Thomas’s Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 273 Second Objection: Is Rapture Inconsistent with Thomas’s Broader Account of Cognition? A second objection that might be raised against my privileging of rapture, and therefore might also explain why rapture has not received much attention in recent appropriations of Thomas’s teaching, is that rapture appears to be at odds with broader principles of Aquinas’s cognitive theory. St. Thomas consistently maintains that human knowledge must begin with sense perception of material beings.48 In rapture, though, the human knower is supposed to have a direct glimpse of the divine essence without the mediation of sense perception or even imagination.49 Thus, the very possibility of rapture would seem to fly in the face of Thomas’s other views about human cognition. Fortunately, this objection is easy to answer, as Aquinas himself anticipated the difficulty and resolved it for us. Thomas does maintain that during the act of rapture one must “be completely withdrawn from the bodily senses (oportet quod . . . omnino abstrahatur homo a corporeis sensibus)” and that “one cannot be raised to the vision of the divine essence unless [one] is wholly deprived of the use of the bodily senses (non potest aliquis videre divinam essentiam nisi abstrahatur ab usu sensuum corporeorum penitus).”50 But he explains that, even though this is not the natural mode of knowledge for humans in this life, it is nevertheless made possible by a supernatural elevation to the way of knowing that is natural for humans in heaven.51 Thus, rapture is not so much opposed to the natural mode of treatment of rapture here is really part of a much larger attempt to think very broadly about multiple modes of cognition, natural and supernatural alike. For all of these reasons, then, the objector’s claim that all of Thomas’s discussions of rapture are “more or less generalized forms of Scripture commentary” does not seem adequate to account for the richness of what Thomas is doing in these texts, nor does the allegation that Thomas’s interest in rapture derives merely from the need to explain a few puzzling lines of Scripture ring true. 48 See, for example, DV, q. 13, a. 1, resp.; q. 13, a. 2, resp.; ST I, q. 84, a. 6, resp.; I, q. 84, a. 7, resp.; I, q. 85, a. 1, resp.; ScG I, ch. 30, par, 3; In DT, q. 1, a. 3, resp.; q. 6, a. 1, resp. (reply to the second question); and q. 6, a. 2, resp. 49 See DV, q. 13, a. 2, ad 9. 50 DV, q. 13, a. 3, resp. 51 See DV, q. 13, a. 1, resp. and q. 13, a. 1, ad 1. Someone still wishing to problematize rapture as being incompatible with Thomas’s broader account of cognition might be tempted to cite ST I, q. 89, a. 1, resp., where Thomas maintains that it is possible for the separated soul to understand intelligible objects without phantasms (viz., through divinely infused species), but he also notes that such knowledge would be imperfect, general, and confused because it is not natural for the soul to be separated from the body or, thus, to understand in this way. As Aquinas goes on to explain, though, when the soul is separated from the body and 274 Michael Waddell human knowledge as it is a remarkable perfection of the mode that is natural to this stage of human existence and an anticipation of the mode that will be natural in the next.52 Thomas himself seems to allow, then, that the dependence on sense perception of material beings that is natural for knowledge in this stage of our existence is not an absolute requirement of all human cognition. So, if rapture has been marginalized in our appropriations of Thomas’s teaching, it cannot be because rapture is inconsistent with Thomas’s broader account of cognition: for that broader account includes not only natural reason, but also supernatural modes of cognition such as faith, prophecy, rapture, and the beatific vision. Could it be, then, that Thomas’s teaching on rapture has been neglected because it conflicts with principles more dear to us than fidelity to Thomas’s teaching? Principles, say, of Aristotelian or empiricist epistemology, which might be juxtaposed with more Platonic, Augustinian, or even scriptural views?53 If so, we might receives species through participation in the divine light, “neither is this way of knowledge not natural, for God is the author not only of the influx of the light of grace, but also [of the light] of nature/Nec tamen propter hoc cognitio non est naturalis: quia Deus est auctor non solum influentiae gratuiti luminis, sed etiam naturalis” (ST I, q. 89, a. 1, ad 3, emphasis mine). Moreover, Thomas later clarifies that he is treating natural knowledge in this section of the text (see ST I, q. 89, a. 8, resp.) and that the knowledge of glory does not suffer the same defects and imperfections that beset the natural knowledge of separated souls (see ST I, q. 89, a. 2, resp.).Thus, while the separated human soul, left to its natural powers, might have only imperfect knowledge of intelligible objects, that fact has no bearing on the status of rapture, which arises under the influence of the lumen gloriae. 52 We might note here that in ST I, q. 88, where Thomas asks whether the human soul can know immaterial substances in themselves, he argues that it cannot because the soul has a “natural relationship to the natures of material things, and therefore it can only understand by turning to the phantasms” (ST I, q. 88, a. 1, resp.). But, throughout this question, Thomas consistently adds the qualification that this is true of the soul “in its present state of life” (see ST I, q. 88, a. 1, resp.; I, q. 88, a. 1, ad 3; and I, q. 88, a. 3, resp.). Thus, even while Thomas insists on the importance of phantasms and on the intellect’s proper object being the quiddity of a material thing, he reminds us to be circumspect about the fact that human cognition does not always occur under these conditions. 53 While a more neo-Platonic view of cognition could provide the requisite openness to the possibility of cognition without sense perception, Torrell suggests that, for Thomas, both Aristotelianism and neo-Platonism are always subordinate to Scripture and Christian teaching (see Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Volume Two: Spiritual Master [hereafter, Spiritual Master], trans. Robert Royal [Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003], 57, 62, and The Person and His Work, 116, 153, 155, 228, 238–39). And it certainly seems likely that rapture entered Thomas’s thought first as a scriptural and religious concern. At the same time, any philosophical account of cognition that Thomas Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 275 wish to re-consider not only the coherence of rapture with Thomas’s broader account of cognition, but also the commitments that shape our appropriation of Thomas’s teaching. Third Objection: Did Thomas Retreat from Rapture in the Summa Theologiae? A third objection could be raised against my privileging of rapture by taking exception with my focus on Thomas’s Disputed Questions on Truth. It might be the case, one could argue, that rapture is an important mode of cognition in this early disputation, but that rapture also appears to have been relegated to a far less significant place in the Summa theologiae, which is widely regarded as Thomas’s magnum opus and the best guide to his mature thinking. Thus, according to this account, Thomas himself would seem ultimately to have rejected rapture as an important concern, at least in comparison with reason and faith. In response to this objection, I would like to make two points. First, it is not at all clear that Thomas’s perspective on rapture changed from his early De veritate to his later Summa theologiae. In fact, a quick glance at these two texts shows that the substance of Thomas’s teaching on rapture remained remarkably the same.54 Most saliently, Thomas continued to present rapture as a direct vision of the divine essence received in this life by a person who is elevated by the light of glory and withdrawn from sense perception without her soul being separated from her body. What did change, of course, was the apparent prominence of rapture’s place within each work as a whole. In De veritate, rapture is situated right alongside Thomas’s investigations of reason, faith, and prophecy. And, since the De veritate contains only twenty-nine questions, the fact that rapture is the subject of an entire question makes it seem like a relatively important topic. In the Summa theologiae, rapture is still the subject of an entire question; but, in the sea of the hundreds of questions that comprise that text, the could embrace would have to be reconcilable with the possibilities for supernatural cognition to which Thomas’s faith commits him, including the possibility of a direct vision of the divine essence. 54 See DV, q. 13 and ST II–II, q. 175. Articles three, four, five, and six of ST II–II, q. 175 are remarkably parallel to articles two, three, four, and five of DV, q. 13. Article one of ST II–II, q. 175 and article one of DV, q. 13 both deal with the issue of whether rapture is natural or contrary to nature for human beings. In both texts,Thomas tries to maintain that rapture is natural in certain respects and contrary to nature in others, although he invokes different categories and different distinctions to make this point in each text. Finally, in article two of ST II–II, q. 175, Thomas addresses the role of appetite in rapture, expanding upon and adding to his treatment of this issue in DV, q. 13, a. 2, ad 6. 276 Michael Waddell single question on rapture seems less significant. Moreover, the discussion of rapture is located in the one hundred and seventy-fifth question of the secunda secundae—hardly a high traffic location. It is not entirely surprising, then, that reason and faith, which are discussed in more visible places in the Summa, have garnered more attention from readers of that text. However, the simple fact that only one question is devoted to rapture in the Summa theologiae certainly does not mean the topic is unimportant. After all, natural law receives only one question in the Summa, and the “five ways” are squeezed into a single article.55 But these topics are widely regarded as important among readers of Aquinas. Neither does the fact that the discussion of rapture is not prominently located in the Summa necessarily imply that the topic is less important in Thomas’s mind. The structure of the Summa is complex, and it is shaped by both scientific and pedagogical aspirations that must trump even Thomas’s personal judgment about the relative interest or importance of a particular matter. To begin with, since sacra doctrina is a subalternate science, its principles cannot be per se nota but must be borrowed from a higher science.56 Thus, the principles of sacred doctrine are received through revelation and faith. Now, faith makes use of reason as grace perfects nature.57 And, of course, any science must employ reason to deduce conclusions from its principles. So sacred doctrine must employ both faith and reason, and one would expect them to figure prominently in Thomas’s efforts in the Summa to show how theology can be a science.58 The act of rapture, on the other hand, cannot be employed when doing sacra doctrina because rapture comprises a direct vision of the divine essence and therefore transcends the subalternate character of sacred doctrine.59 From a scientific perspective, then, it makes perfect 55 One might object, here, that while natural law is the explicit focus of only one question in the Summa, the topic is discussed elsewhere in the text (most notably, in other articles of the so-called “treatise on law”). But, of course, rapture is also discussed in questions other than II–II, q. 175 (see, for example, ST I, q. 12, a. 11, ad 2). So the objection really does not weaken the comparison I have drawn above. 56 See ST I, q. 1, a. 2, resp. and I, q. 1, a. 2, ad 1. See also In DT, q. 2, a. 2, ad 5. 57 See ST I, q. 1, a. 8, ad 2 and I, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1. 58 See especially ST I, q. 1. On sacra doctrina as a science, see, for example, John Jenkins, Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas (hereafter, Knowledge and Faith) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 51–77, especially 66–76. Mark Johnson, however, argues that sacra doctrina is not merely a science but “a wisdom” in “God’s Knowledge in Our Frail Minds: The Thomistic Model of Theology,” Angelicum 76 (1999): 25–45. 59 Indeed, rapture cannot be said to be “employed” at all because it is a supernatural act that is not within the power of human beings but can only be given to us through a special act of grace. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 277 sense that faith and reason should be featured in the opening “methodological” question of the Summa while rapture should not appear there. But one might reasonably suppose that the absence of rapture in this passage is an effect of its perfection as a mode of knowing God, not of being relegated to a lesser status among the modes of cognition. Of course, rapture is still part of the content of theology, and should properly be considered by sacred doctrine in this way. Now, the subject of sacred doctrine is God, both in himself and as the beginning and end of creatures.Thus,Thomas divides the Summa into three parts: part one treats of God; part two treats of the rational creature’s advance toward God; and part three treats of Christ as the way of human beings to God.60 Obviously, as a brief glimpse of the divine essence, rapture must be considered part of the rational creature’s advance toward God, and is properly discussed in the secunda pars.The second part of the Summa is itself divided into two parts: the prima secundae considers the general principles of human acts, and the secunda secundae considers details of human acts.61 The secunda secundae begins by considering “virtues and vices that pertain to people of all conditions and estates” and then turns to “those things that pertain especially to certain people.”62 Throughout these divisions of the secunda pars, we see Thomas’s pedagogical principles at work, for he begins 60 See ST 1.2, prologue. On the structure of the Summa, see, for example, Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, 304–18; Torrell, The Person and His Work, 148–59; idem, Spiritual Master, 53–58; and Jenkins, Knowledge and Faith, 91–95, 219–25. 61 See ST I–II, q. 6, prologue. This division, which I have stated as though it were transparent, can in fact be difficult to follow through the various twists and turns of the prima secundae. Thomas begins this part of the Summa, which treats the general principles of human actions, by considering human acts and passions themselves (q. 6 and following). Then he considers the principles of human actions, turning first to habit as an intrinsic principle (q. 49 and following). He proceeds to discuss habits specifically, which is to say as they are divided into good habits (or virtues, q. 55 and following) and bad habits (or vices, q. 71 and following). Finally, Thomas examines extrinsic principles of human action in his discussions of law (q. 90 and following) and grace (q. 109 to the end of the prima secundae). All of this, then, falls under the rubric of general principles of human acts that Thomas creates in the prologue to question six of the prima secundae.The secunda secundae will comprise Thomas’s investigation of the other rubric in this prologue, namely, details of human acts. 62 ST II–II, q. 171, prologue. Thomas discusses the theological and cardinal virtues in II–II, qq. 1–170. His treatment of those things that pertain especially to certain people begins at II–II, q. 171, and is divided into three sections: differences that arise from various gratuitous graces, differences that arise from different ways of life, and differences that arise from different duties and states of life. 278 Michael Waddell with what is more general and moves toward what is more specific.63 Since rapture is an experience of grace not granted to all people, it is properly considered in the latter portion of the secunda secundae among the things that pertain only to certain people. Thus, Thomas’s understanding of the scientific order of sacra doctrina leads him to consider rapture in the second part of the Summa, and his pedagogical convictions lead him to locate his discussion of rapture in the latter sections of the secunda secundae. Rapture’s place in the Summa seems, then, to be determined by the architectonic principles of the work, and we do not need to posit any devaluation of rapture on Thomas’s part to make sense of its location in the text. Indeed, the question on rapture comes a few questions before Thomas’s discussion of the religious life and several questions before his discussion of Christ; surely we would not consider these topics to be devalued by Thomas because of their location in the text. Even if the De veritate and the Summa accounts of rapture were at odds with one another, though, it is not clear to me that one should simply presume in favor of the Summa’s view. I think the tendency automatically to privilege the Summa over Thomas’s other works is a practice that needs to be scrutinized; for it seems to me that, in certain ways, the disputed questions provide a better expression of Thomas’s perspective than the Summa.64 For example, we must remember that, while St. Thomas is a towering intellectual figure, he was not a solitary genius hidden away from other people and their ideas. Thomas’s life and his thinking were profoundly shaped by community. He spent much of his youth in a 63 For Thomas’s notion that our knowledge progresses from the general to the particular, see ST I, q. 14, a. 6, resp.; I, q. 85, a. 3, sc; I, q. 85, a. 3, resp.; ScG III, ch. 80; and In DT, q. 1, a. 3, resp. 64 Regarding Aquinas’s disputed questions, Chenu states: “With the Quaestiones disputatae which Saint Thomas held while his career as a master was in full swing, we are dealing with the finished product of scholastic thought (both philosophical and theological), as well as with the richest accomplishment of his personal genius” (Toward Understanding St. Thomas, 280). Regarding the Summa theologiae, on the other hand, Chenu has gone so far as to warn that “the praise directed toward the Summa theologiae throughout the centuries, the technical difficulties one encounters in it, the power of the synthesis it contains should not mask the original purpose for which it was written . . . . By the author’s own avowal, it was dedicated to the instruction of beginners in theology. The Disputed Questions were the book suited to masters, the Summa is the book of the pupil” (Toward Understanding St. Thomas, 297–98). While there is much truth in Chenu’s broad claims about the relationship between the Summa and the disputed questions, the point I wish to make in what follows is more modest, namely, that the disputed questions manifest the communal nature of Thomas’s thought more fully than the Summa. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 279 Benedictine monastery, which must have been an intensely communal experience. The early Dominican constitutions—and the Augustinian rule from which they took inspiration—were also very concerned with community, suggesting that Thomas’s life as a Dominican was both deeply and conscientiously communal.65 And Thomas’s experience of the intellectual life in its university context would also have been profoundly communal. The medieval university was, after all, modeled on the guilds, which were communities devoted to the practice and transmission of arts. Both as a student and as a master, Thomas’s days would have been 65 I have in mind here things like the Dominican desire for communal unity, as well as the notion that study and contemplation are for the sake of one’s neighbor. See the prologue of The Primitive Constitutions of the Order of Friars Preachers: “Because a precept of our Rule commands us to have one heart and one mind in the Lord, it is fitting that we, who live under one rule and under the vow of one profession, be found uniform in the observance of canonical religious life, in order that the uniformity maintained in our external conduct may foster and indicate the unity which should be present interiorly in our hearts . . . . Our study ought to tend principally, ardently, and with the highest endeavor to the end that we might be useful to the souls of our neighbors” (St. Dominic—Biographical Documents, ed. Francis C. Lehner [Washington, DC: Thomist Press, 1964], 212). As an illustration of early Dominican life’s indebtedness to the Rule of St. Augustine, consider chapter 15 of the same work: “The manner of making profession is the following: I, Brother . . . make profession and promise obedience to God and to Blessed Mary and to you N., Master of the Order of Preachers, and to your successors according to the Rule of Blessed Augustine and the Institutes of the Friars of the Order of Preachers that I will be obedient to you and to your successors until death. But when it is made to someone who is a prior, the formula is: I, Brother . . . make profession and promise obedience to God, and to Blessed Mary and to you, N., Prior of this place, for N., the Master of the Order of Preachers, and for his successors, according to the rule of Blessed Augustine and the Institutes of the Friars of the Order of Preachers, that I will be obedient to you and your successors until death” (Lehner, 222). The importance of community is also evident in the Rule of St.Augustine. See, for example, Chapter 1.2: “The primary reason for which you have come together as one is so that you might dwell as one soul in your home and so that you might be of one mind and one heart in God.” (The English translation is my own, following the Latin text from the critical edition in Luc Verheijen, La Règle de Saint Augustin, vol. 1 [Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1967], 417.) Torrell has thematized the issue of community in Thomas’s thought (noting, for example, the importance of friendship) (see Spiritual Master, 198, 277–78, 281, 306, 309). And he even flirts with the notion—borrowed from Chenu—that Thomas’s theology is connected with his being a member of the Dominican Order (see Spiritual Master, 376–77, 380–83). In my opinion, however, he does not adequately explore the ways in which Thomas and his thinking were influenced by the communities in which he lived, prayed, and wrote. Mary Ann Fatula, O.P., goes further by connecting the theme of friendship in Aquinas’s writings with various friendships that shaped his life (e.g., his relationships with Albert and Reginald). See Thomas Aquinas, Preacher and Friend (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993), esp. 31–58. 280 Michael Waddell spent not only in the halls where lectio played out as a public act, but also at work in the more fundamentally communal practice of disputation. Thus, as stylized records of the collaborative questioning, debating, and determining that occurred under Thomas’s guidance (though not exclusively in his voice), the disputed questions reveal, in an especially clear way, Thomas’s perspective as a participant in the practices of his intellectual and religious communities, practices that shaped not only the form of Thomas’s writings but also the content of his thought.66 The Summa theologiae, on the other hand, seems largely derivative when considered in this regard. To say this is not to detract from the accomplishment of the Summa.67 But we must bear in mind that the Summa was written to serve some very specific functions. For example, the Summa clearly represents an attempt to organize theological learning on the model of Aristotelian science, which is not the only way even Thomas himself seems to have imagined that it could be organized.68 We 66 It seems to me that the communal practices of disputation shaped the content of Thomas’s thought in at least two significant ways. First, there are obviously arguments in Thomas’s disputed questions that were made by other members of his studium. While some of these arguments are opposed to Thomas’s view, others advance his position. Moreover, Thomas’s articulation of his own position—even in the corpus of many articles—is clearly shaped by concerns and difficulties raised in the arguments to which he must ultimately respond. Second, and perhaps more controversially, I believe that the very practice of seeking truth in a communal way influenced Thomas’s understanding of truth as ultimately being interpersonal (i.e., a relationship between God and the human knower, as manifested in Thomas’s discussions of transcendental truth in the opening articles of De veritate or his account of the beatific vision). For more on the disputed question as a communal exercise, see Chenu, Toward Understanding St.Thomas, 88–91, 301;Torrell, The Person and His Work, 60–61; and M. Michèle Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study . . .” Dominican Education before 1350 (hereafter, Dominican Education) (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998), 133–34, 167, 169, 170–72. 67 Torrell, for example, describes the Summa as “the most beautiful specimen” in the genre of “pro and contra” (The Person and His Work, 63) and “the ripest fruit of Friar Thomas’s genius” (Spiritual Master, 303). I do not deny the beauty of the Summa —its splendor, its form, and its clarity—nor do I mean to deny the many other virtues that have led generations of scholars to regard it as Thomas’s magnum opus. But acknowledging the greatness of a work does not necessarily entail judging it to be the greatest in every respect. 68 For evidence that the Summa was intended to order theology on the model of an Aristotelian science, see ST prologue and I, q. 1, a. 2. Cf. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, 303–8;Torrell, The Person and His Work, 149–59; idem, Spiritual Master, 54ff.; and Jenkins, Knowledge and Faith, 91–95. As evidence that Thomas himself understood that theology could be organized in other ways, we need only consider Thomas’s Commentary on the Sentences and his Summa contra Gentiles, both of which comprise large scale syntheses of theological learning. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 281 also know that the Summa was intended for beginners in the study of theology.69 Given what we know about Thomas’s views on how knowledge develops, we would therefore expect that this text would provide a broad sense of how theological knowledge fits together as a whole but that it might be lacking in matters of detail concerning the various parts of theology.70 Moreover, not all “beginners” are the same, and we should ask precisely which beginners Thomas had in mind when he wrote the Summa. Were they students matriculating from the arts faculty into the theology faculty at the University of Paris or students undertaking theological studies in the new Dominican studia Thomas was helping to form in Italy? If it was the former group of students, then the aspirations of the Summa might have been adequately realized in Thomas’s shaping the content and structure of specifically theological learning. The more widely accepted theory, though, is that Thomas wrote the Summa for his students in the Dominican studia.71 In light of this, it would seem that part of the Summa’s task must have been to export the university intellectual community to the new studia by initiating Dominican students into the practices of the university intellectual community.72 (In this way, 69 See ST prologue. The view that the Summa was written for beginners is widely espoused. See, for example, Chenu, Toward Understanding St. Thomas, 297–98; Torrell, The Person and His Work, 145; idem, Spiritual Master, 53–54; and Leonard Boyle, O.P., The Setting of the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas (hereafter, Setting of the Summa) (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1982), 14–15, 17–18. Jenkins attempts to qualify that these were not “rank beginners” in Knowledge and Faith, 79–98. And Mark Johnson tries to offer a via media between Boyle’s and Jenkins’s views in “Aquinas’s Summa theologiae as Pedagogy,” in Medieval Education, ed. Ronald Begley and Joseph Koterski (New York: Fordham, 2005): 133–42. 70 For the notion that the intellect first grasps the whole and then progresses toward knowledge of its parts, see ST I, q. 85, a. 3, resp.; I, q. 85, a. 3, ad 2; I, q. 85, a. 3, ad 3; In DT, q. 1, a. 3, resp.; Commentary on the Physics, bk. 1, lectio 1, par. 7–11; and Commentary on the Metaphysics, bk. 2, lectio 1, par. 278. 71 See, for example, Torrell, The Person and His Work, 142–46; Mulchahey, Dominican Education, 280, 293; and Boyle, Setting of the Summa, 14–15, 17–18, 30. Jenkins, however, argues that the Summa was written for university theology students (Knowledge and Faith, 85–90, especially 89). While Jenkins brings helpful nuance to our understanding of the “beginners” for whom the Summa was written, his contention that the Summa was written for university students must be reconsidered in light of the rich historical account of Dominican education presented by Mulchahey, whose Dominican Education appeared a year after Jenkins’s own book. 72 Mulchahey notes the influence of the studia generalia on the format of education in the Dominican schools (see Dominican Education, 134). Gilles Mongeau, S.J., explores the pedagogy of the Summa as a set of spiritual exercises, but he does not explore ways in which this pedagogy also provides a communal formation. See Mongeau, “The Spiritual Pedagogy of the Summa theologiae,” Nova et Vetera 2.1 (2004): 91–114. 282 Michael Waddell the Summa theologiae might have been as much of a “missionary work” as the Summa contra Gentiles is sometimes supposed to have been, for the practices embodied in the Summa theologiae would themselves have helped to provide a communal formation for the non-university Dominican student.) This theory helps to make sense of the simplified quaestio format of the Summa: for the initiate (or apprentice) must be eased into the community’s (or guild’s) practices, and disputation, while familiar to graduates of the university arts faculty, would have been more foreign to non-university students. This theory would also suggest, though, that Thomas intended the Summa to prepare students for the full-blown communal practices recorded in the De veritate and other disputed questions—as a book of etudes, for example, prepares an individual musician to play with an ensemble. Of course, if this is correct, then the disputed questions would seem to offer a fuller expression of Thomas’s perspective as a member of intellectual community than is afforded by the more propaedeutic Summa theologiae; and, therefore, if the views in the disputed questions differ from the views in the Summa, one might do well to bear in mind that the disputed questions bear witness to an authentic aspect of Thomas’s theologizing that does not shine through so clearly in the Summa.73 This would seem especially important when what is at stake is the privileging of rapture that we find in Thomas’s interpersonal account of truth in De veritate; for, in this teaching, Thomas’s deeply communal lifestyle, his intellectual practices, and his doctrine coalesce. Conclusion If what I have suggested here is at all persuasive, it would imply that rapture, far from being a marginal concern or even an inconsistency in 73 Again, to privilege the disputed questions in this respect is not to prefer them over the Summa in every way. And it is certainly not to deny the possibility of development in doctrine from an early work (such as De veritate) to a later work (such as the Summa). Obviously, when such development occurs, the later work must be taken to reveal Thomas’s final opinion (although it must also be acknowledged that the bare fact that one view was penned later than another does not necessarily make it the better view, even considered simply within the context of an author’s own “system” of thought). Nevertheless, we must also bear in mind the purpose(s) for which a work was written, as well as its audience, its context, and the occasion of the text, so that we can appreciate the ways in which these factors might influence what the author states and how he chooses to state it. Chronologically, the Summa was indeed Aquinas’s last word on many subjects. Pedagogically, however, it was meant to be something more like a first word. And these are just two of the many variables that must be taken into account when we assess the value of Thomas’s many works with respect to the various uses to which we readers might put them. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 283 Thomas’s portrayal of human knowing, occupies an important place in the interpersonal account of truth and cognition that Thomas presents in his Disputed Questions on Truth. Indeed, as a direct vision of the divine essence, rapture comprises the highest mode of cognition that a human being can experience in this life. Moreover, while the De veritate account helps us to see the relationship between rapture and other modes of cognition with special clarity, the substance of Thomas’s teaching on rapture remains the same throughout his career. Thus, we must afford rapture a prominent place not only in our reading of the Disputed Questions on Truth, but in our understanding of Thomas’s thought in general. Lest we think that the significance of rapture in Aquinas’s writings is merely a matter of exegetical importance, though, let me conclude by noting a few ways in which an adequate appreciation of the importance of rapture in Aquinas’s teaching—beyond providing us with a deeper understanding of his account of cognition—carries broader implications for how we understand Thomas’s thought and its place in western intellectual life. It goes almost without saying that there is a long interpretive tradition of emphasizing the Aristotelian philosophical elements of Aquinas’s writings, and it is beyond doubt that Aquinas was deeply influenced by his engagement with Aristotle’s philosophy. In recent years, though, there has been increasing discussion of the neo-Platonic, theological, and even mystical elements of Aquinas’s thought, and I believe the present study has something to contribute to those conversations.74 74 For discussion of Aquinas and neo-Platonism, see the classic studies by Louis- Bertrand Geiger, O.P., La participation dans la philosophie de saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris:Vrin, 1953); Cornelio Fabro, La nozione metafisica di partecipazione secondo S. Tommaso d’Aquin (Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1950); and idem, Participation et causalité selon saint Thomas d’Aquin (Louvain: Publications universitaire de Louvain, 1961). More recently, see, for example, Rudi a te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (New York: Brill, 1995); Fran O’Rourke, PseudoDionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas (New York: Brill, 1992); Wayne Hankey, “Aquinas and the Platonists,” in The Platonic Tradition in the Middle Ages: A Doxographic Approach, ed. Stephen Gersh and Marten Hoenen (New York: de Gruyter, 2002), 279–324; D. C. Schindler, “What’s the Difference? On the Metaphysics of Participation in Plato, Plotinus, and Aquinas,” Nova et Vetera 5.3 (2007): 583–618; and Richard Schenk, O.P., “From Providence to Grace: Thomas Aquinas and the Platonisms of the Mid-Thirteenth Century,” Nova et Vetera 3.2 (2005): 307–20. On the theological nature of Aquinas’s thought, see Torrell, The Person and His Work, 116, 153, 155, 174, 228, 238–39; idem, Spiritual Master, vii, 370. See also Thomas O’Meara, O.P., Thomas Aquinas:Theologian (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), xi. Finally, on mystical aspects of Aquinas’s theology, see Torrell, The Person and His Work, xxi, 89; idem, Spiritual Master, vii, viii, 3, 66, 76, 97; idem,“St.Thomas Aquinas: 284 Michael Waddell To begin with, appreciating the importance of rapture helps us to see at least one way in which Thomas’s teaching on cognition resonates with the neo-Platonic tradition.75 The very possibility of direct knowledge of an immaterial being—much less the divine essence—poses challenges for a straightforwardly Aristotelian theory of cognition in which all human knowing originates in sense perception. But neo-Platonic accounts of cognition—especially Augustinian ones—are more obviously equipped to explain direct vision of immaterial entities such as the vision of the divine essence that occurs in the act of rapture, and Thomas’s incorporating these acts into his broader account of cognition seems to constitute a resonance with the neo-Platonic tradition. The importance of rapture in Aquinas’s thought also reminds us that Thomas’s theory of cognition is shaped in crucial ways by theological concerns and not merely by philosophical ones. To be sure, philosophy can raise questions about the possibility of knowing the divine essence. But the belief that the act of rapture occurs seems, for Thomas, to be more of a theological conviction than a philosophical one. That Thomas elaborates an account of cognition that accommodates the experience of rapture, therefore, suggests that this account is shaped by theological concerns as well as by philosophical ones. Theologian and Mystic,” Nova et Vetera 4.1 (2006): 1–16; Marie-Dominique Chenu, O.P., Aquinas and His Role in Theology, trans. Paul Philibert (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002), 45, 47ff. See also Heather McAdam Erb, “ ‘Pati Divina’: Mystical Union in Aquinas,” in Faith, Scholarship, and Culture in the 21st Century, ed. Alice Ramos and Marie George (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2002): 73–96; idem, “Being and the Mystic:The Metaphysical Foundations of Aquinas’ Mystical Thought,” Verbum 6.1 (2004): 135–59. Oddly, while Erb champions the mystical aspects of Aquinas’s thought, she seems to downplay the importance of “supernatural phenomena” such as rapture (see, for example, “Pati Divina,” 74, 85, 87, 88, and “Being and the Mystic,” 140, 151–52). Chenu takes a similar tack in Aquinas and His Role in Theology, 51. 75 Interestingly, while Thomas’s reliance upon neo-Platonism in his metaphysics is now widely accepted (in particular, with respect to the role of participation in his thought), the influence of neo-Platonism on Thomas’s account of cognition has been less widely explored and less widely embraced by mainstream Thomists. However, for works that consider the neo-Platonic backdrop of Aquinas’s views on cognition—even if only in passing—see Kevin Doherty, S.J., “St. Thomas and the Pseudo-Dionysian Symbol of Light,” The New Scholasticism 34 (April 1960): 170–89; Cornelio Fabro, “The Intensive Hermeneutics of Thomistic Philosophy: The Notion of Participation,” The Review of Metaphysics 27.3 (1974): 449–91; and Deborah Black, “The Influence of the De divinis nominibus on the Epistemology of St. Thomas Aquinas,” Proceedings of the Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference 10 (1985): 41–52. Rapture in the Thought of Aquinas 285 Finally, the kinds of theological concerns manifested in Thomas’s treatment of rapture have tended to be associated with mystical theologians more than with scholastic ones. Because scholars do not often cross the lines between mysticism and scholasticism, and because Thomas is often regarded as a quintessentially scholastic thinker, one can understand how students of Aquinas and students of mysticism alike might have looked past Thomas’s discussions of rapture. If my arguments about the importance of rapture in Aquinas’s thought have force, though, it would seem that we must (re)conceive Thomas’s scholasticism in a way that is more open to those elements of his writings that might be regarded as “mystical.” Thus, in addition to fostering a deeper understanding of Thomas’s views on cognition, acknowledging the importance of rapture in Aquinas’s thought should also lend support to those swelling currents of scholarship that seek to draw out the neo-Platonic, theological, and even mystical elements of Aquinas’s teaching. And this, in turn, should contribute to the ongoing project of discerning Thomas’s place within the traditions that comprise the history of western thought.76 N&V 76 I would like to thank Kevin Hughes for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 287–306 287 Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s Christology of Jesus’ Prayer and Two Contemporary Theological Questions DAVID G. B ONAGURA , J R . St. Joseph’s Seminary Yonkers, NY S COTT H AHN has identified Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s emphasis on the prayer of Jesus as among his “most unique and important contributions to Christology.”1 Hahn cites a line from Ratzinger that encapsulates the latter’s Christology of Jesus’ prayer:“[T]he whole of Christology—our speaking of Christ—is nothing other than the interpretation of his prayer: the entire person of Jesus is contained in his prayer.”2 This essay aims to examine Ratzinger’s insight in light of the Christological definitions of Nicaea, Chalcedon, and Third Constantinople, as well as in light of St. Thomas’s understanding of Jesus’ prayer.3 The emergent portrait of Christ will then be brought to bear on two current Christological questions: whether and how Jesus possessed the beatific vision, and, related to this, whether the accounts of twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple and of the revelation at Jesus’ baptism can be read as “vocational” experiences.4 1 Scott W. Hahn, Covenant and Communion:The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009), 143. Msgr. Richard Malone has made a similar observation in “Eucharist: Sacrifice According to the Logos,” Antiphon 13, no. 1 (2009): 65–83. Both Hahn and Malone briefly summarize Ratzinger’s Christology of Jesus’ prayer with an eye toward ecclesiology and liturgy. 2 Joseph Ratzinger, Behold the Pierced One: An Approach to a Spiritual Christology, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 20. This sentence is cited by Hahn, 143n21, and by Malone, 65. 3 ST I–II, q. 21. 4 The contributions toward these complex questions will be my own application of the implications of Ratzinger’s understanding of Jesus. I do not presume to speak for him or to propose answers on his behalf. David Bonagura 288 Ratzinger’s Christology of Jesus’ Prayer Ratzinger begins Behold the Pierced One with this thesis: “According to the testimony of Holy Scripture, the center of the life and person of Jesus is his constant communication with the Father.”5 This communication was best expressed by the earliest disciples in three titles: Christ, Lord, and Son (of God); yet Son emerged as the most comprehensive title because it “both comprises and interprets everything else.”6 Contrary to the assumptions of modern exegesis, the primitive Church focused on the title “Son” because it corresponds “precisely to the basic historical experience of those who had been eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life.”7 Calling Jesus the “Son”, far from overlaying him with the mythical gold of dogma (a view that has been put forward ever since Reimarus), corresponds most strictly to the center of the historical figure of Jesus. For the entire gospel testimony is unanimous that Jesus’ words and deeds flowed from his most intimate communion with the Father; that he continually went “into the hills” to pray in solitude after the burden of the day (e.g., Mk 1:35; 6:46; 14:35, 39). Luke, of all the Evangelists, lays stress on this feature.8 Ratzinger cites three of Luke’s passages which demonstrate “that the essential events of Jesus’ activity proceeded from the core of his personality and that this core was his dialogue with the Father.”9 In addition to 5 Behold the Pierced One, 15. This book presents Ratzinger’s most systematic account of the Christology of Jesus’ prayer, though the idea figures in much of his writing on the person of Jesus, as will be seen below. Ratzinger also presents this insight in Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 82: “[Luke] shows us that all of Jesus’ words and deeds issue from his inner oneness with the Father, from the dialogue between Father and Son.” All references to Jesus of Nazareth will be to this first volume of the trilogy, unless otherwise indicated. 6 Ibid., 16. On the relationship of these three titles, see also Jesus of Nazareth, 299–302. 7 Ibid., 17. Cf. Jesus of Nazareth, 291: “They are privileged to see him as the one who . . . speaks face-to-face with the Father, person to person. They are privileged to see him in his utterly unique filial being—at the point from which all his words, his deeds, and his powers issue.” 8 Ibid., 17. That the gospels accurately present the “historical Jesus” is a recurring theme throughout Jesus of Nazareth. Benedict holds that Luke’s attention to the Father-Son relationship expressed in Jesus’ prayer is among the “specific aspects of the Lukan tradition” that “preserve essential features of the original figure of Jesus for us.” Jesus of Nazareth, 182. 9 Ibid., 19. Cf. Jesus of Nazareth, 182. The three passages are the calling of the Twelve (Luke 6:12–16), Peter’s confession (9:18–22), and the Transfiguration (9:28–36). Ratzinger analyzes these same passages to illustrate a similar thesis in Benedict XVI on Jesus’ Prayer 289 these, Ratzinger considers three further passages from the other evangelists: Jesus’ use of “Abba,” the language of “Father” and “Son,” and Jesus’ awareness of his mission as coming from the Father.10 His conclusion is clear: Jesus’ prayer reveals the most profound level of his being, which is united to the Father in an unprecedented way. In particular, Jesus’ use of “Abba,” a term which “goes beyond every mode of prayer then known” and “expresses a familiarity with God which would have appeared impossible and unseemly to the Jewish tradition,” conveys “the new and unique manner of Jesus’ relationship to God—a relationship which, on his own side, calls for the term ‘Son’ as the only possible one.”11 As quoted above, Ratzinger believes that Luke’s presentation of the prayer of Jesus “suggests that the whole of Christology—our speaking of Christ—is nothing other than the interpretation of his prayer: the entire person of Jesus is contained in his prayer.”12 Following Luke’s lead, Ratzinger adopts a “spiritual Christology” that interprets both the person of Christ as well as the conciliar decrees of Nicaea, Chalcedon, and Third Constantinople.13 Ratzinger’s spiritual Christology does not eschew the body, nor does it resemble Gnostic dualism. It begins in prayer, in the inner dialogue of the Father and Son from all eternity: within the God who is logos—the creative original thought who is speech, meaning, and Word—there exists a dia-logos that is a “reciprocal exchange of word and love” between the divine Persons.14 For Ratzinger the foundation of the incarnation lies in this inner dialogue, which the Letter to the Hebrews identifies in its reinterpretation of Psalm 40:5–7: “Sacrifices and offerings The God of Jesus Christ: Meditations on the Triune God, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 80–82. This work first appeared in German in 1976; the said chapter of Behold the Pierced One was first given as a lecture in Rio de Janeiro in 1982. Ratzinger also analyzes these same passages in the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth, again referencing the same theme but in a broader context: 170–71 (the calling of the Twelve); 287–305 (Peter’s confession); and 305–18 (the Transfiguration). 10 Ibid., 20–22. 11 Ibid., 21. Cf. Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, trans. J. R. Foster (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 223–24, and Jesus of Nazareth, 344–45. 12 Ibid., 20. See note 2, above. 13 Ratzinger specifically states that he reads Third Constantinople in this light, and that the council itself had also formulated a spiritual Christology. See Behold the Pierced One, 9. His reading of Nicaea and Chalcedon are also spiritual, as will be demonstrated, even though he does not state this explicitly. 14 Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, 183. For a summary of Ratzinger’s understanding of God as logos and the relationship of the Father and Son within the Trinity, see David G. Bonagura, “Logos to Son in the Christology of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI,” New Blackfriars 93, no. 1046 (2012): 475–88. 290 David Bonagura thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God.’ ”15 Thus the incarnation is “an act of prayer” that the author of Hebrews recognizes “as an event within the Trinity, as a spiritual event.”16 Through the obedience of the Son this prayer, this spiritual event, becomes flesh: Obedience becomes incarnate. . . . The theology of the Word becomes the theology of the Incarnation. The Son’s gift of himself to the Father emerges from the dialogue within the Godhead; it becomes the acceptance, and thus the gift, of that creation that finds its synthesis in man.This body, or more concretely the humanity of Jesus, is the product of obedience, the fruit of the loving response of the Son; it is, so to speak, prayer that has taken on a concrete form. In this sense, Jesus’ humanity is something wholly spiritual, something that is “divine” because of its origin.17 Ratzinger’s spiritual Christology reads the person of Christ and the consequent dogmas in light of the incarnation and the Trinity, with the former event serving as the manifestation of the latter reality.This approach seemingly prioritizes a “Christology from above,” but Ratzinger is more subtle and de rigueur than his critics allow:18 the inner dialogue of the Trinity is 15 Hebrews 10:5–7 RSV. This passage serves as the locus incarnationis of Ratzinger’s Christology, and it appears in a number of his works in the same fashion. For a summary, see Bonagura, “Logos to Son in the Christology of Joseph Ratzinger/ Benedict XVI,” 483–84. 16 Joseph Ratzinger, The God of Jesus Christ: Meditations on the Triune God, trans. Brian McNeil (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 66–67. 17 Ibid., 67; emphasis added. 18 See Robert A. Krieg, “Who Do You Say That I Am? Christology:What It Is & Why It Matters,” Commonweal (March 22, 2002): 12–16. In the Foreword to the second volume of Jesus of Nazareth Benedict is probably not referring to Krieg in his rebuff of “a Catholic theologian” who labeled his first volume a Christology “from above,” although the same charge is made. To the contrary, the pope insists that the volumes “set out to discover the real Jesus, on the basis of whom something like a ‘Christology from below’ would then become possible.” Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), xv–xvi.Whether or not Ratzinger’s more systematic essays can receive the same label is a different question. However, Ratzinger’s analysis of Jesus’ prayer is just one example that he is far more amiable to a Christology “from below” than Krieg allows. Ratzinger’s works on exegetical hermeneutics, which span more than three decades, are exceedingly clear: he does not see Christology “from below” or the historical-critical method itself as “a threat to the Christian faith,” as Krieg alleges (16). Rather, he objects to a historical-critical method that employs a hermeneutic in the Enlightenment tradition that is simultaneously alien and Benedict XVI on Jesus’ Prayer 291 revealed by the experience “from below” that the disciples had of Jesus’ prayer to the Father, which continues in his humanity the dialogue—the prayer—of the Father and Son for all eternity. In Jesus’ prayer the Christological labels “from above” and “from below” are reduced to irrelevant distinctions, since they “form an indivisible unity.”19 The clearest example of Ratzinger’s spiritual approach to the conciliar decrees—and of how Christology “from above” and “from below” “form an indivisible unity”—lies in his understanding of Nicaea and its definition of Christ as homoousios with the Father. The core of the dogma defined in the councils of the early Church consists in the statement that Jesus is the true Son of God, of the same essence as the Father and, through the Incarnation, equally of the same essence as us. Ultimately this definition is nothing other than an interpretation of the life and death of Jesus, which was preordained from the Son’s primal conversation with the Father. That is why dogmatic and biblical Christology cannot be divorced from one another or opposed to one another . . . The dogma’s basic assertion, “the Son is of the same substance”, which summarizes the entire witness of the ancient councils, simply puts the fact of Jesus’ prayer into the technical language of philosophical theology, nothing more.20 Jesus’ prayer is the extension of “the Son’s primal conversation with the Father” into history. The dogmas defining the nature of Christ explain and interpret this reality technically; they do not project alien concepts into Scripture.21 Ratzinger raises this point explicitly in light of both ancient and modern objections to Nicaea’s use of homoousios,22 which was employed to explain the precise nature of the Son’s relationship to the Father as was expressed in his prayer: What does “of one substance” really mean? The answer is this: the term is used solely as a translation of the word “Son” into philosophical language. And why is it necessary to translate it? Well, whenever faith begins to reflect, the question arises as to what, in reality, the word hostile to the Bible and to the Christian faith. See the Foreword to the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth as his most recent articulation of this principle. 19 Behold the Pierced One, 32. 20 Ibid., 32–33; emphasis added. 21 Introduction to Christianity, 227: “These dogmas [of Nicaea and Chalcedon] were intended to express nothing else than this identity of service and being, in which the whole content of the prayer relationship ‘Abba-Son’ comes to light.” 22 For Ratzinger’s account of the history of this “piscatorie et non Aristotelice” debate, see The God of Jesus Christ, 85–91. 292 David Bonagura “Son” might mean as applied to Jesus. . . . The Council of Nicaea, in interpreting the word “Son” philosophically by means of the concept “of one substance”, is saying that “Son” is to be understood here, not in the sense of religious metaphor, but in the most real and concrete sense of the word. The central word of the New Testament, the word “Son”, is to be understood literally.23 Nicaea is not just interpreting John’s gospel alone, but the entire tradition whereby Jesus converses with the Father, Abba, in prayer.24 Ratzinger emphasizes that the “Messianic Jubelruf (joyful shout)” of Matthew 11:25–27 (cf. Lk 10:21–22) “actually already contains the entire Johannine theology of the Son” with its presentation of “Sonship . . . as mutual knowing and as oneness in willing.”25 By combining the Jubelruf with John’s gospel, especially the concluding verse of its Prologue,26 Ratzinger presents his homoousios interpretation, still with the same spiritual core, in more traditional theological terms: This fundamental saying [of John 1:18]—it now becomes plain—is an explanation of what comes to light in Jesus’ prayer, in his filial dialogue. At the same time, it also becomes clear what “the Son” is and what this term means: perfect communion in knowledge, which is at the same time communion in being. Unity in knowing is possible only because it is unity in being.27 23 Behold the Pierced One, 36. Cf. Jesus of Nazareth, 320, 355. 24 Introduction to Christianity, 223–28. 25 Jesus of Nazareth, 343. This develops Ratzinger’s claim that the “Jesus of the Fourth Gospel and the Jesus of the Synoptics is one and the same: the true ‘historical’ Jesus.” Jesus of Nazareth, 111. Thomas P. Rausch disagrees with Ratzinger, insisting that the pope “conflates” the Synoptics with John because of his Johannine emphasis. See his Pope Benedict XVI:An Introduction to His Theological Vision (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2009), 92. Richard B. Hays finds Ratzinger’s correlation more intriguing, but he maintains that in the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth the “other New Testament texts are read selectively for corroborative testimony of this basically Johannine account.” See “Benedict and the Biblical Jesus,” First Things (August/September, 2007): 49–53.These observations of Rausch and Hays are made concerning Jesus of Nazareth, not Ratzinger’s entire Christological corpus, even though Rausch could have consulted these works in his book. Ratzinger’s emphasis on Luke—not John— as his source for understanding Jesus as the Son provides strong theological evidence of the legitimate correlation of the Synoptics with John, evidence that this present essay seeks to demonstrate. The historical evidence demanded by Rausch and Hays must wait for another essay. 26 “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” John 1:18. 27 Jesus of Nazareth, 340. Ratzinger’s reading of John and his relation to the Synoptics has a fair amount in common with that of Raymond Brown, although the Benedict XVI on Jesus’ Prayer 293 Ratzinger also reads the dogma of Chalcedon in light of Luke’s account of Jesus’ prayer: Luke has raised the prayer of Jesus to the central Christological category from which he describes the mystery of the Son.What Chalcedon expressed by means of a formula drawn from the sphere of Greek ontology is affirmed by Luke in an utterly personal category based on the historical experience of the earthly Jesus; in substantial terms, this corresponds completely to the formula of Chalcedon.28 As with Nicaea, Chalcedon’s definition of Christ as one person in two natures without confusion or separation is simply “an ‘ontologicalization’, a reaching back to the being behind the ‘phenomenal’ character of the mere happening”29 to describe the experience of his person. But what is the character of Jesus’ prayer and how does it pertain to Chalcedon’s definition? For Ratzinger, as should be clear from his spiritual approach to Christology, prayer is dialogue, “a real exchange between God and man” whereby through the incarnation “we can share in the dialogue which God is.”30 Jesus’ prayer is also a dialogue with God, but it “is different from the prayer of a creature: It is the dialogue of love within God himself—the dialogue that God is.”31 “This ‘praying’ of Jesus is the Son conversing with the Father; Jesus’ human consciousness and will, his human soul, is taken up into that exchange.”32 When Jesus prays, the “Logos speaks in the I-form of the human will and mind of Jesus; it latter is far less at peace with the “use of John to determine scientifically how Jesus spoke of himself in his lifetime.” An Introduction to New Testament Christology (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994), 80–89; quote at 88. Ratzinger states that the historical-critical attempt, considered by Brown in detail in his book, to explain the “prehistory” of the term “Son” in John’s writings “makes no sense” ( Jesus of Nazareth, 345). Whereas Brown equivocates by deeming it only “likely that Jesus spoke and thought of himself as ‘the Son’ ” (89, emphasis added), Ratzinger has much more confidence in Jesus and the writers who describe him: “We have to reckon with the originality of Jesus. Only he is ‘the Son’ ” (345). 28 The God of Jesus Christ, 82. 29 Introduction to Christianity, 226. In context this sentence is intended to describe John’s gospel vis-à-vis the Synoptics, but it applies equally to the definition of Chalcedon and the other Christological councils vis-à-vis Jesus’ prayer. 30 Joseph Ratzinger, The Feast of Faith, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 26; emphasis in original. Cf. Jesus of Nazareth, 130: “This is what prayer really is—being in silent inward communion with God.” 31 Jesus of Nazareth, 344; emphasis in original. 32 Ibid., 7.This sentence is quoted in Malone, “Eucharist: Sacrifice According to the Logos,” 68–69. David Bonagura 294 has become his I, has become adopted into his I, because the human will is completely one with the will of the Logos.”33 Because prayer is moved by the will, Ratzinger’s spiritual interpretation of Chalcedon depends on Third Constantinople’s definition of the personal union of the two natural wills of Christ,34 and “[o]nly from this standpoint does the dogma of Chalcedon (451) yield its full meaning.”35 Ratzinger insists that the divine and human natures in Christ are only assured of their full integrity when properly united in the one person, but at the time of Chalcedon the exact meaning of person had yet to be defined.36 The dispute after Chalcedon that paved the way for monotheletism and for the sixth ecumenical council concerned the meaning of person, which is still disputed in a new context today. Ratzinger’s formulation of the three chief questions of the seventh century is also equally important for contemporary debates concerning the humanity of Christ: If there is only one divine person in Jesus, embracing both natures, then what is the status of his human nature? If it subsists within the one divine person, can it be said to have any real, specific existence in itself? Must it not inevitably be absorbed by the divine, at least at its highest point, the will?37 Third Constantinople states that Jesus has two distinct wills, human and divine. “The metaphysical two-ness of a human and a divine will is not abrogated, but in the realm of the person, in the realm of freedom, the fusion of both takes place, with the result that they become one will, not naturally, but personally.”38 This formulation was shaped by Maximus the 33 Behold the Pierced One, 39. This sentence is quoted in Malone, 69, in the same context. 34 Not mentioned by Ratzinger, but clearly part of the clarification of Chalcedon, is Second Constantinople’s decree that it is the divine Word who is hypostatically united to the human nature. DS 424–26. 35 Behold the Pierced One, 37. 36 Ibid., 37–38. For a parallel account that is broader in historical focus, more general in content, and gentler in tone, see Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two, 157–61. 37 Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two, 159. These are questions asked most prominently by Roger Haight in his description of Jesus as a human being. For a summary of his position on this issue, see Roch Kereszty, Jesus Christ: Fundamentals of Christology, 3d ed. (New York: Alba House, 2011), 360n16. 38 Behold the Pierced One, 39; emphasis in original. Ratzinger’s use of “fusion”— “Verschmelzung”—is problematic, as it does not accurately express the hypostatic union. Similarly, Ratzinger uses “will”—“Wille”—as in “faculty,” even though the human and divine faculties remain distinct; the two are brought into union by the “gnomic will” (ibid., note 18), that is, by the personal act of willing, which is the Benedict XVI on Jesus’ Prayer 295 Confessor, who helped answer questions about the relation of Jesus’ humanity to his person by examining his prayer on the Mount of Olives.39 Ratzinger summarizes Maximus in a way that fuses the “from below” and “from above” approaches: Jesus’ unique relationship to God . . . is revealed to us in the sentence which remains the measure and model of all real prayer: “Not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mk 14:36). Jesus’ human will assimilates itself to the will of the Son. In doing this, he receives the Son’s identity, that is, the complete subordination of the I to the Thou, the self-giving and self-expropriation of the I to the Thou. This is the very essence of him who is pure relation and pure act. Wherever the I gives itself to the Thou, there is freedom because this involves the reception of the “form of God”. But we can also describe this process, and describe it better, from the other side: the Logos so humbles himself that he adopts a man’s will as his own and addresses the Father with the I of this human being; he transfers his own I to this man and thus transforms human speech into the eternal Word, into his blessed “Yes, Father”. By imparting his own I, his own identity, to this human being, he liberates him, redeems him, makes him God.40 The will is exercised by a person, and prayer is a personal act. Through Maximus, Ratzinger argues that the prayer of the Son expresses the reality that “the unity of divinity and humanity in Christ which brings ‘salvation’ to man is not a juxtaposition but a mutual indwelling.”41 By focusing meaning Ratzinger intends. “Die metaphysische Zweiheit eines menschlichen und eines göttlichen Willens wird nicht aufgehoben, aber im personalen Raum, im Raum der Freiheit, vollzieht sich beider Verschmelzung, so daß sie nicht natural, aber personal ein Wille werden.” Schauen auf den Durchbohrten:Versuche zu einer spirituellen Christologie (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1984), 34; emphasis in original. 39 For more on Maximus’s understanding of person and freedom, see also John M. McDermott, S.J., “How Did Jesus Know He Was God? The Ontological Psychology of Mark 10:17–22,” Irish Theological Quarterly 74, no. 3 (2009): 272–97. 40 Behold the Pierced One, 41. Cf. Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two, 161: “Thus the prayer ‘not my will, but yours’ (Lk 22:42) is truly the Son’s prayer to the Father, through which the natural human will is completely subsumed into the ‘I’ of the Son. Indeed, the Son’s whole being is expressed in the ‘not I, but you’—in the total self-abandonment of the ‘I’ to the ‘you’ of God the Father.” 41 Behold the Pierced One, 38. Following note 38, above, “indwelling”—“Ineinander”— is intended in a Chalcedonian, not Monophysite, sense: Ratzinger is not saying that the two natures collapse into each other, but that they are harmonized through the personal union. “Denn nicht das Nebeneinander, sondern nur das wirkliche Ineinander, die Einheit von Gottsein und Menschsein in Christus bedeutet ‘Heil’ für den Menschen.” Schauen auf den Durchbohrten, 34. Elsewhere, Ratzinger explains 296 David Bonagura on the person of Christ as the locus of freedom and action, the “dualism or parallelism of the two natures”42 disappears because the active willing of the person brings the two natures into harmony. The prayer of Jesus thus reaffirms the dogma of Chalcedon: Christ is one person, and it is the divine Son whose prayer personally unites his divine and human natures in his dialogue with the Father. By way of summary, Ratzinger’s identification of Jesus’ prayer as the personal expression of the ontology of the early Christological dogmas can be viewed in light of the Patristic admirabile commercium and of the maxim “what is not assumed is not healed.” For Ratzinger, as mentioned above, Jesus’ prayer is “the Son conversing with the Father; Jesus’ human consciousness and will, his human soul, is taken up into that exchange.” In the incarnation God descends to speak definitively to human beings, who, through the incarnate Son’s prayer, his speech to the Father, are taken up into the deepest level of communion with God. Humanity’s relationship to God has been reconciled so that those who see Christ— whether in person or through prayer—already have seen the Father.43 In the incarnation every aspect of human nature—consciousness, will, soul—is touched and therefore healed by God. In this sense even prayer, the most intimate expression of humanity’s being, can be said to be assumed and healed by the incarnation, for only through the divine mediator can humanity speak directly to God. Finally, Ratzinger’s insistence that Jesus’ prayer brings about a personal harmony of the distinct divine and human natures shows that, contrary to the statements of some contemporary theologians,44 the one ontological person of Christ defined by Chalcedon is in fact one psychological subject. As Ratzinger was quoted above, when Jesus prays the “Logos speaks in the I-form of the human will and mind of Jesus; it has become his I, has become adopted into his I, because the human will is completely the practical manifestation of this harmony: “The ontological union of the two wills that remain independent within the unity of the person means, on the level of daily life, communion (κοινωνία) of the two wills. . . . To put it another way: Both of these wills are united in the assent of the human will of Christ to the divine will of the Logos. Thus on a practical level—‘existentially’—the two wills become one single will, and yet ontologically they remain two independent entities.” Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 81; emphasis in original. 42 Behold the Pierced One, 38. 43 Cf. John 14:9. 44 The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in its recent notifications concerning the work of Roger Haight and Jon Sobrino, includes the affirmation of two psychological subjects in Christ among the problematical elements, for the former theologian implicitly and the latter explicitly. Benedict XVI on Jesus’ Prayer 297 one with the will of the Logos.” In Jesus’ most intimate and profound cry of “Abba” in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36), the singular “I” of the Son prays to the Father through his human consciousness. In this act “human existence is not canceled, but comes to its highest possibility, which consists in transcending itself into the absolute and in integration of its own relativity into the absoluteness of divine love,”45 a fact that confirms there is only one subject, one “I” in Christ. Jesus’ Prayer: Ratzinger and St. Thomas Aquinas Compared St.Thomas organizes his treatise of the mystery of the incarnation (ST III, q. 1–59) in light of three chief considerations: the fittingness of the incarnation, the mode of union of the Word incarnate, and the consequences of this union. Jesus’ prayer is examined as part of the consequences, under the further subheading of Christ’s relation to his Father. Question 21, “Of Christ’s Prayer,” is not insignificant, yet it is not presented as a decisive interpretive key for understanding the person of Christ as it is for Ratzinger. The first article, “Whether it is fitting for Christ to pray?” contains the heart of St. Thomas’s teaching on the subject. Against those who assert it is unbecoming that Christ should pray, St. Thomas offers Luke 6:12 to the contrary.46 Prayer, he continues, “is the unfolding of one’s will to God, so that he may fulfill it.”47 This would not be necessary for Christ had he only the one, divine will, which “by itself effects whatever he wishes.”48 “But because in Christ the divine and human wills are distinct, and the human will is not sufficient in itself to perform what it wishes, except through divine power, hence it is fitting that Christ pray as a man having a human will.”49 St.Thomas’s accent on prayer as a movement of the will to make a request fits with Ratzinger’s account that sees prayer as the will to be in a communion of love with God; for St. Thomas the greatest request is to be in communion with God.50 Yet St. Thomas sees prayer as the prerogative of Christ’s humanity, and his human will “had a determinate mode because it was in a divine hypostasis, that is, 45 Joseph Ratzinger, “Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology,” Communio 17, no. 3 (1990): 439–54; quote at 452. 46 “In these days he went out into the hills to pray; and all night he continued in prayer to God.” ST III, q. 21, a. 1. This verse introduces the calling of the Twelve, considered by Ratzinger in several works in the same context, as discussed above. 47 ST III, q. 21, a. 1. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 ST II–II, q. 83, a. 4: “Primo quidem modo soli Deo orationem porrigimus, quia omnes orationes nostrae ordinari debent ad gratiam et gloriam consequendam, quae solus Deus dat.” David Bonagura 298 it was always moved according to the command of divine will.”51 For Ratzinger, Christ’s decision to pray is an act of his personal will by which his humanity is taken up into the eternal dialogue between Father and Son so that Christ’s prayer personally unites the divine and human natures. St. Thomas continues that as both God and man, Christ “wished to offer prayers to the Father, not because he was weak, but for our instruction. First, so that he might show that he is from the Father. . . . Second, so that he might give us an example of praying.”52 In the third article, St. Thomas restates this same formulation, but he specifies exactly what it is about the Father that Christ wanted to show: “Christ wished to pray to his Father to give an example of praying, and to show that his Father is the source from whom he has proceeded eternally according to his divine nature, and from whom he possesses whatever is good according to his human nature.”53 This second passage resembles Ratzinger’s understanding of the “Messianic Jubelruf ” of Matthew 11:25–27: God can be known only through God. No one other than God himself can know God. This act of knowing, in which God knows himself, is God’s giving of himself as Father and God’s receiving of himself and giving back of himself as Son, the exchange of eternal love, both the eternal gift and the eternal return of this gift.54 Through the prayer of Jesus, the Son, who “has proceeded eternally according to his divine nature” in an “exchange of eternal love,” is made known to the world. Ratzinger agrees that Jesus’ prayer shows his ontology,55 but he goes further: even though the incarnation occurred propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem, Jesus’ ontological structure demands that he also be in communion with God in prayer propter se. Since his personal will is that of the divine Son, it is necessary as part of Jesus’ very being to bring his full humanity—consciousness, will, soul—into his personal relationship with the Father. The accents of St. Thomas and Ratzinger on the place of prayer in the life of Jesus differ only slightly, and it is important not to overemphasize these distinctions as evidence that their respective Christologies are 51 ST III, q. 18, a. 1, ad 4. 52 ST III, q. 21, a. 1, ad 1. 53 ST III, q. 21, a. 3. 54 The God of Jesus Christ, 90–91. Cf. note 25, above. 55 Ibid., 82: “Those who do not know the solitude of Jesus take him to be this or that; but the profession of faith translates into human language what Jesus really is, since it sees what truly ‘drives’ him, namely his solitary speaking with the Father.” Benedict XVI on Jesus’ Prayer 299 incompatible or that Ratzinger spurns St. Thomas.56 These differences lie not primarily in the details, even if the question of prayer as proceeding from the human or personal will is not insignificant, but in the general approach: Ratzinger’s “spiritual Christology” unites Trinitarian and incarnational prayer in a unique synthesis, although the essay form of much of his work inhibits a full development.57 How exactly his approach to Christology is a product of the influences of St. Bonaventure and Romano Guardini still needs to be explored.58 But it can be reasonably concluded that Ratzinger’s Christology of Jesus’ prayer develops the thought of St. Thomas on this matter by placing prayer at the center of Christ’s ontology both in se and pro nobis. The Prayer of Jesus and the Beatific Vision Whether the earthly Jesus possessed the beatific vision from the first moment of his conception according to the manner St.Thomas described is a matter of contention in the current theological literature.59 In John 56 Ratzinger’s recollection of his intellectual interests and disinterests during his seminary days, as presented in his memoirs, should not be misconstrued as a rejection of St. Thomas’s theology, philosophy, or even methodology as a mature theologian. His recollection is found in Milestones: Memoirs 1927–1977, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 44. Aidan Nichols concurs: “Ratzinger has expressed himself on the subject of Thomas with a good deal more warmth than formal ceremony requires.” The Thought of Benedict XVI, 2d ed. (London: Burns & Oates, 2007), 42. 57 Many contemporary Christological textbooks treat Jesus’ prayer in far fewer pages than St. Thomas requires. 58 Both Tracey Rowland, Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: T&T Clark International, 2010) and Thomas P. Rausch, Pope Benedict XVI: An Introduction to his Theological Vision (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2009) treat the general influence that Bonaventure and Guardini had on Ratzinger’s thought, but neither looks in detail at specific Christological questions. Guardini’s The Lord says very little about Jesus’ prayer. In an introduction to this text, Ratzinger states that Guardini’s book influenced him with its “spiritual interpretation of Scripture.” He also learned from Guardini that strictly historical exegesis is limited in what it can say about Jesus, and that the essence of Christianity lies in the encounter with a person, Jesus Christ. See Ratzinger, introduction to The Lord, by Romano Guardini (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 2002), xi–xiv. 59 There are three recent presentations that take different approaches and draw different conclusions. For a rejection of the traditional understanding of the beatific vision, see Thomas G. Weinandy, “Jesus’ Filial Vision of the Father,” Pro Ecclesia 13, no. 2 (2004): 189–201; for a defense of the traditional understanding that references Weinandy’s article, see Edward T. Oakes, S.J., Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A Catholic and Evangelical Christology (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011), 210–21; for a more nuanced view that revises the 300 David Bonagura McDermott’s definition, “the beatific vision assures perfect unmediated knowledge of divinity and in God a knowledge of all deeds, thoughts, and sayings, past, present, and future, as well as of whatever lies in a creature’s potency.”60 But the question remains: “How then is human knowledge coordinated with the comprehensive knowledge which Jesus, the ultimate subject of knowing, enjoys as God?”61 Ratzinger does not discuss this issue; however, without pretending that this is Ratzinger’s own thought on the matter, this inquiry will explore how Ratzinger’s Christology of Jesus’ prayer can contribute to this ongoing debate. Ratzinger’s account of Jesus’ prayer affirms that Jesus, in a manner consistent with Scripture’s promise of what awaits humanity after death,62 sees the face of God: Jesus “lives before the face of God, not just as a friend, but as a Son; he lives in the most intimate unity with the Father.”63 More particular to the problem is how Jesus is conscious of this intimacy, and whence his extraordinary teaching and knowledge of his sonship derive. “Jesus’ teaching is not the product of human learning, of whatever kind. It originates from immediate contact with the Father, from ‘face-to-face’ dialogue—from the vision of the one who rests close to the Father’s heart. It is the Son’s word.”64 Furthermore, “it belongs to his nature that he sees God, that he stands face-to-face with him, in permanent interior discourse—in a relation of Sonship.”65 That Jesus “sees” the face of God, and that this vision “belongs to his nature,” seem to affirm that in his humanity Christ possessed the beatific vision as traditionally understood. But for Ratzinger this seeing is not a passive reception but an active engagement—it is a “dialogue,”“discourse”— of Jesus with the Father. The incarnate Son, the eternal Word of the Father, remains in constant dialogue with the Father throughout his earthly life as the historical extension of their “permanent interior discourse” that constitutes their divine unity. Further, if “the face of God” is understood within its Old Testament context as pãnîm, then “to see the face of God” is not synonytheoretical difficulties of the traditional understanding, see John M. McDermott, S.J., “How Did Jesus Know He Was God?” 60 McDermott, “How Did Jesus Know He Was God?” 283. Ratzinger calls the beatific vision “an immediacy between God and man which knows of no setting asunder.” Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, 2d ed., trans. Michael Waldstein, ed. Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 2007), 234. 61 Ibid., 283–84. 62 1 Cor 13:12; 1 John 3:2. 63 Jesus of Nazareth, 6. 65 Ibid., 95; emphasis added. Benedict XVI on Jesus’ Prayer 301 mous with receiving knowledge passively; rather it means knowing God in the sense of having a personal encounter with him.66 In this perspective Jesus is conscious of his divine sonship, not through the beatific vision as a grace given to his human soul, but through prayer, through his constant personal dialogue with the Father, which is manifested through his human consciousness and in his human will.67 Therefore, the personal union of the divine and human natures of Christ that is expressed in prayer is the center of Christ’s vision of the Father.68 Since the Son remains in constant dialogue with the Father even as he enters history, then Jesus must have known himself in relation to the Father even at the first moment of the incarnation. How is this possible? If, following Maximus the Confessor, and with him Ratzinger, the personal union is the center of Jesus’ relationship to the Father, then “Jesus’ personal knowledge of himself in relation to the Father transcends his human intellect’s explicit, thematic awareness.”69 McDermott explains the confluence of personal and natural knowledge with the help of Maximus: If the person is recognized as the source of conscious freedom vis-à-vis God and others in reality’s sacramental structure, Christ enjoys the immediate vision in his earthly life insofar as he knows his Father in the intimate relationship constituting his person. That intense consciousness is gradually explicated through his human intellect as he grows in experience. This allows for real ignorance in Christ’s human intellect.70 Ratzinger’s explanation of Jesus’ growth in wisdom in Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives seems to support this conclusion: On the one hand, the answer of the twelve-year-old made it clear that he knew the Father—God—intimately. Only he knows God, not merely through the testimony of men, but he recognizes him in himself. Jesus stands before the Father as the Son, on familiar terms. He 66 Joseph Ratzinger, On the Way to Jesus Christ, trans. Michael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 17–24. “The Hebrew term pãnîm recognizes God as person, a being concerned about us, who hears and sees us, speaks to us, and can love us and be angry with us—as the God who is above all and yet still has a face” (20). 67 As mentioned above, Jesus’ prayer is “the Son conversing with the Father; Jesus’ human consciousness and will, his human soul, is taken up into that exchange.” Jesus of Nazareth, 7. 68 This conclusion agrees with McDermott: “Our explanation locates Christ’s immediate vision in the personal union, not in his human intellect.” “How Did Jesus Know He Was God?” 294n78. 69 Ibid., 283. 70 Ibid., 294. 302 David Bonagura lives in his presence. He sees him. . . . This is what the twelve-year-old’s answer makes clear: he is with the Father, he sees everything and everyone in the light of the Father. And yet it is also true that his wisdom grows. As a human being, he does not live in some abstract omniscience, but he is rooted in a concrete history, a place and a time, in the different phases of human life, and this is what gives concrete shape to his knowledge. So it emerges clearly here that he thought and learned in human fashion.71 Thus Jesus could know himself in light of the Father on a personal level while he assimilates this reality with his human intellect over time through his active dialogue with the Father, although it is not possible to determine exactly when or how long this discernment occurred. Finally, this focus on prayer as the primary means of Jesus’ growth in self-knowledge has the advantage of involving both the human and divine natures in their personal union. It is the eternal Son who speaks to God in prayer, but he does so in and through his human consciousness by “elevating his (human) mind to God” through a deliberate act of his person. In sum, understanding the beatific vision, not as the passive reception of Christ’s human soul but as the active dialogue between Father and Son in prayer, accounts for Jesus’ consciousness of his divine sonship, in a manner that respects both his continuous union with the Trinity and his genuine human growth (Lk 2:52); in doing so it includes the “whole Christ” in his relationship to his Father.72 Jesus’ “Calling” as Messiah Ratzinger notes that a “broad current of liberal scholarship has interpreted Jesus’ Baptism as a vocational experience. After having led a perfectly normal life . . . at the moment of his Baptism he is said to have had an earth-shattering experience. It was then, we are told, that he became aware of his special relationship to God and his religious mission.”73 Roch Kereszty generally holds this position: in the temple at age twelve Jesus experiences “a breakthrough in his self-awareness, a clearer discovery of his own identity,” though he may have had some idea of his divine status before this event; and nearly two decades later “it is 71 Jesus of Nazareth:The Infancy Narratives, trans. Philip J.Whitmore (New York: Image Books, 2012), 127; emphasis in original. 72 Throughout his Christology of Jesus’ prayer Ratzinger underscores the presence of the Church in the dialogue between Father and Son, an element of his thought that exceeds the scope of this inquiry. For examples, see The God of Jesus Christ, 80–82, and Behold the Pierced One, 25–32. 73 Jesus of Nazareth, 23–24. Benedict XVI on Jesus’ Prayer 303 revealed to Jesus at his baptism exactly what kind of Messiah he is being called to be.”74 But Kereszty’s position is nuanced: these revelations are not external manifestations of a hitherto unknown God; they are part of Jesus’ growing human consciousness and self-knowledge that occurred throughout his life.75 For Kereszty the revelations in the temple and in the Jordan are part of “the Father’s constant revealing, guiding, and inspiring activity” to Jesus, who is aware in his human consciousness of his divine personhood and of the Father’s mission for him.76 As with the beatific vision, Ratzinger’s Christology of Jesus’ prayer contributes to the debate over whether Jesus experienced these two events as specific callings that clarified for him his identity and mission. But unlike the beatific vision debate, Ratzinger weighs in on this question: he states that the biblical “texts give us no window into Jesus’ inner life—Jesus stands above our psychologizing.”77 Further, he identifies the heavenly voice at Jesus’ baptism as the same as that of the Transfiguration,78 which he deems “a prayer event” because “it displays visibly what happens when Jesus talks with his Father.”79 By extension the heavenly voice at Jesus’ baptism is also a prayer event, a fact indicated specifically in Luke 3:21; it also serves one of the twofold purposes of Jesus’ prayer as identified by Ratzinger and St. Thomas: to show that he is of God.80 Thus, for Ratzinger, the evangelists include these events as identifications for the reader of Jesus’ status as the divine Son.81 74 Roch Kereszty, Jesus Christ: Fundamentals of Christology, 3d ed. (New York: Alba House, 2011), 94, 102. 75 Ibid., 365–71, 394–97. Kereszty insists that “Christ had to be aware of his being the Son from the very beginning of his life. If he had discovered his real identity at a later point in life . . . then Christ could not have been the same psychological subject or person before and after that discovery” (370–71). 76 Ibid., 396. In this regard Kereszty’s understanding of Jesus’ self-awareness, which he attributes to Lonergan, resembles that of Weinandy in “Jesus’ Filial Vision of the Father.” 77 Jesus of Nazareth, 24. 78 Ibid., 22–23. 79 Ibid., 310. Cf. The God of Jesus Christ, 81, and Behold the Pierced One, 20. 80 Jesus of Nazareth, 24: in the Jordan, Jesus “stands before us as the ‘beloved Son.’ ” 81 On this point Ratzinger agrees with a few contemporary exegetes. Joseph Fitzmyer sees the heavenly voice as instructive for the reader and deems the vocational perspective an “over-simplification.” A Christological Catechism: New Testament Answers (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1993), 38–43. Raymond Brown agrees: see An Introduction to New Testament Christology, 84–85. In the same vein, Luke Timothy Johnson, examining Luke’s account, also reads the theophany at the baptism in union with that of the Transfiguration, with prayer as the key: “[T]he reader is provided access to an empowerment and declaration that takes 304 David Bonagura But if the earlier interpretation of Ratzinger’s work is correct—that Jesus prays not only propter nos but also propter se—then Kereszty’s argument that Jesus’ experiences in the temple and in the Jordan are vocational is plausible prima facie, provided they are viewed as insights into the interpersonal dialogue between the Father and the incarnate Son. The interpretation of “liberal scholarship” mentioned by Ratzinger that sees his baptismal theophany as an external announcement from a distant God to a passive Jesus must be discarded if Jesus is continually engaged in an interior dialogue with the Father. This follows from the earlier definition of Jesus’ prayer as the Son conversing with the Father so that his human consciousness and will are taken up into this exchange. The heavenly voice that addresses Jesus in the second person in the accounts of Mark (1:11) and Luke (3:22), therefore, manifests the inner dialogue between Father and Son for all to hear.82 In this view, the events at the temple and at Jesus’ baptism provide precious insights into the interior life of Jesus in his relation to the Father. The difficulty of maintaining Kereszty’s argument, however, also becomes evident in light of understanding Jesus’ prayer as both propter nos and propter se. That the sacred writers would provide an insight into the dialogue between Father and Son is done, as discussed above, propter nos: the experiences of Jesus in the temple and in the Jordan, setting aside their propter se implications momentarily, are related for our benefit, not for that of Jesus.The same can be said of Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 and of his prayer on the Mount of Olives: these most intimate exchanges are Christological in se, and, by virtue of that fact, they are recorded pro nobis.83 This perspective echoes that of St. Thomas, Ratzinger, and the contemporary exegetes cited above. But based upon Ratzinger’s understanding of Jesus’ prayer as also propter se, and recalling that it is the eternal Son, the Logos who “speaks in the Iform of the human will and mind of Jesus,”84 the dialogue between Father place between God and Jesus in the communication that is prayer.” The Gospel of Luke (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2006), 71. 82 In Matthew’s account, the voice speaks in the third person, suggesting that the voice is addressing bystanders in addition to Jesus; this fact further diminishes the vocational theory. 83 In the temple before his final Passover, Jesus himself states that the heavenly voice heard by the crowd “has come for your sake, not for mine.” John 12:27–30; quotation at 30. The union of Christology in se and pro nobis points to another emphasis of Ratzinger that lies beyond the present scope: the union of Christology and soteriology. See Behold the Pierced One, 14, 32, and Introduction to Christianity, 230–31. 84 Behold the Pierced One, 39. See note 33, above. Benedict XVI on Jesus’ Prayer 305 and Son is one conducted in the intimacy of their personal relationship, beyond the purview of even those who watched him pray. Ratzinger underscores this point in commenting on the “deliberate contradiction” in Luke’s account of Peter’s confession: “Now it happened that as he was praying alone the disciples were with him” (9:18). Luke, according to Ratzinger, is writing not as an historian, but as a theologian: the deliberate contradiction of Jesus’ solitude while among his disciples illustrates that what “drives” Jesus is “his solitary speaking with the Father.”85 The disciples are here involved in Jesus’ act of prayer yet not privileged with regard to its full content.This is the more plausible manner to interpret the evangelists’ accounts of Jesus’ experiences in the temple and in the Jordan: the witnesses recognize that they are involved in these intimate moments between the Father and the Son, but the full depth of Jesus’ “solitary speaking with the Father” lies beyond their grasp. If Jesus was aware of his divine sonship from the beginning of his life, as was argued concerning the beatific vision and as affirmed by Kereszty, and if he continuously grew in this awareness as he aged, then it is impossible to ascertain what exactly Jesus learned about himself from his experience in the temple and from the theophany at his baptism. Kereszty’s interpretation of Jesus’ “running away” to the temple and his reply to his parents in Luke 2:49, as mentioned above, as evidence of a “breakthrough in his self-awareness” that “overpowers him to the point of abandoning everything else, even his parents,”86 attempts to read Jesus’ filial consciousness, a reality that ultimately lies beyond our grasp.87 Conclusion “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”88 Like the apostles atop Mount Tabor, to see Jesus at prayer is to see him in his full splendor as the Son of God.The Transfiguration “displays visibly what happens when Jesus 85 The God of Jesus Christ, 82. See note 55, above. 86 Jesus Christ: Fundamentals of Christology, 94. Ratzinger sees neither a breakthrough nor an overpowered Jesus in his reading of this event in Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, 123–27. Rather, Jesus’ stay in the temple is “the actual expression of his filial obedience” (124), and his exchange with the temple doctors, as quoted above, “made it clear that he knew the Father—God—intimately. Only he knows God, not merely through the testimony of men, but he recognizes him in himself ” (127). 87 Fitzmyer agrees: “Only Luke among New Testament writers interprets Jesus’ baptism as his anointing with the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38). To extrapolate from such a later theological interpretation to the consciousness of Jesus of Nazareth is highly problematic.” A Christological Catechism: New Testament Answers, 42. 88 John 14:9. 306 David Bonagura talks with his Father: the profound interpenetration of his being with God, which becomes pure light. In his oneness with the Father, Jesus is himself ‘light from light.’ ”89 By identifying prayer as the most intimate expression of Christ’s ontological structure, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has breathed new life into biblical Christology while simultaneously linking it to dogmatic Christology and soteriology in a real way. The new insights attained as we bring Jesus’ prayer to the foreground will help illuminate old perspectives and create new avenues in the ongoing attempt to answer the question of Jesus’ identity in every age. N&V 89 Jesus of Nazareth, 310. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 307–30 307 Joseph Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy A ARON P IDEL , S.J. University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN A FTER ABOUT forty years of relative neglect, interest in the topic of biblical inerrancy has begun to enjoy a modest revival. As an indicator of this trend, one might point to the 2010 post-synodal exhortation Verbum Domini, which simultaneously affirms the doctrine of inerrancy (now presented positively as “truth”) and expresses perplexity as to its precise import: Certainly theological reflection has always considered inspiration and truth as two key concepts for an ecclesial hermeneutic of the sacred Scriptures. Nonetheless, one must acknowledge the need today for a fuller and more adequate study of these realities, in order better to respond to the need to interpret the sacred texts in accordance with their nature. Here I would express my fervent hope that research in this field will progress and bear fruit both for biblical science and for the spiritual life of the faithful.1 Not leaving the realization of this “fervent hope” to chance, Pope Benedict later proposed the “Inspiration and Truth of the Bible” as the topic for the annual meeting of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in May 2011.2 Even certain sectors of the academic guild have begun to treat the 1 Verbum Domini §19, available on the Vatican website.Though Verbum Domini gener- ally prefers “truth” to “inerrancy,” it does not fail to cite in this connection Dei Verbum §11: the books of Scripture teach “firmly, faithfully and without error.” 2 “Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Participants in the Plenary Meeting of the Pontifical Biblical Commission” (May 2, 2011), available on the Vatican website. 308 Aaron Pidel, S.J. question afresh,3 even if they do not always do so from Benedict’s own perspective.4 As a contribution to the “fuller and more adequate study of these realities,” this article aims to present Joseph Ratzinger’s5 own thoughts on biblical inerrancy. These may prove useful on several counts. For one thing, there have been very few attempts—notwithstanding several worthy treatments of Ratzinger’s approach to historical criticism6—to tease out Ratzinger’s thoughts on the particular question of inerrancy. For another, one discovers in Ratzinger’s treatment of inerrancy a theological style at once creative and traditional. As such, his thought may serve both as a pattern for and as a stimulus to further theological elaboration. In the interest of clarity and completeness, we will present Ratzinger’s understanding of inerrancy in three stages. We will first lay the groundwork by reviewing the neo-Thomist approach to inerrancy and analyzing Ratzinger’s early critique of the same. In the second stage, we will describe how Ratzinger retools the neo-Thomist notion of intention in several important ways: by identifying the People of God as an intending “subject” internal to Scripture; by calling attention to the complex layers of this corporate intentionality; and by reimagining Scripture’s mode of intending Christ as its final truth. In the last stage we will turn to the question of method. How does Ratzinger discern what Scripture properly intends and what, therefore, enjoys inerrant status? In this respect, Ratzinger shows himself to be an equal-opportunity “demythologizer”: 3 The Center for Scriptural Exegesis, Philosophy, and Doctrine at the University of Dayton hosted, as recently as October 25–27, 2012, a conference entitled “Dei Verbum at 50: Toward a Clarification of the Inspiration of Scripture.” 4 For a recent publication closer to Ratzinger’s own approach, see esp. Denis M. Farkasfalvy, Inspiration and Interpretation: A Theological Introduction to Sacred Scripture (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010). For approaches closer to neo-Thomist versions of inspiration and inerrancy, see Robert L. Fastiggi, “Communal or Social Inspiration: A Catholic Critique,” Letter and Spirit 6 (2010): 247–63; Brian W. Harrison, “Restricted Inerrancy and the ‘Hermeneutic of Discontinuity,’ ” Letter and Spirit 6 (2010): 225–46. 5 I mean here to distinguish between Joseph Ratzinger and Benedict XVI. The scope of this study includes the writings of Joseph Ratzinger as private theologian rather than Joseph Ratzinger as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) or Pope. This scope excludes official documents of the CDF or papal encyclicals but includes those commentaries on CDF documents and papal works that were written in a private capacity. 6 For book-length treatments, see especially Scott Hahn, Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2009); Dorothee Kaes, Theologie im Anspruch von Geschichte und Wahrheit: Zur Hermeneutik Joseph Ratzingers (St. Ottilien: EOS, 1997). Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 309 he refuses, as a matter of principle, to exclude any field of knowledge— whether scientific, historical, ethical or religious—from Scripture’s intentional horizon; neither does he automatically include any such field. Instead, he measures every claim materially contained in Scripture against the criterion of the substance of living faith. In order to depict his method more concretely, we will conclude by examining Ratzinger’s engagement of a biblical quaestio disputata—the existence of the Devil. Critique of Neo-Scholastic Inerrancy During the years of Ratzinger’s theological formation, defenders of biblical inerrancy found themselves “crosspressured,” that is, bound in conscience by the Church’s affirmations of Scripture’s total reliability, and bound in mind by contrary scholarly findings. When given the opportunity to speak, as we shall see, Ratzinger favored relaxing this tension by the use of a more supple model of inerrancy. Instrumental Inspiration and Its Consequences The conflict between conscience and scholarship was aggravated by certain inescapable implications of the instrumental model of inspiration, the schema then ascendant in academic theology and largely presupposed in the biblical encyclicals.7 According to this neo-Thomist model, God, acting as principal cause, employs the sacred authors as his living instrumental causes, thereby bringing it about that the authors both freely and faithfully compose the words that God desires. A consequence of this 7 Pierre Benoit, O.P., for example, defined inspiration as a species of divine instru- mental causality, at least in a “broad and improper sense” (Paul Synave and Pierre Benoit, Prophecy and Inspiration:A Commentary on the Summa Theologica II–II, Questions 171–178, trans. Avery Dulles and Thomas L. Sheridan [New York: Desclee, 1961], 80). His formulation proved influential.Writing in 1969, James Burtchaell notes, “By and large, the position of Benoit rises as the classic theory of the years immediately after Divino Afflante Spiritu” (Catholic Theories of Biblical Inspiration since 1810: A Review and Critique [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969], 244–45). Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) endorsed this model in a general way: “Catholic theologians, following the teaching of the holy Fathers and especially of the Angelic and Common Doctor, have examined and explained the nature and effects of biblical inspiration more exactly and more fully than was wont to be done in previous ages. For having begun by expounding minutely the principle that the inspired writer, in composing the sacred book, is the living and reasonable instrument (ὄργανον) of the Holy Spirit, they rightly observe that, impelled by the divine motion, he so uses his faculties and powers that from the book composed by him all may easily infer ‘the special character of each one and, as it were, his personal traits’ ” (§19; Dean P. Bechard, ed. and trans. The Scripture Documents: An Anthology of Official Catholic Teachings [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002], 128). 310 Aaron Pidel, S.J. highly intimate association between God and the sacred authors is the inadmissibility of error even in Scripture’s “secular” (i.e., scientific, historical) judgments.8 This inadmissibility follows from a rather commonsense syllogism: 1. Inspiration, understood as God’s instrumental use of sacred writers, requires that everything asserted by the sacred writers be asserted by the Spirit. 2. The Spirit, as both Creator and Sanctifier, can assert nothing false in any sphere of human knowledge. 3. Therefore, inspired writers cannot assert formal error according to any human science. Compelled by this logic, the Church repeatedly condemned all attempts to restrict inerrancy to those portions or aspects of the Bible treating faith and morals. Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943) merely reiterates a longstanding tradition when it censures “some Catholic writers” who “ventured to restrict the truth of Sacred Scripture solely to matters of faith and morals, and to regard other matters, whether in the domain of physical science or history, as ‘obiter dicta’ and—as they contended—in no wise connected with faith.”9 As long as God was conceived as the principal cause of inspiration and the individual human authors as God’s direct instruments, human error remained altogether inadmissible in Sacred Scripture. The instrumental model of inspiration thus left but a single domain open wherein the exegete could qualify the inerrancy of Scripture without implicating God in falsehood: the domain of the individual author’s judgment. Proponents of the instrumental model were quick to point out 8 Benoit, for instance, taught that inspiration was an “impulse which totally subjects the mind of a man to the divine influence . . . and which extends to the ultimate realization of the work ‘ad verba.’ With such a close and complete compenetration of divine and human causality it is impossible that the writer express anything whatever contrary to the divine pleasure” (Prophecy and Inspiration, 141). 9 Divino Afflante Spiritu §1; The Scripture Documents, 116. Providentissimus Deus (1893) had already condemned those who hold that “divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals and nothing beyond” (§40; ibid., 55). Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907) had upbraided the modernists for holding that “in the sacred Books there are many passages referring to science and history where manifest errors are to be found” (§118; ibid., 74). Spiritus Paraclitus (1920) closed yet another loophole when it condemned the position that the “effects of inspiration—namely, absolute truth and immunity from error—are to be restricted to the primary or religious element” (§5; ibid., 88). Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 311 that there can be no error, properly speaking, apart from an act of judgment; one errs not by seeing a mirage, but by judging the mirage to be real. According to neo-Thomist rational psychology, however, the scope and strength of any authorial judgment could be qualified in various ways. Without falling into error sensu stricto, an author might choose to consider a matter from a limited perspective, to record content without personally affirming it, or even to reshape events according to literary conventions.10 In short, whereas inspiration is coextensive with the whole of the author’s writing, inerrancy is coextensive only with the region of the author’s intentional affirmation. Neo-Thomist inerrancy proved flexible and rigid in different respects. It was flexible inasmuch as it rendered the boundaries of Scripture’s inerrant content as fluid as the boundaries of human intentionality. The identification of inerrant claims was consequently always a matter of conjecture and probability. Nonetheless, after all the likely mental qualifications were tallied, whatever the author did manage to assert was logically held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit. In this respect the theory was unyielding. Hence, whenever an author appeared to stumble into anachronism or to ascribe brutal acts to divine instigation, the exegete was obliged to suppose that the author did not genuinely “intend to affirm” what he in fact wrote.11 Adherence to this strained method of “saving” biblical veracity continued to be strictly enforced up until the Second Vatican Council. The Challenge of Critical Historiography Ratzinger, as it turns out, had some part in putting an end to this tense situation. On the very eve of the Council’s inauguration, Cardinal Josef Frings invited Ratzinger to address the assembled German-speaking bishops on the subject of De Fontibus Revelationis (1962), the draft schema for the Constitution on Divine Revelation. Ratzinger took the opportunity to warn his audience that De Fontibus, by prematurely “canonizing” a neoScholastic model of inerrancy, ran the risk of committing believers to 10 This sampling of qualifications roughly follows the threefold classification of Benoit. Writing in the years just after Divino Afflante Spiritu, he argues that the author’s judgment could be qualified by the author’s (1) formal object, (2) degree of affirmation, and (3) communicative intention. For their brief summary of these restrictions, with examples, see Synave and Benoit, Prophecy and Inspiration, 134–41. 11 This strategy continues to have staunch proponents and remains, in the strict sense, logically impossible to disprove. Harrison, for instance, argues that unhistorical references to Nebuchadnezzar are compatible with inerrancy on the grounds that any Ancient Near Eastern author would have employed such names chiefly as “symbols and archetypes” (“Restricted Inerrancy and the ‘Hermeneutic of Discontinuity,’ ” 245). 312 Aaron Pidel, S.J. historical fideism. Perhaps even more importantly, he sketched an alternative approach that lay within the theological horizon of his neo-Scholastic contemporaries, explaining his position with reference to the then-familiar categories of “inerrancy,”12 “intention,” and “affirmation.” The address thus provides a rare insight into how Ratzinger related the neo-Scholastic conceptual framework to his own. In his evaluation of De Fontibus, Ratzinger shows particular sensitivity to the danger of divorcing theology from history. When reviewing “the topic of Holy Scripture’s inerrancy and historicity,” for instance, Ratzinger regrets that the schema speaks very sharply . . . as it works out this deduction: God is supreme truth and cannot err; but God dictated the Scripture; therefore, the Scripture is precisely just as free of error as is God himself— “in qualibet re religiosa vel profana”. . . . Here however the dictation theory that is assumed, as just indicated, expresses no single thought that is specifically Christian.13 For Ratzinger, a “specifically Christian” theory would treat inspiration as a dialogue situated within history.14 By contrast, the neo-Thomist model— here referred to as “dictation theory”15—tends to conceive of inspiration as God’s unmediated instrumentalization of discrete mental faculties. In its extreme form, this led to a sort of ahistorical leveling of all scriptural affirmations: equally inspired authors should enjoy equal immunity from error in what they properly intend—irrespective of the subject matter they treat or their historical setting. Ratzinger, however, did not care to deny the 12 To my knowledge, Ratzinger never uses the term “inerrancy” with respect to Scripture in his post-conciliar writings. He prefers instead to speak positively of the “truth” of Scripture. 13 Jared Wicks, “Six Texts by Prof. Joseph Ratzinger as Peritus before and during Vatican Council II,” Gregorianum 89:2 (2008): 233–311, at 280. 14 “The Bible differs from the holy books of Hinduism, Buddhism, or Islam, precisely in this that these are taken to be timeless divine dictation, whereas the Bible is the result of God’s historical dialogue with human beings and only from this history does it have meaning and significance” (ibid., 278–79). 15 The neo-Thomists themselves would have disputed the justice of this characterization. Benoit, for instance, associates the “hegemony of dictation theory” with the res et sententia theory of Cardinal Franzelin, from whom he is at pains to distinguish himself (Prophecy and Inspiration, 116). Fr. Sebastian Tromp, S.J., who sat on the preparatory theological commission that produced De Fontibus, argues in his Latin “manual” that “dictatio mechanica” was heretical: “Si talis dictatio excludit opus personale intellectuale auctoris sacri, est absolute theologice falsa. Homo non tantum non esset auctor, sed ne secretarius quidem; esset scribendi machina” (De Sacrae Scripturae Inspiratione, 6th ed. [Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1962], 94). Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 313 existence of biblical errata: indeed, he cites as evidence Mark’s confusion of the High Priest Abiathar and his father Achimelech (Mk 2:26), the historical discrepancies between Chronicles and Kings, and Daniel’s unhistorical identification of Belshazzar as Nebuchadnezzar’s son.16 For Ratzinger, the schema’s inability either to incorporate history methodologically or to reckon with its scholarly findings exposed its lack of a truly Christian theological horizon. The problem for the “dictation theorists” was clear enough: if the sacred author sincerely meant to affirm that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar, then to admit the contrary would make the Holy Spirit as much a liar as to admit that Christ was not the son of Mary.17 Yet, from Ratzinger’s perspective, not to concede such historical infelicities was to baptize stubborn fideism and to consign the Church to an intellectual ghetto.18 Intention Reconceived In attempts to reconcile both the strong magisterial affirmations of inerrancy and the contrary historical data, Ratzinger twice invokes authorial intention, the officially sanctioned criterion for determining the limits of biblical inerrancy, in a rather novel way: 16 Wicks, “Six Texts,” 280. It is at least possible that Ratzinger’s list of errors affected the course of the Council. It resembles the list of biblical “errors” offered by the Austrian Cardinal König, himself presumably in attendance at Ratzinger’s address, from the council floor on Oct. 2, 1964. König lists, for example, both the false appellation in Mk 2:26 and the unhistorical claims of Daniel—though with respect to the date of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem rather than to his paternity of Belshazzar; see Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II (hereafter AS), 6 vols., vols. 1–4 with multiple parts (Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1970–78), III/3, 275. Fr. Aloys Grillmeier, S.J., considered König’s the “most important contribution” to the debate on inerrancy at the Council; see “The Divine Inspiration and the Interpretation of Sacred Scripture,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler, trans. Glen-Doepl William, vol. 3 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), 199–246, at 205. 17 It is worth noting that Ratzinger does not here engage the neo-Scholastic commonplace of accommodating such historical infelicities through genre criticism. Fr. Tromp, for instance, claimed that biblical authors often wrote in the “genus antiquum vulgare”—where sayings are often compressed and combined, chronology is altered for psychological or logical coherence, and “minor est diligentia et cura in accidentalibus” (De Sacrae Scripturae Inspiratione, 136–37). 18 In the same vein, Ratzinger commented retrospectively that, if De Fontibus had simply reiterated the prohibitions of earlier magisterial statements, this would have resulted “not in the rescue of the faith but in dooming it to sterility, by separating theology once and for all from modern science and confining it in an ivory tower where it would have gradually withered away”; see Theological Highlights of Vatican II (New York: Paulist, 1966), 99. 314 Aaron Pidel, S.J. According to a practically irrefutable consensus of historians there definitely are mistakes and errors in the Bible in profane matters of no relevance for what Scripture properly intends to affirm.19 Scripture is and remains inerrant and beyond doubt in everything that it properly intends to affirm, but this is not necessarily so in that which accompanies the affirmation and is not part of it. As a result, in agreement with what no. 13 says quite well, the inerrancy of Scripture has to be limited to its vere enuntiata [what is really affirmed]. Otherwise historical reason will be led into what is really an inescapable conflict.20 Two common features of these statements stand out. First, in restricting inerrancy by appeal to the categories of intention and affirmation, Ratzinger establishes a point of contact with the neo-Thomist theory. Second, and in subtle contrast to this theory, he transfers the locus of intention and affirmation from the human authors to Scripture itself. Scripture is the grammatical subject of the key verbs in both passages.21 This recasting of the neo-Thomist model raises important questions and, as we shall see, has important hermeneutical implications. Intention As Christologically Differentiated Soon after offering these clarifications on the problem of Scripture’s coherence with “historical reason,” Ratzinger takes up the problem of Scripture’s self-coherence and, more specifically, of the relation between the Old and New Testaments. As Ratzinger sees it, the weakness of the instrumental model is its tendency to level the assertions of Scripture and abstract them from history. Only with difficulty could this approach be reconciled to the teaching that the books of the Old Testament are inspired “with all their parts.”22 The cultic commands of the Old Testament, for instance, are 19 Wicks, “Six Texts,” 280; italics mine. 20 Ibid., 280. English italics mine. “No. 13” here refers to the paragraph of De Fontibus entitled Quomodo inerrantia diiudicanda sit—“How inerrancy is to be discerned”; see AS I/3, 18–19. 21 Nor is this personification of Scripture unique to Ratzinger’s earliest writings. Speaking of abiding content of the Creation account, for example, Ratzinger claims that “Scripture would not wish to inform us about how the different species of plant life gradually appeared or how the sun and the moon and the stars were established. Its purpose ultimately would be to say one thing: God created the world”; see In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), 5. 22 I am here supplying the phrase to which Ratzinger alludes. After listing all the books of Scripture, the Council of Trent concludes, “If . . . anyone should not accept as sacred and canonical these books in their entirety and with all their parts . . . let that one be anathema”; see Trent, sess. IV, decr. 1; The Scripture Documents, 4. Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 315 considered by no one to bind Christians, even though their perpetual observance seems to have been solemnly “intended” by the sacred authors. Since the “dictation theory” viewed truth in a timeless, propositional fashion, those under its sway tended to sort the Old Testament into the perennially true and the utterly defunct elements. Ratzinger also detects this tendency in De Fontibus no. 15,23 inasmuch as it insinuated that “the authority of the Old Testament continues in force in those matters that are related to the founding of the Christian religion.”24 For Ratzinger, this said “both too little and too much.”25 It said too little because it suggested that some parts of the “inspired” Old Testament are consigned entirely to the past. It said too much because it implied that some parts of the Old Testament were already “directly Christian and as such continue in force.”26 Ratzinger, for his part, insists that the “whole Old Testament . . . speaks of Christ, for its intention is Christological and as such it is the basis and foundation of the Christian religion.”27 Every part of the Old Testament undergoes a “Christological transformation,” such that it comes to have “force not from itself but from Christ and in reference to Christ, who is the one who removes the veil that covered the face of Moses (2 Cor 3:12–18).”28 Put another way, the Old Testament remains inspired in all its parts inasmuch as Christ remains its ultimate telos; however, the Old Testament remains distinct from the New inasmuch as the former proposes Christ only indirectly. Ratzinger thus hints that a genuinely Christian theory of inerrancy will account for different modalities of proposing this same Truth. As Ratzinger saw things in 1962, then, the Church needed a theory of inerrancy that was both historically plausible and internally differentiated according to specifically Christian criteria. Though Ratzinger favored restricting the scope of inerrancy, it is noteworthy that he rejected the material division of Scripture into sacred and profane subjects or passages. He does, however, propose two other limiting principles: first, that Scripture be considered inerrant only to the extent that Scripture itself 23 No. 15 of De Fontibus was the paragraph entitled De auctoritate Veteris Testamenti in Ecclesia—“On the Authority of the Old Testament in the Church.” The statement to which Ratzinger alludes reads as follows: “Itaque in iis praesertim quae ad Christianae religionis fundamenta sive in verbis sive in historiae rebus, ad finem usque temporis spectant, Veteris Testamenti vis, auctoritas et emolumentum minime enervata sunt.” See AS I/3, 20. 24 Wicks, “Six Texts,” 282. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., 283. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. Aaron Pidel, S.J. 316 intends; second, that inspiration and inerrancy be understood to extend to all parts of Scripture, but to vary in modality according as the parts stand in relation to Christ. These twin theses guide Ratzinger across the course of his theological career. The Subject of Scripture and Its Implications Before showing how Ratzinger uses these two hermeneutical principles to discern inerrant content, we do well to show how both flow from a single seminal insight: identifying the People of God as a “living subject” of Scripture. Even before addressing the German-speaking bishops on De Fontibus, Ratzinger had already discovered in his Habilitation on St. Bonaventure that medieval theology viewed Scripture differently than contemporary theology does. For the medievals, “revelation” is always a concept denoting an act. The word refers to the act in which God shows himself, not to the objectified result of this act. And because this is so, the receiving subject is always also part of the concept of “revelation”.Where there is no one to perceive “revelation”, no re-vel-ation has occurred, because no veil has been removed. By definition, revelation requires a someone who apprehends it. Because, if Bonaventure is right, then revelation precedes Scripture and becomes deposited in Scripture but is not simply identical with it. This in turn means that revelation is always something greater than what is merely written down. And this again means that there can be no such thing as sola scriptura . . . because an essential element of Scripture is the Church as understanding subject.29 For Ratzinger, then, revelation is not primarily a text but an act, an act that presupposes a living, believing, corporate subject. And Scripture qua revelation—that is, Scripture as it pertains to theology and issues of inerrancy—always bears an inner reference to that subject. On this basis, Ratzinger can ascribe to Scripture (qua revelation) an independent intentionality: much as an arrow may be said to “seek” a target by virtue of its archer, Scripture may be said to intend its content by virtue of its subject. Consequently, understanding the scope and modality of Scripture’s intention requires us to explore (1) the complex identity of Scripture’s subject and (2) the hermeneutical implications of that identity. Given its limited scope, this article can treat only the barest of essentials in this regard. 29 Milestones: Memoirs, 1927–1977 (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1998), 108–9. See also ibid., 127. Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 317 Scripture’s Complex Subject As Ratzinger sees it, the subject of Scripture exhibits both extensive and intensive complexity. Extensively, Ratzinger depicts Scripture not as the text of a single subject, but as the text of three interlocking subjects of uneven authorial “depth”: One could say that the books of Scripture involve three interacting subjects. First of all, there is the individual author or group of authors to whom we owe a particular scriptural text. But these authors are not autonomous authors in the modern sense; they form part of a collective subject, the “People of God,” from within whose heart and to whom they speak. Hence this subject is actually the deeper “author” of the Scriptures. And yet, likewise, this people does not exist alone; rather, it is led, and spoken to, by God himself, who—through men and their humanity—is at the deepest level the one speaking.30 Three implications of Ratzinger’s depiction of the subjects of Scripture merit special mention. First, by listing the People of God as a true subject of Scripture, Ratzinger notably departs from the dyadic schema, consisting of God and the individual author, presupposed in the instrumental theory.31 Second, Ratzinger presents the interaction of three distinct subjects in such a way as to preclude the possibility of direct conflict. Both the individual author32 and the Church33 become subjects of Scripture to 30 Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian Walker, vol. 1 (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007), xxi. Ratzinger’s anthropological argument that tradition is constitutive of humanity, and that the individual cannot arrive at truth apart from a community, see Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1987), 86–89. 32 “The normative theologians are the authors of Holy Scripture. This statement is valid not only with reference to the objective written document they left behind but also with reference to their manner of speaking, in which it is God himself who speaks”; see Principles of Catholic Theology, 321. 33 Ratzinger explains that the Bible is the Church’s book, “not through a statistical accident, but because the Spirit builds the Church and thereby equally builds her central and universal self-expression, in that the Church does not express herself, but him from whom she comes.This makes it once again evident why one cannot ultimately understand the Bible against the Church, [though] one is still in a position to recognize so many particulars without her”; see Dogma und Verkündigung (Munich: Erich Wewel, 1973), 41. All translations from this volume are mine. See also his claim that “the Church is in no wise a separate subject endowed with its own subsistence. The new subject is much rather ‘Christ’ himself, and the Church is nothing but the space of this new unitary subject . . .” in The Nature and Mission of Theology: Essays to Orient Theology in Today’s Debates, trans. Adrian Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995), 54. 31 For 318 Aaron Pidel, S.J. the degree that the one God has first become the subject of each. Finally, according to this model, the People of God functions more deeply as the subject of Scripture than does the individual author. The greater authorial “depth” of the third subject, the People of God, accounts in turn for Scripture’s greater intensive complexity. For if individual authorship is embedded in a “deeper” corporate authorship, Scripture may carry a “deeper value” than that intended by any particular contributor.34 Scripture’s meaning will reflect the “life and times” of a corporate author, which, as Ratzinger sees things, has traversed diverse historical “stages” and “modes” of existence without losing her identity. In this respect, he compares the Church to a human being, who, by physiological and psychological norms, is but a succession of states yet who knows, for all that, that he is always himself. What constitutes the Church as a subject? What makes her what she is? If we recall that Paul formulated the concept of the Church as a subject that remains constant in the midst of change when he called her a “body” (a “self ”), we can look to him also for the answers . . . .The Church is constituted a subject by him whom Paul names the Head, namely, Christ.35 In broad strokes, this “succession of states” is nothing other than the People of God’s transition from Old Testament era, to New Testament era, to the age of the Church.36 Despite the often dramatic transformations of the People of God over three millennia, Ratzinger still finds in the person of Christ, who is both the destiny of Israel and the head of the Church, a source of underlying unity. To sum up, then, Ratzinger can meaningfully assert that Scripture intends its own contents because he conceives of Scripture (qua revelation) as text-plus-living-subject. But the living subject, as it turns out, is 34 “[I]t is necessary to keep in mind that any human utterance of a certain weight contains more than the author may have been immediately aware of at the time. When a word transcends the moment in which it is spoken, it carries within itself a ‘deeper value.’ This ‘deeper value’ pertains most of all to words that have matured in the course of faith-history. For in this case the author is not simply speaking for himself or on his own authority. He is speaking from the perspective of a common history that sustains him and that already implicitly contains the possibilities of its future, of the further stages of its journey” ( Jesus of Nazareth, xx). 35 Principles of Catholic Theology, 132. 36 For an account of these stages and their corresponding “layers” of tradition, see “The Question of the Concept of Tradition: A Provisional Response,” in God’s Word: Scripture, Tradition, Office, ed. Peter Hünermann and Thomas Söding, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2008), 41–83, at 60–62. Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 319 more like three interlocking subjects, one of whom possesses a corporate identity internally differentiated according to historical epochs. The task of interpretation, therefore, is far from straightforward. Scripture’s Holistic Mode of Intending 37 The complex identity of Scripture’s subject is, of course, not without hermeneutical implications. Briefly stated, Ratzinger expects that Scripture’s modus significandi will follow upon the modus essendi of its living subject. And just as the People of God, through union with Christ her head, has retained her identity across all her historical transformations, so will Scripture exhibit a Christological unity, according to which the “individual part derives its meaning from the whole, and the whole derives its meaning from its end—from Christ.”38 In light of the identity of its living subject, Scripture calls for a “Christological hermeneutic.”39 But Ratzinger’s ontology of Scripture carries a further implication. Since the subject that produced Scripture lives on in the Church, it follows that Scripture (qua revelation) will overreach its own textual canon. The whole of Scripture comprises not only the Old and New Testaments but also the “living voice” of the Church expressed in her liturgy and doctrine.40 Already in advance of the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger was arguing that the “three realities, Scripture, Tradition and the Church’s Magisterium are not static entities placed beside each other but have to be seen as one living organism of the word of God, which from Christ lives on in the Church.”41 In his later writings, this vision is equally in evidence: “It is precisely in this profusion of the forms of faith in the unity of the Old and New Testaments, of the New Testament and early Church dogma, all of these elements together and the ongoing life of faith, which increases the excitement and fecundity of inquiry. To seek the inner unity and totality of truth in the grand historical structure of faith with its abundant contrasts is more stimulating and productive than to cut knots and to assert that this unity does not exist.”42 Each part of the organism of the word of 37 For a more detailed discussion of Ratzinger’s general identification of truth with the whole, see Kaes, Theologie im Anspruch von Geschichte und Wahrheit, 46–49. 38 In the Beginning, 9. 39 Jesus of Nazareth, xix. 40 “The teaching office of the apostles’ successors does not represent a second author- ity alongside Scripture but is inwardly a part of it. This viva vox is not there to restrict the authority of Scripture . . .” See “What in Fact Is Theology?” in Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith:The Church as Communion, ed. Stephen Otto Horn and Vincent Pfnür, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2005), 29–37, at 35. 41 Wicks, “Six Texts,” 277. 42 The Nature and Mission of Theology, 96–97. 320 Aaron Pidel, S.J. God—Old Testament, New Testament, Dogma—retains its proper traits, its distinct mode of intending Christ; still, only as an ensemble do they begin to express the depth of the Christian mystery.43 And it is only the attitude of faith that sees the whole in this welter of tensions and contrasts. Yet the reverse is also true. Only a book whose internal perspectives are dialectical and mutually corrective can really point beyond itself to the ineffable truth of faith. For Ratzinger, the depth of Scripture is evident in its penchant for primordial images and untidy narratives: “The deeper human words penetrate into the essence of reality, the more insufficient they become. All of this emerges more clearly if we turn our attention to the concrete evidence of the language of faith, which is characterized by two immediately obvious facts. First, this speech consists of images, not concepts. Second, it presents itself in a historical succession of statements.”44 The verbal icons of Scripture realize their true expressive potential only in synergy: “Scripture . . . never tolerates the monarchical supremacy of a single image. By utilizing many images, it keeps open a perspective on the Indescribable.”45 Indeed, the very strain of reconciling these images pressures the reader toward a more searching encounter with Christ, who alone can “give back to us, renewed, the truth of the images.”46 43 Ratzinger also employs musical images to express the idea of organic unity: “Symphonia serves to express the unity of the Old and New Testaments—which is the unity of law and gospel, of prophets and apostles, but also the unity of the diverse writings of the New Testament among themselves. At issue here is the basic form of the expression of truth in the Church, a form which rests upon a structure enriched by manifold tensions. The truth of faith resonates not as a mono-phony but as sym-phony, not as a homophonic, but as a polyphonic melody composed of the many apparently quite discordant strains in the contrapuntal interplay of law, prophets, Gospels, and apostles” (ibid., 83–84). Again, “The Church was right to reject Tatian’s attempt to create a unified gospel: no such literal harmonization can be the Gospel itself. It is as a choir of four that the Gospel comes before the understanding of faith . . . .”; see Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, trans. Michael Waldstein and Aidan Nichols (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 41; italics mine. 44 Ibid. 93–94. See also Ratzinger’s description of the twofold transcendence of revelation over Scripture in “The Question of the Concept of Tradition,” 53, as well as his explanation of the similar deficiencies of dogmatic language in Das Problem der Dogmengeschichte in der Sicht der Katholischen Theologie (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1966), 25. 45 Eschatology, 237. He remarks elsewhere, “In the Bible itself the images are free and they correct themselves ongoingly. In this they show, by means of a gradual and interactive process, that they are only images, which reveal something deeper and greater”; see In the Beginning, 15. 46 In the Beginning, 16. Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 321 Through the self-effacement of its contrastive yet convergent elements, Scripture directs the reader beyond itself and toward Christ. One might say, in summary, that Ratzinger’s holistic model of inerrancy both simplifies and complicates the intention of Scripture. It simplifies Scripture’s intention by furnishing metaphysical grounds for expecting an overarching biblical intentionality. These grounds are the organic interpenetration of Scripture’s three subjects—God, the People of God, the human authors—and the underlying unity of the People of God across her historical pilgrimage.47 On the other hand, Ratzinger’s model also “complicates” matters because it presents Scripture’s global intention—the mystery of Christ—as internally differentiated. Changing the metaphor, we might describe scriptural truth as a light refracted through the prism of human history into a spectrum of “successive states.” The pure light of Christ becomes visible again to the extent that one reverses this spectrification, bending the various bands—Old Testament, New Testament, and Church—back toward a common center.This is accomplished by marking how, according to each of her historical “phases,” the one People of God “intends” and “affirms” the language of her faith in diverse yet complementary ways.48 Discerning the Intention of Scripture Having explored Scripture’s holistic modus significandi, we are finally in a position to explain Ratzinger’s method for distinguishing Scripture’s proper affirmations from what merely accompanies them. This is best presented in stages. First, we will first present Ratzinger’s understanding of inerrancy with respect to scientific, historical, and ethical-religious matters. Then we will introduce the Catholic version of “demythologization” that 47 Ratzinger remarks, “If one strikes out the continuity of a subject that which organically traverses the whole of history and which remains one with itself through its transformations, nothing is left beyond contradictory speech fragments which cannot subsequently be brought into any relation”; see The Nature and Mission of Theology, 95. 48 Apropos of this holistic biblical hermeneutic, it is useful to call attention to a passage that, despite falling outside the scope of the present study, serves to illustrate the continuity between Ratzinger and Benedict XVI on this score. In the same address in which he asked the Pontifical Biblical Commission for a renewed reflection on biblical inerrancy, Benedict XVI observed, “In a good hermeneutic it is not possible to apply mechanically the criterion of inspiration, or indeed of absolute truth by extrapolating a single sentence or expression.The plan in which it is possible to perceive Sacred Scripture as a Word of God is that of the unity of God, in a totality in which the individual elements are illuminated reciprocally and are opened to understanding” (“Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI to Participants in the Plenary Meeting of the Pontifical Biblical Commission”). 322 Aaron Pidel, S.J. Ratzinger develops in explicit conversation with Bultmann. Finally, we will examine a concrete quaestio disputata probed by Ratzinger: whether Scripture inerrantly teaches the existence of the Devil. Historical, Scientific, Ethical-Religious Claims On Ratzinger’s view, Scripture intends to affirm its own expressions only as pointing beyond themselves, that is, as a material witness to the single complex truth that is God’s self-disclosure in Christ. He does not, however, narrow the inerrancy of Scripture to matters of faith and morals. Rather, because Christ, the incarnate Logos, grounds all rationality, the intention of Scripture must also encompass scientific, historical and religious claims—though only to the extent that each bears upon faith in Christ. With respect to science and history, Ratzinger makes this point clear in his article “Exegesis and the Magisterium of the Church” (2003). The relationship between the claims of scientific reason and the claims of the Scripture, he argues, “can never be settled once and for all, because the faith attested to by the Bible also involves the material world; the Bible still makes claims about this world—concerning its origin as a whole and man’s origin in particular.”49 Given that the claims of faith and science do overlap, the value of Scripture’s depictions of the cosmos cannot be denied a priori, but must be judged on a case-by-case basis. After briefly affirming this basic relationship between scientific and biblical truth, Ratzinger—echoing the argumentation of Providentissimus Deus 50—goes on to affirm that “something analogous can be said with respect to history.”51 If the Incarnation is taken seriously, then the relevance of historical data to faith cannot be precluded tout court: The opinion that faith as such has nothing to do with historical facts and must leave their investigation to the historians is Gnosticism. It dis49 “Exegesis and the Magisterium of the Church,” in Opening Up the Scriptures: Joseph Ratzinger and the Foundations of Biblical Interpretation, ed. Luis Sánchez Navarro (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 126–36, at 134. 50 Providentissimus Deus taught that the Bible speaks inerrantly on scientific matters and—in an analogous way—on historical matters: “The Catholic interpreter, although he should show now that those facts of natural science that investigators affirm to be now quite certain are not contrary to the Scripture rightly explained, must nevertheless always bear in mind that much which has been held and proved as certain has afterwards been called into question and rejected . . . . The principles laid down here will apply to cognate sciences and especially to History” (§40; The Scripture Documents, 54). 51 Ibid., 134. Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 323 incarnates the faith and turns it into a pure idea. But precisely the ontological realism of historical events is intrinsically constitutive of the faith that originates from the Bible. A God that cannot intervene in history and show himself in it is not the God of the Bible. For this reason, the reality of Jesus’ birth from the Virgin Mary, the real institution of the Last Supper by Jesus himself, his bodily Resurrection from the dead—the fact that the tomb was empty—are all an element of the faith itself that it can and must defend against supposedly better historical knowledge.52 Still, despite his insistence upon the fundamental historicity of Scripture, Ratzinger does not show himself much exercised by the difficulty of harmonizing every historical detail. The presence of Christ reliably transmitted through tradition frees Christians from dependence on precarious reconstructions of Jesus’ ipsissima vox.53 Tensions in historical narratives may, in fact, serve to indicate that the truth intended lies on a higher plane than mere historical fact.54 In various other writings, Ratzinger extends this analogy even to matters of religious observance and morality. He acknowledges, for instance, that contemporary historical awareness has rendered Scripture’s authority problematic even in religious matters: 52 Ratzinger, “Exegesis and the Magisterium of the Church,” 134. For Ratzinger’s approval of “informed realism” with respect to the infancy narratives, an attitude shunning both “naïve realism” and “total capitulation to the thought patterns that arose from the Enlightenment,” see his “Preface” in René Laurentin, The Truth of Christmas Beyond the Myths:The Gospels of the Infancy of Christ (Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s, 1986), xiii–xiv, at xiii. See also his flexible understanding of “historicity”: “[I]n stressing the objective truth of the history of Jesus, it seems improper to list the infancy narrative, resurrection from the dead, and ascension beside each other on the same level” (Wicks, “Six Texts,” 281). Finally, for a more detailed discussion of the diverse relationships to history suggested by the nature of these events, see his early debate with Walter Kasper in “Glaube, Geschichte, und Philosophie,” Hochland 61 (1969): 533–43, at 539–40. 53 “Over against such fragmentary authorities (Teilautoritäten) the vital power of Tradition has for me an incomparably greater weight. Therefore the fight over the ipsissima vox has no terribly great meaning for me”; see Dogma und Verkündigung, 140. Cf. his statement: “The Gospel does not confront the Church as a selfenclosed Ding-an-sich. Herein lies the fundamental methodological error of trying to reconstruct the ipsissima vox Jesu as a yardstick for Church and New Testament alike” (Eschatology, 41). 54 With respect to the diverse narratives of the Last Supper, for example, Ratzinger posits that “each strand selects a different reference point. In this way all the essential covenant ideas flow together in the ensemble of utterances at the Last Supper and are fused into a new unity”; see Many Religions, One Covenant: Israel, the Church, and the World (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1999), 59. 324 Aaron Pidel, S.J. [T]he Bible, venerated by faith as the word of God, has been disclosed to us, by historical-critical scholarship, as a thoroughly human book. Not only are its literary forms those of the world that produced it, but its manner of thought, even in respect to religious topics, has been determined by the world in which it arose.55 Here the obsolescence of the Mosaic Law serves as an obvious example.56 However, Ratzinger finds even certain New Testament ethical and religious directives so culture-bound as to be “purely of human right.”57 As examples he cites loci classici already well known to the Fathers of Trent: “the stipulations of James, the veiling of women, marriage legislation of 1 Corinthians 7.”58 As it turns out, ethical and religious directives are subject to the same methodological scrutiny as historical and scientific claims. Worldview and Demythologization In each domain, then—science, history, religion and morality—a similar problem surfaces regarding the relationship between the perennial truth of revelation and the transitory thought world in which it is mediated. Quite simply, the former must be held as inerrant and binding, whereas the latter, the “mythology” of Scripture’s cultural container, may be left behind. In an essay predating even his address to the German bishops, Ratzinger observed, “Catholic theology has always practiced the ‘demythologization’ of Scripture—that is, the spiritual translation of its social imaginary (Bildwelt ) into the contemporary intellectual world (Verständniswelt ) of the believer—and practices it still today to a high degree in the discrimination between expressive form and expressive content (Aussageform und -inhalt ).”59 As the word of God in a human Bildwelt, Scripture requires “demythologization” by its very nature. Ratzinger has evoked the relationship between “truth” and “myth” in writings spanning the length of his career, usually through the guiding metaphor of center and periphery. Accordingly, one must distinguish “core” (Kern) and “shell” (Schale),60 “revelation” (Offenbarung) and “shell” (Schale),61 55 Faith and the Future (Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1971), 9. 56 “Consequently the law of Moses, the rituals of purification, the regulations concerning food, and all other such things are not to be carried out by us; otherwise the biblical word would be senseless and meaningless” (In the Beginning, 16). 57 Church, Ecumenism, Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology, trans. Robert Nowell (New York: Crossroad, 1988), 97. 58 “The Question of the Concept of Tradition,” 78. 59 “Zum Problem der Entmythologisierung des Neuen Testaments,” Religionsunterricht an Höheren Schulen 3 (1960): 2–11, at 8. 60 Ibid., 10. 61 Ibid., 11. Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 325 the “content of the expression” (Aussageinhalt) and the “form of the expression” (Aussageform),62 “faith” and “worldview” (Weltbild),63 the “outward form of the message” and the “real message of the whole,”64 the “form of portrayal” and the “content that is portrayed.”65 Such discernment between the intended and accidental contents of Scripture becomes a perennial task for the Church and her theologians. Though Ratzinger shows a surprising sympathy for “demythologization,” he also takes pains to distinguish his own version from the Marburg exegete’s. To Ratzinger’s thinking, Bultmann goes wrong not by attempting to separate truth from “myth,” but by making Scripture’s compatibility with existentialist philosophy the chief criterion for so doing. Academic philosophies inevitably offer “criteria alien to revelation” (Offenbarungsfremde Kriterien):66 What is revelation and what is shell (Schale) can never be ascertained by the individual theologian—from his own perspective—on the basis of scholarly presuppositions (wissenschaftlicher Vorgegebenheiten); this, in the end, only the living community of faith can decide, which—as the Body of Christ—is the abiding presence of Christ, who does not let the disposal of his work slip from his grasp.67 Given the origin and nature of the Scripture, only the “living substance of the living faith of the Church”68 can serve as a suitable criterion for demythologization. Reliance on any other standard inevitably ends up strapping revelation to the Procrustean bed of intellectual fashions. Case Study: Galileo and the Devil This appeal to the criterion of communal faith, however, brings its own set of challenges. The Church’s faith, for instance, ordinarily reposes in an existential unity of sanctity, liturgy, and doctrine. Moreover, the internal variety and historical expansiveness of this community make her faith an unwieldy instrument for sifting the intended and accidental content of Scripture. Still, Ratzinger does attempt in a little-known piece, “Abschied vom Teufel?” (1973), to show how the Church’s living substance can be analyzed into more serviceable sub-criteria and then applied to a biblical quaestio disputata. 62 Ibid., 10. 63 Dogma und Verkündigung, 228. 64 “Exegesis and the Magisterium of the Church,” 134. 65 In the Beginning, 5. 66 Ratzinger, “Zum Problem der Entmythologisierung des Neuen Testaments,” 10. 67 Ibid., 11. 68 Ibid. 326 Aaron Pidel, S.J. In “Abschied,” Ratzinger responds to Tübingen Alttestamentler Herbert Haag’s contention that the biblical motif of the “Devil” is nothing other than the concept of “sin” in mythological garb. Haag is arguing, in Ratzingerian terms, that the notion of personal evil represents a historically conditioned Schale, whose abiding Kern is reducible to personal and social sin. Ratzinger disputes Haag’s conclusion. He replies, however, not by denying the legitimacy of demythologization as such, but by denying that Haag has applied the correct “tests” (Maßstäbe). Diagnosing the domain of Scripture’s true intention requires an investigation of four relationships: (1) the relationship between the two Testaments with respect to the affirmation in question, (2) the relationship of the affirmation to the inner shape of Christian existence, (3) the relationship of the affirmation to the Church, and (4) the relationship to right reason. Clarifying his position through contrast, Ratzinger submits to this diagnostic battery two ostensibly parallel cases: Galileo’s call for the demythologization of Scripture’s geocentrism, and Haag’s call for the demythologization of the Devil. He applies each of the four tests in turn. According to Ratzinger, the first test, which turns on the relationship between the two Testaments, already begins to distance Galileo’s case from Haag’s. With respect to cosmology and creation, the scope of the biblical affirmation contracts considerably in the transition from Old to New Testament. “If one applies this test (Maßstab), it becomes evident that John 1:1 is the New Testament’s reception of the Genesis text and that it sums up its colorful depictions in a single expression: In the beginning was the Word. Everything else was thereby relegated to the world of images.” Whereas preoccupation with cosmology shows a “movement of contraction” from Old Testament to New, interest in the demonic shows a “movement of expansion.” “The representation of demonic powers enters only haltingly (zögernd) into the Old Testament; by contrast, it achieves in the life of Jesus an unheard of vehemence, which remains valid in Paul and in the last writings of the New Testament.” Since the two cases show contrary developmental trajectories, they cannot be equated.69 The second test, the “relationship of an expression to the inner fullness of faith and the life of faith,” yields similar results. Ratzinger observes that Christ not only drives out demons but also hands this mission on to his disciples in such wise that it comes to belong to the way of discipleship itself. In other words, “The form of Jesus, its spiritual physiognomy, does not change, whether the sun revolves around the earth or the earth moves around the sun . . . but it changes decisively, if one cuts out of it the expe69 For all references in this paragraph, see Dogma und Verkündigung, 229–30. Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 327 rience of struggle against the power of the demonic kingdom.” If we can no longer affirm a reality so central to the self-understanding of Christ and his followers, then we cannot claim to share in the same faith.70 The third test represents an extension from the “spiritual physiognomy” of Christ to the spiritual physiognomy of the totus Christus, the Church. Here Ratzinger supposes that at the heart of the Church’s “fundamental form (Grundform) of prayer and life” lies the baptismal liturgy.The great doctrinal affirmations of the fourth century—the divinity of Christ, the divinity of the Spirit, the Trinity—were decided precisely so as to accord with the language and experience of Christian worship. St. Basil upheld the full divinity of the Holy Spirit principally on the grounds that one “must be able to take [the baptismal liturgy] at its word.” Yet this same baptismal liturgy takes the Devil so much in earnest that the “exorcism and the renunciation of the devil belong to the core event (Kerngeschehen) of baptism; the latter, together with profession of Jesus Christ, forms the indispensable entryway into the sacrament.” Among the signs related to the baptism, Ratzinger points also to the perfection of baptismal life—the witness of heroic sanctity. The fact that the Church’s exemplary believers, even to this day, evince an acute sensitivity to the demonic, indicates that belief in the Devil’s existence belongs to the Church’s living faith and thus to Scripture’s abiding content. Geocentrism, in contrast to the foregoing, touches only tangentially upon the Church’s liturgical life and her existential form.71 The final test in the “question of ‘worldview’ ” (Frage des “Weltbildes”) is an affirmation’s “compatibility with scientific knowledge.” Ratzinger heartily agrees that faith ultimately “cannot contradict established scientific knowledge.” The scientific proof of heliocentrism long ago revealed that geocentrism belongs to Scripture’s mythical shell. Ratzinger observes, however, that Haag argues for the irrationality of demons, not on the basis of scientific data, but on the basis of their incompatibility with “our worldview.” Ratzinger concedes that demons are incompatible with “a world functionally considered.” He denies, however, that this is the same as rational contradiction. Besides, within the horizon of “pure 70 For all references in this paragraph, see ibid. 230–31. 71 For all references in this paragraph, see ibid. 231–32. For similar reasons, Ratzinger resists treating the categories of “sacrifice” (Opfer) and “atonement” (Sühne) as later New Testament theologoumena foreign to Christ’s self-understanding: “For then logically the whole tradition of the sacrificial words of the eucharistic celebration also becomes invalid” (hinfällig); see Gespräch über Jesus: Papst Benedikt XVI im Dialog mit Martin Hengel, Peter Stuhlmacher und seinen Schülern in Castelgandolfo 2008 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 89. 328 Aaron Pidel, S.J. functionalism,” he argues, “there is place neither for God nor for the human person as human person, but only for the human person as function; much more is at stake here than simply the idea of the ‘Devil.’ ” Any worldview incompatible with the “Devil” is also incompatible with God, with human interiority, and ultimately with “sin” in the Christian sense. Haag’s approach ends not in a subtle discrimination between Kern and Schale, but in a wholesale rejection of Kern and Schale alike.72 Ratzinger’s and Haag’s brands of demythologization clearly yield different verdicts. Though both approaches relegate geocentrism to the realm of “myth,” Ratzinger’s differs from Haag’s in retaining the Devil as a core affirmation of Scripture. It is worth noting that Ratzinger’s four criteria for “Catholic” demythologization do not entail any a priori restriction of inerrancy to faith and morals. Methodologically speaking, scientific, historical, moral, and religious contents are treated alike as elements of Weltbild; calls for demythologization are countenanced in each field insofar as they prove compatible with the Church’s perennial faith. Conclusion Having reviewed Ratzinger’s version of demythologization, we are now in a position to conclude with some brief doctrinal observations. His approach to inerrancy, needless to say, does not align neatly with the approach taken by the biblical magisterium of the early twentieth century. Ratzinger is not unaware of this fact. In his commentary on Donum Veritatis (1990), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of a Theologian, he frankly concedes the need to discriminate among the magisterial decisions of the “antimodernist” era. Applying the now-familiar distinction between abiding center and transient periphery, Ratzinger accepts that there are magisterial decisions which cannot be the final word in a given matter as such but, despite the permanent value of their principles, are chiefly also a signal for pastoral prudence, a sort of provisional policy. Their kernel remains valid, but the particulars determined by circumstances can stand in need of correction. In this connection, one 72 For all references in this paragraph, see Dogma und Verkündigung, 232–33. In defend- ing the reservation of the priesthood to men, Ratzinger similarly rejects functionalist criteria as the true standard of justice or rationality: “Priesthood cannot be understood according to the criteria of functionality, decision-making power, and expediency, but only on the basis of the Christological criterion which gives it its nature as a sacrament.” See his “Introduction” in From “Inter Insigniores” to “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis”: Documents and Commentaries, ed. Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 1998), 5–17, at 15. Ratzinger on Biblical Inerrancy 329 will probably call to mind both the pontifical statements of the last century regarding freedom of religion and the antimodernist decisions of the beginning of this century, especially the decisions of the then Biblical Commission.73 Hence, without offering a catalogue of particulars, Ratzinger affirms the presence of certain “mythical” features in the antimodernist biblical magisterium. On the basis of Ratzinger’s own practice of biblical interpretation, however, we are better positioned to infer at least a partial catalogue. On the side of the core “principles” of “permanent value,” Ratzinger would keep the prohibition against restricting inerrancy aprioristically to matters of faith and morals. Inasmuch as the historical and scientific impinge upon the faith, they cannot be excluded generically. Moreover, Ratzinger would continue to uphold a leading hermeneutical principle of the early biblical encyclicals—namely, that the inerrancy of Scripture extends only as far as the intention of its subject. He himself uses a variety of this pattern of reasoning to argue that the Devil is ineligible for “demythologization.” To the side of the corrigible “particulars determined by circumstances,” on the other hand, Ratzinger would probably consign certain background assumptions of the biblical magisterium. These would include, first of all, the instrumental model of inspiration with its dyadic model of authorship. Ratzinger explicitly opts for a triadic model of authorship, where God and the human author interact through the medium of corporate personality—the People of God. A hermeneutical domino-effect ensues. Ratzinger can now present the People of God as the primary created “intender” of Scripture, and the Truth of Christ as what Scripture primarily “intends.” This arrangement calls in turn for a “holistic” model of Truth and an ecclesial hermeneutic. Hence, Ratzinger would not equate Scripture’s inerrant content ( pace the antimodernist biblical encyclicals) with what individual, historical authors “intended to affirm,” but instead with the requirements of the Church’s faith in Christ. One could see these modifications as Ratzinger’s attempt to transpose a hermeneutic of individual authorship, the core tenets of which were given in the biblical encyclicals, into a hermeneutic of (predominantly) corporate authorship. In this sense, he furnishes a pattern of creative fidelity. Is Ratzinger’s proposal the final word on inerrancy? Judging by his own call (as Benedict XVI) for further theological reflection, not even he thinks so. One might wonder, for example, whether Ratzinger’s fluid “tests” would 73 The Nature and Mission of Theology, 106; italics mine. 330 Aaron Pidel, S.J. render such a clean verdict when applied to other disputed questions of Weltbild, such as New Testament teachings on gender roles or slavery. Quite apart from the questions of ecclesial discernment, moreover, there remains the question of the coherence of the ecclesial model of inspiration/authorship that undergirds Ratzinger’s model of inerrancy. It has recently been argued, for instance, that a corporate model of inspiration is ultimately incompatible with the notion of a “deposit” of faith, since it presents the Church not as Scripture’s servant and guardian, but as its ongoing author.74 A thorough appraisal of Ratzinger’s hermeneutic would require a deeper exploration of both the necessity and the exact nature of the distinction between inspired authorship and infallible preservation.75 These open questions notwithstanding, Ratzinger’s model does offer certain advantages. First, it is sufficiently flexible to accommodate a variety of exegetical conclusions. It commits the Catholic exegete neither to vindicating every doubtful historical detail of Scripture nor to supposing that the historical author did not really intend what he wrote. Second, and despite the fluidity of his criteria, Ratzinger does not present Scripture as totally—or even largely—without inerrant content. Indeed, he insists that Scripture makes definite claims, and that these claims can be adjudicated by the faith of the Church. Finally, by putting truth and “worldview” in a tantum-quantum relationship and by making the substance of ecclesial faith the touchstone for distinguishing them, Ratzinger manages to present an account of inerrancy at once hermeneutically sophisticated and metaphysically integrated. The canonical books emerge as inerrant “with all their parts,” but only to the extent that they bear upon the intention of the whole—the mystery of Christ. N&V 74 Fastiggi, “Communal or Social Inspiration,” 260–62. Fastiggi treats in detail only the theories of Karl Rahner, S.J., Dennis McCarthy, S.J., and John McKenzie, S.J., but concludes that any social theory of inspiration would labor under similar difficulties. 75 This question deserves a separate treatment, one detailing Ratzinger’s creative appropriation of St. Bonaventure’s theology of revelation and history, the subject of his Habilitation (1955). For the English translation, see The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, trans. Zachary Hayes, O.F.M. (Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1971), 77–80. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 331–63 331 Reality and Sign: Thomas Aquinas and the Christological Exegesis of Pope Benedict XVI R. J ARED S TAUDT Augustine Institute Denver, CO I T IS common knowledge that modern biblical scholarship has arisen largely in opposition to the exegesis practiced by the Fathers and medieval schoolmen. Many modern interpreters find traditional interpretation to be fanciful or arbitrary, due to its supposed lack of grounding in the literal sense and in the historical context of the text. Attempting to bridge this gulf, Pope Benedict XVI1 called for a renewal of exegesis, in which modern advancements would be employed in a complementary fashion alongside more traditional exegetical sensibilities. In the foreword to the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict argues for the importance of the historical-critical method inasmuch as “it is of the very essence of biblical faith to be about real historical events.”2 However, he continues to say that this method is also limited by the fact that the words of Scripture are not simply historical but also should be “something present today.”3 Those generally practicing the historical-critical method do not recognize that the words of Scripture are more than simply human words, which are not confined to their original context. Given the divine origin of the words of Scripture, their interpretation must be open to 1 Though now Pope-Emeritus, and formerly Joseph Ratzinger, I will be drawing primarily on works written during the Pontificate of Benedict XVI. For the sake of simplicity, I will consistently refer to him simply as Benedict. 2 Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian Walker (New York: Doubleday, 2007), xv. For more on the Pope’s Jesus of Nazareth, see the symposia published in Nova et Vetera’s English edition, 7, no. 1, pages 1–66 on the first volume and 10, no. 4, pages 985–1027 on the second volume. 3 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, xvi; italics original. 332 R. Jared Staudt “self-transcendence.”4 Ultimately, Benedict calls for a “Christological hermeneutic, which sees Jesus Christ as the key to the whole and learns from him how to understand the whole Bible as a unity”; this Christological hermeneutic is one that “presupposes a prior act of faith.”5 Seeing Christ, the Word, as the key to reading the Word of God is the heart of the Church’s traditional methodology, which has been practiced throughout the centuries. An important and unexpected ally emerges in Benedict’s project of showing this Christological hermeneutic in action. In a statement at the beginning of the second volume of Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict clarifies his intention in writing his works on Jesus as follows: “Closer to my intention is the comparison with the theological treatise on the mysteries of the life of Jesus, presented in its classic form by Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae (ST I–II, qq. 27–59). While my book has many points of contact with this treatise, it is nevertheless situated in a different historical and spiritual context, and in that sense it also has a different inner objective that determines the structure of the text in many ways.”6 Despite the differences, Benedict notes that it is still precisely Thomas who stands out as an example of one who approaches the mysteries of Christ’s life in a manner akin to his own work. Although this may be surprising, upon further reflection it is clear that the two theologians hold much in common, including the importance of the Greek philosophical tradition and realist metaphysics for theology, a strong reliance on the Fathers of the Church, and a great devotion and attention to the Word of God. These connections produce in them similar attention to Scripture, centered on Christ who is the Logos, the fullness of truth manifest to reason and contained within the Word of God.7 One key reason for the similarity of approach is their common reliance on the exegetical principles of St. Augustine. In particular, Augustine’s De doctrina christiana lays out a crucial hermeneutical principle concerning signs (signa) and the thing or reality (res) they signify: 4 Ibid., xvii. 5 Ibid., xix. 6 Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 2, Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, trans. Philip J. Whitmore (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), xvi. See also his references to Aquinas on pages 65 and 192. 7 This emphasis on the Logos is so strong for Benedict that he made the prologue of John’s Gospel the leitmotif of his Apostolic Exhortation “The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church,” Verbum Domini (Pope Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, 2010, §5). Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 333 As when I was writing about things, I introduced the subject with a warning against attending to anything but what they are in themselves, even though they are signs of something else, so now, when I come in its turn to discuss the subject of signs, I lay down this direction, not to attend to what they are in themselves, but to the fact that they are signs, that is, to what they signify. For a sign is a thing which, over and above the impression it makes on the senses, causes something else to come into the mind as a consequence of itself.8 The words of Scripture are signs that have historical grounding, but nevertheless should be seen in light of their ultimate purpose, which is to indicate a theological reality. Thus, Benedict declares that in writing Jesus of Nazareth, he is not trying to counter modern exegesis but to “go beyond purely historical-critical exegesis . . . to offer a properly theological interpretation of the Bible.”9 The theological foundation of exegesis consists in the fact that the particular written words that make up the revealed text mediate an encounter with the Word of God eternally begotten of the Father. It is this transcendent and Christological focus that gives Aquinas and Benedict their common approach, which is meant to enable the mind to participate in the reality expressed by the signs. In this article, I will examine in more detail how both Aquinas and Benedict appropriate Augustine’s hermeneutical principles on the relation of signs to the reality they signify. After laying out the general Augustinian principles that unite their approaches, I will then look at how Aquinas’s position centers strongly on the theological reality of the text by primarily emphasizing God’s authorship. I will then look at how Benedict affirms this approach, while also complementing it with an insistence on greater attention to the historical details surrounding the 8 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine (De doctrina christiana), trans. James Shaw in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2. ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), 2.1. For background on Augustine’s scriptural interpretation, see Augustine and the Bible, ed. and trans. Pamela Bright (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999); Thomas Finan, “St. Augustine on the ‘mira profunditas’ of Scripture: Texts and Contexts,” in Scriptural Interpretation in the Fathers, ed. Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey (Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 1995),163–99; Pamela Bright, “St. Augustine,” in Christian Theologies of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction, ed. Justin S. Holcomb (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 39–59; Edward D. English, ed., Reading and Wisdom: The De doctrina christiana of Augustine in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995). For a controversial reinterpretation of Augustine’s concept of signs, which argues that Augustine actually negates the efficacy of these signs, see Phillip Cary, Outward Signs: The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine’s Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 9 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, xxiii. 334 R. Jared Staudt signs of the text. Finally, I will follow Benedict’s suggestion that Thomas’s treatment of the life of Jesus is a model of what Benedict is trying to accomplish in Jesus of Nazareth; I will do this by examining a scene from Christ’s life, namely, the Baptism of the Jordan, in both of their works. Reflection on this theologically rich event will confirm the connections in their focus on the reality of the text, which is communicated by the Incarnate Word of God through the medium of signs.10 The Augustinian Methodological Foundation In addition to the general affinity to Aquinas highlighted by Benedict in their common theological attention to the mysteries of the life of Christ, they also share key hermeneutical traits. Although a clear distinction emerges in that Benedict focuses much more on the historical context and tools available from the historical-critical method, the two different accounts are united by a common attention to the realities revealed by the sacred text. Despite different contexts and structures that Benedict mentioned—Aquinas’s Summa is a theological text, whereas Benedict’s is a theological-scriptural reflection on the life of Christ—they both overwhelmingly focus on the reality of Christ and the mystery and significance of his life.11 Once again, in this approach they are following 10 For works on Aquinas’s exegesis see Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to His Biblical Commentaries, ed. Thomas G. Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating, and John P. Yocum (New York: T & T Clark, 2005); Wilhelmus G. B. M.Valkenberg, Words of the Living God: Place and Function of Holy Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Nijmegen: Peeters-Leuven, 2000); Peter M. Chandler, Jr., “St. Thomas Aquinas,” in Christian Theologies of Scripture: A Comparative Introduction, ed. Justin S. Holcomb (New York: New York University Press, 2006), 60–80; Christopher Baglow, “Rediscovering St. Thomas Aquinas as Biblical Theologian,” Letter and Spirit 1 (2005): 137–46. On Benedict’s exegesis, see Opening Up the Scriptures: Joseph Ratzinger and the Foundations of Biblical Interpretation, ed. José Granados, Carlos Granados, and Luis Sánchez-Navarro (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008); Scott W. Hahn, Covenant and Community: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2009); Bruce Marshall, “Reading the Gospels with Pope Benedict XVI: How the Pope Finds Jesus in the Bible,” First Things 22 (Oct. 2011): 35–40. For an Evangelical account of biblical theology that also seeks to place Christ at the center, see Graeme Goldsworthy, Christ-Centered Biblical Theology: Hermeneutical Foundations and Principles (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012). Goldsworthy states: “Biblical theology is Christological, for its subject matter is the whole Bible as God’s testimony to Christ. It is therefore, from start to finish, a study of Christ. But, since Christ is the mediator who makes the Father known, biblical theology is also theological and solely Christological” (40). 11 For a discussion of the centrality of Christ in relation to Augustine’s methodology, including the role of sign and thing, see Michael Cameron, “The Christological Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 335 Augustine in his distinction between sign (signum) and thing (res).12 The words of Scripture are not an end in themselves, but are meant to point beyond themselves to a reality that is sought for its own sake. Henri de Lubac describes this distinction quite well in light of the sacramental nature of the Church: “Signs are not things to be stopped at, for they are, in themselves, valueless; by definition a sign is something translucent, which dissolves from before the face of what it manifests— like words, which would be nothing if they did not lead straight on to ideas.”13 In relation to Scripture, this does not make its words irrelevant, but gives them a heightened relevancy in that they actually mediate something greater. De Lubac continues with this more positive understanding of signs: “Under this aspect [the sign] is not something intermediate but something mediatory; it does not isolate one from another, the terms it is meant to link. It does not put a distance between them; on the contrary it unites them by making present that which it evokes.”14 While this Augustinian view of signs places the primary focus on the reality, which they mediate, it also insists on the signs as crucial and indispensable in this process. Benedict and Aquinas share this sacramental understanding of Scripture, by which its words mediate the truth revealed by God. This is not to say that their interpretations are identical by any means. Benedict is more attentive to the full significance of the words of Scripture in their historical and linguistic import, though he shares with Aquinas a desire to ultimately illuminate the thing or reality that Scripture is revealing. Therefore, following Augustine, Scripture is meant to lead the soul into union with the reality of God, in an approach of love. To focus on the signs of Scripture above the reality it contains, which occurs in much of Substructure of Augustine’s Figurative Exegesis,” in Augustine and the Bible, ed. and trans. Pamela Bright, 74–103. 12 As Augustine states: “No one uses words except as signs of something else; and hence may be understood [by] what I call signs: those things, to wit, which are used to indicate something else . . . But we must carefully remember that what we have now to consider about things is what they are in themselves, not what other things they are signs of ” (De doctrina christiana, 1.2). For a treatment of how Augustine uses his teaching on sign and reality in practice, while engaging in exegesis of the Old Testament, see Matthew Levering, “Scriptural and Sacramental Signs: Augustine’s Answer to Faustus,” Letter & Spirit 7 (2011): 91–118. Levering sees Augustine’s Answer to Faustus as a further development of his teaching in De doctrina christiana (ibid., 91). 13 Henri de Lubac, The Splendor of the Church, trans. Michael Mason (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 202. 14 Ibid. 336 R. Jared Staudt modern interpretation, is to invert Augustine’s priorities of use and enjoyment ( frui ). The fruit of Scripture, found in the Holy Trinity— Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is to be enjoyed as the only true end of humanity, from which all other things take their bearing and find their purpose, including divinely revealed signs.15 Augustine summarizes how this distinction applies to Scripture: Of all, then, that has been said since we entered upon the discussion about things, this is the sum: that we should clearly understand that the fulfillment and the end of the Law, and of all Holy Scripture, is the love of an object which is to be enjoyed, and the love of an object which can enjoy that other in fellowship with ourselves.16 The signs employed by Scripture are secondary, though essential, compared to the end for which they exist, which can be found only in communion with the realities indicated by the signs. Benedict is very attentive to Augustine’s distinction of res and signum, which can also be conceived of in relation to Paul’s distinction between letter and spirit. In his Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini (On the Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church), Benedict actually uses Aquinas, who in turn relies on Augustine, to comment on the importance of this distinction: “Saint Thomas Aquinas, citing Saint Augustine, insists that ‘the letter, even that of the Gospel, would kill, were there not 15 Cf. Augustine, De doctrina christiana, 1.4; 1.5; 1.22. 16 Ibid., 1.35. This distinction is so important for Augustine that he prioritizes love above exact accuracy in interpretation: “Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought. If, on the other hand, a man draws a meaning from them that may be used for the building up of love, even though he does not happen upon the precise meaning which the author whom he reads intended to express in that place, his error is not pernicious, and he is wholly clear from the charge of deception” (ibid., 1.36). This does not mean that the interpretation can be arbitrary, but that when one prioritizes love, the end for which the signs were originally employed is being realized: “Whoever takes another meaning out of Scripture than the writer intended, goes astray, but not through any falsehood in Scripture. Nevertheless, as I was going to say, if his mistaken interpretation tends to build up love, which is the end of the commandment, he goes astray in much the same way as a man who by mistake quits the high road, but yet reaches through the fields the same place to which the road leads. He is to be corrected, however, and to be shown how much better it is not to quit the straight road, lest, if he get into a habit of going astray, he may sometimes take cross roads, or even go in the wrong direction altogether” (ibid.). Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 337 the inward grace of healing faith.’ ”17 The mere letter is not enough to lead to the proper encounter with what is being communicated in the text. An encounter with the reality underlying the sign is needed as well. This must be a spiritual encounter, an encounter with the living Logos or Word, who is manifested in the words of the text. Benedict returns to this connection between the Word and words at several points in Verbum Domini. He fundamentally lays out that “Saint John’s proclamation that the Word became flesh reveals the inseparable bond between God’s word and the human words by which he communicates with us.”18 Though the words are necessary for the textual manifestation of the Word, they are still subordinate since they are signs. Benedict elucidates this distinction by using the Incarnation itself as a model, recalling the analogy drawn by the Fathers of the Church between the word of God which became “flesh” and the word which became a “book.” . . . Saint Ambrose says that “the body of the Son is the Scripture which we have received,” and declares that “the words of God, expressed in human language, are in every way like human speech, just as the word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the weak flesh of human beings, became like them.”19 The words of Scripture reveal the Word sensibly in the world and act like another Incarnation of Christ, though in a more limited sense.20 The reality of Scripture will always exceed the signs since “the word of God precedes and exceeds sacred Scripture.”21 Nonetheless, Christ provides the underlying unity and purpose of the Scripture. The whole of Scripture, “in the variety of its many forms and content,” can be seen “as a single reality” or a “ ‘single word,’ ” that of the Word.22 This analogy to the Incarnation is not simply an intellectual distinction. Just as Augustine declared the importance of love as the hermeneutic of 17 Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini §29, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I–II, q. 106, a. 2. 18 Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini §109. 19 Ibid., §18. 20 De Lubac speaks in a very similar way: “The two forms to the Word, abridged and expanded, are inseparable. Thus, the Book remains, what at the same time it passes over in its entirety into Jesus” (Scripture in the Tradition, trans. Luke O’Neill [New York: The Crossroad Publishing, Co., 2000], 193). 21 Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini §17. 22 Ibid., §18. The phrase “single word” is quoted from Catechism of the Catholic Church, §102. Benedict draws on Augustine to reinforce this point, using a quotation from his Ennarrationes in Psalmos, 103, 4.1. 338 R. Jared Staudt Scripture, so Benedict uses the incarnational dimension of Scripture to recognize in it a sacramental dimension. Christ not only manifests himself in the world through his body and the words of Scripture, but the two are united in their reception within the Church.23 The reality of the Scripture, found in Christ, is a living reality, and can be understood only in light of “the living Tradition of the Church which makes us adequately understand sacred Scripture as the word of God.”24 This “ecclesial hermeneutic” is required because, as St. Bernard relates, “Christianity is the ‘religion of the word of God,’ not of ‘a written and mute word, but of the incarnate and living Word.’ ”25 The Word becoming flesh is a “lived experience,” not only as Christ enters history, but also as he continually enters the Church through the liturgy.26 The liturgy gives the word its living context for in it “the faithful learn to savor the deep meaning of the word of God which unfolds . . . in the liturgy, revealing the fundamental mysteries of our faith. This is in turn the basis for a correct approach to sacred Scripture.”27 Scriptural interpretation cannot be individual or simply an intellectual study, but must be based in a loving communion with Christ so that the revealed mysteries of Scripture may be properly received.28 This previously mentioned analogy with the Incarnation, coupled with the need for a liturgical reception, culminates in relation to the Eucharist, which manifests “the sacramentality of the Word.”29 Benedict elaborates 23 Francis Martin points to the center of Benedict’s biblical hermeneutics in the following points: “(1) The subject of biblical interpretation is the Church, the Whole Christ; (2) Scripture is a privileged instrument of Divine Revelation, which means that it mediates supernatural knowledge to those who approach it with faith” (“Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI, on Biblical Interpretation: Two Leading Principles,” Nova et Vetera 5, no. 2 [2007]: 285). 24 Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, §17. Benedict emphasizes this so strongly that he states: “we can point to a fundamental criterion of biblical hermeneutics: the primary setting for scriptural interpretation is the life of the Church” (ibid., §29; italics in original). 25 Ibid., §7, quoting St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Homilia super missus est, 4.11. 26 Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini §11. 27 Ibid., §52. Earlier in the same section, Benedict quoted from Ordo Lectionum Missae, §4: “Indeed, ‘the liturgical celebration becomes the continuing, complete and effective presentation of God’s word.’ ” 28 Cf. Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini §29. 29 Ibid., §56. Jeremy Driscoll speaks further of this reality: “Sacramentality emerges as a necessary dimension because God’s revelation is communication with human, embodied beings. It is participation and this cannot be realized except through sacramental economy. This claim can be made because liturgy is actualization of the Word in the very assembly where it is proclaimed” ( Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B., “The Word of God in the Liturgy of the New Covenant,” Letter and Spirit 1 [2005]: 88; emphasis original). Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 339 on this point: “We come to see that at the heart of the sacramentality of the word of God is the mystery of the Incarnation itself: ‘the Word became flesh’ ( Jn 1:14), the reality of the revealed mystery is offered to us in the ‘flesh’ of the Son. The Word of God can be perceived by faith through the ‘sign’ of human words and actions.”30 The relation of the ‘signs’ of Scripture to their ultimate ‘reality’ in Christ operates in a pseudo sacramental fashion. These signs need to be accepted in faith so that we can receive their true meaning and respond to them by living in a loving relation with Christ. The words mediate the Word, who should be received in love.31 Benedict demonstrates the full import of the Augustinian distinction between the signs and their reality. Benedict himself points to Aquinas to introduce Augustine on this point in Verbum Domini. Augustine could have spoken for himself in the text, but the use of Aquinas points to the important role that this distinction plays in Aquinas’s theology as well. In treating sacred doctrine, God’s teaching which comes to us in Scripture, is received in faith, and more fully understood in theology, Aquinas makes clear the priority of God as the one true object, or reality, communicated, to which all the signs and symbols are subordinated: But in sacred science, all things are treated of under the aspect of God: either because they are God Himself or because they refer to God as their beginning and end. Hence it follows that God is in very truth the object of this science. This is clear also from the principles of this science, namely, the articles of faith, for faith is about God.The object of the principles and of the whole science must be the same, since the whole science is contained virtually in its principles. Some, however, looking to what is treated of in this science, and not to the aspect under which it is treated, have asserted the object of this science to be something other than God —that is, either things and signs; or the works of salvation; or the whole Christ, as the head and members. Of all these things, in truth, we treat in this science, but so far as they have reference to God.32 30 Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini §56. 31 Benedict makes this clear in speaking of the role of prayer in exegesis: “Therefore a participation in the mind of Jesus—that is, in his prayer, which as we have seen is an act of love, of self-giving and self-appropriation to men—is not some kind of pious supplement to reading the gospels, adding nothing to the knowledge of him or even being an obstacle to the rigorous purity of critical knowing. On the contrary, it is the basic precondition of real understanding, in the sense of modern hermeneutics—that is, the entering-in to the same time and the same meaning— is to take place” ( Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, “Seven Theses on Christology and the Hermeneutic of Faith,” Letter and Spirit 3 [2007]: 197). 32 ST I, q. 1, a. 7, c. Though the broadness of sacred doctrine can cause confusion, Aquinas makes the same claim to unity while specifying his reference to Scripture: “Therefore, because Sacred Scripture considers things precisely under the 340 R. Jared Staudt God reveals himself through sacred doctrine, which includes Scripture, making himself known through sensible things, signs, and events. These secondary things exist in revelation to point toward the one who is primarily known through their mediation. This knowledge or science, including the discipline of theology but not contained by it, ultimately stands upon God’s own knowledge of himself, which he is sharing with his creatures: “So it is that sacred doctrine is a science because it proceeds from principles established by the light of a higher science, namely, the science of God and the blessed.”33 Aquinas points toward the most highly exalted “reality” possible: the truth or reality of God’s revelation and Scripture is God’s own knowledge of himself. All of the manifold signs of the Bible mediate a participation in God’s life. The signs are necessary for two reasons. First, knowledge of God’s essence exceeds the capacity of human knowledge, particularly on earth where no one can see God “face to face.” Natural knowledge is not enough for supernatural beatitude. Rather, revelation is necessary, “because man is directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason.”34 Secondly, the very nature of human knowledge requires the use of sensory signs and images. Aquinas makes this clear when speaking of the existence of metaphors in the Bible: It is befitting Holy Writ to put forward divine and spiritual truths by means of comparisons with material things. For God provides for everything according to the capacity of its nature. Now it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible objects, because all our knowledge originates from sense.35 Although the reality of Scripture exceeds the “capacity” of nature, God reveals his infinite truth through finite limited signs. The infiniteness of this truth requires that they be accepted in faith: “Although those things which are beyond man’s knowledge may not be sought for by man through his reason, nevertheless, once they are revealed by God, they must be accepted by faith. Hence the sacred text continues, ‘For many things are shown to thee above the understanding of man’ (Sirach 3:25).”36 The signs used by God to reveal himself come to us as an formality of being divinely revealed, whatever has been divinely revealed possesses the one precise formality of the object of this science; and therefore is included under sacred doctrine as under one science” (ST I, q. 1, a. 3, c.). 33 ST I, q. 1, a. 2, c. 34 ST I, q. 1, a. 1, c. 35 ST I, q. 1, a. 9, c. 36 ST I, q. 1, a. 1, ad 1. Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 341 accommodation of his infinite truth; they point toward, and through faith participate in, the fullness of truth to come in the beatific vision. Benedict pointed to the centrality of Christ as Word of God in Verbum Domini.37 The theme of the “Word” is also, though more indirectly, crucial in scriptural interpretation for Aquinas. Our ability to appropriate the words of Scripture, which are a mediation of the Word of God, is based on the fact that our minds are themselves a participation in the Word. Aquinas makes this clear when speaking of the nature of the intellect, where Augustine is once again influential: “For the intellectual light itself which is in us, is nothing else than a participated likeness of the uncreated light.”38 The created intellect participates in the divine light, which, when commenting on John’s Gospel, Aquinas makes clear is the Word of God: The light of men can also be taken as a light in which we participate. For we would never be able to look upon the Word and light itself except through a participation in it; and this participation is in man and is the superior part of our soul, i.e., the intellectual light, about which the Psalm (4:7) says, “The light of your countenance, O Lord, is marked upon us,” i.e., of your Son, who is your face, by whom you are manifested.39 Though humanity naturally participates in the Word, this participation of the intellect (or humanity’s own interior word) in the Word also reinforces the primacy of the Word in revelation and Scripture. We can express an exterior word because of the interior word formed in the intellect. This is also a participation in the Word, who comes to earth as an exterior expression of himself, which is seen also in the exterior written words of Scripture. Drawing these things together, also commenting on John’s Gospel, Aquinas states: To understand the name Word we should note that according to the Philosopher [On Interpretation 16a3] vocal sounds are signs of the affections that exist in our soul. It is customary in Scripture for the things signified to be themselves called by the names of their signs, as in the statement, “And the rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:4). It is fitting that 37 The International Theological Commission affirms the primacy of the Word in theology: “A criterion of Catholic theology is recognition of the primacy of the Word of God. God speaks ‘in many and various ways’—in creation, through prophets and sages, through the holy Scriptures, and definitively through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh (cf. Heb 1:1–2)” (“Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles, and Criteria” [2012], §9). 38 ST I, q. 84, a. 5, c. Here Aquinas is reflecting on Augustine, Quaestiones 83, q. 46. 39 St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, trans. James A. Weisheipl, O.P. (Albany, NY: Magi Books Inc., 1980), vol. 1, no. 101. R. Jared Staudt 342 what is within our soul, and which is signified by our external word, be called a “word.”40 In Scripture, we find written words meant to express the Revelation of the Word of God and which are directed to humanity’s own interior word in reason (and which can also in turn be exteriorly expressed to others in preaching and teaching). In this multifaceted use of “word” we see the anthropological basis for a Christocentric exegesis. Christ is not only the center of Scripture’s meaning by his central role, but also permeates the very foundation of the communication and reception of the reality and meaning captured by and understood in the words as signs. Drawing upon the distinction of Augustine between signs and the reality which the signs transmit, we can see how for Benedict and Aquinas the words of Scripture, when received in faith, are meant to direct toward the reality of God, inviting the soul into a loving relationship begun in this life and completed in the next. The Primacy of Reality: The Multiple Literal Sense in Aquinas With this understanding of signum and res, it will be easier to understand Aquinas’s approach to scriptural interpretation, which focuses on receptivity to the meaning intended by God. This meaning, following Augustine, is the reality which the author, through the medium of words, seeks to convey.The words of Scripture can have both literal and figurative or spiritual meaning, which is a meaning based on and derived from the literal. Aquinas’s rich understanding of the literal sense of Scripture and authorial intention focuses on the infinite power of divine authorship. Aquinas holds the position that the literal sense can have multiple meanings and that these meanings could or could not have been known explicitly by the human author.41 In this he followed a previously established position 40 Ibid., no. 25. 41 Thomas explains this as follows: “Hence it is not inconceivable that Moses and the other authors of the Holy Books were given to know the various truths that men would discover in the text, and that they expressed them under one literary style, so that each truth is the sense intended by the author. And then even if commentators adapt certain truths to the sacred text that were not understood by the author, without doubt the Holy Spirit understood them, since he is the principal author of Holy Scripture. Consequently every truth that can be adapted to the sacred text without prejudice to the literal sense, is the sense of Holy Scripture” (Quaestiones disputatae de potentia, q. 4, a. 1, resp., trans. English Dominican Fathers, vol. 2 [London: Burns, Oates, and Washbourne, 1932]). For an overview of the multiple literal sense in Aquinas, see Mark F. Johnson, “Another Look at the Plurality of the Literal Sense,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 2 (1992): 117–41; Stephen E. Fowl, “The Importance of Multivoiced Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 343 and one that would be maintained by significant theologians until the rise of the historical critical method.42 This approach, while not dismissing the important role of signs, emphasizes the priority of the transcendent reality of the text coming from the divine author. The exposition of Aquinas’s position is significant in that it reveals the limitations placed on the literal sense in the modern context. First, we must examine what Aquinas means by the literal and figurative senses. In his Quodlibetal Questions, he states: “In sacred Scripture, the truth is manifested in two ways. In one way inasmuch as things are signified through words: and in this consists the literal sense. In another way inasmuch as things are figures of other things: and in this consists the spiritual sense.”43 Hence, Aquinas holds that the literal sense is rooted in the sense communicated by the words of Scripture; the spiritual sense arises insofar as the words give figures that are meant to point to something other than themselves. John Boyle summarizes the two senses in Aquinas as follows: Thomas’s “own understanding of human intelligence is that words as sounds are sounds of mental words—what we might call concepts and ideas—which themselves have some referent in reality. To know the literal sense is to know the reality intended by the author and signified by those words”; “the spiritual sense is concerned with what Literal Sense of Scripture: The Example of Thomas Aquinas,” in A. K. M. Adam, Stephen E. Fowl, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Francis Watson, Reading Scripture with the Church:Toward a Hermeneutic for Theological Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 35–50. Johnson points out that many Thomistic commentators have rejected that he actually held the position of the multiple literal sense. Johnson, therefore, walks the reader through all of the major passages where Aquinas clearly lays out the position. Johnson affirms that “the texts state clearly a doctrine of plurality,” and that “Thomas’s teaching on what the literal sense of Scripture is remains constant throughout his teaching career” (118; 119). 42 See the Catholic Encyclopedia for a list of the many adherents to a multiple literal sense, Anthony Maas, “Biblical Exegesis,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909). 43 St. Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones quodlibetales, ed. Raymond Spiazzi (Turin: Marietti, 1956), VII, q. 6, a. 1, resp. This is not to say that the words of Scripture do not literally make use of images or what Aquinas calls “imaginary similitudes” (ibid., a. 2, ad 1). It is very important to note that “within his understanding of the literal sense, Thomas includes metaphor. Indeed, any device used in Scripture, in so far as it is common to other literary texts, is a matter of the literal sense. So, for example, Thomas notes that Christ’s sitting on the right hand of God is to be understood metaphorically, since God has no right hand, but the metaphorical meaning (the power of God) is the literal meaning as it is the thing, the reality, ultimately signified by the words” ( John Boyle, “St. Thomas Aquinas and Sacred Scripture,” Pro Ecclesia 4 [1995]: 95–96). 344 R. Jared Staudt those things, signified by the words, in turn signify. . . . [A]ctual persons, events, and things in turn signify something else.”44 The meaning from the thing or reality directly conveyed by the words is the literal sense, while another meaning derived from those things beyond the direct statement of the words is the figurative sense. In examining the meaning of the words, Aquinas gives priority to the reality conveyed by God as the primary author of Scripture. Because God is an omnipotent author, Aquinas stresses the richness and depth of the meaning, which can be understood diversely, even in the literal sense. Thomas explains this in the De potentia: “It is part of the dignity of Holy Writ that under the one literal sense many others are contained. It is thus that the sacred text . . . adapts itself to man’s various intelligence, so that each one marvels to find his thoughts expressed in the words of Holy Writ.”45 Boyle explains Aquinas’s position as follows: “Thomas has a fine sense of human authorship in the writing of Scripture; but he never loses sight of his theological first principles, one of which is that God is the author of Scripture.”46 Though the two authorships are not opposed, Thomas’s exegesis prioritizes the principal authorship of God, which works through the human author as its instrument. Drawing upon the efficacy of God’s authorship, Aquinas notes that the literal sense itself, based on the words of the text, can have multiple meanings. Sometimes a passage may be interpreted allegorically, which is part of the spiritual or figurative sense, when the words indicate a thing in the Old Testament, which then can be extended to include a reference to Christ. An example of this would be the paschal lamb.47 This is because the words point to the lamb, as a thing, which then points to a thing beyond itself. If the words of the Old Testament themselves speak of Christ, such as in a direct prophecy, this would be part of the literal sense.48 Thomas saw in the denial that the Old Testament speaks literally of 44 Boyle, “St. Thomas Aquinas and Sacred Scripture,” 95; 97. 45 Aquinas, De potentia, q. 4, a. 1. 46 John Boyle, “Authorial Intention and Divisio textus,” in Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas:Theological Exegesis and Speculative Theology,” ed. Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering (Washington, DC:The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 6. 47 Boyle explains that “thus, for example, that lamb sacrifice at Passover signifies Christ. This is not to deny the truth and reality of the Passover lamb; indeed, it presupposes it. The word ‘lamb’ does not stand metaphorically for Christ; the actual lamb of the Passover (signified by the word) is the sign of Christ” (Boyle, “St. Thomas Aquinas and Sacred Scripture,” 97–98). 48 Once again, see the Catholic Encyclopedia for examples, Maas, “Biblical Interpretation.” Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 345 Christ, at least in relation to certain passages, the heretical position of Theodore of Mopsuestia.49 Theodore’s condemnation is evidence that the spiritual sense is not sufficient for an interpretation of Christ in the Old Testament (a position that Benedict affirms as well).50 While the allegorical sense, referring to Christ, may be the literal sense in certain passages of the Old Testament, Aquinas also explains further the basis for the related position of a multiple literal sense in the Quodlibetal Questions, where he states: It must be said that the principal author of Sacred Scripture is the Holy Spirit, who in one word of Sacred Scripture knows many more things than are interpreted or discerned by interpreters of Sacred Scripture. Neither also is it unfitting that man, who is the instrumental author of Sacred Scripture, would understand many things in one word: because the prophets, as Jerome comments on Hosea, thus spoke about present deeds, even though they intended to signify future things. From this, it 49 In his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, he states: “Another error was that of Theodore [of Mopsuestia] who said that nothing in the Old Testament is said literally of Christ” (Super Evangelium s. Matthaei lectura, c. 1, lect. 5, ed. R. Cai [Turin: Marietti, 1951], 21, quoted in Boyle, “St. Thomas Aquinas and Sacred Scripture,” 98n20). Aquinas offers Christ’s statement in Luke about the Scriptures referring to himself (24:27) as the authority for his position and gives two examples of Old Testament passages, which literally point toward Christ: Isaiah 7:14 and Psalm 21:10. He comments: “If someone should posit some other literal sense, he would be a heretic, for that heresy [of Theodore] has been condemned” (ibid.). The Second Council of Constantinople says of Theodore: “For the prophecies concerning Christ he rejected and hastened to destroy, so far as he had the power, the great mystery of the dispensation for our salvation; attempting in many ways to show the divine words to be nothing but fables” (“Second Council of Constantinople” in NPNF vol. 14, Sentence of the Synod). Although it is true that Theodore largely rejected literal prophecy of Christ in the Old Testament, Harry Pappas points out there are a few exceptions. See Harry S. Pappas, “Theodore of Mopsuestia’s Commentary on Psalm 44 (LXX): A Study of Exegesis and Christology,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 47 (2002): 56–57. Despite exceptions, Theodore still stands as an example of a rejection of what Aquinas understands to be the true nature of the literal sense in relation to Christ in the Old Testament. 50 Benedict affirms the importance of literal reference to Christ in the Old Testament as follows: “The Old Testament contains some passages that are still ‘stray.’ Marius Reiser cites Is 53, as an example. . . . The same applies, as we shall see, to Is 7:14. This is another of the passages that, at the time of writing, were still waiting for the figure to whom they refer. One of the characteristics of early Christian narrative is that it provides these ‘waiting words’ with their ‘owner’ ” ( Joseph Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI], Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 3, The Infancy Narratives, trans. Philip J. Whitmore [New York: Image Books, 2012], 17). 346 R. Jared Staudt is not impossible to understand many things at once, inasmuch as one thing is the figure of many things.51 Thomas makes two things clear here. God can intend more than one thing by the words of Scripture. It is also true that human authors can do so, in an ordinary sense, but also in a prophetic one (knowing the multiple meanings that God intends). This is important in demonstrating that the multiple literal sense, though based on God’s primary authorship, can also extend to the human author.52 Secondly, the divine authorship of Scripture places the text of Scripture beyond the complete grasp of the reader. It will always contain a sense of mystery that places it beyond an exhaustive interpretation, which would subordinate it too much to the human mind. Boyle further explains the reasoning behind Thomas’s articulation of the need for a fuller understanding of the literal sense. For Thomas, the purpose of Scripture is to make known those truths necessary for salvation. Scripture is ordered to an end.The divine intention is to bring the rational creature into union with Himself, but as always in ways that are accommodated to the reality of that creature. Are not the manifold meanings of that letter in fact fitting given the divine intention of Scripture as communicating the truth requisite for eternal beatitude with God.53 51 Aquinas, Quaestiones quodlibetales, VII, q. 6, a. 1, ad 5. 52 The multiple literal sense does not have to extend to the human author, but it may do so. Mark Johnson emphasizes the unity of the two authors, much more than Boyle does. Johnson states: “Granted the possibility of deficiency of the human author’s knowledge, it can still happen that the Holy Spirit should so inspire the human author that the human author would know the many true things that are contained virtually in his words, and thus intend to pass on any of those truths by the word or words he employed. And while it may or may not be the case that the human author understands the total virtuality of his words, it is clear that the Holy Spirit first understood the total virtuality that the words contain, and to that extent the Spirit wills all truthful predication by expositions of sacred Scripture that fits the words used” (“Another Look at the Plurality of the Literal Sense,” 130). While Johnson concedes that the Spirit alone may know the fullness even of the literal sense, he makes clear that the role of the human author is an important distinction between the literal and spiritual sense: “The medium of words makes the literal sense different from the spiritual senses, since in the spiritual senses the medium of meaning is through the things signified by the words of Scripture and is intended by the Holy Spirit alone, whereas in the literal sense the medium of meaning is the words alone, intended both by the human author and the Holy Spirit” (ibid., 119). 53 Boyle, “Authorial Intention,” 6. Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 347 Scripture acts in a sacramental fashion; its signs are intended to lead the reader into union with the realities described.Thus, the meaning that God intends to convey is fittingly communicated through the medium of words and images due to the fact that human nature comprises a bodysoul unity. Aquinas explains that “God provides for everything according to the capacity of its nature. Now it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible objects, because all our knowledge originates from sense. Hence in Holy Writ, spiritual truths are fittingly taught under the likeness of material things.”54 Thus, Aquinas reinforces Augustine’s understanding of the purpose of the signs of Scripture; they are to point beyond themselves and initiate union with the reality signified. One could respond to Aquinas’s position on literal sense with Augustine’s warning against the person who “takes up rashly a meaning which the author whom he is reading did not intend, [who] often falls in with other statements which he cannot harmonize with this meaning.”55 How does Aquinas differentiate what is and is not in accord with the meaning as intended by the divine author? Boyle lays out two “negative principles” that Aquinas employs in the De potentia to govern interpretation: “First, one ought not to assert something false to be found in Scripture, especially what would contradict the faith; and second, one ought not to insist upon one’s own interpretation to the exclusion of other interpretations which in their content are true and in which what Thomas calls ‘the circumstance of the letter’ are preserved.”56 In his principles for interpretation, Aquinas prioritizes Scripture’s purpose in conveying the truth necessary for salvation and the humility with which Scripture must be approached. One must have a position of receptivity to what the Scriptures are communicating about the reality of God, rather than trying to insist on one’s own interpretation of 54 ST I, q. 1, a. 9, c. 55 Augustine, On Christian Teaching, 1.37. In a statement very apropos for today, Augustine even warns of the danger that can threaten one’s faith when the authority of Scripture is called into question by seeming contradictions and ambiguities: “Now faith will totter if the authority of Scripture begins to shake. And then, if faith totters, love itself will grow cold. For if a man has fallen from faith, he must necessarily also fall from love; for he cannot love what he does not believe to exist. But if he both believes and loves, then through good works, and through diligent attention to the precepts of morality, he comes to hope also that he shall attain the object of his love. And so these are the three things to which all knowledge and all prophecy are subservient: faith, hope, love” (ibid.). 56 Boyle, “Authorial Intention,” 4, quoting De potentia, q. 4, a. 1. It is important to note Aquinas’s articulation of the literal sense as the foundation for all interpretation. Cf. ST I, q. 1, a. 10. 348 R. Jared Staudt particulars, which can never fully be ascertained.57 Signs are important, but they must be subordinated to the reality (or thing in itself), and this reality transcends the confines of any sign.58 The continuing relevance of Aquinas’s position ultimately comes down to his focus on the power of God’s divine authorship, the source and object of the reality that the words convey.59 A strong affirmation of God’s authorship is necessary to ensure that the primacy of Scripture’s meaning is ultimately rooted in the transcendent Word of God. Aquinas’s position further indicates that the literal sense should not be confined simply to the human author’s intention, which would need to be ascertained historically. Rather, he affirms the primacy of God’s authorship, which includes the human author’s intentions but can also exceed them. From this perspective, sometimes what today would be called the spiritual sense may actually be part of the literal sense. The spiritual sense that is derived from the literal would rely more on the ability of the reader to draw out connections and applications from the literal sense, but this spiritual interpretation, though significant, would not have the same theological weight for Aquinas.60 Indeed, he makes clear that theological argument must be based on the literal sense: “Thus in Holy Writ no 57 Cf. Boyle, “Authorial Intention,” 4–5, especially his note on the difficulty of ascertaining the human author’s intention. 58 Cf. Augustine, On Christian Teaching,1.6. 59 It is important to note that the Pontifical Biblical Commission, under the presi- dency of Joseph Ratzinger, affirmed the importance of the multiple literal sense: Does a text have only one literal sense? In general, yes; but there is no question here of a hard and fast rule, and this for two reasons. First, a human author can intend to refer at one and the same time to more than one level of reality. This is in fact normally the case with regard to poetry. Biblical inspiration does not reject this capacity of human psychology and language; the fourth Gospel offers numerous examples of it. Second, even when a human utterance appears to have only one meaning, divine inspiration can guide the expression in such way as to create more than one meaning. This is the case with the saying of Caiaphas in John 11:50: “At one and the same time it expresses both an immoral political ploy and a divine revelation. The two aspects belong, both of them, to the literal sense, for they are both made clear by the context. Although this example may be extreme, it remains significant, providing a warning against adopting too narrow a conception of the inspired text’s literal sense” (“The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” [March 18, 1984], II, 2, B). For commentary on the document, see Paul M. Blowers, Jon D. Levenson, and Robert L. Wilken, “Interpreting the Bible: Three Views,” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion & Public Life 45 (Aug/Sep 1994): 40–46. 60 Pope Pius XII asserts, in reference to the spiritual sense, that “it should, however, never be forgotten that this use of the Sacred Scripture is, as it were, extrinsic to it and accidental” (Divino Afflante Spiritu [1943], §27). Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 349 confusion results, for all the senses are founded on one—the literal—from which alone can any argument be drawn, and not from those intended in allegory, as Augustine says (Epis. 48). Nevertheless, nothing of Holy Scripture perishes on account of this, since nothing necessary to faith is contained under the spiritual sense which is not elsewhere put forward by the Scripture in its literal sense.”61 It is precisely this focus on the primacy of the literal sense that makes Aquinas important for contemporary scholarship, which focuses almost exclusively upon it. Aquinas can also serve as a corrective to modern exegesis through his insistence that the literal sense is the means by which God communicates his theological teaching. These points enable Benedict to appropriate Aquinas’s teaching on Scripture within his own thought. The Necessity of Signs: The Unity of Old and New Approaches in Benedict Benedict strongly validates traditional interpretation as important in reaching the meaning of the text. This theological approach is not enough, however, unless it also recognizes the complexity of the signs and their historical rootedness. This drawing together of the old and the new gives more assurance to the modern exegete of not venturing too far astray from the “circumstances of the text,” which even Aquinas held to be important. This drawing together of old and new, which is a hallmark of Benedict’s methodology, is also profoundly Christological. The Word of God is not simply a transcendent reality, but one that has become flesh, or, in terms of Scripture, is expressed in historical, human words. This emphasis leads Benedict to a twofold approach that is at once old and new, and that uses both methods to understand the meaning of the Word. In his third volume of Jesus of Nazareth, which he describes as a “small ‘antechamber’ to the two earlier volumes,” he clearly lays out this vision: 61 ST I, q. 1, a. 10, ad 1. Johnson, “Another Look at the Plurality of the Literal Sense,” raises the question that “a doctrine of plurality [in the literal sense] would seem to call into question the dependability of theology’s argumentative basis in the literal sense of Scripture” (120). Rather than doing so, however, the reflections on the multiple literal sense in his Parisian Commentary on the Sentences and in the De potentia are actually occasioned by a discussion of how both Augustine’s and the Greek Fathers’ accounts of Creation, though they are seemingly contradictory, can validly interpret the literal sense of Scripture since they legitimately and diversely hit on various aspects of the meaning of the text. Therefore, the multiple literal sense “becomes an instrument used to explain that a legitimate diversity in theological understanding could well be the intention of the Holy Spirit and even of the Spirit’s instrument, the human author of Scripture” (ibid., 141). R. Jared Staudt 350 I am convinced that good exegesis involves two stages. Firstly one has to ask what the respective authors intended to convey through their text in their own day—the historical component of exegesis. But is not sufficient to leave the text in the past and thus relegate it to history. The second question posed by good exegesis must be: is what I read here true? . . . With a text like the Bible, whose ultimate and fundamental author, according to our faith, is God himself, the question regarding the here and now of things past is undeniably included in the task of exegesis. The seriousness of the historical quest is in no way diminished by this: on the contrary, it is enhanced.62 This twofold vision seeks to create a “conversation, drawing in the past, the present and the future” regarding the meaning of the text.63 In bringing together of old and new, Benedict clarifies the importance of traditional methodology in this conversation. He does so in Verbum Domini by quoting Aquinas’s own position on the foundational role of the literal sense: “Saint Thomas Aquinas . . . states that ‘all the senses of sacred Scripture are based on the literal sense.’ ”64 Benedict wants to ensure that patristic and medieval interpretations are not seen as undercutting the literal sense, but also that the literal sense is not locked into modern conceptions of the term. The literal sense itself needs to be focused on the meaning of the text. Quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Benedict outlines this focus on meaning in the tradition: “While obviously lacking the philological and historical resources at the disposal of modern exegesis, the patristic and mediaeval tradition could recognize the different senses of Scripture, beginning with the literal sense, namely, ‘the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation.’ ”65 Benedict clarifies the traditional exegetical position further, first of all, by affirming that the traditional method sought the proper intention of the text:“In a word, while acknowledging the validity and necessity, as well as the limits, of the historical-critical method, we learn from the Fathers that exegesis ‘is truly faithful to the proper intention of biblical texts when it goes not only to the heart of their formulation to find the reality of faith there expressed, but also seeks to link this reality to the experience of faith in our present world.’ ”66 Tradi62 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 3, xi. 63 Ibid., xii. 64 Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini §37, quoting ST I, q. 1, a. 10, ad 1. 65 Ibid., quoting CCC §116. 66 Ibid., quoting Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (15 April 1993), II, A, 2. For more on Benedict in relation to the Fathers, see William M. Wright IV, “Patristic Biblical Hermeneutics in Joseph Ratzinger’s Jesus of Nazareth,” Letter & Spirit 7 (2011): 191–207. Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 351 tional methodology approaches the text in faith to gain access to the revelatory meaning intended by God. The meaning of Scripture is approached properly with the disposition of faith, because it is only in faith that one comes into contact with the reality of the text in communion with God. Benedict defines more precisely the meaning of the spiritual sense in light of this approach: The Pontifical Biblical Commission’s definition of the spiritual sense, as understood by Christian faith, remains fully valid: it is “the meaning expressed by biblical texts when read, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, in the context of the paschal mystery of Christ and of the new life which flows from it. This context truly exists. In it the New Testament recognizes the fulfillment of the Scriptures. It is therefore quite acceptable to re-read the Scriptures in light of this new context, which is that of life in the Spirit.”67 The meaning of the text cannot be confined solely to the literal, though it must presuppose it. The Christian is able to read more deeply with divine assistance. Ultimately, the two meanings, literal and spiritual, cannot be separated, because of “the unity and interrelation between the literal sense and the spiritual sense.”68 This unity was so strong that “in patristic and medieval times every form of exegesis, including the literal form, was carried out on the basis of faith, without there necessarily being any distinction between the literal sense and the spiritual sense.”69 Scripture is the Word of God and its dynamism cannot be reduced to or contained in exegesis. Benedict, therefore, strongly asserts the need for the unity of this multifaceted approach. If one simply stops at the literal, the letter, than one will not truly grasp the meaning of the text: In rediscovering the interplay between the different senses of Scripture it thus becomes essential to grasp the passage from letter to spirit. This is not an automatic, spontaneous passage; rather, the letter needs to be transcended: “the word of God can never simply be equated with the letter of the text. To attain to it involves a progression and a process of understanding guided by the inner movement of the whole corpus, and hence it also has to become a vital process.”70 67 Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini §37, quoting Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (15 April 1993), II, B, 2. 68 Ibid.; emphasis original. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid., §38, quoting Benedict XVI, Address to Representatives of the World of Culture at the “Collège des Bernardins” in Paris (12 September 2008). 352 R. Jared Staudt In transcending the letter, Benedict states that “the goal to which we are necessarily progressing is the one Word,” whose Spirit gives life to one’s reading and interpretation.71 As an example of this liberation, Benedict points toward Augustine. For him, “transcending the literal sense made the letter itself credible, and enabled him to find at last the answer to his deep inner restlessness and his thirst for truth.”72 Augustine not only points to the need to transcend the signs and come to the reality, but his life provides an example of the power of this progression toward the Word. The unity of Scripture in Christ can be seen especially in typology. Benedict notes that for the Christian, the Bible is the “one book of Christ,” because “the person of Christ gives unity to all the ‘Scriptures’ in relation to the one ‘Word.’ ”73 While this “Christological interpretation” is absolutely essential to a proper reading of Scripture, Benedict also wants to make sure that this does not destroy the historical context of the Old Testament. Both the original context and the typological can be held in balance as the proper meaning. Benedict states that “while the typological interpretation manifests the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament from the standpoint of the New, we must not forget that the Old Testament retains its own inherent value as revelation.”74 Typology can be seen as central to the meaning of the text without having to excuse the historical foundation. Diverse meaning can be held together in the unity of the Word, who unites all the words into a coherent whole that teaches the truth of God. Drawing together diversity into a unity is important also for engaging and incorporating the modern approach. Benedict wants this more traditional method to be used in conjunction with the fruits of modern exegetical methods. The basis for this unity is Christ, the foundation of the hermeneutic of faith, “which does not violate the historical record but reveals its truth and is open to every genuine truth. The unity of the person of Jesus, embracing man and God, prefigures that synthesis of man and world to which theology is meant to minister.”75 The theological unity of exegesis, drawing the new and the old, follows from the same Augustinian foundation seen above. Christ as the Word draws all truth together in himself. The focus on the Word is not simply timeless, but must entail attention to history, because the Word has become Incarnate. This reveals a limit to 71 Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini §38. 72 Ibid., §38. 73 Ibid., §39. 74 Ibid., §41. 75 Ratzinger, “Seven Theses on Christology and the Hermeneutic of Faith,” 209. Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 353 the traditional method of Scripture, which may emphasize the theological reality at the expense of the historical instantiation in which it is revealed. The historical dimension of Scripture is essential and impacts the faith itself. Benedict makes this clear by stating that “the idea that faith, as such, knows nothing about historical facts and must be given over to historians is gnostic because it eviscerates the faith and turns it into a mere idea. For biblical faith, however, the realism of biblical events is essential and constitutive. A God who cannot intervene and show himself in history is not the God of the Bible.”76 Along with completely affirming the enduring importance of traditional exegesis, this emphasis on the historical rounds out exegetical method, enabling theology to be more incarnate in history. Benedict’s articulation of the need for this unity of the old and new is seen most clearly in his Erasmus Lecture, “Biblical Interpretation in Conflict: On the Foundations and the Itinerary for Exegesis Today.”77 When it comes time to offer his “Basic Elements of a New Synthesis,” Aquinas is referenced in three places and receives significant attention. Benedict indicates that his philosophical realism, teleological understanding, and his focus on the sense of Scripture provide a “counter model,” to the worldview behind methodologies focused primarily on signs that cannot point to anything beyond themselves (especially on the metaphysical level).78 Benedict does not simply advocate returning to more traditional methods of biblical interpretation, but that the traditional attention to the unity of Scripture in the “central event of Christ,” must be paired with a restoration of texts “to their historical locus and interpreted in their historical context.”79 Though he notes that the absence of this historical grounding can lead to “caprice,” he also notes that a “methodological arbitrariness” enters in if the meaning of the text is left behind.80 The meaning of the biblical text is being lost today in the overemphasis on the historical, which is why he notes that turning back to Aquinas can be helpful. He states: To discover how each given historical word intrinsically transcends itself, and thus to recognize the intrinsic rightness of the rereading by 76 Joseph Ratzinger, “100 Years: The Magisterium and Exegesis,” Theology Digest 51, no. 1 (2004): 3–8. 77 Joseph Ratzinger, “Biblical Interpretation in Conflict: On the Foundations and the Itinerary for Exegesis Today,” in Opening Up the Scriptures: Joseph Ratzinger and the Foundations of Biblical Interpretation, ed. José Granados, Carlos Granados, and Luis Sánchez-Navarro (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008). 78 Cf. ibid., 24. 79 Ibid., 25. 80 Ibid. 26. R. Jared Staudt 354 which the Bible progressively interweaves event and sense, is one of the tasks of objective interpretation. It is a task for which suitable methods can and must be found. In this sense, the exegetical maxim of Thomas Aquinas is very much to the point: ‘The task of the good interpreter is not to consider words, but sense.’81 While noting, of course, the need to take into account modern methods as a complement, Benedict clearly aligns himself with the goal of Thomas’s exegesis, which is centered on understanding the things conveyed by God in Scripture by the use of signs. The use of St. Thomas by Benedict can be seen within Verbum Domini. Benedict explicitly refers to and quotes the Fathers roughly thirty times and the scholastics ten times, three of which are to Aquinas. In pursing what Pope John Paul II calls a “more comprehensive exegesis,”82 Benedict in particular points toward the need for an appreciation for the harmony of faith and reason and nature and grace.83 Christ as the Word is the basis for this unity, because “we can contemplate the profound unity in Christ between creation, the new creation and salvation history.”84 The knowledge of creation, as could be seen as emphasized in modern methodologies, should not be seen in opposition of the realities at the heart of the Word of God. Both should be seen within the context of realism, which for Benedict is found “recogniz[ing] in the word of God the foundation of all things.”85 Aquinas is helpful in this regard and is referred to in relation to the natural law, which Benedict sees are reinforced by Scripture and also fulfilled most profoundly in the new law of Christ.86 The realism 81 Ibid., quoting Aquinas, In Matthaeum XXVII, n. 2321, ed. R. Cai, 358. 82 Pope Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini §36, quoting Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998), §55. 83 Benedict states on this point: “In applying methods of historical analysis, no crite- ria should be adopted which would rule out in advance God’s self-disclosure in human history. The unity of the two levels at work in the interpretation of sacred Scripture presupposes, in a word, the harmony of faith and reason. . . . In any case, the religion of the incarnate Logos can hardly fail to appear profoundly reasonable to anyone who sincerely seeks the truth and the ultimate meaning of his or her own life and history” (Verbum Domini §36; italics original). 84 Ibid., §13. 85 Ibid., §10. The foundation of understanding creation through the Word is reinforced by a reference to St. Bonaventure: “The tradition of Christian thought has developed this key element of symphony with the word, as when, for example, Saint Bonaventure, who in the great tradition of the Greek Fathers sees all the possibilities of creation present in the Logos, states that ‘every creature is a word of God, since it proclaims God’ ” (ibid., §8, quoting St. Bonaventure, Itinerarium mentis in Deum, II, 12). 86 Ibid., §9. Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 355 of Aquinas and the relation of nature and grace found in his thought reinforce Benedict’s comprehensive exegesis. In drawing together the old and the new approaches of exegesis in the comprehensive and ecclesial approach it is important to avoid “the serious risk nowadays of a dualistic approach to sacred Scripture.”87 Such dualism would completely undermine the unity of the natural and supernatural in the Word that comes together in Scripture. Rather than accepting a dichotomy between modern exegesis and the theological dimensions of the text, Benedict thinks they can “exist only in reciprocity.”88 While Benedict criticizes those who assert that the Bible is “a text belonging only to the past” and who impose on it “a positivistic and secularized hermeneutic,” he also criticizes a theology that overspiritualizes the text and thus “would fail to respect the historical character of revelation.”89 Benedict, thus, coherently defends an exegesis which is not simply based on the eternal and transcendent Word of God but which understands that the Word has taken flesh and is the truth of the world. This holds together the spiritual and the historical in a bond of unity. Benedict and Aquinas on Christ’s Baptism In this last section, I will now explore more concretely the connections between Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth and Aquinas’s treatment of the life of Christ in the Summa, using one particular example: Christ’s Baptism in the Jordan. Benedict treats the Baptism of Jesus in the first chapter of the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth, and Aquinas treats the Baptism in questions 38 and 39 of the tertia pars of the Summa theologiae. The structures of the treatises are very distinct, as would be expected, but the treatises hit on many of the same themes. Aquinas’s structure is very easy to determine using the fourteen articles into which the two questions are divided: The first six articles focus on the baptism of John (the Baptist), which, as a necessary precursor to Christ’s Baptism, was meant to prepare for it by teaching, introducing the rite, and initiating penance. This baptism did not convey grace, but served as a temporary sign pointing toward the reality to come. The next eight articles of the Summa theologiae address Christ’s Baptism at the hands of John, focusing on the fittingness of Christ’s baptism and the particulars through which it occurred. Benedict, on the other hand, begins by linking the baptism of Christ to the genealogies presented by Matthew and Luke. Luke in particular, he says, sees the genealogy and other historical indicators in connection with 87 Ibid., §35. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. 356 R. Jared Staudt the Baptism and uses it to provide backdrop to Jesus’s mission.90 This immediately gives the treatment more historical grounding. Benedict also treats the baptism of John and its significance, and then turns to the soteriological importance of Jesus’ Baptism; like Aquinas, he treats the surrounding particulars of the event, such as the Father’s voice and the dove descending. It is important to emphasize that neither Aquinas nor Benedict intends, in these two works, to write a strict biblical commentary. The Summa is a work of systematic theology, whereas Benedict’s work is a theological reflection on the life of Christ using the Gospels as his framework. The section on the life of Christ in the Summa is similar to Jesus of Nazareth inasmuch as they both seek to elucidate the theological significance of Christ’s life by reflecting on central mysteries that point to the res of his identity. For both Benedict and Aquinas, the key realities revealed in the Baptism of Christ are the introduction of baptism itself, the manifestation of salvation, and the revelation of the Holy Trinity. The first reality revealed in the baptism of Christ is the nature of baptism itself. To illustrate this truth, let us turn to the baptism of John, which is linked to the introduction of baptism. Both Benedict and Aquinas see that John’s baptism serves as an essential forerunner to Christian baptism inasmuch as it introduces the sacramental sign, that is, the matter of baptism, and also introduces the interior disposition needed for its reception. In the same passage in which Aquinas identifies the purpose of John’s baptism, he also clearly distinguishes it from Christian baptism: “The baptism of John did not confer grace, but only prepared the way for grace; and this in three ways: first, by John’s teaching, which led men to faith in Christ; secondly, by accustoming men to the rite of Christ’s baptism; thirdly, by penance, preparing men to receive the effect of Christ’s baptism.”91 According to Aquinas, John’s mission consisted of pointing the way to Christ, introducing the method of baptism, and bringing about the proper penitential disposition in the recipient. Benedict too affirms these three points. In regard to teaching, Benedict states that John’s baptism “is connected with an ardent call to a new way of thinking and acting, but above all with the proclamation of God’s judgment and with the announcement that one greater than John is to come.”92 Hence, as Aquinas also asserted, John’s teaching is ordered toward belief in Christ. Secondly, Benedict affirms that John introduced 90 Cf. Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, 10. 91 Thomas Aquinas, ST I–II, q. 38, a. 3, c. 92 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, 14. Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 357 a new kind of rite, which Benedict even describes as “something completely new,” insofar as “the Baptism that he [John] enjoined is different from the usual religious ablutions. . . . [I]t is meant to be the concrete enactment of a conversion that gives the whole of life a new direction forever.”93 Thus, as Benedict explains, John’s baptism was not a simple ceremonial washing but a forerunner to true baptism inasmuch as it was meant to mark an abiding conversion. Finally, John’s baptism is focused on penance, which fact reinforces the second point relating to conversion: “John’s baptism includes the confession of sins. . . . The goal is truly to leave behind the sinful life one has led until now and to start out on the path to a new, changed life.”94 Both Benedict and Aquinas agree that the baptism of John was intended essentially to prepare for Christ by word, action, and interior effect. Although Thomas focuses more on the transitory nature of the action and Benedict on the fittingness of water (which Aquinas saves for his treatment of baptism as a sacrament), together they see the theological significance of John and his baptism in relation to Christ. The second reality revealed in the Baptism of Christ to which Benedict and Aquinas point is the manifestation of salvation. Aquinas and Benedict both begin the discussion of Christ’s Baptism by asking whether it is fitting for Christ to be baptized, or, as Benedict puts it, “Is that something he could do?”95 This question highlights the drama of the moment—Christ undertook something that was not necessary for him but that symbolized his mission to take on the burden of sin by plunging the old man into the waters of death to raise him up in a new life. Both Benedict and Aquinas call upon the Fathers to attest to this reality. For example, the responses to Aquinas’s first two articles of the question on Christ’s Baptism consist almost completely of quotations from the Fathers. One pertinent example is from Gregory Nazianzen: “ ‘Christ was baptized that he might plunge the old Adam entirely in the water.’ ”96 Benedict likewise quotes John Chrysostom: “ ‘Going down into the water and emerging again are the image of descent into hell and the Resurrection.’ ”97 After considering the Fathers, Benedict specifically asks: has “this ecclesiastical interpretation of Jesus’ Baptism taken us too far away from the Bible?”98 Rather than backing down from this ecclesiastical interpretation, Benedict reinforces it with a liturgical and 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid., 15. 95 Ibid., 16. 96 ST I–II, q. 39, a. 1, c, quoting Gregory Naziazen, Orations, 39. 97 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, 19, quoting John Chrysostom; citation not given. 98 Ibid., 20. R. Jared Staudt 358 scriptural reflection on the significance of Christ as the Lamb of God; Benedict’s interpretation is supported in turn by Aquinas in his commentary on John’s Gospel.99 Although Aquinas gives more reasons than does Benedict for Christ’s baptism and Benedict dwells longer upon the soteriological import than does Aquinas, nevertheless they share a common vision of Christ’s Baptism, as elucidated by the Fathers, represents the destruction of sin and the restoration of life, symbolized by water in both cases. The third reality revealed in the Baptism of Christ to which Benedict and Aquinas point is the emergence of the Trinity within the biblical scene. Both Benedict and Aquinas turn to the events surrounding the Baptism to establish its Trinitarian context: the heavens are torn open, a voice speaks, and a dove descends. Benedict expounds on these events: I would like to point out that in this scene, together with the Son, we encounter the Father and the Holy Spirit. The mystery of the Trinitarian God is beginning to emerge, even though its depths can be fully revealed only when Jesus’ journey is complete. For this very reason, though, there is an arc joining this beginning of Jesus’ journey and the words with which he sends his disciples into the world after his Resurrection: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19).100 Though we do not have a clear explanation in the scriptural text, the reality of the Trinity is manifested in the passage and further elucidated as the scriptural narrative unfolds. Benedict introduces this point on the Trinity by first speaking of the Father’s voice, which is also the occasion Aquinas uses for discussing the Trinity in relation to the baptism. Turning again to the Fathers, Aquinas quotes St. Jerome’s commentary on Matthew 3:16–17: ‘The mystery of the Trinity is shown forth in Christ’s baptism. Our Lord Himself is baptized in His human nature; the Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove: the Father’s voice is heard bearing witness to the Son.”101 Aquinas also elaborates specifically upon the Trinitarian significance of the Father’s voice, explaining: “Since it is proper to the Father to produce the Word—that is, to utter or to speak—therefore it was most becoming that the Father should be manifested by a voice, because the voice designates the word. Wherefore the very voice to which the Father gave utterance bore witness to the Sonship of the Word.”102 In reference to the Holy Spirit, Aquinas gives four reasons for the Spirit’s appearance as a dove— 99 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, vol. 1, nos. 255–59. 100 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, 23. 101 ST I–II, q. 39, a. 8, c. 102 ST I–II, q. 39, a. 8, ad 2. Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 359 simplicity, reconciliation, remission of sin, and unity—though none of these manifest the Trinity as clearly as does the Father’s voice.103 Thus, the scene of the Baptism of Christ conveys theological truth about the Trinity, and also, as we have seen, about the importance of baptism and salvation. Differences in the two treatments are clear. Benedict is much more attentive to the historical setting of the Baptism, referencing details of the Roman Empire and contemporary sects, such as the Essenes. Benedict also places more emphasis on the fact that the Baptism signals the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, though Aquinas does speak of the significance of the Baptism occurring at that particular time in Christ’s life.104 There is also a disagreement over whether the dove signifying the Holy Spirit was a real dove or, as Benedict argues, an image of something inexpressible.105 Finally, we see that Benedict uses the events of Christ’s life, in this case the Baptism, to develop his Christological conclusions about the identity of Jesus; Aquinas, by contrast, since he is writing in the middle of a complete theological treatise, has already developed his general Christology at the beginning of the tertia pars of the Summa. This means that Benedict will make more overarching theological claims, whereas Thomas, having already done so, examines the meaning of particular details with more attention. In spite of these differences, clear and important connections emerge in the two treatments of the Baptism. Benedict and Aquinas both focus on common theological points, reference the Fathers, and illuminate the passage with other scriptural references. One of the most significant similarities can be seen in the fact that the event of the Baptism recorded by the Gospels is meant to be experienced and participated in by the believer. Benedict expounds on this: “The Baptism that Jesus’ disciples have been administering since he spoke those words [Mt 28:19, quoted above] is an entrance into the Master’s own Baptism—into the reality that he anticipated by means of it.”106 The reality of the event conveyed by the words is meant to be appropriated by the believer, not just by faith but also by sacramental action, which unites the believer to Christ, the Word. This can also be seen in Aquinas’s exposition of the Baptism as an exemplar.107 103 Cf. ST I–II, q. 39, a. 6, ad 4. 104 For Aquinas’s further treatment of Christ’s mission, see also ST I–II, q. 39, a. 8, ad 3. 105 He quotes Joachim Gnilka, Das Matthäusevangelium: Erster Teil (Freiburg: Herder, 1986), I, 78. Cf. Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, 22. For Aquinas’s position see ST I–II, q. 39, a. 7. 106 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 1, 23. 107 For more on the importance of Christ’s baptism as exemplar, see Thomas F. Ryan, Thomas Aquinas as Reader of the Psalms (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 90–91. 360 R. Jared Staudt Like Benedict, he links Matthew 28:19 to the manifestation of the Trinity at Christ’s baptism and our participation in it. He states: “that which is accomplished in our baptism should be manifested in Christ’s baptism, which was the exemplar of ours. Now the baptism which the faithful receive is hallowed by the invocation and the power of the Trinity; according to Matthew 28:19”108 Christ’s baptism is a reality manifested by Scripture and participated in sacramentally by the believer.109 The words of Scripture become alive today (in Benedict’s words) as the believer encounters the Word and shares in his life. Through all of these similarities we see the fundamental exegetical principles Benedict and Aquinas share instantiated in their exposition of Christ’s baptism. Conclusion Benedict and Aquinas share many key traits in their biblical interpretation. Could we, however, speak of Aquinas as an influence on the interpretation of Benedict? William Wright answers negatively, pointing to a distinction between the authors precisely where I have been arguing their common approach: “The models of Ratzinger and Aquinas are not irreconcilable, but they do diverge in their locating of the more-thanliteral sense of Scripture, whether entirely in the text’s surplus of meaning or in the concrete historical realities of the divine economy as given in Scripture.”110 Although I agree that Benedict much more strongly makes use of concrete historical realities and does not completely accept Aquinas’s position, I think that Benedict does see Aquinas as an ally in the proper understanding of the literal sense. Wright uses Aquinas’s definition of the four senses to highlight his distinction from Benedict, noting that traditional interpretation “associates the spiritual sense with the things or realities presented by the text rather than the language of the text itself.”111 On the contrary, Aquinas should not be identified completely with the prior tradition of the four senses, for, as we have seen, he roots the spiritual so strongly in the literal, the meaning of the words. Beryl Smalley, though not without controversy, affirms this point: “St. Thomas, perfecting the tentative efforts of his predecessors, has supplied a theory 108 ST I–II, q. 39, a. 8, c. 109 Scott Hahn, speaking of Benedict’s biblical theology, states that “the Word proclaimed is always a Word that seeks conversion. As such, the Word always leads to the sacraments, to the enactment or ‘actualization’ of the Word, by which the believer enters into communion with the Word” (Covenant and Community, 55). 110 Wright, “Patristic Biblical Hermeneutics in Joseph Ratzinger’s Jesus of Nazareth,” 205. 111 Ibid., 204. Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 361 of the relations between the senses which lays the stress on the literal interpretation, now defined as the full meaning of the author.”112 Along these lines, I have been arguing that Aquinas actually locates the key reference to the reality of text in the words, in their literal sense, and sees the spiritual sense as something secondary and derived, and therefore not the basis of theology. What characterizes Aquinas’s position is not simply the focus on the reality of the text but rather the ability of the words of the text to literally point beyond themselves to that reality. It is precisely because words are signs that that they are able to refer to a transcendent reality without having to point to a further referent, as is done in the spiritual sense (a sign pointing to a sign). It is precisely Aquinas’s rich description of the literal sense that points to the text’s theological significance without having to locate this significance in a derived spiritual sense. Benedict explicitly affirms Aquinas’s position on the primacy of the literal sense, and also his position on transcending the literal sense, though he is able to draw out further the historical rootedness of the literal sense. The continuity of Benedict’s exegesis with the Augustinian method can be seen in a passage of the third volume of Jesus of Nazareth, a passage that also demonstrates how he uses history to advance exegesis: “There is a reciprocal relationship between the interpreting word of God and the interpreting history: the word of God teaches that ‘salvation history,’ universal in scope, is present within the events. For their part, the events themselves unlock the word of God and manifest the true reality hidden within the individual texts.”113 Scripture manifests a reality hidden within the text, but it is not simply the words that point toward this reality, but also the history embodied in the text, which is crucial for its proper understanding. Benedict’s approach is at once in harmony with the approaches of Augustine and Aquinas, but also provides the opportunity to advance their thought with a more thorough historical understanding of the text. To respond to the question I posed at the head of this concluding section, I would answer that Aquinas is indeed a theological influence on 112 Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952), 368. It should be noted that de Lubac cautions against an overly simplistic understanding of the emergence of a more literal tendency in scriptural interpretation, explicitly mentioning Smalley’s view of Aquinas. Cf. Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Sense of Scripture, vol. 3, trans. E. M. Macierowski (Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2009), 4; and the section “La ‘nouveauté’ de saint Thomas,” in Exégèse Médièvale: Les quatre sens de l’Écriture, Seconde partie, II, 285–302. De Lubac rightly argues that Aquinas does not represent a complete break with his predecessors. 113 Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 3, 17. R. Jared Staudt 362 Benedict’s Christological hermeneutic. Benedict explicitly looks to Aquinas as a model for reflecting on the life of Christ. He also turns to him as an authority on the literal sense itself and on the role of metaphysics in interpretation. This influence is enhanced by a common turning toward the Fathers and specifically to Augustine. Augustine provides the crucial foundation of the distinction between thing/reality and sign, but he also roots them both in the order and purpose of Scripture, which is union with God. What may unite Aquinas and Benedict most fully is what Augustine describes as the necessary disposition for scriptural interpretation: And, therefore, if a man fully understands that the end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned, 1 Timothy 1:5, and is bent upon making all his understanding of Scripture to bear upon these three graces, he may come to the interpretation of these books with an easy mind.114 Both theologians approach the realities of faith, as found in Scripture, with a disposition of reverence and contemplation that is ordered to making the truth known in love.115 Seeing Christ as the subject of Scripture and particularly as exemplum in his Baptism provides a concrete example of how to enter into this proper disposition. In order to understand the Word, one must unite one’s life to the Word made flesh. The reality communicated by Scripture is one that is meant to be experienced and appropriated in the soul, which occurs when one is united to Christ as a member of his body. Indeed Benedict insists on “Christ as the center of the Bible.”116 He points to the unity of all Scripture in Christ, read with an analogia fidei, and the need to “open oneself to the dynamism of the Word.”117 The reality of Scripture, and one’s participation in it, come from union with Christ. Likewise, Nicholas Healy, summarizing Aquinas’s hermeneutics, states that “the point of reading Scripture is to open us up to God’s reality revealed in Christ, not to enclose and control that reality.”118 Just as the Word of God as Son is made manifest by the written words, so the union with the Word Incarnate is made visible by the reception of the Eucharist. Scripture is part of God’s sacramental economy, by which invisible realities are made manifest by sensible signs. The Christian’s reception of Scripture is meant 114 Augustine, De doctrina christiana, 1.40. 115 Cf. ibid., 2.9. 116 Ratzinger, “Biblical Interpretation in Conflict,” 26. 117 Ibid., 21. 118 Nicholas M. Healy, Thomas Aquinas: Theologian of the Christian Life (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003), 46. Aquinas and the Exegesis of Benedict XVI 363 to be sacramental and participatory, enabling the believer to share in the realities portrayed by the sacred text. I began by noting with some surprise that Benedict turned to St. Thomas Aquinas as the preeminent model to demonstrate his intent in writing Jesus of Nazareth. However, looking at the connections in their exegesis and the similarities in their interpretation of at least one event in the life of Christ, it is clear that the two theologians approach Scripture in a similar vein. They both attend primarily to the meaning of the text, letting Christ communicate the truth and reality of his life through the medium of words as signs. And furthermore, they both turn to the Bible to be theologically instructed—theology being understood as thinking with God, by rationally receiving his word.119 We should not be surprised, therefore, that Benedict is at once in continuity with the tradition that includes Aquinas’s thought and that he is also an advancement of this same tradition.Benedict provides a model for scriptural interpretation today, affirming the importance of modern methods of scriptural analysis and at the same time redirecting our attention to the deepest truth of Scripture, Christ, and how this Word should be received. N&V 119 In his Principles of Catholic Theology, Benedict explicitly engages Aquinas on the nature of theology. See Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for Fundamental Theology (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 315–22. Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 12, No. 1 (2014): 365–89 365 Book Reviews Thomas Aquinas: Teacher and Scholar. The Aquinas Lectures at Maynooth, volume 2: 2002–2010. Edited by James McEvoy, Michael W. Dunne, and Julia Hynes (Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 2012), 258 pp. T HIS VOLUME collects eight of the annual Maynooth Aquinas Lectures, a lecture series founded in 1995 by James McEvoy and the Faculty of Philosophy at the Pontifical University at St. Patrick’s in Maynooth, Ireland. The volume also has three essays by younger scholars who were students of James McEvoy, as well as an essay by Thomas A. F. Kelly, a scholar who managed the lecture series in 2004–5 and passed away in 2008. The twofold purpose of the Maynooth Lectures is to present the benefits of the study of Aquinas to the public, and to recognize major scholars whose work is defined by the study of Aquinas.The lecture series has something of a philosophical bent, owing to its origin in a Faculty of Philosophy.Yet one finds many significant theologians as well as philosophers in this volume and the previously published lectures. Thomas Aquinas: Approaches to Truth (Portland, OR: Four Courts Press, 2002), the previous volume of Maynooth Aquinas lectures, featured essays by James McEvoy himself, Leonard Boyle, Servais Pinckaers, John Haldane, Brendan Purcell, John Wippel, and Alasdair MacIntyre. Fergus Kerr’s 2005 Maynooth lecture (not included in this volume) later became the roots of his significant book Twentieth-century Catholic Theologians. One might describe these lectures as something analogous to the Gifford Lectures for Thomists, that is, as a showcase for major figures to present their cuttingedge work before a public audience.While this book contains lectures on Aquinas from scholars of various nationalities and disciplines, the origin of the lecture series, and the publishing venture of the volume, comes from the context of Irish philosophical interest in Aquinas. Along with its valuable essays, this volume offers a subtle demonstration of some of the emphases and concerns of Irish Thomism. 366 Book Reviews The first two essays in the volume are on theological topics. Liam Walsh, a liturgical theologian also involved in ecumenical dialogue, offers an ecumenically minded reading of Aquinas on the Eucharist. He says that ecumenical progress in Protestant-Catholic debates over the Eucharist can be made by working to locate the Eucharist in the larger context of the God-World relationship and God’s economy of salvation in Jesus Christ, as Aquinas does in the Summa theologiae. Walsh offers a brief description of Reformation-era debates on the Eucharist, pointing to technical discussions of efficient causality and different construals of the sacramental distinction between “sign” and “thing” as the root cause of differences between Protestant and Catholic Eucharistic theologies. Walsh ends by suggesting theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, reflect more on the key term “substance” in sacramental theology, a term, he notes, not essential to sacramental theology but hard to avoid. William Desmond, a major philosopher, writes on a topic usually discussed by theologians rather than philosophers: Aquinas on the Beatitudes. Desmond is particularly drawn to the element of the mysterious or sublime in the Beatitudes, pointing to “something more that resists encapsulation” that strikes the reader of the Sermon on the Mount. Starting with Kant, Desmond notes that philosophical ethics in modernity rarely deals with holy persons, rather being satisfied to define a general morality based on rational, autonomous principles free from religious influence. In response, Desmond sees Aquinas on the Beatitudes as a useful way to think about bringing back to ethics a “porosity” to the divine. Philip Rosemann and John Boyle bring a historical approach to the volume in the next two essays. Rosemann argues that the shift in genre from Peter Lombard’s Sentences to Aquinas’s Summa theologiae testifies to a larger change in theological reflection that still affects academic theology today. Peter’s text is more transparent, written as a web of allusions to biblical and patristic texts. This is transposed into a more logical and abstract framework in Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on the Sentences. In Aquinas’s work, theology is no longer Peter Lombard’s sacra pagina, but scientia divina or sacra doctrina. On the basis of this comparison, Rosemann says that Aquinas is a forerunner of Martin Heidegger’s notion of science as “research,” or inquiry into nature defined by rigorous procedure and careful initial planning, as defined in Heidegger’s “The Age of the World Picture.” Rosemann says that Aquinas’s scientia divina has certain benefits, but he also worries that Aquinas’s scientia divina risks losing something of the rich story of the Christian faith in its “rigorously articulated system.” John Boyle offers a “historical detective story” on the “Roman commentary” of Aquinas on the Sentences, which was recently discovered Book Reviews 367 by Leonard Boyle. Aquinas began lecturing on the Sentences a second time when he went to Rome to set up a program of theological study for Dominican students, separate from a larger university like the University of Paris. Aquinas’s newer “Roman commentary” is characterized by a simplicity and precision not present in the older version. Boyle wonders if the changes are not due to pedagogical reflection on the part of Aquinas. Boyle finds the Roman commentary fascinating, because in it we seem to have a snapshot of Aquinas the theology professor, taking special care to define terms and to help students understand theological propositions. For instance, Aquinas explores the uti/frui distinction that gives Peter Lombard’s Sentences its structure in several articles that offer a very basic rather than speculative definition of these terms from Augustine. Boyle suggests that Aquinas’s Roman commentary is a “how-to” guide for learning theology, wherein Aquinas shows his students how to think about propositions and how to incorporate philosophical sources into theological thought. The next two lectures in the volume address philosophical issues. Sarah Borden Sharkey offers an essay that compares Aquinas and Edith Stein on being. Stein was trained as a philosopher in several strains of phenomenology, being influenced by Edmund Husserl, Max Scheler, and Martin Heidegger. After her conversion, she added to her philosophical background study of the Catholic tradition, including Thomas Aquinas. Stein’s philosophical work is characterized by an important distinction between actual being and “essential being” or “substantial being.” Actual being describes a being that is in act, and has the ability to effect change. Essential being, however, relates to a thing’s intelligibility. Essential being has Heideggerian as well as Thomist undertones. Since essential being relates to a thing’s inner intelligibility, Stein often refers to a thing’s essential being as the “meaning” of the object, or the meaning of a thing’s being. Stein differs from Aquinas in that she affirmed that essential being was real being, despite not necessarily including actuality, while Aquinas says that a thing has being only inasmuch as it is in act. “Essence” in Aquinas is a limiting potency that individuates and particularizes the act of being in various things. Aquinas does not have a type of being that involves the intelligibility or “meaning” of an object, but rather all intelligibility comes from perceiving a thing’s being in act. Sharkey says that Stein the modern philosopher ends up sounding oddly enough much more like a Platonist (things have an inner “essential being” beneath whatever their actual being and history brings about), while Aquinas’s account of being sounds more “existentialist” in his emphasis on how a thing’s being in act takes precedent over its essence. 368 Book Reviews Eleonore Stump offers a Thomist approach to a perennial question in philosophy of religion: the problem of suffering. She presents Aquinas as “a representative medieval account of God’s reasons for allowing suffering,” and seeks to show the reasonableness of this account. Aquinas’s theodicy, Stump notes, is in continuity with a line of thinking going back to Augustine and Gregory the Great. Stump begins by analyzing a basic syllogism that has been used to argue that suffering is incompatible with the existence of God. According to Stump, the problem of suffering as such runs on three premises: that there is suffering in the world, that there is an omnipotent, good God, and—here is the key premise, Stump adds, saying it is implicit in this typical argument—that there is no “morally sufficient” reason for this good God to allow suffering. The key question that arises, Stump says, is whether suffering might allow one to best achieve the desires of her heart or to be what she ought to be. Aquinas comes in at this point. Aquinas says that the greatest good of human beings is union with God, and the worst thing for human beings would be for them to lack this good. The question now becomes whether God would allow suffering for the end of bringing people closer to God, and the further question of whether it is immoral to treat suffering as the means to an end. Stump finishes by discussing research in trauma theory and adversarial growth for thinking about how suffering and human flourishing might not be totally incompatible. The next two essays, by Vivian Boland and Denys Turner, deal with theological issues. Boland’s essay asks, “Does God think?” Boland answers “No,” if by thinking we mean something analogous to the process of human cognition in time. However, Boland uses this question to point to a rich tradition of theological reflection on the divine mind and the existence of “ideas” in God. Boland suggests that studying Aquinas’s negotiation of the question “Does God think?” is more valuable for what Aquinas teaches us about how to do theology—and more specifically how theology and philosophical speculation are related—than Aquinas’s actual statements on the matter. Denys Turner discusses the theological meaning of Aquinas’s pedagogy. Turner finds it remarkable that the presence of Aquinas’s personality in his writings is largely transparent. Turner reflects on how the Dominicans were drawn to the theology of the schools because it was a “portable” theology, focused on making the wide breadth of what was known of the Catholic tradition organized, teachable, and plain to students. No longer was theology the long, personality-soaked labor of contemplative monks, but it was now a way to train preachers and confessors to go out into urban settings and do the work of preaching the Gospel faithfully. Turner Book Reviews 369 describes the Summa theologiae’s pedagogical purpose, especially the way it connects moral and doctrinal theology, as an instantiation of a particularly “Dominican” holiness in the sense that it is meant to be handed on to others in mendicant preaching. Turner ends his essay with a reflection on the much-discussed “silence” at the end of Aquinas’s life, arguing that Aquinas’s teaching not only ended in silence but, from the start, emerged out of silence, a holy silence that seeks to be transparent to the truths taught to human beings by the Triune God. The volume also collects four extra essays on various Thomist topics which were not part of the lecture series. Declan Lawell offers an essay that traces how different scholastic figures received the works of Dionysius, who was a popular subject for study at the University of Paris. Different types of scholastic reception of Dionysius emphasize either affect or intellect in reception of mystical revelation from God.Yet Lawell points out that even those most strongly focused on the intellect in mystical revelation, like Aquinas and Albert the Great, feature affect in their accounts of the mystical life as well. However, he points to the Franciscan Thomas Gallus as marking off a new direction for interpretation of Dionysius that had a genetic influence on later, more anti-intellectual mysticism. Julia Hynes offers a Thomist voice in the context of bioethics, advancing a reading of Aquinas’s account of the virtues as an alternative to consequentialism and deontology in medical ethics. Hynes offers a helpful summary of the basic claims of virtue ethics and her essay presents an up-to-date account of its major voices. Gavin Kerr discusses the impact of the turn to the subject, largely through a reading of Immanuel Kant, on the Thomist tradition. Kerr’s presentation would be useful to one seeking resources for defending a form of realism based on Aquinas’s philosophy in the present context. The final essay by Thomas Kelly is a critical reading of Heidegger’s lectures on Thomas Aquinas. Kelly uses what he sees as errors in Heidegger’s reading of Aquinas to point to some fundamental limitations of Heidegger’s philosophy as such. This volume has a good variety of perspectives on Aquinas, from ecumenical theologians to analytic philosophers. The volume also has a fairly wide range of subject matter: essay topics range from the Eucharist to the problem of suffering, from the Beatitudes to medieval pedagogy. These essays show that close study of Aquinas continues to be fruitful for scholars in a wide variety of disciplines. There are, however, a few intellectual threads and common emphases that run throughout the essays in the volume. The essays of Rosemann, Sharkey, Kerr, and Kelly address the relationship between the thought of Aquinas and twentieth-century continental philosophy, particularly philosophical perspectives influenced 370 Book Reviews by Martin Heidegger.These essays would be useful reading for those who compare Aquinas’s thought with Heidegger-influenced philosophical perspectives. Another thread through the volume involves attention to Aquinas’s pedagogy. I suspect this is reflected in the decision by the editors for the volume’s subtitle: “teacher and scholar.” The offerings by Walsh, Rosemann, Boyle, and Turner show interest in Aquinas’s method of presenting Christian doctrine as much as in his actual teachings. Their essays together call for more explicit reflection on the formal elements of Aquinas’s writings, particularly how his carefully planned teaching of sacra doctrina in the Summa theologiae helps students learn in a way different from previous texts like Peter Lombard’s Sentences. Aquinas: Teacher and Scholar shows that Aquinas was not an academic separated from the everyday concerns and needs of students. A glance through this volume reminds Aquinas’s readers that his works actively participate in overarching discussions of how best to teach Christian doctrine at medieval universities and in the fledgling mendicant orders. Not confined merely to historical analysis of Aquinas’s work of sacra doctrina, the essays in this volume also provide a wealth of reflection on how Aquinas can help guide contemporary teachers and scholars in theological and philosophical fields today. N&V Matthew Archer University of Dayton Dayton, OH Metaphysics: The Creation of Hierarchy by Adrian Pabst (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), xi + 521 pp. A DRIAN PABST ’ S book Metaphysics:The Creation of Hierarchy is a revised and expanded version of his Cambridge dissertation, and the improved work emerges with a high pedigree, including a foreword by John Milbank. Pabst’s project is an ambitious one, as he places in his sights not only the history of metaphysics in the Christian tradition, but also the interpretation of that history in political terms. The keyword here is individuation; that is, the key concept of the book centers on the fact—or perhaps mystery—that there are specific, unique beings that we can differentiate from one another. The question that drives the book is, how does one go about explaining such differentiation? For Pabst, the success or failure of the answer revolves around how one explains the relation of individuated substances among each other, and especially to God. So the second keyword is relation. Since the basic question of the text involves both the “individual” and the relations of individuals, the question is Book Reviews 371 simultaneously metaphysical and political (cf. Milbank’s foreword). In attempting to answer the problem of individuation, Pabst is determined to show the brilliance of the Christian metaphysical tradition. Or, in his own words: “Under the ‘meta-form’ or ‘meta-category’ of relation, it will be argued that the Christian Neo-Platonic theology of creation ex nihilo and the Trinity offers an account of individuation that avoids both Aristotle’s theo-ontology and the idolatry of onto-theology inaugurated by John Duns Scotus” (xxix).With the twin pillars of individuation and relation, Pabst sets out to reveal how the Christian tradition has made sense of itself using Greek metaphysics, and how this complex metaphysical tradition retains both relevance and insight in the modern age. Metaphysics is a demanding book, requiring the reader to follow Pabst through a dense review of classical metaphysics and into a challenging array of Christian and post-Christian philosophical inquiries. Pabst displays easy familiarity with everyone from Aristotle and Plato to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to Spinoza and Kant. This is by no means a book for neophytes in the metaphysical and ontological battles of philosophy and theology. All the same, Pabst remedies a difficult topic with a clear writing style marked by well-defined summaries of his work and transparent lines of argumentation. He always signals what he has argued, what he will argue, and what he anticipates objections will be.This makes his writing eminently clear, though at times repetitious, and he understands his topic in such robust detail that he threatens to lose novices entirely. Pabst is out to reinvigorate and reinforce the Platonic reading of metaphysics in Christianity, so the advanced nature of the work is both necessary and appropriate. Plato is where Pabst turns much of his argument; or rather, the Christian reading of Plato is essential to his argument. Because Plato makes the Good central to the understanding of being, Pabst claims that Plato’s metaphysic is thus fundamentally relational, since the Good always involves the ordering of things according to their participation in the Good. What we have here is a metaphysic that is always open to theology because it is a metaphysic of relation. This is Plato’s genius, and it is the insight that Christians adopt and expand in order to help explain their faith. Yet this insight always threatens to be lost. Aristotle’s metaphysic, though helpful with respect to his appropriation of matter, harries metaphysics with a constant shadow. Whereas “Aristotle’s ontology entails a division of essence and existence within composites and a separation of the first mover’s actuality from the being of beings” (16), Plato’s metaphysics of the Good is “relational vis-à-vis other forms and things in the sense that it is present in them, so that they may participate in it” (17). In 372 Book Reviews other words, for Pabst, Aristotle continually threatens to defeat the metaphysical tradition with an insufficient description of individuation, one in which individuation is derived by principle from the individual (21). Aristotle gives substance undue superiority over relation, which for Pabst cuts off the individual from its originating source, the Good, and results in a Prime Mover both disinterested and uninvolved in that which it moves (21–24). Plato, on the other hand, gives relation priority over substance because all things are ordered by the Good.The individuated is thus always already relational: “all particulars are relational because they depend for their essence, their existence, and their continuous being on the Good” (47). For Pabst, Plato’s philosophical decisions are superior because of his ability to describe why being individuates and his ability to place that individuation in the context of a more comprehensive politic. Being individuates because it is good, and the Good is ecstatically self-diffusive; saying that being is good also always places it in relation to the Good that orders it, thus giving politics meaning and direction (cf. 52–53). Pabst’s evaluation of Plato and Aristotle forms the foundation of his subsequent reflections on the Christian appropriation of Greek metaphysics and on modern philosophy.The linchpin of Pabst’s book is Plato’s conception of the Good, a concept that Christians adopt in order to describe the uniqueness of creation and the relation between creation and the Creator. Pabst reviews a number of early Christian interlocutors who play important roles in nascent Christianity’s interaction with Greek metaphysics, including Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa. Three key figures in this movement are Augustine, Boethius, and Pseudo-Dionysius, and the weight of Pabst’s study of early Christianity rests on Augustine. Pabst argues that Augustine’s “synthesis of Neo-Platonist metaphysics and the biblical doctrine of creation ex nihilo” fulfills philosophy, helps us to understand the content of Scripture, and helps us to describe the relation of individuated being to its primary Source (57–58; see also 77–78, 81–82). This argument moves Pabst into a lengthy and complex discussion of Augustine’s theology, a discussion bent toward showing how Augustine’s original synthesis of Christian concerns and Greek philosophy assists us in explaining the intimacy of creation’s relationship to its Creator. “The cause is always already more than itself. It is ecstatic creativity which is manifest in all that is created: to discern being itself which is ‘to be,’ the mind comes to have a glimpse of the utter transcendence and plenitude of the creating cause” (111). Creation ex nihilo describes individuation in a superior manner because it makes created being utterly reliant on its divine source. So to the elements “individuation” and “relation” in Pabst’s set of consistent concerns, Book Reviews 373 we may add creation ex nihilo. Boethius contributes to Augustine’s work by intensifying the intellect’s relationship to faith, since in knowing all being the intellect also knows that in which being participates, which is God (cf. 118–19). Dionysius the Areopagite plays a key role in this locus of ideas because his explicit ordering of theosis and the cosmos in his celestial hierarchy allows us to grasp how the ordering of beings to the Good (in hierarchy) lends to being not only a political ordering but also a theological one. The upshot is that “[t]he mystery of divine Creation and Incarnation is not confined to the sacramental rites within the ecclesial hierarchy but extends to the entire cosmos” (149). Thus with Benedict XVI, Pabst considers the Christian encounter with Greek metaphysics to be not only historically the case, but theologically necessary (see 55–56, 112, 153, et passim). Pabst takes his three concerns—individuation, relation, and creation ex nihilo—into the Middle Ages, where Christian metaphysics reaches a high tide in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. For Aquinas, “individuation in the created order mirrors divine singularity within the Trinitarian Godhead.” Thus, “To be individuated is to preserve and perfect God’s image and likeness” (214). Aquinas’s metaphysical-theological efforts manage in this way to allow Pabst to reinforce his own most central concerns, and to show how an authentic metaphysic of individuation returns Christian thought to the Trinity rather than serving as a distraction from it. Pabst’s in-depth study of Aquinas strives to show us how the relationality of individual beings among themselves is ultimately a reflection of the unique relationality of the Triune God (cf. 269, 271). This is where Pabst’s governing thesis is at its most compelling, and in many ways the Medieval high point is also the high point of the book. Subsequent to Aquinas’s beautiful synthesis of metaphysics and theology, Western thought breaks down into a series of bifurcated polarities: between immanence and transcendence, between the individual and God, between politics and theology (305–7; cf. 271). With the advent of Nominalism in John Duns Scotus and Ockham, the negative tendencies present in Aristotle’s philosophy achieve an iron grip on Western philosophical and theological reflection. Rather than relating all the causes of being to their ultimate Cause in the self-diffusive Good, modern thought tends to view the causes and powers of individuated being as purely immanent to individuals, thus divorcing being from its Source (307). Another way to understand this development in Western thought is as the loss of relationality and the ascendence of the atomic individual; in short, as the advent of modernity. Here Francisco Suárez and Baruch Spinoza receive Pabst’s attention. Suarez effects a form of secularism in making the principle of individuation immanent 374 Book Reviews rather than transcendent (see esp. 340), and Spinoza completes this move by eschewing the idea of creation ex nihilo entirely (see esp. 381). After his exhaustive review of theology and philosophy, Pabst concludes his work by showing how relationality is a more thorough, fertile source for theological and philosophical reflection than the modern fixation with “abstract individuality” (448). He desires that both political and theological-philosophical thought expand their resources into the past, to retrieve what he has retrieved: a rich account of created being that has its Source in the self-diffusive Good. What Pabst wants his reader to have understood is not only the historical verity of his interpretation, but also the immense wisdom of the Platonic-Christian ideal of relation. Rather than threatening the individual or the particular, or violating the divine, relation permits us to defend what is unique according to its relation to its originating cause. In this final connection, the reader is able to discern with clarity the meaning of Pabst’s subtitle: “the creation of hierarchy.” For him, hierarchy is positive, inasmuch as it must always presume a relation of particulars to the one Good. Without hierarchy—that is, with a metaphysical “flattening” of the world—the individuated becomes incomprehensible. Pabst’s attempts to reestablish the relevance of ancient metaphysical principles here operate at their most inverse and counter-intuitive, as modern thought tends to eschew hierarchy in its entirety for the sake of what is individual or particular. The ambition of Pabst’s Metaphysics is admirable. He intends to leave no stone unturned in the debate over Plato and Christianity, and in his efforts one is able to see the fascinating force of a line of thought loosely associated with the Radical Orthodoxy movement, though not exclusive to it. His reflections are often gripping, especially when he works hard to show how authentic metaphysics reinforces a certain openness or amicability to theology, and how this same metaphysical relation to the theological defends a richer conception of the political individual as also open to God (and the Good). One must yet wonder whether Pabst’s genealogy of modern ills is overworked, as it seems that, from the beginning of Western thought, the threat of the hermetically sealed individual and other modern problems looms in Aristotle’s substance metaphysics. This argument lends to the history of Western thought the tinge of an almost fatalistic submission to a perpetual (Aristotelian) temptation. At its most facile interpretation, the genealogy of ideas presented in Metaphysics is too simple and too accusatory. Pabst of course intends more than this, but one must still puzzle over the shadow of Aristotle presented in the book. It is also possible to wonder whether Pabst’s arguments render him blind to critiques such as Karl Barth’s—or, for that matter, Tertullian’s—in Book Reviews 375 which biblical revelation is defended for its uniqueness, and philosophy or natural theology is suspect. In other words, the Christian appropriation of Plato, even at its most positive, also heavily modifies Plato even as it adopts him. In Pabst, the friendship between Plato and Christianity threatens to be so intimate as to permit confusion of the two. Pabst speaks of the “blending” of biblical revelation and Plato (cf. 107), or the “fusion” of ancient philosophy and biblical revelation (cf. 58). Have we here a sort of monophysitism, a confusion of what is distinctive? Or is it rather that Pabst wishes to show how the Christian tradition has so brilliantly transfigured Plato that modern thought cannot be without him—nor without the Christian tradition? This possibility, embedded in the history of Western and Christian thought, is one of the main conflicts operating within the book, and in many ways Pabst increases its urgency rather than resolving it. Whether a reader takes Pabst’s side or not, the book is helpful because it brings again to the surface many longstanding questions about the Christian tradition’s interpretation of its own theological-philosophical past, and the role of that past in the present. N&V Anne M. Carpenter St. Mary’s College of California Moraga, CA The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, edited by Gilles Emery, O.P., and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), xiv + 632 pp. M ANY THEOLOGIANS and scholars working in religious studies find the Oxford Handbook series very helpful as reliable introductions to the current scholarship on various topics and issues. When one considers the remarkable resurgence of interest in the doctrine of the Trinity over the last few decades, it is not surprising that a volume on the Trinity would join this distinguished series. And when one considers the massive scholarly output on the doctrine, it is not surprising that such a volume would be of high quality. But this volume, put together under the editorial direction of Gilles Emery, O.P., and Matthew Levering, surely meets and surpasses the highest goals for such Handbooks. In a word, it is excellent. A helpful introduction by the editors is followed by Part I, “The Trinity in Scripture.” Here we find a discussion by Khaled Anatolios of the complex relation of the process of canonization (of Scripture) to the development of Trinitarian theology, and a helpful treatment of the Trinity in the Old Testament by Christopher Seitz. C. Kavin Rowe reflects upon the Trinity in Pauline theology (and Hebrews); Simon Gathercole examines the roots of the doctrine in the Matthew, Mark, and Luke-Acts; 376 Book Reviews Ben Witherington III looks at the Johannine contributions to the doctrine; and Mark Edwards reflects upon the role of theological exegesis in early formulations of the doctrine. Historical development of the doctrine is treated in the next three Parts. Steven M. Hildebrand provides an overview of the development of the doctrine in some important Ante-Nicene theologians; J. Warren Smith gives us a particularly lucid snapshot of the important fourthcentury debates; Lewis Ayres offers a discussion of Augustine’s account of the doctrine; and Andrew Louth continues with a look at later Eastern patristic developments. Lauge O. Nielson and Dominique Poirel provide chapters that examine earlier (Latin) medieval theology; Joseph Wawrykow compares the “Dominican” and “Franciscan” accounts of Bonaventure and Aquinas; Russell L. Friedman looks at later medieval theology in the West; and Karl Christian Felmy discusses the developments in medieval Byzantine theology. Scott R. Swain picks up the narrative with an overview of the fortunes of Trinitarian theology in the Reformers, and Ulrich Lehner discusses the oft-overlooked debates within post-Reformation scholasticism and the early modern era (within both Catholicism and Protestantism). Cyril O’Regan provides a masterful summary of doctrine in Kant, Hegel, and Schelling. Samuel M. Powell summarizes the complexities of nineteenth-century Protestant doctrines, and Aidan Nichols performs a similar task with respect to Catholic theology. George Hunsinger summarizes Karl Barth’s treatment of the doctrine (in his Church Dogmatics);Vincent Holzer looks at the influence of Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar; Aristotle Papanikolaou gives an overview of recent and contemporary Orthodox discussions; and Fergus Kerr looks at the relation of the doctrine to analytic philosophy. The volume next turns from biblical and historical to dogmatic, moral, and pastoral theology. Kathryn Tanner sets up this further discussion with an essay on the Trinity as distinctly Christian teaching; Rudi A. te Velde explores issues related to religious language and Trinitarian theology (particularly with respect to “person”); Emmanuel Durand, Thomas G. Weinandy, and Bruce D. Marshall make contributions to Patrology, Christology, and Pneumatology (respectively). Risto Saarinen looks at the links between Trinitarian theology and Christian anthropology. Charles Morerod furthers discussion of Trinitarian accounts of ecclesiology (particularly with respect to the sacraments); and Daniel A. Keating develops themes related to an adequately Trinitarian soteriology. Geoffrey Wainwright opens the Part “The Trinity and Christian Life” with his discussion of the Trinity in liturgy and proclamation; François Bœspflug points us to some important expressions in art and iconogra- Book Reviews 377 phy; Romanus Cessario, O.P., explores implications for ethics, and Amy Laura Hall puts forward an interesting discussion of how implications for the Christian moral life were seen in Julian of Norwich. Francesca Aran Murphy looks at the life of prayer within the context of Trinitarian theology; Nonna Verna Harrison explores links between the doctrine of the Trinity and feminism; and Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt reflects on the Trinity and politics. The volume also helpfully includes discussions of current dialogues between Trinitarian theology and other major world religions. Here David Fergusson offers an orienting discussion of the place and importance of the doctrine in ecumenical discussions; Ellen Charry provides stimulating and sensitive insights into the doctrine of God in Jewish-Christian dialogue; Gavin D’Costa discusses the role of the Trinity in interreligious dialogues; and Tracey Rowland takes a forward look at issues related to globalization and its relation to the doctrine of the Trinity. This book should serve as a model for future Handbooks. The topics and issues are well chosen and well organized; they address the most important issues in biblical, historical, and contemporary constructive theology. The contributors are expertly selected—indeed, it is hard to think of better potential contributors for the vast majority of these topics. The essays are based upon recent and rigorous scholarship, they are well structured and readable, and it is not too much to say that they are almost uniformly of the highest quality. One could quibble with various features: some of the essays are translated into English and occasionally leave the impression that something (stylistic) might have been lost in translation; we might reasonably wish for more than a few paragraphs on John of Damascus and on the early Christian encounter with Islam; Latin patristic theology (other than Augustine) gets little attention; and more sustained discussion of the meaning of “monotheism” (especially as it relates to the Old Testament) would be welcome. But these really would be quibbles, and they should not detract in the slightest from the great value of this book. The only really substantive complaint concerns Fergus Kerr’s essay, “Trinitarian Theology in Light of Analytic Philosophy.” Kerr seems to be working with a rather antiquated understanding of analytic philosophy; he characterizes it as philosophy that takes “Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and suchlike” as paradigmatic (339). Although this is not entirely mistaken, surely there is much more to analytic philosophy than the background in the early twentieth century, and a great deal of what takes place in analytic philosophy today is quite opposed to the methods and conclusions of Russell, Wittgenstein, and Co. (witness the revival of metaphysics). More importantly, however, Kerr offers precious little 378 Book Reviews engagement with (and, indeed, little awareness of) the actual work being done by analytic philosophers of religion and analytic theologians on the doctrine itself. But let me be clear: in light of the book as a whole, this is a very minor problem, and it should not at all detract from the sterling quality of the volume. In its overall structure and balance, as well as in the consistently high quality of the essays, the Oxford Handbook of the Trinity is truly excellent. It is hard to say enough good about it, and I gladly commend it to all students and scholars who are interested in the doctrine of the Trinity. N&V Thomas H. McCall Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Deerfield, IL Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind by Mark A. Noll (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), xii + 180 pp. N EARLY twenty years after his publication of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, Mark Noll offers a “sequel” of sorts in Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, where he levels many of the same critiques against serious deficiencies in the intellectual habits of evangelical Christians in North America. However, Noll’s purpose here is not to chide but to encourage, in hopes of effecting change. He announced at the finale of this book that his primary goal is to “urge others into action.” Though sober and cautionary in tone, Noll is hopeful about the state of the evangelical life of the mind and offers guidelines that encourage Christian learners of all types to explore their fields with academic rigor while remaining committed to Christ and the authority of the Bible. Noll is an evangelical and an expert in the historical development of Christianity, particularly in America. His close familiarity with the broad, amorphous evangelical world coupled with his scholarly expertise lends strong credibility to his voice. At the same time, his target audience is by no means limited to evangelicals. It has potential fruitfulness for Christians of all traditions, as well as for non-Christians who are interested in Christian engagement with academic and intellectual culture. The book is clearly written and well organized. The first three chapters provide a framework for Christ-centered learning, while chapters four through seven describe ways that Christology can ground and inform study in the areas of history, science, and biblical interpretation. In the eighth and final chapter, Noll encourages Christian scholars to make contributions to the wider intellectual culture while he reminds them that the requirements for genuine Christian scholarship grow from Book Reviews 379 a Christ-centered faith and a view of the world informed by Christology. A postscript rounds out the book as Noll gives ten hopeful signs that the intellectual life among evangelicals is improving. From the beginning of the book to its end, Noll’s thesis is clear and consistent: the ground and motivation of meaningful Christian intellectual prowess is Jesus Christ. Those who worship Jesus should aspire to engage the world and study its parts because of who he is and what he has done. Not only was the world created by and through Christ, but in the Incarnation he entered that which he created for the purpose of redemption. Thus, anyone who claims him as Lord has an obligation to study what he created and came to save. In this way, the totus Christus serves as the primary motive for Christian intellectual activity. The problem, Noll laments, is that evangelical theology has long emphasized redemption without paying heed to creation. Reclaiming a robust orthodox Christology is crucial to reversing this trend. Because Christology lies at the heart of Noll’s way forward for Christian thinking, he highlights the historic creeds of the Church and pays particular attention to Chalcedon. The doctrine of the Incarnation teaches us that God became an intimate actor in history through Christ and thereby bestowed dignity on creation. Moreover, God has manifested his glory in creation and chosen human history as the venue for his saving activity. God’s “yes” to the world in Christ should motivate Christians to undertake serious investigation of creation and its historical processes, in which Christ himself became a participant. Pragmatic discussions of some ways in which orthodox Christology undergirds intellectual curiosity and engagement with the world form the core of Noll’s book. His first example is the Atonement and how appropriating this important doctrine assists in learning. Noll teases out fundamental ideas implicit in atonement: substitution, human sinfulness, the divine initiative in salvation, the narrative structure of salvation, and the complexity of salvation. Next, he suggests parallels between the realities of the Atonement and what is learned about the world through observation. I found this section of the book helpful but perhaps one-sided in its view of atonement. Explicitly owning his lack of professional training in this area of theology, Noll relies almost solely on the work of John Stott. He does acknowledge other classic theories of atonement, but he does not incorporate them into his argument. As a result, Noll restricts his concept of the Atonement to an “objective,” penal-substitution model. I believe this move limits his argument. Many scholars affirm the many-sided nature of the Atonement, and Noll’s treatment might have benefited from this perspective and expanded the ways atonement helps us make sense of the world. 380 Book Reviews Noll’s subsequent discussions of how Christology can instruct the fields of history, science, and biblical interpretation are, in my mind, the most informative and compelling. Concerning the study of history, a thoroughly Christian approach represents the via media between the opposing epistemologies of postmodern pessimism and modern objectivism. From the Incarnation we can deduce a positive epistemology tempered with humility. Christ assumed full humanity, which included the noetic processes of the human mind. But humanity is nonetheless fallen, and sin continues to have a distorting effect on one’s objectivity and reasoning faculties when viewing the past. More importantly, the very duality of the Incarnation (divine and human) serves as the model for historical knowledge. The fact that the Incarnation occurred in a particular time, place, and culture suggests the partial, limited character of what can be known of history. At the same time, the Incarnation—even in its particularity—has profound universal implications. The Christian can have confidence in the reality of universal truths while retaining humility about what can be known concerning cultural-historical particularities. In addition to this, a compelling reason for Christian humility and confidence regarding historical knowledge is the belief in God’s providence. The Christian historian knows that the Lord guides human events, though the historian admittedly does not know all the historical details, their meaning, and where history is going based on observation alone. He can know something of what God is doing in history, although he is not given the whole picture. Noll’s chapter on the study of science is the most fascinating, though it is likely that some evangelicals will feel consternation upon reading it. He acknowledges the long-standing divide between religion and science, particularly the debates over creation and evolution. For some time, the common tactic for conservative Christians wishing to protect biblical integrity has been to claim certain hermeneutics and theological epistemologies while distrusting science or avoiding it altogether. Noll cautions that neglecting to observe what God has made is not an acceptable Christian response. Here again, a Christ-centered approach is instructive. If Christ is the unifying principle of Scripture, then Christ should guide our understanding of what is revealed in Scripture, and this includes nature. The history of the divide between science and religion is complex, but Noll traces the beginning of this phenomenon to the dueling ontologies espoused by Aquinas and Scotus. Ultimately, it was Scotus’s view—that God and creatures share the same essence of being—that played the largest role in shaping Western thought. This development gave rise to assumptions of univocity between the Bible and nature: what is observed Book Reviews 381 in Scripture must be harmonized with what is observed in nature. After the Reformation, when “literal” interpretations of Scripture became more normative, Christians assumed that there was no antithesis between what God revealed in Scripture and what was learned from nature. (The concept of univocity would later result in natural theology—the idea that we can know what God’s purposes were in creating various parts of the natural world.) When the assumptions of univocity and harmonization were augmented by Ockham’s razor, the idea arose that if an event could be explained by a natural cause, supernatural causes or supernatural beings would be rendered unnecessary. Things began to come to a head at the beginning of the seventeenth century when science grew rapidly. Observers of nature claimed that belief in God was unnecessary for understanding nature, while those who believed in God were forced to prove either that new discoveries did indeed reveal something about God’s purposes in creation or they were false discoveries. There is more to this historical development, but Noll’s point is that evangelical Christians have followed this trajectory. Those who object to modern science often do so on the basis of assumptions. So the question remains: how can Christians who believe the Bible avoid harmful assumptions and take sufficient heed of scientific observation? The answer, Noll suggests, is to be found in the recovery of a full appreciation of the person and work of Christ. As a case study, he looks to B. B. Warfield, who simultaneously affirmed a high view of Scripture and a view of evolution. According to Warfield, God created primordial matter ex nihilo but infused in matter forces necessary for development. Taking a cue from Christology, Warfield’s idea of concursus—the coexistence of two contrary realities—upheld his view of evolution where creation developed through natural means (except for original matter and the human soul). Noll’s purpose in turning to Warfield is to demonstrate how the Chalcedonian perspective aids the study of nature. Christology helped Warfield understand the divine and natural forces of creation, and enabled him to believe the testimony of Scripture and the testimony of nature. For God has revealed himself in “two books”—the Bible and creation. Noll calls on evangelicals to continue valuing the one while not neglecting the other. Noll’s attention to the study of biblical interpretation turns on the recent work of Peter Enns. One of Enns’s projects is to challenge modernist assumptions embedded in evangelical hermeneutics in order to reclaim a hermeneutic from the Bible itself. One must read the text while trying to think as the authors thought. Enns is a controversial figure in the evangelical world, but it is not Noll’s objective to make judgments on particular conclusions. Instead, he attempts to consider Enns’s view 382 Book Reviews that every part of the Bible relates to the narrative of Christ and that there is an “incarnational parallel” between Christ and Scripture. In order to read and appreciate the Bible in its true transformative character, one must stress the full divinity, and full humanity, of revelation. Like history and science, the study and practice of biblical interpretation must be grounded in a Christological framework. The fact that Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind aims to help Christians love and worship God more fully should interest anyone in the evangelical world. In all, Noll has succeeded in making a convincing case that loving and glorifying God involves the mind. The way forward for evangelicals in loving God with the mind is to recover a robust, orthodox Christology. True Christo-centrism confesses Jesus as creator and Incarnate savior. Therefore, Christians have an obligation to study and learn about the world Christ made and came to redeem. Noll has provided a wonderful service for evangelical Christians. Time will tell whether they will follow his lead. N&V Jonathan Morgan Toccoa Falls College Toccoa Falls, GA Ascension Theology by Douglas Farrow (London: T & T Clark, 2011), xiv + 177 pp. T HE ARGUMENT of this book is that unless one’s theology is committed to the proposition that Jesus Christ “ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father,” one’s idea of the divinity of Christ will leak into one’s idea of humanity as a whole, and one will end up elevating and deifying humanity as a whole. Without adherence to the Ascension of the divinized humanity of Christ to the right hand of the Father, whence it causes our deification, theology inevitably and necessarily tends to exhort humanity to self-deification. It will do so necessarily and inevitably, according to Farrow, because, he claims, the physical humanity of Jesus is the anchor of its externality from and objectivity to ourselves. Without an anchor in that physical humanity, ascended to the right hand of the Father, our own subjective sense of the meaning and value of our humanity becomes prone to infinite self-inflation. The book gives a captivating explanation of the missteps by which the current political and theological situation was reached. It is captivating because it is theological (based on the Ascension), and, at the same time, it is concrete (based in the humanity of Christ). It is simple in the best possible way, gathering many things (ecclesiology, eucharistic theory, twenti- Book Reviews 383 eth- and twenty-first-century politics) around a single insight, the importance of the risen and ascended humanity of Christ. A particular strength of the book is the way it is able to illuminate the principle that the more Christ is preached and known, throughout history, the more he and his followers are hated. Opposition to Christianity is sown and flourishes in specifically Christian soil. As with Douglas Farrow’s previous book, Ascension and Ecclesia, the negative side is his “heroes and villains” style of theological historiography. Origen and Augustine are both disparaged, on the grounds that, because the spiritual and moral aspects of the Ascension mattered more to them that its literal and physical aspects, they therefore promoted its subjectivization and internalization. The problem is that Farrow’s lens doesn’t exactly apply to them: neither Origen nor Augustine would have located the objective reality of Christ in his physical human nature. For Augustine or Origen, the objectivity and externality of Christ are located not in his physical body but in his soul. Their anthropology doesn’t fit into Farrow’s “demythologization: bad,” “Ascension realism: good” mold. Farrow’s high evaluation of the concrete, historical humanity of Jesus could not have been articulated in those terms in pre-modern times. The language which pre-moderns had for talking about human nature, including the humanity of Christ, takes that nature to be a specification of a more general type, Humanity. That’s why, for instance, as Charles De Koninck showed against Jacques Maritain, Thomas Aquinas rates the common good above that of the individual. Farrow’s way of reading the history of theology, and the high evaluation he sets upon the risen and ascended humanity of Jesus Christ, tacitly assume a high evaluation of individual, historical personality, about which philosophy and theology had very little to say before modern times and before modern authors such as Kant (who is one of Farrow’s villains). It could be argued that there is a kind of toe-hold for the modern, Kierkegaardian (anti-Hegelian) Christian attachment to the particular body in the ancient veneration of relics (and one has not one but two Compostellas to show that that veneration persists into modern times). Farrow alludes to this, tangentially, when he refers half-jokingly to the footpad on the Mount of Olives whence Jesus is supposed to have launched himself into his Ascension. But would the ancients have cut the saints’ bodies and their clothes into hundreds and thousands of pieces if they, like us modern Kierkegaardians, believed in the sanctity of the particular, individual, body of the saint? Isn’t there a real difference between the treatment of the body of Thomas Aquinas by his contemporaries, and the treatment of the body of Thérèse of Lisieux by twentieth- and twenty-first-century 384 Book Reviews Christians? The latter understand the historical particularity of the individual in the same “personalist” way as Farrow does, and hence his argument about the Ascension makes sense to them in a way it would not have done for Augustine, or Origen, or Bernard of Clairvaux. So Ascension Theology is an object lesson in the dangers of using history as a means through which to practice theology. As Gilson said to Fernand van Steenberghen in a short-lived moment of contrition, “Not a single ‘ism’ fits all of the facts. Irenicism is the only one with which we should concern ourselves.” But in the end, Farrow’s book must be commended, above all for its courage in stating clearly that Christianity and Christians are endangered by the modern state and its shibboleths, such as human rights. Ascension Theology is simple and therefore absolutely memorable. There are few better achievements for a theologian. N&V Francesca Aran Murphy University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering by Eleonore Stump (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), xx + 668 pp. O N SEVERAL counts, Wandering in Darkness is an important addition to the contemporary literature on the problem of evil. Eleonore Stump provides a masterful Christian account of suffering’s possible defeat that brings together the intellectual and the affective, propositions and narrative. Further, her philosophical approach makes the work accessible to the broader university culture. And she shows great psychological insight in her re-interpretation of well-known Biblical stories of suffering. Stump, a senior professor of philosophy at St. Louis University, has spent decades reflecting on these issues and incorporating feedback from dozens of other eminent scholars, students, and friends. This is a text that philosophers of religion must engage and that theologians can utilize to explain traditional Christian concepts to contemporary minds. In Wandering in Darkness, Stump argues that suffering cannot be properly understood apart from the stories of our lives. She provides a broad, theoretical account of how God might redeem suffering. At the same time, she reminds readers that the specific shape of this redemption depends irreducibly on the particularities of the human persons involved. Stump argues, moreover, that any assessment of the rational compatibility of suffering with the existence of the Christian God must first offer a robust account of the Christian vision of God and what makes for “the good life” in earthly and eschatological perspective. Her book does Book Reviews 385 exactly this, spending the first twelve of fifteen total chapters setting the stage for her possible-world theodicy. The author clearly aims to reach as many people as possible with their varied concerns and backgrounds, both personal and academic. She critiques, yet reaches out to, those trained to accept the assumptions of historical-critical biblical exegesis, the evidentiary mindset of the natural sciences, and so on. In addition, Stump relies on language and modes of argumentation accepted beyond Christian circles so as to avoid the resistance that specifically theological terms, phraseology, and logical moves can sometimes trigger. While some theologians may categorically disapprove of such an approach, Stump proceeds in a faithful way that encourages one to look at the integrated ratio of God’s creation. The book has four sections. Part 1 sets up the project, which takes as its bases (1) Aquinas qua explicator of the pre-modern Christian tradition, and (2) contemporary cross-disciplinary insights. Stump then argues that lived knowledge of other persons and their stories cannot be translated without remainder into propositional form. Hence, responsible philosophical reflection must allow for types of knowledge other than “knowledge that,” lest it ignore an important slice of reality for simplicity’s sake. The author challenges the standard form of analytic philosophy through her own use of narrative and poetry—seeking to convince her philosophical colleagues of the indispensability of non-propositional knowledge, especially in dealing with issues such as suffering that intimately concern the human person qua person. Furthermore, Stump pushes back against two-dimensional examples about “Smith and Jones” whose construction eschews as much particularity and complexity as possible. If the details of people’s lives matter for “answering” evil, such examples will be of little help in addressing the academic quandaries involved or providing the affective, holistic satisfaction often sought in these discussions. In Part 2, after demonstrating the inadequacy of various contemporary proposals on the nature of love, Stump presents a Thomistic vision of love as (1) desiring the good for the beloved and (2) desiring union with the beloved. To this end, Stump explores what it means to be in union with, close to, and present to another—including the requirement of mutual openness. (This last point proves important in Stump’s account of “willed loneliness.”) In the case of union between human persons and God, Stump makes use of the distinction between God’s antecedent and consequent will.This is the first of several double-layered principles in the book. The second is this: A person can have a second-order (higher level) desire to be integrated around the good but still have conflicting first-order 386 Book Reviews desires that infect the everyday decisions that make up a life. Stump emphasizes that true flourishing requires that the first-order desires align with the second-order ones, which must in turn center on the highest, objective goods for human persons. At the same time she contends that God, who first placed particularized desires in each human heart, cares about their fulfillment. Here we encounter the third double-layered principle: the importance of both the objective good and subjective desires. Part 3 presents and creatively elaborates upon the stories of Job, Samson, Abraham, and Mary of Bethany with deep psychological insight and finesse. Through these four characters, Stump explores various types of unwilled suffering, including (1) the suffering of the pious innocent, (2) “self-destroying evil,” (3) broken “desires of the heart,” and (4) “heartbrokenness and shame.” There are disputable points in each interpretation—her reading of Abraham’s story perhaps goes the farthest out on a limb—but each of these explorations is well worth meditating on for its own sake (especially the reflections on Job and Mary of Bethany). Stump explicitly resists treating these stories as proof-texts with one point each. Rather, through the enhanced Biblical narratives, she establishes with her readers a reservoir of psychologically intimate, “shared experiences” of specific life stories. These chapters demonstrate that firsthand experience of people’s stories is irreplaceable in shedding light on their particular situations of suffering. In her exploration of Job’s story, which is especially rich, Stump presents another layering concept of great import for the rest of her book: that of nested stories. She draws an analogy between mathematical fractals and God’s providence to demonstrate how God can work for one person’s good while simultaneously providing for the betterment of others and the world at large. Part 4 presents the final argument for a possible world much like ours in which God (as Christianly understood) and suffering could coexist in a rationally coherent way. Unchosen suffering, says Stump, can assist in reordering one’s life and loves to match the truth that union with God (and with others through that love of God) is the ultimate good around which all other goods are hierarchically ordered. This joyful union that is the core of human flourishing may begin now, but it comes to fruition in the eschaton. Even then it can be more or less rich depending on the depth of a person’s love for God (which love may be deepened by an experience of suffering that is unforeseeably but gloriously redeemed). To what she takes to be Aquinas’s theodicy, Stump adds a second component that reveals the importance for these discussions of an intimate knowledge of people’s personalities and life stories: God can redeem Book Reviews 387 the “desires of the heart” lost in suffering. By virtue of our individuation we have certain particularities through which we experience and live into our most central, shared purposes as human creatures. God has not graced us with certain good (if imperfect) loves and gifts only in order to shoot them down and mold us into submission. Thus, while always remaining open to God’s detours for our higher good, we can maintain trust that God will somehow give the ends of those good desires back to us. In some cases, the lost desiderata may require transfiguration—being “refolded” into our earthly or eternal lives in ways that are better integrated into the hierarchy of goods. Furthermore, Stump suggests, God is powerful enough to coordinate all our interwoven life-stories, only allowing what suffering furthers every person’s good (or keeps each from something worse). Among the many valuable aspects of this four-part work is the way that it clears away certain oft-encountered obstacles by articulating a properly Christian vision of the good (and its lack) through illustration of the multi-layered character of reality in general, our interior selves, and God’s interactions with both. The book’s language is relatively accessible to non-specialists, and the style motivating. What is more, Wandering in Darkness may be able to play a more pastoral role in the academic community than some other available volumes on the problem of evil because of its consistent attention to affective concerns. Stump continually reminds the reader that “explaining” suffering ought not be taken as “explaining it away” or in any way attempting to lessen the horror of what people have endured. And readers who are already immersed in the Christian spiritual life may find that the book’s careful treatment helps give voice to a rich, pastorally sensitive vision of flourishing and suffering that they have long felt intuitively to be the case but were previously hesitant or unable to verbalize. Here is the crux of Stump’s analysis, as this reader sees it: Our analytic philosophical attempts—humanly limited and abstract—to tackle the problem of evil head-on can go only so far. This, however, is for philosophically understandable reasons. First, the level of orchestration required to deal with the number and complexity of real and conceivable suffering-situations is beyond our ability even to fathom. However, we can see that a Christianly conceived God might indeed be able to orchestrate reality towards suffering’s defeat for each and all, and Stump provides models towards that understanding. Second, the “answer” to an individual’s suffering will necessarily hinge on the details of that person’s being, life, eternal destiny, and unique desires of the heart. Thus no blanket solution is to be found, but suffering can become less philosophically intractable when we 388 Book Reviews cease to treat it via thought-experiments and generalizations that cannot capture the particular, unfolding life-narratives of those involved—narratives whose resolutions may at present be hidden from our view. In a book of this breadth, there will inevitably be points about which different segments of the readership will have lingering concerns. Some Thomists, for instance, will wish to modify Stump’s interpretation of Aquinas on the dynamics between God and human beings (i.e., when she discusses the detailed mechanics of justification, sanctification, and free will in Chapter 8). At the least, a few points in these sections might be helpfully reworded to speak of our cooperation with God rather than God’s cooperation with us. Stump’s position on foreknowledge, which comes up in various places, also remains a bit unclear. Interestingly, however, the project as a whole does not seem to stand or fall on the knotty intricacies of the underlying, enduring intra-Catholic debates, important as they are. Second, the nature of the project requires that Stump spend the bulk of her book setting up her case; consequently, she is able to deal with certain rebuttals of the arguments only in brief, and additional reflection thereupon would make for profitable future projects. To take one example, Stump prudently restricts herself to the problem of non-chosen suffering as experienced by “mentally fully functional adult human beings” (5). Further study might test how well the approach can extend to children and the mentally disabled—both to ensure their inclusion in this vision and because we all in fact fall along a continuum of maturity, dependency, and mental abilities. An even more comprehensive account would also grapple with chosen suffering and animal pain. Lastly, the book’s form, arising in part from separate lectures honed over the years, includes a fair amount of repetition and independent sections of qualification interspersed throughout the exposition. The book, moreover, is journey-like; taking quotations out of context could easily lead to misunderstanding, because Stump often presents a theological idea in casual terms that are sufficiently qualified only later in the book. However, given the length of the work and its sensitive topic, the circling patterns of reinforcement and clarification may help readers to digest the book in more manageable portions. Careful readers will appreciate the rich, creative synthesis that Stump achieves as well as her diligence in nuancing the book’s normative claims. Stump follows Aquinas in realizing that exemplary work often begins with listening to the voices of diverse others and distilling the best of their wisdom. Furthermore, the book overflows with suggestive gems of insight that merit further academic consideration and can help guide a life. It Book Reviews 389 seems to this reader that Wandering in Darkness is a “must” for contemporary scholars treating the problem of evil in the context of philosophy of religion or theology. It is truly a work of the mind and the heart. N&V Karina Robson Duke University Durham, NC ANNOUNCING RESEARCH INTENSIVE TRACK MA THEOLOGY AND CHRISTIAN MINISTRY Franciscan University of Steubenville’s MA Theology and Christian Ministry Program now offers a Research Intensive Track specially designed to prepare students for doctoral studies. The Research Intensive Track immerses students in Sacred Scripture, Tradition, and magisterial teaching, giving them a rigorous, authentically Catholic theological education that strikes a balance between broad formation in the basic theological disciplines and specialization in one discipline with a view to further study. Thus, students will take courses in historical theology, systematic theology, biblical studies, and H JOVZLU ÄLSK VM ZWLJPHSPaH[PVU 9LHKPUN RUV^SLKNL VM [^V foreign languages (one ancient and one modern) is required, and students will have the option to write a thesis. Franciscan University offers this preparation within a faithÄSSLK QV`M\S *H[OVSPJ JVTT\UP[` [OH[ LUOHUJLZ PU[LSSLJ[\HS formation with engaging discussions, notable guest lecturers, and a rich sacramental life. For more information about the MA Theology Research Intensive Track, contact Franciscan University at 800-783-6220 or GradAdmissions@Franciscan.edu. Franciscan University of Steubenville is committed to principles of equal opportunity and is an equal opportunity employer. AVEMARIAUNIVERSITY THEPATRICKFTAYLOR GRADUATEPROGRAMS MAANDPHDINTHEOLOGY Study Sacred Scripture, the Church Fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Blessed John Paul II under the guidance of a world class faculty, including Dr. Michael Waldstein, Dr. Steven Long, and Fr. Matthew Lamb, at our beautiful Southwest Florida campus. Scholarships are available for qualified applicants. FORMOREINFORMATION: www.avemaria.edu/MajorsPrograms/GraduatePrograms Graduate Theology Department 5050 Ave Maria Blvd., Ave Maria, FL 34142 phone: (239) 280-1629 email: graduatetheology@avemaria.edu